Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President. I will probably not take the 12 minutes. The Senator from Arizona is exactly right. I think even the strongest opponents of the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention have said this is not going to affect terrorist activities. Obviously, by the very title ``terrorists'' they are not going to be complying with this. I have to say I feel the same way about these countries that we are discussing right now. The condition which is under debate at this time is whether or not to strike that portion with regard to Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and China. It would be, if we were only concerned about those countries that have signed or have ratified or have an expressed intention to ratify, that would be very nice, because we would be talking about Canada, the Fiji Islands, Costa Rica, and Singapore, Iceland. That is not where the threat is. The threat is the rogue nations. That is what we are talking about right now. I will for a moment bring this up to date by quoting a couple of things. General Schwarzkopf, during a press conference in Riyadh said: ,The nightmare scenario for all of us would have been to go through this [the Iraqi tank barrier], get hung up in this breach right here, and then have the enemy artillery rain chemical weapons down on the troops that were in the gaggle in the breach right here. General Hughes said: In any attack in the south, Pyongyang could use chemical weapons to attack forces deployed near the DMZ, suppress allied air power, and isolate the peninsula from strategic reinforcement. Four days ago in a Seoul, North Korea, newspaper there was an article quoting very high North Korean officials as saying they now have adequate chemical weapons to annihilate South Korea. This is going on as we speak. So we are talking about nations that are not going to be our friends. These are the ones that, whether they are signatories, or whether they ratify or not, it doesn't make too much difference. It tickles me when they talk about, ``Russia is going to do that.'' Last night, I was on a talk show and we finally agreed that on the 1990 Bilateral Destruction Agreement, they have been found in noncompliance of that, and of the START I, of the Conventional Forces in Europe. Even though my opponent denied it was the INF, in fact, they were. In the 1995 Arms Control Disarmament Agency report, it says they were not in compliance with that; the ABM Treaty, they have not been in compliance with that. But let's assume if a country like Russia doesn't comply when they ratify, what about these rogue nations? I can tell you for sure that those proponents of the ratification have gone to every extent possible to make it look like--or to make us believe that the Reagan administration, if they were here today, would be in support of this Chemical Weapons Convention. I can assure you that they would not. Coincidentally, I happened to be on a talk show--``Crossfire''--with a very fine gentlemen, Ken Adelman. He had been in the Reagan administration. We found out, after he gave his testimonial as to why we should ratify--and he admitted it was not verifiable nor is it global, but he still thought we should do it--that Mr. Adelman might be prejudiced by his membership on two boards of directors, the International Planning and Analysis Center and on Newmeyer and Associates. These companies, which he directs, have clients in many foreign countries, including China and Japan, and they represent companies that deal in chemicals such as those from the UpJohn Co. People say this is just chemicals. It is not just chemical companies we are talking about. In this chemical association that gets so much attention, it represents 192 chemical companies. These are the large ones, the giants. There are some 4,000 other companies, and you can expand it beyond purely chemical companies to some 8,000 other companies, most of whom are opposed to this, because they would be shut out in the competition. I think the whole thing on this particular amendment is whether or not this would have any positive effect on the rogue nations if we should ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. I don't think there is anybody here who is so naive to think that, voluntarily, if they are a part of it, they would reduce their chemical behavior. I think those of us in this room can argue and debate that. So I go back to the people who are the real authorities. You have heard Dick Cheney quoted several times on the floor, in his letter that we have quoted several times. He said, ``Indeed some aspects of the present convention--notably, its obligation to share with potential adversaries, like Iran, chemical manufacturing technology that can be used for military purposes in chemical defense equipment--threaten to make this accord worse than having no treaty at all.'' That is Dick Cheney, not some guy that read a couple of articles and determined it was wrong. What is he talking about? He is talking about something that will be debated here shortly, and we will get into that in more detail. Part of article X says, ``The technical secretariat shall establish not later than 180 days after entry into force of this contract, and maintain for the use of any requesting state party, a data bank containing freely available information concerning various means of protection against chemical weapons, as well as such information as may be provided by states' parties.'' Well, I can remember in the Armed Services Committee when Schwarzkopf was here. I said: General, you are in support of the Chemical Weapons Convention. I read that, and then I will read a transcript, because I think everybody who might be basing their vote on what General Schwarzkopf said, here is a transcript from that meeting: Senator Inhofe. Do you think it wise to share with countries like Iran our most advanced chemical defensive equipment and technology? General Schwarzkopf. Our defensive capabilities? Senator Inhofe. Yes. General Schwarzkopf. Absolutely not. Senator Inhofe. Well, I'm talking about sharing our advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies, which I believe under article X (they) would be allowed to (get). Do you disagree? General Schwarzkopf. As I said, Senator, I'm not familiar with all the details--you know--you know, a country, particularly like Iran, I think we should share as little as possible with them in the way of our military capabilities. I am not critical of General Schwarzkopf. It is a very complicated thing. I don't know how many people read the whole thing. I haven't, but I read enough to know, as far as our treatment with rogue nations, I would not want to be ratifying this contract unless they ratified it. Then I would not trust them any more than we would trust Russia, and if they do ratify, I question if they will honor it. One of the other conditions we are going to talk about is, should we do it, should we put in a requirement that they would have to ratify before we will. Well, we had that requirement 2 years ago when I voted against the START II treaty. They said we have to do it before Russia because they won't ratify unless we do. Guess what, Mr. President, they still haven't ratified. Lastly, to kind of express the urgency of this, former Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, said, ``To the extent that others learn from international sharing of information on chemical warfare defenses, our vulnerability is enhanced rather than diminished. Finally, this treaty in no way helps shield our