Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will continue at the appropriate time. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield myself so much time as is allotted. Mr. President, right to the point made by our distinguished chairman, the expression was used, ``meeting halfway.'' I am of the school that NAFTA did not work. But assuming it did work, it at least included the side agreements with respect to the environment, side agreements with respect to labor, and reciprocity with respect to the actual tariffs. This particular bill has no reciprocity, whether it be in the Caribbean--we are prepared now to list the various tariffs there, minding you that the United States average textile tariff is about 10 percent. I am looking at lists of the sub-Saharan Africa tariff rates: Ethiopia, the average there would be about--I see some 65, but most of them on apparel are 80 percent; other made-up products, textile, home furnishings, 80 percent; Gabon, 30 percent for an average there; Ghana, 25 percent. We are going to do away with the Ivory Coast, which has a markup also, a tariff; Kenya: 50, 50, 50, 62 percent on laminated fabric, 50 percent on apparel; the textile, home furnishings, another 50 percent; Madagascar: 25 percent, 30 percent; Mauritius, 80 percent for man-made filament yarn, textile floor coverings, apparel, textile; home furnishings, 80 percent--I ask unanimous consent a summary of these tariffs be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to transfer my hour under cloture. I ask unanimous consent that the hour transfer to the Democratic manager so it can be yielded to another Senator today.

Mr. HOLLINGS. It is just a transfer of an hour. I do not think anybody will object to it. I have to make an appearance before the city council of Isle of Palms relative to the loss of my home. I have to leave to make that appearance and come back.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize my friend, Evelyn Dubrow, who recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Unfortunately, a previous commitment prevented me from joining Evy's many friends and admirers at the ceremony, but I want to commend her on receiving the nation's highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States Government. President Kennedy established the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in 1963 to honor persons who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant private or public endeavors. There is not a more deserving recipient of this award than Evy Dubrow. As founder of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and Americans for Democratic Action, she tackled difficult issues from fair trade to civil rights. As legislative director of UNITE and its predecessor, the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, Evy spent her career fighting not only for labor rights, but for individual rights and humanity. She is by far one of the best I have had the pleasure to know and to work with. Mr. President, I ask that President Clinton's remarks upon the presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Evelyn Dubrow be printed in the Record: Evy Dubrow came to Washington more than 40 years ago, ready to do battle for America's garment workers--and do battle she did. When it came to the well-being of workers and their families, this tiny woman was larger than life. The halls of Congress still echo with the sound of her voice, advocating a higher minimum wage, safer work places, better education for the children of working families. And in opposition, to President Ford and me, she also was against NAFTA. No matter how divisive the issue, however, Evy always seemed to find a way to bring people together, to find a solution. As she put it, there are good people on both sides of each issue. And she had a knack for finding those people. By the time she retired two years ago, at the age of 80, she had won a special chair in the House Chamber, a special spot at the poker table in the Filibuster Room and a special place in the hearts of even the most hard-bitten politicians in Washington; even more important, for decades and decades, she won victory after victory for social justice.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on the objections I have registered to the motion to proceed to the CBI/sub-Sahara bill, I was delighted to hear the chairman of our Finance Committee relate the reason for it. The reason, perhaps, is well-founded: good foreign policy. I have sponsored and recommended some kind of Marshall Plan for the country of Mexico for the simple reason that Mexico is our neighbor; it is our friend. We have a responsibility to assist it, and we are responsible for the problems NAFTA has caused, which are quite obvious with respect to immigration and drugs. If we can put in a plan where Mexican workers can have workers' rights and some money in the economy would not be stripped and sent back to the bankers in New York or to the investment wizards from all the other countries, including the United States--you can cross from California into Tijuana, Mexico; one would think you were in Seoul, Korea. If we could do that, we could have some prosperous parity with our friends in Mexico. Unfortunately, we went the so-called NAFTA way. We have had approximately 5 years to measure the success or failure of NAFTA. Everywhere I go I hear: Oh, isn't it wonderful how well it has worked. The truth is, they told us in the original instance this was going to create jobs in America, just as the distinguished Senator from Delaware is telling me this bill is going to create jobs in the United States. It is a win-win situation, he says, from the farmer to the apparel manufacturer. And he goes down the list: What a wonderful win-win situation it is. I do not advise that he come to South Carolina and tell them that, where they have lost 31,700 textile jobs since NAFTA. They are streaming out. Why? Because you and I, Mr. President, set the American standard of living. That is a bipartisan effort whereby we all agree on a minimum wage, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, safe working place, safe machinery, plant closing notice, parental leave, clean air, clean water--on down the list. We can continue to list Republicans and Democrats joining in setting our highest standard of living. Obviously, it is competing with one of the lower standards of living. You can go down to Mexico for 58 cents an hour. There are none of those protections. You are guaranteed a profit. And everybody is streaming down there. But we are losing jobs not just in South Carolina but all over the Nation. The overall job loss is in the textile and apparel sector over the last twenty five years is some 1.2 million, and 420,000 of them are textile jobs since NAFTA. They said we were going to get 200,000 new jobs. We have lost 420,000. They said, oh, it was going to solve the immigration problem. I know better--by handling the immigration appropriations--there is the Border Patrol, and how we are breaking out abandoned Navy yards and using schools, and having thousands of additional agents, and everything else of that kind, and illegal immigrants keep coming. The immigration problem is worse today than it was 4 or 5 years ago. Drugs? Heavens above. There is a drug culture. You have to break it. You don't break it with NAFTA. It is worse today than it was 4 to 5 years ago. Even the Mexican worker is taking home less pay than he was taking home 5 years ago. So there is no education in the second kick of a mule. When they come around and say, let's spread this NAFTA approach elixir and spread that down to the rest of the countries over to the sub-Sahara, or any elsewhere else in the world, we say, now, wait up. Of course, if you listen to my distinguished colleague, he talks about the 48 sub-Sahara African countries. Certainly they are for it. They are for foreign aid. The retailers and wholesalers, and so forth, they get lower costs. Yes; there isn't any question about that. You can produce it for 58 cents an hour--no clean air, no clean water, child labor, and everything else of that kind in these countries abroad. That is a given, known fact. We have college students, who know better, demonstrating against that. Everybody knows it. We want to make it an official policy? They say: From the farmer to the apparel manufacturer, and on, it is a win-win situation. Well, of course, unfortunately, it is a losing situation. As I have indicated, we have been through this singsong. It started some 40 years ago or more with Japan. I will never forget, at the particular time I was a young Governor in South Carolina, they said: Now, Governor, what do you expect these emerging countries to make? The airplanes and the computers? Let us make the airplanes and computers, and let them make the textiles, the clothing, and the shoes. The trouble is, 40 years later, with our noncompetitive blind kind of foreign trade policy, they are making the shoes, they are making the textiles, they are making the airplanes, they are making the computers, they are making everything. When we get into full debate on Monday, we will point out and list down exactly what has been going on and how we have been hollowing out the industrial strength of America. Last evening, we had a delightful exchange with the ranking member of our Finance Committee, the senior Senator from New York, Mr. Moynihan. He was relating back to when he was on the Kennedy team negotiating the trade policy, which was an outstanding