Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. And then on November 5, Mr. President, George Bush, President George Bush, signed into law, Public Law 101-508, saying here: Section 301(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by adding at the end the following: The concurrent resolution shall not include the outlays and revenue totals of the old age, survivors and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act or the related provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in the surplus or deficit totals required by this subsection or in any other surplus or deficit totals required by this title. I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record at this particular point section 13301 of Public Law 101-508 of the United States.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair. On October 18, 1990, I toiled alongside the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, our late, wonderful Senator and friend, John Heinz. He had been working diligently on this issue as well. He was not on the Budget Committee, but I said to John, if you can get the votes on the Republican side, I think we can really finally fix this problem. It needed fixing because everyone had been playing games. The truth of the matter is, Mr. President, that beyond using the surpluses in the Social Security trust fund, another $12 billion comes from other trust funds. They use the highway trust fund. They use the airport and airways trust fund, the civil service retirement, the military retirement trust fund. You can go right on down the list. Back in 1990, you could not get anybody's attention talking about these other trust funds, but I said on Social Security I think we have got them. Mr. President, the vote on October 18, 1990, was 98 to 2. [[Page S 15328]] I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Senate vote on the Hollings-Heinz amendment putting Social Security off budget.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me first congratulate the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan, and the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, Senator Conrad. These two gentlemen have been persistent on this issue, and this particular Senator from South Carolina is most grateful because for a long time I have felt a little like a Johnny One Note. I took the floor 2 days ago and now again today to reiterate what Senator Dorgan just said--namely, that the Republican budget is not balanced. A couple weeks ago, when we were passing the State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations bill I said that if there were a way to balance the budget without increasing revenues as well as holding the line on spending, I would jump off the Capitol dome. Let me turn, Mr. President, to the subject raised by these two gentlemen and the response given to their inquiry by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. While my distinguished colleague from Mississippi congratulated the chairman of the Budget Committee, I was sorry that I could not join in those congratulations, and I wish to explain in a very dignified way just exactly why. On July 10, 1990, we voted in the Budget Committee by a vote of 20 to 1 to put the Social Security trust fund off budget--20 yeas, 1 nay. The one nay was the distinguished Senator from Texas, Mr. Gramm, but the distinguished present chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, voted for my Social Security preservation amendment. I ask unanimous consent to include the committee rollcall in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair. Mr. INHOFE addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I am sorry.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the point should be made that for years now up here, at least for the past 15 years, we in the Congress have jumped up into the wagon. We have not paid a bill in 15 years, and we have crowded out the children; we have crowded out the hungry; we have crowded out the poor and the sick; and we have been up in that wagon. So do not give me this stuff about let us help pull the wagon when we do not pay our own way. There is one fellow in this town, one individual that is not responsible for this deficit, and that is William Jefferson Clinton. President Clinton was down in Little Rock, AR, when this sham and fraud started. He came to town and cut the deficit 500 billion bucks. He increased taxes even on Social Security. He cut defense without a single vote on that side of the aisle. Yet, they constantly appear talking about a balanced budget when they know it is not balanced, and continue to chastise the one person who did something about it. Last year when the Medicare trustees reported that Medicare was going broke in the year 2001, they cried, ``What is the matter? We have the best health system. There's nothing wrong.'' They would not do anything. So President Clinton has tried. Now we are trying again. I ask these fellows to get off that high horse of this fraudulent nonsense about their balanced budget plan when it is far from being balanced--they report it themselves as a $108 billion deficit--and start working with us and cut out the sham about who is in the wagon. I thank my distinguished colleague and ask that the document that I have referred to throughout my speech entitled, ``Budget Tables'' be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent that it be extended to 5 past 5 and that I be allowed to speak.