Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I believe this amendment has been cleared by the other side.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 4089

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am, I have to say, disappointed that the Senator from New Jersey did not come to the floor to say that he would take his hold off the antistalking bill that he made a great statement of support for. I had hoped that he would come and do that, because when he first put his hold on the bill, I thought that perhaps we could work something out so that he would be able to have his gun amendment on some piece of legislation. In fact, his amendment has not been cleared through the Judiciary Committee and has not gone through the process. I hope that it will be able to be heard in the Judiciary and be able to have its day in court. But he is mixing apples and oranges when he says that he wants the bill to go through with his amendment on it. That is not the option we have before us. The Senator from New Jersey well knows that it is not that his amendment will not pass. I do not know if it will pass or it will not. It is that his amendment will keep my bill to protect women and children who are victims of harassment and threats, who are victims of people who cross interstate boundaries, my bill will not be brought up. That is the effect of his hold on my bill. I would love to see Senator Lautenberg go to the Judiciary Committee, comply with the rules that everyone else complies with, and let the Judiciary Committee take his amendment, do with it as it will. But for him to say that he requires that his amendment be taken up with this bill, which has been cleared by 99 Members of the Senate, I think is a smokescreen. I hope that Senator Lautenberg, who professes to agree with the merits of this bill, will in fact let this bill go before this week is out. This bill has been pending for a month. He knows it will not be brought up with an amendment. So why not provide the protections that are going to be provided in this Armed Services authorization bill for people in the military and on military bases for every other woman and child that might be a victim of this kind of harassment around the country? I implore the Senator from New Jersey to lift his hold on this bill, to go through the Judiciary Committee, as this bill already has, and join with every Member of the House of Representatives and every Member of the U.S. Senate and send this bill to the President. We have every reason to believe that the President will sign this bill, and he would do it quickly. We would provide those protections immediately for the women and children who have known the threats and the harassment and the terror that not only has been perpetrated on people around this country, but, in fact, the sad thing is, Mr. President, because we do not have all of the tools to prevent this harassment, the threats have in some cases been realized. In fact, women have been murdered in this country by people who have been threatening for months, but we did not have the ability to stop the threat because we did not have the laws on the books that recognized that this could, in fact, lead up to an actual crime. Now we have the ability to do something about this, and Senator Lautenberg is holding that bill up. He is holding it hostage for another amendment. We do not have to argue the merits of his amendment. All we have to argue is whether he will allow my bill to come to the floor, my bill which has been cleared by every other Member of the Senate and the House. Senator Feinstein had an amendment that she wanted to add to this bill, and I asked her if she would allow her amendment to go on another bill and let this bill go. She was a wonderful person. She said, ``Of course I will,'' because she understands that getting this amount of help for the women and children who are victims of harassment and threats in this country is a worthy goal, and she sees it could be realized. She did step back on her amendment. Senator Gramm asked if he could put on a very good amendment that would require a registration and notification capability for a person that would move into a neighborhood that had a record of conviction for harassment or even actual sexual crimes against a child. He asked that amendment be put on. It is a great amendment. It is an amendment I am a cosponsor of. He agreed to step aside, because this was a unanimous agreement that we could come to and he did not want to hold up the progress of the bill. Senator Gramm and Senator Feinstein both asked for amendments that were good amendments, amendments I support, to be put on this bill, but because it would have to go back to the House, they agreed not to put their amendments on this bill so it could go directly to the President. I hope Senator Lautenberg will hear my plea and the plea of Joy Silverman, who was here, who is a victim herself, and others around the country who might be protected if Senator Lautenberg would lift this hold. I urge Senator Lautenberg to do that. I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to be named a cosponsor of my bill. I would love for him to be a part of this effort. Mr. President, Senator Lautenberg still has the opportunity to lift his hold and do what is right on this bill, just as Senator Feinstein and Senator Gramm have done. I hope he will see his way clear to do that before tomorrow so the President can sign this bill and it will not have to go back to the House and we will have more protection on the books for women and children in this country who are victims today of threats and harassment that could be realized if we do not give them the tools to protect themselves. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Gorton, I offer an amendment which would authorize certain military construction projects for the Navy and Army Reserves in the State of Washington.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. The Postmaster General says he would have to raise all of the rates, because it comes from the post office.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. In other words, it does not necessarily cover all of the costs?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I want to ask the Senator, what would happen under your bill if there was not enough money saved from the use of the frank to cover the cost of the discounted mailing?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to speak against cloture on this bill, but I also want to talk about what I think is good about the bill and why I am voting against cloture. First, I want to say, if I were titling this bill, it would be called the Incumbency Protection Act, because that is what limitations on expenditures for campaigns will do. It will take away the right of a challenger to be able to raise more money than an incumbent with the advantage of name identification and to be able to go forward with a message. What they say in this bill is that it is voluntary. It is voluntary, but you pay quite a price if you do not adhere to the limits. You, then, will be faced with 30 minutes of free broadcast time against you, if you do not adhere to the limits. You will have reduced postal rates against you. This is really coercive. Then there is the cost. My gosh, the Postmaster General has said he will have to raise all postal rates if he has to provide reduced rates. So I want to talk about why I think this is the most important part of the bill. But I also want to talk about what I think is good in the bill because, if we ever want to come back to this, there are some improvements that we really ought to make, and I will be supportive of these things. I love the idea of requiring 60 percent of campaign funds to be raised from individuals in a State. I think that is something that will enable the people in the State to have the right say in the election of their Members of the U.S. Congress, in the election of their Senators. I am for limitations of personal money for a campaign. I think you have to make sure it would be constitutional, so you would say a person can spend any amount of his or her own money that he or she wants to, but he or she could only be repaid a certain amount. I think that is a wise thing, because I, too, am alarmed, as many of us are, by people who would just pour millions of their own money into a campaign and, in effect, be able to buy an election; because that is what people see. They have the access to the airways with money, and it does become, I think, an inequitable situation. Limitations on the amounts of contributions by PAC's to the same amount as individuals contribute is good. I do think PAC's, however, have been misrepresented, not only on this floor but around the country, because I think political action committees, most often, are grassroots efforts within a company. Why would we not want the working people of this country to be able to contribute $25 or $100 or $500, if they desire to do it? PAC's are voluntary and they should be voluntary. But if people want to participate in our process, I think they should be encouraged. Frankly, I think many of the companies in this country have done a wonderful job of encouraging their employees to be a part of a PAC. When they do that, the employees are able to have the candidates come before them. They will have the Democrat and the Republican. They will be able to have debates. I think that is healthy. That makes more people interested in the process, have a stake in the process, and be good citizens. That is what we want to encourage in our democracy. I am for the provision that would not allow the franking privilege for mass mailings in an election year. I do not use the franking privilege for mass mailings at all. I have not detected I am any less in contact with my constituents. I think it is a good thing, in an election year, not to have the franking privilege for mass mailings. I think we could easily do that. So these are things that I think are great steps in the right direction, and I commend my colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, for bringing these forward because these are things I could vote for. The reason I am going to vote against cloture is because the overriding, most important part of this bill goes against everything that freedom in a democracy stands for, and that is the limitations on contributions, voluntary, but nevertheless I think it creates a very uneven situation. I am a person who could be on the other side of that because in my personal experience I ran against an incumbent who was much better funded than I was, who had the PAC contributions from Washington that I have heard so much talk about on this floor. I had a very hard time raising money against this incumbent. But you know what? The people