Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period for morning business be extended to the hour of 2 p.m. and that the time be equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, while presiding and listening to some of my distinguished colleagues talking about the lack of productivity of this session of the legislature, there are a few things that were very productive and that we can be very proud of when we go home and say we were able to get certain things done. Before doing that, though, and to ensure I get one point out before using up the time that is allotted, the distinguished Senator from Illinois named a number of issues that he thought were somewhat disgraceful--for example, the fact that we do not have more gun control legislation. Maybe because of my roots back in Oklahoma, I find it very difficult to understand this mentality, that somehow guns are the culprit as opposed to the people, and somehow that honest, law-abiding Americans should have to be disarmed, should have to give up their guns, while the criminal element would not be giving up their guns. Time and time again, every survey that has been done, every study that has taken place, has come to the conclusion that the problems that we have are of a criminal element. There are people out there who are not getting adequately punished, and they will continue to have firearms. I will just make one statement. It seems incredibly naive to me anyone could believe that if we pass a law that makes it illegal for all citizens to own guns, somehow the criminal element, who by their very definition and nature, are criminals, will comply with the law. Also, it seems very frustrating to me that we have a President of the United States who wants to have all kinds of legislation to take away guns from law-abiding citizens and at the same time turns 16 terrorists loose on the streets of America; that we have a President of the United States who will make speeches--as this President made some 133 times, including in two State of the Union Messages--that now, for the first time in contemporary history, the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, there is not one--I repeat, not one--missile aimed at American children tonight. When he made that statement, he knew full well that in at least one country, China, there were a minimum of at least 13 American cities that were targeted at that very moment. So we are living in a very dangerous world. I listened to the concerns that we have on the nuclear test ban treaty. As chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I would like to kind of lead into that to at least explain to thinking people that we did the right thing by not unilaterally disarming with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is not verifiable. First of all, I can say--and I do not think anyone can challenge this statement--we are now in the most threatened position that we have been in, in the history of America. By that, I mean for things that have happened in the last 7 years in three broad categories. First of all, we have a President of the United States who, through his veto messages, starting in 1993 in vetoing the defense authorization bills, and then succeeding bills since that time, has done so, so that we would have to cut down the size of our military, so that we now have ended up having a force strength of one- half of what we had in 1991 and 1992 during the Persian Gulf war. It is not a matter of the President vetoing defense authorization bills and taking money out of our defense system to put into his favorite domestic social programs, but at the same time he has deployed our troops to places all over the Earth where we have no national security interests. So now we have troops in Bosnia. I remember in December of 1995, when we were on the floor trying to pass a resolution of disapproval, to stop the President from sending our rare military assets to places such as Bosnia. We lost it by three votes. The President said: Let me do this. If we defeat this resolution, and if we get to send troops into Bosnia, I promise they will be home for Christmas 1996. Here we are. We are getting close to Christmas 1999 and the troops are still not home. There is no end in sight. We have the same thing in Kosovo. We have had serious problems. I have gone over to Kosovo, I am sure, more than any other Member has, only to find out this is a war that has been going on for 600 years, a war where the two sides alternate in who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. Ethnic cleansing has taken place historically for 600 years on both sides; both on the Serbian side and the Albanian side. So it was a horrible awakening I had when I was over there, right after we went in there with cruise missiles, where we had refugees in different places such as Tirana, Albania. I can remember walking through the refugee camp. The people were well cared for. They were doing quite well. But then they looked at me and said: When are you and America going to do something about our problem? I said: What is your problem? They said: Well, we're refugees. I said: Why should we in the United States be as concerned about that as other countries? They said: Because it is because of you that we are refugees. It is because the ethnic cleansing was not accelerated until the time that the bombs started being dropped on that town. So we now have a weakened defense system because we have starved it into a degree of weakness. Yet we are living in a time when virtually every country has weapons of mass destruction. And now we find out that in conventional warfare we are not superior anymore. Wake up America. We are not superior anymore. We found out the other day that two of our Army divisions are ranked as C-4, which means they are not capable of combat. And what are these divisions? These divisions are the 10th Army Mountain Division in Bosnia and the 1st Infantry Division in Kosovo. It is not the fault of our troops. They are put in places and they no longer have combat training, so they are not capable of combat without coming out of there and training for at least 6 months. So if we are down to 10 Army divisions because of this President, and 2 of them are rendered incapable of combat, that is 8 Army divisions. We had 19 during the Persian Gulf war. So that is what has happened to our military. Just the other day I was very proud of Gen. John Jumper, who had the courage to stand up and say publicly that we are no longer superior in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Our strategic fighters are not superior to those others on the market. He stated the SU-35, as made by the Russians, is on the market right now, the open market. It is for sale. Anyone can buy it--Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, anybody else--and it is better than anything we have, including the F-15 and the F-16. We have to face up to this. It is a threat from the conventional side as well as from missiles. I will make one comment about the missiles. Again, we hang this on President Clinton. In that same veto message in 1993, President Clinton said: I'm vetoing this bill. And I'm