Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the rollcall of May 1993, of the majority of the U.S. Senate expressing the sense of the Senate that the Congress should be empowered constitutionally, the Constitution should be amended to authorize the Congress to regulate or control expenditures in Federal elections.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 24 State attorneys general also asking for reversal of Buckley versus Valeo be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, there were certain statements made that I am sure should be corrected immediately. I ask unanimous consent the statement in support of overturning Buckley versus Valeo, some 50 law professors from the various schools, be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in accordance with the unanimous-consent agreement, I call up Senate Joint Resolution 18 on behalf of myself, Mr. Specter, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Byrd, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Biden, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Reed, Mr. Reid, Mr. Conrad, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Harkin, and ask the clerk to report.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Chair for his friendship, even though we don't agree on a particular point, and particularly my friend from Nebraska. There is no question that if he and I could handle this particular problem--like he says, we would have to amend our ways and he and I can amend our ways immediately--we wouldn't have the problem that confronts us. The Senator from Nebraska did have a comment that was encouraging to me. He said let's not be swayed by the emotion of the moment. I think that is the only way we are going to get something done, is get an emotion of the moment, a fit of conscience, like you saw on the floor of the U.S. Senate yesterday afternoon. We had the emotion of the moment when we realized that it was a total fraud and farce to just investigate illegal activities. The Justice Department is there and fully aware and fully performing the investigation of illegal activities. Ours in the legislative branch is to investigate the improper activities and see what laws we can do to rectify that situation, particularly soft money. Some who have been on the floor today are the leading opponents of soft money, and that brings me right to the opening statement of the distinguished occupant of the Chair. He said the constitutional amendment is not the way to begin the debate on campaign finance reform. I agree. That is not the way to begin the debate on campaign finance reform. But the distinguished Senator should understand that we began this debate in 1966. The Congress adopted public financing for Presidential elections. Then, in 1967, we repealed the public financing for Presidential elections. In 1971, we had the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act, and by 1974, we passed, which is the major act of today, the amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. In 1976, again we had the amendment of the Federal Election Campaign Act. In 1985, we had the Boren-Goldwater amendment that changed the contribution limits and eliminated the PAC bundling. But, Mr. President, that was tabled back at that particular time. In 1986, we had the Boren-Goldwater amendment adopted. In 1988, we had nine votes on the motion to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to request attendance while trying to get a vote on S. 2. In fact, I think it was at that time we even had to arrest Senators. We are not just beginning the debate on campaign finance reform. We had to arrest Senators and everybody else to try to get a vote. But in 1988, we had a Hollings constitutional amendment to limit campaign expenditures. We had to finally file cloture, and that failed by a vote of 53 to 37. In 1989, we had S. 139, comprehensive reform, which passed the Senate but never made it out of the conference. In 1991, we had S. 3. We did pass comprehensive reform of campaign financing, and President Bush vetoed it. In 1993, we had the Hollings sense of the Senate that Congress should adopt a constitutional amendment limiting campaign expenditures. In 1993, we had a majority of the Senate vote for it--not the Washington Post, not the New York Times, not the Common Cause crowd or the ACLU group, but the U.S. Senators, the representatives of the people who have been in the game and know it best. The majority said that we ought to have a constitutional amendment limiting campaign expenditures. In 1993, we had S. 3, comprehensive reform, pass the Senate, but it never made it out of the conference. I say to our distinguished Presiding Officer, in 1995, again, we had the Hollings constitutional amendment to limit campaign expenditures offered to the balanced budget amendment, but that was tabled by a majority of the Senate on a vote of 52 to 45, and they had a real chance to do it. Then, in 1995, we passed the sense-of-the-Senate amendment to address campaign finance reform during the 104th Congress, sort of urging us along. We finally are going to get to it. And, in 1996, cloture on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform failed by a vote of 54 to 46. Mr. President, you are right, a constitutional amendment is not the way to start, but after 30 years of everything that we could get out of Common Cause and the Washington Post and all of those disparate groups like the ACLU, it is time, I hope, that, as the Senator said, that we get swayed by the emotion of the moment, that we get a sort of fit of conscience so that we can really act here and realize that if we don't, we really are in the hands of the Philistines with this Supreme Court. Read this one. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee versus the Federal Election Commission: Before the Colorado Republican Party selected its 1986 senatorial candidate, its Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado Party), the petitioner here, bought radio advertisements attacking the Democratic Party's likely candidate. That is not the candidate that is likely. They are ahead of the curve. The Federal Election Commission brought suit charging that the Colorado party had violated the party expenditure provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 which imposes dollar limits upon political party expenditures in connection with the general election campaign of a congressional candidate. The Colorado party defended, in part, by claiming that the expenditure limitations violated the first amendment as applied to its advertisements, and filed a counterclaim seeking to raise a facial challenge to the Provision as a whole. The district court interpreted the ``in connection with'' language narrowly and held that the Provision did not cover the expenditure at issue. It therefore entered summary judgment for the Colorado party, dismissing the counterclaim as moot. In ordering judgement for the FEC, the Court of Appeals adopted a somewhat broader interpretation of the Provision which it said both covered this expenditure and satisfied the Constitution. So the judgment was vacated and the case was remanded. But Judge Breyer, joined by Justices O'Connor and Souter, concluded that the first amendment prohibits the application of the party expenditure provision, not the kind of expenditure at issue here, an expenditure that the political party has made independently without coordination of any candidate. That has thrown open the door. That is the soft money. That is the headlines. That is the debate. That is the grinding the Government to a halt. They talk about closing down the Government in Washington. Well, we very actively closed it down with that Colorado decision, because you can see the headlines. ``The Poor Party Had to Rent the Lincoln Bedroom to Get Money.'' Anything they could do to get money, for Heaven's sake. If you can believe the distinguished Senator from Texas coming on the floor, and if you are convinced that the Republicans are the small givers and the Democrats are the big givers, that the Republican Party is the party of the poor and the Democratic Party is the party of the rich, you will believe that the world is flat. This is just flat nonsense. I mean, come on. They come in here with all this erudition and quote something about a gentleman over on the House side stating that there are two important values: The freedom of speech and our desire for a healthy campaign and a healthy democracy. And you cannot have both. And the free speech must die in order to have a healthy democracy. Nobody believes that, including the gentleman on the House side. I can tell you that here and now. The Senator from Texas says, ``Do you believe in free speech or not? That is the question.'' We all believe in free speech. And we go about this with trepidation. Only after 30 years and all the initiatives and arresting the Members and cloture votes after cloture votes, and, yes, coming back to the people in a sense of that is what we need do, that is what we need do. And then when we start to do it, we come on the floor of the U.S. Senate and talk about Patrick Henry and freedom of speech and everything else. This has to do with whether or not you believe in limits on campaign spending. Every one of you believes in limits of the free speech of political contributions. That is the Buckley versus Valeo decision. None of these speakers coming up here opposing this particular initiative have come forward and said, ``Oh, wait a minute. Let's take the limits off on contributions.'' They would not have the unmitigated gall to say that because they know that the evil here is too much money. If you are going to take the limits off on the contributions and everything else, we are gone as a republic, you are not going to decide anything in the marketplace of ideas. It is all going to be in the financial marketplace. The very idea that we had, the intent of the national Congress, in 1974 was that you cannot buy the office. Under the Buckley versus Valeo decision, now coupled with this Colorado soft money nonsense, you must buy the office. What did the Senator from Kentucky say, as to withdrawing from running again, on the day before yesterday? That he resented the idea of having to get up all that kind of money. What did the Senator from Ohio say? The same thing. We who have been in it and everything else--I resent it, you resent it. It is time now that we act. And do not give us this Patrick Henry. The Senator from Utah was quoting Patrick Henry. And the Senator from Texas followed him, and he said about free speech, ``You bet your boots, Patrick Henry had free speech in the campaign.'' There was not any radio to buy. There was not any TV to buy. There was not any political consultant to buy. There was not any money to get out the vote to buy. You can go on down the list of all the things. That is when the Constitution had free speech. But as J. Skelly Wright stated--and I want to get that right--J. Skelly Wright, the eminent jurist, he said here, Judge Wright in the Yale Law Journal--and I quote: ``Nothing in the first amendment commits us to the dogma that speech is money.'' We are not talking about what is free. We are talking about what is expensive, what is paid for. They know it. You know it. I know it. You have all the free speech you want. When they talk about the newspapers, you can take the present law. They raise these straw men again and again and again. The Senator from Utah, he got up and said that the Congress could come back and put such low limits on candidates that only the incumbents would prevail, that we incumbents would come in here and Congress might decide not to let anyone oppose them by putting just a limit of $100. Now where have you heard such a thing? None of this is in the Senator from South Carolina's constitutional amendment. The Senator from North Dakota, the Senator from Pennsylvania--it is bipartisan. I could go on down the list of none of that nonsense of the straw men that could happen. I am going to give one example and then yield to my distinguished colleague. I know what can happen under the present law because I had it happen to me. The Senator from Texas ran that campaign against me in 1992. And we will get to some issues there in a minute. Since he acknowledged he had that experience, I want to tell you about his experience and what he charged falsely. But getting right to the point, right before we were going to vote, the week before the election day--they are very clever. They had, first, the Wall Street Journal come out with three articles. The Wall Street Journal has never mentioned me before or since. They could care less about Hollings from South Carolina. But they had three spitball articles in there about the right to work and how I was against business. They even had coordinated it with the London Economist with ``Quits for Fritz.'' Robert Novak, he came on Saturday night in ``Capitol Gang.'' And he said it is also, ``Quits for Fritz,'' ``The white-headed Senator from South Carolina will bite the dust.'' Well, I am here. But if you want to use their logic, I would sue Dow Jones. I would sue the Wall Street Journal, that they own, for coming in and making a contribution to my opponent under the present law. Now everybody knows that is out of the question. The press is going to have freedom of the press, and we all defend it. But under the silly roundabout analysis they give in erecting these straw men on the floor--and I think even the distinguished Senator from Wyoming said that