J. Kerrey

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Vermont for his request.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, now that the Senate has passed the Soldiers', Sailors', Airmen's, and Marines' Bill of Rights Act of 1999, I would like to take a few moments to express my appreciation for a group of dedicated Nebraskans who have chosen to serve their country in the Nebraska Army National Guard. Most of the fifty-nine members of the Nebraska Army National Guard's 24th Medical Company left Lincoln on February 21st, for Fort Benning, Georgia. This week, having completed some additional training, these soldiers from the Nebraska Guard are traveling, along with five of the unit's UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, to participate in Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia, where they are scheduled to serve up to 270 days overseas. The 24th Medical Company will be only the second air medical evacuation unit deployed to Bosnia, where their mission will be to care for casualties as they are flown from the front lines to hospitals. Earlier this month, I visited with members of the medical unit in their hangar in Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. President, I am very impressed by the dedication and training of these fine individuals. We are increasingly calling upon our nation's Reserve units to provide support for missions such as Bosnia, as part of America's down-sized military. Unlike the active duty forces, the citizen soldier puts a uniform on, serves his or her country, takes the uniform off, and goes back to work. We Americans should not take this dedication for granted. This current deployment may last for nine months, and that is nine months of time away from their families, their jobs, their education, and their lives. They realize the importance of their mission, and they are willing to make the sacrifices such a mission entails. Mr. President, I am encouraged by last week's vote in this chamber to increase base pay and benefits for our military forces. The men and women who dedicate their lives to keeping our nation safe need and deserve a pay raise. The decision to join the military is extraordinary, and those who do so need to be properly compensated. However, money has never been and never will be the motivating factor for people who wish to join the Armed Services. We must ensure that the soldiers in our military are not driven away from service by a poor quality-of-life standard. We can accomplish this by making sure that our military have adequate housing, a good, responsive medical care system, proper training and equipment, and support for their families. Even more importantly, we who are not actively involved in military service must continue to hold up individuals such as the 24th Company as exemplars of service and sacrifice in our country. Theirs are the stories that need to be told. In closing, I would like to give a personal ``Thank you'' to each and every one of the fifty-nine members of the Nebraska Army National Guard's 24th Medical Company. I wish you success in your journey and look forward to your return from what is the noblest mission in the Army, the mission to save lives.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to join Chairman Shelby in recommending to the Senate that Mr. James M. Simon be confirmed as the new Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Administration. Mr. Simon has demonstrated the essential qualities required for this position, and I believe the Director of Central Intelligence has acted wisely in proposing to the President Mr. Simon's nomination. I am glad the Director of Central Intelligence is fulfilling one of the obligations imposed by the Fiscal Year 1997 Intelligence Authorization Act. In that Act, Congress--after extended discussions among the relevant committees--created a new management structure for the Office of the DCI. That structure included the new positions of Assistant Directors of Central Intelligence--one for intelligence collection, one for intelligence analysis, and one for community administration. The nomination to be considered by the Senate, the Assistant Director for Administration, will help to play an important role in ensuring the Intelligence Community is effectively managed. To date, the DCI has taken the interim steps of appointing acting Assistant Directors for collection and for analysis. I expect Presidential nominations for these positions will be forthcoming soon. I must say, the Senate's wisdom in the Fiscal Year 1997 Intelligence Authorization Act has been confirmed by the DCI's interim appointments. Prior to the appointments of Mr. Charles Allen and Mr. John Gannon, Congress and the American people looked to the DCI to manage both the collection of intelligence information and the analysis of that information. Without any assistance in these areas, it was literally his personal responsibility. When the intelligence community fails to collect adequate information to prevent policy-makers from being surprised, Congress and the American people blame the DCI. Further, when the intelligence community fails to marshal its resources to analyze tough intelligence targets, Congress and the American people again blame the DCI. The blame was clear, for example, in last year's Indian nuclear test incident. Affixing the responsibility on the DCI was warranted, but he did not have the management structure in place to help him fulfill his responsibilities. The Fiscal Year 1997 Intelligence Authorization Act created a structure to help the DCI discharge his responsibilities and, following the Indian nuclear tests, the DCI began filling the new structure. So far, the results of Mr. Allen's and Mr. Gannon's work demonstrate that community-wide coordination is appropriate and sorely needed. Mr. Simon is eminently qualified. He is a career intelligence officer. He has demonstrated throughout his career the ability to make tough calls and to be held accountable for those calls. In his most recent assignment as the head of the CIA's Requirements Evaluation Staff, he has taken on a task to fix something that has long been broken. He is working on a way to place a value on the different kinds of intelligence we collect. To the uninitiated this may sound fairly unimportant and, perhaps, even easy. But is not. It is hard because it directly challenges the directors of the heads of the agencies within the Intelligence Community. For example, it forces the head of signals intelligence to justify the quality of his efforts relative to the efforts of another agency that controls human intelligence. It has a similar effect on judging the value of satellite collection relative to the other ways we obtain our intelligence information. No agency director likes this evaluation because it forces questions to be answered on such fundamental issues as to whether or not community-wide budget and personnel resources are being directed in the right areas. Directors naturally resist a comparison of the value of their agency's work versus the value of the work of other agencies. Nonetheless, Mr. Simon chose to take on the agency heads in the Intelligence Community because it was the right thing to do. The DCI has made an excellent choice in recommending Mr. Simon to the President. Mr. Simon should be confirmed by the Senate. I believe his services as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Administration will have a significant and lasting impact on the Intelligence Community. I urge my colleagues to support this nomination. The nomination considered and confirmed follows: central intelligence James M. Simon, Jr., of Alabama, to be Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Administration. (New Position)

