Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Let me thank the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire. Mr. President, right to the point, the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire is not just a quick study but a [[Page S 18129]] quick excellent study. A year ago, perhaps a little more, he was not on the subcommittee involved in all of these hearings. The bill presently presented by the distinguished Senator and conference report was not worked upon by him until it got into conference, and yet within conference--I emphasized the quick study--the Senator from New Hampshire approached it in a brilliant and thorough fashion--I might add, in an almost Mansfield-like fashion. I remember the distinguished majority leader, Senator Mansfield. When you asked him a question, he said, ``Yup'' and ``Nope.'' When I asked for things to try to get in this bill, the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire said, ``Nope.'' I learned that this outstanding Yankee is of a singular mind, and he knows how to make a decision, which is unusual in Washington. I really respect and admire the way he has gone about this in a very, very thorough fashion. I emphasize that because I am not in a position on final vote to support the measure for various misgivings. I made that clear. But in making that clear, I wish to make it equally clear that we have been in a sort of cooperative manner trying to reconcile differences. That is the Government itself, the art of compromise. And realistically, there are many things in the bill, in the conference report that the distinguished chairman, Senator Gregg, perhaps would not have included or some things that he wished had been included. That is the same with this particular Senator. We have the House side to satisfy as well as the Senate side and we have worked diligently, at least the distinguished chairman has worked diligently with staffs on both sides and with this particular Senator, and I am grateful for his leadership. Mr. President, the conference agreement before us provides $27.3 billion for programs and agencies funded in the Commerce, Justice, State, and the judiciary appropriations bill. Of this amount, almost $4 billion is for appropriations from the violent crime reduction trust fund. For regular discretionary appropriations this agreement provides $22.656 billion. This amount is $3.753 billion below the President's budget request, and $759 million below the level available in fiscal year 1995. I would note, however, that it represents an increase of $212 million above the level in the Senate-passed bill. Before discussing the conference report, I would like to note that this bill is being managed by our new subcommittee chairman, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. He took over this subcommittee in October following Senate passage of H.R. 2076. So he was tasked with shepherding a bill through conference that he did not draft. I will tell you he is a quick study and he has mastered this bill as quickly as anyone I have ever seen. And, I think it is fair to say that this is the most diverse and most complicated of the 13 appropriations bills. He has impressed everyone associated with the bill and has done an outstanding job. Mr. President, when I signed this conference report I wrote ``with reservations'' under my name. And, I will discuss these reservations, these problems I have with this agreement shortly. But, I would like to first make a few comments about what I do support in this conference report. law enforcement First, it continues to bolster our law enforcement agencies and the Federal Judiciary. Justice Department programs are significantly increased. Here are some examples: U.S. attorneys are provided $926 million, an increase of $73 million over fiscal year 1995. That's an additional 450 U.S. attorney positions. The Federal Bureau of Prisons receives $2.9 billion, an increase of $306 million over this year. This funding supports construction of new Federal prisons and additional operating funds to open prisons that are coming on line. It provides funding to deal with quelling the unrest that has recently occurred in our Federal prisons. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is provided $2.557 billion, an increase of $487 million above the current year. And, within this account to ensure that funds go to where the Congress intends, we have earmarked appropriations that support the Border Patrol. Finally, Judge Freeh and the FBI are provided $2.505 billion, an increase of $224 million. The conferees have focused our efforts on rebuilding the FBI's infrastructure. So included are: funds to get the NCIC 2000 crime data base up and operating; $30 million for renovations to the FBI training academy at Quantico, VA; and $57 million for the first phase of a new FBI forensic facility to be located at Fort Belvoir, VA. We all saw the importance of DNA evidence and the importance of validating such evidence beyond any doubt during the recent Simpson-Goldman murder trial. The FBI laboratory needs to be modernized and enhanced so Federal prosecutors and FBI evidence are not successfully challenged as was the case in the O.J. trial. Violence against women grants are funded at $175 million, the President's request. This is $149 million above this year and $50 million above the House bill. For agencies other than Justice and the judiciary, it is really a question of bad news-good news. The bad news is that almost no other agency received appropriations above the current fiscal year. Getting up to a freeze was a major accomplishment. But the good news is that most other agencies have survived at a funding level that enables them to continue to operate, albeit at a reduced level. Take the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, probably the most popular agency in this bill. NOAA is our Nation's principal environmental sciences agency. It is the agency that procures and operates our weather satellites and it is for the oceans what NASA is to space. In past years our CJS bill increase NOAA just as we have increased Justice. But in this agreement, NOAA is provided $1.853 billion--$59 million below a freeze, and $244 million less than the President's budget request. The good news is that it could have been worse. Thanks to efforts by Members like our distinguished chairman, Senator Hatfield, this agreement provides NOAA with a level that is $79 million over what the House crowd would have provided and only $13 million less than the Senate-passed bill. So, like NOAA, many of these other agencies are not doing well, but they are surviving. My colleagues need to be put on notice now, however, that there are going to be reductions in force, office closures, and contract terminations. SBA is going to close offices and there are going to be significant reductions in force in Commerce and in independent agencies. You cannot provide these levels of funding without such impacts. Mr. President, it is my hope that we can debate this bill quickly and get it down to the White House. President Clinton has stated that he will veto it and I must concur with his position. There are several areas that are unacceptable to both the President and most Members on this side of the aisle. I will briefly mention several. cops on the beat First, this bill terminates the Cops on the Beat Program and the Drug Court Program. It seeks to rewrite the 1994 crime bill and provide funds instead to Governors and mayors for a block grant program. This isn't a money issue; the funds are available in a separate account under the violent crime trust fund. So, what this is about is politics, and I might add pretty dumb politics at that. I will put a more complete statement regarding the COPS Program in the Record. But, let me summarize my position. First, the COPS Program is focused and well managed. In just 2 years it has gotten 26 thousand additional police out on the streets across America. Second, the COPS Program has a component that is targeted to small, rural communities. It deals with sheriffs and small town police chiefs directly. Across South Carolina you can survey the most conservative, Republican law enforcement officials and they will tell you that the Cops on the Beat Program is the best thing the Federal Government has ever done. Third, there is no education in the second kick of a mule. Sometimes I would appreciate it if Speaker Newt Gingrich and the House crowd realized that experience and institutional memory are not necessarily bad. We already had a local law enforcement block grant in the Federal Government. It was called the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, or LEAA. I [[Page S 18130]] was here when we created it and when we had to kill it because of waste. Mayors were buying tanks and corporate jets. Jimmy Carter came up to Washington after seeing LEAA waste at the State level and said ``kill this turkey.'' So for over $8 billion we got nothing to show for LEAA except we let Federal funds be wasted, while for $1.3 billion we already have gotten 26,000 police through COPS. Fourth, Bill Clinton is right. The war on crime is being fought principally at the local level and police are our foot soldiers, our marines, sailors, and airmen. I've heard all this mumbo jumbo about local flexibility. The last time I checked, 10 out of 10 people who call the police for help are calling for a police officer. There just isn't a better use of this crime bill trust fund than to hire more police officers. I don't want to see this money raided by Governors and local elected officials, I want it to go directly to sheriffs and police chiefs as is the case now. Support for police always has been a solid, bipartisan value. I would urge my Republican colleagues not to become antipolice simply because President Clinton supports this program. you attacked the President in March 1993 because he proposed more money for community development block grants, and for days we listened to you list every wasteful project that could potentially be funded through block grants because of local flexibility. I urge you to get your staff to pull out the Congressional Record and to reread your own words. And I would urge you reread your statements regarding the crime bill. The distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, among others, talked about the importance of getting 100,000 more cops. The President will veto over the COPS Program alone. I support him. It is my hope that this program and the Drug Court Program will be restored during round two of this bill after the veto. I know Senator Biden will have more to say about this issue. commerce programs Second, this conference agreement terminates the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program [ATP]. It does not even provide funds for the Federal Government to make good on