Mark Hatfield

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, today, as I stand here in the U.S. Senate, the winds of change swirl around the dome of the Capitol, and surround the body of the House and the Senate. Do not let the winds of change, however, cloud our judgment and prevent us from carrying out our duty to protect life and liberty. The Republican call to harness these winds of change is refreshing. I agree that there are many issues which need to be addressed. There is a vicious cycle of impoverished parents who raise children in poverty. Those children who do not have adequate access to quality education, which would break the cycle of dependency, continue to spin a wheel of poverty, and [[Page S 13538]] languishing there for the remainder of their lives. In fiscal year 1994, there were over 5 million families on aid to families with dependent children (AFDC), over 14 million individuals. I ask you how many of those do you surmise were children; 9.5 million children were on AFDC in fiscal year 1994. Two-thirds, two-thirds were children, a truly disturbing number. You will hear these numbers again and again as we debate welfare reform. I reference these figures to impress upon your conscience that we are dealing with individual people and not numbers. We must understand the links of poverty in order to understand and break the chains of poverty. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, you are below the poverty line when income falls below three times the cost of an inexpensive, yet nutritionally adequate food budget for a nonfarm family. For a family of three in 1994 the figure was $12,320. How many of us could provide decent clothing, food and shelter for ourself and two children for $12,320? We need welfare reform, but we first need to address the root problems of poverty; lack of education, lack of affordable and adequate child care, and access to upward social and economic mobility and stability. A successful society allows its citizens the opportunity to educate themselves, to increase their opportunities and knowledge. It is of no benefit to society to remove welfare recipients and place them into jobs with no upward mobility. Without the prospects of advancement they can only maintain the status quo at best and as history has taught us the cycle possesses a powerful habituation to welfare. We need to find good jobs for able bodied people in our society. Yes, the United States can assist its poor and offer them a helping hand, but we cannot continue our present pace of entitlement spending. To become competitive with the world market we must educate all in our society. There needs to be interaction between the States and the Federal Government to work in a complementary partnership to solve these problems. Packaging our problems in a nice box and ribbon and passing them onto the States with no accountability and no direction will not make them disappear. Over these past years in Oregon, the Governor's office, county commissioners, and the Oregon Workforce Quality Council are just a few of the many people who have worked together to enact job training legislation in Oregon, which has been one of the most successful States in the Nation in moving people from welfare dependency to work. Oregon has chosen to link public assistance functions with welfare-to-work services, providing a seamless link amongst the differing human resource agencies. Oregon has made landmark progress with the integration of education, employment and training programs, but the Federal Government also must be a part of restructuring the system. That is why I am pleased to see that my Workflex Partnership Demonstration project has been included in the underlying Dole amendment. This demonstration project allows the Secretaries of Education and Labor to designate up to 6 States in which Federal authority will actually be transferred to the State so that the States may make waivers of Federal law in the job training and education arena. Given the decline in discretionary dollars in the budget, State and local flexibility which promotes performance over paperwork is an integral ingredient for success. Mr. President, we are making progress in Oregon and I do not wish to be set back in our efforts. What about the States which are not as progressive as Oregon? How do we ensure they care for their poor? I agree with the underlying performance measures in the Dole amendment which sets Federal standards in the form of performance-based outcomes and provides States guidance not mandates. This will provide an incentive to States to be innovative in their State programs by rewarding them with a performance bonus. There are those who argue that it is perverse to reward those States which reduce the number of people on their welfare roles, but I think it just as perverse to reward those States who do nothing to reduce their welfare roles. In all areas, our Federal system penalizes States that are progressive and reduces them to the standards of the lowest common denominator. Our citizens expect better, they deserve better. Mr. President, I want to make it clear that I am committed to working with all interested parties in reforming our welfare system. I believe those that can work should work. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have directly experienced the struggle we face to allocate funds for our complex array of domestic programs. This discretionary funding pays for the operation of all three branches of the Government. It pays for the roads and bridges of our transportation infrastructure, the loans that go to provide public housing, student loan assistance and small business assistance, our national parks, and many more purposes which have nearly universal support. These funds have been drastically diminishing over the years, while the entitlement programs have grown. These entitlement programs put further pressure on the Appropriations Committee to make difficult funding decisions. While entitlement programs continue to grow, less and less will be available for discretionary programs. Our commitment to bettering the standard of living for those in poverty must not waiver. The Federal Government should encourage not impede innovation and creativity in the States and private sector. I look forward to working with my colleagues to fashion a bipartisan solution that addresses these goals. Amendment No. 2488