were looking at the message. And even though my message was much less generously funded than my opponent's message, nevertheless the people were able to make this choice. I do not want to limit the incumbent or the challenger. If the message is right, we need to have the freedom to get it out. I, of course, think that limiting an incumbent and saying you can only spend this much, and limiting the challenger and saying you can only spend this much, is going to favor the incumbent. There is just no question about that. And even though I was on the other side of that, I think it is wrong and I think I will stand always against any kind of limitations, whether it is cloaked in a voluntary cloak of armor or not, because it is not really voluntary when you are then going to the television stations or the postal service or going to the radio stations and saying, ``Ah, yes.''--these people that are voluntarily saying that they are going to stay within the limit--``You're going to pay for that difference.'' What is the nexus? Why are we telling television stations or the Postal Service, which is going to have to raise rates on everyone else in America, that you should subsidize this arbitrary limitation that is voluntary? It just does not make sense, Mr. President. So I am going to vote against cloture because I think the overriding issue here is limitations. If you want to see the hardship of limitations, look at the States that have the limitations in place. Look at the Presidential election right now. One candidate has a primary and therefore has to spend the money in the limitation. The other candidate does not have a primary. This could be reversed. It could be the year that there is a Republican incumbent and the Democrats have a primary. Either way, it makes for an artificial limitation that is not fair. I do not think we want to put that in place now for Members of Congress and Members of the Senate. Let me just say that we do have limitations on contributions that I think are quite reasonable. Could they be lower? Yes. I mean, $500, $1,000--it could be lower if we wanted it to be lower. I would certainly be flexible in that area. But you know, when I look at the States around this country that have no limitations whatsoever on contributions and there are people taking $100,000 for a campaign for a State office, and we are talking about $1,000 limitations on contributions or $5,000 from a PAC that is an amalgamation of many employees in a company, I think we are assuring that there is going to be a grassroots base. We have that assurance right now. I had 40,000 contributors to my campaigns for the U.S. Senate. I ran twice within 2 years. Forty thousand. My average contribution was about $100. I think that is a grassroots effort. I had many $5 and $10 contributions. That does make sure that no one has particular access to a person because of some huge contribution. I think we can do a lot to improve our campaign finance in this country, Mr. President, but I just think this bill is not the right approach. I hope that we can work on this and continue to work on it, because as I said, I think, having limitations on personal use of funds, having the 60 percent requirement of raising money in your home State, not using the franking privilege in an election year are very good, solid recommendations from this bill. So I hope that we will be able to work on something, but, Mr. President, this is not the right vehicle. Thank you, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Is it not true that the Postmaster General has raised serious questions about this bill, and what he would be required to do is in the way of raising postal rates for everyone because of the subsidy that would be required under this bill for lower postal rates in an election year?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield the floor back to the Senator from Kentucky. But I commend the Senator from Kentucky for his great leadership in this area because he is the person who has studied this issue thoroughly and has taken things that sound very good, and has talked about what the real impact is going to be on the consumer that has to pay 32 cents to send a letter right now. And that is a lot to ask when you look at the fine print here. I commend the Senator from Kentucky for helping us understand it.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Not only that, since we have virtually a monopoly in the postal system, it is like a taxpayer subsidy because it is requiring every person in America that wants to send a letter to pay more for this limitation that we are putting in place. It just does not qualify as a true voluntary limitation.