policy at the time. It was outstanding in that it was realistic. President Kennedy knew the situation. I went and showed how we brought the witnesses, and everything else, and found that textiles was second only to steel as the most important to our national security. And with that authority under the law, President Kennedy enunciated his seven-point textile program, from which came the Kennedy Round, the Multi fiber Arrangement, One Price Cotton; and it gave a chance--yes, to sort of an archaic industry--to really refurbish, retool, modernize, and compete. Until the recent years, like NAFTA, they had been putting in $2 billion a year, at least $2 billion a year, in the State of Delaware, the State of South Carolina, and the several other States to modernize and compete. I went to a plant there in Clinton, for example--I went to numerous ones last year--but this was an old plant, over 100 years old, that looked to me as if it was going to fall down. But I was pleasantly surprised when I walked in. They had the most modern machinery and the highest productivity you could possibly imagine. There isn't any question that the industry has been brought into the world of reality of so-called global competition. The only trouble is that our competitors are fancy-free and footloose with their protections, with their nontariff trade barriers, and other measures to protect their economic strength, and we are blindly pell-mell down the road with this so-called free trade, free trade, when, of course, it is obviously not free. That goes back now to the standard of living we talked about. And more than the standard of living--if this passes because it will change what we said with the Multi fiber Arrangement just 5 years ago after GATT/WTO: That we were going to have a phaseout of any kind of quotas. I know the distinguished Chair knows about subsidies. We have done all the research, just about, for the aircraft industry. We give them Export-Import Bank financing. We do not do that for textiles. We do not do that for textiles. But I see all of these people come out for the farmer. Yes, I had to talk to a farmer friend yesterday. I support the farmers. I support that aircraft industry. The farmers, they get subsidized water, subsidized telephones, subsidized electricity. They get export subsidies. If it rains, they get protection; if it dries up, they get protection. And Oracle. The Senator from Delaware says: Oracle is with us. That is that crowd with whom we started the Internet. You would think, by gosh, they invented it. The politicians, the Pentagon, we did all of that back in 1967, 1968, 1969. We put in, at the University of Illinois and Stanford, the training programs for which ultimately benefited Mr. Yang of Yahoo and other Internet start-ups. And so fine, our friend Gates, he has 22,000 employees, and there are approximately 22,000 millionaires. There was nothing wrong with that. But don't talk about the engine of this prosperity and economy as this crowd. No, sir. We go back to Henry Ford when he said, in order to sell his car: I want to make sure the person producing it is making enough to buy it. He started generating, more than anyone, just with Ford automobiles, the middle class in America. General Motors, compared to those 22,000, has 250,000. We had that machine tool industry, and we had all the rest of these good manufacturing establishments, but we have gone to software, which doesn't help us in our exports nearly as much as the heavy manufacturers. And it is not the engine. It is the hard industries that are the engine of our economy. When you give me Oracle and Exxon and the rest of them on this particular bill, and foreign policy, obviously they are trying to explore oil in the sub-Sahara. They are trying to sell their goods anywhere else in the world and, of course, in Central America. But right to the point, this is the sort of last chance we have for a formative industry, second-most in importance to our national security. It is the last chance in the sense that after 5 years of the 10-year phaseout, the textile manufacturers all invested in that 10-year policy. So if we cut it off in October of 1999, cut it off at least 5 years short, they begin to lose the investment. They don't get the return. They don't increase their productivity. I never heard such an outrageous statement, that this is going to increase their productivity. They immediately freeze in their tracks and say, no, we can't get our money back out of trying to, even again, buy a better spindle and get even a higher production. They begin to lose their money as well as the workers lose their jobs. It is a lose- lose situation because, bottom line, look what happens. Like I say, all these other countries invest down there in the various Central American countries. Honduras, seven Taiwan firms, including the leading Chung hsing Textile have invested $24 million. Again, the Republic of China will provide $15 million in low-interest loans for Honduras to build an export processing zone, an EPZ. Then the Taiwan manufacturers in the upper and lower streams of the textile industry are planning to form integrated textile production in San Pedro Sula down in Honduras and Central America. The South Koreans, Kim and Arzu, have agreed on the need to diversify South Korean investment in Guatemala and their particular textile investments down there. Looking at the Caribbean as a potential staging ground and production base, the Malaysian textile industry uses Caribbean plants as the gateway to the United States. Then again some 18 Taiwanese companies are down there. South Korea, 180 small South Korean companies, mostly textile and garment makers, have invested $130 million in five Central American nations. You can go right on down the list. I am going to get in the Record on Monday the 100,000-acre tract the People's Republic of China, Beijing, developed--that industrial tract-- down in Mexico. So it isn't somehow that we are opening it up for American fabric. Yes, temporarily that ATMI crowd, they thought they could just hold on to American fabric, but Burlington has found differently. They have moved down and other fabric manufacturers are moving. Why? Because it is cheaper in Mexico. When it comes right down to it, it might be a good aim but it is a bad recoil. We learned that with the artillery in World War II. No matter how well the gun was aimed, if the recoil is going to kill the guncrew, don't fire. That is why we object to proceeding to this particular bill--because the recoil here is going to kill this important industry. I will be glad to get into it in depth when we have all the Members back here the first part of the week. Of course, the President, yes, he is building a library now, and he is looking to see what he did down in Central America and what he did in Africa and traveling around building a library. But he is absolutely draining, so to speak, the industrial strength in the United States of America. It is a sad thing to see that more people are not exercised about it. This has been going on for years on end. President Kennedy was worried, and that is why he put in his seven-point program when only 10 percent of the textile apparel consumed in the United States were represented in imports. Now I am looking at at least two-thirds--nearly 70 percent of the clothing I am looking at in this Chamber is manufactured outside the United States; and, of course, the shoes, 86 percent of the shoes on the floor. But it has gone on to cameras and hand tools and everything else. Just earlier this year we found out about steel. The World Bank runs around and says, wait a minute, in order to become a nation state, you have to have the steel for the tools of agriculture and the weapons of war. So the World Bank gives these 2-percent loans, all over the entire world, down through Africa, into the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran, now to the People's Republic of China. So they get an overproductivity of steel, and they come dumping it here. And we are telling them, let us get more competitive. You have to look at these broad policies. You have to look at this broad foreign policy that the Senator from Delaware now enunciates and how wonderful it is that we are going to make friends in the sub-Sahara and down in Central America. I think the Koreans, the Malaysians, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, and everyone else will be making the friends. They are quicker, faster; their countries subsidize, finance. They have followed the MITI form, not the American capitalistic form, but the controlled capitalism of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the country of Japan. That said, I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, it is an agreed fact among our colleagues in the Senate there is no member more steeped in history and erudite in its intellectual history than our distinguished senior Senator from New York, Mr. Moynihan. I agree with him absolutely with respect to Trade Adjustment Assistance and the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act and a variety of initiatives made since that time. I have to oppose the motion because I am the one who objected, of course, to this so-called sub-Sahara/CBI bill. One, with respect to Smoot-Hawley, it did not cause the depression and World War II. I want to disabuse anybody's mind from that particular suggestion. The stock market crash occurred in October 1929, and Smoot-Hawley was not passed until 8 months later in June of 1930. At