Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. I do want to finish this story. What had happened in the case of Keith Carter is that Keith Carter had moved his location from his basement up the street three houses for a larger place. He told the EPA regional office in Texas about it, but he did not tell the office in Washington, and so they took away his number. So we got his number back. It took 3 weeks to do it. Finally, we got his number back. He called me back. He said, ``Congressman, I have another problem; now I can't use my inventory, 25,000 dollars' worth of silkscreen bottles, because they have the old number on them.'' Well, this is the type of harassment that has taken place. Lastly, since the Senator from Tennessee brought this up, there is a brilliant guy, a Dr. Bruce Yandle from Clemson University, that made a discovery that everyone should focus on at this time. We are all concerned about deficits. What he discovered was--and he skewed this draft out for us--that there is a direct relationship between the number of pages in the Federal Register, which indicates the number of regulations, and the deficit. These yellow bars down here signify and represent the deficits during these years starting all the way back in 1950 going up to the current year. And if you look at this, it follows exactly along the line of the pages in the Federal Register. So, I would say to those individuals, if you are looking for another excuse, if you do not believe that we have an obtrusive, abusive Government, then look at it from a fiscal standpoint. If you really want to balance the budget, to eliminate the deficit, there is no single greater thing we can do than stop the excessive regulations in our society. And this is our opportunity to do it. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, what we have been talking about today is a very significant thing. It is something that we are concerned about to the extent that those of us who ran for reelection last time can tell you that this is on the minds of the American people, not just large and small businesses but individuals as well. This issue is probably the most critical issue to come before the Congress in the minds of the American public. It will redesign the regulatory process of the Federal Government. One of the distinctions, for those of us who have served in both bodies, that is most noticeable is that over here on this side you only run every 6 years. The drawback to that is you sometimes lose contact with what people are thinking. For those of us who went through an election, Mr. President, this last time, I can assure you there are two mandates that went with that election which have to be ranked No. 1 and No. 2, and I am not sure in which order they would be. One, of course, is doing something about the deficit, and the other is doing something about the abusive bureaucracy and the overregulation that we find in our lives. I have had this fortified since the election in that I have had 77 townhall meetings since January, and it always comes up. The Senator from Utah was talking about the horror stories. Let me assure you there are a lot of horror stories. We have heard a lot today, and we will have heard a lot more. But I have categorized about six things that have come out of these townhall meetings which were prominent in the minds of Americans during the last elections. They are: First, the American public wants a smaller Federal Government. Second, the public demands fewer Government regulations. Third, people [[Page S 9703]] want regulations that are cost effective. Fourth, they want Federal bureaucracies to quit invading their lives. Fifth, small businesses need regulatory relief to survive and create jobs. Sixth, people want the Government to use common sense in developing new regulations. When debating and discussing this issue, most people focus on the direct cost of regulations on businesses and on the general public, which is enormous. Over $6,000 is the cost each year for each American family because of the cost of regulation. For each senseless and burdensome regulation, we have Government bureaucracies and agencies proposing, writing, enacting, and enforcing these needless regulations, and this actually drives up the national debt. This is something that has not been discussed, and I wish to give credit to a professor from Clemson University, Prof. Bruce Yandle, who made quite a discovery. He discovered that there is a direct relationship between the deficit each year and the number of regulations. Our Federal Register is the document in which we find the listing of the regulations. The discovery that Professor Yandle made is portrayed on this chart. This is kind of interesting because the red line designates the number of pages in the Federal Register. In other words, we are talking about the red line which goes up like this. And this out here is the peak of the Carter administration when we were trying to get as many regulations on the books before they changed guard after Ronald Reagan was the designee for President of the United States. Now, the yellow columns here designate in billions of dollars the Federal deficit for that given year. Now, look at this; it is really remarkable. You have this line that is trailing this line going across almost exactly at the same rate. In other words, in those years when we have a higher Federal deficit, we also have more pages of regulations. And so I would contend to you that the best way we can address the deficit problem is to do something about the overregulation, do something to cut down the number of regulations in our society. The bill under consideration today, the Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Act of 1995, will go a long way to meeting the concerns of the American public on needless and burdensome Federal regulations. And, as the Senator from Utah said, I would like to have this bill stronger. I think it should be stronger. But this is a compromise bill. This is one that many people on the other side of the aisle who really do not feel we are overburdened with regulation think is probably a good compromise. I would prefer to have it stronger, but it is a compromise, and it is the best we could hope for now. I would like to outline a few of the key components of the bill, because I think we have kind of lost track of what it actually does, and then give some examples of the types of regulations that we are exposed to. As the Senator from Utah, I spent 35 years of my life in the private sector so I have been