Tim Hutchinson

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, this amendment calls for 100,000 new teachers paid for at the Federal level. It is an endorsement of the President's proposal. I reluctantly oppose it. Mr. President, 79 percent of the teachers in Arkansas are satisfied with class size, 65 percent of the teachers nationwide are satisfied with their class sizes. It is wrong to have a one-size-fits-all approach on the Federal level. We may need more teachers in some States, but we may not need them in others. So I believe this is an area States are already addressing, California and many other States have adopted programs to reduce class size. It is not something the Federal Government needs to get involved in. It has a $7 billion price tag. Those funds can be better used, and more wisely used, in other areas. So I ask my colleagues to oppose this sense-of-the-Senate resolution endorsing the 100,000 teacher, $7 billion expansion of the Federal role in public school education.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, yesterday's papers were replete with stories praising the People's Republic of China for releasing Wang Dan, a leader of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstration at Tiananmen Square which was crushed by China's military. This release follows, by less than six months, the release of Wei Jingshen--arguably China's best known human rights dissident. While these are certainly positive developments, it is important to note that both of these releases are tainted by the fact that neither dissident was allowed to stay in their own country, but were instead exiled to the United States for ``medical treatment.'' These exiles conveniently allow China to gain favor with the United States while simultaneously allowing them to silence two of their loudest critics by banishing them to the United States. Mr. President, the truth is that China appears to be using its dissidents as pawns in an international game of chess with the United States to gain military, technological and other favors from the Clinton Administration. In fact, the release of these two prisoners appears to be payment for the United States decision not to support a resolution condemning China's human rights record at the recently completed U.N. Conference on Human Rights and for the United States certification of China to join a pact on ballistic missile technology. It is amazing that this great country, which has long stood beside political prisoners around the world, is willing to be a player in China game of siphoning out political prisoners in return for international favors. Let us not forget that the People's Republic of China continues to have one of the worst human rights records in the world. A record that includes torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and sterilization, crackdowns on independent Catholic and Protestant bishops and believers, brutal oppression of ethnic minorities and religions in Tibet and Xinjiang, absolute intolerance of free political speech or free press, and most recently, the harvesting and selling of human organs. Likewise, let us not forget that China continues to threaten its neighbors, most notably Taiwan and let us not forget that China continues to violate international agreements on non-proliferation, having recently been caught negotiating to sell chemicals to Iran which could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium. Mr. President, we must end this deadly and humiliating game with China, and demand the immediate release of the hundreds, if not thousands, of political, religious, and labor dissidents currently imprisoned in China for having peacefully expressed their beliefs and for having exercised their basic human rights. This list includes the likes of Gao Yu, a journalist sentenced to six years in 1994; Chen Longde, a leading human rights advocate serving a three year ``re- education'' sentence which began in 1995; Li Qingxi, a unionist arrested in 1998, and many, many others. While I hope that the recent release of two of China's most notable dissidents was just the beginning, and that the remaining political prisoners held in the People's Republic of China will soon be released, I see little evidence that this is the case. Therefore, I urge my fellow Senators to support my Sense of the Senate Resolution calling on the President to demand that China release all such prisoners prior to their upcoming U.S.-China summit meeting, and that the President report to this body on the progress being made by the administration in securing the release of these prisoners immediately following this planned summit. Mr. President, this is a reasonable resolution--a resolution that once again puts this body on record supporting those that would give up their freedom in support of the freedom of their fellow countrymen. I can think of no more important issue. I thank my Senate colleagues for their support.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. No, I will not yield for questions at this time. I resent the implication that somehow I have violated the comity of the process by offering a second-degree amendment which sincerely reflects my desire to address the education problems in this Nation in what I believe is a better way and my sincere--my sincere--reluctance to further federalize education in this country by hiring 100,000 new teachers with Federal funds. I think it is the wrong direction. I think it is the right of any Senator to come and propose a better way. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I will yield for a question.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am not sure what the question is. I yielded for a question.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Such a suggestion was made.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, 15 minutes ago, 59 Senators voted in favor of what I think all of us support: reforming and restructuring the IRS and protecting the taxpayers to a date certain on sunsetting the Tax Code that no one in this country defends. Do not be fooled. This amendment is a second-degree amendment offered by my dear colleague from North Dakota that would undo much of what we just did. We don't want to undo that. There is nothing in the sense of the Senate that we just adopted that would threaten in any way charitable deductions or home mortgage deductions or any of the other particular aspects of the current code that you may like. It would say that on a date certain we are going to have a new code that is fairer and simpler, more comprehensible to the American people, and that it is a tax code that they deserve. I ask my colleagues to reject this second-degree amendment designed only to undo what we just expressed to the American people--that we believe the IRS is out of control and that we have a code that needs to be simplified and that needs to be made more fair. I ask my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I think Senator Domenici's motion to table gave all of us on this side of the aisle time to look closely at what the second-degree amendment by the Senator from North Dakota actually did. I have no objection to that second-degree amendment. I think it merely expresses--it does not undo or reverse the sense of the Senate that we adopted earlier with 59 votes. It expresses support for the charitable tax deduction and the homeowner deduction. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of Senator Dorgan's second-degree amendment. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 30 seconds.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, if I might just explain the amendment. There are two major provisions to the amendment. One would say that until we are able to replace this Tax Code, we need to restructure and reform the IRS. Senator Roth has done a marvelous job in highlighting the abuses of the Internal Revenue Service. This puts us on record, in the sense of the Senate, that we should as expeditiously as possible provide taxpayer protections. The second major provision is that we should set a date certain in which this massive, incomprehensible Tax Code will be sunsetted, and we will have a replacement code written 6 months in advance of that. We give the sense of the Senate in those two respects. This chart in the Washington Post shows what we did in the Taxpayer Relief Act regarding one provision, IRA rules. We complicated it from this to this. The American taxpayer knows that. We need to simplify, we need to reform the IRS. And there is nothing irresponsible about setting a sunset date on sunsetting the existing Tax Code. We sunset the ISTEA bill, we sunset the higher education bill, we sunset the farm bill. But we just add to, and add to, and add to the Tax Code. We have elections. We have a process. We have hearings. We will have a responsible process by which we write a replacement code and the American people will come to a consensus. I ask your support for this second-degree amendment.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I do not believe we need to be voting on the Dorgan amendment, which is simply a vote on behalf of the status quo. We need an affirmative vote on the need to sunset the current Tax Code.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have a second-degree amendment to the Dorgan amendment I send to the desk.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Will the Senator yield some time to me?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish my good friend and colleague from Arkansas, Senator Bumpers, had been able to stay because he called this the most irresponsible piece of legislation that he has heard of during his time. This isn't about applause lines and not about flat taxes or flatter. It is about whether or not we are going to vote to defend the status quo, whether we are going to vote to defend an incomprehensible monstrosity called the IRS Tax Code. I want to begin my remarks by just quoting the words of James Madison in Federalist Paper No. 62 when he said: It will be of little avail to the people. . .if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. I think if he were writing today, he would be talking about the IRS Tax Code being incomprehensible. The biggest issue raised against it is that it is going to cause uncertainty if we repeal it, if we sunset it, and that it is going to cause uncertainty. Mr. President I can think of no greater expert on the economy or the effects of public policy on the economy than Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. All of this ``the sky is falling,'' all of this fearmongering, all of this rhetoric that this is going to somehow cause economic chaos--Mr. Greenspan said, in testifying before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in 