Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I ask the Senator to at least consider that the amendment I have to offer is not a Republican amendment. We have just as many Democrats as Republicans. I have been waiting for 6\1/2\ hours to take it up. It will be very short. We have agreed to a time agreement, and we will not even take that much time.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was listening to the debate when the distinguished Senator from Alabama was relating to us his experiences in basic training, and I was thinking of my experiences in basic training. Quite frankly, I think I would have been for integration of the sexes when I was in basic training, but I am looking at it differently now than I did at that time. I would like to respond to something that the Senator from Michigan said. I have so much respect for him, but I disagree with him in this respect. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Readiness, I spend a lot of time talking to officers in the field, talking to enlisted people in the field, as does the ranking member, the Senator from Virginia. I find a discrepancy in what you hear in the field and what you hear from the chiefs. I am not saying this critically of the current chiefs, but I think the chiefs have always reflected the philosophy of the President. The President is the Commander in Chief. He is the guy responsible for their careers. So we hear different things from the chiefs here in Washington than I hear when I go out to the National Training Center, or to 29 Palms, or Fort Bragg, or to Camp Lejeune. They are very emphatic and supportive of that portion of the recommendations of the Kassebaum-Baker report having to do with housing. Thirdly, three different Members, while I have been sitting here, have gone into detail as to the makeup of the committee that we have asked for from our committee, and it is a very distinguished panel. But I think that we have kind of lost sight of the fact that the committee that we refer to as the Kassebaum-Baker committee was actually appointed under the supervision of Secretary of Defense William Cohen. He put together a committee and, frankly, I probably would not have put together the same committee. I would want it stacked a little bit the other way. Real briefly, I will go over the committee. They are: Richard Allen, retired vice admiral of the U.S. Navy; Robert Forman, retired lieutenant general, U.S. Army; Marcelite Harris, major general, retired, from the Air Force; Condoleezza Rice, a Stanford professor; Don Gardner, a retired major general from the Marine Corps; Deval Patrick, who was the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, appointed by President Clinton. I mean, if there is anybody who would have a bias toward the administration, it would be this individual. Ginger Lee Simpson, retired U.S. Navy, and others. I suggest to my fellow Senators that this committee of 11 had a majority of women. On this committee of 11, 5 of them were either retired generals or admirals. I would hold up this committee to be certainly comparable to the committee that had been discussed on this floor. I think any time you have a committee like this reaching a unanimous decision--all of these retired women from all the services, along with the former Assistant Attorney General in charge of civil rights appointed by President Clinton--and it was unanimous; they all agreed. I think when you have this unanimity, I can't imagine that any other committee is going to come up with a different result. What would happen is, it would delay the implementation of this by a year. If it is good now, and it is good a year from now, I think one year should make a tremendous difference in the morale of the services, which is certainly suffering at this time.

Mr. INHOFE. I don't have any requests for time on my side. I retain the remainder of my time. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I think I probably will voluntarily cut this down. It depends on who shows up and wants to be heard. Mr. President, as I have said in response to the comment by the Senator from Iowa, this is not really a Republican amendment. We have, certainly, Senator Daschle, Senator Dorgan, Senator Cleland, Senator Conrad, and many Democrats who are supporting this amendment. The need for this amendment came up when several comments were made by members of the administration, primarily Acting Secretary Peters of the Air Force, making statements that, ``We don't care whether or not we are authorized to have further BRAC rounds, we are going to go ahead and close bases anyway.'' Later in this discussion, I will actually offer some of the quotes that were made. Right now, I will merely explain what this amendment does. It does essentially five things. First of all, the current language, in order for a military facility to be closed without Congress' consent, has a threshold of 300 civilian employees. Let me stress, that is civilian employees, not military employees. This bill will reduce that number to 225. Now, my original bill would have reduced it to 150. I still like that better. However, I was willing to accommodate the concerns of several Democrats