Tim Johnson

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. I yield such time as the gentleman requires.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I commend the chairman for his work on the differential issue, which was originally a component of the Johnson-Thomas amendment. But we need to go further. It is an opportunity for this body to implement a financial services policy consistent with where both the banking and consumer organizations of the country want to go to implement policy that is agreed upon, in the agreed-upon direction that Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin want to go. This is an opportunity that we cannot allow to be missed.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I have a modification of my amendment at the desk and I ask unanimous consent that it be so modified.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to recognize an extraordinary group of citizens who came together to address their community needs in building a new fire hall. The old facility, which has served so faithfully for so many decades, had reached the limits of its productivity in February 1997, when the record snowfall created great stress on the roof. The need for action was immediate, and the Sisseton Community responded quickly. Members of the Sisseton Fire Department and Roberts County Rescue mounted a financial campaign to raise the additional money needed above what national, state, tribal, and local governments were able to provide. Fire fighters and rescue volunteers donated extra time by holding fundraising activities in addition to their fire and rescue responsibilities. Local businesses and individuals responded generously. The new fire hall is now a reality. It has become a true emergency operating center that the entire Sisseton community can look toward with pride. I commend the entire community for this exemplary effort, and hold it up as a shining example of the sense of community which still exists in places like Sisseton, SD.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I would like to talk briefly on the critically important hearings being conducted in Congress regarding the alleged national security breaks at our Department of Energy nuclear weapons laboratories. As a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I am committed to finding the answer to what may have happened and ensure that our national security is just that-- secure. I share the concern of most Americans that starting during the Reagan Administration, Chinese spies reportedly stole secrets from New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory to assist China in developing advanced nuclear weapons. I am also concerned with the perceived inaction by individuals and agencies within our government for almost ten years. However, I strongly discourage my colleagues and others in framing this issue in partisan terms because the timeline we are discussing here today includes three Administrations of both parties. The goal of placing blame on Republicans or Democrats is counterproductive to the ultimate need of finding answers that lead to solutions. The American public is entitled to know whether critically important secrets were stolen from our nuclear laboratories. We, as citizens of a democracy, also have the right to know what steps our government took-- or failed to take--to protect our interests and livelihood. The accusations surrounding the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory have shaken the trust Americans have in our national security, our government, and our developing relationship with China, the most populated country in the world. It is the responsibility of this committee, Congress as a whole, and the Administration to provide the American public with the answers they deserve. Accountability and accuracy must be established in this matter. However, knowing what happened and who was responsible is not enough. I am hopeful that out of this committee hearing and subsequent investigations by other Congressional committees and governmental agencies, we can make sure our national security secrets are safe in a world where it is inevitable and necessary that scientists from different countries work together. Action must be taken if it is found that security lagged and individuals failed to respond in a timely and appropriate manner. Action must also be taken if it is found that foreign governments actively spied in our nuclear laboratories. However, we will not know what action is necessary until all the information is presented. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue and will continue to work to ensure that important questions are answered fully.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I thank Senator Lautenberg for his leadership on this budget resolution. As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, it has been an honor and, I have to say, also, unfortunately, somewhat of a frustration to have participated in this process in the committee and to see now what has come to the floor. I am saddened that what could have been a watershed opportunity for the American people--to lay out a budget that makes sense, which establishes the proper priorities for the coming years--apparently is going to be missed and profoundly missed in a very unfortunate way. It is remarkable how we arrived at this point. When I first came to the Congress as a Member of the other body some 12 or 13 years ago, I had some doubts that I would ever see the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or debate how to utilize a Federal budget surplus, but here we are. We do have that opportunity, last year having been a surplus year, at least under a unified budget. And this year, which ends September 30, the