while they did not think newspapers were covered, newspapers could write, but you would not have the money to rebut it. You see the dilemma of the Senator from South Carolina. That is exactly the way it was. I did not have the money to rebut it. I had to let it go the last weekend, going right into that election. There was not any way to buy time to rebut it. There was not any way to answer it at all. We have that under the present law. But if you limit, as we intended back in 1974, spending as well as expenditures, then all this bundling, soft money and everything else, comes under control because you have to disclose, you have a limited amount. We will still exercise free speech, get out and hustle, like I used to do in the early days of my political career. I ran for the legislature on $100. I went all over the county and I shook hands and saw everybody. I lucked out. I was elected. I was almost elected by free speech. So I enjoy free speech. When it is so expensive that all you can to is collect money to get on TV to collect money to get on TV to collect money to get on TV, all as expressed by Justice Byron White in the dissenting opinion of Buckley versus Valeo, ``put the Congress back on a treadmill.'' That is his expression, and so aptly expressed. You can see exactly what we have. Mr. President, I yield the floor to my distinguished colleague. I appreciate his leadership on this floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the esteemed journalist David Broder profiled Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston, SC, in Sunday's Washington Post. Joe Riley has done more for Charleston and the State of South Carolina than anyone could have dreamed. He is truly one of the brightest lights in the American political scene. I strongly encourage everyone to read Mr. Broder's article and I respectfully request that it be printed in the Record. The article follows: The Right Way to Renew a City Charleston, SC--``Sometimes, if you paint on a smaller canvas, you can make a more beautiful picture.'' That's what Mayor Joseph Riley told me in his office here, just hours after he had announced that he would not be the Democratic candidate for governor of South Carolina next year. He had lost the Democratic nomination for governor by a hair in 1994 to a candidate who in turn was narrowly defeated in the general election. Riley was the Democrat's leading hope to challenge Republican Governor David Beasley in 1998, but the ``painful decision,'' as he said in his formal statement, was dictated by his family's reluctance to face life in the fishbowl of a statewide campaign and, possibly, the governor's office. Riley, 54, has been mayor of Charleston since 1975, and what has been achieved here under his leadership is extraordinary. The city has endured much--Hurricane Hugo's $2 billion devastation, the closing of the Navy base that was its biggest employer. But Charleston has double the population and six times the area it did when Riley became mayor, it boasts the internationally renowned Spoleto music festival, its downtown stores are thriving and it is one of the nation's favorite tourist attractions. But it is mainly the way that Charleston treats the social problems that all old cities share that has made Riley's long reign so remarkable. When Britain's Prince Charles visited the city, he went past the elegant homes on the harbor to the homeless shelter run by Crisis Ministries, a nonprofit, interfaith group. It is a spotlessly clean facility, which provides what former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros urged all cities to offer, ``a full spectrum'' of services to the men, women and children who, as the staff is trained to say, are ``guests'' in the building. My guide, Debbie Waid, explained that the food is donated, the cooking is done by community volunteers and the residents keep it swept and scrubbed. But the mayor has arranged for all the support services--from the policeman on duty every night to the counselors who help the homeless get back on their feet. The soup kitchen and the daily clinic serve everyone in the city who needs help. The other part of Cisneros's dream that has been realized in Charleston is scatter-site public housing. In previously run-down neighborhoods bordering the historic district with its magnificent antebellum homes, the city housing authority has been winning prestigious design awards of its own. Don Cameron, who has been running the authority almost as long as Riley has been mayor, showed me single lots, or two or three adjoining lots, where town houses or duplexes or small apartment buildings have been built so handsomely that private developers have snapped up adjoining property and whole blocks have been revived. Driving with Cameron through the decrepit East Side, where freed slaves congregated after the Civil War, you could see where one freshly painted building, erected by the city or one of the many nonprofits that have sprung up in response to Riley's leadership, is being cloned up and down the street with private capital, encouraged by federal low-income housing tax credits. These buildings don't resemble public housing. The porches, the materials, the roof lines all have been chosen to look like other Charleston homes. Riley's dictum is that ``there is no reason for government ever to build something that is not beautiful.'' Even his downtown parking garages have won architectural awards. Because the subsidized housing is handsome, the NIMBY problem--Not in My Back Yard--has been minimized. Unlike the old public housing projects, with weed-choked front lawns littered with whiskey bottles, and beat-up cars at the curb, the scatter-site homes are scrupulously maintained. The cars are parked off-street, out of site. The fences are posted against trespassing, and the police see to it that vagrants do not loiter. Riley has been at it for a long time and, with last week's decision against running for governor, may be here a lot longer. His work has had its rewards. When I asked him how he had done in his last reelection race in 1995, he said, ``I got 75 percent,'' then added with a laugh, ``It would have been more, but we had a tornado warning in midafternoon, and some of my people never got to vote.'' But a more important commendation came recently at a fancy reception at The Citadel commandant's home, where a woman serving drinks whispered to the mayor, ``I'm moving into public housing next week --and it is so beautiful.: Next week, the 19th International Conference on Making Cities Livable will be held here. They are coming to the right place.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from California. She has, as usual, done her homework and, her persuasive arguments at last Thursday's caucus where she debated General McCaffrey changed my mind. I had hesitated endorsing her initiative. They taught us in the Army years ago, no matter how well the gunners aimed, if the recoil is going to kill the gun crew, you do not fire it. I had to question myself on the recoil here, from this particular initiative. What good was it going to do? Would it do more harm than good? It was easily determined, after listening to Senator Feinstein, that it was definitely going to do more good because, in line with the limited time, you find exactly what I have learned through hard experience, in the most recent issue of the London Economist, on page 43: The Americans' uncritical support of Mexico may have helped to spread drug corruption in that country over the past decade. I will never forget, a good 15 years ago or so, when Senator Howard Baker, Senator Paul Laxalt, Senator Simpson from Wyoming, and myself, we were down in Mexico. We had a briefing at that time by President de la Madrid. At that time everything was just peaches and cream. We were getting along fine. We were moving forward on then the drug program and enforcement. I had gone downstairs and forgotten my jacket, raced back up to get it, and President de la Madrid at the time was briefing the Mexican press. My consulate there was interpreting for me. He was giving us unshirted dickens. He said, ``We told those gringos from the north that we weren't going to stand for this, we weren't going to do this,'' that was a report of a totally different meeting than which we had. My point is they have constantly used the United States against their particular opposition, time and again, in order to maintain office. In that light, I want to say again what I said at the hearing with Secretary Madeleine Albright at the subcommittee for State, Justice, Commerce on last Thursday afternoon, whereby I was counseling Secretary Albright, immediately after her statement about Mexico and the great progress we were making in the drug effort. I said I didn't want to sound as an upstart, I certainly did not want to sound impudent in any way, but what I had just heard from the Secretary was State Department boilerplate. Why did I say it was State Department boilerplate? I read, back in the record, the statement made by Warren Christopher 4 years ago. It was almost word for word just exactly what Secretary Albright was saying. You can go back to Secretary of State Baker's statement and I will show you it is almost the same thing. From hard experience, I have learned that Senator Feinstein is on target and doing this Nation a wonderful service. As she points out this influx of drugs is a cancer that is spreading into small towns and communities all over the Nation. It is going to take some harsh action of some kind. We have to break this notion that we are neighbors and can't speak freely about our problems. The situation in Mexico is spinning out of control. The head of the drug effort down there in Mexico, turns out to be an associate of the drug cartels. Yet we had him here for 12 days of meetings. The problem in Mexico was highlighted in the Dallas Morning News: ``The intelligence on corruption, especially of drug traffickers, has always been there,'' said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA's Dallas office from 1984 to 1994, ``but we were under instructions not to say anything negative about Mexico. It was a no-no, since NAFTA was a hot political football.'' Well, there you are. What we are doing is following a policy to protect our financial interests; our Wall Street, or our economic interests, which of course has not worked out. But that is the motivation. That is the influence, and not really getting to the drugs and the gangs and the corruption and the law enforcement and crime problem that we have in this country. So, where I indicated I would withhold because I thought it would cause too much damage and I didn't have enough to work with, I went to General McCaffrey's statement. This was in an open session not--a secure briefing. When asked, ``If this decertification initiative passed here and Mexico was decertified, what would happen,'' he said--I almost quote it word for word--``we would not be able to work with our friends on drugs.'' The conclusion of this Senator is we have the wrong friends. We have the wrong friends. We have been going through, as Bob Dole says: Same act, same scene, been there, done that, again and again and again. Until we take up something like the Feinstein initiative, here, we are not going to get any results. Immediately, there is the overreaction. The Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, was at the hearing. He said, ``Oh, I differ with Senator Hollings absolutely. We don't want to overthrow President Zedillo.'' I don't want to overthrow President Zedillo. I know from the politics of Mexico that is the best chance that he stays on, if the United States jumps him; then he is secure in office politically. That is not the intent. I think the man is honest. I think he is working hard at it. But I think it is too great a problem for him. And I think there are going to have to be some changes down there. I don't see how a decertification initiative of this kind, with the evidence at hand, should upset or overthrow. I was called by the Albuquerque paper over the weekend, that I suggested we overthrow Zedillo. That is how things can get that far out of hand. That is nonsense. If he is that weak that a decertification initiative here, with the facts at hand, would cause him to lose office, then he is very weak and I think maybe that is the problem. I think it would be a problem for me, you, or anyone else down there. This thing has grown bigger than us all and it is going to take this kind of approach to bring ourselves to any kind of results and stop this. Because it has been going on year in and year out and we have given way to our economic interests in order to continue. As the London Economist says, ``The American's uncritical support of Mexico may have helped to spread drug corruption in that country over the past decade.'' I agree with that statement. That is an editorial, lost in a news column. We ought to take heed and I am delighted, at this time, to join in, and I thank Senator Feinstein for enlisting me as a cosponsor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will just read one line: By amending the legislation as we suggest, the Congress would provide effective market opening authority for both multilateral and bilateral negotiations on basic telecommunications services. I emphasize the phrase ``by amending the legislation as we suggest,'' because you got the U.S. Trade Representative Barshefsky, she says, ``You don't have to amend it now. I got agreement. Take it and like it or else.'' But that isn't