and other people who wanted to have 225. The effect of this would mean that if they tried to close a military base, they could not do it without our consent unless that base had more than 225 civilian employees. No. 2, in the event that realignment became the desire of the services--Department of Defense--that they could not do it if there were as many as 750 civilian positions or 40 percent of the total civilians authorized to be employed. The current language has a threshold of 1,000 civilian employees at 50 percent of the total civilians authorized to be employed. So this again is dropping that down a modest amount, by approximately 25 percent. No. 3, we clarify the definition of closure. The reason we feel this is necessary is that there have been statements made like, ``We will just transfer it to a caretaker status, or a state of inaction or abandonment.'' What we are doing is expanding the definition in the law of closure to include these statements, so that someone cannot do this and circumvent the closure requirements by saying we are not closing, we are just abandoning or putting it into a state of inaction. On this, I pause at this point and say, if you stop and think about every community in America that might have some type of a facility, they would not know, they would not be prepared in advance as to whether or not somebody is going to try to make it inactive or put it into caretaker status. We want to be straightforward and say if you are going to close it, you are going to close it--using those terms. No. 4, we will add a provision that requires a waiting period of 4 years after a realignment before a base could be closed, if that realignment drops the civilian workforce below the new threshold of 225 civilians. Our concern here is that this can be circumvented and we could be left out of the loop as the U.S. Senate if they were able to take it one step at a time and say, fine, we are going to go ahead and realign, and next week we will come and realign some more and have the effect of closing a base entirely, regardless of the number of employees, if they are willing to do that. This would preclude that. Lastly, it is the sense of the Senate that there is no need to reauthorize for the year 2001 in this 1998 authorization bill. There is no reason in the world that we can't have more time to consider this and to see how current law works and maybe address this again in the 1999 authorization bill. It would not make any difference at all; it would still be the year 2001. These are essentially the changes in the current law that this amendment would offer. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. INHOFE. I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. INHOFE. If I can go first, I am agreeable to that.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. One last comment. One last question. The reason I bring this up, there are still some Senators who may be thinking this was the stronger version in which I joined the Senator. I would have preferred to have this as the stronger version, but this is not that version. This is simply that vote to which the Senator is referring.

Mr. INHOFE. So the people would have no doubt as to who wants to ultimately get out of there.

Mr. INHOFE. The only thing that the Senator would accomplish, if he will yield for one last question, is the fact that would give us all an opportunity to be on record.

Mr. INHOFE. I would like to make a comment as to the genesis of this. I think there might be some misunderstanding. First of all, we did have a vote back in 1995. That was the resolution of disapproval. And I suggest that we only lost that by three votes. And at that time there was a guarantee it was going to be a 12-month operation, it would not exceed $1.2 billion, all of these things. So predicated on that, the vote took place. Now we are over there, and, quite frankly, I would have preferred to have an amendment that would require a vote periodically, every 3 months or every 6 months, on approval of leaving them there, because I think that would be much stronger. I think we need to be on record. But all the Senator is doing is just--he is not saying this is going to be a resolution of disapproval or approval that we are voting on; it is just a vote.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that current business be set aside for the purpose of immediate consideration of my amendment No. 2405.