Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin for this fame and effort in this very significant issue. funding for dea

Mr. HOLLINGS. I agree with my distinguished colleague from Arizona and look forward to working with him on this issue this year.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I concur with the Chairman.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I agree with you, Senator Gregg, that the 4 Safe VA project is a creative and solid approach to preventing and reacting to possible school crises in the State of Virginia. I agree that this is the type of program that should be funded under the Safe Schools Initiative. I also hope that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention give full consideration to funding this program.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, it is the Committee's intent that $2.0 million in ATP carry-over funds be provided to the EPSCoT program for FY 2000 grants. Distribution of technology funds to Burlington, Rutland, and Saint Johnsbury

Mr. HOLLINGS. I concur with my good friend and colleague from the New Hampshire on the use of the increased funds for the Office of Advocacy. In addition, it was our intent to add 5 full-time equivalent employees in the Office of Advocacy bringing the total for FY 2000 to 54 full- time employees.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of a sense of the Senate regarding the European Council noise rule affecting hushkitted and reengined aircraft. Under the guise of an environmental regulation, the European Union is engaged in a blatant effort to lock out the U.S. industry. Once again the EU is dragging its feet rather than finding a balanced resolution to this issue. It is time that we turned up the heat on the EU and roll back this patently protectionist measure.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The Subcommittee Chairman has accurately stated the intent of the Committee with regard to this issue. school safety initiative

Mr. HOLLINGS. I concur with the statement by Senator Gregg. the bunker hill site

Mr. HOLLINGS. Definitely.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, the Chairman is correct.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. No points of order, no second degrees.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we have all heard the expression stand and be counted for democracy. Come on, give me a break. No one really thinks a Senator obviously elected to office is against democracy. No one in his right mind could think that the Department of State is against democracy and is incapable. What we have is a deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimates at this particular moment we are spending over $100 billion more than we are taking in this year. I didn't know this was coming up, but since I get questioned about there being no surplus for the year 1999, the Congressional Budget Office, as of June 30, estimated that we will spend this fiscal year, which ends at the end of September, $103 billion more than we take in. The President's own document, the OMB projection, not only states we will have a deficit for the next 5 years, but the deficit and the debt will continue for a 15-year period, the debt going up from $5.6 trillion to $7.7 trillion. It is going up to 2.1 trillion bucks and everyone is running around talking about surplus, and we are getting 602(b) allocations at the Subcommittee on State, Justice, Commerce, of $1.3 billion less than we have this year. We are spending more than we are taking in, and otherwise trying to find $1.7 billion in the census. Faced with those constrictions, I wonder where in the world do you find money for the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the Democratic Party and Republican Party--how do you justify it? Back in the eighties we had Lech Walesa and they did have a wonderful labor movement and they did bring democracy there in Poland. But I don't know of the labor movement that is going on in the People's Republic of China. I have been there three times now and I have yet to meet a labor leader, much less the likes or ilk of Lech Walesa. So, yes, we stand up to be counted for democracy. We are hoping to sustain the economic credibility of this particular republic by saying we have to make choices. I tried to pay for these programs. I have even introduced a value-added tax allocated to reducing the deficit and the debt and taking care of Social Security. But these friends who come to the floor and talk in fanciful terms about they are for democracy and independent movements for democracy--the inference being, of course, the State Department is not--on the contrary. I hear about taking it from the Capital Investment Fund. I remember working some 4 years ago with Under Secretary Moose, Dick Moose, who used to be the director of our Foreign Relations Committee who the distinguished Senator from Indiana would remember well. Everybody is talking about security of the Embassies and facilities in the Department of State. The communications computerization of the Department of State and the Embassies overseas and around the world is in terrible shape. It is similar to the Pony Express. So 4 years ago we instituted the Capital Investment Fund to get Y2K compliance. The Chamber of Commerce, that crowd that was running all over the floor fixing the votes for Y2K--a problem that could not possibly happen for 6 months and everybody is beginning to comply and they wanted to upset 200 years of tort law back at the State level where they know how to administer it best--they came in to do that. And now they want to make darn sure the Department of State is not Y2K compliant. Tell the