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the political nightmare that has faced my colleague now for almost 3 years is coming to an end. I think in an ordeal of this type we tend to focus on the negative or the causes for leading to resignation. As he has briefly reflected on the many accomplishments that he made during his service not only here in the Senate but services he rendered to the State of Oregon as a political leader, as a legislator, I like to accentuate the positive. I must say in my many years of teaching political science I never had a more brilliant student than Senator Packwood. Came to the university as a freshman and he immediately established himself as one who is knowledgeable about politics and is willing to engage in politics and to invite other people to be involved in politics. I had been in the State legislature for about 6 years and had known his father who was one of the chief lobbyists in the legislature representing the utilities industry. If Fred Packwood told you something, you knew it was true and you knew it was prudent. He established himself as one of the outstanding lobbyists in that legislature. I knew his mother. Therefore, I speak even though there may be only but 10 years separating our ages, as sort of a long friend, perhaps partially a mentor, and most of all, someone whose friendship I cherish. Mr. President, when young Bob Packwood became engaged in political action leading to his political career as an elective officer, he launched a whole new style of campaigning in my State, best described as a slogan ``People for Packwood.'' And he did not have to pay a high price to some kind of a public relations firm to come up with that kind of a focus that epitomized his whole style of campaigning. He thought it out. He demonstrated, again, a brilliant mind in his political activities. We were going through one of those wrestling matches in the Republican Party that we are still going through and perhaps we will always go through, and that is the wrestling between the so-called liberal wing and the conservative wing. At that particular time the so- called party machinery was pretty much in the hands of conservatives in our State, and the moderates felt that they were not being well represented within the party structure. So Senator Packwood, at that time, organized what was called the Dorchester Conference. And in the Dorchester Conference he invited many Republicans who represented the middle, the center, and said we have to epitomize the pluralism of our party, both in our heritage and in our practice in current time. And he launched that forum which is still going on in my State after all these years, almost 30 years. So I say to my colleague that you have your footprints, you have your imprint of legislation in the political life of our State, and your record can never be changed on that basis of your contribution. I would like to come, then, to that very dramatic moment when Senator Packwood decided that he would venture forth as a Republican candidate against the impregnable, the undefeated Senator Wayne Morse, for the U.S. Senate. He was a sacrificial lamb. He was one who was going to fill out the ballot because we wanted to have a Republican candidate in every position on that ballot. I remember that campaign very well because I had known Senator Morse as a Republican. I had campaigned for Senator Morse as a Republican. I knew Senator Morse's great abilities, and I still respect the contribution that former Senator Morse made to this country, particularly in areas of peace and war. But I remember, too, that when Senator Packwood suggested a debate with Senator Morse--and we all know, for those of us who remember him, he could make you believe black was white and white was black. In terms of his eloquence and his tenacity as a debater, he was without peer in the U.S. Senate, from those comments made not just by Republican Members, but by Democratic Members alike. And so Senator Packwood not only suggested but challenged him to a debate. That is not terribly dramatic, in a sense. But Senator Packwood said, ``And we will only have 2 minutes to answer a question.'' Any of us who were friends and knew Senator Morse, he could not tell you what the weather was outside in 2 minutes, because he would attack the subject from its historic context, he would attack the subject from its social context, from its political, from its economic--he would give you the whole ball of wax, so to speak, and an hour and a half later you got the answer. And that was a very dramatic debate because it was televised. But the television people did not just put the television camera on the face. They realized that what was happening here was a defeat in the making, because on the sides of the podium, Senator Morse's hands began to shake with uncertainty, realizing he was being cut off before he ever got to the second sentence of an answer. And it was probably