projections are that we will be at least $130 billion in the black for this coming fiscal year. Again, let me be clear that in the unified budget, all of those surplus dollars are attributable to Social Security, lest anyone gets too carried away about spending the surpluses that are here in the near term. It seems to me that throughout this debate that there are four principles that ought to be followed as we craft a roadmap for where we go from here, from this fork in the road that we thankfully have come to. This crossroads follows on the heels of the 1993 budget agreement and was supplemented by the 1997 budget agreement, both of which I voted for. It seems to me we ought first protect Social Security and Medicare--not just Social Security, but protect them both. It seems to me that a significant portion of resources that we come into ought to be used to pay down already-existing debt. When Jimmy Carter concluded his Presidency, this Nation had an accumulated debt of around $1 trillion. That exploded to $5.5 trillion, mostly through the borrow-and-spend policies of the 1980s. Now we have an obligation to pay that debt down, reduce debt service, reduce the cost of money, and free up resources for the private sector so buying a house, buying a car, sending a kid to college, and expanding a business become more affordable. Third, we do need to look at tax relief, but we need to do so in a careful manner. We should not commit dollars that we do not have, those that are only projected far, far into the future. There is talk on this floor about how we are going to spend surpluses available to us 15 years down the road, surpluses of massive proportions. We have seen in the past what has happened with budget projections from both the OMB and CBO. We know the availability of those dollars may or may not occur. It seems to me a great deal of restraint ought to be used on the part of both political parties, for both spending and tax relief, when making plans premised on dollars that may or may not be available in the future. But I do believe over the near term we ought to try to design a budget package that will provide some level of tax relief for people in this country, primarily for middle-class and working families. There is a very legitimate role to be played for a tax relief package, but it can only be part of an overall strategy. Last of the four items that I think we need to take into consideration are the key investments that need to be made. I think the American people feel the same way. The American people want some tax relief, but they also want to see Social Security and Medicare protected. They also want to do some things for our schools, environment, kids, and communities. It is that kind of balanced agenda that makes some sense. To repudiate the ability to make the key investments that need to be made, I think, reflects an ideological orientation to this budget that is far away from where the American people are. There is little wonder in my mind, frankly, why poll after poll shows the American people overwhelmingly rejecting what has become the Republican budget agenda in the House and the Senate. The Republican agenda is lopsided--not balanced, thoughtful, or progressive--and it does not do the things the American people want to see happen. All of the money essentially goes toward tax relief, aside from an increase in defense and a couple of other assorted very narrow increases. Because of this budgeting, we are going to wind up by the year 2004, which is only 5 years down the road, with cuts growing from 11 percent this year to some 27 percent. These are, in effect, shutdown types of cuts for programs like Head Start and Meals on Wheels and toxic waste cleanup and for Women, Infants, and Children, and Border Patrol, not to mention community health clinics, environmental initiatives, funding for our national parks and rural development. All of these programs are at tremendous jeopardy because of the very one-sided, very lopsided, and, I think, unthoughtful approach that we are being presented on the floor of the Senate today. On top of that, while there is some provision for an increase in education funding in this budget resolution, it is far smaller than that included in the Senate budget resolution; the increase of $2.6 billion is now only $259 million for fiscal year 2000. This budget puts out of reach our ability to deal constructively with the need to renovate and build new schools, to provide the numbers of new teachers we need, and to supply the technology we need in our schools. In my State of South Dakota we are seeing bond issue after bond issue go down all across the State because people find they simply do not have the resources to make the investments in school facilities that need to be made. Yet we are walking away from what could be a very constructive and commonsense partnership--where the decisionmaking is left at the local school level but the financial partnership is among Federal, State, and local governments--that could make quality educational opportunities for our kids a realistic possibility in the next century. The situation is similar for child care. While the Senate accepted the amendment of Senators Dodd and Jeffords that provided an additional $12.5 billion over 10 years for existing childcare and development block grants, the conference report cuts that by $9.5 billion. So, again, we are denied the ability over the long haul to make the investments needed, even in a block grant fashion. It leaves the decisionmaking and flexibility to the States to invest in the kinds of programs that I think every American sees need to be made for our kids--afterschool programs, day-care programs. These are the things we need to do if we are going to invest in the