what the U.S. Trade Representative said in 1995. We heard about this. So on April 25, we wrote a letter--the distinguished majority leader, Senator Trent Lott, the distinguished Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the distinguished Senator from Hawaii, Daniel K. Inouye, and myself. I ask unanimous consent that this letter to the President on April 25, 1996, be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I retain the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me acknowledge the one kind word we got this afternoon in this debate. The Senator from Montana is on target. He is right. We go home and we see the jobs not only created at the BMW's but we see the jobs that have been lost, and that retraining out of Washington will not suffice. I do appreciate it very much, and I agree with him. He brings it right to the fore, the straw man they have put up. They talk fast track, they talk regulations, they talk the differences between broadcast and common carrier under the statute, as there being a distinction, and, of course, the most serious one they bring is the character of the lady herself, which I never would suggest anything otherwise, and is of the finest character as an individual, Ms. Barshefsky. That is not a debate. She happens to say that you do not need any approval of Congress. Well, then, I ask, why did the previous man of character, and just as dazzling as Ms. Barshefsky, Mickey Kantor--and I inserted in the Record his request that we amend the law so he could agree on foreign ownership. Now she is saying there is not any agreement, and there are all kinds of straw men. The junior Senator from West Virginia was saying there is a distinction here. I am talking about broadcast rights and television services. I put these two sessions in there, and it can be read, ``No broadcast or common carrier license shall be granted to the foreign government'' and on and on and on. It is crystal clear that there is no distinction. That is why none other than the Chairman of the FCC asked that it be changed. So we really come to the floor after 2 to 3 years of asking for a change, not effecting the change, the 95 Members of the U.S. Senate voting and saying, all right, we agree that there be no change, and now they are all coming and saying, ``Well, this is going to have a chilling effect,'' when the special trade representatives change the law and give away the store, the 100 percent ownership. Heavens above, we cannot make it more clear to everyone. We read section 8, article 1, of the Constitution: ``The Congress shall have power'' and it goes on ``to lay and collect taxes'' and No. 2, to borrow money, and No. 3 ``to regulate commerce with foreign nations.'' It does not say regulate foreign nations on a fast track. It does not say regulate commerce regulation laws. It says regulate commerce. These fellows could not have voted for the Constitution if they had been a forefather back in the founding days. I never said anything about regulations. The Senator from Rhode Island came in and brought that up, and they keep on bringing up these straw men and talking about a complicated process. You could not make an agreement or anything else of that kind, having a chilling effect. The language is just as simple and constitutionally clear as you can possibly make it: ``No international trade agreement,'' which is what we have in the telecommunications agreement ``which would in effect remand or repeal statutory law''--I put the two statutes in that have been amended or repealed; not regulations or anything else or fast track and all the other things--``of the United States may be implemented by or in the United States until the agreement is approved by Congress.'' It says that is approved by Congress under its constitutional duty. Now, there is absolutely a terrible misunderstanding about this so- called free trade. It is just like the crowd running around acting like they have revenues--the doubletalk on the budget. Everybody wants to cut the revenues, cut the revenues, taxes are too burdensome, cut the revenues, but ``I want to balance the budget and I have a plan to balance it.'' How can they pay the bill by cutting the revenues? How can we possibly have free trade when we restrict the trade? We say to that U.S. corporation, ``Before you can do business, you have to have a minimum wage. You have to comply with the Social Security requirements for pension and retirement rights. You have to have Medicare requirements by the Finance Committee. You have to have clean air. You have to have clean water, plant closing notice, parental leave,'' and on down the list of all these requirements--OSHA, safety workplace, safe machinery. All these requirements that Congress put on and then say, ``I have free trade.'' Well, you can go to Mexico and you do not have to have any of that. That is why we immediately ipso facto with that NAFTA agreement went from a plus balance of trade to a whooping negative, which they promised otherwise, losing all the jobs and wrecking Mexico and the United States. Some question was raised about the Pacific rim. We have a deficit in the balance of trade with Indonesia of $4.1 billion. We have a deficit in the balance of trade with Japan of $47.5 billion. We have a deficit in the balance of trade with China of $39.4 billion. A deficit in the balance of trade with Malaysia, $9.4 billion. Taiwan is $11.4 billion. A deficit in the Philippines of $1.7 billion. A deficit in Thailand of $4.9 billion. A deficit in Singapore of $3.2 billion. And we can cite the European ones. I had them here on a list a minute ago. We know there is a deficit in Canada, and, yet, they talk about everything so magnificent. Let's rush over to China and get another agreement--quick. Heavens above, don't they understand that we are losing, we are not winning? This crowd around here act like they are accomplishing something. Well, we have the Federal Republic of Germany, minus $15.4 billion; Venezuela, minus $8.1 billion; Italy, deficit and a balance, minus $9.4 billion. We can go right on down the list. It is all in all in all--I said the sum total of merchandise trade in deficit. That is, we bought manufactured goods. There is the great productive United States--not the workers. We know the workers are the most productive. That is why we got 100 German industries. That is why we have 50 Japanese industries. That is why we have, companies Michelin--I called on them 35 years ago, and now we got 11,600 jobs from France in my State. We are not talking about productivity. We are talking about the productivity of this Congress, this Government up here. We are the ones that are not producing. We are the ones that are not producing, chasing our tail around the mulberry bush, with independent prosecutors and investigations. We know the problem is too much money in the game. Everyone has to skirt around this, twist this, turn that, and along goes the Supreme Court saying, soft money, you can do this and that and the next thing. So there we are. We are not producing here. We have $187 billion more than we bought in merchandise than what we sold. They keep on talking about exports, exports. So we are going out of business and nobody wants to talk about it. They bring up all these straw men about the complicated process, the chilling effect, new role for Congress--there is no new role. It is the only role that we have, a constitutional role. I think that we ought to just retain the balance of the time. I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. HOLLINGS. We are very proud that the Senator from Arizona has been to the showcase area up there in the Piedmont. But down there we have that situation where there is 11 percent unemployment in Richland, 14 percent in Williamsburg and Barnwell, and, 12 percent over in Marlborough. So we have the haves and have-nots. I am very proud. I made the first trip to Europe where we have 100 German plants, 50 Japanese plants now. And I am very proud that I instituted the technical training which makes us most productive at BMW. We thank the Senator, very much, for his visit. I would be glad to show him the other parts that I am also worried about.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Now, we made some money off of loans, insurance, and services. So the overall deficit was quoted to be $114 billion. But I am looking at that industrial backbone. I am looking at that economic strength. I am looking at that world power trying to continue being a world power. I am realizing more and more every day that the 7th Fleet and the atom bomb don't count anymore. They just don't regard it. You are not going to use a nuclear attack; we all know that. I was bemused when they moved the fleet into the Taiwan Strait, because, in 1966, I was on an aircraft carrier, the Kitty Hawk, up in the Gulf of Tonkin, and we could not stop 20 million North Vietnamese. They didn't have planes and choppers and all this equipment that we had. But we have already tried that aircraft carrier. I wondered how an aircraft carrier or two in the Taiwan Strait was going to stop 1.2 billion Chinese when it could not stop a mere 20 million Vietnamese. Come on. Money talks. The economic strength, and in the world trade councils and otherwise in this global trade war that we are in--we are unilaterally disarming. We are giving away capacity. That capacity agreement in Singapore was where they manufacture them in Japan but Japan very cleverly got the Europeans to bring the pressure on us. And we walked away and said it was a good agreement. And I have lost 4,000 jobs in my State. I am losing thousands of jobs with NAFTA. I am looking around. Now I am seeing in telecommunications--what effect is this going to have? I guess in order to keep the Senator from South Carolina quiet they will buy the TV stations and run them because under the agreement they can. There is no question about it. They can own these broadcast properties. Down to the basic fundamental involved, just a couple of weeks ago we had Washington's Farewell Address here. The very Founding Father talked about the fundamental of the Hollings amendment. I can almost quote word for word. He said, If, in the opinion of the people, the modification or distribution of the powers under the Constitution be in any particular wrong, then let it be changed in the way that the Constitution designates, for while usurpation in the one instance may be the instrument of good it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. That is the line of this particular amendment. We are giving it away. We proceed by a fifth column. We are talking about jobs but we are exporting them faster. We are importing even faster the finished goods. We are weakening the democracy. The middle class is disappearing. And they are all hollering ``Whoopee. The economy is good, and let's give some millions so that politicians of one group can investigate politicians of another group about politics.'' That is the most asinine thing that you have ever seen. But that is where they give all the time. I can see some impatience. They don't want to listen about international trade, and the trade war. No. They don't want to listen about that. But they want to talk about independent prosecutors and investigators. I would give millions to the Federal Election Campaign Commission. They are bipartisan. Let them investigate, no holds barred. I would give even more millions to the Department of Justice. Let them investigate, no holds barred, for any violation of the law. But mind you me. It seems like we have learned enough here from that Whitewater thing. We went through an exercise. We had 44 hearings, millions of dollars wasted, and time and everything, all hoping to get on TV and investigate each other. Now they want to start up this session and talk about bipartisanship, and not talking about what is eroding the democracy itself in this country. I say that because when I talk about the middle class, Chesterton wrote that the strength of this little democracy here in America was that we had developed a strong middle class. We are headed, if you please, the way of England. That is what they told the Brits after World War II. ``Don't worry. Instead of a nation of brawn, you will be a nation of brains. Instead of producing products, you will provide services; a service economy. Instead of creating wealth, you will handle it and be a financial center.'' And England has gone to hell in an economic hand basket. You have the haves and the have-nots, London is no more than an amusement park. You go there, and the Parliament is talking the same kind of extraneous nonsense that we are engaged in, and investigating each other and not getting on with the serious matters of truth in budgeting. Let's have it. I am going to talk to a group here in just a minute, and I hope we can get to them so that we can bring the record out about truth in budgeting. And truth in trade negotiations agreements and trade--an agreement has been made, not a treaty. They insist that you don't have to come back to the Congress itself when they amend the law, and they are in 100-percent agreement of foreign ownership. There is no question about that. They just say it is not necessary while other Members say it is necessary. I thought that we ought to clarify once and for all our duties here, and have a clarion call, or a wake-up call, on this most important issue. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, let's just read 310(a): The station license required under this Act shall not be granted to or held by any foreign government or the representative thereof. . . And in section (b) starting off: No broadcast or common carrier license-- And I jump down to four: . . . any corporation directly or indirectly controlled by any other corporation of which more than one-fourth of the capital stock is owned of record or voted by aliens, their representatives, or by a foreign government, or representative thereof, or by any corporation organized under the laws of a foreign country. It is just as plain as can be and very simple, totally disregarded by Ms. Barshefsky. We kept telling her, we wrote the White House letters, we admonished, ``Wait a minute, your predecessor came before us, testified, asked that it be changed,'' and then we see in the letter by these three gentlemen the phrase ``as authors of the Senate and House foreign ownership provisions.'' False. Mr. Oxley, yes, at the request of the administration. On the House side, it put in there the 100- percent ownership which could be negotiated away. That was never agreed to. I authored the reciprocity provision with the snapback condition on the Senate side. So I have to correct the distinguished chairman of my committee and the chairman of our subcommittee, Senators McCain and Burns. As the authors, this is very misleading to the particular body here and the other Senators reading that. And then reading further, ``No administration official requested that we legislate in this area.'' These gentlemen were not intimate to the negotiations or members of the conference committee that actually did the work. Let me refer to, on August 4, 1995, the Congressional Record. Page 8451 is the page. I am quoting Mr. Bliley, the chairman of the Commerce Committee on the House side and the chief negotiator for the House membership. I quote: Additionally, we have addressed the issue of foreign ownership or equity interest in domestic telecommunications companies. The new language reflects the hard work of Messrs. Dingell and Oxley, who sponsored the proposal in committee, the administration and myself. I must observe, Mr. Chairman, that the foreign ownership issue is the only matter on which the administration offered specific language to the Commerce Committee. And I believe this administration's concerns have been largely resolved. Madam President, there it is. We made the official Record. The administration, after they did not get their desired result on the Senate side, went to work on the House side. And they did request, where they say no request after requesting us. We talked to them back in 1995 several times. We knew exactly what they had in mind. We tried to comply. But we did not change the law. Now we have leading Senators, the chairman of our full committee and the chairman of our subcommittee, saying that the administration possesses the authority to give away 100 percent in violation of sections 310(a) and 310(b). That is why it is necessary. To be told now on the Senate floor that the Constitution, that we all take an oath to support and protect--it has a chilling effect that is out of the whole cloth. To come now and say it is vague is out of the whole cloth. You cannot make language any more categorical. I did not say ``regulation,'' like they tried to read and make for confusion. It is just as plain as can be. I have talked with many of the Members, and asked if they wanted it changed in any way. And they said they did not see how you could vote against it. Well, the way they vote against it is to come up and now argue the capabilities of what I was going to hear again. Heavens above. When we had Ambassador Carla Hills, who is now gone in representation I guess, we had to put the provision in law. I am glad to see the Senator from Colorado on the floor saying that he did not agree with that waiver. That was the Dole waiver that we are talking about. The Hollings waiver, which is on the appropriations bill, that is in relation to the special trade or U.S. Trade Representative, that you shall not engage in the representing of foreign interests in trade for a 5-year period, which applies of course to our distinguished friend, Mickey Kantor. But when we had Carla hills, every one of these negotiators--the Finance Committee leadership comes with again the ``Dragon Lady, Dragon Lady,'' ``Oh, man, tough, tough, tough.'' He did say, the Senator from New York, that Ms. Barshefsky was formidable to the point of being dazzling. Well, I will agree. She has been dazzling. And this Senator has not. That is exactly the point I am trying to make. I met with Ms. Barshefsky, and she did have a dazzling approach of ``I want to work with you. I want to work with you. I want to work with you.'' As I have stated earlier, ``Madam, I want you to work with the law, not me. Just adhere to this law.'' We have had this in dispute. We have had this in discussion. We have had this in negotiation with Members and Senate leadership in the Congress, leadership in the White House. And the law is the law. It has not been changed. And they go there and can justify further that the distinguished negotiator is so tough she just walked away on the telecommunications negotiations. Well, that is not what the Wall Street Journal stated on May 20 of last year. And I quote: U.S. negotiators did pull back from a telecom deal at the 11th hour, but not because Clintonites were queasy about inking another market opening pact in an election year. Administration trade officials would have been delighted to trumpet a telecom deal to counter mounting U.S. skepticism about the WTO's accomplishments, but they walked away from the table after industry executives and leading Republican and Democratic Senators balked. Madam President, that is exactly what happened on the telecom deal. And they mention the capacity deal out there in Singapore. One would say how she worked so hard. Well, she gave away the store, without talking to the capacity manufacturers, specifically she gave away 4,000 jobs in the Carolina's. The Japanese make these capacities, but when she did away with the 9.6-percent tariff, you have the weakness of the yen combined with the tariff phased out. The existence of Kaymet in Greenville, SC, I remember that. And I asked the officials there, and they were never contacted. Just at the last minute they agreed to it. Fine, you can get when you give away the store in capacities, when you give away your broadcast entities. Under this agreement--I want to make it crystal clear--Nippon Telephone & Telegraph can come in here and buy CBS, ABC, NBC. I talked earlier with one Senator. He was talking about the opportunity that Castro seems to do business with the Canadians. He could get the Canadians to come in and buy a station down in Miami and really turn the particular Senator from Florida into an upset condition. He is wanting to get into China and we have to move in a hurry. I have a good eye here today, but the Senator from Florida wants to be able to have any foreign entity come in, Castro or otherwise, Qadhafi, the whole kit and caboodle of the rascals around the world or any foreign country. They delight now in coming in and buying these that we have been trying to protect. That is why the Members would not agree. They held fast. I am speaking on behalf of the majority of the U.S. Senate, 95 votes, if you please. We approved that. And that was in discussion up until the last minute, and they would not yield. So there it is. They do so well on these other agreements. Let us see, Madam President, how they have done on this particular one. If you believe the U.S. Trade Representative, world commerce would come to an end unless we continue to negotiate these one-sided agreements. But the truth of the matter here is Ambassador Barshefsky, in announcing the successful conclusion of this telecom negotiations stated--and I quote: This agreement represents a change of profound importance. U.S. companies now have access to nearly 100 percent of 20 telecommunications markets. Now, unfortunately, Madam President, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed at all. Once again, the trade representative has obtained inadequate concessions. A review of those agreements--not these laudatory press releases-- reveals that the market openings are limited, at best, or nonexistent, at worst. While the United States has agreed to permit complete foreign ownership of our broadcast properties and U.S. telecommunications providers, our major trading partners have severely restricted our access to their most well-established and entrenched companies. USTR claims that Australia, Italy, Japan, France, New Zealand, and Spain have all agreed to permit ownership or control of all telecommunications providers. Yet, you take a closer look and you see there are severe foreign ownership restrictions still remaining in place for Vodafone and Telstra in Australia, with Stet in Italy, KDD and Nippon Telephone and Telegraph in Japan--you cannot own any of it-- Telecom NZ in New Zealand, Telefonica in Spain, France Telecom in France that prevents U.S. providers from owning the controlling interests or no interest at all in these telecommunication giants. U.S. companies have access so long as they are not interested in getting into the best and most sophisticated and competitive companies. They could come in and buy AT&T, not just the companies like GTE, or whatever. They can come in and buy the broadcast properties, which is most disturbing to this particular Senator. Now, going further, Madam President, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Canada permit no foreign control for facility-based providers. The fastest growing and most important markets in the world are closed tight as a drum. Take the Korean market. Foreign individual shareholding in Korea Telegram is limited to 3 percent--3 percent. We gave away our most powerful negotiating tools, just for 3 percent. When you give away 100 percent, there is no more negotiations, you are through. Ask Senator Dole--been there, done that. It is over with. You got no more negotiating authority or any negotiating tools. Or take Canada. The Canadians provide for no foreign control of facility-based providers--none. Yet, under this agreement, Bell Canada can purchase any United States-based provider it wishes. What a wonderful agreement. What a wonderful agreement they are all bragging about. The other developing markets also include severe restrictions. Brazil has liberalized ownership restrictions only with regard to seller, satellite, and nonpublic services. Mexico has retained ownership restrictions on all types of services except seller. Poland retains foreign ownership restrictions for wireless, international, and long distance. So the total liberalization of the U.S. marketplace, what incentive was that liberalization? What incentive do these countries have to liberalize their particular markets any further? None whatever. None whatever. We have given away the store. I told you in the very beginning about clothing, and they keep exporting the jobs faster than we can possibly create them --300,000. We were going to create 200,000, but we have exported already, lost 300,000 jobs in textiles alone. And we can go further. The FCC recently issued an international notice of proposed rulemaking. This particular rulemaking would force foreign providers to lower their prices. However, many of the enforcement mechanisms contained in this particular rulemaking are violations of the MFN, most favored nation provisions. Different benchmarks based on the gross domestic product, denying access to providers from countries who refuse to meet the benchmarks, and granting waivers to those who restructure more quickly are all integral parts of these benchmark policies, but illegal and likely to be challenged, no doubt in the WTO. So the agreement on telecom can have perverse effects on the price system they are trying to tell us about now, telling the competing countries we have a question there with respect to ownership and MCI, and with respect to Sprint, so they stay quiet. You do not find them all coming in here. And they are being told, ``Hush now, at the FCC we will help you with the access places in these international long- distance calls, and we are going to get something done.'' They will never get it done. Watch this MFN provision and watch the World Trade Organization. These are the kind of promises that continually come up when we have one of these agreements. Just remember, Madam President, the promises they made with NAFTA. You have to realize, we must learn from experience. As George Santayana said, those who disregard the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. We should see the history of this wonderful U.S. trade agreement that they had with NAFTA. At that particular time, they said if we fail to pass NAFTA, one, Mexico would face economic collapse; two, immigration would increase; three, drugs would flow freely; four, 200,000 new jobs would not be created; five, the U.S. exports surplus would disappear; six, Asian investors would move into Mexico to take advantage of the growing markets. That is why they said we had to approve NAFTA. We have approved NAFTA, and this is exactly what happened--exactly what happened. Mexico is in economic collapse; immigration has increased; the drugs flow freely down there; 200,000 jobs have not been created; the U.S. exports surplus has disappeared. We had a $5 billion surplus. It is now a $16 billion deficit. The Asian investors who were going to be prevented from moving in are moving in like