its prior year commitments to industry under ATP cooperative agreements. When we completed the fiscal year 1995 appropriations bill, we provided $431 million for the ATP. In this bill there is no funding. The ATP provides funds for cooperative agreements with industry to share the risk, on a 50-50 share basis for high-risk, precompetitive technologies that have potential for significant economic growth. What we are doing in this program is providing the necessary R&D that enables entrepreneurs and small companies to be able to take an R&D project from concept to proof of principle. It is a fully competitive program and every award is made by peer review panels. Neither the President, the Secretary of Commerce, nor any Senator has the ability to influence which companies receive ATP awards. This program is run fully on the basis of merit. Now, just meeting prior year commitments--that is to fund the Federal share of awards made before this year, requires appropriations totaling $290 million. Again, I'm afraid this aspect of the conference report is about politics and not substance. This is about the former Democratic Party Chairman David Wilhelm making a comment something to the effect that ``California is the end all and be all of politics and Ron Brown has the program.'' Yes, the fact is that many ATP awards do go to California companies, and Massachusetts companies and Pennsylvania companies. It shouldn't take a NIST PhD to realize that ATP awards are going to go predominantly to parts of the country that have concentrations of high-technology industry. This is exactly the type of program we should be funding if we are going to compete effectively in the trade war, now that the cold war is over. Our Republican colleagues have shown that they do support many Federal technology programs, including NASA aeronautics, high- performance computing, and cooperative research and development agreements. They recognize that developing new precompetitive technologies is important to the long-term future of our country. This has been the case in other appropriations bills. So why oppose what is clearly one of the best-run Federal technology programs, one that is never porked, and one that already is leading to some major technical breakthroughs? Republican support for technology programs generally makes their decision regarding the ATP all the more regrettable and mistaken. The President realizes the importance of ATP and that is exactly why the absence of ATP funding is another reason for him to veto this conference report. Even if my Republican colleagues will not agree to fund new ATP grants, it would only seem fair that they fulfill past years commitments made by the Federal Government. Third, though this is not a veto issue, I strongly disagree with the conferees decision to terminate the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration [USTTA]. I argued against the House position and for the Senate position which reflected the amendment that Senators Bryan and Burns had made to the bill in September. Unfortunately, my colleagues in the conference did not see the issue as I do. USTTA costs only $17 million a year and provides a lot of bang for the buck. Almost every other country maintains a tourism promotion program, and so should we. I created USTTA. It is simply too inefficient having every State in this country running its own tourism promotion effort overseas. And, in Greg Farmer, we have the most effective director of USTTA that we have ever had. Tourism is big business and should not be given short shrift. It employs 6 million Americans and is the leading employer in 13 States. South Carolina is one of those States and we have almost 200,000 people employed in some aspect of the industry. This year we expect over 700,000 international visitors in my State. I think this conference has made a big mistake. legal services With respect to Legal Services, the conference agreement provides $278 million instead of $340 million as proposed by the Senate. I think Senator Pete Domenici deserves a lot of credit for having led the fight to save the Legal Services Corporation, when Senator Gramm proposed terminating the Corporation. And, Senator Domenici was in charge of our negotiations with the House. I think he would be the first to say that when this bill goes to round two, Legal Services is an area we need to get more funding for. Finally, I think it is obvious that the amounts provided for international organizations and U.N. peacekeeping are far below the level the President considers adequate. This is not a heartburn area for me, for years I have criticized U.N. peacekeeping as ineffective. It often seems in areas like Somalia and Bosnia, that United States forces are needed to rescue U.N. peacekeepers. The program just doesn't make sense. But, I think it is clear that international organizations and peacekeeping will need higher funding levels if the President is going to ultimately sign this bill. In summary, I want to acknowledge the hard work of Chairman Gregg and Mr. Rogers and their staffs. I especially want to recognize the contributions of David Taylor, Scott Corwin, and Vas Alexopoulos, of the majority staff. This represents the first CJS conference reports that I cannot support. I hope that the chairman will realize that this is because of decisions that were made by his leadership. Principally the termination of the Cops on the Beat Program and the ATP. I simply cannot support those decisions. It is my hope that this bill will be sent to the President expeditiously. I fully expect that it will be vetoed. I believe that this will be only the second time in history that a CJS appropriations bill has been vetoed. Then hopefully we could get on with round two and providing a bill that is acceptable to the President and one that can be enacted into law. Mr. President, let me go to the Commerce Department itself because over on the House side, a colloquy was had yesterday, I guess, upon the enactment of this bill where statements were made with respect to abolishing the Department of Commerce. There is a reference within the conference report itself on page 30, section 206--where the language could be envisioned as preparatory to abolishing the [[Page S 18131]] Department--starting off with ``should legislation be enacted.'' That was a compromise on the word ``should,'' because I did not want anything anticipatory. When first presented, it was ``when legislation is enacted.'' There has been no authorization for the dismantlement or abolition of the department itself. Yes, three times on the House floor they have voted for just exactly that--to the shock of this particular Senator-- for the simple reason that if you go to the Constitution itself, article I, section 8, in enumerating the powers and authority and responsibilities of the national Congress, article I, section 8, first says that you can levy and collect taxes. The second designated authority and responsibility would be to borrow money. Heavens above, we know how to do that around here. We are going to borrow $348 billion to keep the Government going while we are talking about balanced budgets. That is sheerly out of the whole cloth. The media have to be fast asleep on this particular point. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said that as between a free Government and a free press, he would choose the latter. That is understandable because, yes, you can have a free Government that will not remain free long except with a free press. The free press owes the people, the body politic, the duty to expose nonsense, particularly the nonsense that is going on here of a balanced budget. There is no plan in the headline in the morning's paper to balance anybody's, particularly this Government's, budget. If you look at the innards of the plan, you will find out that rather than cutting spending, spending increases this year; and that the measure is $53 billion over last year. Starting off with the deficit, you are going with increased spending each year and increased spending over the revenues each year, which adds $1.8 trillion to the national debt. And yet the media, press and otherwise, fall into the lethargy of parroting what the pollster politicians parrot--that if you say it again and again and again, buzzwords, buzz headlines, ``balance,'' ``balance,'' that it will be balanced. But it is far from being balanced, Mr. President. And so it is that, yes, duty No. 2 is to borrow money. And we respond generously. Duty No. 3 in the Constitution is to regulate commerce. I point this out because you will not find that word ``agriculture'' or ``housing'' or ``education'' or ``energy'' in the U.S. Constitution. When the contract crowd came to town, they were going to get rid of all of them, the Department of Housing, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, right on through. End the Department of Commerce. The one on the griddle now is the Department of Commerce. Why? Because the selfish business leadership wants deregulation and more money, capital gains. I have listened to their leadership again and again saying, well, under the Congress we are concentrating or, namely, we do not want to bother the leadership unless we can get capital gains tax cuts. We do not have any capital gains to cut, unless we can get deregulation. So we will not bother about the Department of Commerce because we do not think any Government in its right mind is going to do away with the front line of the struggle in the global competition for economic strength and influence. That is what it has turned into with the fall of the wall. We have moved where the world could care less about the 7th Fleet and the atom bomb. Money talks. Economic power, influences. We are finding that out in our foreign policy. And the Department is charged, if you please, along with the State Department, to be more or less the front line of defense now, rather than the Pentagon, to get into the matter of dumping cases, the International Trade Administration, the Bureau of Export Administration. Everyone is talking about exports, exports. You can go right on down the list of these important, particular measures in that global competition of patent and trademark. That is a matter of issue, all of these trade measures, and the argument of using the OMB and CBO, the gross domestic product, that Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Census of Manufacturers. All this work is being done in a very casual fashion. But they say get rid of it all. We could go right on down with the Census Bureau, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, the Economic Development Administration, the Minority Business Development Agency, the U.S. Tourism and Travel Administration--all of that is under a very, very aggressive and productive Secretary of Commerce. I have been through some that have not