Chamber of Commerce to look for democracy somewhere else and money somewhere else. The same for all these other entities that want to get NED, the National Endowment for Democracy. It is a political sop. It has been that for several years and everybody knows it. We would like to give it all to desirable things. There have been some good things that happened under the National Endowment for Democracy years back, but they continue to embellish and run around with responsibilities they try to find, makeshift and otherwise, so they know it is going to be in trouble when they come to the floor. They get distinguished leadership to bring these amendments. I take it I will be in a minority, but I have gotten used to being a minority of the minority. With that said, I hope we can save this amount of money somehow, the $30 million. It is not easy to get the moneys we need all over for the Department of State. I can tell you now, we are on course. To take $30 million from the telecommunications upgrades and computerization upgrades we are now about doing, and start cutting that back for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, is out of the whole cloth for this Senator who stands here in the well for democracy. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. We are prepared to accept it. And as I said, no points of order.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the Senator from Delaware has made an outstanding presentation. I join in the comments of my distinguished chairman. We are ready to accept the amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. That is the reason I wanted to make the point. I understand a motion to table may be made. I hope we won't table it. The Senator from California is only making real the compromise agreement entered into some 2 years ago with the opposition. I thank the Senator for her leadership.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I suggest the absence of a quorum for a second.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Good. They are ready, then, to lay down that amendment on COPS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Senator Biden and Senator Leahy wish to be heard on this in the morning. If it is all right with the distinguished chairman, we will reserve that time for the morning.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I suggest to the distinguished chairman that we limit the time to be equally divided.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my subcommittee chairman and colleague, Senator Gregg, in presenting to the Senate S. 1217, the fiscal year 2000 Commerce, Justice, and State, the judiciary, and related agencies appropriations bill. Once again, I would like to commend Chairman Gregg for his outstanding efforts and bipartisan approach in bringing a bill to the floor that--in most areas--is good and balanced. We fund a wide variety of Federal programs through this appropriations bill. We fund the FBI, the DEA, the State Department and our embassies overseas, the Census Bureau, NOAA, the Supreme Court, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the list goes on and on. As a result, this bill provides funding for a host of efforts that range from fighting ``the war on drugs'' and ``the battle against cybercrimes'', to preparing at the local level against ``domestic terrorism'' and ``natural disasters.'' This bill provides funding to protect both our elderly citizens from abuse and marketing scams and our youth from sexual predators on the streets and on the Internet. We provide funding for fisheries research and atmospheric research; we provide funding for our weather satellite systems and forecasts; we provide funding for the management of our fragile coastal areas--initiatives that impact every single aspect of our community-- businesses, farms, the fishing industry, the tourism industry, and the consumer. In total, this bill provides $34.1 billion in budget authority which is about $400 million above last year's appropriated level. Even though we had an increase of $400 million in our allocation for fiscal year 2000, the funding level requested for the Census Bureau for fiscal year 2000 was a $1.7 billion increase above the current funding level. In other words, Mr. President, to fully fund the 2000 decennial census we were required to cut $1.3 billion in funding from the fiscal year 1999 funding level for all other programs. This was not an easy task, and with the exception of a few circumstances that I will touch on in greater detail later, Senator Gregg did a remarkable job. Chairman Gregg has mentioned many of the funding specifics in this bill, so I will not repeat the details; however, I would like to point out to our colleagues some of the highlights of this bill. This bill provides $17 billion for the Department of Justice, including $2.9 billion for the FBI, $1.2 billion for the DEA, and $3 billion for the Office of Justice programs. Within the Department of Justice, we continue the Safe Schools Initiative which Senator Gregg and I started last year, and provides $218 million in funding for additional school resource officers, technology, and community initiatives in an effort to combat violence in our schoools. Mr. President, again this year Americans watched news stories unfold about shootings and other violent acts as they occurred in our schools. Violent crime in our schools is simply unacceptable and must be stopped. We cannot allow violence or the threat of violence to turn our schools into a hostile setting that prevents our students from obtaining the education they deserve. To fully understand the circumstances under which our youth are attending school, one needs to only