minds of children so they can go on to have successful lives and take care of their own needs. I am pleased because the amendment that Senator Wellstone and I offered on the Senate floor, which would have resulted in a total increase of $3 billion in VA health care funding and which was accepted here, has been, for the most part, retained. This conference report calls for a $2 billion level of increase. That is not as much as I would like to see or Senator Wellstone would like to see. It is not what our veterans' groups would like to see. It is an improvement, however, over where this body was earlier. It will make a significant positive difference. We will come back and see what we can do in future years to augment funding for veterans' health care. But I think getting $2 out of $3 billion when we started with zero is progress. It is a step in the right direction, I would have to say. I want to share with Senator Boxer my profound disappointment at the deletion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Reserve Fund. This was an opportunity we had. We had bipartisan support in the Budget Committee and bipartisan support on the floor of the Senate to have the opportunity to set aside offshore drilling resources to be utilized for the benefit of the environment and our National Park System in this country. Yet we are going to be denied that opportunity because of the deletion of that provision from this budget resolution. No matter how we come together in future debates, authorizing legislation about reinvigorating our park system with some additional resources from oil revenues, we are not going to have the opportunity to be as effective as we could have been. So I am disappointed about that portion of the conference report as well. It is remarkable that we arrived at this point where we can talk about surpluses. There are many people who are no longer with us because they voted, with courage and with integrity, for past budget- balancing legislation--most notably the 1993 budget agreement that passed with no support from any Republican in either the House or the Senate. A great many Democrats lost their seats because of that vote. Yet now we find ourselves not with the $292 billion annual deficit that this country had 6 years ago but with a $131 billion surplus. President Bush, to his credit, supported the 1990 budget agreement. I have to say, in all candor, a contributing factor to his loss of the Presidency was the fact that he supported the precursor to our 1993 budget agreement. Again, in politics sometimes, no good deed goes unpunished, and that has been the case with some of our past budget legislation. I will have to say now we are at this watershed opportunity. There are some positive provisions in the budget resolution, and I applaud the sponsors for that. I applaud Senator Domenici for that. But there are so many missed opportunities; a roadmap to where the American people want to go simply is not there. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. I think commonsense, moderate, mainstream Americans know where they want to go--providing some tax relief but also paying down some debt; making key investments in our kids, our communities, and our schools. Those opportunities, unfortunately, in this roadmap are lost. I yield such time as I may have. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I was pleased that I was able to join with my colleague Mr. Wellstone from Minnesota in passing an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2000 budget resolution to increase funding for veterans health care. This amendment will help correct a serious injustice to our nation's veterans that I believe demands urgent attention by Congress and the Clinton Administration. This will be the fourth consecutive year, that the Clinton Administration has proposed a flat-line appropriation for veterans' health care in its FY 2000 budget request. The VA's budget includes a $17.3 billion appropriation request for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Although, the Clinton Administration's request includes allowing the VA to collect approximately $749 million from third-party insurers--$124 million more than in FY 1999, this cap on medical spending places a greater strain on the quality of patient care currently provided in our nation's VA facility, especially when meeting the needs and high health costs of our rapidly aging World War II population. In a memo to VA Secretary Togo West, Under Secretary for Health Dr. Kenneth Kizer expressed concern that the Administration's FY 2000 requested budget ``poses very serious financial challenges which can only be met if decisive and timely actions are taken.'' He indicates that cuts must be made now to preclude even deeper cuts such as ``mandatory employee furloughs, severe curtailment of services or elimination of programs, and possible unnecessary facility closures.'' Dr. Kizer also states that ``. . . changes are absolutely essential if we are to prepare ourselves for the limitations inherent in the proposed FY 2000 budget.'' I have met with several representatives of South Dakota's veterans' organizations who have expressed their justifiable fears and frustrations that the VA's flat-lined health care budget is causing mandatory reductions in outpatient and inpatient care and VA staff levels. Since 1992, over 150 full-time employees at the Ft. Meade VA facility have been cut do to insufficient budgets. There are legitimate fears in South Dakota that inpatient care will be eliminated from one of our VA facilities if an immediate solution is not found to augment the VA's budget. Peter Henry, Director of the Ft. Meade/Hot Springs VA facilities has been raiding from other budgets and has been forced to close other services