been aggressive except to collect money. Invariably the Secretary of Commerce has been appointed from time to time to dun the business leadership for the money to run for reelection. On the contrary, this particular Secretary has been traveling and working and moving and shaking, creating jobs, a historic first in my 29 years on the Commerce Committee. I think that it was the former chairman of the Democratic Party who was responding to the former Senator from Wyoming, Senator Wallop when he pointed out that Secretary of Commerce Brown had been out in California. In his response, he said California was ``the end all, be all, of Presidential politics'' and that the Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, was going to run it. And that is how we ran right straight into a wall with respect to everything about that department. And that is why it persists today in this particular measure as perhaps to be abolished. A horrendous thought. But politics prevails around this town. And that is why it is there. That makes me come right to the point of emphasizing the significance of the Department. I could do it by way of comparison. You can go right under this particular bill and you will find a measure, Mr. President, that never existed until the year before last, just a couple years here in over the 200-some-year history of this great Nation of ours. But we have had a Department of Commerce, or commercial effort, let us say-- Teddy Roosevelt started it at the turn of the century. But we have had that designated responsibility and adhering and responding thereto. But here now we have what we call the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund. That is $3,956,000,000. The Department of Commerce is $3,444,000,000. If you abolish the entire Department on all these endeavors, you have not saved what this Congress just year before last started out anew. That is why everybody talks about ``cut spending, cut spending, cut spending.'' But they are increasing it. And we cannot get it through the public mind. They run on ``cutting spending,'' but when they get here they continue to spend more, and more than the whole Department, an endeavor that has been in since the Constitution. But let me go right to NOAA, because I was at an occasion here this past weekend, and a former Secretary--I said, ``I understand that you said we ought to abolish the Department of Commerce.'' He said, ``Well, if we could blow up NOAA and get rid of it, that would do the job.'' The poor gentleman does not understand at all the institution of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And since I was participatory in its institution, let me refer immediately to the Stratton Commission report, ``Our Nation and the Sea.'' It has several volumes. The former Secretary stated that he had talked to an oil friend of his, and the oil friend said that we could easily contract out for all those things being done by NOAA. The truth of the matter is, the oil industry was very, very much a participant. James A. Crutchfield was a professor of economics. We had Jacob Blaustein of the Standard Oil Co., who served on this. We had not only in the Stratton Commission the deans of schools of oceanography, but we had the industry itself, General Electric. We had the Environmental Science Services Administration. We had the Under Secretary of the Navy. It was a most auspicious group for a 2-year study with the Stratton Commission report that said what we should do is organize the Sea Grant Program, the Bureau of the Fisheries and bring all of these particular endeavors--the Weather Service and, more particularly, the Environmental Science Services Administration--bring those in under one particular entity because 70 percent of the Earth's [[Page S 18132]] surface is in the oceans. That is the beginning of weather, beginning of the environment, beginning of all the scientific studies, and what have you. While everybody was enthused about the space effort, more importantly we should be orchestrating, organizing and emphasizing the oceans effort. We have been doing that for some 20 years before any NOAA in what we called the Environmental Science Services Administration in Commerce, the Uniform Coast and Geodetic Oceans Core at that particular time. All that was blended into a very good, aggressive endeavor that sort of withered on the vine. I saw it happen because a Senator from an inland State that never saw the ocean took over the Commerce Committee. He did away with the Subcommittee of Oceans and Atmosphere that we had within the committee. And otherwise, at least financially, we have gone downhill. The Coastal Zone Management Act took 3 years of hearings and has really responded to the Stratton Commission report, such that by the year 2000, we are going to have 85 percent of all Americans living within 50 miles of the oceans or the coast of the Great Lakes. And we had to plan with respect to where the industry was going, where the recreational systems were going, where the power systems were going, where the fisheries were going, where the urban sprawl was going, and everything else, while at that particular time they had a gentleman, John Ehrlichman on President Nixon's staff, who was looking for a land use measure and opposing, incidentally, this particular institution of NOAA because he wanted his land use. The Attorney General and President Nixon got together with Dr. Stratton, and by reorganization plan No. 4 in 1970, put forth a very responsive and responsible entity in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We need a restudy, a return, so to speak, of the Stratton committee report and many of us in the ocean policy study believe that should be done. But in restrictive budgets right now, we have sort of held back. You do not blow up the endeavors of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and thereby solve the problems, as they see them, of the Department of Commerce. You do not disassemble and assign Census over here and some other Bureau officials back over here and break it up because somebody is trying to get rid of the Government. And if we cannot sell buildings--and I do not know the building in the contract they were supposed to sell--they say we have to get rid of Departments. We could not get rid of Education, we could not get rid of Housing but we have to get rid of Commerce, they say. On the Senate side, they did not even want to debate it. They put it off at the time because the so-called authorization was coming up. This Senator is ready to debate it at greater length when that measure arises, but we do not treat casually a fundamental endeavor in the U.S. Government at this particular time. I was going to emphasize some of the things with respect to Export Administration and the Census Bureau. There is an ongoing effort to abolish the Economic Development Administration. That has been recommended for about 15 years, and we have to withstand the onslaught there, because it is a sort of ``but if'' endeavor that brings about development at the local level that economically has proven its worth. Republicans and Democrats, both sides of the aisle, oppose that. I just want to say a word about the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration. Before I get off of the Economic Development Administration, incidentally, we had the Defense Conversion Act which assigned some $90 million to the Economic Development Administration. I guess we will get into the Economic Development Administration's responsibility relative to defense conversion when we talk about the Advanced Technology Program and when we talk about other measures. Let me say a word about the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration. I never will forget the campaign of 1960 when President Kennedy was nominated, and I happened to be, at that time, in conversation with the President-designate. He said, ``I'm going to appoint your friend, Luther Hodges, as part of the Cabinet.'' I said, ``Mr. President, look, Luther is not a politician politician, he is a businessman politician.'' He had been president of Marshall Fields in the textile division, the New York City Rotary Club and otherwise. He had come down to South Carolina, led the South in economic and industrial development, changing over from an agricultural economy. And he said, ``Well, good, I will put him in as Secretary of Commerce.'' And thereafter Secretary of Commerce Hodges came and said, ``Well, you got me this thing, what can I do?'' I said, ``Well, tourism is a fledgling industry now, but it is beginning and going and growing and we really need national coordination.'' There is not any question that the States themselves-- some of the bigger interests of what I am speaking of, Senators Bryan and Reid from Nevada, even Senator Pressler from South Dakota, the chairman of our committee. When they have a trade show in downtown Cairo, there is no reason for 50 States to show them how to cook an American barbecue. They all try. We wanted to coordinate that and, from time to time, pick different ones and have a nationally coordinated effort and direction. So it was and investment of $17 million. Secretary Hodges instituted the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration. It now is worth $7 billion to the economy, is the largest industry in my State and in many, many other States, and ranks right at the top of all endeavors in the United States. But to get symbols or trophies or get rid of something, they just pell-mell said, ``Let's get rid of the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration.'' It is a bad, bad mistake to try. Otherwise, the Advanced Technology Program is easily explained with respect to our competition in the global economy. Everyone should read ``Blindside'' by Eamonn Fingleton on Japan and how it is operated by the Ministry of Finance and all industry has the Government directing its research. We give a minimal kind of research and development tax writeoff. It should be made permanent and greater, but, in any event, we need a national effort to stay on top of the U.S. technological lead. We do not prevail in national defense by manpower. The Chinese, the Soviets have always had more men than we have had, but we have always maintained as a superpower by the superiority of our technology. The same is going to be true in this, I just call it bluntly, trade war, economic struggle for development the world round. And so we--I say we, Senator Danforth and myself--really studied it to make sure it was not pork. It was not included in an appropriations bill where you cannot find it. On the contrary, the industry itself must come with an application and 50 percent of the money in hand. Thereupon, it is reviewed by the National Academy of Engineering and, on peer review, the award is made, not by the Secretary of Commerce politically or the