gangbusters and dumping back here under NAFTA free trade arrangements into the United States. I could go on further. I see some here who want to talk, but I will complete this thought now, because we had the classic case for free trade with an emerging country, and the Secretary of Treasury, in particular, the Deputy Secretary of Treasury, Lawrence Summers, said, this is really it, we really are getting free trade now. And everybody is going to get, I think they said, about $1700 for everybody, and we were going to have everybody better off. Well, Lawrence Summers, he is the one that sold this thing to the House memberships and the Senators. Since that time, he has now appeared on Thursday, January 16, in the Congress, and I quote from the Wall Street Journal of that particular date. ``By many measures, most Mexicans are worse off than they were before the financial crisis,'' Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers conceded. The Members do not have a sense of history, understanding, or appreciation. What happened is that a million Mexicans have lost their jobs since NAFTA has passed. Wages have fallen by a third. Mexico's external debt reached $150 billion, higher than that during the debt crisis back in 1982. The bold visionary man of the year, Carlos Salinas--that is right, in December, after we voted in November, they made him the man of the year. Now he is living in exile in Ireland and you cannot catch him. He is the man of the year. This is the kind of nonsense that we have to put up with. If we want to go through the same act, same scene, dragon lady, tough, and everything else, it makes a sorry agreement, sells out the store. And we call that progress, and we have to create jobs, and education, education, education is the solution. Well, Madam President, like I say, if they read one thing, they ought to read the book, ``One World, Ready Or Not'' by Bill Crider. They will get an education on where we are, because the author spent 2 years going around the world, as well as in the United States, talking to the various executives and quoting them at that particular time. You can't understand some of the various provisions. I think, since I have the opportunity to present them, we ought to understand, in country after country, the precious rules of international trade. In India, for example, when General Motors wanted to sell its European-made Opal, the price of admission was a radiator cap factory. So GM moved the factory from Britain. In Korea, to sell fast trains, the French agreed to subcontract the assembly to the Koreans. In China, AT&T agreed to manufacture advanced switching equipment as a quid pro quo for wiring Chinese cities. In Australia, if your sales are above a certain threshold, you must negotiate with the Government on an agreement locating research and development in Australia. For production, you must export 50 percent of what you import, and it must have 70 percent local content. At least 33 electronics companies from Japan, Europe, and the United States have agreed to do that. According to an official from Motorola, ``If you don't cooperate with the Australians, they have the statutory authority to exclude you from bidders' lists and deny regulatory permits for products.'' Well, Madam President, it's not just out there in the Pacific rim, where the control--Friedrich List kind of control --trade that works, that builds them up. Right this minute, one-half of the world's savings is in the country of Japan. While they are talking about the yen and the devaluation of it and while they are talking about the banking difficulties, watch what Edmund Finkleton said in ``Blind Side.'' Come the year 2000, while they are a bigger manufacturing country, with 120 million, compared to our 260 million and the vast natural resources that we have in the United States, they already outproduce us. They will have a larger economy and gross domestic product--that little country of Japan. Why? They control it. As Friedrich List says, the wealth and strength of a nation, if you please, is measured not by what they consume, but what they produce. Akio Marita went on further--I was at a forum with him about 16 years ago up in Chicago. We were talking about the Third World emerging nations, and he commented: ``The emerging country has to develop a manufacturing capacity in order to become a nation state.'' After we talked a few minutes, he pointed to me and said, ``Senator, that world power that loses its manufacturing capacity will cease to be a world power.'' We have gone, in a 10-year period, from 26 percent of our work force in manufacturing down now to 13 percent. We are back to Henry Ford. Henry Ford said that he wanted his workers to be able to purchase the article they were producing. Madam President, today, middle-America workers, not having those manufacturing jobs, can't afford the car. They can't purchase it. We are losing our middle class, all along, if you please, competing with ourselves. Over 50 percent of what we are importing, if you please, is U.S. multinationally generated. The U.S. multinationals are the fifth column in this trade war that we are in. They are in behind the lines gutting us here in the Congress, working through the special trade representative, trying to take away the authority under the Constitution to make laws and otherwise regulate foreign commerce. That is the authority of the Congress, and that is the reason we have that particular amendment. But we always talk, and I listened to the distinguished President when he talked about trade. He only mentioned exports. I want to challenge anybody to go to a CPA when they do their tax return next month and say, ``Let's just talk about what we got in, not what we spent, just one side of the ledger.'' If you had a CPA that made up your return that way, you would fire him. But that is constantly, constantly, constantly the way we look at the returns with respect to international trade. What really happens is, yes, while we in the United States are the most productive industrial workers, whereas we have improved productivity, and whereas we are, for example, in my State, an exporting State--I was just down at a Presidential Exporting Council meeting in Greenville, SC, and we are proud of it--the imports far and away outdistance the exports. In the last 15 years, before we got to last year, there has been an average of over $100 billion a year deficit, imports, in the balance of trade. That means we have bought from the foreigners $1.5 trillion more than we have sold to them. But how do you get that through to the Finance Committee where they just casually go on and on talking about dragon ladies and what a wonderful agreement we have? What, Madam President, is the merchandise deficit--I say ``deficit''; I repeat ``deficit''--in the balance of trade last year? The merchandise deficit in merchandise trade was $187 billion. (Mr. BROWNBACK assumed the chair.)

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. Madam President, it is difficult to really determine the position of our distinguished leadership on the Finance Committee. In one breath, they say it is unnecessary and, in the next breath, they say it is going to really ruin $500 billion in trade. Then they come back and say the statutory law pertains and talk at length about how they have worked over the years with Ambassador-designate Barshefsky. In fact, the point was just made by my distinguished colleague from New York, since 1934, they have been working. I have been on the Communications Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee for 30 years, and I watched it develop over that 30-year period. When we had a majority on our side of the aisle, I introduced the formative legislation to revise that 1934 Communications Act with the initiative that would allow the trade representative to negotiate an international telecommunications agreement. I am totally familiar, during the past 3 to 4 years, with what they are talking about because this is a Senator who has been working with the White House and with the trade representative, be it Ambassador Kantor or now Ambassador Barshefsky. It was Ambassador Kantor who said the law needed amending. I already had that letter printed in the Record. Now they say there is no law to be amended. Heavens above. In fact, the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Senator Grassley, comes in here and says it is totally unnecessary. He said, ``Actually, my provision, which is constitutional''--that is all it does, is cite a fundamental of the Constitution that you have in order to amend or repeal a statute. It is not a regulation, as the Senator from Rhode Island tried to read into it. It is very simple, very clear, not vague, not vague at all. It is the constitutional provision of three readings in the House, three readings in the Senate, and signed by the President. When they say it is unnecessary, just look at the letters just inserted in the Record. I refer to the letter of the Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, the Senator from Montana, Senator Burns, and Congressman Oxley on the House side, and they say: We firmly believe that the administration possesses the authority to negotiate an agreement without implementing legislation. Now, heavens above, we know Ambassador Kantor thought so and asked that it be changed. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record section 310(a) and section 310(b) of the Communications Act of 1934.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we cite thereon the independence and integrity of the Federal Communications Commission. ``Congress did not make any changes to the foreign ownership limitations of the Communications Act when it enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996.'' What really occurred was, on the Senate side, we said, fine, we will go along on a majority percentage of ownership by a foreign entity if there is reciprocity. If there is an equal opportunity for U.S. companies to own and control, we will let them own and control, under certain circumstances, with, of course, Judge Freeh's and Mr. Constantine's inhibitions, and we had the same concerns. We would study them and go over them very closely. We had reciprocity with the snapback provision. I authored it. We put it in the bill after hearings and said, look, if the country changes its mind or comes under improper control and they kick us out, snap back, kick them out. Fair is fair. We thought that very reasonable to move an agreement on the international telecommunications. But the representatives of the White House, in particular the Special Trade Representative, now called U.S. Trade Representative, started dealing with Mr. Oxley on the House side. And we were in the conference. So all during 1996 in that particular conference, we worked around and we worked around. Finally, in December, I talked to our friend Mickey Kantor, the Ambassador. I said, ``Mickey, we can't get together on this one. There is not going to be any change. Whatever agreement you make will just have to come back. Maybe that is the way. If you want some change in the law, then come on back to Congress.'' We have debated it already now for 3 years. We would be glad to get together on it. But with all the facets of the upgrading and the revision of the 1934 telecommunications act and considering all the various decisions made over a 60-year period, we couldn't agree. So Ambassador Kantor said, fine, that is what they would do. However, in the early part of the year when we came back--again negotiating all during 1996--to the Congress just a couple of months ago, we kept hearing again that we were somehow going to be ignored and that they were making offers over there. Mr. President, on February 4, 1997--again Senators Robert Byrd, Byron Dorgan, Daniel Inouye, and Fritz Hollings--the four of us joined in a letter to the White House saying that the USTR should not commit the United States to a trade agreement that limits the scope of the public interest test administered by the FCC, and any changes to current U.S. law should be done only with the approval of the Congress. So it was clear in January and February, long before they made the agreement, that we were watching closely as best we could. I met on January 17 with Ambassador Barshefksy. I want it clearly understood that at that particular time we meant exactly what we said. I cautioned her. It was on January 17. I had already met. That is why we sent that February letter. When I met with Ambassador Barshefksy, it was crystal clear to this Senator. I have been up here 30 years. I am the senior junior Senator. And my friend Strom says, ``You had better get used to it.'' But I dealt with these trade representatives way back into the 1950's, 40 years ago. I have handled clients as a practicing lawyer, when the individual continues to not answer the question and is sort of hugging up to you and says, ``I want to work with you, I want to work with you, I want to work with you.'' I said to Ambassador Barshefksy, ``Madam, I do not want you to work with me. I want you to work with that statute. Don't go over and say you did not know anything about it because we have been in the debate, and you are going to have many Members really turned off on this one, and we will have to take action.'' But it was quite apparent to me with that ``I want to work with you'' stuff that she had no idea of working with us in good faith. Of course, now we know. As reported in the Journal of Commerce on February 19, 1997: The United States