1995: Sunsetting is a very important process for both regulation and various different types of legislation. He was asked: If we're talking about sunsetting regulations, should we sunset taxes as well. . .? He responded: I cannot find reasons why all programs should not have specific time-certain ends to them and be required to be reauthorized. He went on: After a period of years, I would say yes to that. I would say all institutions of a democratic society should be reviewed. . .the presumption that institutions should not be reviewed periodically in a democratic society is a mistake. Mr. President, we just passed in this Chamber a transportation funding bill, the ISTEA bill. We would not have done it had it not been sunsetted, had it not expired, had it not had to be reauthorized. We would have never forced ourselves to do it. Today I spent most of my day in a higher education reauthorization markup. We did that because the last one is expiring, because it was sunsetted. We do that on spending bills all the time--the IDEA bill. Why should we not also do that on bills on the Tax Code that has become so incomprehensible to the American people? Senator Bumpers, my good friend from Arkansas, said it is the height of irresponsibility to sunset something before you know what you are going to replace it with. I am so glad--I am so glad--that our Founding Fathers did not adopt such a position. To say that you cannot pass a law until a new law is ready to replace it ignores the rich history of this country that was founded by a group of freedom lovers who signed the Declaration of Independence 12 years before the Constitution was drafted and implemented. Surely we can do that with just one title of the U.S. Code. To say that it is the height of irresponsibility--can you imagine our Founding Fathers saying, ``Well, it's very irresponsible for us to declare independence before we know what the Constitution is going to look like or before we know what the Government is going to look like or before we know what the Tax Code is going to look like.'' We know one thing. We may not know, I say to my colleague, whether we want a flat tax, sales tax, value added tax, or some other hybrid, but we, as the American people, know that of what we have, we deserve better, that this serves no one, and the April Fool's joke is to defend this Tax Code, which is the nightmare for the American people 2 weeks before they reach this deadline. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this resolution which would delete this important sunset provision sense of the Senate from our budget resolution. I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The language contained in our budget resolution mimics the language of the Tax Code Termination Act. Thirty-eight Members of the Senate are cosponsoring it; 154 Members of the House. It is responsible language that will force this Congress to act. It will force the national debate, it will force a consensus, and it will force us to make a decision. We can do better and the American people deserve better. We need to set a sunset for this Tax Code.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I rise today to remember and honor a young Arkansas school teacher who made the ultimate sacrifice for one of her students. Children often think of their teachers as heros. And there is no better word than ``hero'' to describe a courageous woman named Shannon Wright, a thirty-two year old English teacher at Westside Middle School. Shannon died in the tragic schoolyard shooting Tuesday along with four students. In the hail of gunfire, she gave her life in order to protect an eleven-year old girl, Emma Pittman. Emma says she believes Mrs. Wright saw the bullets coming and shielded her from being hit. Shannon was shot twice while she tried to protect the young girl from injury. In the words of Emma Pittman's mother, ``I feel she needs a hero award for saving our child. I want her family to know how grateful we are because she didn't think of herself--she thought of the children.'' While Shannon will forever be remembered as a hero, it will be extremely difficult to ease the pain her death has brought. Shannon Wright was not only a teacher, she was a mother, a daughter, and a wife. She left behind her husband of twelve years, Mitchell, and her 2\1/2\ year old son Zane. Her life was devoted to serving others, and she was deeply loved by her family and her many friends. The loss of Shannon Wright will be mourned not only by those whose lives she touched everyday, but by the entire Jonesboro community, the state of Arkansas, and people throughout our nation. This horrible act of violence has caused incredible pain for the people of Northeast Arkansas. We grieve not only for Shannon Wright, but for the four girls who were killed, Natalie Brooks, Paige Herring, Stephanie Johnson, and Brittheny Varner. It's impossible to understand why such a tragedy occurred, especially in a schoolyard. While it seems that nothing good could ever come from something so terrible, Shannon Wright's death taught her students and the rest of us an incredibly important lesson about the power of selfless action. Shannon Wright's selfless action saved a young girl's life. Shannon Wright will always be remembered as a hero who gave her life to protect the children.