White House over a telephone call by the President, but on a competitive basis, on a peer-review basis and, therefore, it has maintained its integrity. I have really stonewalled efforts on the House side as chairman and now as ranking member of this particular subcommittee that we were not going to write in any of those particular programs in our bills. We were not going to have pork, and it was done extremely well. There have been some 276 awards made. I remember when the textile industry of my own State came and asked for support on a research endeavor, and I want to make this record so they will all look at it closely. They came before the National Academy of Engineering and could not qualify for the Advanced Technology Program, so they went over to the Department of Energy, got money and they got a $350 million research endeavor at Livermore Laboratory out in California under the Department of Energy where it could not qualify in the Department of Commerce. I know that intimately because of the genesis of the program and my position on the particular committee. So we have been very cautious. When you get rid of the Advanced Technology Program, which I think would be one reason the White House has indicated a veto, everyone should understand why. Very minimal effort, but [[Page S 18133]] very, very important effort being made there. Let me move, Mr. President, if you please, to the Cops on the Beat because I have not spoken at length, and the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has led the program itself, the institution of it, the Senator from Delaware, Senator Biden, will be. He has a couple of hours reserved. Members of his committee will be speaking on that point. But, yes, I have an experience with respect to block grants. First, block grants are not authorized. Senator Gregg and I, when we met, we did not have that much of a stonewalling on different programs because they were not authorized, but we have experienced it in other conferences. The House Members, adhering to their authorizing committees, say we agree with you, we want that done, it cannot be in the conference report. It is not authorized. I have heard that for years on end--for 18 years, as either ranking member or chairman of this particular subcommittee on appropriations. This is not authorized. When it came up, the discussion on the Senate side for authorization, they passed that over. They did not want to debate that one. It is not authorized, not on the Judiciary Committee, and everything else. So here, trying to write in, you could raise a point of order under the rules, but we are not trying to waste time. We ought to be home for Christmas right now. Something is wrong with this crowd. They do not understand life itself. They want to start meetings at 6 o'clock. They must not have a home to go to. At 6 o'clock, everybody else is home trying to get supper and go to bed and see the children, or otherwise. But not this group. They think, for some political reason, we ought to stay around and show that we are working hard late at night. But we are not paying the bills or getting anything done. They have not authorized block grants with respect to this one. Now, they did under President Nixon. They called it the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, or something, LEAA. We gave up the block grants. And I will never forget when President Carter came to town. He said, ``Kill this turkey.'' It was an embarrassment. They were putting tanks on the courthouse lawn in Hampton, VA. I do not know who was going to attack the courthouse. They were buying airplanes to fly to New York to buy spring clothes for the Governor's wife, and they were giving out consultants. It was a good little political pork pot, where you could get anybody as a consultant. There were consultants all over everything. We spent $8 billion and we got nothing. We have done this. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. There is no use trying to go through this one because somebody put it in the contract. The only reason it is in the contract is they are trying to get on top of the message that ``We Republicans are more for crime control than Democrats are.'' The Democrats have the policemen on the beat program. There is nothing wrong with that, but ``we want to put in our crime about the contract.'' Nonsense. But that is what we have to go through with--it is not authorized--and try to change the entire program around, where again, the local law enforcement has to come with 25 percent of the money. And after 3 years, they are going to have to take it over. We have 26,000 cops on the beat. I have been in law enforcement. For 4 years, I was the chief law enforcement officer in my State. I know it intimately. I can tell you that this is a wonderful endeavor that is working, nonpartisan-like. All these law enforcement officers and entities all endorse these block grants. But it is like delivering lettuce by way of a rabbit. By the time the police chief sees where his money is, yes, he might buy an extra radio, or get a consultant, or he might never get talked to. He will never see an additional officer on the beat. So we have done that. Let us not waste time and money on cops on the beat. There is another endeavor I should emphasize in the opening statement, and that is the Legal Services Administration, and that I have had experience there. There have been those all the way back when it was first instituted, back years ago, when Legal Services--I will never forget I had to work with Senator Javits of New York on this one, and we had to enumerate the duties of domestic cases, landlord cases, employment cases, and otherwise, because we found that in going and sending money back to the Legal Services Corporation, they were hiring the demonstrators to come up here on the Capitol steps and call the Congress a bunch of bums on account of Vietnam. So we thought it was not quite smart to be financing our own opposition, and it certainly was not the intent; it was to get money in the hands of poor folks, who should get their day in court and could not because they did not have any money. It was really started by the American Bar Association when our friend, Justice Lewis Powell, was then a practicing attorney and President of the American Bar. In one endeavor to try to get rid of it, we brought Justice Powell over, and they realized the authority and the thought and the responsibility of the endeavor that they more or less abandoned the idea of getting rid of Legal Services. But farmers do not like the poor migrant worker--who may be cheated out of his money and who has to move on and cannot take care of his family and everything else--getting a lawyer. So the farm crowd--I know them, I have them in my State--do not like that migrant worker. They can cheat him, run him off, do not give him housing, or anything else. He does not know anybody in your community or have any contacts there. Get rid of him. They do not like it, so get rid of Legal Services. It is the same thing in these big cities, with landlord-tenant problems. They never fix the pipes that freeze over, and they are trying to get water and everything else in there, and heat for the children. Throw them out on the street and, surely, do not give them a lawyer. Come on. We know there is opposition to Legal Services. But, fortunately, on the Republican side we have the leadership of the former chairman of the subcommittee, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, and he led the fight. I am sorry we did not get enough money. The chairman of our subcommittee tried, and I tried, but we could not get any more. It is inadequate. We are looking at a veto on the second go-around. This is going to be a subject for concern and perhaps increase, hopefully, because it is a tried and true program. We put the language in. I agreed with the former chairman, the Senator from Texas, Senator Gramm, that we should not use money to sue the State of New Hampshire. I have watched these things every time you have these crowds that come around and want to grab the poor people's money and bring a mass action and go to the Supreme Court, and the lawyers sit around and eat it all up. They have enough money, those charitable legal defense funds, and everything else. Leave our Legal Services Corporation alone and do not sue the Governor or the legislature. That is for poor folks, not rich folks sitting around in Washington with their think tanks. Senator Gramm was correct, and I went along with him. I think that when we come on the second go-around, we are going to have to really beef up the Legal Services Corporation. There is a tremendous need now in our country, and we should not be cutting it back or trying to abolish it. Finally, I will soon terminate and try to retain my time for others. Mr. President, we have the State Department that is the front line with that Commerce Department. With the fall of the wall, we ought to be extending democracy, freedom, and human rights to the world around with our Department of State. They finally are falling in line on a business basis. You had the diplomats in years gone by where they were annoyed with American industry and business trying to get business in a foreign land. Now, under Secretary Christopher and under Secretary Brown, they are working in tandem, because they have to if we are going to survive. They are working in tandem, trying to open doors now by business leadership so they can compete. We need these embassies around. They are trying to close down Edinburgh, Scotland. Bad mistake. They are trying to close down Florence, Italy. The educational institutes of this land--they have some 10,000 American students there. There are various [[Page S 18134]] cases and visa matters and everything else coming back. Close it down and run it through Rome, you will spend more money, sell the property and lose it. So we have tried our best, yes, to close those that are not needed, open up the new ones in the 14 Republics of the former Soviet Union, but more than anything else, strengthen our consular service and cut out all the Departments of Government, keeping their endeavors upon the Department of State. Specifically, there is no reason--go down to Caracas, Venezuela; they want the FAA to have something go down there, and then the head of the FAA has a reason to go and travel to South America. The IRS would like to come in and they would like to have offices around in foreign lands, and then the hierarchy of IRS can get in a plane and they can travel around. Now, we have the FBI, which I think is a mistake, because you have the CIA, and the FBI is going to be arresting CIA agents. You watch it. We have always tried to keep that division with respect to intelligence. With respect to law enforcement, do not ever put your law enforcement in another man's country. It is ineffective. It