look at a few statistics that have been gathered recently: During the 1996-97 school year, 10 percent of all public schools reported one or more serious violent crimes to the police or other law enforcement representatives. An additional 47 percent of public schools reported at least one less serious or nonviolent crime to police. (1998 Department of Education Annual Report on School Safety) About 6,093 students were expelled during the 1996-1997 academic school year for bringing firearms or explosives to school. (1998 Report on State Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act--School Year: 1996- 1997, Department of Education) In 1995, over 2 million students between the ages 12 and 19 feared they were going to be attacked or harmed at school. Likewise, about 2.1 million students between the ages 12 an d19 avoided one or more places at school for fear of their own safety. (1998 Indicators of School Crime and Safety, U.S. Depts. of Education and Justice.) This Safe Schools initiative is aimed at protecting our children by putting more police in the school setting. The bill provides $180 million, $55 million above the President's request, through the Office of Justice programs solely for the hiring of school resource officers. The additional $38 million is directed towards community planning and prevention activities--for local police departments and sheriff's offices to work with schools and other community-based organizations to develop programs to improve the safety of elementary and secondary school children and educators in and around the schools of our nation. This is a much needed program, and an initiative that has proven to be successful in the past. This bill also provides $283.7 million for the Violence Against Women Program, $75 million for State prison grants, $400 million for the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program, $40 million for drug courts, and $284.5 million for juvenile justice programs. In addition, $25 million has again been provided for the bulletproof vest grant program to reduce the risk of serious injury or death to our nation's law enforcement officers. In an effort to respond to the proliferation of crimes involving children, the committee has provided $19.9 million for the Missing Children Program, an increase of $2.78 million over last year's amount. This money will be used to combat the ever increasing number of crimes against children with an emphasis on kidnapping and sexual exploitation. The bill provides $7.2 billion for the Commerce Department, of which $3.1 billion is to be used to conduct the decennial census. The administration submitted a budget amendment for an additional $1.7 billion in funding for the decennial census; unfortunately, we received that request only two days before consideration of the bill by the subcommittee and full committee. Senator Gregg and I are working on scheduling a hearing prior to conference with the House to address the budget amendment, and I appreciate the chairman's efforts in addressing this issue in a nonpartisan manner. The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is funded at $233.1 million which is above last year's level by $29.6 million, and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program is funded at a level of $109.8 million. This amount will fully fund all MEP centers. The bill also provides $2.5 billion for NOAA, an increase of $384 million over last year's funding level. I am pleased that the distinguished chairman has worked with me to insure that we maintain a focus on our oceans and coastal waterways. Regarding NOAA, Mr. President, if I could just take a minute, I would like to recognize the outstanding work of Dr. Nancy Foster, head of the National Ocean Service, which oversees the labs, estuarine reserves, and the Coastal Services Center in my home state of South Carolina. I can tell you she is one of the hardest working public servants with whom I have had the privilege of working over the past several years, and she has brought to the job boundless energy, understanding, and an ability to fix problems. Dr. Foster has been with NOAA since 1977. She helped create the National Marine Sanctuary and Estuarine Research Reserve Programs. These programs preserve America's near shore and offshore marine environments in the same manner as do the better known national parks and wildlife refuges run by the Department of the Interior. Nancy went on to serve as the Director of Protected Resources at NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, where she managed the Government's programs to protect and conserve whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other endangered and protected species. After that, she was named the Deputy Director of the entire fisheries service, where she proved especially sensitive to the economic impact on communities and the need to promote what the folks downtown and in academia call ``sustainable development.'' In 1997, Secretary Bill Daley and Under Secretary Jim Baker tapped Nancy to take over the National Ocean Service. That is about as high as a career professional can go; in other agencies or bureaus, this level of position would be held by at least an Assistant Secretary-level official. NOS is the oldest part of NOAA--coastal mapping traces its lineage back to 1807--and she directed reinvention and change so that the Ocean Service became one of the most modern and more effective parts of NOAA. Dr. Foster is always finding new ways to do business. She is an innovator. She directed the total modernization of NOAA's nautical mapping and charting. Along with Dr. Sylvia Earle, she has created a partnership with the National Geographic Society