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, I am about to complete my thought here, to extend for another 5 minutes.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I worked with Senator Baker when he was in the majority, and the majority leader, in pushing for a freeze; namely, to take this year's budget for next year. We reasoned that if we could just hold the line, we would save billions and billions of dollars. I was asked to go ahead and offer the budget freeze. Senator Baker gave some laudatory remarks. He could not endorse it. Unfortunately, we were tackled from behind, by Don Regan, the Secretary of Treasury, and Dave Stockman. Since I have started putting articles in, let me get right to the subject of tax cuts. Mr. President, let me quote what the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Stockman had to a couple of years ago, when I quote from an article in which he wrote: The root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of excessive and imprudent tax cutting that shattered the Nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans have willfully denied this giant mistake of fiscal governance and their own culpability in it ever since. Instead, they have incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless stream of antitax venom while pretending that economic growth and spending cuts alone could cure the deficit. It ought to be obvious by now that we can't grow our way out of it. We have had none other than the better words of Mr. Stockman, who was one of the leaders of the tax-cut Reaganomics, Kemp-Roth approach. I have heard the distinguished Chair and others talk about a balanced budget, and I want to shed some light on the reality that you are not saving money or making money with tax cuts. If we are going to get rid of the deficit and the debt, we are going to have to have spending cuts, spending freezes, tax loophole closings, and we are going [[Page S 15208]] to have to deny ourselves programs. I support the idea of voluntarism and helped to start the Peace Corps. But when went to start AmeriCorps, I withheld my support because there was a new multi-billion-dollar program that we just could not afford. So, it takes sacrifices, but it also takes a balanced approach with spending freezes, spending cuts, loophole closings, withholding of new programs, and a revenue increases. The reason we are in this particular dilemma is that nobody in public office can use the expression ``tax increase'' and get by with it. They describe it as some kind of lunatic fringe. The media, which is charged with the responsibility of exposing the truth and bringing us in public office to task, has joined the conspiracy. They are one of the major culprits--by constantly quoting inaccurate deficit numbers and to budget that are balanced when they should know otherwise. Take this particular budget we will soon be discussing. I ask you to refer to Mr. Kasich, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1996. Mr. Kasich in the conference report on page 3, and I read under the entitlement subsection 4, ``deficits,'' fiscal year 2002, a deficit of $108.4 billion. So, please, spare me from all this balanced budget talk. The media, the politicians, the White House, both parties and everybody else--let us start talking reality. The Republican plan that claims to balance budgets has no idea of being balanced. Indeed, Chairman Kasich himself in his conference report projects a deficit of $108.4 billion. Let me focus for a moment on this tax-cut nonsense that we have to listen to in our debate. We talk about whether the cut is for the middle class, or the rich, or whether you are going to get credit, or we get credit or how much, or whatever it is, but no one really wants to come and say that the tax cut is going to lose revenues. That is why I have inserted this article that appeared yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, entitled ``GOP Tax Cuts Will Add $93 billion to the United States Debt.'' Going just to the October 23 issue of the New Republic, let me quote: Neoconman in the late 1970's and early 1980's, Irving Crystal, editor of the Public Interest, helped lend intellectual credibility to the supply side theory that cutting taxes would not increase the deficit. Crystal opened the public interests to supplysiders and introduced Jack Kemp, author of the Kemp-Roth tax bill that initiated the era of disastrous deficits, to supply side guru Jude Waninsky. In the 30th anniversary of the Public Interest, Crystal now confesses that he and his allies never really understood economics. They were merely after a something-for-nothing gimmick that could help elect Republicans. Now he quotes from that particular statement in Public Interest, and I quote