one of the most historic if not the most historic political debate in my State's history. At that point the pundits were all saying: Aha, this young man coming along challenging this veteran and sage of Oregon politics, having been both a Republican and a Democrat and being elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican and as a Democrat both. And that launched Senator Packwood's career here in the Senate. He has many credits in his record. It does not mean that Senator Packwood and I have agreed on every issue. He is pro-choice. I am pro- life. That has divided us in terms of an issue, but not in terms of a friendship. He has respected my position. I have respected his position. And that was, again, one of the characteristics of Senator Packwood throughout his political life in my State and in the U.S. Senate. He was not a prisoner to dogma. He looked at the issue, he would make his assessment, and he would take his position. I want to say with all due respect to all of my colleagues that I serve with today and those I have served with [[Page S 12798]] over almost the 30 years that I have been here, I have known no colleague that is his peer in taking a complex issue such as a tax package, dissecting it, analyzing it, and explaining it so that the average citizen out there watching the proceedings could understand. He has demonstrated that time and time again. I not only give him that accolade; he has certainly been a role model for me to be more brief than I have a tendency to be, having grown up in a profession that had a 50-minute lecture. So I just want to say to my dear colleague, I wanted to take just a few moments to focus on a record that cannot be expunged, and that in the total man, and the total person, and the total picture I hope we will be not only considerate of that record and recognize that record, but also recognize that he is a fellow human being. Even though the media and the public often treats us as objects, we are human beings with emotions and with feelings. And I want to say, as a fellow human being, I rise to give these few remarks with a sad heart, for I hurt with Senator Packwood in this particular moment. I count it a privilege to not only have him as a friend for this length of time, but I look forward to many more years of friendship. In closing, I want to say this lady sitting next to Senator Packwood, Elaine Franklin, has been his right arm through battles and victories and disappointments. And when I was looking at a rather dismal situation in my last election, she took her leave time and her accumulated vacation and came out to the State of Oregon and engaged full time in my campaign for reelection. Even though that was a close election, I have to pay tribute to Elaine Franklin for her role in helping to make it a victory. I think that is part, again, of the person picking key people, able people, as the Senator did in Elaine Franklin. Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, as Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, I want to bring to the attention of this body an agreement between the Library of Congress and the Comte Rene de Chambrun of France to microfilm the Lafayette papers. In June, the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington, agreed to begin microfilming the collection and make it available to scholars from all over the world by 1996. Rene de Chambrun, the great-great grandson of the Marquis de Lafayette, will be honored this evening, Lafayette's birthday, at a dinner sponsored by Congress and the Library. Many will remember Rene de Chambrun who, like his ancestor Lafayette, was held in high esteem by his American counterparts during World War II. Through a web of connections in the United States, Chambrun was able to convince President Roosevelt and others to send much needed military equipment to Britain in mid 1940. The assistance, instigated by Chambrun, was no small factor in the Battle of Britain--the first battle [[Page S 12749]] fought for control of the air and a battle which Hitler eventually retreated from. In 1956, the Count de Chambrun, exploring La Grange, the 15th century chateau he had recently acquired near Paris, discovered a large collection of personal papers of Lafayette. Since its discovery, this collection, which has been carefully preserved and organized, has remained virtually inaccessible to historians and archivists and today remains one of the great scholarly mysteries of the 20th century. LaFayette played a central role in both the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Agreeing to serve without pay in the American army, Lafayette was present at Valley Forge in the harsh winter of 1777-1778. In France, he worked to make his country a constitutional monarchy and held in his heart a strong desire that France would one day become a pure republic. Throughout his life he championed, sometimes at great personal cost, the ideas of liberty, equality, human rights and national self-determination that today are still cause for inspiration. Approximately one-quarter of the 18,000 items in the Lafayette collection contain information about the American Revolution and the establishment of the new national government. The collection contains extensive correspondence with leading American political and military leaders. The ``hero to two worlds,'' as Lafayette was called, knew many of America's Founding Fathers well, particularly Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Monroe. A preliminary examination of the papers indicates that some of this correspondence may be the only existing records of lost original letters. There is substantial documentation on the