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to make a few remarks concerning S. 314. I am pleased that the Senate took a step forward today to help small businesses prepare for the Year 2000 Problem. I am very concerned about Y2K's potential affect on small businesses and rural communities, particularly in my home state of Nebraska where technology is increasingly playing a vital role in all aspects of commerce. In addition to the many small businesses that use technology in everyday transactions, Nebraska is home to a growing high-technology industry that could be derailed if we fail to take additional steps to solve the Year 2000 problem. High-technology companies account for a significant portion of Nebraska's economic output. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, forty-four of every one-thousand private sector workers in Nebraska are employed by high-tech firms at an average salary of $37,000. Astonishingly, that's nearly $15,000 more than the average private sector wage. This rapidly growing sector of Nebraska's economy is a testament to the ingenuity and work ethic that characterize the citizens of our state. From the data processing industry in Omaha to the telecommunications and technology interests in Lincoln to electronic retail commerce and agribusiness interests in the panhandle, Nebraskans are using and developing unique technologies to improve their lives. It's clear that the information age has arrived on the plains as nearly one-fourth of Nebraska's exports come through high-tech trade. Currently, Nebraska ranks 32nd in high-tech employment and 38th in high-tech average wage. The hard work of community leaders across the state has encouraged new technology companies to put down roots in Nebraska. One of my top priorities is fostering the continued development of advanced communications networks and providing Nebraska's kids with the math, science and technology skills they need to become productive members of this industry. Telemedicine, distance learning and other telecommunications services offer exciting new possibilities for our businesses, schools and labor force. I mention these successes, to underscore how important technology has become not only to Nebraska's economy but to the nation's economy. S. 314 provides a new resource to guarantee that the nation's small businesses, high-tech and otherwise, will have somewhere to turn to for financial help in solving this difficult problem. I hope the House will follow the Senate's lead and quickly take up this important bill.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. I ask unanimous consent to speak for such time as necessary to get through this stack of paper.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business and Senators are permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

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

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, on the heels of passing a much-needed pay and benefits increase for the men and women who give up their freedom to serve us in our armed services, I want to direct my colleagues' attention to one longstanding military mission these men and women have been assigned. That is the mission of containing the threat of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Mr. President, I do this for a couple of reasons. First is that I have argued for a stronger military operation in Iraq. Indeed, I have argued to change the objective from containment to replacement. And oftentimes people come back and say, well, if we do that, we will risk lives. I would like to describe to my colleagues--in fact, we have a military operation going on today, have had since 1991; and this military operation is costing us dearly both in lives and in money. Mr. President, last Tuesday I had the opportunity to give a speech to the cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and they asked me to speak on patriotism, for which I was only too anxious to oblige. I talked to them about something that I think is causing the decline in enrollment--in addition to the inadequate pay and retirement benefits--and that is that Americans are less willing to volunteer for service in our Armed Forces as a consequence, in my judgment, of our not doing enough to tell them --especially our younger citizens--the stories of heroism which are being written every single day by the brave men and women who wear the uniform of one of our services. Instead of role models of people who have given themselves to a higher cause, Mr. President, unfortunately our young people are being told an increasing number of stories, especially on television, of self- gratification and indulgency. It is no wonder as a consequence that a patriotic decision to serve seems like a nonmainstream choice. Before I gave my speech at the Academy, the superintendent warned me I needed to remember how young my audience was. ``Half your audience,'' he said, ``wasn't even 10 years of age when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.'' Mr. President, I must tell you that gave me some pause because that seemed like yesterday that happened, but, in fact, a great deal of time has expired since then. For me, the statement was more than just a reminder to be careful what language I used when talking to these young people, but also a wakeup call not to take for granted the military mission that we have in place in Iraq today. It is a dangerous military operation. It is a military operation that costs us a great deal of money, and I hazard a guess that most of us who have looked at the objective of containing Saddam Hussein would say that the mission is dangerously close to unraveling. This military strategy began in August 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In response to this active aggression, the United States, under President Bush's leadership, assembled and led an international coalition of forces against Iraq. It was a costly war, both in terms of our financial commitment but also in terms of the human cost to the more than 540,000 men and women in our military forces deployed to the Persian Gulf. Sixty billion dollars was spent prosecuting the war, but this does not compare to the price paid by 389 American families who lost loved ones in Operation Desert Storm. At the end of the war, most Americans assumed our military commitment to Iraq would come to an end. After all, the war had been fought. We had been victorious. Saddam Hussein had sued for peace. It was time to bring home the troops. But almost from the beginning, Saddam Hussein refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire agreements his government had signed. From violating the no-fly zones to obstructing the work of weapons inspectors to provoking troop deployments, Iraq's