it. Among the core social scientists around the Public Interest there were no economists. They came later as we matured. This explains my own rather cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit and other monetary or fiscal problems. The task, as I saw it, was to create a Republican majority so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of Government. I quote just a couple other sentences from that particular article: Now he tells us. Thanks anyway, Irving, for the confession of complete political cynicism. The accounting deficiencies of Government, by the way, at last count add up to $4.9 trillion. If you look at the historical budget tables that I have distributed, I started back when we balanced the budget. This Senator has voted for a balanced budget. Yes, I am an endangered species--one of a very few left around here. But in 1968-1969, under President Lyndon Baines Johnson, you can see that the unified budget was in surplus by $3.2 billion, or the real budget surplus was $2.9 billion. These are CBO figures, by the way. And I have researched them all the way back to the 1940's. But I wanted to have these figures on one piece of paper showing the Government budget in outlays, the trust funds and the unified deficit--which together make up for the real deficit--the gross Federal debt, and the gross interest costs. I know people get bored listening to figures, but they better listen to this because they are going to have to live with these figures. You cannot avoid them. You cannot avoid death. You cannot avoid taxes. And you cannot avoid the interest costs on the national debt. Right here in 1996, the present fiscal year, you can see that the Congressional Budget Office has projected an interest cost on the national debt of $348 billion. That is $1 billion a day. There are only 365 days in a year. So we have got automatic spending--or, rather, spending on automatic pilot of $1 billion a day. This cancer has got to be excised. It cannot be defrauded. It cannot be finessed. The present budget for 1996 increases spending. You will find at the bottom of the page not only the Kasich conference report which shows a $108 billion deficit in the year 2002--where they say on the face of the document itself there is a deficit and not a balanced budget--but also the 1996 budget outlay of $1.5756 trillion. Then look just below that, of course, is 1995, last year's, $1.518 trillion. So as you go from 1995 to 1996, you have increased spending. Here is the best of the best that have come to town, the 74 freshmen on the House side that are controlling the agenda and are said to be beyond the control of the distinguished Speaker. And instead of cutting spending, they have increased spending $57.6 billion. That envisions, of course, abolishing the Department of Commerce, the Office of Technology and Assessment, the Advanced Technology Program, cutting education, cutting housing, cutting all of these other things, and Government outlays still increase. Mr. President, here we have also listed the CBO baseline assuming passage of legislation to enact the budget resolution. The outlays for the year 2002 are $1.876 trillion, and the revenues of $1.883 trillion. So that is close enough. We call that a balanced budget. But now look down below, how they get to that particular outlay figure. They do that by extending the freeze on discretionary spending through the year 2002. This fact is assumed rather than stated in the document prepared by the Republican Budget Committee staff entitled, ``Conference Agreement Compared to Baseline.'' It is used by Senator Domenici, our distinguished chairman and shows $1.876 trillion in outlays. The way you get it down to those outlays is starting from a figure at the top of the sheet called ``Current Law Deficit.'' Well, if you have not been in the budget game, you might say, ``Wait a minute. What in the world is a current law deficit?'' Translated into reality, it says, ``Assume that the discretionary caps do not expire in 1998 and continue them for the year 1999, the year 2000, the year 2001, and the year 2002.'' They pick up $91 billion--by extending the discretionary freeze through 2002. Then they say, ``the necessary spending cuts of total deficit reduction'' on the work sheet. This is using the chairman of the Republican Budget Committee's own document. I am not playing games with figures. I want to assume everything they say is true and show you they still do not have a cause of action. If we assume everything they say is true, they still do not have a balanced budget. Why? Because they say you have got to cut in the year 2002 a reduction of $235 billion in addition to the freeze of $91 billion. And then comparing apples to apples, we must subtract from that $1.876 trillion, the $109 billion surplus in the Social Security trust fund. So the total reduction needed in the year 2002, is a $435 billion reduction. Now, Mr. President, look at what we are doing here. In the year 1996 we are trying to get a $10 billion reduction in non-defense spending-- $10 billion. And, at the present time, we cannot get it. That is why we