soldiers from one of battlefield's deadliest killers. As indicated earlier, only the threat of effective retaliation provides such protection.'' What he is saying there is not that we would use chemical weapons, but by the fact that we are not a party to this treaty is one that would at least offer some type of a deterrent. So I think, Mr. President, when you look and read of the hostility that is over there-- James Woolsey said, in 1993: More than two dozen countries have programs to research or develop chemical weapons, and a number have stockpiled such weapons, including Libya, Iran, and Iraq-- Three of the countries we are talking about: The military competition in the always volatile Middle East has spurred others in the region to develop chemical weapons. We have also noted a disturbing pattern of biological weapons development following closely on the heels of the development of chemical weapons. Mr. President, the threat is there, and we know that other countries can sell their technology, as well as their systems, to rogue nations. We know Russia has done this, to specifically Iran and other nations, not when they sold their technology, but also their equipment. So it is a very scary thing to think that we might be putting ourselves in a position that would increase our exposure to the threat of chemical warfare and would increase the proliferation of chemical weapons in the Middle East. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jeff Severs be permitted privileges of the floor for the duration of the debate.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, let me say that there have been a lot of charges made back and forth. And certainly I don't question the sincerity of any Senators who have spoken on the floor, nor any positions they have taken, nor do I question their motives. They clearly think that they are right and that I am wrong. I think I am right. And the right position is not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts talked about ``lulling'' people into a false sense of security. There is a very interesting editorial in the Wall Street Journal on that subject--that people are going to believe that something is going to be done with this, that it is going to eliminate or dramatically reduce chemical weapons. We have testimony from very distinguished, well-known, former Secretaries of Defense--four of them--who say that this, in fact, could increase the proliferation of chemical weapons around the world, and particularly in the area of rogue nations. Let me just address one other thing because my beloved friend, Bob Dole, came out and changed the position that he had previously had. I certainly don't question his sincerity. But in his letter he said that the conditions or the concerns that he had previously had been met. I happened to stumble onto the letter that was dated September 11, 1996, from Bob Dole to Trent Lott. I will read the last of one paragraph. He says, ``I have three concerns. First, effective verification. Do we have confidence that our intelligence will detect violations? Second, real reductions. In this case down to zero.'' He is putting an expectation of reducing the use of chemical weapons ``down to zero.'' ``Third, that it will truly be a global treaty.'' Mr. President, none of these three have been met--not one of these three conditions; certainly on verification. There is not one person who has stepped onto the floor of this Senate and said that this is a verifiable treaty. Nobody claims that it is. It is not verifiable. People who give us their word that they are not going to do it. That is fine. We can believe their word. Are we going to believe countries who have not lived up to their other treaties? Certainly not. In the case of real reductions, ``down to zero''--getting one to say there are going to be any real reductions. Certainly not down to zero. Nobody has made that statement. And will it be truly global? We have talked about the countries that are not a part of this treaty. And there are countries that are not like we are. We are talking about people who murder their own grandchildren, we are talking about Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea. So obviously, it is not a global treaty in any sense of the term. In verifiability, it is kind of interesting. After the Persian Gulf war we set up a very meticulous system of verification within the United Nations that gave the inspectors from the United Nations far greater authority than the inspectors would have under this treaty. Yet we find out that in the midst of all of this that Iraq is making chemical weapons as we speak. If you can't do it with the information that they have, and the ability that they have from the United Nations, certainly it is not something that can happen under this treaty. I have another concern. Mr. President, it is not just those who have not signed or who have not ratified the treaty. I look at some of the countries that have signed and they may or may not ratify. The distinguished Senator from Arizona, Senator Kyl, earlier said that 99 percent of the known chemical weapons are in three countries: United States, China, and Russia. And not one of those countries has ratified this treaty. I doubt very seriously that they are going to ratify this treaty. So we have all of these conditions that we are talking about that assume that, No. 1, those who are signatories to this treaty are going to ratify it; and, No. 2, the ones that ratify it will do what they have said they will do. I think it is kind of interesting when you look at Russia, for example. I am not singling them out other than the fact that we have had more treaties with Russia. We have the 1990 Biological Weapons Destruction Treaty; the ABM Treaty that goes all the way back to the 1970's; we have the Strategic Armaments Reduction Treaty, START I; the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the CFE treaty; and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. In each one of these cases, the country involved--this country being Russia--has not lived up to the provisions of the treaty. In other words, they ratify a treaty. They are a signatory. Then they ratify, go through that elaborate process, and then they turn around and don't live up to it. They have been found in noncompliance by our State Department--this country--in each one of these five. You have to ask the question: If Russia ratified five treaties and did not comply with any of the five, why would we expect that they would ratify this and not live up to it? One of the conditions that we have is that the Russians will ratify the treaty prior to the time that we would do it. People are saying oh, no, Russia will ratify but only if we do. I would like to remind my friends in this body that I was one of, I think, three Senators who voted against the START II Treaty and they used the same argument at that time. They said you have to ratify this thing, you have to ratify it before Russia because Russia is not going to ratify it if we do not ratify it. This is 2 years later, and they still have not ratified it. So we are still waiting. So why will you expect if 2 years ago we passed the START II Treaty-- and I think the Senator from North Carolina and I were two of the four votes that were against it--they said they were going to ratify after we did, and they didn't do it--why would they necessarily do it? This global thing is very significant because here we talk about those who have signed the treaty and those who have ratified the treaty and, quite frankly, I do not care if a lot of those