continual challenges and our policy of containment forced us to maintain a very strong military presence in the region. With each crisis generated by the Iraqi regime, the United States and our allies responded to the deployment of more troops and at times with the use of military force. While it is difficult to quantify the monetary cost of the numerous redeployments and military confrontations that have taken place with Iraq over the last 8 years, it is even more difficult to quantify the effect these deployments have had on our troops. How many families have had to be separated for months at a time? What has been the cost in morale for troops deployed to the Desert? We must also examine the broader costs of our military strategy in Iraq. The continual need for large numbers of American troops in Saudi Arabia has created a strong sense of resentment throughout the Arab world, and it has also increased the danger of terrorist acts against Americans. Again, I have urged a different military strategy with a different objective in the past. The reason I bring this story to the floor, Mr. President, is oftentimes people will say, ``Americans don't want to risk the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in a military operation.'' In 1996, 19 Americans were killed in the Khobar Towers bombing and they died as a result of the anger directed at the American military presence in the gulf. Indeed, the terrorist bombings of U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, in which 12 Americans were killed, were directed by Osama bin Laden, a man who had been stripped of his Saudi citizenship for financing Islamic militants in Algeria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Today, bin Laden remains at large and remains a significant threat not just to people of the world but especially to American citizens around the world. The reason he is a threat and the reason he has killed not just Americans but Kenyans is we are deploying a military operation in Saudi Arabia. It is our presence that he objects to. It is our presence and our military strategy that is being met with his terrorist activities. Again, I raise these points because I think we have a tendency to forget the price that we paid for our policy in Iraq. We forget the price that we are paying today for our policy in Iraq. This policy has been described as containment. It has been expensive and, in my judgment, it has failed. Recent events may indicate that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The Iraqi people may be closer to their freedom than at any time in years. America must be prepared for sudden change in that country. The Iraqi people are suffering. The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein is among the most brutal and repressive in the world. Americans can be proud of the leading role we are playing in confronting this dictatorship. Last fall President Clinton and Congress took a big step towards delegitimizing Saddam by passing and signing the Iraqi Liberation Act. The world was placed on notice that America wanted to see Saddam's dictatorship gone and would work with democratic opposition groups to attain that goal. The administration and our British allies took another big step in December with the Desert Fox airstrikes. By attacking the underpinnings of Saddam's power, the Special Republican Guards and the intelligence services, Operation Desert Fox reduced Saddam's ability to terrorize his people and showed Iraqis we and our allies were truly opposed to Saddam in a way previous air campaigns had not done. Saddam responded to Desert Fox by undertaking regular violations of the northern and southern no-fly zones, trying to entice allied aircraft into air defense missile ambushes. The allied counter has been highly effective. Rather than simply chasing retreating Iraqi aircraft, United States and allied warplanes have been attacking the Iraqi air defense missile and radar and communication sites, which would support such ambushes. Almost every day so far in 1999 we have attacked some Iraqi air defense installation in response to a no-fly zone violation. The effectiveness and readiness of Saddam's air defense forces decline daily. Equally important, the complete impotence of Saddam's military relative to the allies is made plain to all Iraqis. In military terms, the Iraqi regime has never looked weaker. Last weekend, the world saw signs of a political rally to match the decline of Iraq's military. The Grand Ayatollah of the Shiites, the spiritual leader of 65 percent of Iraqis who are Shiite Muslims, was murdered Thursday night with two of his sons. According to press reports, the Grand Ayatollah had reportedly opposed the regime's directive to all Muslims that they pray at home rather than at Friday services in mosques. Opposition sources said the Grand Ayatollah had preached against the regime and had blamed it for the misery of Iraqis. Perhaps for these reasons, Shiite Muslim Iraqis suspected the government of the crime and took to the streets in Baghdad and in several southern cities. The Iraqi opposition groups claim scores, perhaps hundreds, of Iraqis were killed in the government's harsh response. Two other Shiite leaders of international reputation have also been mysteriously murdered in southern Iraq within the last year. The murder of the Grand Ayatollah, coming on these earlier murders and in the background of longstanding Shiite resistance to Saddam's regime, sparked demonstrations and violent government responses in Baghdad and several other cities, according to opposition reports. By Sunday night, the regime had apparently quelled the demonstrations. The human cost and the extent of continuing Shiite hostility to Saddam's regime are simply not known to us, but the episode demonstrates the Iraqi government's lack of legitimacy in the eyes of its people, as well as the extent to which Saddam would go to suppress any opposition. The episode reveals a weakening Iraqi regime lashing out in an increasingly desperate effort to maintain power. When dictatorships act this way, it may signal that their end is near. But when the end comes, it may come quickly. The question will be, Is America prepared for the end? If we have done our homework on the various Iraqi opposition groups and actively supported the groups which qualify under the criteria set forth in the Iraq Liberation Act, we will be well positioned to help Iraq make the transition to democracy. However, if we delay full implementation of the act and take a wait- and-see posture toward the opposition, we should not be surprised if our influence on events in post-Saddam Iraq is slight. Similarly, if we do not have humanitarian supplies ready to be forwarded to Iraq as soon as Saddam falls, and if we do not have international consensus for forgiving the debts of a post-Saddam Iraq, we should not be surprised to see him replaced by another hostile dictator. Mr. President, we have a vital national interest in Iraq's future. The lives of young Americans are invested there--our honored dead from the gulf war, as well as from the terrorist attack on Khobar Towers. The valor of our young warriors--now being demonstrated daily in the skies over Iraq--is invested there. Tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines have spent months of their lives on deployments to the Persian Gulf and to Turkey in support of the U.S. policy to contain Iraq. We have invested billions of dollars supporting this policy: $1.36 billion on deployments in fiscal year 1998 alone, and $800 million so far in fiscal year 1999. The American people have made this heavy investment and they have the right to a good return--a democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors and with its people, so we can bring our troops, ships, and planes home for good. To attain this return, we must be ready for an internal crisis in Iraq, which could occur sooner than we expect. Mr. President, on later occasions, I intend to come to the floor to describe why I believe a policy other than containment is necessary. I understand there are people who are very suspicious and very guarded in their assessments of our success. But I ask them merely to look at previous examples of where the United States of America has been successful in the face of considerable skepticism about our ability to get that done. In addition, Mr. President, we have, as I have tried to outline here, a considerable military investment and a risky operation going on today that puts every single one of these men and women, their health, safety, and well-being at risk, and we should not and dare not take that for granted. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I welcome a discussion in the Senate about military pay and retirement benefits. Review of these and other quality of life issues in today's military is long overdue. The defense debate in recent years has centered on equipment procurement, readiness issues, and the wisdom of our nation's troop deployments and foreign policy. This year we should turn to consider the men and women who dedicate their lives to keeping our nation safe. Military service requires valor and sacrifice. It attracts a certain type of individual, a person with the character to lead, the resolve to complete a task however difficult and demanding, and the willingness to sacrifice his or her life for fellow soldiers and country. For those reasons, the decision to join the military has always been unlike the decision to join any other profession. The unparalleled strength of our economy in recent years, and the growth of new technologies and industries, further complicate the decision to serve in the military. Just as our society has entered a new age of technological change, the United States Military has also entered a new era of digital warfare, where the machinery of battle is more reliant upon silicon chips than hard steel. To keep these processors and equipment running, our military needs to attract and retain highly skilled, intelligent men and women. Today, our Defense Department must also compete for recruits with Microsoft and Price Waterhouse Coopers as well as companies in more traditional industries. The Defense Department cannot do that by offering a second-tier pay scale which lags significantly behind the private sector. If we want the best and the brightest, we have to be willing to pay them accordingly. I welcome the Administration's decisions to increase military pay by 4.4% and to renew the retirement program that offers benefits of fifty percent military pay for twenty years service. These policies seek to restore equity in compensation for military personnel, and properly reward those who have committed twenty years of their lives to protect our nation. Yet, I do not believe the Administration's military pay proposal goes far enough to resolve the inequity. Therefore, I support S. 4, the Soldiers', Sailors', Airmen's, and Marines' Bill of Rights Act of 1999, because this legislation does more to provide financial security to our uniformed men and women. My colleagues understand that the nature of pay and benefits in the United States military is unlike pay considerations within our private sector and compensation practices in other nations' militaries. Within our private sector, the issue of compensation is the primary focus for the vast majority of Americans when deciding between competing job offers. In other nations that lack strong democratic principles and a tradition of rule of law, foreign leaders use relatively high pay for soldiers to assure military support for their government. But in the United States, pay is not the primary reason people join the military. Some join for the experience of military service, for the mental and physical challenges that our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines place upon young men and women, and the sense of accomplishment that comes from meeting those challenges. Some join as a means to an education, to partake of the G.I. Bill and other post-service education benefits. Yet, while not always the primary motivating factor, the men and women who serve our country always do so out of a sense of patriotism. They choose to commit the time and effort of their youth, join organizations with unique cultures distinct from contemporary institutions, forego at least temporarily the chance for greater wealth, and risk physical harm and possibly death, to repay our nation for the freedoms and opportunities they as citizens enjoy. Money never has been and never will be the primary deciding factor for people seeking to join, or deciding whether to stay, in the U.S. military. But, on the margin--the always important margin--the size of a military paycheck does make a difference. S. 4 may not fully correct the deficiency in military pay, but it is at least a significant step along the way. I understand the concerns raised by many of my colleagues about the budgetary ramifications of this bill. S. 4 provides a rise in pay of 4.8% for fiscal year 2000, a substantial increase from the Administration's proposed 4.4% pay raise. Either of these increases will have ramifications on military procurement, on research and development, on operations and maintenance accounts that support readiness, and other areas of the defense budget as well. Similarly, S. 4 provides a pay raise for fiscal year 2001 and beyond of one percent above the level of the Employment Cost Index. This is a statutory commitment whose cost we cannot today determine with any suitable degree of accuracy. While we may decide to accept these increases, the consequences of these policies need to be reviewed and resolved within the context of the entire defense budget. Also, there are currently three studies underway examining military pay and pension issues, conducted by the Congressional Budget Office, the General Accounting Office, and the Department of Defense. These studies are examining how factors other than pay such as high operations tempo, lack of essential material and equipment, declining state of readiness, concern over military health care services, job dissatisfaction, and a booming civilian economy may affect the decision to join and remain in the military. Once we receive the conclusions and recommendations of these studies, we should again revisit the issues surrounding military retention and recruitment. Already, as a consequence of amendments which have been attached to this bill, the Senate has accepted an unfunded liability of approximately $16.5 billion. Currently, there