American Revolution, including a secret code used by Lafayette and Washington and Lafayette's handwritten accounts of his 1781 campaign in Virginia and of the siege of Yorktown. There are important documents concerning the participation of the French Navy in the war. Also of interest are notes from visits to Monticello after the war where Lafayette and Jefferson discussed the subject of slavery. In addition, the collection contains original material regarding Lafayette's role in the French Revolution and his imprisonment and exile from 1792-1799. It records his interactions with every major French leader from Louis XVI to Napoleon and his activities during the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period. It also contains significant correspondence with leaders of national liberation movements in Poland and South America, including Simon Bolivar. Furthermore, the Lafayette papers reveal his private life--the father, husband and farmer. Through the process of microfilming, important pieces of the Library's collection are protected from extensive and damaging handling. Microfilmed presidential papers are used quite often--I have found occasion to explore the papers of President Herbert Hoover several times myself. I commend the Library of Congress for its diligent efforts to see that the Lafayette papers are made available to the public where they will join the papers of other prominent founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. As a body, the voluminous Lafayette papers promise to shed new light on American history and our view of Lafayette--one of those rare figures who decisively influenced the affairs of two great nations, the United States and France. It is appropriate that we honor Count de Chambrun today, and through him the Marquis de Lafayette.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, for 64 years we have been working under the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act, and that has become a highly controversial issue. Many times this Senate has attempted to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. A few years ago, the State of Oregon reached a compromise through a coalition of contractors, particularly in the trade unions, and for the last 6 months a similar coalition has been meeting in my office trying to come up with a reform of Davis-Bacon that would be acceptable to the two major parties, namely the building construction trade unions and the contractors' coalition. This morning I am pleased to say that this has been completed, and I am introducing this bill, which I now send to the desk and ask for its printing, cosponsored by Senators Packwood, D'Amato, Campbell, Specter, and Santorum. I invite my colleagues to join in cosponsoring it. Mr. President, the Davis-Bacon Act was passed 64 years ago to prevent federally funded construction projects from undermining the wages and working conditions of locally employed laborers and mechanics. At the time, lawmakers saw that large Government projects elicited destructive competition between the contractors who would use the local labor pool and those who could rely on remote, but cheaper, sources of labor. Congressman Bacon, for whom the act is named, introduced the legislation when builders in his New York district were underbid for a veterans' hospital project by southern contractors who brought in cheap southern labor. Congress, intent on sustaining a construction industry already ravaged by the economic instability of the Great Depression, reasoned that the destructive practices of the southern contractors would be best resolved by requiring that federally contracted labor be paid the locally prevailing wage, thereby halting the tendency of Government contractors to drive down workers' wages in order to win lucrative projects. In the years after the Depression, many States have enacted analogous prevailing wage standards, dubbed little Davis-Bacon laws. As Governor of Oregon, I signed that State's little Davis-Bacon Act, S.185, into law on May 26, 1959. I have supported the intelligent use of the prevailing wage standard in Government contracts ever since. Other Members of this body have made numerous attempts to repeal the Davis- Bacon Act--despite its commendable purpose of preserving the middle- class livelihoods of American construction workers, but the proven necessity for the law has thus far prevailed. Mr. President, the Davis-Bacon Act, as it now stands, indeed deserves some of the criticism that my distinguished associates level against it. Nevertheless, its purpose of protecting the jobs of our Nation's construction workers must persuade us to reform, rather than repeal, the act. A half year ago, an idea was spawned in Oregon, a compromise if you will, among the contractors and laborers at the local level to reform their relationship. This concept of Davis-Bacon reform between workers and laborers was brought to Washington, DC, where the idea advanced to the national level of contractors and laborers. I dare say that I was astounded by the conferees, longtime adversaries attended the negotiations, intent on brokering a Davis-Bacon reform package. I am today introducing the product of those long and arduous negotiations, a reform package to revise and update the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Last year, a compromise among Oregon legislators, contractors, and labor unions resulted in a reform bill very similar to this one. I am confident that reform of the Davis-Bacon Act can be successfully implemented at the Federal level, because it has already been so in my home State of Oregon. Currently, the act requires that federally funded construction