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish today to emphasize the hope all Texans and all Americans have for continued progress in the Middle East peace talks as heads of state of Arab countries begin a summit meeting in Cairo, Egypt. These leaders are meeting the same week that Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu presented his new cabinet to the Israeli Knesset for approval. Prime Minister-elect Netanyahu has expressed his own support for peace by listing as a guideline of his new Government that ``Israel will work to broaden the circle of peace with all of its neighbors.'' Mr. President, the United States must continue to be an important influence for peace in the Middle East and throughout the world. President Clinton himself recently stated that he hopes the Arab leaders who attend this summit will ``give Mr. Netanyahu an opportunity to constitute his government and set a policy and not presume that we can't pursue peace.'' Under these circumstances, Mr. President, I know that it is the hope of my colleagues here, and people all across America that the governments attending the summit in Cairo, and governments throughout the Middle East, reaffirm their commitment to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. I believe, too, that it will be particularly important that these leaders express their willingness to work with the democratically elected government of Israel to pursue a meaningful peace. Mr. President, through great courage on all sides, we've made significant strides toward peace. We hope and pray that we continue down that path.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I, too, want to thank the Senator from South Carolina for the leadership he has given to the committee and his strong and enduring, never-flagging support for the military of our country. Mr. President, the post-cold-war era has brought about tremendous changes in our security environment. The absence of great power confrontation is the peace dividend we have received as a result of our military investments in the 1980's. While the end of the cold war changed the strategic environment, serious threats remain. For just as soon as we paused in our celebration over the fall of the Berlin Wall, Saddam Hussein dashed all illusions that this new era meant an end to the requirement for a strong military capability. Shaping our military forces to meet existing and future challenges requires strong leadership, strong leadership by the Congress and the President together, to make sure that we have a military that will keep the freedom that we so enjoy. As we reduce our military forces to the lowest level since just prior to the outbreak of World War II, we must remain mindful that the threats we face are global in nature and that the training requirements of a smaller military must be even more rigorous to retain readiness. Mr. President, I am very concerned that continuing cuts in defense spending will leave us with a military force structure that lacks the manpower and materiel to defend the United States and our vital interests. This would be disastrous, not only for the United States, but certainly for our allies and for peace and stability in the world. We need to keep in mind that our national security assumptions are based on the capability of our drastically downsized military forces to fight and win two major regional conflicts. We do not know from where the threats will come in the future. But the magnitude of the challenge we have set forth for our military force is discernible from recent history. In addition to forces currently deployed in Haiti, northern Iraq, the Sinai, and now in Bosnia, we could also conceivably find ourselves facing the threat of all-out North Korean aggression, or renewed aggression by Saddam Hussein. Both represent very real threats to our national security interests, and both demonstrate the increased risk we face when we dissipate our military strength through involvement in operations such as Bosnia and Haiti, which do not represent clear national security interests. Mr. President, none of us wants to think of this scenario, but it is not inconceivable. In depending on our slimmed-down forces to meet these very real and terrible threats, we must have an expectation that our men and women in uniform can meet that threat if we provide the support that they need. The success in Operation Desert Storm demonstrated the unequaled capabilities of our military. Even after the post-cold-war drawdown our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines remained the best trained, the best led and the most formidable fighting forces in the world. But that superb quality could be at risk. If we do not make the correct strategic decisions today we will reap the sad rewards 5 to 10 years from now. Our responsibility in this Congress is to minimize the risk. I am personally committed to that goal. Before we send soldiers into harm's way, whether it be a Desert Storm, or a Somalia, or a Haiti, or a Bosnia, it is our responsibility here in Congress to ensure that our military personnel are provided the equipment and training they deserve. While the President is the Commander in Chief, under our Constitution our Founding Fathers established a primary role for Congress. Our Founding Fathers decided that the Congress would have the sole ability to declare war, the power to make regulations of the land and naval forces, the power to call forth the militia, to raise and support the Army and the Navy, the power to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the military. When Congress deliberates and considers executive branch judgments on military policy, we are fulfilling our constitutional responsibility. I continue to have strong reservations about whether or not we are providing enough to enhance our military capability. While the major provisions of this bill go a long way toward addressing some of the serious defense shortfalls, I believe serious weaknesses remain which have not been adequately addressed. As we try to achieve an elusive peace dividend we do so at the expense of our military capability. We