are no offsets in the legislation to address this liability. It is my sincere desire that this issue is addressed and offsets are determined when the bill goes into conference with the House. If these costs remain outstanding when the bill returns to the Senate, I will have strong reservations about voting for unfunded liabilities a second time. The tight caps and fiscal discipline I have supported throughout this decade do not start creating real on-budget surpluses until FY2001. This year's surplus is created entirely by excess payroll taxes and interest on the Social Security Trust Funds. So I am concerned that the Senate is considering legislation that may bust the cap so early in the legislative season. I encourage my colleagues to maintain our recent tradition of fiscal discipline and seek ways to pay for this bill within the current budget caps. Nevertheless, our military is only as secure as the people that operate the guns, ships, planes, and terminals that help keep our nation safe. The men and women in our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are the strength of our military, not the equipment which they utilize. If providing some level of monetary security to our military personnel means we must forsake some weapons or postpone some research, I believe this tradeoff will actually enhance our national security far more than the alternative. S. 4 goes a long way towards putting our military pay scale on the same footing as private sector wages. It improves the retirement and educational benefits available to our military personnel. For those reasons, I support the passage of this legislation.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, last year, Senator Gorton and I introduced a bill that addressed a growing problem faced by local governments in the new era of state electric utility restructuring. That bill had the bipartisan co-sponsorship of almost a dozen Senators. On February 6, we reintroduced this legislation as the Bond Fairness and Protection Act. This bill will ensure Nebraskans continue to benefit from the publicly-owned power they currently receive. Nebraska has 154 not-for-profit community-based public power systems. It is the only state which relies entirely on public power for electricity. This system has served my state well as Nebraskans enjoy some of the lowest rates in the nation. Approximately 18 states have already moved toward permitting new competition in the electric industry. However, the federal tax rules governing municipal bond financing did not anticipate the new era of electric utility restructuring when they were crafted more than a decade ago. If Congress does not act, public power systems that open their transmission lines to privately owned utilities can jeopardize the status of their outstanding tax-exempt bonds. The legislation my colleagues and I introduced is an equitable solution to the problem. Under this legislation, local governments determine how their future municipal power debt will be treated. According to the US Department of Energy, my own state had over $2.2 billion in outstanding municipal power bond debt in 1996. Our bill protects local governments that issued public power bond debt in the past, yet gives them the flexibility to issue new, but fully taxable debt if they choose to build any new power generation facilities in the future. Specifically, our legislation provides them with an option: they may either choose to operate under current, so called ``private use'' rules in our tax code. Or if they prefer, they can choose to make a one-time irrevocable election that will allow them to build new power generation facilities if they want, but only using fully taxable bonds instead of tax-exempt financing. It is important we recognize and respect local governments may face unique situations in public power financing issues as the electricity market changes, and we give them reasonable and fair choices. Congress may or may not choose to move forward this year on the larger and more complex issues involved in restructuring the electricity marketplace. But I feel we must act to solve this special problem this year. Our local governments should not face unfair retroactive bond taxation triggered by old federal tax rules in conflict with the new state-mandated laws or regulations. This legislation weighs the interests of local governments, bondholders, consumers, and public and private utilities. It will enable Nebraska public power systems to make decisions in the best interests of their consumers and protect the reliable, affordable electric service that Nebraska currently enjoys.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, in the impeachment case of President Clinton I have read the depositions, reviewed the massive volume of evidence and carefully followed the detailed presentations of both the House managers and the President's counsel. The instructions for my decision come from two places: the oath I took to do impartial justice and the Constitution of the United States. Nebraskans, including me, are angry about the President's behavior. We find it deplorable on every level. It has permanently and deservedly marred his place in history. But impeachment is not about punishing an individual; it is about protecting the country. We punish a President who behaves immorally, lies and otherwise lacks the character we demand in public office with our votes. Presidents are also subject to criminal prosecution when they leave office. Impeachment must be reserved for extreme situations involving crimes against the state. Why? Because the founders of our country and the framers of our Constitution correctly placed stability of the republic as their paramount concern. They did not want Congress to be able to easily remove a popularly elected President. They made clear they intended a decision to impeach to be used to protect the nation against only the highest of crimes. On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives, on an almost straight party-line vote, approved and delivered to the Senate two articles of impeachment. The Constitution permits me to judge and decide upon only these articles, not to wander through all of the President's conduct looking for any reason for removal. Some Nebraskans have told me the President should be removed from office by the Congress because he is no longer trusted, has lost the respect of many, and has displayed reprehensible behavior. As strong as those feelings are, the Constitution does not provide for overturning an election even if all of these things are true. Three recent letters to the editor in the Omaha World-Herald help make the point. The first, from a man in Kearney, says that by voting to dismiss the trial, I ``voted to support sexual harassment,'' among other things. A second, from Honey Creek, Iowa, raises allegations regarding the President and China, says he is ``dangerous'' and urges Senator Hagel and I to ``oust him now.'' The third, from Omaha, reminds readers of an often quoted comment I once made about the President's credibility and asks how, in light of that, I could vote to leave him in office. However, the House did not charge the President with these offenses. Impeachment is not a judgment of a President's character, all