is a mistake. But they are now endeavoring to put FBI around there. They ought to put them down on 14th Street in this city. We do not have enough law enforcement. That is why we have the Cops-on-the-Beat Program. We have enough crime in America, much less chasing it around in the various lands. But they like to travel. When they do, the poor Ambassador is the landlord, and he looks around and he has more and more and more people assigned to him and half of his budget is already gone; there is a housekeeper in the embassy and he cannot get his work done. Mr. President, I hope we can cut back on some of that that is going around. If we want to try and help the State Department, we ought to embellish their effort. We ought to acknowledge very genuinely, Senator Gregg, the chairman, Mr. Rogers, and their staffs on the other side. It goes without saying Scott Gudes on my side, I could not operate without him, and we have David Taylor, Scott Corwin, Lula Edwards, and Vas Alexopolous on the majority staff. So we look forward to a very compatible working together on this particular measure. It has 128 entities in it. You have the special Trade Representative, you have the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. They could really spend the day talking about what we have done, how we cut back on the money. We have cut back; it is far less. This is $1.5 billion less than what the President of the United States asked for. We have been in step with the ``seam,'' so to speak, of the revolution with the cut in spending. The distinguished chairman and I both believe we should cut spending, but it should be done in the right places. I could go right to the point of the International Trade Commission. Why have a jury find the fault of a dumping violation and then have a different jury find the actual sentence or injury? In fact, there are a bunch of sycophants that are fixes for ``yack-yack'' free trade. There is no such thing, but every time we find a dumping violation they can never find an injury. We can save $43 million getting rid of that crowd, let the same entity, namely, the International Trade Administration--be like the jury in a case that finds the guilt also decides the sentence. You do not waste time and have another bureaucracy reexamining. There are many places that we can go along with the spirit of the revolution in the Contract, but this is not one of them, where you want to abolish the Department of Commerce. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. If the Senator will withhold just a minute, the Senator from North Carolina, the chairman of our Foreign Relations Committee-- let me say publicly, which I have told colleagues along the line, the initiative of our distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to blend in [[Page S 18136]] the U.S. Agency for International Development Program, the U.S. Information Agency, the Arms Control Disarmament Agency, and the other particular programs that they have in the Department of State is, I think, a salutary initiative on the chairman's part. I have worked the budgets. Specifically, if they appointed me the Under Secretary of State in charge in Africa, I could look over and could designate the needs. At the present time, if I did, the AID Director would say, ``Oh, no, this is where we are going to put it.'' And he has all the money. We need a coordinated effort. We can save, really, millions with the particular initiative. I happen to know, as he knows, five Secretaries of State have recommended this. I intend to support the distinguished chairman of our Foreign Relations Committee. I state that as having been at the financial end of these endeavors on appropriations for over 25 years now. Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield--5, 10 minutes?

Mr. HOLLINGS. If the distinguished Senator will yield, Mr. President, let me first acknowledge the leadership of the chairman of our tourism caucus. As he has indicated, he has correlated a most wonderful coordinated effort on both sides of the aisle and more or less some on the House side. But I say to the Senator, in responding--I must say that the House conferees were pretty adamant. The Senator had the cooperation of our distinguished chairman. The Senator had the cooperation of this particular Senator. And we continue to do our very best. But I can tell the Senator, they were pretty intransigent on the House side.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished chairman of our committee. He and I have been in harness together since 1958 when he was elected the Governor of Oregon and I the Governor of South Carolina, and you get saddened when you see all your good friends announce that they are leaving, and particularly this friend here because he has been absolutely fearless, has Senator Hatfield. It has just been a thrill to watch him at the gubernatorial level and then at the national level, a man of his own mind, absolutely ethical, of the highest integrity and most of all dedicated--I think I am dedicated to peace, but there is no doubt that some would say I would rather start a war than stop it --but no doubt about the Senator from Oregon, he wants to stop all wars. And he has really made history in that regard. That is why, as warlike and as contentious as I can be, I am trying to look with favor on the present proposition relative to Bosnia. But thanks should go to the distinguished chairman of our Appropriations Committee for his leadership. We had an awfully difficult time getting the bill to Senator Gregg for his leadership. He saved that bill two times when we were not going to have a bill. So I am particularly grateful for his overcomplimentary remarks about me. Incidentally, I was at the time, in 1953 and 1954, a Democrat. I was trying to start up as a Republican, but the late Senator Burnet Maybank grabbed me and said, ``What's the matter with you, boy?'' I said, ``Well, I wanted to run here for the legislature.'' He said, ``You've got to run as a Democrat.'' I said, ``Yes, sir.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, momentarily the Senator from Delaware, who I understand has substantial time left, will come to the floor. Let me agree with my distinguished chairman relative to the Immigration and Naturalization Service whereby we cut not only New Hampshire, we cut the State of South Carolina and other small States to the tune of $500 million--half a billion bucks out of the prison fund, out of prison construction, so that we could set up this imprisonment of immigration violators in the States of California, Texas, Florida, and otherwise. So there should not be any criticism on that score. There should be thanks to the Senator from New Hampshire and the committee that has done its work in that particular regard. Otherwise, Mr. President, let me emphasize one more time the advance technology program while I have a few minutes. We started that in our Commerce Committee after a series of over 2 years of hearings, and we were trying our dead-level best to get America back on top of its own technology in the context of yes, we were leading in the research but never in the development. Specifically, down in Houston on the superconductor we had Nobel Prize winners there, but the competitor, Japan, orchestrated some 22 entities and markets and wins and profits. We win the prizes. They win the profits. We wanted to get on top of that particular problem and with the advance technology program whereby they pick the winner--not the Government--and it is picked by them coming with at least 50 percent of the funds and thereafter reviewed, peer reviewed by the National Academy of Engineering, that the award is made. It is has worked very successfully. The industry, particularly the electronics industry, the computer industry and otherwise, came to us and the Council on Competitiveness under President Bush, John Young of Hewlett-Packard testified on behalf of this program. I dovetailed the program, having chaired the hearings otherwise on the trade bill back in 1988. It was not in the budget. Thereafter, President Bush did pick up and submit a request for it. Now, over on the House side they have the bit in the teeth relative to winners and losers, industrial policy, all kinds of nonsensical pollster slogans--are you for the Washington Government picking winners and losers? You hear some of that, and of course carried to its logical conclusion about the best government is the least government, and we do not have to wait for Washington. Just do away with the county and State government and let the township operate and forget about Washington, too. These are good arguments on the campaign trail but the fact of the matter is we have an ongoing program that should never be abolished, to maintain the development, not just the research, but the development of our technology. At the end of World War II we had 50 percent of the work force in America in manufacturing; 10 years ago it was down to 26 percent; today, it is 13 percent. I used to go to the factories in New Hampshire campaigning. There are very few factories left in New Hampshire. I can find up on the highway, 128, I think it is, going up from Nashua to Boston, Wang and some of the others, Wheeler, Beta, Frye--oh, I had a good time. I mentioned earlier, the Governor of North Carolina, there, after Secretary of Commerce Hodges, he had been the national president of the Rotary, and his widow, now a resident of your home State, made sure I was introduced to all Rotary Clubs up there. It was a tremendous pleasure. Otherwise, when referred to on the Hoover Commission by our distinguished full chairman, Senator Hatfield of Oregon--yes, we served on that Hoover Commission back in 1953 and 1954, investigating the intelligence activities. I have, again, the same reverence he has for former President Herbert Hoover. He is the one who, incidentally, started the telecommunications bill that we are trying to conference. It had a very interesting beginning, that particular program, you might say, in law. It was back in 1912, at the sinking of the Titanic, whereby David Sarnoff, working in the store Wannamakers, in Philadelphia, selling wireless sets, went up on the roof and contacted survivors and nearby ships in the rescue and orchestrated the rescue effort. He stayed up there 3 days and nights. The crowds gathered below. But, thereafter, then everybody wanted a wireless, and, by 1924, under Secretary Hoover, the industry asked to be regulated. They had jammed the airwaves and you could not reach anyone. They said, ``For Heaven's sakes, we need the National Government to come and regulate us.'' So, those who are now running around, deregulate, deregulate--we want to. We want to catch up the law with the technology, which is far ahead of us here in the Congress. But, in so doing, we want to make certain it is done on a competitive basis rather than a noncompetitive basis. We do not want to extend the monopoly. So, that being the case, I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the Senate had proposed a 20-percent cut in the budget of the International Trade Commission. The conference report restored most of the International Trade Commission's budget. Various trade reorganization proposals have been advanced. Any attempt at trade reorganization must also encompass the reorganization of the International Trade Commission. It is my firm belief that the Commission flaunts the will of the Congress with regard to enforcement of our trade laws. Furthermore, the Commission is rife with internal conflict. At this time I ask for unanimous consent that memorandums written by the Chairman and various Commissioners be printed in the Record. Mr. President, these memos speak for themselves, and they speak volumes for the need to reform the ITC.