that particular time, slightly less than 1 percent of the GNP was in international trade. It is now up to 17 percent. At that time trade did not have that big an effect on the GNP or the economy of the United States itself. True, Germany, Europe, and everybody else was in a depression, and we entered the depression as a result of the crash. Along came Cordell Hull. I want to emphasize one concept: the Reciprocal Trade Act of 1934; reciprocity; not foreign aid but foreign trade; a thing of value for an exchange of value. We learned that in Contracts 101 as lawyers. Somehow over the past several years we have gotten into ``we have to do something.'' We are the most powerful Nation militarily and economically; perhaps not the richest. We do not have the largest per capita income. We are down to about No. 8 or 9. We are not the richest, but we are very affluent comparatively speaking. The urge is there, and I understand that urge to want to help, but we gave at the office. Let me tell you when I gave at the office, for my textile friends. We have been giving and giving and giving. We had a hearing before the International Trade Commission. It was the Eisenhower administration at that particular time. I came to testify as the Governor of South Carolina. The finding was in June of 1960. It was in early March of 1960. I was chased around the room by none other than Tom Dewey. He was a lawyer for the Japanese. They were not a concern at the particular time. Ten percent of textiles consumed in America was being imported, and if we went beyond the 10 percent, it was determined that it would devastate the economy, particularly the textile economy of the United States of America. I am looking around this room, and I can tell you that over two- thirds--that is a 2-year-old figure; I bet it is up to 70 percent--but two-thirds of the clothing I am looking at, not 10 percent, is imported. When I say we gave at the office again and again--I can go to Desert Storm, and I will do that, and how we gave Turkey a couple of billion dollars in increased textile imports, how we bought this crowd off, and every time we have a crisis, whatever it is, we give to people who ask for our help. My point is, at that particular time, I left that hearing. I had a good Republican friend who knew President Eisenhower. We checked in with Jerry Parsons. I can still see him in the outer office. He said: The Chief can see you now. We went in and saw President Eisenhower and he was committed to helping the textile industry. But by June, it had gone the other way. As a young Democratic southern Governor, I said: I am going to try that fellow Kennedy. I had never been with him, but I came up in August and sat down with Mike Feldman. He is still alive and can verify this. He was legislative assistant to John F. Kennedy. I can show my colleagues the office in the old Russell Building. We sat down and agreed that I will write this letter as a Governor and Senator Kennedy will write back because being from Massachusetts, he understood the desperate nature of the textile economy at that time. We exchanged letters. I will have to get that letter because our revered leader of that particular administration was, of course, and is still revered now, the Senator from New York, Mr. Moynihan. He knows this more intimately than I, but I know this particular part of it. We sat down and agreed because there was a national security provision. Before the President could take executive action, there had to be a finding that a particular commodity was important to the national security of the United States of America. We got the Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg, Secretary of Commerce Luther Hodges, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary McNamara of Defense, and Doug Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury. He was most interested. I sat down and talked with Secretary Dillon. He was fully briefed from my northern textile friends. Incidentally, the Northern Textile Association met last weekend down in my hometown with Karl Spilhaus. Bill Sullivan previously ran the organization. We brought in witnesses. We had hearings. And about April 26 they made a finding. Steel was the most important industry to our national economy and second most important to our national security was textiles. We could not send our soldiers to war in a Japanese uniform, and I used to add to that, and Gucci shoes. Eighty-six percent of the shoes in this Chamber today are imported. The shoe industry is practically gone. Textiles are about gone, and Washington is telling them: You have to get high-tech, high-tech, global economy, global competition, retrain--it sounds like Mao Tse- tung running around reeducating the people, getting them skills. We are closing down our knitting mills, one in particular was the Oneida Mill. They made T-shirts. They had 487 employees. The average age was 47. Tomorrow morning, let's say we have done it Washington's way, we have reeducated and trained the 487 employees, and now they are skilled computer operators. Are you going to hire a 47-year-old computer operator or the 21-year-old computer operator? You are not going to take on those health costs; you are not going to take on those retirement costs. The little town of Andrew, SC, is high and dry, as are many other towns with so-called low unemployment, low inflation. Since NAFTA, South Carolina has lost 31,700 textile jobs. The reason I know that figure is because I talked with the Northern Textile Association last weekend. I am briefed on this particular subject. What we have in the CBI/sub-Sahara--the intent is good, to help--but we cannot afford any longer to give away these critical industries important to our national security. Specifically, I was with Akio Morita in Chicago in the early eighties. He was talking about the Third World developing and the developing countries. He said they must develop a strong manufacturing capacity in order to become a nation state. Later on he said ``And by the way, Senator, the world power that loses its manufacturing capacity will cease to be a world power.'' Look at the back page of the U.S. News & World Report of last week, and the comments our friend Mort Zuckerman. You can see we are getting a divided society. We are losing those middle-class jobs. Henry Ford said: I want my workers to make enough to be able to buy what they are making. And our strong manufacturing economy has been drained overnight. I will bring a list of the particular items, including textiles where import penetration is high. So when you get and look at the CBI, and you look at the sub-Sahara, it is NAFTA without--and I don't think NAFTA worked at all--without the advantages of NAFTA; namely, the side agreements on the environment, the side agreements on labor, the reciprocity. There is no reciprocity. If we are going to let their products come in duty free, we should tell them to lower their tariffs. So this is a bad bill, to begin with. It should not have passed, almost unanimously, in that Finance Committee. They ought to look at these things more thoroughly. But the point is, we have to maintain these manufacturing jobs. I can remember when I was a child--and I know the distinguished Senator from New York would remember--the last call for breakfast, Don McNeil and ``Breakfast Club'' up there in Chicago. I feel like this is sort of the last call tonight for my textile friends. We will get into it more thoroughly because it isn't just the textile people. The truth is, I didn't carry Anderson, Greenville, and Spartanburg Counties, which have all the textile votes. They are going to be voting--you watch them--for George W. Bush. They have already made up their mind. They don't care about the campaign. We had them going Democratic only one time since Kennedy, and that was just momentarily for Jimmy Carter. We gave Barry Goldwater more votes, in the 1964 race, than he got in Arizona; percentage-wise and number-wise, both.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Oh, yes. Barry used to love to kid me about that. So I know from whence I am coming. It is just that it is terrible to see this thing happen all around you. And the new, jobs and all the so- called new employment is going into retailing, and they are getting paid next to nothing. They will not even assume the health costs and everything else of that kind. So it is a real issue. And they always do this to me. They did NAFTA right at the end of the session. Then on GATT, I had to make them come back after the election. Now we have another 10 days, and they want to raise it. And I have to make the same motion not to proceed. I do appreciate the leadership and the brilliance of my leader, Senator Moynihan, of our Finance Committee. I thank him for his courtesy. But I am going to have to continue to object to moving to consider and proceeding on this particular measure. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my subcommittee chairman, Senator Gregg, in presenting to the Senate the fiscal year 2000, Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and related agencies appropriations conference report. I would like to thank Senator Gregg for his efforts in resolving many of the difficult issues that were encompassed in this bill. As a result of over four weeks of negotiations, the conference report before the Senator today--for the most past--is good and balanced. As Senator Gregg stated, this agreement includes $39 billion and exceeds last year's appropriation by almost $3 billion. While this sounds like a tremendous increase in funding, for all intent and purpose, this increase is for the 2000 decennial census. Consequently, the funding decisions encompassed in this bill were difficult. Senator Gregg has already covered many of the major issues in this bill so I will not go into great detail. But, I would like to point out to my colleagues some of the highlights of this bill: The Justice Department accounts for the largest portion of this bill and contains $18.5 billion for many important law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA, INS, and Marshals Service. This level of funding is only an increase of $287 million above last year's appropriated level. Within DOJ, the conferees agreed to recede to the Senate's position the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, and funded the program at the Senate level of $325 million. In addition, $250 million in carryover is available bringing the total budget authority for this program for fiscal year 2000 to $575 million. While many of us would like to see a higher level of funding for this program, I believe that we have provided a responsible level given the austere funding constraints this year. Mr. President, the conferees also agreed to continue the Safe Schools Initiative that Senator Gregg and I began funding last year. To further efforts in combating violence in and around our schools, we have included $225 million in funding. Included in that funding is $180 million for school resource officers and $30 million for prevention programs. Regarding the Commerce Department, $8.7 billion is provided for the numerous missions undertaken by the various agencies of the Commerce Department, including stewardship of our nation's oceans and waterways, satellite coverage and weather forecasting, regulation of trade and telecommunications, assistance to rural areas, high risk technology research, and assistance to small manufacturers. Also within this level of funding for the Commerce Department is the $4.47 billion necessary for conducting the constitutionally mandated decennial census. I would like to thank Chairman Gregg for working to resolve the issues around census funding without lengthy and counter-productive debate. I am pleased that the conference report reflects a level of funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is closer to the Senate position that the House. NOAA is the premier agency for addressing catastrophic weather conditions as well as daily forecasts. This year has been one filled with natural disasters-- everything from droughts, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. During this past month while our staff was negotiating on this bill, about 10 million people were evacuated from the coast during Hurricane Floyd. Thanks to NOAA's hurricane research, their flights into the storm their satellite coverage and weather forecasts, the loss of life, while still very tragic, was significantly less than what it otherwise would have been. Mr. President, when we went into conference 6 weeks ago, there was a $600 million difference in funding for NOAA between the House and Senate. The Senate worked diligently to restore NOAA's funding and the conference report reflects those efforts with NOAA funded at an increase of $137 million above last year's appropriated level. Given this agency's missions that include everything from weather forecasting and atmospheric research to ocean and fisheries research and ocean and coastal management, this level of funding in still insufficient, but given the fiscal constraints, it is enough to allow the agency to continue forward with its critical missions. This conference report provides $5.9 billion for the Department of State and related agencies. This will fund security upgrades for State Department facilities, construction and maintenance of U.S. missions, payment of international organization and peacekeeping funds, and educational and cultural exchanges. This year we are providing $313.6 million in funding for much needed security upgrades at State Department facilities around the world. Incidents such as the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania have reminded us that we cannot dismiss the safety and security of our citizens abroad. Now I would like to take a moment to thank the staff for all their hard work in bringing this agreement to the floor. Specifically I would like to thank Jim Morhard, Paddy Link, Kevin Linskey, Eric Harnischfeger, Clayton Heil, and Dana Quam of Senator Gregg's staff and Lila Helms, Emelie East, and Tim Harding of my staff. I know that they have all worked long hours during the past 4 weeks, including weekends and late evenings to reach a compromise and I appreciate their efforts. This a large bill that funds the Federal law enforcement, oceans and fisheries, our nations courts and everything in between. Reaching compromise on these myriad accounts is no small task and I thank them for their diligence. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to give a few words of thanks to someone who has been a tremendous help to me and the Commerce, Justice, State Subcommittee over this last year. That person is Tim Harding, an extremely bright young man who was detailed to me by the Department of Justice COPS on the Beat program. Tim worked with me and my staff since last winter. He has seen this process through--from receipt of the President's budget, to our congressional hearings, to markup, through our whirlwind day on the Senate floor, and through this month and a half of conference. At every point, Tim was willing and ready to give 100 percent. While we all know the Senate is like no other place, Tim took the time to learn what makes this process work, and he was able to easily adapt. He provided me with memos, helped me with my constituent relations, and drafted good-quality statements for my use during hearings, markup, and floor consideration of our bill. His work will be sorely missed by me and my staff, and I wish him all the best in what promises to be a bright future.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 3036. This legislation is being considered to remedy language included in section 338 of the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2000. Contained in the FY 2000 DOT Conference Report was a provision that prohibits the enforcement of civil penalties against truck and commercial vehicles for safety violations until separate legislation is passed to move motor carrier safety functions out of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The provision would also have the impact of eliminating authority to shut down unfit carriers who pose a serious threat to highway safety. While it is the intent of the committee to mark up a bill this month, it does not make sense to hamstring the agency charged with regulating and enforcing safety until the legislative process has taken its course. H.R. 3036 passed the House last night under suspension of the rules and quick consideration by the Senate today will ensure that the enforcement authority for motor carriers will be restored to the DOT. As we consider authorizing legislation that will reorganize and reprioritize the functions of the Office of Motor Carriers, this legislation will enable the federal government to continue to enforce important federal truck safety rules. This bill is fair in that it provides authority to DOT to continue to levy penalties until we finalize legislation on this matter. There are pending bills in both bodies, it would be premature to change the functions of this critical safety agency prior to the completion of properly considered legislation.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to recognize today the congregation of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, S.C. as it celebrates its 250th anniversary on October 23 1999. Beth Elohim is the fourth oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. The congregation still worships in a synagogue built in 1840-41 in the Greek Revival style, making it the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the United States. In 1980, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark. Jewish settlers arrived in Charleston as early as 1695 and by 1749 were numerous enough to organize the present congregation of Beth Elohim, then known as Holy Congregational House of God. These settlers were attracted by South Carolina's civil and religious liberty as well as the economic opportunities the colony offered. In 1792, construction of the synagogue began. The structure stood until being destroyed in the Charleston fire of 1838. The visiting General Marquis de Lafayette observed the original building to be ``spacious and elegant.'' Beth Elohim also holds the distinction of being the cradle of Reform Judaism in the United States. In 1824, a group of progressive members of the congregation petitioned for a shortened Hebrew ritual, English translation of prayers and a sermon in English. Their petition being denied, they decided to organize The Reformed Society of Israelites. It was a short-lived society, but when the members returned to the congregation at Beth Elohim, their practices and principles influenced the worship service there and today still form the basis of Reform Judaism. During the construction of the new temple in 1840, an organ was installed, encased in mahogany to complement the building's interior. Said to have 700 pipes and costing $2,500, the organ provided the first instrumental music used in worship in any synagogue in America. Many members of K.K. Beth Elohim have been distinguished city, state and national leaders, including early congregant Moses Lindo, who before the Revolution helped to develop the cultivation of indigo. Joseph Levy, veteran of the Cherokee War of 1760-61, was probably the first Jewish military officer in America. Almost two dozen men of Beth Elohim served in the American Revolution, most notably Francis Salvador who, as a delegate to the South Carolina Provincial Congresses of 1775- 1776, was one of the first Jews to serve in the American legislature. The blind poet Penina Moise was a famous early superintendent of the Jewish Sunday School at Beth Elohim. Today, Beth Elohim is led by Rabbi Anthony David Holz and Rabbi Emeritus William A. Rosenthall. The congregation continues to function as a vital part of the Charleston community and deserves many congratulations on reaching this milestone--250 years of rich history.