his actions, or even his general fitness for office. We make those decisions every four years at the ballot box. Our job in contemplating the extraordinary step of overturning an election is to judge only those charges the House actually brought. Because the premium on Constitutional stability is so high, I decided to judge the case against the strictest possible standard: proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, the President can be convicted only if there is no reasonable interpretation of the facts other than an intent to commit perjury and obstruction of justice. The following is a summary of my analysis of this case: Article One accuses the President of perjury in his August 17, 1998, testimony to a Federal grand jury, during which he waived his rights against self incrimination. Most important in determining guilt or innocence is the rule of law governing perjury, which makes it clear that a person has not committed perjury just because they misled or even lied. Perjury occurs when a false statement is made under oath with willful intent to mislead in a material matter. Lying is immoral; perjury is illegal. I should not accuse the President of ignoring the rule of law and then ignore it myself in making a judgment. After reading and watching the President's grand jury testimony, listening to the arguments of the House managers and the President's lawyers, discussing this case with prosecutors and reviewing the impeachment trial of U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings, I have concluded the President did not commit the crime of perjury beyond a reasonable doubt. I frequently found the President's testimony maddening and misleading, but I did not find it material to a criminal act. Article Two accuses the President of obstructing justice in seven instances. The House managers relied on circumstantial evidence, saying that common sense provides only one conclusion about why the President acted the way he did. However, the direct evidence, including the testimony of Monica Lewinsky herself, rebutted the circumstantial evidence. Second, while the House managers were correct in saying that common sense could lead to a conclusion that the President intended to obstruct justice, common sense could also lead to other reasonable conclusions about the reasons for his actions. Third, with respect to the allegations of obstructing justice in the civil case, Paula Jones' lawsuit was thrown out, then eventually settled. In the end, justice was done. As reprehensible as I find the President's behavior to be, I do not believe that high crimes and misdemeanors as defined by the Framers have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, I will vote to acquit on both Articles. My vote to acquit is not a vote to exonerate. While there is plenty of blame to go around in this case, the person most responsible for it going this far is the President of the United States. He behaved immorally, recklessly and reprehensibly. These were his choices. In the final analysis, they do not merit removal, but they do merit condemnation. While I am confident this vote is the right one--not just for this case, but as a precedent for future Congresses and Presidents too--I understand that reasonable people could reach the opposite conclusion. The bitterness in America on both sides of this debate has saddened me. I hope and pray that with this vote behind us the people's Congress can return without rancor to the important work of our country.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce this proposal to provide critical support to teaching programs at free- standing children's hospitals. I am also honored to be joined by Senators Bond, Kennedy, Durbin, DeWine, Moynihan, Graham, Gorton, Inouye, Mack, and Murray as original cosponsors. And I am gratified to note that the President's budget submission for FY 2000 also includes funding for teaching programs at these hospitals. Children's hospitals play an important role in our nation's health care system. They combine high-quality clinical care, a vibrant teaching mission and leading pediatric biomedical research within their walls. They provide specialized regional services, including complex care to chronically ill children, and serve as safety-net providers to low-income children. Teaching is an inherent component of these hospitals' day-to-day operations. These hospitals train twenty-nine percent of the nation's pediatricians, and the majority of America's pediatric specialists. Pediatric residents develop the skills they need to care for our nation's children at these institutions. In addition, these hospitals effectively combine the joint missions of teaching and research. Scientific discovery depends on the strong academic focus of teaching hospitals. The teaching environment attracts academics devoted to research. It attracts the volume and spectrum of complex cases needed for clinical research. And the teaching mission creates the intellectual environment necessary to test the conventional wisdom of day-to-day health care and foster the questioning that leads to breakthroughs in research. Because these hospitals combine research and teaching in a clinical setting, these breakthroughs can be rapidly translated into patient care. Children's hospitals have contributed to advances in virtually every aspect of pediatric medicine. Thanks to research efforts at these hospitals, children can survive once-fatal diseases such as polio, grow and thrive with disabilities such as cerebral palsy, and overcome juvenile diabetes to become self-supporting adults. Through patient care, teaching and research, these hospitals contribute to our communities in many ways. However, their training programs--and their ability to fulfill their critical role in America's health care system--are being gradually undermined by dwindling financial support. Maintaining a vibrant teaching and research program is more expensive than simply providing patient care. The nation's teaching hospitals have historically relied on additional support-- support beyond the cost of clinical care itself--in order to finance their teaching programs. Today, competitive market pressures provide little incentive for private payers to contribute towards teaching costs. At the same time, the increased use of managed care plans within the Medicaid program has decreased the availability of teaching dollars through Medicaid. Therefore, Medicare's support for graduate medical education is more important than ever. Independent children's hospitals, however, serve an extremely small number of Medicare patients. Therefore, they do not receive Medicare graduate medical education payments to support their teaching activities. The most significant source of graduate medical education financing is, in large part, not available to these hospitals. This proposal will address, for the short-term, this unintended consequence of current public policy. It will provide time-limited support to help children's hospitals train tomorrow's pediatricians, investigate new treatments and pursue pediatric biomedical research. It will establish a four-year fund, which will provide children's hospitals with Federal teaching payments that are based on their per resident costs and the