on the receiving end of these regulations. I know the costs of these regulations. An economist the other day said, with all this talk about Japan, if you want to be competitive with Japan, export our regulations to Japan and we will be competitive. One section of the bill is cost-benefit analysis. The bill will require the use of cost-benefit analysis for major rules, those which have gross annual effects on the economy of $50 million or more, requiring that the benefits of the rule justify the costs of the rule. This is not the more stringent language we talked about at one time back in January of the benefits outweighing the costs, which I would prefer, but a much more neutral compromise. This is a commonsense approach to costs and benefits. If you are going to buy something for yourself at the store, you do not want to pay more than the benefits you receive from it. It is like buying a 32 cent stamp for 50 cents. You just do not do it. It is like throwing away your laptop computer at the end of each day. Smart shoppers want their money's worth, and I think the American public is entitled to get their money's worth by having some way to measure the value of these regulations. The second area that is addressed is risk assessment. The bill would require a standardized risk assessment process for all rules which protect human health, safety, or the environment. It will require ``rational and informed risk management decisions and informed public input into the process of making agency decisions.'' I do not see how anyone can be against making informed decisions. This section will require the ``best reasonably available scientific data'' to be used and the risk involved to be characterized in a descriptive manner, and the final risk assessment will be reviewed by a panel of peers. These are not outrageous requirements but basic justifications which should be met by the Government before it imposes costly regulations on businesses costing them millions of dollars and on American families costing them thousands of dollars. The third area is that of the regulatory review and petition process. The bill will require each agency to review its regulations every 5 years to determine if the rule is still necessary. You know, there are a lot of agencies that are not necessary. I can remember a very famous speech that was made one time by a man back in 1965 who later on became President of the United States. He observed in that speech, which I think should be in the textbooks of Americans today-- it was called A Rendezvous With Destiny--he said there is nothing closer to immortality on the face of the Earth than a government agency. That is the way it is with regulations. They impose the regulations. Maybe the problem goes away or someone takes away that problem, but the regulations stay in. So this would require that every 5 years they look and review to see if they are still needed. If the agency decides not to rewrite a particular regulation, then members of the regulated community--those are the people that are paying taxes for all this fun we are having up here--can petition the agency to have the rule reconsidered. Now, this will allow the public to draw attention to the needless regulations that help put government back in the hands of the American people. Nothing unreasonable about that at all. Then the fourth area is that of judicial review. The bill will also allow for judicial review of these new regulatory requirements. This is important because the regulated community must have some redress for poorly designed or arbitrary regulations. It is no good to require regulatory agencies to change their process if there is no one watching over to make sure that they comply with this. I realize President Clinton and his regulatory agency heads are dead set against the provision. They did not mind that they look over everybody else's shoulders enforcing the regulatory nightmares on private citizens and the companies that are paying for all these taxes, but they do not want the judicial process to oversee them. So overall the bill will go a long way toward preventing needless and overly burdensome regulations from taking effect. Unfortunately, there are many examples of existing regulations which have not followed this new process to help stop stupid regulation from being enacted. I would like to just highlight a couple of these, one having to do with the wetlands regulations. The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have promulgated regulations which broadly define the definition of what constitutes a wetland. Under the 1989 definition, land could be dry for 350 days a year and still be classified as wetlands. And to add to some of the examples that have been made here on the floor today: Mr. Wayne Hage, a Nevada rancher, hired someone to clear scrub brush from irrigation ditches along his property and faces up to a 5-year sentence under the Clean Water Act because it redirected streams. Another example: Mr. John Pozsgai, a 60-year-old truck mechanic in Philadelphia, filled in an old dump on his property that contained abandoned tires, rusty cars, and had to serve nearly 2 years in jail because he did not get a wetlands permit. James and Mary Mills of Broad Channel, NY, were fined $30,000 for building a deck on their house which cast a shadow on a wetland. [[Page S 9704]] Endangered species. The Endangered Species Act has infringed upon the property rights of property owners all over the country. When 14-year- old Eagle Scout Robert Graham was lost for 2 days in the New Mexico Santa Fe National Forest, the Forest Service denied a rescue helicopter to land and pick up the Scout where he was spotted from the air because it was a wilderness area. Mr. Michael Rowe of California wanted to use his land to build on, but it was located in a known habitat of the Kangaroo rat. In order to build, he was told--keep in mind this is his land that he owns--he was told to hire a biologist for $5,000 to survey the land. If no rats were found, he could then build only if he paid the Government $1,950 an acre in development mitigation fees. If even one rat was found, he could not build at all. This is his property, property he bought long before this thing was in effect. Here we have the Constitution with the 5th amendment and the 14th amendment that are supposed to protect property rights without due process. Here is Marj and Roger Krueger who spent $53,000 on a lot for their dream- house in the Texas hill country. But they could not build on the land because the golden-cheeked warbler had been found in the canyon adjacent to their lands. And OSHA regulations. I remember when OSHA regulations first came out. At that time I was in business. Of course, I was a part-time legislator in the State of Oklahoma. I was in the State Senate. I used to make speeches and take the manual that is about that thick, the OSHA Manual of Regulations to which all manufacturers had to comply, and I would speak to manufacturers' organizations. And I said, ``I can close anybody in the room down.'' I would be challenged. ``No. We run a good clean shop. You cannot close us.'' I would find regulations that if you were the type of inspector that would walk in, if you wanted to, you could close someone down. You know, Mr. President, this is one of the problems we have. Years ago I was mayor of the city of Tulsa. We had about 5,000 uniformed police officers. Most of them were great. Now, you have someone who cannot handle the authority that is vested in them by law. The same is true when you get out in the field. It can happen in any bureaucracy, whether it is the EPA, the OSHA regulators, inspectors, or FAA, anyone else, certainly IRS and FDA, and the rest of them. Anyway, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is supposed to protect safety and health for workers. But too often the regulators at OSHA have gone overboard, costing jobs and imposing fines. For example, OSHA regulations have put the tooth fairy out of business, requiring dentists to dispose of teeth in the same manner as human tissue in a closed container for disposal. In Florida, the owner of a three-person silk-screening company was fined by OSHA for not having a hazardous communications program for his two employees. Two employees of DeBest, Inc., a plumbing company in Idaho, jumped into the trench to save the life of a coworker who had been buried alive. The company was fined $7,875 because the two workers were not wearing the proper head gear when they jumped into the trench. Mr. President, I could just go on and on as they have today with example after example of abuses that have taken place. And they are abusing the very people who are paying the taxes. Last, let me reemphasize, this chart speaks for itself because there is a direct relationship between the deficits that we have experienced every year and the number of pages in the Federal Register which indicates the number of regulations that are in effect. I thank the President for his time. Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I have two announcements. First, I announce that, if I had been present and voting yesterday on rollcall vote No. 297 to this bill, I would have voted ``yea.'' Second, if present and voting on vote No. 298, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for yielding. I think he said it right. This is really a historic day, a day we have been waiting for--many Members--for years, since the 1960's, when this country decided that the Great Society days were coming in and Government would play an expanded role, and that we would be able to take care of everyone from birth to death. A lot of people realize that this cannot be done. The resources are not there. The money was not there, so we borrowed it. Over the years, we have established huge deficits and huge debts. Finally, today, we will be passing a budget resolution that is going to put the United States in a position to balance the budget by the year 2002. In other words, we will be in a position where we will have eliminated our deficit at that time, and then can start paying off this huge, huge, debt that is out there. A lot of things happened in the last few weeks. President Clinton submitted a budget to this body. It was a pretty big spending budget resolution. It went down by a margin of 99 to 0. Then a short while after that, the Republicans came forth with essentially what we will be voting on today and passed it. This was a resolution that would eliminate our deficit by the year 2002. A week after that, the President came with another resolution that would have had the effect, he said, of eliminating the deficit by the year 2005. Until we started looking at it. The Congressional Budget Office looked at it and said, well, wait, in the next 10 years, you will be increasing the debt by about $200 billion a year. When I multiply that out, that would be a $2 trillion increase in our Nation's debt by the year 2005. That is certainly not bringing the deficit under control. I would like to quote the President. During the speech that was made to a joint session, the President came out and talked about what he was going to do with the deficit. He praised the Congressional Budget Office by saying, Well, you can laugh, my fellow Republicans, but I'll point out that the Congressional Budget Office was normally more conservative in what was going to happen and closer to right than the previous Presidents have been. Yet it was the CBO that came out and said that it was a phony budget resolution, that it did not reduce the deficit. It certainly did not reduce the deficit. This is an exciting time. We have heard over the last few months of debate that this is not a fiscal issue that we will be dealing with today. This is a moral issue, in that someone who is born today--like young Daniel that was born, and his new father, standing proudly behind me, the Senator from [[Page S 9326]] Pennsylvania--young Daniel, in his lifetime, would have to pay 82 percent of his lifetime earnings if we stayed on the track that we are on today to the Federal Government. This is something we are not going to allow to happen. I am very proud, Mr. President, to be here today and be able to say, finally, a historic moment has arrived. We are participating in it. I am very proud of the participation of the 11 freshmen, the new Members of the U.S. Senate, who participated in putting this together. Today is an exciting day. I thank the Senator from Wyoming for yielding to me. Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed for 5 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I want to take a moment or two to respond to something that was said earlier in morning business when the Senator from North Dakota gave his usual eloquent discourse on populism, and the fact that he used phrases that Republicans have a philosophy where the rich are paid too little and the poor are paid too much. That was in reference to a budget that will eliminate the deficit by the year 2002. It is always difficult to stand on the floor and defend an effort to really do something about the deficit because those individuals who want to continue the social programs, who want to continue business as usual, will stand up and make it look as if those of us who are trying to be fiscally responsible, those of us who recognize that it is not any of us in this Chamber but future generations that are going to have to pay for all of this fun we are having right now, that somehow we are not acting responsibly. I think the elections of November 8, 1994, were very clear warning signals that we are going to change, we are not going to have business as usual in America. But the thing that disturbed me more than anything else that was said by the distinguished Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], was the reference to a national defense system, national missile defense system, star wars. This is the first warning sign that I have heard in this cycle that we are going to have in fact opposition, people wanting to make it look like those of us who want to have a national missile defense system, somehow we are looking up in the stars in a Buck Rogers kind of syndrome, that it is something that is very expensive and something we cannot have. I would like to suggest, Mr. President, that we have an opportunity to prepare now to defend ourselves against a future national missile attack. It was not long ago that Jim Woolsey, who was the chief security adviser to the President of the United States, President Clinton, made the observation that our intelligence informs us that there are between 20 and 25 countries that either have or are developing weapons of mass destruction--either nuclear, chemical, or biological--and are developing the missile, the means of delivering those warheads. This is a very frightening thing, when we stop and realize that we in America do not have a missile defense system. Most people think we do have it somehow, but we do not. Many of us can remember what happened back in 1972 when the ABM Treaty was agreed to, that back in 1972 it was a treaty predicated on the assumption that there were two superpowers in the world, the Soviet Union and the United States. I suggest, Mr. President, that there are many of us who believe that the threat out there to the United States security could be greater now than it was back then because at least then we could identify who the enemy was. And now, as Jim Woolsey said, there is a proliferation, a number of countries that have this technology, and many countries that have already demonstrated they are not friends of United States are getting a missile system to deliver warheads. So I believe that we must be very cautious and not use the normal populace, partisan patter that you hear around this Chamber so much when people start talking about star wars. It is not star wars. We have an ability--and we demonstrated that we are going to use the current Aegis system that we have a $50 billion investment in--to have a high- tier missile defense system that we will be desperately needing in the very near system. So I hope my colleagues will refrain from taking political advantage of the situation we are in by not saying exactly what it is, and that is that there is a threat out there and the United States of America does not have a national missile defense system. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this morning the leader time has been reserved. There will be a period for morning business until the hour of 9:30 a.m., with Senators to speak for up to 5 minutes each. At 9:30, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 240, the securities litigation bill. At 9:30, Senator Shelby will be recognized to offer an amendment regarding proportionate liability, with a rollcall vote occurring on or in relation to the amendment at 10:55 a.m. this morning. Further rollcall votes are expected throughout the session today.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I think it is inherent in the bureaucracy. We have to address it that way. I can remember a very famous speech that was made, back in 1965. My colleague and I, we may be freshmen here but we are the two oldest Members of the freshman class. We can remember this well. The speech was called ``A Rendezvous With Destiny'' by Ronald Reagan. It was his first political speech. It was back during the Goldwater campaign. In this speech he said something very profound. He said, ``There is nothing closer to immortality on the face of this Earth than a Government program once started.'' I learned this lesson when I was mayor of the city of Tulsa. This is kind of an interesting story and tells you what is happening here today. I went in and made a decision that over a 5-year period I would keep the level of government, city government, the same size yet increase the delivery of services. I did this because at that time the average large city doubled in size every 5 years. I thought, let us try to stop that. So I started firing people for inefficiency. And when I saw them later and said, ``I thought I fired you,'' and they said, ``Well I have been reinstated,'' I found out in government you cannot fire people for inefficiency. I found the way to do it. You defund departments and get them all. There are some bureaucracies that were at one time performing a function that was needed; the problem went away, but the bureaucracy continues. This is what we are talking about, going through, having sunset provisions where we can say, Is this thing really needed? Is this in the public interest anymore, as it was 40 years ago when that particular agency was started? It is not a lack of compassion, as the Senator from Pennsylvania has said in such an articulate way, because we are compassionate. But when I have town-hall meetings, I talk to senior citizens. Sometimes when I have them during the day, 90 percent of them are senior citizens or retired people. They come up. Of course when you tell them what is going to happen if we continue on this road, what is going to happen to their grandchildren and great grandchildren and generations to come, I find these people are not selfish. They just do not want to be cut unless others are cut. The Senator might remember when the Heritage Foundation did a study here a few years ago where they said if you put on a growth cap of 2 percent for just a matter of 5 years on all Government spending, you will balance the budget in that period of time and will not have to cut or eliminate one Federal program. Just stop the increase, the accelerated growth. That is, I think, what we are trying to do.