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I had the intention, and still have the intention at some later time, of reintroducing the amendment that is at the desk. What it effectively does is address the potential problem and influence that a company called COSCO, the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company, will have on the United States. Mr. President, the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company is Communist China's largest shipping group. It has more than doubled the number of ships that our entire U.S. Navy has. This group has been given preferential treatment by this country and other countries for some period of time. It wasn't long ago that they were given the opportunity to have ports at both ends of the Panama Canal, the Ports of Colon and Cristobal, and our country was supportive of that. This 25-year lease gives them an abundance of control in the Panama Canal and was to cost $22 million a year. But the deal that was made would be to waive that amount of money, and to waive the labor laws and veto rights over a period of approximately 2 years. Other areas where we have given preferential treatment to COSCO fall in the area of taxpayer-guaranteed loans. COSCO was the first shipping company owned by Beijing government to receive a U.S. Federal loan guarantee under a 40-year-old Transportation Department program designed to help American shipyards win business. This was a $138 million loan, which constituted 87.5 percent of the cost of the projects to build four container ships in Alabama. The ships were never built. They did not go through. Nonetheless, the permission was given. There are many other areas where they have received preferential treatment. Since the 1950s, ships from Communist nations have been forced to give 4 day's notice before they could dock near U.S. military establishments. This was to give the U.S. officials early warning about possible spying and this type of thing. The restriction still applies to countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Russia, and some of the other former Soviet Republics. But in a deal that was worked out in December of 1996, the United States cut China's wait at a dozen sensitive ports from 4 days to 1 day. Make sure we understand what we have done here. We have allowed this company to only have to wait 1 day, and all the rest of the Communist nations have to wait 4 days. Cambodia still has to wait 4 days. Vietnam still has to wait 4 days. Russia still has to wait 4 days, but China only 1 day. U.S. firms still can't get sole-tenancy leases at Chinese ports, yet COSCO got just such rights last year from Long Beach, CA. What a lease--a vacant U.S. Naval Station with no security check. What they are attempting to do now is to get the rest of that closed operation. We are talking about several hundred acres very strategically located. It is kind of interesting, since we have been giving such preferential treatment to the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company. Why are we doing this? I think it is important to understand that this shipping company is not a part of the private sector. This is owned by the Chinese Government. It is owned specifically by the People's Liberation Army of Communist China. So their interests are not just in mercantile--not just in ships--but also they have military interests. COSCO reports to the Chinese Ministry of Communications, which falls under the State Council, which in turn is led by the Communist Party Politburo member and Premier Li Peng. If we are looking at the problems that have come up and surfaced and have caused many of us to be concerned, we might want to remember that back in March of 1996 a COSCO ship, the Empress Phoenix, transported 2,000 illegal AK-47 automatic weapons to be used in street gangs in Los Angeles. It was intended to be sold to the California street gangs, and this has been verified. The corporation was the Norinco Corporation, which is controlled by the People's Liberation Army. Fortunately, the guns were confiscated as a part of an FBI sting operation. Mr. President, it is certainly no coincidence that the firm is also the employer of record of Wang Jun, which is the well-known Chinese arms dealer who attended a recent radio address in this country. Mr. President, only last week the Washington Times reported that a COSCO ship was on its way to Pakistan. Now we are talking about shipping, carrying, nuclear technology and equipment in violation of an international nonproliferation agreement. We are talking about carrying this information, carrying this technology, carrying this nuclear technology to Pakistan from China, a clear violation. The COSCO ships have previously been used to transport military and strategic cargoes, including components for ballistic missiles from China and North Korea to such countries as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and just most recently, we learned last week, Libya. So I think that we have a great deal of our Nation's security at risk by allowing them--continuing to allow them to have this lease. With that in mind, I would again renew my unanimous consent request. I will wait and give adequate time for someone to come in, if there is an objection, but my unanimous consent request would be to set aside the pending business for the immediate consideration of my amendment No. 2405.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield? Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. What exactly does section 3(b) of S. 1279 purport to do?

Mr. INHOFE. I thank Senator Campbell for clearing up these concerns. I'm encouraged by the assurances that the Johnson O'Malley Program will not be adversely affected by this measure.

Mr. INHOFE. Is it true that your bill will not affect in any manner the current regulations and requirements established by the Department of the Interior with regard to the Johnson O'Malley program?