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum with the time assigned to all sides.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on behalf of the leadership, I ask unanimous consent the 12 remaining minutes of the distinguished Senator from Arkansas be yielded back.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, again I would like to thank the professional staff who worked so hard on this appropriations bill. On the majority side I want to recognize David Taylor, Scott Corwin, Vas Alexopoulus, and Lula Edwards. And, of course, I would be remiss if I did not recognize Mark Van DeWater, our full committee's deputy staff director. Time and time again Mark worked to develop compromises that let this bill go forward. Finally, I want to recognize Emelie East, of our minority staff, who staffs this bill, foreign operations, military construction, and defense appropriations.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this conference report proposes to terminate the successful Cops on the Beat or the Community Oriented Policing [COPS] Program. This is one of the craziest things I've seen since coming to the Senate. I had always thought that getting more police on the streets was a rock solid conservative, and for that matter, a bipartisan value. If there was one thing I thought we all could agree on, it was our belief in local law enforcement. This attack on this police program comes as something of a surprise to me. I've looked back at the debate on last year's crime bill, and what I saw was statement after statement by Republicans attacking the authorization of crime prevention programs--not hiring police. As I recall, the only major argument against the Cops on the Beat Program was that some Republicans didn't think we could succeed in getting 100,000 additional police out on the streets in America. Yet in statement after statement, they said they supported more police. Now, the tables have turned. The majority party is against police and the Cops on the Beat Program because we are for it. That is absurd. After 29 years in the Senate, I have finally cracked the code--as they say in the Pentagon. In the current Senate, if Democrats support a program, then the majority feels compelled to do the opposite. And they will do the opposite even when they are cutting off their noses in spite of their faces, as in the case before us. The lesson that I guess we as Democrats need to learn is that we apparently must do the opposite of what we think is right. Then the Republicans will do the right thing. So tomorrow, I guess I should call the President of the United States to suggest that he come out with both barrels blazing in a call to eliminate the Commerce Department. If he did, I have no doubt that the majority leader, the very next day, or one of the other Republican Presidential candidates would be holding a press conference attacking the President's position with an argument that it would be ludicrous to disband the only Cabinet Department that serves as an advocate for American industry. Block grants Mr. President, when I look at this bill, I think it is a little block grant crazy. It kills the Cops on the Beat Program and says make it a block grant. I find this faddish obsession with block grants to be most interesting. It was just a little over 2 years ago that President Clinton submitted a $16 billion economic stimulus program. And I recall that it was the casualty of the 103d Congress' first filibuster in which Republican Member after Member attacked it for including block grants. Each speaker talked about the types of questionable projects that could be allowable under block grants. They talked about pork- barrel swimming pools, parking garages and canoeing facilities. Of course, none of those things was actually in the bill. But, the flexibility and discretion provided by block grants enabled Governors and mayors to fund such projects. And so, my Republican colleagues stood for days on the floor and attacked the allowable uses of block grants. Predictably, there was a public outcry. In turn, they defeated that bill, not for what was in it, but because of the basic concept of block grants. Now, here we are with the 1996 Justice appropriations bill and we have a successful and effective program to hire and train tens of thousands of police officers and get them on the beat. And what is the opposition proposing? To kill the program and create a block grant that will send checks for Governors. Unbelievable. Remember the LEAA? Now, Mr. President, this block grant idea is deja vu. Those of us in the Chamber that have been here awhile--those of us with an institutional memory--know that this notion of police block grants is nothing new. Back in the 1970's, we tried a block grant program for law enforcement and it was a miserable failure. Our experience with the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, or LEAA, is worth reviewing. LEAA was ``sooey pig.'' It was a boondoggle. It was all those things that my Republican colleagues complained about in 1993. Communities across the Nation used their LEAA block grant funds to buy tanks, cars for mayors and even encyclopedias. LEAA funds were used to hire consultants who produced numerous plans that only were shelved to rest in peace. The LEAA was the Beltway Bandit's best friend. It was the same old story--Federal money was used to fund projects for which Governors or city councils were unwilling to use locally-raised funds. [[Page S 18151]] Quite simply, LEAA was a waste of taxpayer funds. By the time President Carter came to town, he had seen LEAA firsthand as a Governor in Georgia. And he knew of the program's Federal largesse and wastefulness. So he rightfully told Congress to kill the program. A good summary of our experience with the LEAA is in the 1982 edition of the Congressional Quarterly: Fourteen years after its creation, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) went quietly out of business April 15, a demise ordered by Attorney General William French Smith but preordained in the final years of the Carter Administration. In its somewhat troubled life, the grant agency dispensed nearly $8 billion to local law enforcement agencies for programs such as improved police equipment, shelters for homeless youth and special local task forces to prosecute ``career criminals.'' In recent years, however, LEAA was criticized for requiring too much red tape in its grant program and for wasting money on Dick Tracy-type gadgetry. Cops on the Beat Mr. President, for $8 billion we got nothing from these LEAA block grant programs. Compare that with the Cops on the Beat Program. We have spent $1.358 billion in 2 years. Already, we have gotten more than 26,000 additional police officers funded to go on the beat in small towns and cities throughout America. I don't believe that I have ever seen a more effective program with less redtape. And if you want to hear about the success of this program, just talk with local sheriffs and police chiefs across the country. In South Carolina, the COPS program has funded more than 255 extra police to patrol communities. And it's working. Members of my staff have traveled extensively across South Carolina to meet with local police to find out about the program. As far as I know, there has not been a single negative comment about the program. In fact, most chiefs and sheriffs were extremely supportive of the program. Here are some typical comments we got about the program: ``This was the easiest Federal program I've ever seen,'' one chief said. ``There is no way we could have hired an additional officer without this grant,'' said another. ``The application form--just one page--was so simple. There is no way it could have come from Washington.'' Finally, listen to what was said by the chief of police of Yemassee, a small lowcountry town in Beaufort and Hampton counties that is a few miles from Hilton Head Island. Administrators with the COPS program dealt directly with the Yemassee Police Department and expeditiously provided funding. The department was able to hire one additional officer, an ex-marine who recently left Parris Island. Jack Hagy, Yemassee's chief, told my staff that it is the first time in his career that the Federal Government ever did anything for Yemassee. The entire town is enthused. In a small town like Yemassee, one extra police officer has a tremendous impact. Quite simply, in South Carolina towns like Yemassee, Abbeville, Calhoun Falls, McCormick, and Mullins, and in larger cities like Charleston, Greenville, and Columbia, the COPS program has made a difference. Across the Nation, the successful addition of 26,000 more officers in just 2 years shows that we have a winner with the COPS Program. For once, Congress and the Administration got one right. Let's take a look at why. The COPS program is focused. It has measurable goals. It is all teeth and no fat. It's administrative costs are less than 1 percent. Compare that to the block grant proposal, which has administrative costs at 2.5 percent. No other federal program can match the COPS program's efficiency. In fact, part of the COPS program is specifically targeted to help smaller communities like Yemassee. This part, called COPS FAST, has no redtape. Instead, all that is required is a one-page application. Also, the COPS program has accountability. It's no giveaway. It requires a shared commitment and responsibility at the local level. Police and sheriffs' departments have to make a local financial commitment to be involved. They have to put up 25 percent in matching funds to participate. Furthermore, the COPS program has cut administrative overhead with a customer response center, personalized grant officers, and simplified procedures. The Justice Department is getting out funds to small communities within two months of application. And there are no middlemen. The program is fully competitive and non-partisan. Finally, the COPS