complexity of their patient population. Total spending over four years will be less than a billion dollars. This proposal does not solve the fundamental dilemma of how to cover the cost of training our nation's doctors. Congress has charged the Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare with developing recommendations on this important question--and Congress has directed the Commission to examine teaching support for children's hospitals within these recommendations. I believe the Commission's recommendation will recognize the need to include children's hospitals within the framework of graduate medical education. But in the meantime, this proposal provides the support these hospitals need until these broader questions are answered and addressed. All American families have great dreams for their children. These hopes include healthy, active, happy childhoods, so they seek the best possible health care for their children. And when these dreams are threatened by a critical illness, they seek the expertise of highly- trained pediatricians and pediatric specialists, and rely on the research discoveries fostered by children's hospitals. All families deserve a chance at the American dream. Through this legislation, we will help children's hospitals--hospitals such as Children's Hospital in Omaha, Boys' Town, St. Louis Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital in Boston, Children's Hospital in Seattle+ and others--train the doctors and do the research necessary to fulfill this dream. Through this legislation, Congress will be doing its part to help American families work towards a successful future. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce this proposal to provide critical support to teaching programs at free- standing children's hospitals. I am also honored to be joined by Senators Bond, Kennedy, Durbin, DeWine, Moynihan, Graham, Gorton, Inouye, Mack, and Murray as original cosponsors. And I am gratified to note that the President's budget submission for FY 2000 also includes funding for teaching programs at these hospitals. Children's hospitals play an important role in our nation's health care system. They combine high-quality clinical care, a vibrant teaching mission and leading pediatric biomedical research within their walls. They provide specialized regional services, including complex care to chronically ill children, and serve as safety-net providers to low-income children. Teaching is an inherent component of these hospitals' day-to-day operations. These hospitals train twenty-nine percent of the nation's pediatricians, and the majority of America's pediatric specialists. Pediatric residents develop the skills they need to care for our nation's children at these institutions. In addition, these hospitals effectively combine the joint missions of teaching and research. Scientific discovery depends on the strong academic focus of teaching hospitals. The teaching environment attracts academics devoted to research. It attracts the volume and spectrum of complex cases needed for clinical research. And the teaching mission creates the intellectual environment necessary to test the conventional wisdom of day-to-day health care and foster the questioning that leads to breakthroughs in research. Because these hospitals combine research and teaching in a clinical setting, these breakthroughs can be rapidly translated into patient care. Children's hospitals have contributed to advances in virtually every aspect of pediatric medicine. Thanks to research efforts at these hospitals, children can survive once-fatal diseases such as polio, grow and thrive with disabilities such as cerebral palsy, and overcome juvenile diabetes to become self-supporting adults. Through patient care, teaching and research, these hospitals contribute to our communities in many ways. However, their training programs--and their ability to fulfill their critical role in America's health care system--are being gradually undermined by dwindling financial support. Maintaining a vibrant teaching and research program is more expensive than simply providing patient care. The nation's teaching hospitals have historically relied on additional support-- support beyond the cost of clinical care itself--in order to finance their teaching programs. Today, competitive market pressures provide little incentive for private payers to contribute towards teaching costs. At the same time, the increased use of managed care plans within the Medicaid program has decreased the availability of teaching dollars through Medicaid. Therefore, Medicare's support for graduate medical education is more important than ever. Independent children's hospitals, however, serve an extremely small number of Medicare patients. Therefore, they do not receive Medicare graduate medical education payments to support their teaching activities. The most significant source of graduate medical education financing is, in large part, not available to these hospitals. This proposal will address, for the short-term, this unintended consequence of current public policy. It will provide time-limited support to help children's hospitals train tomorrow's pediatricians, investigate new treatments and pursue pediatric biomedical research. It will establish a four-year fund, which will provide children's hospitals with Federal teaching payments that are based on their per resident costs and the complexity of their patient population. Total spending over four years will be less than a billion dollars. This proposal does not solve the fundamental dilemma of how to cover the cost of training our nation's doctors. Congress has charged the Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare with developing recommendations on this important question--and Congress has directed the Commission to examine teaching support for children's hospitals within these recommendations. I believe the Commission's recommendation will recognize the need to include children's hospitals within the framework of graduate medical education. But in the meantime, this proposal provides the support these hospitals need until these broader questions are answered and addressed. All American families have great dreams for their children. These hopes include healthy, active, happy childhoods, so they seek the best possible health care for their children. And when these dreams are threatened by a critical illness, they seek the expertise of highly- trained pediatricians and pediatric specialists, and rely on the research discoveries fostered by children's hospitals. All families deserve a chance at the American dream. Through this legislation, we will help children's hospitals--hospitals such as Children's Hospital in Omaha, Boys' Town, St. Louis Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital in Boston, Children's Hospital in Seattle+ and others--train the doctors and do the research necessary to fulfill this dream. Through this legislation, Congress will be doing its part to help American families work towards a successful future. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. Chief Justice, will the manager answer the question and then show that again? This is the second time he has shown a tape of the President without indicating which deposition it was.