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill and I am pleased we will have this opportunity to consider the current state of the aviation industry and some of the enormous challenges facing our air transportation system over the next decade. I resisted efforts earlier this year to bypass Senate consideration of this major transportation bill and go directly to conference with the House when the Senate passed a short term extension bill for the Airport Improvement Program. We need to have a serious debate on the increasing demands for air transportation, the capital requirements for our future air transportation system, the availability of federal funding and whether the current structure of the aviation trust fund will meet those needs, and finally, the lack of competition and minimal service that most small and medium sized communities are faced with in this era of airline deregulation. I want to commend Senators McCain, Rockefeller and Gorton for their hard work in resolving so many issues prior to bringing this bill to the floor. I am disturbed, however, by provisions in this bill which would force even more planes into an already jammed system in New York as well as Washington's National Airport. At a time when delays are at an all-time high, we continue to authorize more flights into and out of these already busy airports. I am even more perplexed at the timing of the current call to privatize our Air Traffic Control System. While certain segments of the industry support this effort, we often too quickly gravitate toward solutions such as privatization as cure all for whatever ails the system, instead of simply ensuring that the FAA has the tools and money it needs to do its job. Aviation has become a global business and is an important part of the transportation infrastructure and a vital part of our national economy. Every day our air transportation system moves millions of people and billions of dollars of cargo. While many predicted that an economy based on advanced communications and technology would reduce our need for travel, the opposite has proved true. The U.S. commercial aviation industry recorded its fifth consecutive year of traffic growth, while the general aviation industry enjoyed a banner year in shipments and aircraft activity at FAA air traffic facilities. To a large extent, growth in both domestic and international markets has been driven by the continued economic expansion in the U.S. and most world economies. The FAA Aerospace Forecasts Report, Fiscal Years 1999-2010, was issued in March of this year and forecasts aviation activity at all FAA facilities through the year 2010. The 12-year forecast is based on moderate economic growth and inflation, and relatively constant real fuel prices. Based on these assumptions, U.S. scheduled domestic passenger emplanements are forecast to increase 50.4 percent--air carriers increasing 49.3 percent and regional/commuters growing by 87.5 percent. Total International passenger traffic between the United States and the rest of the world is projected to increase 82.6 percent. International passenger traffic carried on U.S. Flag carriers is forecast to increase 94.2 percent. These percentages represent a dramatic increase in the actual number of people using the air system, even when compared to the increase in air travel that occurred over the last ten years. Daily enplanements are expected to grow to more than 1 billion by 2009. In 2010, there will be 828 million domestic enplanements compared to last year's 554.6 million, and there will be 230.2 million international enplanements compared to today's figure of 126.1 million. Respectively, this represents an annual growth of 3.4% and 4.95% per year. Regional and commuter traffic is expected to grow even faster at the rate of 6.4%. Total enplanements in this category should reach 59.7 million in 2010. As of September 1997, there were 107 regional jets operating in the U.S. airline fleet. In the FAA Aviation Forecasts Fiscal years 1998- 2009, the FAA predicts that there will be more than 800 of these in the U.S. fleet by FY2009. Correspondingly, the growth in air travel has placed a strain on the aviation system and has further increased delays. In 1998, 23% of flights by major air carriers were delayed. MITRE, the FAA's federally- funded research and development organization, estimates that just to maintain delays at current levels in 2015, a 60% increase in airport capacity will be needed. As many of you may know, and perhaps experienced first hand, delays reached an all-time high this summer. These delays are inordinately costly to both the carriers and the traveling public; in fact, according to the Air Transport Association, delays cost the airlines and travelers $3.9 billion for 1997. We cannot ignore the numbers. These statistics underscore the necessity of properly funding our investment--we must modernize our Air Traffic Control system and expand our airport infrastructure. In 1997, the National Civil Aviation Review Commission came out with a report stating the gridlock in the skies is a certainty unless the Air Traffic Control, ATC, system and National Air Space are modernized. A system- wide delay increase of just a few minutes per flight will bring commercial operations to a halt. American Airlines published a separate study confirming these findings. A third, done by the White House Commission on Aviation Security and Safety, dated January 1997 and commonly known as the Gore Commission, recommends that modernization of the ATC system be expedited to completion by 2005 instead of 2015. Regrettably, as the need to upgrade and replace the systems used by our air traffic controllers grows, funding has steadily decreased since 1992. In FY '92 the Facilities and Equipment account was funded at $2.4 Billion. In l997, F&E was $l.938 Billion. In 1998, the account was funded at 1.901 billion. Assuming a conservative 2015 completion date, the modernization effort requires $3 billion per year in funding for the Facilities and Equipment Account alone, the mainspring of the modernization effort. Unfortunately, S.82 authorizes $2.689 billion for FY2000 while the Appropriations Committee has provided only $2.075 billion. We are falling short every year and losing critical ground in the race to update our national air transportation system. Increasing capacity through technological advances is crucial to the functionality of the FAA and the aviation industry. Today, a great deal of the equipment used by the Air Traffic Controllers is old and becoming obsolete. Our air traffic controllers are the front line defense and insure the safety of the traveling public every day by separating aircraft and guiding takeoffs and landings. Our lives and those of our families, friends, and constituents are in their hands. These controllers and technicians do a terrific job. The fact that their equipment is so antiquated makes their efforts even more heroic. We have the funds to modernize our air facilities but refuse to spend them and by doing so Congress perpetuates a fraud on the traveling public. The Airport and Airways Trust Fund, AAF, was created to provide a dedicated funding source for critical aviation programs and the money in the fund is generated solely from taxes imposed on air travelers and the airline industry. The fund was created so that users of the air transportation system would bear the burden of maintaining and improving the system. The traveling public has continued to honor its part of the agreement through the payment of ticket taxes, but the federal government has not. Congress has refused to annually appropriate the full amount generated in the trust fund despite the growing needs in the aviation industry. The surplus generated in the trust fund is used to fund the general operations of government, similar to the way in which Congress has used surplus generated in the Social Security trust fund. At the end of FY 2000, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that there will be a cash balance of $14.047 billion in the AATF, for FY2001, it will be $16.499 billion. By FY2009, the balance will grow to $71.563 billion. Instead of using these monies to fund the operation of the general government, we should use them to fund aviation improvements, which is what we promised the American public when we enacted and then increased the airline ticket tax. Let's get our aviation transport system up to par and let's provide ways to increase competition and maintain our worldwide leadership in aviation. Let's follow the lead of Chairman Shuster and Congressman Oberstar and vote to take the Trust Fund off-budget. I look forward to a thoughtful debate on these issues and I intend to work with Senators McCain, Rockefeller, and Gorton to accomplish this common goal of ensuring that the safest and most efficient air transportation system in the world stays so. national airspace redesign