have not passed all of the appropriations bill. Our colleagues on the Republican side, as well as the colleagues on the Democratic side, are struggling to find $10 billion in discretionary cuts, much less $435 billion. In the debate on the State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations bill, I used the expression that if the present budget plan balanced by the year 2002, I would jump off the Capitol dome. The chairman of the Budget Committee, my colleague, Senator Domenici, said, ``Well, you better take hang gliding lessons.'' I said, ``I'm not going to take them from you because I know I will crash, just like this budget.'' I can tell you here and now, if we cannot cut $10 billion in this struggle [[Page S 15209]] with the best of the best and the sincere intent of the newcomers claiming that all we have to do is cut spending, I know I have a safe bet when you look at the year 2002, and try to cut $435 billion. Now, that is a swing, Mr. President, from this present year of a $57.6 billion increase. If you want to talk reality, rather than increasing $57.6 billion, you need to turn around and cut $435 billion. That is an almost $500 billion change in position. It is not going to happen. Why do the distinguished newcomers have such difficulty in stomaching these cuts? The mistaken assumption is that Government began when they got elected--that we had not been cutting. President Ronald Reagan, the best of the cutters, was here for 8 years, and I worked with him. I was on the Grace Commission. That is when we tried the freeze, and then Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. When we could not get the freezes, we said we had to have automatic cuts across the board. If the budget did not come out as you had predicted, what you had to do was automatically cut across the board, otherwise known as a sequester. A majority of the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans voted for Gramm-Rudman- Hollings. Now, right to the point, Senator Gramm went along with the repeal of that on October 19, 1990, at 12:41 a.m. Look at the Record. I raised the point of order. I said that if we did not follow through with automatic cuts across the board, we would instead start increasing spending. We do not have truth in budgeting. We not only cut under President Reagan, we cut under President Bush. Incidentally, I had gone from the attempts of the freeze and cuts across the board with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings to supporting of closing of tax loopholes. We worked it out with the Finance Committee, and passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986. We had supposedly done away with corporate welfare, but now they are beginning to talk about it again. Then in 1989 and 1990, I talked to the President, and particularly to Dick Darman, the Director of his Office of Management and Budget. I said, ``This thing is getting out of hand. The debt is so big and interest is so high that we are not getting on top of just paying the interest on the national debt.'' It was something like Alice in Wonderland's character whereby you have to run faster to stay where you are. So I said to Darman, what we need is a value-added tax across the board in America. He said, ``How are you going to get votes for it?'' I said, ``We will get it in the Budget Committee. If you and the President will come out for it, we will run with them and get on top of it. If you don't, by 1992, you are going to be in real trouble.'' The truth is, in 1992, President Bush was in real trouble. The deficit was up to $400 billion and President Clinton did not so much as win that election as President Bush lost it. The people said: ``We hear all the rhetoric about what all they are going to do with balanced budgets, but like Tennessee Ernie, another day longer and deeper in debt;'' and there we are, Mr. President, you can understand exactly what I am talking about. We had been to the Budget Committee and we got eight votes to increase taxes across the board. We had Senator Boschwitz. We had Senator Danforth. It was bipartisan. We got eight votes in the Budget Committee, but the Bush administration would not follow through. As a result, as I stated in 1992, we were up against $400 billion deficits. President Reagan came to office in 1988 and pledged to balance the budget in 1 year. Of course, he soon backtracked and said, ``Oops, this is way worse than I ever thought. It is going to take me 3 years.'' Well, here was the pledge made; they are all talking about pledges and I want to get to this one. The pledge made was to balance the budget in a year, and then in 3 years, and they instead paved the way for truly astronomical deficits. Mr. President, gross Federal debt in 1980 was $909 billion; in 1981, it was $994.8 billion. Former OMB Director Stockman called this gross incompetence--let me use the exact expression he used. I had it here just a minute ago. To quote Mr. Stockman: ``Willfully denying this giant mistake of fiscal governance.'' Giant mistake of fiscal governance, whereby in almost 200 years of history and 38 Presidents, Republican and Democrat, we had not reached a trillion-dollar debt. Now, in 12 short years, add on 3 under Clinton, 15 years, we are up to $5 trillion. We have quintupled the debt of the United States of America. Senator Thurmond and I are going to get by. We are up there now in age, so we do not have to worry. It is not going to be us paying. It will be our children and grandchildren. We have to constantly hear this caterwaul over on the other side of the aisle: ``We want people to get out of the wagon and start pulling''----