program has been working with the Defense Department to initiate a ``Troops to Cops'' program to encourage the hiring of recently-separated members of the military, such as our friend in Yemassee. The War on Crime Mr. President, the conference report before us adds funds to hire thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, federal prison guards, INS inspectors and DEA agents. These are the people that my sheriffs and police chiefs in South Carolina call ``the Feds.'' Now, maybe we could use more Feds. But, if we think that only they will really make a dent in the war on crime in America, we are fooling ourselves. That war is going on in every city and town across America. Crime generally is a local, not a federal, occurrence. What Americans fear most today is violent crime in their communities --murder, rape and robbery. Generally, those crimes are dealt with by local police, not the Feds. This COPS program is the best and most effective weapon that has been developed so far to assist state and local law enforcement officers in combatting these crimes. Unlike block granting, the COPS program does it right. Some have said that we in Washington shouldn't decide if local governments need more police. They claim that we should just give them a check, or as this conference agreement proposes, give checks to governors and mayors so that they have the ``flexibility'' to allow them to buy other things or establish prevention programs. Well, Mr. President, the last time I checked, 10 out of 10 people who call the police for help--are calling for a cop. They don't want to hear about a check or flexibility. They don't want to know about a tank or high-falooting, Dick Tracy gadgets. They want a police officer to come to their assistance. There is no higher need than putting foot soldiers out on the front lines to battle crime. If there are other law enforcement infrastructure needs, there are enough other existing federal programs, such as the popular Byrne grant program, to meet those local needs. Results speak for themselves. Some 26,000 police are out in local communities that weren't out there just two years ago. If we stick with the COPS program, that number will be more than 40,000 in just another year. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe my Republican colleagues want so desparately to kill the COPS program simply because it is so effective. Mr. President, I have received numerous letters from police and law enforcement groups across this nation that are pleading that we restore funding for the COPS program. Let me just quote from a few here: The Fraternal Order of Police (President Gilbert Gallegos): Since its inception in September 1994, the COPS program has provided 26,000 state and local officers. These men and women, and those who join them as the COPS program continues to meet its goals, will play a vital role in the effort to make our streets safe for law-abiding citizens. . .. On behalf of the 270,000 rank and file officers who make up the FOP, you have our thanks and support. National Association of Police Organizations--Robert Scully, Executive Director: The National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) representing over 185,000 rank and file police officers and 3,500 police associations . . . has been behind the COPS program since day one. We oppose altering this successful program to a block grant approach because we know that unless the monies are given directly to law enforcement agencies to hire more police officers, the funds will be diverted by local bureaucrats with their own agendas. . . . (COPS) is the single most effective crime program working to make our streets safer and law enforcement sees no reason to change it. Police Executive Research Forum--Chuck Wexler, Executive Director: Police Executive Research Forum members have spoken out strongly against the proposed Senate block grant program which, under this appropriations package, would replace the COPS program. The replacement of the COPS program with block grants would hinder PERF members' efforts to improve public safety and address community problems. . . . this issue is of ideal importance to [[Page S 18152]] the law enforcement community and the entire nation, it is imperative that you and your colleagues understand and consider our concerns. National Sheriffs' Association--Charles Meeks, Executive Director: On behalf of the National Sheriffs' Association, I am writing in support of your amendment to the FY96 Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill to continue the COPS program. Because of the COPS program, over half of the nation's sheriffs have hired over 1,300 deputies moving toward increased law enforcement presence in our counties. This program of police hiring, in conjunction with community policing, will go a long way in helping to reduce crime in our counties. The Law Enforcement Steering Committee--James Rhinebarger, Chairman: The elimination of the COPS program would hinder our efforts and the progress made in community policing, and would ultimately prove detrimental to the nation's public safety. . . . This is an issue of vital importance to the law enforcement community and the entire nation. An Attorney General Who's Been There Mr. President, I have served with quite a few chief law enforcement officers since I came here in 1966. There are a lot of impressive names on that list--Ramsey Clark, Griffin Bell, John Mitchell, Elliot Richardson, Ben Civiletti, William French Smith, Dick Thornburgh, and Bill Barr. But, I have to say that I have never seen a better Attorney General than Janet Reno. She comes from local law enforcement and is from an area that has its share of crime, Dade County, FL. With Attorney General Reno, what you see is what you get. She is a no-nonsense leader who understands accountability. She understands firsthand what is needed to combat crime. This Cops on the Beat Program is her program. During a speech last year, she summed up why we need the COPS Program and why it is far and away the most important component to last year's crime bill. In addressing police groups in October of last year, she said: The truth is, criminals do not stand in awe of a piece of paper or a bill or an Act. They look at results. Violence in this country does not magically recede because we have a piece of paper that says it should. Violence in this country recedes and is reduced because of efforts of officers on the front lines making a difference in their community, . . . and of officers getting the resources they need to do the job. Conclusion Mr. President, at this point we cannot really change what the Republican leadership has chosen to do to the COPS Program in this conference agreement. This agreement is in the nature of a substitute, and the COPS Program cannot be amended or voted upon separately. I, for one, do not believe that we should be rewriting the 1994 crime bill in this conference agreement. As I stated earlier, this conference report is going to be vetoed. Make no mistake about that. It is my hope that we can move expeditiously on to round two and develop a bill that can become law. And, as part of that process, I hope that my Republican colleagues will agree to restore funding for the Community Policing Program. Far too many issues become partisan this year. This is the craziest session of Congress that I have seen. Our support for police and sheriffs has always been bipartisan. Let's not change that. I hope that my Republican colleagues will listen to their local law enforcement officers, that they will support our men and women on the front lines, and that they will join me in supporting the Cops on the Beat Program when this Commerce, Justice and State bill comes back to the Senate.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Nevada.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a statement of administration policy on this particular bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, 10 minutes has been reserved for the distinguished majority leader and also 10 minutes for the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. So within that framework, I would not object.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I do appreciate the Chair and the indulgence of my colleagues. I simply will end by saying that we can easily get together on the 65 percent, $700 billion in savings right now. This Senator believes we need taxes. Others say, no, you need more spending cuts. I know if you could do it in spending cuts, we would have long since done it. The entire domestic discretionary spending is $273 billion. That is for the President, the Congress, the courts, the departments, welfare, foreign aid. Just get rid of it all. But you are spending $348 billion automatically for nothing in interest costs on the debt. You can do away entirely with Medicare. That is only $200 billion. Do away entirely with the entire Defense and Pentagon budget of $243 billion. You have still got a deficit. You cannot do it. So you have to get together, men and women of good will, and work together to freeze, cut, close loopholes, and get some kind of a revenue measure to get on top of this fiscal cancer. It is growing faster than we can stop it. I look upon it as taxes because it cannot be avoided. The truth of the matter is that we have to increase taxes to stop increasing taxes. Spending is on automatic pilot, and nobody wants to admit it, and no plan here comes near excising this cancer. I thank the distinguished Chair. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, could I have 2 more minutes? Is there objection?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I was getting a bite of lunch and noting on TV the continued hypocrisy. There is no better word for it. Some in the Senate continue to come and blame President Clinton for the deficit. They continue to say he does not want to do anything about the deficit, which is totally out of the whole cloth. It is good pollster politics to try to paint that image. But the fact of the matter is, where I could be blamed for the deficit because I have been up here for years and others could be, President Clinton was down in Arkansas balancing the budgets for 10 years. He came to this town with a plan in 1993, and it was traumatic. It said we are going to cut spending and get rid of Federal employees. We are going to cut the deficit $500 billion. We are going to tax. We heard that word. We are going to increase taxes on beer and liquor and cigarettes and gasoline, and, yes, Mr. President, we are going to increase taxes on Social Security--one of the really sacrosanct, holy of holies. He insisted on that attempt to cut the deficit, and there was not a single vote on the other side of the aisle either in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. But that other side of the aisle, having done nothing but cause deficits, comes now with this pollster-driven message that is developed by a retinue of Senators coming to the floor, and now I have to listen to some kind of lockbox nonsense. Who caused the deficit? I know one who balanced the budget: Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Johnson in 1968 and 1969 was very sensitive about the charge of guns and butter and not paying for the war in Vietnam and his Great Society. So he had a 10-percent surcharge on taxes, and he came with spending cuts. At that particular time, the entire budget was $178 billion--$178 billion for Medicare, for defense, for Medicaid, for welfare. All the things that everyone is talking about cutting, President Johnson paid for and ended up with a $3.2 billion surplus. Now, where did the deficit start? Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter all worked at cutting spending. But it was President Ronald Reagan who came to town with a promise of balancing the budget in 1 year. The others had not made that promise. They had worked on it. But the actual promise in the campaign--and I can show you the document--was, ``We are going to balance the budget in 1 year.'' President Reagan, on coming to town, said, ``Heavens, I didn't realize the fiscal dilemma we are in. It's going to take longer than 1 year.'' And he submitted and we passed in 1981 a budget to be balanced in 3 years. In 1985, with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, we promised a balance by 1990. And in 1990, this Congress here, before President Clinton came to town, promised not only a balanced budget by 1995 but a surplus of $20.5 billion. Now, that goes to all of this posturing about the historic effort that we are making in closing down the Government and the partisan attack that we are the only ones for a balanced budget and the other crowd is not. The fact is that for 200 years of history and 38 Presidents, Republican and Democrat, up until 1981 we had yet to come to a national debt of $1 trillion. It was less than $1 trillion. Now the deficit has grown over the 15 years of spending over $250 billion and the debt to almost $5 trillion. The deficit for this year is considered by the Congressional Budget Office to be $311 billion. Spending goes up, up, and away, and as we look at defense, that has come from $300 billion down to $243, similar domestic discretionary spending and others. But the one that has really taken off, is interest cost on the national debt--$348 billion, or $1 billion a day. We have spending on automatic pilot. This land has fiscal cancer, and nobody wants to talk about it. There was an old limerick, my children, on Saturday morning, on the ``Big John and Sparky'' program on the radio: [[Page S 18052]] All the way through life, make this your goal: Keep your eye on the donut and not the hole. Mr. President, we are looking right at the hole with tax cuts and avoiding and evading the donut, which are tax increases, because we know--and I am saying we in the budget process who have been working in this discipline--and they know it on the other side of the aisle, too. I can quote Senator Domenici, who, all the way back in 1985--the present chairman of the Budget Committee--said you cannot balance without an increase in taxes. We tried budget freezes with then-majority leader Howard Baker of Tennessee, the Republican leader. We worked in tandem; in those days you could work together. We tried not only the freezes but the spending cuts across the board, with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. And then, in 1986, we got on our Finance Committee friends--and I see the distinguished chairman is present--and we said, look, we might be spending in appropriations, but you folks with loopholes are spending way more than the Government. And so, with the distinguished Finance Committee and its chair, Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, we had tax reform in 1986, and we supposedly closed the loopholes. And at that time, we had freezes, cuts, and the loophole closings. Then in 1987, a studied group within the Budget Committee, charged with the responsibility of balancing the budget, agreed that it could not be done merely with cuts and freezes and loophole closings; that we needed taxes. In an informal vote on the Budget Committee, eight of us and two of our Republican colleagues, Senator Danforth of Missouri, Senator Boschwitz of Minnesota--he did not come up here with a lockbox gimmick. He came with a solemn vote for a 5-percent value-added tax allocated to eliminating the tax and the debt. That was 8 years ago. Eight years ago, we were trying. But they do not try now. They come with all the pollster nonsense, running around here, getting on top of the message. That is why we are in session. I can tell you, if people of common sense would look at the 65 percent of what has been agreed upon in both budgets, which would constitute about another $600 billion in spending cuts, which this Senator could support, we could agree on cuts in Medicare--not no $270 billion. That is out of the whole cloth. We could pare back some on Medicaid and the other particular programs. The President was asking just this time last week, on Thursday, he said, you have given me $7 billion; you force-fed me $7 billion, never even asked for by the Pentagon or by the administration, but you just heaped it on. Now, just give me $1.5 billion so I can take care of technology and children's nutrition and health care, environment, education, so we do not have to wreck the Government, we can pay for the Government. These programs save money, as well as lives, but they would not even compromise. Every time they talk, they say, ``Here's our budget. Where is yours?''

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I amend the request accordingly.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to continue as if in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Missouri does have a real problem, and some of that language looked as if he had a good solution but in some instances could have gone too far. The truth of the matter is I am not positive about it, but I am delighted to work with the distinguished Senator and I hope we can get that problem solved for him. I appreciate it.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is with great sadness that I rise today to pay tribute to one of my dearest friends, Walter J. Brown of Spartanburg, who passed away this morning at the age of 92. My personal sense of loss is compounded as the city of Spartanburg and the entire State of South Carolina also will miss Walter's warmth, service, generosity, and integrity. Mr. President, Walter Brown was a pioneer in television and the communications industry in South Carolina. As founder in 1940 of the Spartan Radiocasting Co., now Spartan Communications, Inc., Walter built WSPA into a broadcasting powerhouse. His WSPA-AM was South Carolina's first radio station. Similarly, WSPA-FM was the State's first FM station and the first to broadcast in stereo in the Southeast. But Walter Brown's crowning achievement is how he built WSPA-TV into a CBS stronghold in the Piedmont area. First on the air in 1956, WSPA- TV is known throughout South Carolina and the South as a premier broadcaster that reports the news, but also works to better the community. Mr. President, Walter Brown was born in Bowman, GA. He was educated at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism. After managing his own news bureau in Washington, DC, he moved to Spartanburg to continue his career in journalism. During World War II, Mr. Brown returned to Washington to serve as a special assistant to James F. Byrnes--before and during the times when he was Secretary of State. Later, after he had returned to Spartanburg, he wrote a book that remembered all that Senator Byrnes had done for the Nation. Mr. President, in the years since I was Lieutenant Governor in the 1950s, Walter Brown was my close friend and adviser. I will miss the wise counsel that Walter provided--not only politically but on the full range of communications issues. He was fair, insightful, and visionary. Our loss is the Nation's loss. Mr. President, as we mourn the loss of Walter Brown, let's remember how he made South Carolina a better place. Our prayers are with his family during this difficult time.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I support the purposes of this bill, but oppose the unnecessary provisions not connected to its purpose. This bill is intended to designate a National Highway System map, and it does that. So far, so good. Particularly, it makes a necessary designation of a route for I-73 and I-74 in South Carolina. I am very glad that we were able to work this out, and thank, my colleagues from Virginia, North Carolina, and Senator Thurmond for their cooperation on this point. However, there are unwise provisions in this conference report that have nothing to do with designating a map and everything to do with the safety of citizens using the roads. It is neither necessary nor wise to pass these provisions in order to do the basic designation jobs we need to do, and I will therefore vote against the conference report. First, this conference report creates a new pilot program that actually encourages trucking companies and companies that use trucks to deliver their goods to seek exemptions from Federal safety standards. These standards guarantee that drivers get enough rest, that basic equipment such as brakes and lights are functional, and that trucks are prepared with safety equipment like fire extinguishers. Senators may not realize that the page-one story on the most recent issue of ``Transport Topics'' is the major contribution of driver fatigue to transportation accidents. In this environment, rolling back truck safety regulation is extremely unadvisable. Second, this bill invites States to roll back national speed limits. I understand that State officials are conscientious with regard to safety. I understand that speed limits are not always popular. However, we are sticking our heads in the sand if we think lifting Federal protections in this area will not kill people. Admittedly, we did not implement national standards with safety foremost in mind. Congress implemented a 55 mile per hour national speed limit in order to save fuel during the energy crisis. However, the record shows that death rates fell 16 percent. When we voted to raise speed limits in some areas to 65 miles per hour, death rates rose significantly. How much more experience do we need to determine whether lives are at stake? Again, we don't need a provision to roll back speed limits to designate a map, which is the purpose of this bill. It is an extraneous provision, and probably a popular one, except for those families that will end up getting a call from the emergency room due to our vote today.