in order to provide health care for veterans in western South Dakota. If the FY 2000 VA budget is not increased, Dr. Henry will soon be forced to reduce inpatient care and could result in possible denial of certain category veterans. South Dakota's veterans are tired of hearing what the VA cannot do for them. It is time for Congress and the VA to tell veterans ``Yes, we can and will help you.'' Many of South Dakota's 70,000 veterans contend that four years of flat-lined budgets for VA health care has left the system in danger of losing as many as 8,000 employees nationwide, eliminating health care programs and possibly closing VA facilities like the one in Sioux Falls. I have heard from people like Harry VandeMore, a Korean war veteran, who said, ``There was plenty of money to send me to Korea. There was plenty of money for hand grenades, plenty of money for rifle shells. I guess the government would like to throw me out in the weeds. I don't know where I would go for health care [without the VA]. The days of the hospital here in Sioux Falls are numbered if this keeps up.'' Gene Murphy, a former national commander of the Disabled American Veterans and now state adjutant for the South Dakota DAV, feels that ``. . . our government is always happy to send us off to war, but apparently they're not so happy to take care of us when we come back.'' Since I began my service in Congress over twelve years ago, I have held countless meetings, marched in small town Memorial Day parades, and participated in Veterans Day tributes with South Dakota's veterans. As the years go on their concerns remain the same. To ensure that Congress provides the VA with adequate funding to meet the health care needs for all veterans. Without additional funding South Dakota VA facilities will continue to face staff reductions, cutbacks in programs, and possible closing of facilities. Too often, I have received letters from veterans who must wait up to three months to see a doctor. For many veterans who do not have any other form of health insurance, the VA is the only place they can go to receive medical attention. They were promised medical care when they completed their service and now many veterans are having to jump through hoops just to see a doctor. Our nation's veterans groups have worked extensively on crafting a sensible budget that will allow the VA to provide the necessary care to all veterans. They have offered an Independent Budget that calls for an immediate $3 billion increase for VA health care to rectify two current deficiencies in the VA budget. First, the VA has had to reduce expenditures by $1.3 billion due to their flatlined budget at $17.3 billion. These were mandatory reductions in outpatient and inpatient care and VA staff levels that the VA had to make due to their flatlined budget. The remaining $1.7 billion is needed to keep up with medical inflation, COLAs for VA employees, new medical initiatives that the VA wants to begin (Hepatitis C screenings, emergency care services), long term health care costs, funding for homeless veterans, and treating 54,000 new patients in 89 outpatient clinics. Mr. President, as a member of the Budget Committee I was encouraged that an additional $1 billion was added for veterans health care. Although this will help relieve some of the VA's budgetary constraints, I believe that more needs to be done. The veterans community has requested that VA health care needs to be augmented by $3 billion to ensure the provision of accessible and high quality services to veterans. That is why I offered an amendment during the Budget Committee mark up of the budget resolution that would have raised VA health care by an additional $2 billion. The nation's top veterans groups (AMVETS, Blinded Veterans Association, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vietnam Veterans of America) voiced their strong support for my amendment in a letter that I shared with members of the Committee. Unfortunately, my amendment failed 11-11. Therefore, I along with Senator Wellstone offered an amendment that once again increased veterans health care by $2 billion. I was pleased that the Senate accepted my amendment by a vote of 99-0. The future of health care for veterans at the Sioux Falls, Hot Springs, and Ft. Meade VA facilities and in VA hospitals across the country will be sustained by this $3 billion total increase for veterans health care. The VA must be provided with every resource to provide quality care for all eligible veterans who walk into a VA facility. Mr. President, I feel that our VA facilities are on the verge of a catastrophic collapse if we continue to remain idle on this issue. In 1972, the Sioux Falls VA medical facility contained 269 beds for inpatient care. Today, they are down to 44 beds. This is a facility that saw 75,000 people walk through their doors last year. Some veterans have told me that when they go to the VA they see more janitors than nurses. This is unacceptable. If we want to provide care for all eligible veterans who walk into a VA facility Congress needs to act now. The funding required for this amendment represents a minute fraction of the total federal budget that we are debating here today. However, the funding we set aside to improve accessibility and quality of care within our veterans health care system will provide a tremendous boost for an already stretched and fractured VA medical system. As we enter the twilight of the Twentieth Century, we can look back at the immense multitude of achievements that led to the ascension of the United States of America as the preeminent nation in modern history. We owe this title as world's greatest superpower in large part to the twenty-five million men and women who served in our armed services and who defended the principles and ideals of our nation. From the battlefields of Lexington and Concord, to the beaches of Normandy, and to the deserts of the Persian Gulf, our nation's history is replete with men and women who, during the savagery of battle, were willing to forego their own survival not only to protect the lives of their comrades, but because they believed that peace and freedom was too invaluable a right to be vanquished. Americans should never forget our veterans who served our nation with such dedication and patriotism. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Wellstone and my Senate colleagues for supporting my amendment. Acceptance of my amendment was just one victory in the war to provide decent, affordable health care for South Dakota's veterans. By passing this amendment we live up to our obligation to our nation's veterans and ensure that they are treated with the respect and honor that they so richly deserve. Media Coverage of Federal Court Proceedings

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I oppose the Republican Budget Resolution because it supports the wrong priorities. 1998 was an exceptional year in this country's modern economic history. We enjoyed the first budget surplus in 29 years and the economy exceeded expectations and continued to expand in the face of international instability--unemployment remained low; wages continued to increase; welfare recipients declined; home ownership increased; and interest rates remained low. All of is good news has allowed the White House, the Congress, and the American people to begin debating how to use future surpluses which are projected for the foreseeable future. As a Member of Congress who arrived in Washington when the annual federal budget deficit was over $220 billion and still growing, I am extremely pleased and a little amazed that we have gotten to where we are today. That said, I think it is extremely important that Congress proceed carefully in the coming years to ensure we make wise choices that will keep this country's budget running in the black for years to come. Writing the FY 2000 budget is our first test of how we will handle existing and future surpluses to ensure long-term economic growth and stability, and it is a test too important to coming generations for us to fail. I believe that this year's budget resolution should follow four principles: first, we must save Social Security and Medicare; second, we should pay down the national debt; third, we should support targeted tax relief to low and middle-income Americans; and finally, we should identify and support critically needed discretionary priorities. Unfortunately, the Republican Budget Resolution doesn't follow these principles, which I believe are critical to balancing the many pressing needs of this nation. First, the Republican Budget Resolution does nothing to preserve Medicare. Second, while I support targeted tax cuts, I cannot support the use of essentially all future on-budget surpluses for tax cuts at the expense of Medicare solvency and other critical discretionary investments such as veterans health care. Third, the Republican budget resolution reduces non-defense discretionary spending by $20 billion in FY 2000. Finally, while the resolution increases funding for some programs and protects others from cuts, the bottom line is that discretional programs such as agriculture, head start, law enforcement, and many other critically important programs could be cut by more than 12% under the Republican Budget Resolution. I support preserving the discretionary caps and acknowledge that the caps force many tough decisions on decisions on discretionary spending priorities. However, I firmly believe that we can do a better job of balancing discretionary priorities than what is included in the Republican Budget Resolution. Amendment No. 197

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, yesterday, American men and women joined their military counterparts from 18 NATO countries in attacking the forces of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia. I had hoped that recent diplomatic efforts by the United States and others would have led instead to a peace agreement in the Balkans. However, Slobodan Milosevic's continued aggression toward Kosovar Albanians and his unwillingness to seek a lasting peace could no longer go unchecked. My wife and I know first hand what thousands of American families are feeling today, seeing their husbands, wives, sons, or daughters in the military travel overseas to face combat. My son, Brooks, recently returned from a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Bosnia where he was part of the multi-national effort to maintain peace in that war-torn country. The decision to commit U.S. troops overseas is never easy, nor should it be done without a clear understanding of our country's interests and goals. In the case of Kosovo, our country's interests are clear and warrant the current military action. A lasting peace is directly linked with stability in Europe, and it is our duty to participate in a multi-national effort to prevent the ethnic cleansing currently occurring in Kosovo. This century's major wars started in the Balkans. Hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of others around the world died as a result of conflict in this region. Slobodan Milosevic directly threatens the current political and economic stability of Europe, and today's military action against Milosevic is necessary to prevent an inevitable escalation of violence. The fighting in Kosovo could easily spread to neighboring Montenegro, Macedonia, and Albania, and has already destabilized the region. A sea of ethnic Albanian refugees have attempted to flee Kosovo, only to be denied entry in some countries while further straining age-old tensions in others. There is an undeniable possibility for widespread conflict among Kosovo's neighbors, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, and it is in our national strategic interest to prevent a fourth Balkan war. The United States and NATO have an opportunity to stop the cold blooded murders of thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Since Slobodan Milosevic began his reign of terror against Albanians in Kosovo, over 250,000 people--10 percent of the population--have been forced from their homes. Another 170,000 have fled the Yugoslav province in the past year. Milosevic's police forces and military have burned homes, preventing the return of entire villages. The reports of atrocities by Milosevic against the ethnic Albanians are sickening and invoke images of Bosnia and Nazi Germany. Since the first massacre of ethnic Albanians at Drenica, last year, thousands more ethnic Albanians have been killed by Serb paramilitary units and the Yugoslav Army, including the January 16 discovery of 45 slaughtered ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak. While I support air strikes now to prevent further bloodshed, I will continue to promote diplomatic efforts to ultimately resolve this crisis in Kosovo. This multi-national military action will illustrate to Slobodan Milosevic the resolve of all democratic nations in the world to reject oppression, and it is my hope that Slobodan Milosevic will bring the people of Yugoslavia back from the brink of one man's madness. My thoughts and prayers are with our men and women overseas and their families here at home. I fully support their efforts to bring peace and stability to the region and wish them all a quick and safe return home.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, today by introducing the ``Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act of 1999''. Earlier this year, Representatives Tom Allen, Jim Turner, Marion Barry, and Henry Waxman were joined by sixty-one of their colleagues when they introduced H.R. 664, ``The Prescription Drug Fairness For Seniors Act of 1999'' in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation addresses the critical issue facing our older Americans--the cost of their prescription drugs. Studies have shown that older Americans spend almost three times as much of their income (21%) on health care than those under the age of 65 (8%), and more than three-quarters of Americans aged 65 and over are taking prescription drugs. Even more alarming is the fact that seniors and others who buy their own prescription drugs, are forced to pay over twice as much for their drugs as are the drug manufacturers' most favored customers, such as the federal government and large HMOs. The ``Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act'' will protect senior citizens from drug price discrimination and make prescription drugs available to Medicare beneficiaries at substantially reduced prices. The legislation achieves these goals by allowing pharmacies that serve Medicare beneficiaries to purchase prescription drugs at the low prices available under the Federal Supply Schedule, similar to the Veterans Administration, Public Health Service and Indian Health Service. Estimated to reduce prescription drug prices for seniors by over 40%, this bill will help those seniors who often times have to make devastating choices between buying food or medications. Choices that no human being should have to make. Research and development of new drug therapies is an important and necessary tool towards improving a persons quality of life. But due to the high price tag that often accompanies the latest drug therapies, seniors are often left without access to these new therapies, and ultimately, in far too many instances, without access to medication at all. This legislation is an important step towa4rds restoring the access to affordable medications for our medicare beneficiaries. I look forward to working on this important issue in the months to come and hope that Congress will work swiftly in a bipartisan manner to enact legislation that will benefit millions of senior citizens across our nation.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I thank my colleague from South Dakota, Senator Daschle, for his great work on this amendment. What we have here is a very fundamental priority decision that this Congress needs to make. The question is not whether we will have tax relief or not. Certainly we will have tax relief. The question is whether we have a commonsense kind of budget that also allows for some key investments, in this case in agriculture. Are we going to preserve the strongest agricultural system in the world that provides the highest quality, most affordable food in the world or not? To say that we have an $800 billion tax relief package and there is no room for $6 billion of investment in our ag sector simply makes no sense. The American people see through the budget resolution on the floor. They know that they want some tax relief, especially if it is targeted to middle-class and working families. But they also know that we need to make some key strategic investments in important sectors of our economy. Nothing is more important than agriculture as we craft ways to get a better price out of the market, as we craft ways to keep a fine meshed system of family farms and ranches all across America. But as things are going right now, we are headed for a catastrophic train wreck in agriculture.

Mr. JOHNSON. I yield such time as I have back to the Senator from North Dakota. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask unanimous consent that my legislative director, Dwight Fettig, be permitted on the floor.

Mr. JOHNSON. As Senator Wellstone expressed so eloquently, this adjustment would allow for the VA to keep up with medical inflation and for them to retain the needed employees that they need to deliver these services. It would allow for new medical initiatives the Congress had been pushing the VA to begin, including hepatitis C screenings and emergency care services. It would allow for addressing long-term care costs, funding for homeless veterans, in compliance with any Patients' Bill of Rights legislation this Congress enacts. Mr. President, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Feingold and Senator Robb be added as cosponsors to the Johnson amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I think we can engage in this debate in a relatively brief amount of time. But it is, I think, an issue that is fundamental. I applaud the Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Domenici, for working to try to find ways to augment the veterans' health care budget for the coming fiscal year. The Presidential budget called for a flatline budget going on for 4 years. We have had 3 years already in the flatline budget at the VA, despite the fact that we have an enormous number of World War II age vets needing a greater amount of medical care and that we have increased inflation in health care costs. The independent budget, prepared by prominent veterans organizations in this country, has proposed conservatively that we need an additional $3 billion for veterans' health care in the coming year. Chairman Domenici has provided for a $1 billion increase. I applaud him for that but recognize that still falls far short of where we need to go. It is clear, from testimony that this Congress has received, that if we do not make some further adjustments upward we are going to wind up with a train wreck in terms of veterans' health care. We are going to wind up with mandatory employee furloughs, a severe curtailment of services, or the elimination of programs and, inevitably, facility closures around this country. The amendment pending before the Senate would add the additional $2 billion to provide for that $3 billion increase for fiscal year 2000. The offset would come from an across-the-board reduction in the nondefense discretionary budget for this year. Along with that goes a sense of the Senate that states: (A) It is the sense of the Senate that the provisions in this resolution assume that if CBO determines there is an on- budget surplus for FY 2000, $2 billion of that surplus will be restored to the programs cut in this amendment. (B) It is the sense of the Senate that the assumptions underlying this budget resolution assume that none of these offsets will come from defense or veterans, and to the extent possible should come from administrative functions. We clearly have a crossroads we need to deal with here, Mr. President. We have to make some decisions now whether this country will remain committed to our veterans, remain committed to the people who have given us the ability to speak here on this floor. Earlier this year, we passed S. 4 having to do with retaining the best, the brightest of our military personnel. It seems to me that this follows on in that same general logic, recognizing that it is futile for us to ask our military personnel to stay with us, to continue to put their lives at risk, to put up with all the hardships that they and their families suffer serving in our military, if they look around and find we have reneged on our commitment to their fathers, to their uncles, to the generations that have gone before them. If we do that, we undermine our very attempt earlier on this year to retain these people in our military service. At a time when we are yet again undertaking a military action, in Kosovo, where the best and brightest of our military personnel are, in many instances, jeopardizing their lives once again for us, it seems to me it is not asking too much for our Senate to provide for a full health care budget, adequate to meet the needs of our U.S. military veterans. I hope we will be able to continue this level of funding in future years. This amendment applies only to fiscal year 2000. We will have further opportunities to talk about what needs to be done next year as we deal with the budget resolution again, as we deal with the appropriations process, as, hopefully, projected budget surpluses will occur and we will have those opportunities to use those kinds of surpluses for offsets that will make sense. However, it appears to me that the amendment, put together with the extraordinary assistance of the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, and his staff, as well as with the budget staff, creates an offset that is as painless as we can provide while, at the same time, providing for this $2 billion infusion that is so badly needed, if, in fact, we are going to live up to our word to our American veterans. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield such time as he may consume to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I have an amendment I send to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, be added as a cosponsor of this amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. JOHNSON. As well as the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, and the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry, and the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I respectfully disagree with the chairman's characterization of the amendment. This amendment tonight will put the Senate on record for the first time in support of full funding for veterans' health care. No budget resolution guarantees funding. That is part of the appropriations process. But this amendment will open the door. This amendment will open the door for consideration on the part of the appropriators for the full funding for veterans' health care that is so badly needed. I yield to the Senator from Minnesota for 30 seconds.