who have to ratify this treaty ratify it. I am not at all concerned about Canada, Costa Rica, the Fiji Islands, Switzerland, Togo, Singapore, Iceland. They are not threats to this country, but there are threats out there. And a minute ago, someone, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, quoted James Woolsey, former CIA Director. It is also James Woolsey who said we know there are somewhere in excess of 25 nations that currently have weapons of mass destruction, either biological, chemical, or nuclear and are working on the vehicle means to deliver those weapons. And so if these countries have them, these are not countries that we are friendly with or think like we do. I have said on the Senate floor several times in the past that I look back sometimes wistfully to the days of the cold war, Mr. President, when they had two superpowers, the U.S.S.R. and the United States of America. We had an intelligence system that was pretty well informed. We pretty much knew what they had, and they pretty much knew what we had. Even though they were a threat to this Nation, certainly they were a threat and a quantity that could be measured and we could anticipate. Now we have countries like Iraq, and we have people, as I said before, who murder their own grandchildren and we are talking about the Qadhafis, Hafez Assads and those individuals who, I think, are a far greater threat in terms of what is available in technology out there with weapons of mass destruction including what we are addressing today, and that is chemical weapons. So the threat is a very real threat that is out there. I understand from some of my close friends, Republican friends, that there are some of these conditions that they could either take or leave and are not as concerned about whether Russia ratifies the treaty in advance; they are not really concerned about whether there are no inspectors from terrorist countries. I can't really understand that, but they are concerned understandably about article X. And while everyone has put their own interpretation on article X, and instead of putting an interpretation on it let me just read. I hope that all of America could hear the exact wording of this treaty that we are being asked to endorse and to ratify. Section 3 of article X says: Each State party undertakes to facilitate and shall have the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, material and scientific and technological information concerning means of protection against chemical weapons. Wait a minute now. We are talking about they would be able to look at what our defenses against chemical weapons are, not just what we have, what our technology is, how they might be able to copy our technology. Moving on to section 5, it says: The technical secretariat shall establish-- Incidentally, Mr. President, does it bother you, that technical secretariat? I always wondered what happened to sovereignty in this country. We have a group sitting over there someplace; we are not sure who they are going to be, but they are called the technical secretariat-- Not later than 180 days after entry into force of this convention and maintain for the use of any requesting State party a data bank containing freely available information concerning various means of protection against chemical weapons as well as such information as may be provided by State parties. Now, I look at this as a sovereignty issue again, because I do not know who these people are, but I do know this, that we have a lot of chemical companies in this country that have not been talked about very much. You talk about the CMA. That is, as I understand it, 192 chemical companies. They are the large ones, but there are somewhere between, it is estimated, 3 and 8,000 companies that would be affected by this treaty. Not all of them are chemical companies but about half of them, so you may be looking at 192 large chemical companies and maybe 4,000 small chemical companies and maybe it would be to their advantage to have very stringent requirements like this that would be a lot easier for large companies to stand behind than small companies. Finally, Mr. President, I have so much respect for the three former Secretaries of Defense who testified before Senator Helms' committee, James Schlesinger, Don Rumsfeld, and Cap Weinberger. In fact, I have talked to each one of them, along with Dick Cheney, who would have been there to testify, but he was unable to make that schedule. But he has sent a letter that has been quoted from several times. These individuals all say essentially the same thing. They say that we are being asked to ratify a treaty that is not verifiable, that is not global, that does not have any effect on those countries that are considered to be our enemies, our adversaries out there. And they are out there, Mr. President, and also even those who say they will ratify and comply have demonstrated over and over again, such as Russia, that they have not complied with previous treaties. By the way, speaking of Russia, it was interesting; last week in Janes Defense News, I read that the Russians had developed a type of chemical weapon, and they have developed it out of precursors that are not under this treaty. In other words, there are three precursors that they are using that they can develop these weapons with. So they would not be covered by this. I think maybe that is just a coincidence. Maybe there are other countries out there also that are saying all right, if this Chemical Weapons Convention goes in and we intend to comply with the provisions of it, which they probably are not, what can we do to build chemical weapons without using those precursor chemicals? And they are already doing it. I would like to share lastly something that all four of these former Secretaries of Defense have said. They have said that there is a very good chance being a party to this treaty and ratifying this treaty could increase the proliferation of chemical weapons as opposed to reducing them. I would read one paragraph out of Dick Cheney's letter, and I do not think anyone is more respected than Dick Cheney in these areas. Indeed, some aspects of the present convention, notably its obligation to share with potential adversaries like Iran chemical manufacturing technology that can be used for military purposes and chemical defensive equipment, threaten to make this accord worse than having no treaty at all. In my judgment, the treaty's article X and XI amount to a formula for greatly accelerating the proliferation of chemical warfare capabilities around the globe. So I would just say, Mr. President, that there has been a lot of lobbying going on, and I know the President's been very busy. I do not know what kind of deals have been made, but I do know that this is not something that is in the best security interests of the United States. I do sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I am the chairman of the readiness subcommittee. We are very much concerned about our State of readiness in terms of how to defend against chemical warfare. We deal with this subject every day. I am on the Intelligence Committee. We talk about this. But none of us on those two committees know about this as people such as Dick Cheney. I agree with them. We cannot afford to take a chance on a flawed treaty that could have the effect of increasing the proliferation of chemical weapons. I thank the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the chairman.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jeff Severs be given the privilege of the floor for this day.