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I was interested in things that my good friend, the Senator from Connecticut, said. He said that the standard we were setting for Mexico was a standard of perfection. He said that twice, as if we had held up some impossible standard for Mexico to meet. Well, if you look at the text of the Presidential determination certifying Mexico, signed by President Clinton, it is not a standard of perfection that we ask of Mexico. It is this: I hereby determine and certify that Mexico has cooperated fully with the United States, or has taken adequate steps on their own to achieve full compliance with the goals and objectives of the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs. . .. That is the standard--``cooperated fully and taken adequate steps.'' I suggest to my colleagues that we have a moral and a legal obligation to measure this vote by that standard. It is not some standard of perfection. It is a standard of whether they have fully cooperated and whether they have taken adequate steps. I further suggest that if you look plainly and clearly at the compelling evidence, by every standard and measure Mexico has failed to fully cooperate and they have failed to take adequate steps. The government of Mexico has yet to extradite or surrender a single Mexican national to the United States on drug charges, despite the fact that there are 27 outstanding requests. In fact, no Mexican national has been surrendered. The Bilateral Border Task Force, which was described by the administration last September as the ``cornerstone of U.S.-Mexico cooperative enforcement efforts'' has yet to become fully operational, and has been completely ineffective. This failure is due to a lack of funding by the government of Mexico, corruption, and the failure of the Mexican Government to allow DEA agents to carry weapons. Is this what we consider ``cooperating fully and taking adequate steps?'' According to the Deputy Attorney General testifying before Congress, ``None of the senior members of the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) has been arrested.'' In short, the AFO, part of the Tijuana Cartel--the second most powerful drug cartel in Mexico, continues to operate unimpeded. Is this what we consider ``taking adequate steps?'' Mr. President, the answer is obvious--the Government of Mexico has not cooperated fully in this most important war for the lives of our citizens, and has not taken adequate steps to engage in this war on their own. In fact, seizures of metham- phetamines in Mexico in 1997 was less than one-fourth the levels attained in 1996 and seizures of heroin have been cut in half. In all, Mexico's record of drug seizures this past year are far short of adequate and are best characterized as a dismal failure. Coupled with these poor seizure rates, the number of drug related arrests were down in 1997--and were almost a third of the arrests made in 1992. Again, not adequate, but wholly inadequate--not progress but retrogression. The failure of the Government of Mexico to move against the major drug producing and transporting Mexican Cartels, their failure to make significant drug seizures and arrests, and their failure to cooperate fully with U.S. counter-narcotic efforts has led to a dramatic increase in the supply of drugs entering the United States. The results of these failures are both known and predictable. As the supply of drugs goes up, their prices go down. Street prices for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines are at their lowest levels in years--making these deadly drugs more affordable for our children and more available for the troubled addicts lining our country's shattered neighborhoods. This cheap price may be why heroin use is increasing so rapidly--with those under the age of 25 being the largest new heroin user population. Likewise, according to the administration, cocaine use is again on the climb. With the new users falling in the age of 12 to 17. Mr. President, there are real faces of real children behind these stark numbers. They live in urban and rural in Arkansas, and across the country. This was is one that we cannot afford to loose. Drugs are the hidden impetus to much of this country's crime, poverty and violence. Every day more children start down the drug path to ruin. If we lose this war, it will be lost on the backs of our children and our families. Today's debate is too important to call a totally inadequate effort-- adequate! We must not lower our standards in this test of international will to win the war on drugs. Based on the facts, I would urge a vote for the resolution to decertify Mexico. If words have meaning at all, and they do, Mexico has failed--they have not taken ``adequate steps'' and they have not ``cooperated fully.'' If the annual certification of Mexico is anything more than an empty political exercise, one must vote to decertify in view of the clear and convincing evidence. We must not be like the ostrich--head in the sand--pretending everything is O.K. Mr. President, honesty demands a yes vote on this resolution to decertify. So, Mr. President, I could go on and on. Senator Feinstein did it very well. By every measure, Mexico has failed. It is not a standard of perfection. Have they cooperated? Have they taken steps? They have not. We do not have not some fantasy obligation; we have a moral and legal obligation. If words mean anything, we must judge Mexico simply by whether they have cooperated and whether they have taken adequate steps. And they have not. My friends, if this is anything more than a political exercise that we go through every year, anything more than a political joke, we have a moral and legal obligation to vote yes on this issue of decertification. I thank the Senator from Georgia for the time.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I have a 20 minute speech I am going to condense to 2 minutes. I had no idea we had so little time. It is unfair to the others--