vetoing it because it has money in it for a national missile defense system, which we do not need because there is no threat out there. Yet we knew from our intelligence that the threat would be there and imminent by fiscal year 1998. And sure enough, it was. So here we are with the combination of all these countries out there that have every kind of weapon of mass destruction: Biological, chemical, or nuclear. Yet we have countries such as China and Russia and now North Korea that have the capability of delivering those warheads to anywhere in America right now, when we are in Washington, DC. They could fire one from North Korea that would take 35 minutes to get here. There is not one thing in our arsenal to knock it down because this President vetoed our national missile defense effort. Now the American people have awakened to this, and we have enough Democrats who are supporting Republicans to rebuild our system and to try to get a national missile defense system deployed. Unfortunately, it couldn't happen for another 2 years, maybe 2\1/2\ to 3 years. That gets around to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty about which my distinguished colleague from Illinois was talking. I think probably the best thing that could have happened to us for our national security was to defeat that. If we don't have a national missile defense system, then what do we have to deter other countries from launching missiles at the United States? What we have is a nuclear stockpile. We have nine weapons in the nuclear stockpile. Because of the President's moratorium, they haven't been tested for 7 years. We don't know whether or not they work. I suggest it might be better not even to have nuclear weapons than to have weapons but not know whether they work. That is exactly what we have right now. If we had passed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, there would be no verification, there would be no way in the world we would have known whether or not our stockpile was working because they hadn't been tested. I can remember quote after quote after quote by the people who were so much involved in this from our energy labs. They all said--I had the quotes; I don't have them in front of me right now--that if we can't test these nuclear weapons, there is no way we can determine whether or not they work. It is a very unsafe thing for America. These were the directors of the labs responsible for this nuclear arsenal. So of the nine weapons we have, which I have listed here, we only have one we have adequately tested enough to know whether or not it would work. That is the W-84 warhead that we know would work. This would have been a real disaster for America. People kept saying President Eisenhower was for a comprehensive test ban treaty, that President Bush was, that President Reagan was. That isn't true at all. This flawed treaty was a zero-yield treaty. We would only have had the word of our adversaries that they would not test their nuclear arsenals. We keep our word in America; we don't test our arsenal. But we don't have any idea whether or not they are going to test theirs. In fact, during the course of the debate, both China and Russia said they would not comply with the zero yield. There is no way in the world we can detect that, that we would know what our adversaries were doing. That would, for all practical purposes, be unilateral disarmament. I am asked back in Oklahoma by people who have good street sense, why is it the liberals in Congress are so committed to disarming our country, to taking our money that we are supposed to have to defend America and putting it into these various discretionary social programs? I have to explain to them that the people in Washington, and some of the Senators in this Chamber, are not like the people of Oklahoma. I think President Clinton honestly believes that if we all stand in a circle and hold hands and we unilaterally disarm, everyone will love each other and it won't be necessary to have a defense system. That is what we are up against. In a very respectful way, I have to disagree with many of the things my distinguished colleague from Illinois stated. I think we have had a very successful session. We have ensured a sound Social Security retirement system. We have improved educational opportunities for our children. Along this line, the major disagreement we had was that the Democrats thought the decisions should be made here in Washington; Republicans want to use the same amount of money but not make the decisions in Washington but send that money to the school districts. The school board in Tulsa, OK, is much better equipped to know what their education needs are in Oklahoma than we are in this August body of the Senate. The Democrats say the answer is not school buses, not computers, not the physical facilities that are available; it is 100,000 teachers. I think the more we can send these decisions back to the local level, the better the people of America will be served. I believe we have had a good session. I am not pleased with the way it is turning out right now. The old saying we have heard so many times in the past that there are two things you never want to watch while they are being made--one is sausage and the other is laws--becomes very true during the last few days of legislative sessions. I think we have done a very good job. I think we did the right thing in defeating the unverifiable test ban treaty. I think we have passed legislation of which America will be very proud. I am anxious to end all this fun we are having and go home and tell the people in Oklahoma about it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, I inquire of the Chair, it is my understanding we had until the hour of 1 o'clock equally divided. I ask how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been a little disturbed not knowing the certainty of the schedule and how long we will have to get some things done at the last minute. I want to bring up one issue that has to be discussed briefly, and that is the issue of the range that has been used for 58 years on the island of Vieques located 6 miles off the shores of Puerto Rico. I am concerned about this because we started using this range 58 years ago. We have become dependent upon it because it is the only range we can use that offers an integrated three-level type of training--first, high-altitude bombing; second, the type of protection that comes from the ships to the shore using live fire; and third, the Marine expeditionary amphibious movements. All three of those can be done simultaneously and have been done successfully over the last 58 years. The problem we have with this range is that there is no place else in the Western Hemisphere that we can actually give the training to our troops. Right, now we have deployed into the Persian Gulf the U.S.S. Kennedy. Because this President put a moratorium on training in Vieques, only half of those deployed on the U.S.S. Kennedy have ever had the necessary training should they have to become involved in combat. We have scheduled for the 18th of February the deployment of the U.S.S. Eisenhower Battle Group. If this battle group