Mr. INHOFE

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

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

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 3 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that attempts to level the playing field for transit donor States across the country. In addition to myself, Senators Tim Hutchinson, Helms, Cochran, Nickles, and Sessions are all original cosponsors. Federal Transit dollars are distributed according to the Federal Transit Act as amended by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act [ISTEA]. Similar to highway dollars, transit dollars are collected at the gas pump and are distributed by both formula and discretionary grants. States such as Oklahoma that do not receive back all of the revenues that they send to the Federal mass transit account are considered donor States. Unfortunately, these States are not getting nearly as much back in Federal funding as they contribute. In 1995, Oklahoma contributed about $30 million and only received back about $8 million from the mass transit account of the highway trust fund. This inequity allows for States with more urban centers to receive more dollars back than they actually contribute to the Federal account. Basically, donor States are subsidizing large metropolitan areas with the portion of the funds that we never get back. This puts smaller and rural areas at a disadvantage in trying to maintain transit systems whether it be buses or light rail. Rural areas are, too, interested in conserving fuel and contributing to better air quality. My proposal is designed to address this critical transit problem as we move deeper into the ISTEA reauthorization debate. Under my bill, each State that contributes $50 million or less into the Federal Mass Transit Account will be guaranteed to receive back no less than 80 percent of its apportionment. States should reasonably be able to expect that local dollars will be used for local transit needs. A large portion of Oklahoma-generated revenues should be remitted back to our State to provide for improved public transportation in Oklahoma--not urban mass transit systems in other States. My bill will put equity into the mass transit apportionment system by returning locally generated dollars home. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I think something that is very significant that has not yet been said was touched upon by the distinguished Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl], when he approached the economics of this issue. Unfortunately, when we talk about tax reductions, there is a mindset that if you reduce taxes, you reduce revenues. History has shown us very clearly that is not the case. In fact, it was a Democrat who first came up with the idea that you could actually increase revenues by reducing taxes, and that was President Kennedy back in the early 1970's when he said we have a problem in this country; we have to increase revenues, but we also are overtaxed, so the best way to increase revenues is to reduce the tax rates. Now, today, the Democrats do not think that way. The liberals in Congress think that it is a static situation, and that if you raise taxes nothing else happens. That, of course, is not true. I remind my colleagues that in 1980, the total amount of money used to run Government was $570 billion, the total revenue that came in in 1980. In 1990, the total revenue that came in to run Government was $1 trillion 30 billion. That is almost exactly double what it was in 1980. Well, what happened during that decade? During that decade, we had the largest tax reductions we have ever had in this country's history. So the same thing that happened back during the Kennedy administration when he had the wisdom to say we have to increase revenues and the best way to do this is to reduce taxes happened again in the 1980's. Unfortunately, we have an administration in the White House that does not understand this. In fact, I was amazed early in this administration when Laura Tyson, who is the chief economic adviser to the President of the United States, President Clinton, back in 1992 said--and this is nearly a direct quote--there is no relationship between the level of taxes a nation pays and the amount of economic productivity of that nation. That is saying they believe if you tax everybody 100 percent, they are going to work as hard as if you taxed them 10 percent. This is what Senator Kyl was getting to, that there is a relationship between the level of taxation and the productivity of a nation. In fact, to be specific, for each 1-percent increase in economic activity of a country it increases new revenue $24 billion. So those of us who are conservative, those of us who believe that what history has taught us is very factual are standing here saying we want to lower taxes, we want to do as Senator Kyl suggested and make it more difficult for people to raise taxes. I suggest, if you go back and look at the votes that took place to raise taxes, at least in the 10 years I have been here, it has always passed by maybe 1 or 2 percent. If you put a supermajority on that, I believe we can accomplish a lot. And so as the speakers before me have indicated, there are a lot of advantages here to get this machine working and to become more productive, and if for no other reason than the distinguished Senator from Minnesota said--we who are elected to the Senate, that is, those of us in the Chamber right now, in 1994 committed and promised that we would vote for a balanced budget and reduce taxes, and we are going to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Wyoming for having this time devoted to such a significant issue. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time which has been allotted to Senator Thomas be extended until the hour of 11:15.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor. Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have the utmost respect for my distinguished colleague from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan. I have to admit, however, I seem to disagree with him more than agree with him. Let me just cover a couple of things that he said that I feel quite strongly--I am sure he believes them, but they are certainly not true. First of all, as far as the deadline is concerned, it seems like every time you want to get something done you impose a deadline and say we have to do it by--in this case, the 29th of April. There is no deadline on this. Once this thing goes, the vote takes place, we can become a part of it if we want to wait until June or July or August. There is no deadline. I am reminded a little bit of the deadline they had when we had, I believe it was, the GATT Treaty. We had a special session of the U.S. Senate that was held in November, before the new Senate came in--this was in 1994--that would allow those individuals who were defeated or who retired to vote on something and not the new person who was elected. My daddy taught me a long time ago if the train is coming fast, slow it down. That is what we need to do with the Chemical Weapons Convention. We had a debate on this last fall. I think the debate was a very fruitful one, and a lot of things came out. So let us not talk about a deadline of the 29th. I look forward to debating this and discussing