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as I understand it, the matter of strengthening sanctions on the Cuban Government is the underlying legislation, with the pending amendment being one offered by the distinguished colleague from Missouri with regarding term limits. I wish to talk on a subject relating to term limits, specifically the need to retain a sense of history around this place. I oppose term limits by way of any further provision other than that in the Constitution, that we in the Senate have to run every 6 years. I have faced the voters in six elections since I first came to the U.S. Senate. In attempting to change the existing restraints, we are in danger of losing the sense of history that is necessary in a democratic government. Specifically, I want to address the budget and the reconciliation measure that will soon be considered, the so-called train wreck, to see if we can all talk in one vocabulary relative to this budget, and to specifically demonstrate that there is no plan at the present time that balances the budget. If you were to go out on the sidewalk and ask any of the relatively informed passers-by, they would tell you, ``Well, there is a Republican plan to balance the budget by the year 2002, but the Democrats want to spend more money.'' The fact is, neither the President nor the Democrats nor the Republicans have a plan to balance the budget by the year 2002--or 2005, for the simple reason we refuse to face the truth; to face the reality. Let me ask the staff to put copies of our budget tables around on all the desks and some upstairs for the media. When Senator Howard Baker was the majority leader back in 1981, we saw that we were on a collision course. Specifically, we knew you could not cut taxes and raise revenues. Finally, the press seems to be catching on. I read with pleasure the first ``truth in budgeting'' article that I have seen this year, entitled ``GOP Tax Cuts Will Add $93 Billion to the United States Debt, Budget Analysts Say,'' by Jackie Calmes. I have called to congratulate the young lady since yesterday. I am going to continue to try to find her, because she really has made history. I ask unanimous consent the article be printed in its entirety at this point in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I gather there is no time agreement other than the set rollcall, as I understand it, at 5 o'clock?

Mr. HOLLINGS. What is the pending business, Mr. President?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this amendment acknowledges that the transfer that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will receive from the Department of Agriculture for fiscal year 1996 for the Saltonstall-Kennedy Program will be $8,128,000 higher than originally estimated. The amendment would adjust the amount used as an offset by the Operations, Research, and Facilities Account within NOAA upward by $6,500,000 to equal $62,000,000. This increase would be reflected within the Operations accounts as follows: $2,202,000 for Marine Services, to ensure that repair and maintenance can be conducted to allow the existing fleet to operate, $558,000 to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory [GLERL] to freeze that account at current year levels, $911,000 to freeze GLERL zebra mussel research at current year levels, $550,000 to International Fisheries Commissions to be used for the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission to address sea lamprey problems in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, and $2,279,000 to Central Administrative Support leaving that account with a significant cut from current year levels. This amendment would leave $1,628,000 of the increased transfer in the Saltonstall-Kennedy Program for a total program level of $10,893,000 for fiscal year 1996. Because this amendment involves changing only the amount used to offset appropriations, it has no budgetary impact on the bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The Senator raises an important point and I will be sure that his views are raised at the conference. Mr. Moynihan. I thank my colleagues for their assistance.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I do not disagree that well run exchange programs can help improve relations between our countries.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I have to object to the request at this time. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Though I cannot guarantee the outcome of the conference, I will strongly urge the Senate conferees to recede to the House position on this point.