goes through the Mediterranean and goes to the Persian Gulf, the chances are better than 50-50 they will see combat. If we do not allow them to have the training on the island of Vieques prior to their deployment, they will have to go into combat very likely without ever having any live ordnance training. This goes for the pilots flying the F-18s and the F- 14s that will be deployed off the U.S.S. Eisenhower. I was there 3 weeks ago and watched them during their training, but they were unable to use live ordnances and use that range. It goes for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the others who would be deployed at the same time. I would like to quote, if I could, Gen. Wes Clark. Of course, he is one for whom we all have a great deal of respect. We watched the way he worked commanding the European forces and the NATO forces. He said: The live fire training that our forces were exposed to at training ranges such as Vieques helped ensure that the forces assigned to this theater-- We are talking about Kosovo, those 78, 79 days-- were ready-on-arrival and prepared to fight, win and survive. What General Clark is saying is, we were successful. Even though we should not have been in Kosovo to start with, once we made that decision, we were successful in dropping our cruise missiles in there and our bombs because of the training those pilots had on the island of Vieques. Capt. James Stark, Jr., the commanding officer of the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, said: When you steam off to battle you're either ready or you're not. If you're not, that means casualties. That means more POWs. That means less precision and longer campaigns. You pay a price for all this in war, and that price is blood. We are talking about American blood. I am very proud of all the military, uniformed and others. This is the first time in the years I have served in the Senate that they have been willing to stand up for something they know is right, not knowing for sure where the President is going to be on this issue. The President has imposed a moratorium on training on the island of Vieques. We are going to try our best to encourage him, for the lives of Americans, to allow us to use it to train those people who are on the U.S.S. Eisenhower, ready to be deployed. Richard Danzig, the Secretary of the Navy, said: Only by providing this preparation can we fairly ask our service members to put their lives at risk. In a joint statement between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, they said: Vieques provides integrated live-fire training ``critical to our readiness,'' and the failure to provide for adequate live-fire training for our naval forces before deployment will place those forces at unacceptably high risk during deployment. This is military language to mean casualties, those who can be killed in action. I am proud of Admiral Johnson, the Chief of Naval Operations, and General Jones, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, when they say: Without the ability to train on Vieques, the U.S.S. Eisenhower Battle Group and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit scheduled for deployment in February 2000 would not be ready for such deployment ``without greatly increasing the risk to those men and women who we ask to go in harm's way.'' Lastly, Admiral Murphy, the Commander of the Sixth Fleet of the Navy, said: The loss of training on Vieques would ``cost American lives.'' It is a very serious thing. I sometimes listen to the complaints we hear from some of the Puerto Ricans, but mostly from the people of the island of Vieques, who say: Wait a minute. How would you like to have bombs dropped and live ordnances fired where you are? You can't do anything about that. They actually have a 10-mile buffer range between the bombing range and where people live. I happen to represent the State of Oklahoma. We have a very fine organization there called Fort Sill, where we do all our artillery training. I have said on the floor here several times before that, while on Vieques they have a 10-mile buffer zone, we have only a 1-mile buffer zone in the State of Oklahoma between a population of 100,000 people living in Lawton and the live-fire range. So let me just wind up and conclude by saying that many of us, including Senator Warner, the chairman of our Armed Services Committee, are asking the President and pleading with him to work out some type of arrangement to, at the very least during this interim while we are in recess, provide for training on the island of Vieques because if that does not happen, we will lose American lives. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was presiding when the distinguished Senator from Ohio was talking about the problems the U.N. faces in Kosovo. I share all of the concerns the Senator from Ohio expressed. In addition to that, since I am the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, I have another concern, and that is the deployment of troops in 1995 into Bosnia, then again to Kosovo, and the way they are being deployed today has put us in an apparent condition in terms of our state of readiness. It is very unfortunate that during this administration we have had a cut in our force strength by approximately 50 percent, only to find out just last week that two of our Army divisions are now rated at C-4. That means they are not capable of combat today. Those two divisions are the 10th Army Division, of which most are located in Bosnia, and the 1st Infantry Division located in Kosovo. This means that if something should happen, we are not in a ready condition to defend America, where we do have national security interests which, in my opinion, we do not have and never had in either Bosnia or Kosovo. I stood side by side with the Senator from Ohio in trying to keep us from making that deployment. We were not successful. I do believe we should be looking very soon at any way we can bring our troops back to a state of readiness, to do what we are supposed to be doing, the No. 1 function of Government, and that is to defend America.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Glen Powell be given floor privileges for the duration of the day.