Mr. INHOFE. The Johnson O'Malley program is a supplemental education program designed to benefit Indian children aged 3 through grade 12 attending public schools. I'm concerned that permitting tribes the option to use these funds within employment and training plans will permit tribes to instead use these funds for post-high school adult employment training programs.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you. I appreciate the Senator's assistance. This is an issue that is very important to general aviation pilots, and I look forward to working with you to correct this problem. explanation of Absence

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to enter into a colloquy with my friend, Senator Coverdell, to clarify a situation that was brought to my attention during consideration of the Senator's Drug-Free Neighborhoods amendment to S. 1415. As an original cosponsor of the amendment, I fully support the Senator's efforts to stop the spread of drugs into our communities; however, one provision has the unintended effect of raising serious safety concerns for general aviation pilots. Specifically, the amendment permits officers to order an aircraft to land, but does not require any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. It also could make pilots responsible for paying thousands of dollars to reclaim their aircraft, even if they are totally innocent of any wrongdoing. As a pilot for over 40 years, I can assure you that the ``order to land'' could be a dangerous and traumatic experience for a pilot. In fact, the International Standards, Rules of the Air, published by the International Civil Aviation Organization says ``interceptions of civil aircraft are, in all cases, potentially hazardous.'' As I understand it, the intent of the amendment was to provide additional authority to U.S. law enforcement officers to curtail border drug smuggling, which I am sure all us agree is a laudable goal. However, because of the potential danger and immense burden to general aviation pilots, I have worked with my friends at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association to develop some relatively minor changes that could be done to take care of general aviation's concerns.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. That's correct. But the Senate included an amendment in this bill that addresses this problem. Under this amendment, for the July 1997 PM2.5 standards, EPA would no longer be required to designate areas regarding their PM2.5 attainment status in July of 1999. Instead of the designation schedule currently in the Clean Air Act, this amendment would establish the following requirements for PM2.5 designations: Section 4102 would extend the time for Governors to submit designations for the July 1997 PM2.5 standard until one year after receipt of three years of monitoring data. Rather than the two year period normally provided by the Clean Air Act, under section 4102(d) of this amendment, EPA would not be required to promulgate nonattainment, attainment and unclassifiable designations for PM2.5 areas until one year after the Governors are required to submit the designations or until Dec. 31, 2005, whichever date is earlier. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the senior Senator from Minnesota for his courtesy. We discussed this a few minutes ago and decided it might be better if I go first, because he might want to respond to some things I might say. Some statements were made on the floor yesterday concerning my hold that I have on James Hormel to be the Ambassador to Luxembourg. It is true that I do have a hold on Mr. Hormel. To clarify what a hold is, it is a courtesy. It is not a procedural matter. It is something that is a courtesy to the leader so he will know there is opposition. There very well may be a vote on this individual, but I will oppose his nomination, and I want to stand and tell you why. The statement that was made on the floor was made by the senior Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone. I will read excerpts of it: Now, one of my colleagues, and I think it is extremely unfortunate, one of my colleagues has compared Mr. Hormel, a highly qualified public servant and nominee, to Mr. David Duke, who, among other credentials, is a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He goes on to say: I want to say to my colleagues, that given this kind of statement made publicly by a United States Senator, this kind of character assassination, it is more important now than ever that this man, Mr. Hormel, be voted on. In defense, really, of the senior Senator from Minnesota, I say that if I had said what he thought I said, he was certainly entitled and justified to make the statements that were made. But I think it is important to know that I did not make those statements in the context that he believed I made them. Let me, first of all, say that there probably are not two Members of the U.S. Senate who are further apart philosophically than the senior Senator from Minnesota and myself. I would probably, in my own mind, believe him to be an extreme left-wing radical liberal and he believes me to be an extreme right-wing radical conservative. And I think maybe we are both right. But one thing I respect about Senator Wellstone is he is not a hypocrite. He is the same thing everywhere. He honestly, in his heart, believes the role of Government to be something different than I believe it to be. So we have these honest differences of opinion. One of the things I like about this body, the U.S. Senate, is that you can, in a spirit of love, talk about these things. And that is what we are doing right now. Let me just real quickly say that I like activists. The Senator from Minnesota is an activist. I am an activist. In fact, this is the commencement season. I quite often give commencement talks. I talk to young people, and I say, ``Whatever you are, don't be a mushy middle. Stand for something.'' I would far rather, even though I am a conservative, have one of these young people be a radical