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I am pleased today to join Senator Kyl in introducing the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act. The Kyl-Johnson bill will require federal prisoners to pay a nominal fee when they initiate certain visits for medical attention. Fees collected from prisoners will either be paid as restitution to victims or be deposited into the Federal Crime Victims' Fund. My state of South Dakota is one of 34 states that have implemented state-wide prisoner health care copayment programs. The Department of Justice supports extending this prisoner health care copayment program to federal prisoners in an attempt to reduce unnecessary medical procedures and ensure that adequate health care services are available for prisoners who need them. My interest in the prisoner health care copayment issue came from discussions I had in South Dakota with a number of law enforcement officials and US Marshal Lyle Swenson about the equitable treatment between pre-sentencing federal prisoners housed in county jails and the county prisoners residing in those same facilities. Currently, county prisoners in South Dakota are subject to state and local laws allowing the collection of a health care copayment, while Marshals Service prisoners are not, thereby allowing federal prisoners to abuse health care resources at great cost to state and local law enforcement. I want to thank Senator Kyl for working with me on specific concerns raised by South Dakota law enforcement officials and the US Marshals Service that I wanted addressed in the bill. I sincerely appreciate Senator Kyl's willingness to incorporate my language into the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act that allows state and local facilities to collect health care copayment fees when housing pre- sentencing federal prisoners. I also worked with Senator Kyl to include sufficient flexibility in the Kyl-Johnson bill for the Bureau of Prisons and local facilities contracting with the Marshals Service to maintain preventive-health priorities. The Kyl-Johnson bill prohibits the refusal of treatment for financial reasons or for appropriate preventive care. I am pleased this provision was included to pre-empt long term, and subsequently more costly, health problems among prisoners. The goal of the Kyl-Johnson Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act is not about generating revenue for the federal, state, and local prison systems. Instead, current prisoner health care copayment programs in 34 states illustrate the success in reducing the number of frivolous health visits and strain on valuable health care resources. The Kyl-Johnson bill will ensure that adequate health care is available to those prisoners who need it, without straining the budgets of taxpayers.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, today is a great day for South Dakota and the nation as March 15, 1999, marks the operation of a Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS) site in Clark, South Dakota. This morning, Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater officially ``flipped the switch'' on the Clark site, which activated the Coast Guard's expansion of its maritime global positioning system into the NDGPS. The Clark site, along with one in Whitney, Nebraska, will provide South Dakota with complete NDGPS service at no fee. It is not often that a Senator from South Dakota has the opportunity to work with the Coast Guard on a project that benefits the people of my state. About two years ago, Rudy Persaud with South Dakota Department of Transportation contacted me about a technology that was developed to find ships out at sea. Rudy, along with a number of community development districts in my state, convinced me that this same technology could have enormous benefits on the prairies of South Dakota. In fact, the benefit to cost ratio for the NDGPS system is an astounding 150 to 1, with future uses for the technology appearing almost limitless. Working with the development districts, the South Dakota Department of Transportation's goal was to map every mile of every road in the state of South Dakota to give the state and local governments the ability to develop their communities and allocate important highway funds. I was pleased to introduce legislation in 1997 to expand the Coast Guard DGPS into a nationwide system. With the help of Senator Daschle, the legislation was added to the Department of Transportation's annual appropriations bill. Throughout the process of securing funding for NDGPS, I have become aware of the numerous benefits NDGPS has for rural states like South Dakota. Four nonprofit planning districts in South Dakota currently use the technology for mapping roads. In some counties, NDGPS will be integrated with E-911 systems to provide accurate addresses for rural households. NDGPS will allow hospital helicopters to electronically locate accident sites. The need for such technology was evident two winters ago when a Webster woman became stranded in her car in the middle of a blizzard. Running low on gas, and with the temperature around -50 degrees, it took rescue crews several hours to find her and take her to safety. The US Geological Survey will also map potential flood areas in the state, potentially saving lives and millions of dollars in property. Considering the farms and communities already inundated with flooding from the past two years, I am pleased this technology will allow South Dakotans to take a proactive approach to identifying potential flood areas. The Mid-Dakota Rural Water System is using NDGPS to locate PVC pipeline for its system that will provide clean drinking water to over 30,000 South Dakotans who currently rely on wells or municipal water trucked to their home. One of the most promising benefits of NDGPS technology will probably come in agriculture, South Dakota's number one industry. I look forward to working with agriculture leaders in South Dakota to promote and support this technology in a way that makes NDGPS an affordable and accessible tool. NDGPS, used in precision farming, may save $5 to 14 per acre by showing farmers exactly how best to apply fertilizer and chemical inputs on their land, so as to treat the land well for future generations while cutting costs now. NDGPS-based field mapping helps determine more accurate yields and makes it easier to more accurately utilize fertilizers, chemicals, and crop inputs. This technology can also be used by farmers to keep better crop production records. For example, this technology makes it possible for a properly equipped spray rig to switch chemicals or rates of application to address a specific weed problem in a specific section of the field. As of today, March 15, 1999, the NDGPS technology is available in every community in South Dakota. I want to commend Rudy Persaud and the many others involved with NDGPS for their dedication and hard work and look forward to working with them on future uses of this incredible technology.