Mr. HOLLINGS. As the Senator has indicated, the House mark for Sea Grant is somewhat higher than has been recommended in the committee's bill. The committee's report silence on non-indigenous species research should not be construed as a lack of support for this important research. I will certainly work in conference to provide adequate funds for the Sea Grant program.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I appreciate the inquiry regarding the textile programs from my colleague from South Carolina. I concur that those programs are critical to the stability and competitiveness of the nearly 2 million U.S. textile and apparel workers nationwide, and I agree that one of the purposes of this amendment is to continue funding the Office of Textiles and Apparel and its specific research programs at the current levels. From their inception, I have supported these programs, which are excellent examples of public-private partnerships which have resulted in tangible improvements in technology for the U.S. textile and apparel industries.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield to the distinguished Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I would like to comment on the importance of the amendment offered yesterday by the Senator from Oregon, Senator Hatfield, and myself in terms of its impact on the trade related functions of the Department of Commerce. Mr. President, over the past few years, Members of the Congress have been deeply divided on certain trade issues such as NAFTA, GATT, and Fast Track. However, almost all the members of Congress agree that there are certain fundamental jobs that the Federal Government must perform to facilitate international trade and to ensure that U.S. companies are competitive in the global marketplace. We must enforce our trade laws so that U.S. jobs are not lost to foreign competitors who are subsidized by their governments, or who engage in predatory practices. We must monitor and enforce our trade agreements with other countries. We must produce detailed industrial sector analysis so that both businesses and the government can make sound policy decisions. The International Trade Administration within the Department of Commerce is the nerve center of all these activities. The Committee reported bill gutted our International Trade Administration. It cut the agency $46.5 million below the fiscal year 1995 level and below the level set by the Contract for America House. The Committee report provided no details on how such a large reduction would actually be apportioned within ITA. What Senator Hatfield and I and others did yesterday was to bring the ITA back to a freeze. This was a bipartisan amendment. And, I should note, support for ITA has always been bipartisan. Mr. President, the ITA is made up of four separate agencies: First; the United States Foreign and Commercial Service. The Foreign Commercial Service officers are our advocates overseas. They operate offices in 69 countries and they have a network of 73 offices across America. Overseas, they serve directly under our Ambassadors. Our Foreign Commercial Officers are the folks who hustle to ensure that U.S. firms get fair treatment while competing for foreign contracts, and who help small- to medium-sized U.S. companies work through the maze of foreign regulations and other barriers. They enable U.S. businesses to gain access to their worldwide network overseas, and they provide information to business owners concerning various foreign markets. During the past few years, these centers have been collocated with personnel from the Small Business Administration and the Export Import Bank. Second; trade development. The Trade Development section of ITA provides analysis and information [[Page S 14690]] on industry sectors. It monitors, analyzes, and provides information on hundreds of industries, from the most basic to the emerging high- technology industries. This expertise, which is found nowhere else, inside or outside the Federal Government--is essential to getting U.S. goods and services into foreign markets. The expertise at Trade Development is also critical to the negotiation and enforcement of international trade agreements. Third; the International Economic Policy Office. The International Economic Policy office is responsible for trade policy development and trade negotiations. IEP operates regional and country desks. It monitors foreign compliance with bilateral and multilateral trade agreements and intellectual property rights. Fourth; the Import Administration. The Import Administration is responsible for carrying out U.S. anti- dumping and countervailing duty laws to provide remedies for U.S. businesses injured by unfair competition. The Import Administration also participates in negotiations to promote fair trade in specific sectors such as steel, aircraft, and shipbuilding. Mr. President, in 1995, the United States will post a record trade deficit. And since March, the U.S. has lost 188,000 manufacturing jobs. The proposed a $46.5 million cut to the ITA would only add to the deterioration in our balance of trade and the loss of good jobs. Virtually every industrial nation of the world provides support for exports. To compete, America must do the same. Recognizing this, we have been trying to beef up export promotion, first with the support of President Bush and now with the support of President Clinton. Why? Because at the levels we are now spending, we are way behind the Japanese, Germans, French, and British. We spend less and have less people advancing and advocating U.S. exports than do any of these other competitors. ITA's export promotion programs return $10.40 to the Treasury for every dollar invested in export promotion. And over the past 2 years, ITA, through its new Advocacy Center, has been cranked up as never before and has helped American companies sell over $24 billion in American goods and