right-wing-- or left-wing--either one--than just be in the mushy middle. I quote Henry Ward Beecher now and then. He said, I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people. In order not to say wrong, say nothing; in order not to do wrong, do nothing. And the Lord had something to say about this, too. He said, I know your works. You are neither hot nor cold. Because you are neither hot nor cold, you are lukewarm. And because you are lukewarm, I will spew thee out of my mouth. He is saying the same thing I am saying. And I really believe this. And the young kids, they look at us as examples. In fact, when I was in the other body and was first elected, I would take interns down to the intersection of New Jersey and Independence, and I would say as they went across the street, I said, ``There are three kinds of Members of Congress. There are extreme liberals, extreme conservatives, and then the mushy middle. And the goal of those in the mushy middle is to die in Washington, DC. And how do you die in Washington, DC? You take a poll, and you make statements that ingratiate yourself.'' The senior Senator from Minnesota cannot be accused of that, nor can I. Unfortunately, we do have too many appeasers around. Hiram Mann said, ``No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails. And those who cry ``appease'' are hanged by those they try to please.'' Let me tell you quickly what I did say so that it will be clarified for the Record. I made the statement, when I was running for office--and I have been consistent with that--that if I get to the U.S. Senate, where I have the opportunity to participate in the confirmation process, that I will work to keep a nominee from being confirmed if that individual has his own personal agenda and has made statements to the effect that he believes stronger in his personal agenda and will use that office to advance his personal agenda more than he would the American agenda. Now, in the case of James Hormel, he is a gay activist. He has made statements in the past, which I will read in a moment, that have led me to believe that his agenda, his personal agenda is above the agenda of the United States. And I said the same thing would apply regardless of who the individual is. I made the statement that David Duke, if he were nominated, I would oppose him because he has made statements that his militia extremist agenda is more important than the agenda of America. I said in the way of Patricia Ireland, if she were nominated, I would feel the same way if she made statements saying that her feminist agenda was more important to her than the agenda of America. And the same thing with one of my closest friends, Ralph Reed. I mean, Ralph Reed, who was the one who built the Christian Coalition, he is one with whom I agree. I agree with what he stands for. I spent the Easter recess in west Africa in the countries of Benin and Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire talking about Jesus Christ. So I agree with him. However, if he were nominated, and he said, ``I want this job so that I can advance my personal agenda over that of America,'' I think it would be wrong and I would oppose it. So let us just see real quickly. I am going to read a couple things, and then my time will expire, and I think I will be on the record as I want to be. During the course of the nomination process--I will read, first of all, the San Francisco Chronicle. This is on October 9 of 1997. President Clinton's nomination of James Hormel . . . is the latest sign that he is making good on his post-election promise to reward gays and lesbians for their support, national gay leaders said today . . .'' I think it's the result of very hard work behind the scenes of national gay and lesbian organizations that have been pushing and pushing for these appointments to be made''. . . . That was Kerry Lobel, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. I would also like to quote someone I think who is familiar to all of us--we hold her in very high esteem--Faith Whittlesey, former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland. She was talking about this trend of trying to put people with their own personal agendas in the various Embassies. She made this statement. She said: The United States is more socially radicalized than any other country in the world on this issue (gay rights). Ambassadorships may no longer be essential foreign policy positions, but they are still symbolically important. Starting with small countries to set a precedent for bigger appointments, what they're trying to do is use the U.S. diplomatic service to open deeply held religious convictions and social mores in other countries. Ambassadorial appointments should not be used for the purposes of social engineering in the countries to which the ambassadors are assigned. One of the many statements that had been made previous about James Hormel that led me to the conclusion that he wanted to use this position to advance his agenda was the following statement he made on June 16, 1996. He said: I specifically asked to be Ambassador to Norway because, at the time, they were about to pass legislation that would acknowledge same-sex relationships, and they had indicated their reception, their receptivity, to gay men and lesbians. I think it is very difficult to put any interpretation on that other than the fact that individual wanted to be ambassador to that country because of pending legislation in that country. So, Mr. President, I stand by the statements I have made. I certainly do not want anyone to say that I am comparing two individuals as individual personalities. But I will continue to oppose the confirmation of individuals who are nominated for various positions, if I believe, in my own heart, that that individual is not going to represent the best interests of America and has his own personal agenda in advance of Americans. I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Could we extend that unanimous consent to give me 10 minutes after the Senator from Minnesota?