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized as if in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to have a brief word about the issue of recess appointments. For quite some number of years, Presidents--Democrats and Republicans--have, in my opinion, violated the Constitution by making recess appointments. The Constitution is very explicit when it says that recess appointments can only be made in the event the vacancy occurs during the recess. There is a reason for this, historically. Back in the days when we were on horses and we had legislative sessions that might have lasted 1, 2, or 3 months, we found ourselves in recess more than we were in session. Therefore, on occasion it would be necessary for the Secretary of State, who may have died in office-- or when vacancies had occurred while we were in recess--to have to reappoint somebody. So we did. It made sense. But since that time--over the last several years--that privilege has been abused. As I say, this is not just an abuse that takes place by Republican or Democrat Presidents; it is both of them equally. Consequently, the Constitution, which says that the Senate has the prerogative of advice and consent, has been violated. It was put there for checks and balances. It was put there for a very good reason. That reason is just as legitimate today as it was when our Founding Fathers put it in there; that is, the Senate should advise and consent to these appointments. It means we should actually be in on the discussion as well as consenting to the decision the President has made by virtue of his nomination. In 1985, President Reagan was making a number of recess appointments that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of most of the Democrats and Republicans, was not in keeping with the Constitution. And certainly the majority leader at that time--who was Senator Bob Byrd from West Virginia, the very distinguished Senator--made a request of the President not to make recess appointments. He extracted from him a commitment in writing that he would not make recess appointments and, if it should become necessary because of extraordinary circumstances to make recess appointments, that he would have to give the list to the majority leader--who was, of course, Bob Byrd--in sufficient time in advance that they could prepare for it either by agreeing in advance to the confirmation of that appointment or by not going into recess and staying in pro forma so the recess appointments could not take place. In order to add some leverage to this, the majority leader, Senator Byrd, said he would hold up all Presidential appointments until such time as President Reagan would give him a letter agreeing to those conditions. The President did give him a letter. President Reagan gave him a letter. I will quote for you from within this letter. This was on October 18, 1985. He said: . . . prior to any recess breaks, the White House would inform the Majority Leader and [the Minority Leader] of any recess appointment which might be contemplated during such recess. They would do so in advance sufficiently to allow the leadership on both sides to perhaps take action to fill whatever vacancies that might be imperative during such a break. This is exactly what we talked about. This is the reason President Reagan agreed to this. He gave a letter to Senator Byrd. Senator Byrd was satisfied. Along came a recess last May or June, and the President did in fact appoint someone he had nominated long before the recess occurred--in fact, not just months but even more than a year before that--and who had not complied with the necessary information in order to come up for confirmation. In that case, President Clinton did in fact violate the intent of the appointment process in the advice and consent provision found in the Constitution. I wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton. My letter said exactly the same thing the letter said from Bob Byrd to President Reagan in 1985. It was worded the same way President Reagan's letter was worded. It said: Unless you will give us a letter, I am going to personally put a hold on all recess appointments. The President started appointing people. And I put a hold on all of them--it didn't make any difference; I put a hold on all nonmilitary appointments--until finally, I remember one time somebody said: Well, we have a really serious problem because we can't get confirmation on the President's nominee for Secretary of the Treasury. This could have a dramatic adverse effect on the economy. The value of the dollar could go down. All these things came into the picture. What are you going to do about that? I said: I am not going to do anything, but you had better tell the President about that because it is serious. Finally, he agreed to it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all of these documents be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. INHOFE. The letter finally came on June 15, 1999. I will read one sentence out of that letter. I share your opinion that the understanding reached in 1985 between President Reagan and Senator Byrd cited in your letter remains a fair and constructive framework which my Administration will follow. Once again, what is he following? He is saying, prior to any recess, the White House will inform the majority leader and the minority leader of any recess appointments which might be contemplated during such recess? Would they do so in advance sufficiently to allow leadership on both sides to perhaps take action to fill whatever vacancies might be imperative during such break? He agreed to it. I have not seen such a document, but I think in anticipation of the recess we are going in, it is my understanding that the President merely sent a list of some 150 nominees he has. Again, I didn't see it. It was never officially received by the majority leader. It was sent back to the White House. If he thinks this is a loophole in the commitment he made, it certainly is not a loophole. Anticipating that this President--who quite often does things he doesn't say he is going to do and who quite often says things that aren't true--is going to in fact have recess appointments, we wrote a letter. It is not just on my letterhead signed by me, but also I believe there are 16 other Senators saying that if you make recess appointments during the upcoming recess, which violates the spirit of your agreement, we will respond by placing holds on all judicial nominees. The result would be a complete breakdown in cooperation between our two branches of government on this issue which could prevent the confirmation of any such nominees next year. I want to make sure there is no misunderstanding and that we don't go into a recess with the President not understanding that we are very serious about that. It is not just me putting a hold on all judicial nominees for the remaining year of his term of service, but 16 other Senators have agreed to do that. It would be very easy for the President to just go ahead and comply with that agreement he has in his letter of June 15, 1999, rather than feeling compelled to make judicial appointments during this recess. I want to serve notice to make it very clear. I received a letter from the President. He did not honor me with a personal letter. It came from John Podesta, Chief of Staff to the President. Without reading the whole letter, because it is rather lengthy, it says that they might not comply with this. I want to make sure it is abundantly clear without any doubt in anyone's mind in the White House--I will refer back to this document I am talking about right now--that in the event the President makes recess appointments, we will put holds on all judicial nominations for the remainder of his term. It is very fair for me to stand here and eliminate any doubt in the President's mind of what we will do. Exhibit I U.S. Senate, Office of the Majority Leader, Washington, DC, June 10, 1999. Hon. William Jefferson Clinton, The White House, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. President: I appreciate our conversation this morning, and our