contracts exceeding $2,000 in value trigger application of the prevailing wage and conditions standard. The prevailing wage, as my colleagues know, is determined county-by-county by the Labor Department, which uses the highest wage earned by at least half of the local workers in the craft. The act, as it is now implemented, also requires that workers, regardless of their training, be paid at least the prevailing wage for the craft at which they are working. Further, the companion to the Davis-Bacon Act, the Copeland Act of 1934, mandates that government contractors submit detailed wage and benefit schedules at weekly intervals. Critics of the Davis-Bacon Act rightly argue that the law impedes rather than facilitates fair wages and balanced competition. The low threshold value of contracts and the weekly reporting requirement hinder small, local, and minority-owned contractors in their competition with larger, often out-of-State contractors. Moreover, the application of the prevailing wage standard, since it does not calculate prevailing wages by level of experience, makes apprentices and other employees who require on-the-job training unrealistically expensive. My bill offers several reforms that would resolve many or all of the difficulties of these acts that advocates of repeal find objectionable. There are three principal amendments to the existing statutes that would permit the Department of Labor to pursue the goals of the Davis- Bacon Act without the problems so often cited by critics. First, the threshold at which the act becomes applicable to Federal projects would be raised from $2,000 to $100,000. Second, the frequency with which contractors are required to file wage and benefit schedules would be changed from weekly to monthly. Third, trainees and apprentices would be excluded from the prevailing wage standard if they are enrolled in a training program that is registered with the Department of Labor. Mr. President, critics who seek to repeal entirely rather than improve the Davis-Bacon Act contend that the act's problems are beyond repair and that this body must allow competition to devastate the middle class livelihoods of America's construction workers. They argue that the Davis-Bacon Act is obsolete, tremendously costly, and impractical, regardless of whatever changes might be made to it. I disagree, and feel that the costs of the Davis-Bacon Act are grossly overestimated, whereas the benefits that we would jeopardize with its repeal have been dangerously neglected. The advocates of repealing the Davis-Bacon Act have not adequately demonstrated that enforcing the prevailing wage standard in federally funded contracts is, all things considered, untenably expensive. I feel that the act is relatively cost-effective now and will be all the more so with the changes I propose today. Critics of the Davis-Bacon Act frequently cite a CBO estimate of the savings that the Federal Government would enjoy if the act were repealed, but this estimate fails to consider the hidden costs of repeal. Although the Government might save money directly through lower construction wages, lost wages are likely to push an even greater number of formerly productive construction workers onto the rosters of the unemployed seeking Government assistance. Tax revenues, too, would decline, since the average construction worker would lose nearly $1,500 in annual income after the repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act. Moreover, the evidence that the Government would save a substantial sum of money from cutting the wages paid to workers on Federal projects is dubious. Contractors' experiences repeatedly show that higher wages are positively correlated with higher productivity. Lower wages do not necessarily mean lower labor costs. Indeed, figures from a 1995 University of Utah study indicate that it costs less to build a mile of road in States with higher wages than in States with lower wages; the study revealed that, in States that have analogs to the Davis-Bacon Act, it has cost an average of almost $250,000 less per mile of road than in States that do not observe prevailing wage standards. It is apparent, Mr. President, that the CBO study upon which critics of the Davis-Bacon Act rely overestimates the cost and impracticality of enforcing and complying with the act. The figures that CBO study uses for its estimate are 15 years old; they do not reflect the expansion of office technology that has occurred in the last decade. Advances in office technology have facilitated the periodic filing of [[Page S 12374]] wage and benefit schedules by Government contractors as well as the processing of those schedules by the Department of Labor. Furthermore, the proportion of all Federal contracts that would have to comply with the act would drop to less than half, if the higher threshold I propose were promulgated. It is altogether unclear, therefore, whether the Federal Government can reasonably expect dramatic savings from an outright repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act. Even if the substantial savings that the CBO has predicted were possible with the repeal of the act, Mr. President, I would nevertheless urge my distinguished colleagues to consider the nonmonetary yet indispensable benefits of the act. A pressing concern of mine is the safety of America's builders. The 1995 University of Utah study to which I earlier referred indicates that the repeal of Davis-Bacon might lead to less training for construction workers and to more accidents and fatalities on work sites. That study examined nine States that repealed their own little Davis-Bacon laws. It reported that training declined in