this with the Senator from North Dakota this afternoon. The next thing that he said that I take issue with is the idea that it is easier to oppose than to support the Chemical Weapons Convention. He is saying it is easier. Maybe it was easier for Mark Twain. This is not easier, because I will tell you I have been very outspoken in opposition to this Chemical Weapons Convention, and all I hear from people is, ``You mean you are for chemical weapons?'' That is not the issue at all. It is a lot easier to demagog this thing and say, ``Let's sign this and do away with chemical weapons.'' We are not going to do away with chemical weapons, and we all know that. As far as this is not a matter, as he stated, between the fuzzies and those in favor of a strong national defense, let us wait until the vote takes place and make that determination. I will wager that when the vote takes place, we will find out that those individuals with the highest American security ratings would be the ones who will oppose the Chemical Weapons Convention. That is a very easy thing to do. Just take the ratings and look and see how the vote comes out. Those individuals who consistently vote against such things as the National Missile Defense System, Theater Missile Defense System, vote for all of these disarmaments. A lot of the motive there is to put that money into social programs. I think we all know that. Let me just cover a couple of things in this brief period of time. First of all, this is not global. The Senator from North Dakota talked about Spain and about France and about all these countries. We don't have a problem with these countries. Let us look and see who is not a part of this. Iraq is not a part of this. North Korea is not a part of this. Libya is not a part of this. Syria is not a part of this. If you ask any ``in'' person, in a logical manner, ``Who do you think would be the greatest threat to the United States,'' and you name the top 15, those countries would be there. It is not global. Those countries that involve themselves in terrorist activities are countries that are not a part of this. Of course, I think we all understand it does not cover terrorist activities anyway. Let's look at the countries that are a part. Iran is now a signatory here, and yet Iran, if anyone here believes that they will keep their word in destroying all of their chemical arsenal, then I have a bridge I would like to sell them, because that is not going to happen. We know it is not verifiable, and there is no better evidence of that than after the Persian Gulf war when the United Nations was given incredible power to go out and examine and inspect and try to determine whether or not Iraq, who we had just defeated, had chemical weapons, then we find out through our intelligence community, that even with those very stringent inspection abilities that the United Nations had, that Iraq, still, was developing various weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons. I think it is important to show that it is not effective, that it will not banish poison gas or shield our soldiers, as Clinton claims. Jane's Defense Weekly came out last week and reported that Russia has developed three new nerve agents without using any of the precursor chemicals banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. What does that mean, Mr. President? It means that they are already out there trying to figure out and trying to develop chemical weapons that can be used that are not using the precursor chemicals that would be banned. In other words, let's assume everybody is honest and everybody is complying, it is all verifiable, and all the countries belong to it. When it gets down to it, the bottom line is, you can still come out with chemicals that do not use these precursor chemicals. So, it would not be effective in that respect. I think we should also look at the constitutionality of this. I know a lot of times things are passed around here over the fact that it is a violation of the Constitution. I happen to be the chairman of the Clean Air and Private Property and Wetlands Subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee. It is almost a daily thing that the Government takes land away from people without due compensation. So we know that there are things happening that violate constitutional rights. But in this case, it would permit searches and seizures without warrants or probable cause. I think this is a very serious thing. And as far as trade secrets, we would be giving up something here. We all hear we are going to all destroy our chemical weapons. We have not stopped to realize what we are giving up in order to have this utopia that we seem to think is going to appear. One is, we have to open up and allow countries, like Iran, to inspect our chemical companies and our fertilizer companies and our cosmetic companies to see if there is anything in there that they are using and they would be able to get a lot of technology from this. This is something with which we have to be concerned. Then we have more regulations on American business. This is something that we deal with. I have often said there are three reasons we are not globally competitive in this country. One is we are overtaxed; the other is our tort laws; and the other is we are overregulated. How can we compete with other countries when we are overregulated? This is one more regulation, one more set of forms that all these companies-- cosmetic companies and others--will have to fill out. Then, of course, we have the thing that is talked about quite often, and that is, this is going to make us much more comfortable in terms of our defense against any type of chemical weapons. I have an editorial, that I will be asking in a minute to be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks, from the Wall Street Journal. I hope my friend from North Dakota, the distinguished Senator who spoke before me, will listen to this. I will read the last couple of sentences in this editorial from the Wall Street Journal, which is dated February 19, 1997: The biggest danger of ratification is that it would similarly lull the U.S. and other responsible nations into the false belief that they are taking effective action against the threat of chemical weapons. The case for this treaty strains belief too far. Lastly, let me suggest that a lot of the people, who are very fine people, who have signed on and said, ``Yes, we want the United States to be a part of the Chemical Weapons Convention,'' have not really taken the time to study and see what we are giving up. I will share with you just a couple of things that came from a meeting of February 27, 1997, when General Schwarzkopf, who is supportive of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, was before our Senate Armed Services Committee, and I asked him a few questions. I asked him questions concerning how it would affect terrorists. Of course, he agreed it would not have any effect. Then I said: Do you think it wise to share with countries like Iran our most advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies? General Schwarzkopf. Our defensive capabilities? Senator Inhofe. Yes. General Schwarzkopf. Absolutely not. Senator Inhofe. Well, I'm talking about sharing our advanced chemical defensive equipment and technologies, which I believe under