mutual desire to come to an understanding about recess appointments. We have often worked together to help promote the smooth operation of the government, and I believe that we can once again come to an agreement. As you know, the recent recess appointment of the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg has caused great concern to many members of the Senate. I believe that it would be constructive for us to reach an understanding in principle on how we will now proceed to ensure that we avoid similar sparring between the Executive Branch and the Senate in the future. I agree that we will use the understanding reached between President Reagan and Senator Byrd in 1985, cited by your Chief of Staff today. That understanding, described in the Congressional Record of October 18, 1985, states ``. . . prior to any recess breaks, the White House would inform the Majority Leader and [the Minority Leader] of any recess appointment which might be contemplated during such recess. They would do so in advance sufficiently to allow the leadership on both sides to perhaps take action to fill whatever vacancies that might be imperative during such a break.'' I believe that this is both a reasonable and a constructive framework. Following this precedent will help us to proceed in a cooperative and expeditious manner on future nominees. Mr. President, I appreciate your stated desire to work with me on this issue, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Trent Lott.

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Paul Barger have the privilege of the floor for this day.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, with all of the tributes to Senator John Chafee over the last few weeks I think it is important that we do not forget his talented and dedicated staff. In particular I would like to thank his staff on the Environment and Public Works Committee. He assembled a very professional team, well respected not only on both sides of the aisle but also within the larger environmental professional community. I call special attention to Senator Chafee's staff director, Jimmie Powell. Jimmie has served Congress over the last 20 years in various positions, and has worked on every major environmental statute over the last 20 years. Earlier this year, the National Journal called him a ``low key aide whose political insights and institutional memory are sought out by industry lobbyists.'' This is an understatement. There is no Senate staffer, or House staffer, with more environmental experience and political know-how than Jimmie Powell. I believe that Jimmie served his boss, Chairman Chafee well. I did not always agree with the positions that Senator Chafee took, but Jimmie always did an excellent job in representing his boss's interests. I am not sure what position Jimmie Powell will take next, but I am confident that he will approach any new challenge with the same integrity and honor he exhibited as a Senate staffer.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2547

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today with several of my fellow Senators to bring an important matter to the attention of our colleagues in the Senate. I refer to the disproportionate allocation of Federal impact aid funding to local school districts across the country. As you know, this program is a successful example of the role Federal funding can play in education. This program succeeds in placing Federal education dollars directly in the hands of local educators, rather than federal bureaucrats. State income taxes and local property taxes are often the primary funding sources for public school systems. However, military families pay income taxes to their ``State of residence,'' which may or may not be the same as the State in which their children are attending pubic schools. In addition, military families living on base or American Indians living on trust lands or reservations don't pay property taxes. Public schools are still required to provide these students a quality education. Who pays to educate these children? Mr. President, Impact Aid fills this gap left when traditional revenue sources are inhibited by the presence of the Federal Government. This program is widely supported by my colleagues. In fact, it's a program which continually receives annual increases in appropriation levels. One would think if more money is flowing into the program then all States are fairly receiving increases in the annual funding levels. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is a formula used to determine the amount of funding distributed to each locally impacted school district. While clearly some states are more heavily impacted than others, this formula disproportionately favors certain states and their districts, at the expense of others equally impacted and deserving. Hundreds of school districts across the United States are scraping for the dollars necessary to educate our children. And they are doing it on less and less money every year. States, local school districts, and parents are the primary resource to educate our children for the future. I would like to inquire of the chairman of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions his intentions with respect to addressing the formula disparities.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank my friends from Vermont, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Colorado, and Oklahoma for their interest in the reauthorization of Impact Aid and how it affects our States and most importantly our children. I look forward to working together to protect all impacted students.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the Senator from Wyoming taking the time to show some of the differences and some of the accomplishments of this session of the Senate. While I was watching him do that, it occurred to me that something else constantly needs to be brought up before the American people because a lot of times people look at Democrats and Republicans and do not realize that we do stand for different things. In the case of the Republican Party, I have had the honor, since I have been in the Senate, of serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I originally discovered when I was in the House of Representatives--and it was a shocker--why there is such a difference in the approach to national security between the Democrats and Republicans. To put it very bluntly, the Republicans have always believed that the primary responsibility of Government was to give America a more secure country and to promote our national security. Yet time and time again, it is quite obvious that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. To document this or to quantify it, there is a group called the Center for Security Policy. I think this is kind of interesting because people need to know what we are doing here. All too often people will read the mail of their Senators and assume that is everything that is going on here, when, in fact, there are some things that may not be accurately expressed in that mail. For example, if a constituent is concerned with how his particular Member is voting