decision to end its statutory restrictions on foreign investment in this sector was crucial to carrying along a global deal in which the rest of the world has made varying levels of commitment to similarly open their markets. So, to end the statutory restrictions, we have not extended the statutory restrictions. Nothing has been happening. There has not been three readings in the House nor three in the Senate. We haven't even debated it here this year. But they already have the trade press quoting exactly what the public official of the U.S. Government is saying. Here we are all in the uproar. We have the special committees, the independent prosecutors, ``Get them, get them, foreign influence on policy. We can't have anybody give us a contribution and influence policy.'' And over here, while we are not looking, a public official of the U.S. Government is giving it away in violation of section 310(a) and 310(b) of the communications act. So, yes, I talked to Members. I said, ``I just want to make it crystal clear that either we are going to go to conference''--like our lawyer friend Sullivan, who said, ``I am not a potted plant''--``or else we will let the executive pass its own little laws, and we can go on home and forget about trying to work up here to set some valid policy.'' So thereby is the amendment. Mr. President, it is interesting. I must report to you that even while Ms. Barshefsky couldn't get it, I read that the Canadian official reported in the Wall Street Journal--and, I quote again, prior to the amendment--``We think that when you look at the overall package, our offer is every bit as good as the American offer.'' However, Canada ``has serious reservations about the United States proposal because it won't be backed by U.S. legislation.'' At least the trade negotiator from Canada got my message. I never have talked to that individual. But I can tell you now, we could not get through. We couldn't get through at all. You have to understand along this line, Mr. President, because you are from the hinterlands where people think straight, that you can tell why this crowd up here operates in the beltway and miasma totally of their own dreams. And when we as Senators go home--Oneita Mills, which just a couple of months ago closed down, was just not a complicated operation making T-shirts. But I got there some 35 years ago when I was Governor--and I am proud of it--in a little country town of Andrews, SC, and I got 487 employees, and Washington says, ``Don't worry about it. What we need is retraining, retraining, retraining.'' The former Secretary of Labor, my friend Bobby Wright, that is all he thinks: Skills, skills, skills, retrain. We have skills coming out of our ears. We manufacture automobiles. They didn't go to Detroit. We never made one. But we have the skills, and we put in there a technical training system. I put it in. In 1961, we broke ground up there in Greenville on a garbage dump. I guess EPA would catch me now. But that is where the school is. And I broke ground for 16 others. We got the skills. But back to Oneita, they said, ``Retrain, retrain; get another job; we don't have enough skills. You don't understand the problem. We up here in Washington understand the problem.'' Nonsense. Assume that they retrain as computer operators; tomorrow morning you have 487 computer operators. The average age at Oneita was 47 years of age. Are you going to hire the 47-year-old computer operator or the 20- or 21-year-old? You are not going to assume the retirement costs and the health costs of the 47-year-old. They are out. Yes, I see it when I look at that GE plant that I brought in from Brazil. In the competition they said, if you want to sell those transformers to us, you are going to have to move your plant. So when I brought one to South Carolina, they closed the plant down and GE is gone, moved offshore. Malaysia, Baxter Medical. I brought that one in, but we are still giving tax incentives to invest overseas, so they closed down last year and they have gone to Malaysia. Saturday before last, Sara Lee in Hartsville, with 187 jobs, gone to Mexico. We lost, in the year 1995, 10,000 textile jobs in South Carolina, and I think an equal amount this past year. I am trying to get the figure. When they talk about educate, educate, educate, educate here at the White House, they better buy a few books and read them themselves. They better get hold of ``Looking at the Sun,'' by James Fallows, or ``Blindside'' by Eammon Fingelton or ``The Future of Capitalism,'' by Les Thurow, or our friend Bill Greider, ``One World, Ready or Not,'' and, of course, the most recent book by Robert Kuttner ``Everything For Sale.'' You begin to sober up and understand what the head of Motorola, in Malaysia said as quoted by Mr. Greider that the people of America have no idea in the Lord's world what is happening to them. What we are doing is making the exception the rule. And what is the exception? The exception is free trade, free trade, free trade. Adam Smith, market forces, market forces. After World War II, that was a valid contention. We had the dominant auto industry. We wanted to foster capitalism in the emerging Third World. We were looking for freedom and democracy to be spread into Europe and into the Pacific rim. So we taxed ourselves by billions for the Marshall Plan and thereupon coaxed our industries to invest overseas. And invest they have. But if you want to see the sheep dog gobbling up the entire flock, you ought to watch these multinationals that we created. The nationals went over. They resisted it at first. They could not speak the language. The air flights were not good. They did not get good food on them or anything else of that kind. But gradually they learned that in manufacturing, 30 percent of volume is in labor cost--payroll. And you can save as much as 20 percent in a typical manufacturing entity by moving to a low-wage country. So it is that an entity, a manufacturing company that has $500 million in sales can keep its sales force, its executive office back here at the home headquarters but move its production, its manufacture to a low-wage country and make itself $100 million, or it can stay here, continue to work its own people and go broke. That is what is going on. How do you get that through the news pages so they understand it? So the nationals gradually became over the 50-year period since World War II, multinationals, and then the national banks, Chase Manhattan and Citicorp, as of 1973, made a majority of their profit outside the United States. So you have got the multinational corporations and the multinational banks. And thereupon you have them making their money and coming back in with the consultants and the takeover of all the think tanks and everything else. I can bring you right up to date. They just established a chair at the Brookings Institute on free trade, and do you know who is financing it? Toyota. Toyota. So Brookings comes and says, this is great about free trade. Oh, sure, those multinationals, they joined up with the foreign countries. The foreign countries want to dump everything. The multinationals want to manufacture and dump everything back here. Then, of course, the retailers. The retailers, we proved here in many a debate, do not lower their price. They make a bigger profit. So every time we bring up a reciprocal trade measure or try to get customs agents, which are needed because there is over $5 billion in transshipments in violation of our agreements, whenever we try to get that, the retailers are up here pigeonholing every Senator. So you have the multinationals, the multinational banks, the consultants, the campuses, the think tanks, and then read ``Agents of Influence,'' by Pat Choate, and that was back 7 years ago when Japan, one country, had a $113 million retainer of--I don't know how many law firms or whatever it was around here--representatives. I got up at that time the total salaries of all the House Members, 435, and all the Senators, 100. Of the 535, we were only paying to have represented the people of America some $71 million. Japan was better represented in Washington at $113 million. Read the book and you will see how these U.S. Trade Representatives, after putting in time here, went to represent the other side. That is why we have the waiver. Senator Dole said you cannot represent a foreign entity and then come in here and represent us. But, of course, the Finance Committee is in a fix, and there we are. There we are, in the hands of all the lawyers around here. There are 60,000 lawyers registered to practice in the District of Columbia. That is more lawyers than the entire country of Japan. And they come around here and they hate lawyers, they hate lawyers. They are all billable hours. Get yourself charged on an ethics charge and try to find one for less than $400 an hour. They have never been in the courtroom. They never tried a case. They come around here. They ought to all go to work for O.J. Fix that jury. Fix that Congress. That is what we have on us, and you cannot get a word for anybody to represent the reality of this global competition. There are two schools--two schools of international trade. One, of course, is Adam Smith, the market forces, fostered by David Ricardo, comparative advantage, comparative advantage. But the other school, Friedrich List, which is almost top secret in this body: The strength and the wealth of a nation is measured not by what it can consume but by what it can produce. And that is the global competition. None of them have gone down the road of Adam Smith. They have all gone down the road of mixed economies, and that is what built the United States of America. That is what built this great economic giant, the U.S.A. The earliest day after we had won our own freedom, the Brits corresponded back to our forefathers and they said, now, as a fledgling little colony here, you have gotten your freedom. You trade back with us what you produce best and we in Great Britain will trade back what we produce best--free trade, free trade, free trade. Alexander Hamilton wrote a book that there is one copy of under lock and key over here at the Library of Congress. I will not read the booklet. We have had a copy of it in my file. But in the line, Hamilton told the Brits, Bug off. We are not going to remain your colony. We are not going to ship our natural resources, our timber, our coal, our iron, our wheat, our farm stuffs, and you ship back the finished products. We are going to make ourselves economically strong. And the second bill that ever passed this U.S. Congress in its history--the first had to do with the seal of the United States--but on July 4, 1789, the second bill to pass this Congress was a tariff bill of 50 percent on 60 different articles. We started with protectionism, protectionism, protectionism. Later, when we were going to build a transcontinental railroad, they told President Lincoln we could get the steel from England. He said, No, we are going to build our own steel mills. And when we are finished, we will not only have the transcontinental railroad, but we will have an industrial steel capacity. Again, in the darkest days of the Depression, when people were in food lines, Franklin Roosevelt, with his Economic Recovery Act, put in--what?--put in subsidies for America's agriculture, payments to the farmers that continue today, and protective quotas. And therein is the wonderful success story of America's agriculture. So, we say, ``Preserve, protect, and defend.'' We have the Army to protect us from enemies without, the FBI to protect us from enemies within, we have Social Security to protect us from the ravages of old age, Medicare to protect us from ill-health--we can go right down the functions of Government. When it comes down to a competitive trade policy, we are in the hands of the Philistines, the multinationals. They are pulling our strings. They want fast track. They do not want any debate. They want to just pass the bills and, if you don't do it, we will make the agreement anyway and bag it. Bug off. That is what they are telling us. So we put in our amendment. I have had long experience in this field. I testified during the 1950's. I came up here and testified before the old International Trade Commission, and Tom Dewey represented the Japanese. He chased me around the room for a couple of days, and he said, ``Governor, what do you expect the Third World emerging countries to make? Let them make the shoes and the clothing, the textiles. And we, in turn, in the United States, we will make the computers and the airplanes.'' Now, they do not realize it--yes, they are making the shoes: 89 percent of the shoes on the floor of this Congress are imported; two- thirds of the clothing in this Chamber is imported. They are making the shoes and the clothing, the textiles, but they are also making the cameras, the watches, the electronics, the machine tools. You can go right on down the list. And the computers and the airplanes--all of it. Wake up, America. The majority of that Boeing 777 is made offshore, a good bit of it in China, the People's Republic of China. There are some of them who want to say Communist China, we are going to get a Communist China airplane to ride around in. That is how far we have come, but they do not want to admit to it. So, there we are. What we have is a situation of the typical promises they make. I am prepared to get into those promises, Mr. President, but, perhaps, I see my distinguished colleagues have been very patient with me. I guess they would be glad to be heard at this time, so I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as I understand, the pending business is that I send to the desk an amendment to the waiver amendment of the committee; is that at the desk?