have cut too far too fast and too deep. Based on the threats we face today we still need a strong military capability. How do you define sufficient capability, and what does having this capability mean for our men and women in battle? To soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines in harm's way sufficient military capability means they have what it takes to win decisively. It means they take fewer casualties. It means they survive the battles and come home to their loved ones. General Eisenhower once noted that, ``If asked to capture a village defended by a battalion, I would send a division and I would take the village without casualties.'' That is what having sufficient military capability means--accomplishing the mission with as few casualties as possible. This has always been the hallmark of U.S. military operations. We have as Americans preferred to expend firepower and resources--not personnel. As a member of the Armed Services Committee I have often gone on record with my concerns over the speed of the current drawdown and the implications for our national security. The current force structure simply does not meet our national security requirements. By further stretching our resources to participate in Bosnia operations I am afraid that we could soon be faced with the painful reality of just how much this drawdown has affected our military. President Bush, Secretary Cheney and General Powell proposed what they termed the ``base force.'' President Clinton's current force is referred to as the ``Bottom-Up Review force.'' It is significantly smaller than the Bush plan. The stated goal of both forces is to be able to prevail in two major regional conflicts, and it is referred to as the ``two MRC requirement.'' The main difference between the two is that under the base force we would be capable of winning under the base force. We would be capable of winning two simultaneous major regional conflicts. But under the Bottom-Up Review force we could prevail in winning two near simultaneous major regional conflicts. The difference between those two terms, Mr. President, is as vast as an ocean. First, what does ``near simultaneous'' mean? Is it a week? Is it 6 months? Will we have 9 months to build up from a nonmilitary or security deployment of our troops? Under the base force it was assumed that some forces would be engaged in operations other than war, or peacekeeping such as we have in Bosnia. These forces would not be in the calculation for winning two major regional conflicts because the combat skills of any military unit degrade when they are not training for their primary mission. Rather than send troops into a combat situation for which they might be woefully unprepared they were excluded from the two MRC calculations. So what we are saying is under the base force that was put forward by President Bush these operations other than war would not count toward our goal of winning two major regional conflicts simultaneously. But the Bottom-Up Review force under President Clinton removes that cushion. General Shalikashvili said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that if one major regional conflict arises, forces performing operations other than war will have to be withdrawn in order to go to a second major regional conflict. Mr. President, that is a vast difference from what the base force that President Bush envisioned would be capable of doing. That takes away the ability to have simultaneous conflicts that we would win, and says nearly simultaneous because we would have to rush out and retrain troops that were in an operation other than war because they are not trained and ready for combat when they are performing humanitarian or peacekeeping missions. We have a large force in Bosnia today. We have sent an entire Army division plus support troops to Bosnia totaling 20,000 personnel with 5,000 at least in Croatia and Macedonia and with thousands more supporting this operation from Hungary, Italy, Germany, the Mediterranean and the United States. This deployment is said to last for a year, and during that time we are not able to have our troops in training for their combat missions. The Bosnian deployment will cost us billions of dollars in unprogrammed contingency defense expenditures in addition to the billions that we know it will cost up front. The military services could have to deplete vital training accounts to pay for these unplanned operations. As a member of the Armed Services Committee I am alarmed by the cuts that I see being contemplated in our Armed Forces. In my view, many of the reductions which have occurred in the past 5 years have seriously undermined the capability to support a national defense strategy in which we must be prepared to fight and prevail in two major regional conflicts simultaneously. In fact, I feel very strongly, Mr. President, that in rapidly reducing our Armed Forces from 2.1 to 1.4 million we have already reduced their size to a level that is inadequate to meet our needs, and we can reduce no further. When General Sullivan, the former Chief of Staff of the Army, assumed his position his watchword as the drawdown began was no more Task Force Smiths. He was referring, of course, to the task force commanded by Lt. Col. Bradley Smith which was rushed into battle in Korea in July 1950 to counter the North Korean attack. This courageous American force was sent into battle