on tax issues, the National Tax Limitation Committee and National Taxpayers Union rank us so they can tell who is for more taxes and who is for less taxes. If a constituent is concerned about what is happening in terms of family values, they have a number of organizations that will tell how Members voted on issues such as abortion. If they are concerned about how much regulation is disturbing people who are trying to run small businesses, the NFIB, National Federation of Independent Business, actually does a rating. As far as national security is concerned, the Center for Security Policy is an organization that takes all these votes we cast having to do with a strong national defense, having to do with test ban treaties, a national missile defense system, defense spending, and they rank us to see who the good guys and the bad guys are in their eyes; that is, who is promoting a stronger national defense and is more concerned about national security or who legitimately believes there is a threat. The average Democrat is ranked, in accordance with the Center for Security Policy, at 12 percent; the average Republican is 94 percent. That tells us something. It tells us there is a basic difference in the policy of the Democrat versus the Republican Party. This is significant because we just completed debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and we heard a lot of dialog on both sides. To the last one on the Republican side who voted in opposition to this treaty, it was a recognition that there is a real threat out there. By unilaterally disarming, which is essentially what we would have done under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, we would have allowed those nations to go ahead and test their nuclear arsenal, even though there is no way of verifying whether or not they were testing, of course. Good old America, we do what we say we are going to do. If we say we will not do it, then we don't do it. I remember several times Secretaries of Defense would actually testify: We know we are not going to do it, but there is no way of knowing whether the other side is doing it. I had no doubt in my mind that both China and Russia would continue to test their nuclear weapons, even if they had ultimately ratified. By the way, they kept using the argument that we are going to have to ratify this because if we don't do it, Russia won't do it. I remember that same argument in the START II treaty. Russia still hasn't done it. We need to look at these things. Unfortunately, it does become a partisan issue. In talking about our national defense, I come from the background of chairing the Readiness Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee. There is a huge issue taking place right now. I will make a couple of references to it because I have introduced a Senate concurrent resolution, with several Members who are cosponsoring it, which calls upon the President and the Secretary of Defense to reopen the Vieques training bombing range off the island of Puerto Rico. This is what the range looks like. This is the island of Puerto Rico. It is about 22 miles from here to there. This part represents a live bombing range. It only constitutes 2.7 percent of the entire island. This bombing range has been hot range active for 58 years. During the time period it has been active, there has only been one death on the ground as a result of the use of the range. That was last April 19. As a result, everyone in Puerto Rico who is running for office, whether it is for delegate or for the Governor of Puerto Rico, is using as his or her platform: We are going to do the most we can to shut down this range. This is the range over here. It has been used for 58 years. There is live ordnance all over the range. There are protesters there right now, illegally trespassing, who are picking up and throwing around these live pieces of ordnance. I have written twice to Janet Reno and told her she should go down there and enforce the trespassing laws, if for no other reason than just to keep someone from getting killed. She has refused to do that. Unfortunately, it has been politicized. We had a committee meeting where we had the Governor of Puerto Rico and others testify. They take the position that if you want to keep this training range active so we can properly train our American soldiers, which include Puerto Rican soldiers, somehow you don't like Puerto Ricans. I think it is very important to realize that that little training range offers three components of training that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere. First of all, it is high-altitude bombing. Why is that necessary? It is necessary because, as in the case of Kosovo, when we sent our pilots in there with cruise missiles, it was necessary that they be above the range of the surface-to-air missiles. They were very successful in Kosovo in doing that. There is no place else we can get that training because of airspace restrictions. I went, the weekend before this last weekend, to the U.S.S. Eisenhower, which is scheduled to go to the gulf, where they very likely could see some kind of combat. The Navy pilots were actually from that aircraft carrier conducting their training exercises in two different places in the United States. Here is the problem. I say this as a professional pilot of 40 years. To do that, they have to go through normal commercial airspace. In other words, they take off in an F-14 or F-18 from the U.S.S. Eisenhower. They go to drop their load of either real or not real ordnance. To do this, they have to fly through civilian airspace as if they were a general aviation pilot or a commercial pilot flying a commercial airline. In doing this, it is a totally different set of rules. Then when they come up to the range, where they can drop their ordnance, they have to all of a sudden be tactical. It is totally disruptive, and they can't do it at an altitude high enough to give them the actual training. What it will mean is, if these guys are deployed in the Persian Gulf on February 18, many of them will go over there and will be called upon to do things they have never done before. At the same time, you have your marine expeditionary units, that would not have had this training--actually landing and going on amphibious operations on the shores of Vieques, where they have been doing it for 58 years without incident. We wouldn't have the Navy being able to fire their guns. In fact, one of the officers said that they would be sending sailors out there to fire when they have never fired live on the ground before. It is a very serious problem. I bring this up not just to gain support for the resolution but to respond to something that is going on right now. We had a committee hearing with Governor Rossello. He came in. I will read some of the local press there. Gov. Rossello on Friday called Republican Senator James Inhofe a ``backward and reactionary'' member of the ultra right wing of the Republican Party, while several island legislators called him an ``Ugly American'' following comments the Oklahoma Senator made about Puerto Rico this week. [Senator Inhofe] upholds the same tradition of other