to launch a 5-year undersea exploratory program called ``Sustainable Seas Expeditions.'' Their goal is to use these exploratory dives to rekindle our nation's interest in the oceans, and especially the national marine sanctuaries. They are bringing back the kind of enthusiasm and public education that Jacques Cousteau created when I first came to the Senate. Mr. President, Nancy Foster is the person at NOAA whom the rank and file employees--the marine biologists, scientists and researchers-- trust and look up to. She is a role model for professional women everywhere, especially those who work in the sciences. She is an official whom we in the Congress can look to for leadership and who pays attention to local and constituent issues. She is non-partisan and plays it straight. Dr. Foster recently underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and is home recuperating. So Nancy, if you are watching at home on C-Span, on behalf of Senator Gregg, the Appropriations Committees as well as the Commerce Authorization Committee, and our professional staff, I want to wish you the best. Take your time and get well. We need you back on the job, and wish you a speedy recovery. The bill includes a total of $5.4 billion for the Department of State and related agencies. Within the State Department account, $883 million has been provided for worldwide security, an increase of $146 million above the President's request. Additionally, in recognition of the high profile risk that State Department family members face in overseas locations, $40 million has been included to improve the security in and around both housing and school areas for the families of those who serve in this capacity. The funding level also includes payment of international organization and peacekeeping funds, including $244 million for UN arrears. I highlighted a few minutes ago the Safe Schools Initiative that Chairman Gregg and I have worked together on for the past 2 years. I would also like to comment briefly on two other important initiatives before closing: electronic commerce and COPS. Regarding electronic commerce and the Internet, I would like to discuss an area which is growing in significance each day. With the explosion of the Internet as an electronic transaction medium, we cannot ignore the increasing potential for fraud, abuse, and attacks on consumer privacy. If we stop and take a look at the Internet and the potential that it has, we recognize that its very design allows schemers and con artists to reach more people, with more scams, at a faster rate while remaining virtually anonymous. This is a veritable breeding ground for electronic fraud and abuse. In fact, it was recently reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) receives more than 100 complaints per day about illegal Internet activity involving fraudulent stock and investment schemes. In 1998, the National Consumers League received over 7,700 Internet fraud complaints which was a 385-percent increase over the previous year. With reports like this I think that it is clear that protection efforts need to keep pace with the growing number of Internet users, particularly since estimates indicate that perhaps 50 percent of the population of the United States will have access to the Internet by the year 2000. In response to the growth of this sector, Mr. President, this bill includes funding for a number of programs and activities. I would like to again commend Chairman Gregg for his efforts to address this growing problem of Internet fraud, particularly given the tight budget constraints under which this bill was put together. This bill provides $133 million in funding to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for FY 2000, an increase of $16.7 million above the current funding level. This increase was provided in part because the subcommittee is mindful of the FTC's efforts toward ensuring that electronic commerce continues to flourish and consumers do not become victims of fraud and abuse while conducting transactions on the web. Additionally, the committee has provided $10 million in funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to assist in the prevention, detection, and prosecution of Internet related fraud and investment schemes. Finally, regarding the COPS initiative, I can fully understand the difficult decisions the chairman had to make as we put this bill together. And as I have stated, I support him on just about everything in this bill--with the exception of eliminating the COPS program. This is a good program that has proven to work. And it works well. Crime has been declining for 6\1/2\ consecutive years and is at a 25 year low. We are getting the jump on crime and this is not the time to just stop funding the program. Numerous law enforcement groups agree. The International Brotherhood of Police Officers support the program, the National Sheriffs Association supports the program, the National Troopers Coalition supports the program, the International Association of Chiefs of Police supports the program, and the list goes on. I completely understand the limitations under which the chairman operated in getting a bill to the floor. Several of my colleagues have been working for the past several weeks in putting together an amendment to reestablish the COPS Program. While I believe that program deserves even more funding than provided in the amendment, I also believe the amendment is a good response and practical effort toward restoring an effective and valuable program while acknowledging the many funding restraints imposed on this bill. I look forward to debating this issue further when the amendment is offered. In closing let me say again that