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. Mr. President, I ask that the distinguished senior Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] be added also as a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the amendment that has just been read is so simple, so fundamental. I am hearkening to our new Members of the U.S. Senate, just in January, a few weeks ago, ``I hereby pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.'' This is constitutional language, that no international agreement that would, in effect, amend or repeal statutory law can be implemented until approved by the Congress. Under the Constitution, article 1, section 8, it is the duty of the Congress to regulate foreign commerce--not the executive branch; not the executive branch. Obviously, to really change the law you would have to have three readings in the House and three readings in the Senate and signed by the President. The fact that this amendment, which I tried to make as clearcut and as principled as it possibly could be, where there would be no confusion, has been so vigorously opposed by the White House and certain ones in Congress that there is no doubt in my mind that with respect to foreign trade, with respect to global competition, we are in the hands of the Philistines, we are in the hands of the multinationals. Rather than the Congress controlling the multinationals and international trade, the multinationals, by this initiative, are controlling the Congress. What is the initiative? Well, they could not find any language to amend my amendment. They could not find anybody to really object to it. What they did do, then, was to say, well, we will get some letters written--incidentally, by people who had nothing to do with this particular part of the telecommunications bill--and the comments were that Mr. Archer of the Ways and Means Committee over on the House side then sends a letter on the one hand, saying that he would blue slip this particular appointment of Barshefsky in that the Hollings amendment would involve revenues. You know that is not going to happen. I think they made some bad mistakes over on that side. I think they have sort of redeemed themselves from the contract. They certainly have redeemed themselves from three budgets. In 1995, they said the President was inconsequential and that they had three budgets, and whether you agreed or not, that is what they were going to do. Now they say, Mr. President, ``Please give us a second budget.'' They do not even give one, much less three. But I do not think they would revert back to nonsensical conduct and try to act like an appointment to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate wherein it had a rider that the law be obeyed, the Constitution be supported and defended. ``Protect and defend'' is the oath we take, and that involves revenues. But be that as it may, Mr. President, that is exactly what they have done. And more recently, they have come by--and I have been vitally interested--and one of the ambassadors in the United States Trade Representative's office was to be appointed ambassador in charge of trade there at Geneva--we have written letters and made calls to the White House--Ms. Rita Hayes. Now we have calls in, indirectly, that that can't be had or done. I think it was about to be approved--``unless Hollings gives up his amendment.'' So they have tried every shenanigan in the world, which tells me--and should tell this Congress--that the executive branch is going to make its agreements, come hell or high water, and they could care less. Not a treaty, but just executive agreements. The media and everybody is supposed to go along and say, well, I think the Senator is right, but we have to go ahead with this appointment. They are changing the law. They admire the three readings in the House and the three readings in the House with respect to Ms. Barshefsky. She does not previously qualify having registered British Steel and foreign competitors. They passed that waiver out, and it no doubt will be adopted here in the U.S. Senate, but to just say ``provided further, that if she enters into an agreement that would amend or change statutory law, that before it be implemented, it first must be approved by Congress.'' Just as simple as that. So let's get right to the ``meat of the coconut,'' as they say, because this has been going on for 2 years. This isn't any last minute--one of the letters from one Senator said this is a last-minute attempt. Oh, no, this isn't last minute. We had hearings on foreign ownership of telecommunications. We have had testimony of the different entities. Mr. Reed Hunt, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who was at one time conspiring for this particular approach--I don't know where he is now, but I am checking him. I quote Mr. Hunt: I am concerned about the prospects of foreign monopolies being able to buy into our markets while they are still monopolizing their home markets. And as global media developments occur, as the Congressmen mentioned earlier, we must be attentive to the fact that if a foreign company is a monopolist in its own country, it has a prospect of using that monopoly to leverage unfair competition into this country. I am concerned about that. That is in May 1995, almost 2 years ago. Mr. President, we also have the statement of the FBI and the DEA, who wrote, also, in May 1995: Even with the foreign corporation as privately held, we believe that a foreign-based company could be susceptible to the influence and directives of its own government. There are numerous examples of foreign companies being used and directed by their governments to carry out, or assist in carrying out, government intelligence efforts against the United States Government and all major corporations. That is a letter to the Honorable John D. Dingell, on May 24 1995, by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Judge Louis J. Freeh, and the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Thomas A. Constantine. Mr. President, the law that we are talking about, and the two sections--section 310(a) of the statutory law of communications--``The station license required under this act shall not be granted to or held by any foreign government or the representative thereof.'' Section 310(b) limits any owning or controlling interest to 25 percent. Now, I understand somebody is going to say the special trade representative never testified. We had numerous meetings. You have to know how the executive branch works. We haven't had any hearings from them once they got the agreement here in February, just last month--any hearings on the agreement, or anything else of that kind. They just gave away 100 percent in violation of 310(a). They didn't just do the 25 percent in 310(b). They go in, as naive as get out, I can tell you that. I want to build a bridge back to the old-fashioned Yankee trader. Come in and say, look, we have the largest and the richest market; what can you come up with? Let's see what you propose and we will work with it. Instead, like goody-goody two shoes, this touchy-feely crowd that we have up here in Washington says, ``We will give you 100 percent and let's see what you come up with.'' Nippon Telephone & Telegraph says, ``Thank you for the 100 percent, bug off, you get nothing from us.'' And you go down the list. No country gave us any kind of 50-percent ownership. Our best of allies and friends in international trade, Canada and Mexico, in NAFTA, said, ``No, you can't get a 50-percent.'' Under 50 percent. So you can see what a spurious approach they used, in violation of the law. So I talked to Ambassador Kantor at that particular time, back in 1995, and Senator Byrd wrote a letter on April 3, 1995. And, again, Ambassador Kantor, the United States Trade Representative, came forward with his letter and acknowledged the law. I think that is the important part, because in his letter back to Senator Byrd on April 24, 1995--I am trying to congeal it so everybody understands it--I ask unanimous consent that this letter from Michael Kantor, dated April 24, 1995, be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a most valued staff member of the Senate Budget Committee who will leave the committee this Friday to join Senator Kennedy at the Labor and Human Resources Committee as general counsel and deputy staff director. I am speaking of Mr. William G. Dauster, known to every Democratic Senator who ever had a question on the budget, an amendment to the budget resolution, or a budget point of order, simply as, ``Bill.'' You could see Bill Dauster on the Senate floor, late at night, at the side of Budget Committee Chairmen Chiles or Sasser, or Ranking Minority Member Jim Exon. He was the best right hand and the finest counsel these Senators could seek. As the longest serving member on the Budget Committee, I have known Bill since he first walked in the door almost 11 years ago after working in private practice as a litigator with the New York City law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Bill Dauster served on the committee, first as chief counsel from December 1986 to November 1994, and then rose to the position of Democratic staff director and chief counsel. I saw Bill grow into one of the most respected and expert voices on the budget. His advice and guidance made him an invaluable resource to all Democratic Senators. I think he taught a few lessons to some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle as well. But they respected him, too. Bill Dauster took on more thankless tasks than any reasonable man could ask for, including some of the most arcane issues and twists and turns of budget process imaginable. And he did it with enormous dedication, consummate patience, an abundance of affability, and a large dose of excellent humor. Bill doesn't take himself seriously. He takes the issues seriously. Bill Dauster leaves behind him a string of accomplishments of which few can boast, and of which many would envy. He has participated in Congress' reception of 11 Presidential budget submissions and 11 years of budget hearings. He had a strong hand in drafting 8 budget resolutions, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, the 1987 revision of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, at least a few amendments to the balanced budget amendment, and amendments exposing the weaknesses of entitlement caps. During that time, Bill also wrote 3 editions of a budget process law book, 3 budget law review articles, numerous speeches, and more than 20 op-ed pieces that have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Monthly, Roll Call, the Hill and the Sunday Journal newspapers of suburban Washington, DC. He can be justifiably proud of all of them. Bill's keen wit, nimble mind, and ability to turn a phrase are as evident and legendary as his extensive library and e-mail list. The Budget Committee may have afforded Bill a wealth of opportunities, but this body is the richer for it. Bill's resume, however, does not do justice to the enormous contributions he has made, not just to the budget process, but to our fellow citizens as well. He personifies a true servant, not only of this great institution, but of the people we serve. Blessed with enormous intellectual skills, Bill has also exhibited great compassion for the less fortunate among us, especially America's children and the disabled. Bill has toiled tirelessly on their behalf. And his source of inspiration has always been his family--his wonderful wife Ellen Weintraub and their three children, Matthew, Natanya, and Emma--to whom Bill is devoted. I certainly don't want to make this sound like a eulogy, since Bill will be just down the hallway from the Budget Committee. And I trust Senator Kennedy will still let us call or visit with Bill to benefit from his counsel. So this is not farewell, but merely thank you, Bill, for a challenge well met and a job well done.