those States by 40 percent while occupational accidents rose by 15 percent. Better paid workers have fewer accidents and fewer fatalities--without the Davis-Bacon Act, better pay for workers will be the first cost that Government contractors cut. Is this body prepared to jeopardize the safety of American workers in pursuit of unproven savings? I myself am not. Another benefit of the prevailing wage standard is its contribution to the maintenance of a pool of well trained and motivated construction workers. This has become increasingly difficult with plummeting wages and unstable demand for labor in the construction industry. There are few incentives for young people to undertake the long-term training necessary to be a competent craftsman or mechanic if they can look forward to earning little more than the minimum wage and no benefits. Permitting the Federal Government, which provides between 10 and 20 percent of the construction industry's revenues, to invite competition that would inevitably depress wages further than they already have been is to imperil this Nation's ability to maintain and expand its infrastructure when the need arises. Mr. President, I cannot abide the repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act, although I do believe that it needs to be updated and revised. I am not convinced that repealing the act would permit the dramatic savings that have been predicted by critics of the act, primarily because the fiscal benefits of the act have been consistently underestimated or ignored. I understand, however, that the act as it is currently implemented is problematic and sometimes counterproductive in terms of its own purpose. This is why I have long supported, and propose today, fundamental reform of this absolutely vital law. The Davis-Bacon Act, with the correct revisions, can once again serve its purpose of protecting the livelihoods of America's builders and mechanics, preserving the sanctity of community standards, and ensuring that local contractors, young apprentices, and skilled workers have a chance to contribute to the growth and livelihood of both this Nation and their own families. Let us not confront this law with shortsighted and uninspired aspirations of abandoning it, but with the goal of rewriting it so that it can serve its original and laudable purpose. I ask unanimous consent that a list of members of the contractors- labor coalition be printed in the Record.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes to introduce a piece of legislation.

Mr. HATFIELD. I thank my colleagues for yielding.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, we are prepared to go to third reading.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I would like to take just a moment to do two things. First of all, I would like to pay commendation to an extraordinary staff which worked so long and so diligently on this bill: Pat McCann and Anne Miano and Carole Geagley and Peter Rogoff. I want to also point out a special situation surrounding our staff person, Joyce Rose. This body has listened to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee over many years, and the ranking member, discuss the uniqueness of our staffs on our Appropriations Committee. I know that we are served well by staff on all committees. But I want to share with my colleagues a very special happening during the markup last Wednesday during the readout of our bill on transportation. Joyce Rose, who is a mother of a 10-year-old boy, that boy fell out of a tree and broke both arms, broke his nose and was badly bruised. She spent the time at the hospital, and then appeared on the scene to perform her duties at night when we were doing the readout; back to the hospital, back to her committee functions. I think it not only is the demonstration of a very dedicated and devoted person maintaining her duties as a mother as well as her role as a staff person, but even through the crises and problems that she faced with her child, she was able to--using more hours of the day than anyone else--cover both bases and still perform her duties here on our staff. I just want to pay her this tribute, and through her example, such tribute to our entire staff. Mr. President, I move that the Senate insist on its amendments and request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses and that the Chair appoint conferees on the part of the Senate.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I also thank my colleagues for assisting us in disposing of No. 6 of the 13 appropriations bills, 6 of the 13. Now Senator Stevens will hold forth on presenting the seventh that we hope will be completed expeditiously so that when we leave on our recess--when I leave on recess beginning tomorrow afternoon, I would like to feel that maybe we will all be in that similar position, under the leadership of Senator Stevens and ably assisted by Senator Inouye, the ranking member. Mr. FAIRCLOTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATFIELD

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. The Department of Transportation determined that the Sioux Falls airport was a small hub in 1993.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. The administration will be using the most current data that they have available when administering the program in fiscal year 1996.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, that is also my understanding.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. This was a discussion yesterday and last evening as well. We are very happy to join in that unanimous-consent request.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee for his kind remarks.