given the allocation we received, this is a good bill. Many--but not all--of the administration's priorities were addressed to some extent. Likewise many--but not all-- of the priorities of congressional Members were addressed to some extent. I know that every year we face difficulties with respect to limited funding and multiple priorities, but the funding caps this year proved to be unusually prohibitive. As a result, tough decisions were made. However, I believe that the Commerce, Justice, State Subcommittee made those decisions in a bipartisan and judicious manner which will allow us to address many critical funding needs such as Census 2000, 1000 additional Border Patrol agents, counter-terrorism efforts, the FBI's capabilities to combat cybercrime and crimes against children, DEA's continued war on drugs, critical fisheries research, and overseas peacekeeping efforts. I would like to take a moment before closing to acknowledge and thank Senator Gregg's staff and my staff for their hard work and diligence in bringing together a bill that does everything I have just mentioned and more. They have worked nonstop in a straightforward and bipartisan manner, to deliver the bill that is before the Senate today. This bill could not have come together without their efforts and I thank them for all of their hard work. Mr. President, let me reiterate my gratitude to Chairman Gregg and my admiration for the balanced bill that he has produced. What we were confronted with, in a capsule, was a cut of some $1.3 billion from the present policy appropriation, with the ad-on demand of $1.7 billion for the census for next year. Within those confines, Senator Gregg has really done an outstanding job, I can tell you that. It is balanced. It is thoughtful. I have seen, over the years, this bill handled by several chairmen but no one has done the job Senator Gregg has done on this particular measure. So I am glad to join with him. We want to move it as expeditiously as we possibly can. With that said, let me yield to the chairman. Amendment No. 1271

Mr. HOLLINGS. We have to check on our side.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, you heard the objection. We asked for 12 amendments--just a dozen, not unlimited--and there was objection. I have three amendments. One is a true lockbox. I made the motion back in 1990, as a member of the Budget Committee, for the lockbox. We reported it out 19 to 1. I then went on the other side of the aisle and got the late Senator John Heinz from Pennsylvania, and he and I joined together, and by 98 votes--when the present distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania said everybody, that was everybody then; all except 2--98 Senators voted for the lockbox, passed it, it passed the House, and it was signed on November 5, 1990, by President George Bush. But they do not obey it; they do just as the Abraham amendment presently before the body. When you use that expression, ``paying down the debt,'' what they do is take the Social Security money and use it for any and every thing but Social Security. That is what is occurring. We presently owe Social Security $857 billion. That is why I have three amendments. The true lockbox is to keep a reserve, as we require under the 1994 Pension Reform Act for corporate America; I say we are going to do the same thing for Government America. I have a second amendment with respect to actually getting a return since we are using Social Security money. We only get a 5-percent return on these special Treasury securities. Standard & Poor's shows from 1990 to 1998 the real return on private securities is 14 percent and the nominal return is 18 percent. Since we passed this in 1926, over the 72-year period, including the Depression, we have a 10.9-percent return on average. So I think if you are going to use our money, do not use it on the cheap, do not get a free ride. Pay in the 10.9 percent rather than the 5.6 percent, and we begin to rejuvenate Social Security rather than drain it. Otherwise, I want to cut out the monkeyshines of the chairman of the Budget Committee, calling over to the Congressional Budget Office and saying: Give me $10 billion more. How does he do it? He uses different economic assumptions. Under the law, under section 301(g) of the Budget Act, they are required to use the same economic assumptions as contained in the budget resolution. But rather than maintaining those particular assumptions, they just make new assumptions. We had nothing to do with it. I am on the Budget Committee. We were never called or notified or anything else of the kind. All of a sudden we find out there is $10 billion left for defense. There is another $3 billion for transportation, another $1 billion. Already we have busted the caps, just by a telephone call, $14 billion. I have three amendments. I am ready to offer them, but they won't let us offer them. That is why I am not voting for cloture. Everybody ought to understand what is going on. They won't let it be treated as an unlimited measure, as we always have had discourse in the Senate in my almost 33 years, until this kind of control. We had to fight to get up the Patients' Bill of Rights. We had to hold up all the appropriations bills. Now we can't even get an objective discussion of Social Security because they know how to gear it. They have it geared where they are going to pay down the debt, always talking lockbox, lockbox, lockbox. They are in violation right now of the 13301 lockbox, and they will continue to do so. It is all politics, election 2000. I thank my distinguished colleague. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time. Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.