people who have made similar statements, which is an anti-Hispanic, anti-minority. . . . It goes on. I think this is a further demonstration that they must not have a case, if they are going to have to resort to these kinds of insults. I say, in my own defense, that it wasn't long ago--it was 1996--I, along with the Democrat over on the House side, was the recipient of the Award for Freedom and Democracy from the International Foundation for Election Systems. The statement that was made when I was being introduced was: Senator James Inhofe has done more to promote freedom and democracy in Central America; he has done more to promote trade with Mexico and more to provide humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean than anybody else and is hereby awarded the Freedom and Democracy Award by the International Foundation of Election Systems. That was due to a couple of things I have done. One time, not too many years ago, when a devastating hurricane wiped out the lower Caribbean, I led a group of 10 airplanes through two hurricanes to take down humanitarian goods, doctors, two nurses, and food for the victims on those islands. In the case of promoting trade with Mexico, in 1981 I promoted the first trade where we actually flew to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and made, not a cultural exchange but an industrial exchange, where we computerized things they can do down there and things we were doing in my home city of Tulsa, OK. And they now have established trade with that country, and relationships and contracts are still alive today. I had occasion to be involved in Central America during the problems that were taking place down in Nicaragua and some of the other Central American countries. So I say that in my own defense. I appeal to people to start looking at the real problems that exist in Puerto Rico right now, in terms of that range. I wish there was someplace else we could train other than this island of Vieques. When they say it is an inconvenience and it is noisy and it is just 10 miles--this is the range. This is where the population is. It is 9.7 miles between here and here. I want to show you, by contrast, if you hold up the other chart, the two red areas are the live ranges that are where? In Oklahoma, Fort Sill, which is an artillery training range, a hot range. When I fly over the area, the controller tells me whether their range is hot or not. So there it is, these two ranges. Here is the population of Lawton, OK. So you can see the hot range goes within 1 mile of a population of 100,000 people, as opposed to Vieques, where the range is 9.7 miles from 9,000 people. Hold up the other chart, if you will. To give a comparison between the two, at Vieques, they use 9-inch guns. We use 6.1-inch in Fort Sill. The days of training average 164 live days a year in Vieques, and at Fort Sill we average 320 days per year. The range at Fort Sill is open and is hot and used twice as many days per year as it is in Vieques. Thirdly, the distance from the population is 9.7 miles in Vieques, and it is only 1 mile at Fort Sill. The population, instead of 9,000, is 100,000 people. They talk about the danger that imposes. There have been three fatalities. One fatality in Vieques was an F-18 that went down and both pilots were killed. They have had 1 ground fatality there, and we have had 26 (34 including air fatalities) at Fort Sill over a period of time. So when people accuse us of having two standards, one for those ranges in the United States and one for the range that happens to be in a territory, I think those people have to stop and realize: aren't they asking for something that is more than what we find to be perfectly acceptable in Kansas or in Oklahoma? So I hope people will keep in mind that several of our officers have made the statement that if we send and deploy, on February 18, as is currently scheduled, those sailors and airmen and marines, they will have to go by way of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. The chances are better than 2-to-1 that they will see combat in the Persian Gulf because that is what history shows us right now. We would be sending them there without the benefit of any training at all. There is another resolution that was introduced by Senator Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, last week. He was admonishing the President not to deploy the U.S.S. Eisenhower if they don't have that training range opened up so they can get the training. I am going to support that resolution as well as mine. The problem I see with it is that we have already deployed the U.S.S. Roosevelt. They are already returning. The U.S.S. Kennedy is out there right now, and only half of its personnel have had proper training. We would be asking them to make a second 6-month deployment. That would have a terribly negative effect on an already-eroding problem that we have with retention in the military. So I have two points I wish to make. One is that we need to do all we can to protect our young people whom we are asking to go into combat by giving them the proper training, and also to point out that there is a difference between the Democratic and the Republican Party when it comes to our support of national defense. I will repeat one more time the statistic I used from the center for security policy. The average Democrat rates 12 percent; the average Republican rates 94 percent. I don't think the American people would expect that the defense of our country and national security should be a partisan issue, but it is. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Paul Barger, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been sitting this morning and listening intently to all the comments that have been made about our very close friend, John Chafee. I do not have a prepared statement, but I do have some thoughts I think I want to share. It happens that this weekend, at the time that this happened, I was on the U.S.S. Eisenhower, where they were doing F-18 and F-14 maneuvers and trying to figure out how to get trained for something that is coming up in their deployment to both the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. So we were talking with some of the military types about John Chafee. And about John you hear all these things. I have been listening this morning about how he was such a great guy. But people forget what a hero he was during the Second World War, and then again in the Korean war. In fact, I got on his committee when I was first elected, coming from the House to the Senate in 1994. There is a tradition that John, every February, would have his new members, along with all the other members of his committee, for dinner. It was a very festive occasion. I used to look forward to going to that dinner and not saying anything but sitting quietly and listening to the war stories told by John Warner and John Chafee. You could sit there and relive the whole Second World War in a way you will never read about. When you think of him and the image that he has today, and the image of him that we have been exposed to in the recent years, you do not think of him as being the type of person