Mr. HATFIELD. I will be pleased to discuss this matter with the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. HATFIELD. Although it is difficult to anticipate the disposition of the section 3 funding in conference, I believe the conferees would be willing to consider this request at the appropriate time.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, Senator Lautenberg and I would be happy to discuss the EAS provisions in the appropriations bill with the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, and the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Pressler.

Mr. HATFIELD. I respond to the Senator from Montana by indicating two [[Page S 12115]] points: The first is the transition has yet to be blueprinted by the authorizing committee. Second, the House has $21 billion in theirs and we have $18 billion in ours for that orderly transition. We feel that by the time, hopefully, that we go to conference, we will have a little more clearer signal of how the transition is going to occur. We are willing to certainly have adequate figures, if that means yielding to the House for the figures for the transition.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two letters from Alice Rivlin relating to the issue we have voted on on the Roth amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, as much as I would like to respond to the request of the Senator from South Dakota, I have to report to the body of the Senate this account has expired. It is not authorized. The authorization in the Amtrak bill that was reported ordered out of the Commerce Committee in July has not been filed with any report, so consequently we cannot say it is authorized. We rescinded the 1995 amount left in their unexpended budget in the rescissions package. The budget resolution terminated the program in the assumptions of the budget resolution. So consequently, as much as we might be prone to help, we are doing this within that kind of a framework and therefore, as the Committee on Appropriations tries to follow the authorizers and tries to accommodate to the authorizers, this does not really authorize the program. So I would move to table the Pressler amendment under those circumstances, unless there is someone else who wants to use some of my time to make further comment. I might also say it offsets some very vital programs of the next generation of rail and similar such programs in which we have already made commitments in this budget in allocating money for those programs. I move to table the Pressler amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the motion was agreed to.

Mr. HATFIELD. I believe the Senator from Arizona, [Mr. McCain], desires to have a brief colloquy before we go to final passage.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, very briefly, I would like to indicate the reason the Appropriations Committee brought this language to the floor. This was at the behest of the FAA and the administration saying we have a crisis, a very serious crisis in air safety, because the FAA, as administrators, for years have said they needed to get some kind of change in these rules. Secretary Pena and Administrator Hinson face this today. One example: The FAA is the world's largest consumer of vacuum tubes and there is, in this bill, a requirement to use $7 million to buy more when the private sector has thrown this technology out 20 years ago. Consequently, we have to recognize that it is a safety factor that involves this language. We did not make up this language. Last night, there was discussion and debate saying, well, what is the role of the administration? We ought to get a clarification. Government Operations people said they have been ready to talk. Let me give you a recitation. We have a second letter. We had a letter from OMB supporting this. Secretary Pena sends us a second letter reiterating the vital importance to give them this kind of support. DOT says they have talked to Governmental Affairs. DOT does support the committee provision. The National Performance Review, headed by Vice President Gore, specifically called for a special exemption for the FAA given its crisis situation. So it is a very clear picture here because of whatever--I am not making any criticism to any committee. Senator Lautenberg and I have been following the support and the requests of the administration to help them out of this crisis for the sake of safety of our national airlines. Therefore, we will drop this language in conference if we can work out the solution. In the meantime, I urge that we vote to table the Roth amendment.