outgunned, ill-equipped, and ill-prepared, and was quickly and easily overrun by the Soviet-equipped North Korean force. At the time Americans were shocked to learn that the same military which defeated the Japanese and the German armies 5 years before had so quickly become a hollow force. Last summer, our Nation dedicated a memorial to those who fought in the Korean war. That honor was long overdue. My husband served in the Navy during this time. He and I went to see the Korean monument. And I am going to tell you that visiting the monument to our veterans of the Korean war is one of the most poignant and beautiful experiences that I believe I have ever had. It is a real tribute to those valiant warriors. Now as we consider the 1997 defense authorization bill, we should reflect not only on those who died in Korea but on the lesson that we should have learned from that war. One of the finest books written about that Korean war is ``This Kind of War: a Study in Unpreparedness,'' by T.R. Fehrenbach, a fellow Texan and close friend of mine. As an infantry commander, he experienced the conflict from a unique vantage point, and his book, first published in 1962, remains in print today. I commend this book to my colleagues because what Mr. Fehrenbach is saying is we must always have a trained and ready field force, that whatever we try to do from the air is not going to win a war and we are not going to protect our freedom throughout civilization if we do not have the ability to go into the field, and place soldiers on the ground, well equipped and well trained. Mr. President, what we are talking about today is making sure we have it all--that we have the technology, that we have the airlift and the sealift that will allow us to take that very last step, which is placing our troops on the ground. We are talking about having the training and arming our troops who must capture hold that ground while at the same time that we are making sure we have all of the strategic and technological advances which would keep them from having to go in the first place. But if we must send our forces, we want them to have all of the protections we can give them. So we need the technology; we need the equipment; we need the personnel; and we need the training. That is what we are talking about in this bill today. We are having a major conflict with the President and the Congress on just what we need in terms of military capability. Congress is trying to get the military spending up so that we will not have a hollow force, so that we will be able to win two major regional conflicts simultaneously, because that is what a ready force is, and so that we will be able to prevail in two major regional conflicts quickly and with the fewest possible casualties. That is our goal, and that is why Congress wants to spend $10 billion more than the President wants to spend to make sure that when the troops are in the field they are trained and equipped, to make sure they have the air cover they need, to make sure they have the equipment they need to protect them if they are in the field, and to make sure our shores are protected from any kind of incoming ballistic missile, which we now know 32 countries in the world have the capability to produce and someday soon send to our shores. We even have groups that are not countries with that capability. And with open borders, we could be vulnerable if we do not do what is right and make the strategic decisions that will protect the people who live in our country and will protect those who are protecting our freedom anywhere in the world in any theater from coming into harm's way if we can prevent it. Mr. President, those are the decisions we are making with this bill. I hope we can sit down with the President to make sure we are doing what is right for our troops in the field today, for the protection of freedom today, and to make sure we will not wake up 5 or 10 years from now and realize that we have allowed another task force Smith; that we did not do what we needed to do in terms of the strategic thinking necessary to make sure we were not vulnerable to any kind of attack from any source in the world. I commend the Senator from South Carolina for his leadership. I yield the floor. Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President. I have introduced a resolution against the senseless burning of churches that we have witnessed and, really, just become aware of in recent weeks. The latest one, unfortunately, is in my State. So I want to speak out on this issue for a few minutes. Let me say, I think all of us have been horrified that a place of worship would be a place to be chosen by terrorists to desecrate. We all know in this country, whatever our religious preference is, how important a part of our lives the place of worship is, that it is a part of our communities, part of our families and part of what makes America so wonderful, that we do have the freedom of religion and the ability to come together to worship God in a way that we want to do. It is because of that very special place that churches hold in our society that it is particularly awful that we see a burning of churches in any way, but especially in what seems to be a pattern. In fact, since 1991, there have been 110 such incidents of church arson that have been reported. I picked up the phone this week and called Chester Thomas, who is the pastor at the New Light