Article X [they] would be allow[ed] . . . Do you disagree? Then he said: I'm not familiar with all the details . . .. One of the problems we have is, so many people who are supporting the ratification of this Chemical Weapons Convention have not read all the details, have not read what we are giving up, I say to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, and we are giving up many things that would normally be considered private. Lastly, I will say, in conclusion, that there are a lot of people who are opposed to this. They are very prominent in the defense community. Certainly, four of our past Secretaries of Defense are opposed to the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Rumsfeld, Schlesinger, who, incidentally was in a Democrat administration, Weinberger, and Dick Cheney have all taken positions and said this is not in the best interest of the United States. So, I hope we will have a lengthy debate on this, and I am hoping, quite frankly, that we are not going to be able to bring this up until we have had a chance for a thorough debate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the testimony from the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing of February 27, 1997, be printed in the Record, and immediately following that, the Wall Street Journal editorial dated February 19, 1997, be printed in the Record, in that order.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my name be added as an original cosponsor to S. 6, the partial-birth abortion bill.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senators Nickles and Leahy in getting through the Senate H.R. 924, the Victim Allocution Clarification Act. This is an important issue for victims and their families of the Murrah Federal Building bombing. Clearly, we would not have been able to get this through unless there was widespread support for clarifying congressional intent with respect to the rights of victims and their families. Although the Victims Rights and Resolution Act of 1990 provided that victims have the right to be present at all public court proceedings, it conditioned that on a court determination that the testimony by the victim would not be materially affected if the victim heard other testimony at the trial. Recent courts decisions have held that victims cannot attend the trial and submit a victim's impact statement. H.R. 924 clarifies congressional intent by allowing the victim and their family to both attend the trial and submit a statement during the sentencing phase. I believe this language has reached a delicate balance between protecting the rights of the victims while maintaining the constitutional protections of the defendant. As noted by Senator Nickles, it is critical that we pass H.R. 924 before the trial in the Oklahoma City bombing case begins on March 31. I appreciate the efforts of all involved in getting through the Senate and House expeditiously.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I now yield 2 minutes to the senior Senator from Florida, Senator Graham.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I now yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I now yield to the junior Senator from Maine for 1 minute.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. I think this is a very significant day. We had a very blessed event over the weekend at my house. We had our fifth grandchild. And when little Mollie Elizabeth Inhofe was born, I say to Senator Thurmond, she inherited a $20,000 personal debt. I remember it was only a year before when little Jase, our fourth grandchild, was born. He inherited a $19,000 debt. So it is going up every year. When I look over, I see Senator Hagel from Nebraska. You do not have to go back just to the Reagan administration. If you go back long before that, one of our very fine Senators, Carl Curtis, had an idea that he would balance the budget by getting the States to preratify it. It was an ingenious idea, and it did not work, even though in the State legislature, I was the first State legislator to get it preratified. So we have something we are faced with today that we have been fighting for 20 or 25 years. This is our opportunity to do it. If we do not do it now, I do not think we will be able to do it in the near future. This is a moral issue, Mr. President, we have to meet.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, thank you, Mr. President, I have been watching this debate over the last few days, and I heard some of the opponents to a balanced budget amendment talk in a very eloquent way, as I have heard throughout the years. It seems like the arguments never change. So what I have done is picked up a few of these, and I would like to respond to some of these arguments. The other day one of the Members who has argued against a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution for as long as I can remember made the comment that proponents want to treat children like children, hiding the hard truth from them, and then went on to elaborate about all of the things that are going to happen if we don't fully disclose what is going on with the proposition of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I can remember so well back when my No. 2 child was learning to ride a bicycle back in Oklahoma. I can remember when he got on. He was wobbling. Maybe, Mr. President, you have gone through the same thing. I finally got him so that he was able to go in a straight, narrow line. Then he made his first trip around the neighborhood. He is a hand surgeon today. He came back, and he said something to me that is very profound. He said, ``You know, daddy, I wish the whole world were downhill.'' I think what we need to do is be fully honest with everyone and let them know that it is not going to be easy if we pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution because, in fact, the whole world is not downhill. It is going to take some sacrifices. We have demonstrated very clearly what is going to happen if we do not do it. I heard the other day opponents saying they are tired of Washington telling people what to do and the Washington-knows-best mentality, that the balanced budget amendment is the ultimate Washington mandate. I suggest to you that just the reverse is true. We can talk about this all we want, but what we are saying to the American people when we deny them the opportunity to have ultimately a balanced budget is we want to keep control of all of these things in Washington. Reference was made yesterday to the Governors who are talking about how they are cutting taxes in their States and the successes that they have had and suggested that the budget balancing amendment, if passed, would force the States to have massive tax increases. Let me tell you. That just isn't true. The problem that we have right now is there is a mentality that I think prevails in both bodies of Congress, or did at least up until 1994, and certainly does today in the White House; that is this direct relationship between taxation and the deficit. I can remember when this President was sworn into office and he appointed Laura Tyson to be the chief financial adviser to the administration. She said--and this is a direct quote--in direct contradiction to 12 years of Republican ideology, ``There is no relationship between the level