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Ten minutes will be sufficient.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. This case only builds upon the repeated efforts from Chinese dissidents, Amnesty International, and the U.S. Department of State concerning the declining human rights conditions in China. Again, as the Washington Post reported last month, these human rights abuses include ``torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and sterilization, crackdowns on independent Catholic and Protestant bishops and believers, brutal oppression of ethnic minorities and religions in Tibet and Xinjiang and, of course, absolute intolerance of free political speech or free press.'' Mr. President, how long must this list of oppression get before this Government acts? The increased arrogance of China's leadership in the face of the world's silence is evident in President Jiang's statement late last year that ``both democracy and human rights are relative concepts and not absolute and general.'' Accepted absolutes are now considered relative by China's leadership. This brutal Communist regime has now decided to determine the moral parameters within which civilized countries can stand within its judgment. In short, religious persecution, organ harvesting, and torture are now within the bounds of moral behavior in China. The unacceptable is now acceptable and the inhuman is now humane. While the world stands silent, China has managed to redefine the very nature of what is right and what is wrong. Last week, I and 11 of my Senate colleagues sent a letter to President Clinton to remind him of his promise to the American people to ``step up efforts, in cooperation with other states, to insist that the United Nations Human Rights Commission pass a resolution dealing with the serious human rights abuses in China.'' On Wednesday, under the able leadership of Chairman Helms, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopted a resolution submitted by Senators Mack and Wellstone expressing the sense of the Senate denouncing the human rights conditions in China. This resolution, which we now debate and which we will soon vote upon, and which I believe this body will adopt overwhelmingly, as did the committee, criticizes the People's Republic of China and asks for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to pass a resolution acknowledging what is going on in China today, and for this Government to make that request of the United Nations. While it is far short of the effort I believe should be made, it is a welcome first step in the right direction. I commend Senator Wellstone and Senator Mack for their outstanding leadership on this, and Senator Helms and all of those on the committee who voted 16 to 1 in favor of the resolution. If I might just close with this--and I know I have taken longer than I had requested--when I visited China in January--and I can spend an hour or much longer talking about those 10 days in China--the most moving moment was on a Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. when I went to Tiananmen Square where, all of us remember so vividly almost 9 years ago, the images came across our TV sets through CNN cameras, and we saw those tens of thousands of students who stayed there for months peacefully asking their government to improve human rights conditions and to democratize the largest nation in the world. While I was in China, I had a chance not only to visit Tiananmen Square and see that red banner that still flies, but to visit Ray Burghardt who was charged to be in Beijing at the time of the massacre when the Chinese Government, the hardliners, won out and the troops and the tanks moved in. He spent 3 hours over dinner telling us about the events leading up to the massacre. He said on the night that the tanks moved in, the Chinese Communist Government waited until 2 in the morning. They did not want the world to see what was about to happen. The floodlights that showered over the many, many acres of Tiananmen Square were turned off. They did not want to see any cameras rolling. As the troops moved in and the tanks moved in, he said from the Beijing Hotel, watching through binoculars, that he could see, as the troops came out, as the weapons were fired, the profiles of the students as they fell. The silence continued, broken a few moments later by more gunfire, more students falling. Through those morning hours, the massacre continued. By the time the Sun came up the next morning, the tanks had cleared the mall. They had cleared Tiananmen Square so that no one was to know, so that no one would have a hint of the massacre, of the thousands who died in the surrounding blocks, or of the tens of thousands who lost their lives. Those students looked to the United States as the emblem of freedom, as the shining city on a hill. They built a 30-foot model of our Statue of Liberty and it, too, went under the tanks as they rolled in. I just ask my colleagues, as they vote for this resolution, to remember what those students were fighting for, what they were standing for and to whom they looked as the symbol of freedom. I ask for a good vote, a solid vote, and a message to the world that we still stand for freedom. I thank the Senator from Minnesota for his indulgence.