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of a great man and a very good friend, Al Shanker. His contributions to education and society at large are too great to enumerate so I respectfully ask that E.D. Hirsch, Jr.'s column from the Washington Post be printed in the Record. The column follows: What Al Shanker Taught Us In the course of the past two decades, Albert Shanker made himself the most important figure in American education. In the wake of his untimely death on Feb. 22, the movement toward rigorous academic standards in public schools must still go on. But his death leaves a void, and the standards movement will have less force and focus than it had before. No other high official in education spoke home truths so consistently, or with more clarity, or to greater effect. No one contributed more to the change in attitude among teachers and the general public toward universally high academic standards. If a single person could be said to be responsible for the shift in sentiment that prompted the President to call, in his State of the Union address, for national educational standards in the public school--a proposal that would have been unthinkable a few years back--it would be Al Shanker. We teachers, like the rest of humankind, are creatures of habit and tradition who follow the ideas we were taught. Our leaders are inclined to preserve their popularity by telling us what we are comforted to hear. Al Shanker was different. His loyalty was to the wellbeing of public education as a whole. Only a rare and great leader risks the disfavor of his followers and brings them to a new understanding of uncomfortable new realities. Long before his colleagues, Shanker had the insight to perceive and the courage to acknowledge some harsh truths about our public schools. He led teachers to recognize that public support for public education could no longer be taken for granted, that schools would need to set much higher standards of achievement for all and that students would need to face serious consequences for not attaining them--a stern message that went against the dominant sentiments of students, teachers and parents alike. Still, teachers adored him. They knew that he spoke with conviction and good will. They respected and loved him for being so brainy and honest, so much himself. ``Let Al be Al'' was the resigned decision of his union's executive committee after he had written some particularly forthright and discomforting numbers of ``Where We Stand''--the weekly essay through which he promulgated his ideas. Sometimes the ``We'' was an editorial ``We'', in later years maybe a royal ``We.'' Among the educational leaders I have known, Shanker was the most intellectually brilliant and tough-minded. He had talent for clarity and trenchancy. But those gifts would have counted for little had they not been joined to high patriotism, a sense of responsibility, unflinching honesty, imagination and courage. His brains alone would have made him a distinguished CEO of a big organization that represented hundreds of thousands of teachers. But his courage, honesty, and imagination make him prophetic. If we are lucky enough to follow in the direction he set, history will view him as a pivotal figure in American educational renewal.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues Senators Conrad and Grassley in introducing the Primary Care Health Practitioner Incentive Act of 1997. Today I specifically want to address the provision that would allow for direct Medicare reimbursement for services provided by nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists regardless of geographic location. For many years we have been trying to pass legislation that would allow these health care providers in urban settings the same direct Medicare reimbursement as those in a rural setting, and I am hopeful that this is the year it will actually be enacted. Currently, nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists may treat Medicare patients without a physician present if they practice in a rural setting or in a long-term care facility. I believe that it is time for this antiquated restraint to practice to be removed so that health care choices may be improved and increased for all Medicare patients. If we are to have any hope of providing adequate care with huge reductions in both Medicare and Medicaid, it is essential that service be provided by the least costly provider of quality care. We simply cannot afford to ignore the quality care of which nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists have proven they are capable. I would also like to point out that many times there is a discrepancy in the designation of rural and urban areas. In my home State of South Carolina, as in other States, a number of the areas listed as urban are, in reality, rural areas. Medicare patients in these areas are unable to receive home visits or utilize local community satellite offices staffed with nurse practitioners. Rather, they are required to travel miles to see a physician. As a result, many patients forgo preventive health care and wait to seek care until they become so ill that they must be hospitalized or they are forced to seek care in more expensive emergency rooms. Not only is access to physicians more limited, but their fees for services are usually higher as well. Recent figures published by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners estimate a cost savings of greater than $54 million per year if nurse practitioners were utilized appropriately in the provision of Medicare services in ambulatory care settings. The primary objective of nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists is to provide routine care, manage chronic conditions, promote preventive health care, and make medical care more accessible and less expensive. Nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists have proven that they are able to provide high-quality, cost-effective primary care in all settings in which they provide services. It is foolish to restrict their ability to provide primary care services to the elderly based on setting or geographic location, and I urge your consideration and the passage of this bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues Senators Conrad and Grassley in introducing the Primary Care Health Practitioner Incentive Act of 1997. Today I specifically want to address the provision that would allow for direct Medicare reimbursement for services provided by nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists regardless of geographic location. For many years we have been trying to pass legislation that would allow these health care providers in urban settings the same direct Medicare reimbursement as those in a rural setting, and I am hopeful that this is the year it will actually be enacted. Currently, nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists may treat Medicare patients without a physician present if they practice in a rural setting or in a long-term care facility. I believe that it is time for this antiquated restraint to practice to be removed so that health care choices may be improved and increased for all Medicare patients. If we are to have any hope of providing adequate care with huge reductions in both Medicare and Medicaid, it is essential that service be provided by the least costly provider of quality care. We simply cannot afford to ignore the quality care of which nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists have proven they are capable. I would also like to point out that many times there is a discrepancy in the designation of rural and urban areas. In my home State of South Carolina, as in other States, a number of the areas listed as urban are, in reality, rural areas. Medicare patients in these areas are unable to receive home visits or utilize local community satellite offices staffed with nurse practitioners. Rather, they are required to travel miles to see a physician. As a result, many patients forgo preventive health care and wait to seek care until they become so ill that they must be hospitalized or they are forced to seek care in more expensive emergency rooms. Not only is access to physicians more limited, but their fees for services are usually higher as well. Recent figures published by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners estimate a cost savings of greater than $54 million per year if nurse practitioners were utilized appropriately in the provision of Medicare services in ambulatory care settings. The primary objective of nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists is to provide routine care, manage chronic conditions, promote preventive health care, and make medical care more accessible and less expensive. Nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists have proven that they are able to provide high-quality, cost-effective primary care in all settings in which they provide services. It is foolish to restrict their ability to provide primary care services to the elderly based on setting or geographic location, and I urge your consideration and the passage of this bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 668 which extends the aviation ticket tax through the end of fiscal year 1997. This tax is essential to the day-to-day operation of our Nation's aviation system. Money to improve, maintain, and run our airports is wholly supported by fees paid by the users of the air transportation system. It is not paid for by the taxes we all pay on April 15. Air travelers paid for our airports in the form of a 10 percent ticket tax every time they flew prior to December 31, 1996. That money has been going into the airport and airway trust fund, and the money is then disbursed through the appropriations process. We have told people to pay this tax, and we have told them we will then spend it on airports and making improvements to the air transportation system. I know that there is a great need to refurbish our Nation's airports. In South Carolina, I visit small airports and see the condition of the runways. Small airports cannot generate the funds needed without the assistance of the Federal Aviation Administration, which provides the necessary money from the trust fund. Our problem now is that the ticket tax expired at the end of 1996. Due to budget games, the money that we thought would be in the trust fund is not there. Originally we were advised that the trust fund would be broke in July, but it will be depleted as early as March. If this situation is not corrected, millions of dollars in airport modernization projects, aviation safety enhancements, and airport security efforts will have to be delayed or terminated. The obvious answer to this untenable situation is to reinstate the aviation ticket tax, and that is why I am supporting H.R. 668. I urge my fellow colleagues to quit playing budget games and start fulfilling one of government's primary functions--preserving the safety of the American people.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise to offer legislation that will help parents limit the amount of television violence coming into their homes. As my colleagues know well, Congress has been studying this issue for 40 years and the issues have not changed. Recent press reports continue to validate my concerns that all the talk and promises have yielded nothing but the status quo, and efforts to encourage the industry to police itself continue to yield meager results. Enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 marked the second time Congress has passed legislation to encourage the entertainment industry to limit the amount of violence seen on television. The first time was the effort in the late 1980's led by our former colleague from Illinois, Paul Simon. Senator Simon's approach, the Television Program Improvement Act, was designed to grant the industry a 3-year antitrust exemption to work together to adopt voluntary guidelines that would lead to reducing violence depicted in television programs. The result of this industry collaboration was announced in December 1992 with a statement of joint standards regarding the broadcasting of excessive television violence. In June 1993, the networks made a commitment that, before and during the broadcasting of programs that might contain excessive violence, the following announcement would be made: ``Due to some violent content, parental discretion is advised.'' The Independent Television Association, the trade group representing many of the television stations not affiliated with one of the networks, adopted a similar voluntary code. Subsequent studies detailed, however, that despite these voluntary guidelines, violence continued to rise. In 1993, therefore, I introduced my safe harbor bill for the first time. The Commerce Committee held one hearing in the 103d Congress and a second hearing during the 104th. The Commerce Committee reported my bill, S. 470, by a vote of 16 to 1. The hearing record substantiates the constitutionality of my safe harbor approach, with both Attorney General Reno and Federal Communications Commission [FCC] Chairman Hundt on record as testifying that the safe harbor approach is constitutional. My efforts to bring my bill to the floor for a vote were repeatedly blocked. The second time, Congress legislated in this area was last year when the so-called V-Chip provision was incorporated into the Telecommunications Act of 1996. I voted for this provision but had my doubts about its effectiveness. Once again, Congress relied on the industry to help parents limit the amount of violence. To make the V- chip work, the 1996 act encouraged the video programming industry to ``establish voluntary rules for rating video programming that contains sexual, violent or other indecent material about which parents should be informed before it is displayed to children,'' and to broadcast voluntarily signals containing these ratings. Pursuant to the 1996 act, all segments of the entertainment industry created the TV ratings implementation group--ratings group, headed by the Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA] president Jack Valenti. The group devised an age-based ratings system--not a content- based system. The proposal has been met with widespread criticism as being too broad and vague for parents. I recommend that my colleagues read this past Saturday's New York Times February 22, 1997, to understand the confusion surrounding this issue. The age-based ratings system does not give parents sufficient information. Parents want the ability and the choice to block out specific content they find unsuitable for their children. So, here we are. Congress passes legislation designed to limit the amount of television violence, again relying on the industry to act responsibly. The voluntary ratings system proposed by the industry, called the TV parental guidelines, consists of the following six age- based ratings: