Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Maine for yielding, but I could not help thinking, when she was talking about what was going to happen to future generations, about people who keep coming up with this idea, saying, ``Where are you going to cut?'' And they try to single out all the programs to show that the individual who is trying to do this somehow lacks compassion. Yet, as the Senator pointed out, future generations, if we do not do something today and stay on the track where we are today, are going to have to pay for everything we are doing today. If it gets down to a discussion of compassion, then why would we not be in a position to say that, if you really want to be compassionate, let us bite the bullet today? Let us do it. I think the CBO and others have come up with the figures projecting out where we would be in the next 10 to 20 years if we do not make a change. If we do not pass something like this immediately, it gets down to a very personal basis. I have two grandchildren, ages 20 months and 21 months. It works out, if we do not do something and we continue on this trend that we have right now, that during their lifetimes they are going to have to pay 75 percent of their lifetime income just to service the debt. So I guess I would ask the Senator from Maine if this is not really the most compassionate route to take, to go ahead, bite the bullet now and be responsible now?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I say to the Senator from Kentucky that we know the rules. But I would like to make one short response, if I may. First of all, Mr. President, I have a great deal of respect for this institution, and I have studied the background and the history of how we got into a bicameral system. I think there is a very useful purpose for that. I served 8 years in the House of Representatives, and things run through there quickly. The train has slowed down here. But there is a difference between slowing down the train and stopping the train. When a statement is made about why the urgency since it does not take effect until 1996, the urgency is that we have many other things in a contract, a so-called Contract With America, things that Americans believe they were voting for on November 8. We want an opportunity to present those. We cannot do that if we get bogged down day after day for hours and do not get much done with a bill. I will make one other statement that I think is very significant. Certainly, I have the utmost respect for the Senator from Kentucky. It is true that when the Republicans were the minority here in this body, that there was filibustering going on. I think even though it may not have technically been a filibuster, what we have been experiencing in the last 6 days certainly is very close to that. The difference is this: The difference is when they were filibustering last year in this body, they were filibustering a bill; for example, the Government takeover of the health care system. That was something that 80 percent of the people did not want. What we are talking about now is unfunded mandates, which is something that by survey 80 percent of the American people do want, and I draw a major distinction between the two. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for yielding.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in order to properly frame some observations that I made last night and at the risk of being redundant in some of the comments I made on this floor yesterday, let me just make some reflections as to my feelings on unfunded mandates that come from quite a few years back. Back in 1967, one of my closest political allies and friends, who later became Senator David Boren, and I came to Washington from the State legislature to protest the mandates that came from Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act of 1965. We made a list of what it would cost the private sector in terms of screening. We made a list of the violations, of what we perceived to be violations of the 14th amendment, property rights, people having their property taken away from them in such areas as outdoor advertising signs and others. But primarily because it was the cost to the municipalities. The leverage they used at that time was that if you do not comply with the mandates of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, we will withhold several million dollars of your Federal highway matching funds. Now, keep in mind, these are funds that emanated originally from the State of Oklahoma, went to Washington and were coming back. Of course, Oklahoma, having been a donor State for quite a number of years, does not get as much money back as it sends to Washington. So I guess what they were saying to us from the Federal Government, in its infinite wisdom, was we have passed a law that says you in Oklahoma cannot have the money you sent to Washington unless you comply with these mandates. That was my first exposure to mandates. I mentioned yesterday also that there are many fine Members of this honorable body who have differences of opinion philosophically and ideologically. Certainly the very distinguished Senator from California, [Mrs. Feinstein], and I differ on many issues, but we have one thing in common in our background, and that is we were both mayors of major cities. I remember when we were both serving on the U.S. Conference of Mayors Board of Directors our major concern at that time was unfunded mandates. Whether it is in the State of Kentucky or the State of Georgia, regardless of who you go to, if you talk to your mayors and your county commissioners and your State legislators and the private sector, they will say the major problem we have is not necessarily crime; it is not welfare; it is unfunded mandates. Because while we are facing fiscal problems here in Washington, the problems are even more severe at the local level. A lot of people do not realize the genesis of the problem that we have in these mandates. I think it goes back to the Great Society days when we decided Government was going to take on a role that perhaps was outside the boundaries of what our Founding Fathers thought the Government should be doing. At least if I have any understanding of the 10th amendment to the Constitution, it says that powers will be reserved to the States or to the people other than those specifically delegated to the Federal Government; that we have become very greedy at the Federal level, and that this greed emanates from the desire of politicians, an insatiable appetite to give things to people in return for their votes. And realizing that there is not an adequate amount of money there, they, of course, impose those financial hardships on political subdivisions below them. And that is where we have found ourselves today. I hope that all of the American people were watching what was happening last night and what has happened over the past 6 days. I asked our staff to advise me as to how many hours have we been debating the unfunded mandates bill. According to their calculation, it is 47 hours--47 hours of debate on something that really is not that complicated. Yes, we can get into the finer details and the amendments that perhaps might make it more workable, and I think our distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole, has gone far beyond the expectations of the American people in being fair. Those of us who are freshmen--and I think I can speak in behalf of all 11 of us who are newly elected who just came off the campaign trail and listened to the people and were there on November 8 when the mandate came out--do not look at this Contract With America in the cute reference that many other people try to put it, in a demeaning sense. It is a very real thing. People are sick and tired of the games we are playing here in Washington, and for the last 6 days we have been playing games. We have not been legislating. We have been playing games. I know that a lot of Americans out there are applauding at a statement like that because that is what is happening, and they are sick and tired of it. We have a man who ran for President of the United States, elected in 1992, who used throughout his campaign the word ``gridlock.'' We are going to come to Washington and we are going to change; we are going to eliminate gridlock. We have created gridlock, Mr. President, in the last 6 days and we have done it willfully. We have created gridlock to stall an issue. And I am going to make a prediction in the Chamber of this Senate that is going to offend a lot of people, I am afraid, Mr. President, but it is something that I think has to be said. I believe that this issue has been stalled for a very good reason. First of all, why would they stall an issue on unfunded mandates? Who is opposed to unfunded mandates except for a few liberal people who want to keep the ability to pour money into social programs or other programs and then let the States and the cities and the counties and the people pick up the tab. Now, that is a philosophy that is out there, and there are some of those who want to do that. But this is not a Republican or Democrat program; it is not a conservative or liberal program, because if you look at the Senator from California, as I mentioned, Mrs. Feinstein, she is very supportive of this because she has sat in a mayor's seat and knows what it is like to have to pay for these mandates that come down. three cities in Oklahoma the unfunded mandates exceeded $35 million, and this is over a period of time. It is just incredible that you could have this. It is not just in Broken Arrow and Tulsa, OK, and in San Francisco. It is throughout America. So it is something that everyone now wants to do something about. The liberals are for it. The conservatives are for it. Organizations like the U.S. Conference of Mayors are for it; the Municipal League is for it; the NFIB is for it. All organizations out there are for this. And yet it has been stalled and stalled and stalled and stalled. It is a bill, a resolution that could very well have been deliberated for 2 days and passed as everybody wants it. The reason I do not believe it was passed is because there is a deliberate effort to stall the vote on this until after the State of the Union Message that will take place next Tuesday night. And when that happens, I predict in the Chamber of this Senate right now that the President will stand up, even though he may not like the idea of passing an unfunded mandates bill, which I personally do not think he really wants but he heard that the American people did want it on November 8, and he is going to say, ``And I am going to ask this Congress, I am going to ask this Senate to go back into session and pass the unfunded mandates bill.'' And we will. And it is a bill that we should have passed a week before. Is this gridlock? Yes, it is gridlock. I think it is intentional gridlock. One time someone put the pencil to how much it costs us to keep this body in. I wish I could recall those figures right now, but it is very, very expensive. So there was a tremendous cost to the American people. There is a lot of inconvenience to a lot of people. There were late nights. There was a dialog. We talked on this floor about every conceivable subject that you could talk about and finally got around to making a few comments about unfunded mandates. So I am saying, yes, it is going to happen, but it is not going to happen until after the State of the Union Message. I think that is a very sad thing. Do you know where I got the idea of gridlock and where I am coming up with this? It came from someone who talks to a lot of people. It is my barber. A lot of times we have this beltway mentality here where we talk to bureaucrats and we talk to think tank people and we talk to each other and we forget that there is a real world out there with real people who are sick and tired of what is going on up here. I think we will all have learned a lesson as a result of this. So, Mr. President, in conclusion, I say I hope the American people have been watching for the last couple of days, because what they saw is something we are going to bring to an end. I think I speak in behalf of certainly all 11 of the freshmen Members of this organization when I make this statement.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was listening intently as the majority leader expressed a concern over the lack of progress that we are making; and certainly we are not making progress. I also listened intently yesterday to the very distinguished Senator from West Virginia, as he quoted history and he quoted many of our Founding Fathers, concerning the subject at hand of unfunded mandates. I have felt that unfunded mandates are the product of an assertive, greedy Government that has arrogantly injected itself into the dictatorial position that was feared most by our Founding Fathers. And, you know, we deal with these subjects as if they are contemporary subjects, Mr. President, and they are not. Because in all of these subjects that we have been discussing that might be associated with the Contract With America, but certainly those things that 70 to 80 percent of the Americans want, our Founding Fathers dealt with these issues. They dealt with term limitations. It was their intent to have a citizens legislature for people to have to live under the laws that we passed. And, of course, we discussed that under the accountability bill, and such things as the budget balancing amendment. It was Thomas Jefferson who came back and said: If I could have made one improvement in the Constitution, it would have been to severely limit the abilities of our Government to incur debt. And now we are looking at unfunded mandates, which, I think, at the crux of unfunded mandates is the 10th amendment to the Constitution. Certainly, James Madison was very eloquent in his discussion of the 10th amendment. Just so that I do not misquote it, I will read it. The 10th amendment provides that: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectfully, or to the people. When you stop and remember what our Founding Fathers came over here to escape, it was, in fact, tyranny. So many of the problems that we are looking at in a contemporary way were addressed in the past. I remember so well, if you think back in the history of this country, as was discussed by the distinguished Senator from West Virginia yesterday, we remember that here we were, a handful of farmers and trappers over here, and we took on the greatest army on the face of this Earth, knowing that we were signing our own death warrants to do so, but knowing it was worth it to escape tyranny. That was what it was all about when that tall redhead stood in the House of Burgesses and said: We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Patrick Henry was saying that we are escaping the tyranny that we left behind in a foreign country. Now, where have we come today? Right back to that same tyranny. And while it is not a contemporary debate, it is now being debated contemporarily. I think if you look around and you see of all of those items in the Contract With America, this is the one that transcends all ideological lines. It transcends all party lines and interests. This is something that all of the American people are for. I listened to the Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], I believe it was a couple of days ago, and she said it so well about what happened out in San Francisco back when she was the mayor. And while Mrs. Feinstein and I--perhaps there are no two Senators further apart ideologically. We certainly agree we have one thing in common in our backgrounds. We were both mayors of major cities in America at the same time. In fact, Mr. President, we were on the board of directors of the U.S. Congress of Mayors at the same time. No one is going to say, by any interpretation, the U.S. Conference of Mayors is a conservative operation. Yet, what was our major concern 15 years ago, when Mrs. Feinstein and I were both mayors of major cities? It was unfunded mandates. If fellow Senators will talk to any of the municipal leagues around America and ask them what is the major problem they are facing in their towns, as well as their cities and States, they will not say crime, they will not say welfare; they will say it is unfunded mandates. We wonder how we got in this situation. It reminds me a little of the two skeletons in the closet. One rattled to the other and said, ``How did we get in here?'' And the other said, ``I don't know. If we had any guts, we would get out.'' I think it is time to get out. I think we got in because of the propensity of Members of Congress to, in hopes of getting people something and not having the money to pay for it, find a way to do it, and that is to force somebody else to pay for it. That is exactly what is happening. If we look around--I can take you to the State of Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City alone. Keep in mind, in our infinite wisdom, we passed all these bills. In Oklahoma City, in order to comply with the Clean Water Act, the conservative estimate is $3 million for that city; to comply with the transportation regulations, and these were the reflective road signs, the metric conversions, and those things, that would be $2 million over a 5-year period; land use regulations, landfills, recycling, $2.5 million; the Clean Water Act, they cannot proximate it, but it is well over $2 million. Go to a smaller town or city, such as Broken Arrow, OK: Clean Water Act, storm water regulations, $100,000. A person may say, what is that? In Broken Arrow, OK, that is a lot. They are going to have to give up a police officer to comply with that mandate that came from the Federal Government. Waste water treatment regulations, $125,000. Safe drinking water regulations, $40,000. EPA regulations, solid waste, $32,000. Fair Labor Standards Act, $30,000. In my city of Tulsa, I checked and brought up to date the figures that were there back when I was mayor of Tulsa, the Clean Water Act, $10 million; Safe Drinking Water Act, $16 million; solid waste regulations $700,000; lead-based paint, $1 million. It goes on and on and on. I just listed $35 million worth of mandates that are imposed upon three cities in the State of Oklahoma. Now, those are direct costs. We get into indirect costs when we look at other laws that were passed. The Davis-Bacon Act--when I was elected mayor of the city of Tulsa, we had to make some additions. What do we do about our capital improvements, because they are in dire need; we were rotting out from within. So I had to go out on the line, and for a conservative to do this, it was a very difficult thing, Mr. President. But I passed a 1-cent sales tax increase for capital improvements; and it passed. In order to do this, we calculated, by having to comply with the Davis-Bacon Act, how much more it costs the taxpayers of this city of Tulsa, OK. What could we have done without the Davis-Bacon Act: 17 percent more in capital improvements, 6 more miles of roads and streets, 34 more miles of water and sewer lines, and we could have hired 500 more people. I read in the Reader's Digest just the other day something I will share with Members. In Philadelphia, for example--and this is in December's Reader's Digest--electricians must be paid $37.97 an hour on Davis-Bacon projects, while private contractors pay an average of $15.76. In Oakland, carpenters get $28 an hour on federally funded projects, and they work for $15 an hour in the private sector. Many are paying the the mandates. I replaced a very distinguished former Senator, David Boren, when I was elected to the U.S. Senate this past year. David Boren--he is a Democrat and I am a Republican--was and is today one of my closest friends. I can remember in 1966, Mr. President, we were elected to the State legislature. We came up here, and three of us became very intimate friends: David Boren, myself, and a guy named Ralph Thompson, who is now a Federal judge, whose name has been mentioned very prominently as someone who might be a member of the U.S. Supreme Court someday. We came up in 1967, almost 30 years ago. What was our mission? On the first trip when we came to Washington, the mission was to protest the mandates of Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act of 1965. Lastly--I do not want to go over my time, and I am afraid I am approaching that now--I will say what will happen if we do not do it. What is going to happen if we do not pass this bill that everyone, virtually everyone, in America is for? If we do not do it, it will be done for us. Just to the south of the State of the Senator from Colorado, in New Mexico, in Catron County, in frustration with dealing with the U.S. Forest Service, they enacted the U.S. Constitution as a county ordinance and put the Federal Forest Service on notice to show up at the county supervisors meeting to get permission to impose mandates. Recently, in Walter Williams' column, he talks about the fact that California has joined Colorado, Missouri, Hawaii, and Illinois in asserting 10th amendment rights demanding that the Federal Government cease and desist all mandates and interferences exceeding those delegated by the Constitution. Similar resolutions have been passed in 12 other States. Mr. President, that is a total of 17 States. Just nine more States, and that will be a majority of those States. So I will conclude, and say that this is something that we will have to start discussing in a serious vein and actually bringing to a vote. I cannot think of anything that is more significant that we will be dealing with than this issue. As the Reverend Mark Dever said in his prayer, opening the session today, we want unity of purpose for which we are elected. Without overly dramatizing, I would say we must free our States and counties from the bondage to which they have been subverted. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. CAMPBELL addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise in strong support for the Congressional Accountability Act. I really cannot believe that we are debating this issue as if it is something we might or might not do in light of what happened on November 8. It is this kind of reform which will help restore Congress as the truly representative body it was intended to be. The fact that Congress has routinely exempted itself from laws and regulations which affect virtually every other person, business, and organization in the land says volumes about the arrogance of power, about the insulation of Washington from the real world, about the gulf which has come to exist between the people and those who are elected to represent them. to several of the other things that were discussed in the Contract With America, such things as overburdened regulations, such things as term limitations. You know, many of us in Congress have our own stories that we can tell from back in the real world. I was, among other things, a developer. I can remember one time, in order to get, down on the coast for a six-story development, a dock permit, I had to check with 26 Federal and State agencies in order to get that permit. It could have just as well been done with one. And I think therein lies one of the better arguments for term limits. The fact if you have people who are out in the real world and know what the tough regulations are and what they do to your competitiveness, then they would not behave the way they do. I understand that earlier today our colleague from Iowa told the story about George McGovern. And I remember that so well, because I was there when the statement was made that after a lifetime in public service he had this burning desire to fulfill a lifetime dream and build that hotel. I guess it was in Connecticut. And he built it. And then, before he knew it, the health department started beating him up, the IRS started beating him up, and the EPA started beating him up, and he went into, I believe, Chapter 11. I would have to paraphrase him. But the exact quote was given by the Senator from Iowa this morning, the thrust of which is, If I had known how tough it was in the real world, I would have voted differently when I was in the U.S. Senate. Mr. President, to take another example. We ought to recall the very illustrative experience that one of my colleagues from the other body, Representative John Boehner, experienced, where he invited an inspector from OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to come in and look at his three-room office that he had there in the, I believe it was, Cannon Office Building. When they did, they found six safety violations, including a lack of an evacuation plan. I might suggest to my colleagues that if we do not pass this bill, we might all want to install an evacuation plan in our offices. They went on to look at some of the other areas of Government right here in the Capitol, I believe, in the Architect's Office. They said that in the event that we had to comply with the OSHA requirements, that it would cost over $1 million to come up to compliance. And there is a historic precedence for this. James Madison, in his writing in 1788 in the Federalist Papers, said: Congress can make no law which would not have its full operation on themselves and their friends as well as on the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. Without this communion of interests, every government degenerates into tyranny. Those like Madison who wrote our Constitution intended that Members of Congress would not be part of some elitist aristocracy, out of touch with the people, insulated from the real world. Rather, they intended Members of Congress to be themselves the same farmers and shopkeepers and business men and business women and merchants who expected to deserve the Government that we finally got--``of the people, by the people, and for the people.'' With this reform, this Congressional Accountability Act, we will take one small step following so many others in our history to help ensure that such a Government shall not perish from the Earth. This reform, like our reform of the discharge petition process--Mr. President, you remember that well from the other body--will serve as a predicate for many other reforms that we surely will be considering and are really adamantly demanded by the people as a result of the revolution of November 8. I cannot imagine there is one Member of this body who would go back to his State and look a constituent in the eye and say, ``We will take care of you. We know what is best for you. You just do what we say. And yet, that is not going to apply to us. You know, we live in an ivory tower with impenetrable walls, so we are insulated from many things that you folks are not insulated from.'' This eliteness was shot down in the revolution of November 8. So, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this measure. I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.