of taxes a nation pays and its economic performance.'' To me this is really the key to the whole thing-- somebody who actually believed that. If you carry it on to its logical conclusion, you would say that all you have to do is have a taxation level of 100 percent, and everyone is going to be motivated the same and our revenues would go up. We know, obviously, that is not true. There are many Democrats who knew that wasn't true back when President Kennedy was President. He came out and said that we have to raise revenues, that we have needs, and that the best way to raise revenues is to reduce taxes. He did, and it happened. Of course, we look throughout history and we see it has happened over and over again. In the case of all those who are critical of the administration and say that back during the 10 years or the decade of the Republican administrations in the White House, the tax increases, or the deficit increases, came they say as a result of the tax decreases when in fact the total revenues that came into the Federal Government in 1980 was $517 billion. In 1990 it was $1.031 trillion, exactly doubled. That happened during a decade of the greatest tax reduction in the history of this country. Mr. President, I know that we are coming up toward the end of the time. But I would like to respond to just two more of the statements that have been made. First of all, they said that the balanced budget amendment will give politicians the ``license to cut and slash needed programs.'' The Heritage Foundation not too long ago came out--and they have updated it since then--with a study that came to the conclusion that if we took all of the Federal programs and had a built-in increase of 1 percent, or 1.5 percent, or 2 percent, you could actually balance the budget, that you could eliminate the deficit without cutting one Federal program. The problem is that programs come in--and we have seen it happen over the years--historically, they will come in and say this is going to meet a problem that we have, the problem goes away, and the program stays on. I am always reminded of one of the great speeches made in our time called a ``rendezvous with destiny'' when Ronald Reagan made that speech long before he was in public office. He said, ``There is nothing closer to immortality on the face of this Earth than a government program once formed.'' That is what we have seen over and over again. This has been going on for a long time. I can remember when there was a very prominent Senator from Nebraska, Carl Curtis. Carl Curtis back in 1975 had a bright idea. He said, ``We are going to have to do something about this debt.'' I think the whole debt was less than $400 billion at that time. He said, ``In order to do something about this, we are going to have to show that the States want it and that the people want it.'' So he decided to come and ratify an amendment to the Constitution in advance. I remember when he came to Oklahoma. I happened to be in the State senate at that time and introduced a preratification resolution where we ratified it in advance. Then all of the rest of the States came in. I would suggest to you that there is a great groundswell out there of people who want this to happen, and they recognize that it is not going to happen otherwise. We listen to people stand on the floor. I have not heard one person stand up here and say, ``We want larger deficits. We want to increase the debt.'' They don't say that. They say, ``We will do the responsible thing. We need to make the hard decisions.'' The problem is that for the last 40 years we have not made the right decisions, and we have not made the tough decisions. Now that we have an opportunity, a rare opportunity, one that is realistic, it could actually happen, because we only missed it by one vote a year ago. Let me finally conclude by saying that one Senator stood on the floor the other day. This is a quote. He said, ``The budget balancing amendment is nothing more than a vague and empty promise. Most Senators who support it will not even be here in the year 2002 when it will take effect.'' Let me suggest to you that as a result of the vote, it is very likely that there will be a lot of Senators who will not be here. I will make a statement that sounds a little bit extreme. But I have to make it. If you look back at the voting behavior of those U.S. Senators who do not want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, you will find that those are the ones who are the liberals. By ``liberals,'' I am talking about individuals who vote for greater tax increases, who want more Government involvement in our lives. I have a chart here that shows that. Those who voted against the balanced budget amendment last year--and there were 33 of them--of those 33, all of them, 100 percent of them, voted for the largest--this is called the tax stimulus program--the largest tax increase that we had in 1994. And all of them have either a D or an F rating by the National Taxpayers Union. A lot of people forget that we don't have to guess how people perform up here because there are all kinds of organizations that are giving us ratings. How is that going to affect some of the other elections? If you look back and you look at the Members of Congress that were defeated or retired in 1994, in the Senate there are 11, and 8 of them fell into this same spending class. In other words, those individuals who are getting defeated now in the polls are individuals who are big spenders and individuals who are for tax increases as opposed to cutting the size of Government. So I think there are some very real ramifications to this that are political ramifications. I suggest to you, Mr. President, that there are a lot of Members in here who, if they vote against our effort--it is a genuine effort for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution--will have to pay the political price for that.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am pleased to share my feelings on a bipartisan basis for the man who is probably the best qualified individual going into the job of Secretary of Defense in a very difficult time in this Nation's history. I will single out four areas where he has demonstrated, in my opinion, a type of courage that many do not have, not to be encumbered by partisan politics or by politics in general, but to be concerned only with protecting this Nation from attack from outside. The first area is, under the BRAC Commission, he has made the statement in the past that the burden of BRAC, the Base Realignment And Closure Commission, was to reduce the excess capacity and move that excess capacity into consolidated functions. I have no doubt in my mind but he will do this and keep that system free from political interference. The second area is we really cannot afford in this Nation to have more defense cuts than we have already cut. I read a quote this morning out of a new book by Caspar Weinberger called ``The Next War.'' Even to think about, much less propose, further cutting our Armed Forces, betrays a clear lack of real world thinking bordering on denial and delusion. I believe Bill Cohen understands this. The third area is the practice of sending our troops into areas where we do not have vital strategic interests at stake. This is something we have had a chance to talk