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I join my colleague Senator Frist in introducing this bill to authorize the atmospheric programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Fire Administration, and the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) through FY 2002. These agencies are doing important work to protect public safety through prediction, education, and mitigation efforts. This bill authorizes the ``dry'' side of NOAA, the Fire Administration, and NEHRP at the President's requested level for FY 2000. The Senate-passed Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill provided additional monies for the Weather Service and atmospheric research within NOAA, and Senator Frist has agreed to revise this authorization bill during the Commerce Committee's consideration to reflect this additional support. As many of you know, I have been trying to put the ``O'' back in NOAA for years, so it is interesting to be co-sponsoring a bill which authorizes only the ``dry'' side of NOAA. My support for the ``wet'' programs of NOAA has not waned. Senator Frist, Senator Breaux, and I have also been working with Senators Kerry and Snowe to craft a bill which will authorize all of the programs of NOAA. NOAA is doing some important work. We need only look at their superior warnings during and after Hurricane Floyd to see that the National Weather Service directly impacts the lives of Americans every day. Every weather report heard on the Weather Channel, CNN, and local affiliates was based on information provided by NOAA. The agency worked with emergency managers, the private sector, and the public to make sure that its predictions and warnings were heard and could save lives and property. NOAA's atmospheric scientists are also at work to help us understand what our weather might be like not just next week but also next year or in the next decade. NOAA is trying to understand long-term climate change, as well as seasonal patterns like El Nino and La Nina. Meanwhile, NOAA's satellite operations keep our eyes in the sky in working order and help us understand and predict the path of large systems like hurricanes. I especially appreciate the hard work that the Weather Service has undertaken in its modernization. While this is still a work in progress, NOAA has improved warning times and accuracy while undertaking a difficult streamlining process. I wonder if Congress may have asked NOAA to do too much with too little and am glad that the Weather Service has been able to fulfill its important mandate even where we might have cut too close to the bone. Mr. President, while I hope each of us are benefitting from the forecasts and warnings of the Weather Service, I hope that far fewer of us have to interact with this nation's fire service. The United States has over 2 million fires annually. Each one can devastate a family or business. I should know. This August I lost my home in Charleston, South Carolina. The statistics--approximately 4500 deaths, 30,000 civilian injuries, more than $8 billion in direct property losses, and more than $50 billion in costs to taxpayers each year--do not tell the whole story. A fire can take away a lifetime of things that have true value only to the person who has suffered the loss. The tragic thing is that most of these fires are preventable. The bill would authorize the United States Fire Administration which provides invaluable services--such as training, data, arson assistance, and research of better safety equipment and clothing--to the more than 1.2 million paid and volunteer firefighters throughout the nation. I hope the Fire Administration will work quickly to resolve the outstanding recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel so that they can once again focus on reducing losses from fire and meet new challenges like medical emergencies, hazardous spills, and even acts of terrorism. The Strategic Plan called for in Section 302 of the bill should lay out a road map for this process. Finally, the bill would authorize the programs of the NEHRP. While most people only think of California as having earthquakes, all or parts of 39 states--populated by more than 70 million people--have been classified as having major or moderate seismic risk. In 1886, an earthquake leveled my hometown of Charleston. Estimates of the strength of the Charleston quake range from 7.0 to 7.6 on the Richter Scale. Of particular interest and concern about east coast quakes is that there is no known geological origin for them. This fact underscores the possibility of unpredictable seismic activity in the United States. What we do know though is that the loss of life and property from earthquakes can be considerable. That is what NEHRP is here for. It is a Federal interagency program--with participation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Service, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology--designed to help minimize the loss of life and property caused by earthquakes. It is supports scientific research on the origins of earthquakes, and funds engineering research to make buildings and other structures more seismically resistant. NEHRP also disseminates this technical information to the states and helps states and localities prepare for earthquakes. NEHRP focuses on helping states prepare for earthquakes, in contrast to Federal disaster response programs that help states after a major event. Mr. President, in conclusion the public safety programs authorized in this bill--the Weather Service, fire safety, and earthquake preparedness--protect the lives and property of every American citizen. Protecting public safety is one of the first and most important functions of government, and I am hopeful that my colleagues will join me in supporting these programs and this bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I join my colleague Senator Frist in introducing this bill to authorize the atmospheric programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Fire Administration, and the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) through FY 2002. These agencies are doing important work to protect public safety through prediction, education, and mitigation efforts. This bill authorizes the ``dry'' side of NOAA, the Fire Administration, and NEHRP at the President's requested level for FY 2000. The Senate-passed Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill provided additional monies for the Weather Service and atmospheric research within NOAA, and Senator Frist has agreed to revise this authorization bill during the Commerce Committee's consideration to reflect this additional support. As many of you know, I have been trying to put the ``O'' back in NOAA for years, so it is interesting to be co-sponsoring a bill which authorizes only the ``dry'' side of NOAA. My support for the ``wet'' programs of NOAA has not waned. Senator Frist, Senator Breaux, and I have also been working with Senators Kerry and Snowe to craft a bill which will authorize all of the programs of NOAA. NOAA is doing some important work. We need only look at their superior warnings during and after Hurricane Floyd to see that the National Weather Service directly impacts the lives of Americans every day. Every weather report heard on the Weather Channel, CNN, and local affiliates was based on information provided by NOAA. The agency worked with emergency managers, the private sector, and the public to make sure that its predictions and warnings were heard and could save lives and property. NOAA's atmospheric scientists are also at work to help us understand what our weather might be like not just next week but also next year or in the next decade. NOAA is trying to understand long-term climate change, as well as seasonal patterns like El Nino and La Nina. Meanwhile, NOAA's satellite operations keep our eyes in the sky in working order and help us understand and predict the path of large systems like hurricanes. I especially appreciate the hard work that the Weather Service has undertaken in its modernization. While this is still a work in progress, NOAA has improved warning times and accuracy while undertaking a difficult streamlining process. I wonder if Congress may have asked NOAA to do too much with too little and am glad that the Weather Service has been able to fulfill its important mandate even where we might have cut too close to the bone. Mr. President, while I hope each of us are benefitting from the forecasts and warnings of the Weather Service, I hope that far fewer of us have to interact with this nation's fire service. The United States has over 2 million fires annually. Each one can devastate a family or business. I should know. This August I lost my home in Charleston, South Carolina. The statistics--approximately 4500 deaths, 30,000 civilian injuries, more than $8 billion in direct property losses, and more than $50 billion in costs to taxpayers each year--do not tell the whole story. A fire can take away a lifetime of things that have true value only to the person who has suffered the loss. The tragic thing is that most of these fires are preventable. The bill would authorize the United States Fire Administration which provides invaluable services--such as training, data, arson assistance, and research of better safety equipment and clothing--to the more than 1.2 million paid and volunteer firefighters throughout the nation. I hope the Fire Administration will work quickly to resolve the outstanding recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel so that they can once again focus on reducing losses from fire and meet new challenges like medical emergencies, hazardous spills, and even acts of terrorism. The Strategic Plan called for in Section 302 of the bill should lay out a road map for this process. Finally, the bill would authorize the programs of the NEHRP. While most people only think of California as having earthquakes, all or parts of 39 states--populated by more than 70 million people--have been classified as having major or moderate seismic risk. In 1886, an earthquake leveled my hometown of Charleston. Estimates of the strength of the Charleston quake range from 7.0 to 7.6 on the Richter Scale. Of particular interest and concern about east coast quakes is that there is no known geological origin for them. This fact underscores the possibility of unpredictable seismic activity in the United States. What we do know though is that the loss of life and property from earthquakes can be considerable. That is what NEHRP is here for. It is a Federal interagency program--with participation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Service, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology--designed to help minimize the loss of life and property caused by earthquakes. It is supports scientific research on the origins of earthquakes, and funds engineering research to make buildings and other structures more seismically resistant. NEHRP also disseminates this technical information to the states and helps states and localities prepare for earthquakes. NEHRP focuses on helping states prepare for earthquakes, in contrast to Federal disaster response programs that help states after a major event. Mr. President, in conclusion the public safety programs authorized in this bill--the Weather Service, fire safety, and earthquake preparedness--protect the lives and property of every American citizen. Protecting public safety is one of the first and most important functions of government, and I am hopeful that my colleagues will join me in supporting these programs and this bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to recognize today one of South Carolina's finest public servants, Judge Lewis Stith. August 1 marked Mr. Stith's 43d year of continued service to the town of Sullivan's Island. A native of Sullivan's Island, Mr. Stith and his wife, Marguerite, raised their five children there after he returned from service in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. He later served in the Korean war. In 1956, Lewis Stith was appointed a Charleston County magistrate, a position he held for 25 years. In 1981, he was appointed municipal judge of Sullivan's Island, a position he still holds. Judge Stith's civic accomplishments are numerous and include helping to organize the Sullivan's Island Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department 51 years ago. The Sept. 1-7 issue of the Moultrie News featured an article which pays tribute to Lewis Stith's commitment to Sullivan's Island and to his wife and children who are continuing the island leadership tradition. I ask that the article be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the Moultrie News, Sept. 1999] Lewis Stith of Sullivan's Island The ``Island Boys'' ruled the beach back then. Lewis Stith, Burt and George Wurthman, Frank and Vernon Damewood, Tony Blanchard, and John and Otis Pickett, just to name a few, spent their days enjoying the ocean, and playing half rubber on the beach at Sullivan's Island. Life was simple. Being surrounded by summer cottages and neighbors that knew everyone made life a yearlong vacation. The Pavilion was located at Station 22 and Burmester's Pharmacy was where Sullivan's Restaurant now stands. The soldiers at Fort Moultrie shot off the cannons everyday at 5 p.m. to mark the end of the day. Lewis Stith, who was born at Station 24, November 9th, 1921, is still there and though his life has taken him on many journeys, he always returns because, ``There's no place in the world like Sullivan's Island!'' The son of Luther P. and Susan Maguire Stith, Lewis is a well known figure on Sullivan's Island. After high school, Lewis went on to work for the Army as a Post Exchange Clerk and later as a bookkeeper until WW II. He then entered the Coast Guard and served at various shore stations and was eventually assigned to a troop transport--U.S.S. General A.W. Brewster APA 155--as a gunners mate. He traveled the European, Asiatic and Pacific theaters transporting troops. At the end of the war, Lewis was discharged on the WWII Point System in 1945. Lewis returned to Sullivan's Island to be with his wife Marguerite Strickland and eventually raised five children. His sons are well known islanders as well. Paul is a Wachovia Bank Manager, Marshall is the Mayor of Sullivan's Island and owner of Station 22 Restaurant, and Anthony is the Sullivan's Island Fire Chief. Their two daughters, Debbie White and Susan Hindman, are both school teachers. The Stith's have six grandchildren. After several jobs, 35 years at the Exxon corporation and also serving in the Korean War, Lewis was appointed a Charleston County Magistrate on August 1st, 1956, by State Senator T. Allen Legare. He remained a Magistrate for 25 years. On August 1st, 1981, Lewis was appointed Municipal Judge for Sullivan's Island and is still serving in this position. ``When I was first appointed Magistrate in 1956,'' said Stith ``Mount Pleasant, Sullivan's Island, and the Isle of Palms had only one police officer in each town. Buck Gossett was the only Highway Patrolman in the area and Charleston County had very few officers back then.'' Fifty-one years ago, five guys got together to form the Sullivan's Island Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department. Lewis, along with Art Chiola, Joe Rowland, Red Wood and Leo Truesdale are the original five members and are still active in the volunteer effort today. The Army donated two trucks and a station to house them. They were the first volunteer rescue squad in the county. Lewis served as chief of the department, and recalls one particular devastating fire that was very chilling. ``I think it was 1952 on Station 28. The house was in the shape of an H. The kitchen wall backed up to the children's bedroom wall and a gas fire ignited and spread. Art Chiola and I found the children the next day in a closet,'' he said, describing the remains as gruesome. ``Apparently, they couldn't find the door and entered the closet looking for a way out.'' The Volunteer Fire Department started some of Sullivan's Island's most popular events including the annual Fish Fry and Oyster Roast. Fifty one years ago, the Fish Fry started as a fund raiser for Red Wood's sister-in-law who need surgery for an aneurysm. It eventually grew into a large community event and the proceeds raised now go to fund the Fire and Rescue Division's special training and equipment. ``We have a tremendous turnout these days,'' said Lewis. ``When we first started it was in the same location that it is now, but all we had was some cinder blocks and a steel plate to cook on. Now things have grown and we have the present facility called `The Big Tin.' '' Lewis and Marguerite remember the good old days on the island. ``After Labor day,'' said Marguerite, ``The vacationers would all go home and there would only be about 25 permanent residents.'' ``We played recreation activities with the soldiers and got to see first run movies at the fort,'' added Lewis. ``Middle Street was the only road through the town and you could drive your car on the beach.'' Marguerite was a Charleston girl, and Lewis met her through a friend. He began to date her and, according to Marguerite, ``We'd come over the Sullivan's Island Bridge and every time he would say, `Smell that good salt air? Isn't it great?' I never told him that I could smell that same air on the Cooper River Bridge and in Charleston,'' she said laughing. ``He thought there was no better place than Sullivan's Island, and he was right!'' After Hurricane Hugo though, the island completely changed. ``All the summer cottages were wiped out entirely and replaced with massive homes that tower over the beach. But this is still God's country!'' said Lewis. ``You can't find a better place to raise a family.'' August 1st of this year marked the 43rd Anniversary of Lewis's continued service for the Town of Sullivan's Island. He's done many other things for the town, including forming the VFW Walter Brownell Post #3137 on Sullivan's Island. He served as the first Commander. Lewis attributes all of his success to many things, but his greatest accomplishment he said, was marrying his wife and raising his five successful children. ``I owe it all to my good family upbringing. I grew up during the Depression and we just learned to take care of what you had. I am also a member of Stella Maris Catholic Church. These things have taken me where I'm at today.'' Still active as a judge, and still loving Sullivan's Island like he always has, Lewis sums it up by saying, ``I've been all over the world, and there is no place like the sandy spot we live on. I love it here.''