Mr. INHOFE. We also have to realize--I do not want to take us off the track of the budget, but de Tocqueville [[Page S 8845]] was also concerned about some of the social problems he saw forecast in this country. He said, America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. So a lot of people in our history, going all the way back to Washington, talked about and addressed public debt, and Jefferson was also outspoken on this. I think we are here in a political revolution in this country, and I think it is an exciting thing. The President will have to be very persuasive.

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest to the Senator from Pennsylvania, your father sounds like he was a student of history and he looked at what this country is all about. It reminds me that if we remember in our history, when de Tocqueville came here, he came over to study our business system. He was so impressed with the great wealth this Nation had accumulated that he wrote a book. The last paragraph says that once the people of this country find out they can vote themselves money out of the public trust, this system will fail. We are so close to that point, and yet, this great discovery that was reflected in the election of November shows me that people are saying that we are almost there and we cannot afford to let it continue. The one thing that the three of us have in common is we are all freshmen, we are new here. I think maybe that is why we are a little bit more exercised on this. We remember the mandate very well. That is all I heard during not just the election, but I have had 77 town meetings since the election. The first thing coming out of the chute is the budget. ``I do not care what you do, do something to stop the deficit.'' That is what we are committed to doing.

Mr. INHOFE. I agree with the Senator. But when you say there is pain involved, look at the pain that is associated with continuing on the road we are on right now. The Senator from Pennsylvania just had a young child, and I congratulate him. I hope people realize this young man just had a brand-new baby boy. During that baby boy's lifetime, if we do not change the pattern that we are on right now, according to all of those who are prognosticators of the future, he will have to pay 82 percent of his lifetime income just to support Government. I remember the other day during our national prayer breakfast we had somebody from one of the Communist countries prior to the time they got their freedom. He bragged and said they only have to give the Government--he said, ``We get to keep 20 percent.'' I said, ``What do you mean?'' He said, ``Every month or so, we have to give the Government 80 percent of everything we make.'' And he is celebrating that. I thought about that. Senator Santorum's newborn baby is going to have to pay 2 percent more than that to support Government if we do not make a change. He is too young to be able to come in and lobby and say do not do that to us. So we hear from all these people saying they are going to cut these social programs. Here we are with a defense system right now that is going to be down below what it was in 1980 when we could not afford spare parts. Those things we really need Government for are being neglected by this administration, and I think the people have awakened.

Mr. INHOFE. I had an experience I will share with the Senator. As I do every Thursday morning, I did a talk radio show back in my State of Oklahoma. I am sensing something that I did not sense in the last few years and that is an awareness--and I think maybe this came with the election of November 1994--the people are finally aware of what is really going on in this country. They brought this up and I went back and looked it up. They said they have added up the figures--maybe you already talked about this--but in this revised budget he sent down, the figures come up, according to CBO, to over $1 trillion added to our debt. Keep in mind, this is from a talk radio show, listeners calling in from Oklahoma today stating that they are actually aware of how much this is being added to the debt. For so many years, the average person in America did not really stop and think about the difference between deficit and debt. So they listened to the President come in and talk about, as President Clinton did during his campaign, that he had a program that was going to eliminate the deficit and had great deficit reductions. [[Page S 8844]] I have often recommended to people to read an article that was in December's Reader's Digest called ``Budget Baloney'' where they describe how politicians try to deceive the people back home as Clinton is trying to do today by making them think that they have a program that is going to eliminate or cut the debt in some way. They describe it this way: Suppose you want a $10,000 car but only have $5,000; you tell everybody you really want a $15,000, so you settle for a $10,000 car, so you have cut the deficit by $5,000. That is essentially what he is trying to do. The American people are awake now and the people know the difference. They are better informed. And if any message came from the election of November 8, it is that we are tired of the smoke and mirrors, as the Senator from Pennsylvania describes it so accurately, and we want action for a change. I remember in 1993, in his budget message, the President stood in the House Chamber and said that the CBO is the most reliable operation here--not OMB, not any of the rest, but CBO. Yet, CBO says that his deficits are going to average, over the next 10 years, about $200 billion. So we are talking about a $2 trillion increase in our national debt. The people are not going to tolerate that.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield on that point for a moment?