House of Prayer in Greenville, TX. This church was burned to the ground. Mr. President, I never cease to be amazed at how wonderful people can be in a time of crisis. And, truly, Pastor Thomas is a person that inspires me because he is so upbeat about the experience that he has just had. He told me that they have been experiencing burglaries in the church and vandalism. But now, of course, they have lost the church. It was burned to the ground. But he said that he had just come from a service that was put together by another church in Greenville, TX, a church that said, ``Come and worship with us. Bring your congregation to our congregation, and we are going to work together to rebuild what you have lost.'' You know, that is what America is--reaching out in a time of crisis that helps heal the wounds for something that really is unexplainable such as burning down a place of worship. But Pastor Thomas was very, very upbeat about it. He said, ``We are going to come together, and this is going to make us stronger, and I love the people of this community. I even love the person that did this terrible act, because I know whoever it is is a troubled person.'' Well, we can learn a lot from Pastor Thomas. I am here today to say to Pastor Thomas and to all of the people who worship at the New Light House of Prayer in Greenville, TX, as well as the people who worship in the Church of the Living God in Greenville, TX, which was not destroyed but which was burned and is badly damaged, I am here to say to them that all of America cares, that this is not right, and we must condemn the burning, the desecrating and the destruction of religious property. In fact, I am reading from the resolution that condemns the burning, desecrating, and destruction of religious property. We urge Federal law enforcement authority to expeditiously and vigilantly investigate and appropriately punish the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. Mr. President, this is something that we can all come together and fight for. We will work with the President. We will work with the entire U.S. Senate and the entire U.S. Congress to say that we want to put teeth in the laws that would keep this from happening, because you are tearing down the very spirit of a community when you desecrate a place of worship. We do not want to do that. We want to speak out against it. So I say to Pastor Thomas and to his whole congregation, to the people who also worship at the Church of the Living God in Greenville, TX, that we must to stand together against this, and by doing so, we will learn the lesson from Pastor Thomas. We will be stronger. We will be stronger as communities. We will be stronger as a country. Mr. President, I wanted to read the list of the cosponsors of this resolution. Besides myself, they are Senators Gramm, Faircloth, McConnell, Cochran, Thurmond, Coverdell, Helms, D'Amato, Murkowski, Warner, Nickles, and Abraham.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, what has just cleared the Senate is a very important sense of the Senate that has unanimously passed that will help the areas of our country that have been devastated by this drought. In fact, this is the Gramm-Hutchison-Domenici-Bingaman resolution. It says we encourage the Secretary of Agriculture to allow some of the counties--because of a regulatory snafu, a technicality--that are not now able to apply for livestock feed assistance under its old program to do so. The bulk of the counties in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas that are affected by this will have that opportunity. But because of the technicality, they have not been able to clear all of the counties. So we are asking the Secretary of Agriculture to do this for us. It is very important to the farmers and ranchers of these States. Mr. President, this drought is hurting not only the farmers and ranchers of these States, but the consumers are going to see higher prices as well. We are in a situation now where farmers are not able to make loans because the drought has caused them either to be unable to plant or to be unable to have anything if they have planted. It also causes a great hardship on people who are raising cattle. There is no feed for the cattle because we have not been able to raise the hay. It is a terrible situation, and I just appreciate very much all of my colleagues helping us with this sense of the Senate. I hope this will encourage the Secretary of Agriculture to help us through this technicality and help these farmers and ranchers make it this year so they can continue to provide the food and be the breadbasket of America next year.