services. Through its Big Emerging Markets initiative, ITA has worked hand in hand with the private sector in accessing new markets. And through its toll-free number (1-800-USA- TRADE), ITA has responded to about 60,000 calls per year for export assistance--90 percent from small businesses. The Committee reported bill would have seriously hindered our efforts to promote U.S. exports. The Foreign Commercial Service would have been forced to close offices in States with lower volume of exports, such as Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. If we had allowed the cut to stand, we would have rolled back the progress that we have made overseas in the last few years. Namely, we would have had to close our new offices in Eastern Europe and in the Newly Independent States that formerly made up the Soviet Union. The Big Emerging Markets initiative would have been terminated, surrendering growing markets to the French and Japanese in such markets as China, Vietnam, Argentina, and India. I say to my colleagues, go to these countries and look at what our competitors are doing. In the area of trade negotiations, the proposed reduction would have debilitated our trade negotiators. ITA, and principally its Trade Development Office, serves as staff to the U.S. Trade Representative, and often the ITA itself takes the lead in trade talks. We cannot cut off this critical support at the very time that multilateral and bilateral trade issues with Japan, Europe, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere require increased attention. Absent the Hatfield-Hollings amendment, analytical support and marketing assistance from industry specialists would have been reduced by at least 25 percent under the Committee reported mark, and desk coverage of some thirty countries would have ceased. Cutting ITA would also cripple our ability to monitor and enforce existing trade agreements. For example, the ITA is the lead agency in monitoring the recently completed U.S.-Japan auto parts agreement and the Medical Technology Agreement with Japan. Finally, and of greatest concern to me, is the Import Administration's ability to fulfill statutory obligations. We must not undermines the effectiveness of U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws. We must provide ITA with adequate resources to verify foreign producer data, which is so essential to determining whether dumping or foreign subsidies exist. Scaling back the Import Administration only means that foreign producers will find it easier to evade import orders, leading directly to a loss of U.S. jobs. Mr. President, the amendment passed last night also provides $8.1 million to the Bureau of Export Administration, or BXA, to restore that agency back to a freeze and to the House-passed level. BXA performs the essential task of processing export license applications and enforcing our Nation's export control laws. BXA, in essence, is the cop on the international beat who keeps critical technologies out of the hands of bad actors. As one BXA official noted, ``If you wake up and the bomb hasn't been detonated, we've done our job.'' The 21 percent cut to BXA in the Committee-reported bill would have thrown the brakes on BXA's timely and efficient operation of its mission. Such a large cut would endanger our national security by gutting enforcement and hurt U.S. exporters by slowing down the licensing process. Specifically, BXA's capacity to investigate national security and nonproliferation cases would have been cut in half, down from 1600 cases per year to 800 cases. The cut would also have forced BXA to close five of its regional enforcement offices, including those in northern California, the Northwest, the upper Midwest, and the middle Atlantic regions. In addition, BXA would not have had the resources necessary to fully monitor antiboycott regulations such as the regulations to prevent U.S. companies from cooperating with the Arab League boycott of Israel. Unnecessary delays in export licensing means that U.S. businesses lose out on sales to foreign competitors. Members of Congress should remember that BXA already took a hefty budget cut in the 1990's, shrinking from over 500 employees down to its current level of 321. BXA has to walk the fine line between promoting U.S. exports and keeping critical technologies out of the hands of mad men. Any further cuts would jeopardize our national security and would lead to unnecessary loss of U.S. jobs. Mr. President, during debate on the future of the Commerce Department, U.S. businesses have unanimously supported the trade functions performed by the Department. While some business groups favor the establishment of a new international trade agency, they have made clear that the new agency should continue the jobs done now by ITA and BXA. While their views differ on where the trade functions should be housed, the following business organizations are among those who have expressed strong support for the trade-related activities of the Commerce Department: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Electronics Association, the Electronics Industries Association, the Aerospace Industries Association, the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Semiconductor Industry Association, and the Automotive Parts and Accessories Association. In this era of economic competition, the Commerce Department is the ``arsenal'' of business. As long as Americans engage in world commerce, we need a Department of Commerce to help level the playing field for these American industries and workers, to give them a fair chance to compete in a world dominated by large foreign companies backed by the full resources of their governments. The Senate made a wise decision last night in restoring the funds to the International Trade Administration and the Bureau of Export Administration. international trade association

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.