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the Senator from Minnesota for yielding time. Mr. President, for the last 4 years this Congress has been engaged in an intense debate on this country's trade relationship with the People's Republic of China. On the one side of this debate are those who view the abhorrent and declining human rights conditions in China as a cause for revoking the special trade treatment currently given to Chinese-produced goods. On the other side of this debate are those who view free trade as a paramount virtue and believe linking trade with human rights is an inappropriate foundation on which to build our national trade policy. Last month, the two sides of this debate came colliding together in one chilling event, the indictment and arrest of two Chinese ``businessmen'' for trade in human body parts harvested from executed prisoners in the People's Republic of China. Trade and human rights, delinked by our Government, were unalterably linked together by this tragic event last month. This arrest, more than any other event, brings the human rights crisis in China to the feet of those kneeling at the altar of free trade. No longer can free traders, the Chinese Government, or this administration turn a blind eye to the gruesome conditions now prevalent in the People's Republic of China. In matters related to trade with China, we must now move beyond the issue of trade deficits and move on to the issue of moral deficits. In particular, this country and this Congress must strongly reconsider the moral basis of our special trade relationship with this repressive regime. The history leading up to last month's arrest is telling. For years, human rights organizations charged that the Chinese Government was at the center of an international market in human organs harvested from Chinese prisoners. The Chinese Government denied these reports, charging that these accusations were malicious and conspiratorial and outrageous. They totally rejected the charges. Then, in 1994, the British Broadcasting Company, the BBC, aired a documentary detailing its evidence concerning China's trade in body parts. Again China issued a strong denial. Representative Chris Smith held a hearing on this issue in 1996. The Chinese Government again stood firm in its denials. Then, last year, confronted with hidden video captured by ABC's ``Prime Time Live'' documenting an actual transaction of a kidney, complete with footage of the military hospital in China used to harvest the organs and of a U.S. business which operated a kidney dialysis unit in China to facilitate the transaction, even in spite of this, China stood ever stronger in its adamant denial. When I visited China in January of this year, when I raised this issue, once again it was dismissed out of hand as being a fabrication of the opponents of China. The Chinese policy of lies and denials and distortions relating to its involvement in the marketing of human body parts may work well in the court of public opinion, but it will fail, I believe, in the court of law. With the arrest of Wang Cheng Yong and Fu Xingqi, the Chinese Government and its sympathizers will have to rethink their party line. More important, this Government will have to rethink the credence it gives to the word of the Chinese Government and its spokesmen. It is now certain that, in China, the judge, the executioner, and the profiteer are all wrapped in one. As the Washington Post editorialized in the wake of these arrests, ``the Clinton administration long ago abandoned human rights as a primary consideration dealing with China. . . .'' But even Stanley O. Roth, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, had to admit that if prisoners were being killed in China in order to provide organs, ``it would be among the grossest violations of human rights imaginable.'' This indictment right here provides clear and convincing evidence that China now ranks as one of the worst human rights violators in history. I encourage my fellow Senators and the President to read carefully the chilling facts detailed in this document and to watch closely as the case is brought to trial. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I appreciate this indulgence. I ask consent to speak in morning business. I am going to speak on a different subject. If the chairman would like that not to count against his time----

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Up to 15 minutes.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I take a moment to commend the Senator from Rhode Island and compliment him for the outstanding leadership he provided the Environment and Public Works Committee on the ISTEA II bill. It has been suggested he should be nominated, if you have not been, for a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing all the various factions together in what is, I think, a very worthwhile bill that will be to the benefit of all Americans. I commend the Senator.