who would be a war hero. But he was. He was. And every time he told his war stories, it always came back to talking about the love he had for America, what America meant to him, the reason it has to stay strong. I think it is interesting, because you hear a lot about his political philosophy, and some of the things he stands for are not consistent with standing for a strong national defense, yet he did. He was very unique in that respect. I listened to the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein. She did such a great job of describing this very gentle person. The Senator said in her comments, I believe three times, that he was a giant, and that she knew John was a giant, and she could look at him and see the things he did that nobody else could do--that he was a giant. One of the things that is interesting in listening to those who have been saying such eloquent things about John is they are talking about what his stand was on different issues. As a conservative, who disagreed with most of the issues they talked about, I still had a love and reverence and respect for John Chafee that is every bit as much or more than some of the others. I think it is kind of an interesting thing; you look at a guy who does not vote the way you vote on things, and yet every time he would say something about the various issues Senator Feinstein talked about, I would stop and think it over: This is John, so maybe I need to be listening a little bit more. I think he had a greater impact on people who disagreed with him than he did on people who agreed with him. I appreciate Max Baucus and the things he said. He has served for some time as the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, a very significant committee and one that is handling things that affect us in our everyday lives. And when he talked about John's unquestionable integrity, I cannot build on that. That is true. That is John. Senator Reid also talked about what a giant he was. I would only add, that of all the characteristics John had, the word that comes to my mind is love. You had to love John Chafee. A lot of people don't like me, certainly a lot of them don't love me, but I think of John Chafee and say: Who couldn't love John Chafee? I feel so rich that I have had the honor of serving with him and being close to him. This morning when Kay, my wife, and I were talking about John, she recalled her last conversation with Ginny was during our February dinner, the very eloquent dinner he has had every 2 years that he hosted at, I believe, the Metropolitan Club. Kay had been talking to Ginny for a long time. Their subject, Kay told me this morning, was he had already announced 3 days before that dinner that he was going to retire from the Senate after all these years. Ginny was talking about how they were looking forward to their traveling and all the things they were going to do. Now Ginny is left with 5 beautiful children and 12 grandchildren. I remember how proud John was when he talked about his son, Lincoln, who is running for his seat. So John was a family man. He loved his kids and loved his grandkids. Maybe that is what we all had in common. But this place will not be the same without John Chafee. John Chafee was the lovable giant. I yield back, Mr. President, and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania. And I will not use all that time because just since I have been down here, many of the things I was going to say have already been said. I think the Senator from Ohio was very specific when he talked about the fact that 80 percent of those abortions using this barbaric, torturous, painful procedure are elective. I could also quote from the American Medical News transcript of 1993 and others, but I think that point has been well made. I wish everyone could have watched last night, as I did, Senator Bill Frist, Dr. Bill Frist, when he talked about it from a medical perspective. I do not think anyone could have watched that and not been very supportive of Senator Santorum and everything he is trying to do. One of the things I do not think has really been answered appropriately is the fact that we keep hearing from the other side that both the National Abortion Federation and the National Abortion Rights Action League, all of these pro-abortion organizations which claim that the anesthesia that is administered to the mother prior to a partial- birth abortion kills the child and, therefore, the child feels no pain. Norig Ellison, the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, unequivocally stated that those claims had ``absolutely no basis in scientific fact.'' In fact, I think the whole idea of pain really needs to be discussed more. Dr. Robert White, a neurosurgeon at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine said: The neuroanatomical pathways which carry the pain impulses are present in fetuses by the 20th week of gestation. Also, the neurosystems which would modulate and suppress these pain impulses are either not present or immature during this stage of fetal development. What this means is, if you stop and think how painful this procedure of going into the back of your head and opening the scissors and sucking the brains out would be to you--to anyone who is here on this floor--it could be more painful to the baby because those systems that modulate and suppress the pain are not developed at that stage. So I look at this in terms of human life. Almost all these faces that are standing up here supporting this technique, if you were to inflict that type of pain on a dog or a cat, they would be protesting in front of your offices. A minute ago, the Senator from Ohio made some reference to the fact that it is infanticide. I hope the pro-choice people, a lot of people out there who are pro-choice who believe abortion should be an alternative, will listen to the words of Senator Patrick Moynihan, who is pro-choice. He said: I am pro-choice, but this isn't abortion, this is infanticide. Lastly, let me just mention to you, I have this picture. This is Jase Rapert. He lives in Arkansas. I have seven grandchildren. He is No. 4. I can remember, and some of you older people can remember, back when our wives had babies, they would not even let you in the hospital, let alone in the delivery room. When my little Molly, who is now a professor at the University of Arkansas, called me up and said: Daddy, delivery time is here; do you want to come in the delivery room? I did. I was in there for all three of her children. This is a picture of the first one, Jase. What registered to me at that time was, we have heard a lot of talk about maybe a baby isn't perfect or something. I do not think perfection exists anyway. But in every sense of the word, that is a perfect baby. If they had made that decision, if my Molly or her husband had made that decision at the time while I was in that room they were delivering this beautiful baby, they could have murdered Baby Jase. That is what is going on in America now. You have to put it in a personal context that we understand, that this can happen to someone we love very much.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object.