Mr. INHOFE. The Senator might remember, he and I were both in the House of Representatives back when President Bush--I criticized him publicly because of some of the assumptions he came up with in his budget resolution as to growth assumptions. A lot of people do not realize for each 1 percent growth in economic activity, there is a generation of new revenue of about $24 billion. He was a little overly optimistic on some of the projections his people put forward for him also on gas tax revenues and some of the other things. I think we want to be realistic. We want to get to where we are going and that is to eliminate the deficit by the year 2002. I would like to do it by the year 2000 instead of 2002. I think most of us would. But we are on the road to doing something realistic. Let us stay with it.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank my colleague for yielding a few minutes here. Mr. President, I was not planning to speak on this nomination today but while presiding for an hour and listening to some of the debate that has taken place, I felt compelled to do so because I think there is a misunderstanding as to why some of us are going to be opposing the nomination of Henry Foster. I disagree with my friend, the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, when he said that abortion is the sole issue. Abortion is not the sole issue in this nomination. I happen to be pro-life. It would be an issue with me if it were the sole issue, but it is not. The issue here in my opinion is credibility. I want to make it abundantly clear, when I vote against the nomination of Henry Foster to be Surgeon General, it is not because of his pro-abortion stand, or the abortion issue. It is his credibility. I suggest that we recall--I do not think anyone in this Chamber knows what his real position is or how many abortions he performed because there has been such a variance in what he has reported and what he has said. I can remember when his name first came up and there was an article written in the Washington Post quoting him, quoting the White House, saying he had performed one abortion in his career. Then, on February 3, 1995, the Department of Health and Human Services released a statement by Dr. Foster which stated, ``I believe that I have performed fewer than a dozen pregnancy terminations.'' This was a statement by Dr. Foster. Then, back on November 10, way back in 1978, Dr. Foster, as a member of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare Ethics Advisory Board, is recorded in an official Government transcript saying, ``I have done a lot of therapeutic abortions, probably near 700.'' The documentation of that is HEW Ethics Advisory Board Meeting, Friday, November 10, 1978, Seattle, WA, page 180. The White House first claimed that the transcript was not genuine but later admitted its authenticity. Dr. Foster initially claimed the transcript was inaccurate, that he did not make the statement nor did he do what the statement said, but later he said he did not remember making the statement. At about the same time, in November 1980, OB/GYN News published a story regarding a study conducted on behalf of Upjohn Pharmaceuticals by Dr. Foster at Meharry Medical College in Nashville to develop an abortion pill based on the chemical prostaglandin. Dr. Foster has admitted that he was the research director of a clinical study in which 55 chemical abortions and 4 surgical abortions were performed on women participating in the study. Appearing on ABC's ``Nightline'' Program on February 8, 1995, Dr. Foster stated he was the physician of record in 39 abortions since 1973, since Roe versus Wade. He stated that the number of 39 did not include any of the 59 performed as a part of the study noted above since while he supervised the trial he did not personally perform these abortions. So, Mr. President, to me regardless of whether your feelings are about abortions--again, I am pro-life--the fact is that either his memory is very bad or he has a habit of saying things that are not true. The inconsistencies are incontrovertible. I agree with my friend from Texas. But I think it is one more very significant reason to vote against the nomination of Henry Foster; and, that is, he says things that are not true. So, Mr. President, I wanted to clarify why I will be opposing the nomination of Henry Foster. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator very much. I yield the floor. Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I guess this is for the purpose of an inquiry. It is my understanding that the amendment we had that would change the procedure and offer more latitude in terms of avoiding duplication in preaward audits has already been taken up.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized to address the Senate for not to exceed 12 minutes as in morning business. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 928 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I will be introducing a major piece of legislation with Senator Kassebaum and Senator Burns. As a frequent user of the air traffic control system, I have a very real stake in addressing the persistent problems which have plagued the FAA for many years. Former Senator Barry Goldwater accurately described way back in 1975 the current FAA shortcomings when he introduced a bill to reestablish the FAA as an independent agency. Senator Goldwater noted, and this was back in 1975, 20 years ago: In 1967, when the then new Department of Transportation was created, the Federal Aviation Agency was terminated and its powers and functions were transferred to and vested in the Secretary of DOT. The previously independent Federal Aviation Agency was in effect converted to a new bureau within the Department of Transportation, named the Federal Aviation Administration. The Administrator of this ``bureau'' reports to and is subject to the control of the Secretary of Transportation. Barry Goldwater went on to say, 20 years ago: There is extensive evidence to show that subsequent to this transformation, there has been undue interference on the part of the Department of Transportation in the internal affairs of the Federal Aviation Administration, so much so that the FAA's procurement process has been slowed down to an average time period of 1\1/2\ years or more-- I understand it is more than that today, but I am quoting from 20 years ago. resulting in the cancellation of many procurement projects or unnecessary losses in the millions of dollars to companies involved. It is important to note, too, that aviation users, who pay much of the money which goes into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, have no effective participation in the development of FAA finance plans so long as it is under the Department. These words that were stated on the floor of the Senate by Senator Barry Goldwater 20 years ago are just as true today as they were then. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to pass the Goldwater bill. The problems Senator Goldwater identified in 1975 are yet to be resolved. As a pilot, I have found holding town hall meetings in small towns and airports is an effective way of communicating with people. In doing these on the weekends--virtually every weekend, I do 10 or so--I talk to pilots, I talk to controllers. I do not think there is a controller that I do not know by their first name in Oklahoma. They all agree that something needs to be done about changing the FAA. Even though Barry Goldwater attempted to do this back 20 years ago, what he said then is true today and we need to do it. A careful analysis of these proposals that have been made in order to corporatize or privatize shows that they really do not work and there is a lack of understanding. Mr. President, there has been an effort by the administration to privatize or corporatize the FAA. I think that while I do believe in privatizing, it is not appropriate in this case. People who use the system oppose the privatization of the FAA. After working with users of the system, I am pleased to announce that we have been able to come up with a workable solution. Along with Senators Conrad Burns and Nancy Kassebaum, I am introducing legislation to reform the Federal Aviation Administration. Our bill is similar to a bill introduced in the House by my good friend from Iowa, Representative Jim Lightfoot, and also Representative John Duncan. This bill provides dramatic yet realistic reform that will resolve the problems that were identified by Senator Goldwater in 1975 and continue today to plague the FAA. It will restore the Federal Aviation Administration to an independent agency status. This will ensure that the agency is able to manage and regulate the safety of the air traffic control system without the second-guessing or interference by the politically appointed Department of Transportation officials and staff. Our approach represents a reform from within Government. It offers a more prudent and realistic approach to the FAA reform than the extremely risky alternative of privatizing or corporatizing the air traffic control system. As a former mayor of a major metropolitan area, I know something about privatizing. I have been a fan of privatizing for a long time. In fact, I privatized everything I could when I was mayor of the city of Tulsa, OK, many years ago. One of the systems that has been emulated today by cities all over America was the privatization of the trash system. A refuge or trash system is not a sensitive system like air traffic control. As a believer in the ability of the private sector to generally do a better job of managing than Government, I believe that there are some inherently governmental functions. Oversight of our air traffic control system is one. The safety implications are too great to allow a management team that has to worry about the bottom line to make these decisions. Those who use the system and those who use it in commercial aircraft--it does not matter whether you are in an American Airline 747 as a pilot or a passenger, or you are with me in a 20-year-old Piper Aztec. The fact is that your lives are in the hands of these individuals on the ground. [[Page S8498]] In addition, our proposal provides for appointment of an FAA Administrator with a fixed term of 7 years. The average tenure of the FAA Administrator since I have been in Congress has been less than 2 years. By the time they find their way to the cafeteria, they are out of there. There is no continuity in planning for the FAA. Clearly, we need the continuity of leadership if real changes are to take hold. This proposal establishes a personnel pilot program which would provide FAA greater latitude managing personnel by giving increased flexibility in measuring performance. The pilot program has been designed to improve performance of individuals and departments, rather than merely rewarding longevity. Our bill establishes a procurement reform pilot program which will permit the FAA to simplify its procurement procedures by shifting from the rigid procurement rules to allow routine off-the-shelf purchases. We have example after example of instances where complicated procurement practices have delayed the purchasing of technology and of products that are needed to save lives, until they are no longer current, in terms of their technology. A good example is the microwave landing system. The MLS system is supposed to replace the ILS system. By the time they got around to implementing this program, the GPS, the global position system, had reached a degree of technology that allows for precision approaches. The other areas are in the area of costs. I mean, the same thing regarding the GPS system. I happen to be the only Member of Congress in history to fly an airplane around the world. I did it a couple of years ago. In doing this I used a GPS system. Never, all the way around the world, did I lose a satellite. This system is a beautiful system. Yet that system that I used only 2 years ago flying around the world is one-fourth the cost today that it was then. That means if we and the FAA procure this highly technical machinery, the mechanics to run the system, by the time the system goes through following the procurement practices, that which you have purchased is much cheaper and it would be out of date. So, for cost purposes and technology purposes, this has to happen. Under our bill, a select panel is created to review and report back to Congress on innovative financing mechanisms for long-term funding of our aviation infrastructure and needs. Panel members will review loan guarantees, financial partnerships with for-profit private sector entities, multiyear appropriations, revolving loan funds, mandatory spending authority, authority to borrow, and restructured grant programs. Each of these proposals has the support of virtually all of the aviation industry. This bill is strongly supported by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, who have, in just the State of Oklahoma, 4,500 general aviation pilots; and throughout America have 340,000 general aviation pilots. They support this. In addition, the National Aviation Coalition Association, a consortium of 28 major aviation organizations representing all segments of the aviation community, has indicated that this proposal is a valuable contribution to a healthy debate concerning much needed reform of the FAA. Mr. President, it is clear that everyone, the administration, Congress, and the aviation community, agrees on the need to reform the FAA. I urge my colleagues to join with Senators Burns and Kassebaum, Representative Lightfoot and Representative Duncan from the House, and Senator Goldwater and me in supporting a meaningful reform of the FAA.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I just want to make a few comments while we are waiting for those referred to by the Senator from South Dakota to come and be heard. Those of us who are in the freshman class have recently had a number of town hall meetings back in our respective States. As a matter of fact, I think I lead the group. I have had 77 since January. Last week, I had some, and I want to just reaffirm that, in spite of the fact there are many people who are here in the U.S. Senate who do not spend as much time back in the districts, back talking to real people, that the revolution that was voted on back on November 8, 1994, is very real and it is alive at home. Some people are skeptical and do not think things are going on the way they should be going on here. So I just share with you that I sometimes have a difficult time in conveying to people that the Senate is actually doing some things here. They hear about the House, they hear about the Contract With America, and some of the personalities over there that have dominated the national media. I have to remind people that in the first 3 months of this year in the U.S. Senate, we passed a number of reforms: One being the unfunded mandates reform; one being congressional accountability, forcing us to live under the same laws that we pass for other people; we also did a line-item veto; a type of moratorium on endangered species; we are getting ready to do regulation reform, to get the Government off the backs of the people who are paying for all the fun we are having up here. The Senate may be slower and more deliberate, but we are performing, and a revolution is going on here. But I say, Mr. President, that the people at home are just as adamant today as they were on November 8, 1994. The people at home are demanding that we do something about and carry out the mandate to eliminate the deficit. I think that they are a little impatient with the fact that we passed a resolution that would do this in 7 years, by the year 2002. I find it rather interesting the response that we are having right now as to the President coming out with his revised budget a couple of days ago. We have talked to people and told them the President had his budget before this body some 3 weeks ago, and it was the typical large tax- and-spend, high-deficit budget that was rejected by this body, the U.S. Senate, by a vote of 99-0, and then Republicans passed our budget resolution which would eliminate the deficit by the year 2002. I think we were all taken aback and a little surprised when the President came out with his announcement a couple days ago. In essence, what he said was, Well, we tried my budget, and that did not work. I'll just join the Republicans. Some people thought maybe the train went by, but I do not think so. I think there is room on the caboose for the President, and he came out and said, ``Instead of that, let's not be quite as severe, let's do it over 10 years, not 7 years.'' I cannot speak for the people of America, but I can speak for the people of Oklahoma. I am talking about Democrats and Republicans alike. People in Oklahoma think that even 7 years is too long. When you stop and realize what goes with high deficits, that means more Government involvement in our lives. Today, I will be going over and testifying in the other body on a Superfund bill. That is just one area of overregulation in our lives, of abuse, of bureaucracy on the businesses and the industries that are paying taxes to support this monster in Washington, and it is going to change. So I would like to give the assurance that there has been a change in the majority party that is controlling both the Senate and the House, and the Republicans are now in charge. As we talk to our fellow Republicans and remind them that the mandate that gave the Republicans a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate cannot be ignored, because if we ignore it we cannot fulfill the provisions of that mandate--that is, less Government in our lives, a balanced budget we can see in the near future, and the Government more in concert with what was foreseen by our Forefathers many years ago--if we do not carry out that mandate, the Republicans will not be in power. Right now, I honestly believe we are on schedule to carry out the mandates. I think the whole United States, and I know my State of Oklahoma, is rejoicing in this. It is not that the people who want more Government involved in our lives are bad people--they are not bad people; they are well-meaning people--but they have just forgotten what this country is all about. So we have a new era, and we are providing the leadership in that era. I was very pleased to see the President of the United States joining us 2 days ago when he came with his revised budget. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I request 5 minutes in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for the information of my colleagues, there will be a period for morning business until the hour of 1 p.m. today. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 652, the telecommunications bill. Pending is the Thurmond second- degree amendment to the Dorgan amendment regarding the Department of Justice. Senators should therefore expect rollcall votes. However, there will be none prior to 5 p.m. today.