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a great patriot, statesman, and soldier from the Lone Star State of Texas, Lt. Gen. Marc A. Cisneros. General Cisneros is retiring after a distinguished 35-year military career in the U.S. Army. Marc Cisneros entered the military in 1961 after graduating as an ROTC distinguished military cadet from St. Mary's University, in San Antonio, TX. He was commissioned a 2d Lt. in the field artillery and has faithfully and selflessly served his country in a wide array of demanding command and staff assignments within the continental United States and overseas. Most notable was his assignment as Commanding General, U.S. Army South and Joint Task Force, Panama, during Operation Just Cause. During Operation Just Cause, General Cisneros played a significant role in the combat operations in Panama and helped negotiate the capture and surrender of Panamanian General Noriega. Besides this action, General Cisneros served two combat tours in Vietnam. This officer has risen through the ranks emphasizing military readiness and displaying a genuine compassion for soldiers and their families. Marc Cisneros has been a caring leader committed to the values and ideals that have made this country and its military so great. His final assignment was as Commanding General, 5th U.S. Army, Fort Sam Houston, TX. In this most important position, Marc Cisneros provided vision, enforced standards of excellence, and committed himself to helping sustain the readiness of the Nation's reserve component forces. Mr. President, our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to Lt. Gen. Marc A. Cisneros, and I am honored to recognize him today. With our deepest appreciation, the United States of America says thank you. I wish him, and his wife Eddy and their children, continued success and happiness in all future endeavors.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. Mr. President, today we are saying farewell to our leader in the Senate so that he can become the leader of our Nation and of the free world. This is a remarkable man who can shoulder this great burden. This is a man who has shown that he is worthy of our trust. He has kept his promises to the American people, starting with balancing the budget. For the first time we are on a track to balancing the budget in 7 years due to the leadership of Bob Dole. It is the first time in 40 years that Congress has made the decision that we must not burden our children and grandchildren with the kind of debt that has been built up by Congresses of the past. This is a man who can be Commander in Chief of our country. He has respect for our military. He respects the people who have chosen to protect the freedom of America. He understands the need for peace--not through unilateral disarmament, but through strength. And he will not send our troops into harm's way unless there is a U.S. security interest. He has shown that through his leadership on the Senate floor to make sure that we do not commit American lives unless there was a U.S. security interest. He has fought for the working American family. He grew up in Russell, KS. He knew poverty. He knew what it was like to struggle to make ends meet. That is why his priority was tax relief for the hard-working families of this country such as the $500-per-child tax credit and homemaker IRA's. It was Senator Dole who led the way for the homemaker to have retirement security, just like those who work outside the home do. And it was Senator Dole who passed that bill in Congress only to have it vetoed by President Clinton. He fought to lower the marriage penalty because he wants the American family to stay strong. He has been a leader in the fight for women's health issues. During his time as majority leader, we have increased the spending for research on women's health care concerns. He is trying to make sure that we have a strong health care system--a strong Medicare system that will be there for those who will need it in the future. He is fighting for the spirit of entrepreneurship to be kept in this country because he knows it is the small business people that make the economy grow and prosper in America and takes the new people into our system for jobs. He knows that, and that is why he is trying to provide regulatory relief. We have passed the free trade agreements, so our small businesses are going to be able to compete for those jobs. Senator Dole knows, and he has led the way for regulatory relief for our small business people so that they will be able to grow. He has been a defender of private property rights because he believes in the fifth amendment to the Constitution. Finally, Mr. President, he has been good for our border concerns. He is trying to help us deal with the severe problem of illegal immigration. He is doing that by trying to make sure that we have the help we need in the border States to meet these terrible issues that are of such concern to our country right now. So we are saying goodbye today to our Senate leader, a man who has proven his mettle time and time and time again; a man who understands what America is all about and who has voluntarily said that he would rather be going out across this great country talking to the people who are working, who know what the problems and concerns are for the heartland of America. He would rather be out there talking to them one on one, listening to their concerns and telling them what he would like to do to make their lives better. He has chosen that over the traffic of Washington, DC. He has his priorities straight. He wants to keep the American dream-- his dream that every child in this country will have the same opportunities that he did to reach his or her full potential, and he means to make America a place that will allow that to happen. So we are saying farewell to a Senate leader today, but we are saying farewell to a leader of this group so that he can take on the greater challenge with his spirit and his integrity of leading our great Nation in the free world. We wish him farewell, and we will be with him out in the heartland of America talking to the concerns of the people of this country. Thank you, Mr. President.