about. We stood on the floor with Bill Cohen as a U.S. Senator, and he expressed himself very clearly that we not dilute our very scarce military assets by sending our troops to places that are not strategic, vital security interests of the United States. Very closely associated with that is I am hoping we are going to be able to get away from a problem we have had for quite some time, and that is the administration coming in, encumbering us, putting our troops into areas such as Bosnia and approximating what it will cost, which was supposed to cost somewhere between $1.5 and $2 billion and now we are finding out it is going to be closer to $6 billion, $6.5 billion. This is in a way disenfranchising the U.S. Senate. We should be in on that decision, and I have every confidence we will be in on those decisions from this point forward. Then the last area is one I have been very much concerned with, and that is our need for a sophisticated theater missile defense system and a national missile defense system. I have stood on this floor and shared thoughts with Senator Bill Cohen concerning this problem. This morning during the confirmation hearings I was just delighted to hear Senator Cohen make his statement as he characterized the proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction to be the gravest problem facing the world today. I am looking forward to voting for his confirmation.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if I can address one other subject very briefly since we are coming to the end of this session. I noticed an article in the current Reader's Digest. I happen to be one who has such respect for the Reader's Digest. I was involved with a story 2 years ago with them. It took them 9 months to write the story. Everything is authenticated and documented in a way I don't know any other publication would equal. They were talking about ballistic missiles that increasingly will be used by hostile states and is a real serious problem. We have stood on the floor of this Senate over and over and over again to try to address this problem, to make the people of America aware that we are probably in a more threatened position today than we have been in this country's history. They point out some things I had not thought about, putting it in proper context. They said there are five reasons why the Nation must take steps to defend itself: First, the ballistic missiles are proliferating. More than 20 nations are in the ballistic missile club, as they call it. Others are knocking on the door. This is something we have been saying over and over again. In fact, it has been 2 years since the former CIA Director, the first one under President Clinton, said that we know of somewhere between 25 and 30 nations that currently either have developed, or are in the final stages of developing, weapons of mass destruction, either biological, chemical, or nuclear. This former CIA Director identifies five nations--Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea--whose aggressive programs to arm missiles with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons could threaten the United States. The second thing they talk about is that missile range and accuracy are increasing rapidly. I suggest, Mr. President, that the reason for this is partly our fault because of what we have done in satellite technology. I had occasion to become the first Member of Congress to fly a small airplane around the world a couple of years ago. I used that satellite technology. I never lost the satellite all the way around the world. Because of that, there is no way of guarding against other uses, and that means, through our global positioning system, other nations have incredible accuracy, and this is something that has to be taken into consideration. The third point is warheads of mass destruction are within reach of many new missile powers. We were shocked when we found out and discovered at the end of the gulf war that Saddam Hussein had a huge biochemical arsenal. Hundreds of tons were destroyed by the U.N. observers. We have no way of knowing where else in the world this could be happening. The fourth point is, defense against ballistic missile attack is a practical reality. It is for political, not technological, reasons that the U.S. Government has chosen not to build a missile defense. I think that is very significant. We not long ago debated the START II Treaty and we did, in fact, approve that from this body. I think I was the first one, the only one, who voted against it until later in the vote when three others joined. My argument was we were going back to accepting the confinements and restrictions that were imposed upon us in the 1972 ABM Treaty, which at that time didn't make sense to me, but it made more sense than it does today, because that was a bilateral treaty with a country that no longer exists, which says, ``If you don't defend yourself, we will agree not to defend ourselves,'' therefore, that is a policy that offers some security. I never really believed it did. However, it is now pointed out by more and more people that that policy was flawed initially and certainly is not one that today makes any sense. In fact, it was Dr. Henry Kissinger, who was the architect of the ABM Treaty in 1972, who said, ``It is nuts to make a virtue out of your vulnerability.'' So that is our posture today, where we are. The last thing they said is the longer we wait, the less time we may have. We had an NIA estimate not too long ago, a national intelligence estimate, that many of us felt was flawed in many ways. I think it told the President what the President wanted to hear. It came to the conclusion that there is no threat out there for the next 15 years. I think there are many problems with this. First of all, they talk about the continental United States. I agreed with James Woolsey the other day when he said the last time he checked, Hawaii and Alaska were part of the United States. The article also points out that it fails to mention that both Russia and China have ICBM's right now that have the capability of reaching the United States, along with the weapons of mass destruction. I remember President Clinton saying in the House Chamber during his State of the Union Message that there is not a single Russian missile pointed at America's children. The head of the Russian strategic missile forces told CBS news on ``60 Minutes'' that his ICBM's could be retargeted in a matter of minutes. I think it is a great disservice to the American people for the President to try to imply that the threat is not out there. Mr. President, many of the people in the intelligence community throughout the world have said that the United States of America is facing a greater threat today than we have faced since the Revolutionary War. I am deeply distressed that the President has been able to convince many of the American people that the threat is not out there, and I intend, certainly during this recess, to do all I can to be, if nothing more than a one-man truth squad, to get the American people to understand the real threat that is facing us today. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the missile defense article entitled ``Defenseless Against Missile Terror'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, what is the pending business?