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, over the August recess South Carolina lost one of her most distinguished native sons, Lane Kirkland. Unless you knew Lane personally, you weren't likely to know he was a proud South Carolinian. If you did know him personally, there was no way not to know he was a proud South Carolinian. He went to South Carolina regularly; sometimes to see his brothers Ranny and Tommy, sometimes just to go to the wonderful small town of Camden where he spent his childhood summers. Whenever we would meet, officially or not, we always spent some time talking about South Carolina. Lane remembered and cherished his roots, but they did not bind him. He had grown up with people who could not see through their rich heritage to the future. Lane was acutely aware of this trap and he illustrated this brilliantly in a commencement address to the University of South Carolina in 1985. I owe to Sidney Hook a thought that I offer as my final conclusion from all this. From him I learned the difference between a truth and a deep truth. A deep truth is a truth the converse of which is equally true. For example, it is true, as Santayana said, that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Yet it is equally true that those who do remember the past may not know when it is over. That is a deep truth. Lane Kirkland was a complex person as evidenced by his many contradictions. He was a Southerner who found his education and opportunity in New York; he descended from planters but had his first success as a sea captain; he was a child of privilege who became a self-described New Dealer; he was an intellectual who fought for miners and mill workers; and perhaps most importantly, he was a liberal anti- Communist. Lane had many triumphs in his life, but none was so important as the leading role he played in the liberation of Eastern Europe and the fall of the wall. He committed the resources of the American labor movement to preserve Lech Walesa and Solidarity. The New York Post wrote that ``Kirkland must be included among a select group of leaders--including Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa--who played a critical role in bringing about the demise of Communism.'' William Safire, no fan of organized labor, wrote this about Lane Kirkland and Lech Walesa: ``Together these two anti-Communist patriots fought the Soviet empire when the weak-kneed were bleating `convergence'. Their refusal to compromise with evil exemplified the leadership that helped win--the word is `win'--the cold war.'' As a South Carolinian and an American, I am proud of the central role that Lane played in the central struggle of this century. People in the United States and around the world know the exhilaration and opportunity that freedom brings in part because of Lane Kirkland. In his last speech in South Carolina, Lane addressed the South Carolina Historical Society. He opened by saying, ``I am honored to be here even though it suggests that I am history.'' In reality Lane Kirkland made history.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, yesterday the Republican majority continued to try and create a strategy to embarrass President Clinton and those Members of Congress that opposed the so-called tax-cut bill. I found their strategy quite ironic that while this country is less than 20 days away from the end of a fiscal year when the U.S. Government will spend more than $100 billion than it takes in that the Republicans are insisting on giving tax breaks to the rich that the country cannot afford. William Greider, a former assistant managing editor of the Washington Post and now National Editor for Rolling Stone, explains the issue of the phantom surplus very well in an article headlined ``The Surplus Fallacy.'' Mr. Greider has done a great job in explaining that there is no surplus, there is no money to give a tax break with, and more importantly, this country spends more than it takes in each year. I think this article should be required reading for any Member of Congress that has to vote on a federal budget in the next two months so they may understand where this country really stands fiscally. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to applaud the renomination by the President of Linda J. Morgan to another term with the Surface Transportation Board, and his express intention to re-designate her as Chairman. Linda Morgan, who was with us on the Commerce Committee for several years, has been Chairman of the Board and its predecessor, the Interstate Commerce Commission, since 1995. Many times before, I have publicly praised the outstanding job she has done in steering the Board and the transportation sector through some very rough seas. Her intellect, knowledge, competence and experience continue to be indispensable to the resolution of the many issues that confront this key segment of the economy. And she has exhibited the kind of integrity, fairness, spirit, and work ethic that are essential to the proper exercise of the Board's important adjudicative functions. With this reappointment, the Senate has the opportunity to approve a first-rate leader and public servant--one of the best and brightest. I know that I will have the cooperation of all of my colleagues on the Commerce Committee and in the full Senate in expeditiously moving this outstanding nomination through to confirmation.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. If the Congress Swamp National Monument is deemed to have critical health and safety deficiencies, inadequate resources protection capabilities or shortfalls in visitor services, can a portion of this $27 million be used to hire additional staff?

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank both the Chairman and Ranking Member for everything they have done in support of our National Parks. I also want the National Park Service to work with the Congress Swamp National Monument, as well as other park sites, to make sure that they are adequately staffed to carry out their stated missions. forest service research

Mr. HOLLINGS. With an additional $69.5 million, is there any funding provided that would help the Congaree Swamp National Monument in its attempt to address the need for additional staff?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a project that the Senate has been working on for over two decades, the Congaree Swamp National Monument. When this National Monument was established in 1976, its purpose was to educate present and future generations. Mr. President, through the leadership of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, we have come a long way. In FY'98, funding was provided to build and pave a new entrance road and with FY'99 funds, the park's first visitor facility, a 10,300 sq. ft. education and administration facility is near completion. The total estimated cost for these two projects was $5.814 million. Through a partnership with the National Guard, Richland County, and a local non- profit organization these projects will be built for a total cost of $2.16 million. That is a savings of $3.65 million to the American tax payer. Now that a new administration facility is close to being completed, we face the difficult task of providing adequate staffing levels at the Congaree National Monument. Increased staffing levels are needed at this monument to ensure safety and to provide education to the increasing number of park visitors. While I know earmarking operational funds for specific park sites is not the best course of action, I do want to bring to light the problem that this National Monument will be facing in the near future. In 1996, an on-site operations review by seven Atlantic Coast Cluster Superintendents concluded that ``the [park's] staffing level is inadequate to provide minimum resource protection and visitor services''. The report continued with the statement that ``the park staff, with considerable support from an excellent volunteer cadre, is doing a valiant job of operating the park to the best of their ability, but lack the same breadth of resources and facilities in other National Park Service sites. * * * '' More than 300-school group program requests were denied last year because of the lack of staff. A large percentage of park visitors leave without learning the significance of the park due to the lack of programs. The shortage of staff will become even more critical with completion of the new infrastructure and increased visitation.