Mr. KERREY. Can I ask the manager to identify which deposition this is? Mr. Manager HUTCHINSON. This is the January deposition.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, while the nation's eyes are turned toward Washington and the Senate impeachment trial, I would like to briefly turn the nation's eyes away from Washington and toward the economic catastrophe that is devastating our family farmers. Prices are falling at alarming rates, and family farms are perishing, as rural America faces its worst crisis since the Great Depression. And to some, it may appear as though Nero is fiddling while Rome burns. So I want to assure my constituents--and indeed all family farmers across our great nation--that while Congress spends it time deciding the fate of the President, some members have not lost sight of their daily struggle to make ends meet, and their fate. On Tuesday, along with Minority Leader Daschle and several other farm state Democratic Senators, we introduced the Agricultural Safety Net and Market Competitiveness Act of 1999. With this legislation we intend to restore an economic safety net to producers and rural communities so that they can remain vital during these times of economic hardship. As well, we proposed ways in which we can revitalize markets--both domestic and abroad--so that all American producers have a fair shot to compete in the marketplace. We also introduced a bill, S. 30, to offset extreme losses to our producers resulting from severe economic and weather-related events. I want my constituents and all family farmers to know that I will welcome the day when we can turn our attentions toward doing the business of the American people, and more specifically American farmers. In the January 18, 1999 edition of the Lincoln Journal Star, farm journalist Alan Guebert wrote a thought provoking piece describing 10 ways in which the average American and American farmer can help regain the power they have lost and continue to lose during this economic catastrophe. I urge my colleagues to take a moment to read this very important article, and I ask that Mr. Guebert's article be printed in the Record. The article follows. [From the Lincoln Journal Star, January 18, 1999] (By Alan Guebert) In the nearly 100 farmer calls, letters, e-mails and faxes to this office in the first two weeks of 1999, the central theme in most was the same: farmer powerlessness. Many correspondents cited farmers' dwindling share of the retail food dollar as evidence of their growing powerlessness. Others likened supersized, globalized businesses--packers and grain companies being the favored targets--to power-taking, farmer-breaking, peasant-making monsters. And still other suggested ``free, but not fair trade'' drains them of market power. Despite the woe-filled times, farmers are not powerless. There are many things all can do individually to claim, or reclaim, the power they feel has been vacuumed from them. Here's a list of 10 actions farmers or ranchers can take to be empowered: 1. Get informed. If information is power--and it is--the inverse must be that ignorance is powerlessness. Go to the library, get on the Internet, read the newspaper, turn off the television. And don't read, listen or view just the ag press. We're some of the duller knives in the journalism drawer. Include nonag sources, too, such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post Weekly Edition and National Public Radio's Morning Edition. 2. Sign a checkoff recall petition. Petitions are circulating for recall votes in both the pork and beef checkoffs. This year also should bring a recall petition for the soybean checkoff. It's your right to petition and your right to vote. Secure it, then exercise it. 3. Write your U.S. representatives and senators to demand full, open and immediate price reporting in all ag markets. Don't ask for it; demand it. The only entity that can make the present hide-and-seek system work are integrators. And not in just today's livestock markets. Tomorrow's grain markets will be equally messy if the current price reporting system is not pried open so all farmers have equal standing and full information when approaching the market. 4. Don't buy from firms that are destroying farm markets and rural communities. Holdover from the '60s, heh? Positively. You don't have to buy eggs from a sleazy company that violates every state pollution law on the books; you don't need to buy chicken from a firm that buys members of Congress and Cabinet members; and you don't have to buy livestock feed--at whatever price--from the integrated conglomerate that is building hog units and destroying your neighbors' businesses and families. And sure, withholding your nickels and dimes may not stop the inevitable. But it won't finance it either. 5. Join a farm organization--any of them--and get involved. You can't hit the game-winning home run if you're not a player. 6. Make 1999 the year you reclaim your co-ops, especially your regional co-ops. It--and as a stockholder, really you-- should not be in the business of ruining the livestock industry and building a fabulously well-paid bureaucracy in the process. If you reshape it from its present vertical structure to a more horizontal structure--the co-op shape your grandfather envisioned--more of its profits will come back to co-op's owners. That's you. 7. Push, prod, poke, pound and humiliate Congress to pass tough, meaningful campaign finance reform. The present system is a dollar democracy, owned and operated by well-oiled influence peddlers and puppeteers who make politicians dance like an organ grinder's monkey. It is the very rotten core of your growing powerlessness. 8. The United States grows billions of pounds of beef and not one pound of bananas. Yet this administration will fight for the handful of very rich U.S. banana exporters and not impose similar import tariffs on European goods in support of 900,000 U.S. cattlemen (See No. 7.) Every farm group and every farmer should make exposing this sham one of their top five priorities in 1999. 9. Draw the line and categorically oppose every new agribusiness merger. Every one. Why is the farmer's share of the food dollar dwindling? Largely because big--and getting bigger--corporations have strengthened their holds on choke points in the food chain until they choke their profits out of you. 10. Don't quit. To paraphrase an old axiom, all it takes for bad ideas to further dominate agriculture is for good people--you--to do nothing.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, it is with pleasure that I join Senators Moynihan, Roth, Kennedy and Jeffords on their significant initiative to expand work opportunities for Americans with disabilities. As Americans, we value the opportunity to support ourselves and our families to the best of our abilities. In fact, we refer to this right and this responsibility as the American dream. But today, millions of Americans who want to work remain on various forms of public assistance, because they can't access the supports they need to begin and continue working. People with disabilities face unique barriers to self-sufficiency. Many of them need certain types of health services, such as home health care and personal care services, in order to work--yet these services are rarely available under employer-sponsored health insurance. Many of them find private health insurance unavailable or unaffordable. Some need vocational rehabilitation services and help finding employment. Others need assistive technology in order to do their job. Currently, health care coverage and other services are linked to two cash programs--Social Security Disability (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income. So people with disabilities must choose whether they want to reach self-sufficiency and risk losing their health coverage and other supportive services, or retain their health insurance but remain dependent on these safety-net programs. At the same time, without personal attendants or other supportive services, they may not be able to work in the first place, or no longer be able to work if their health status is threatened by the loss of the services they can access through health coverage. I do not believe that people who wish to work and support themselves should face this kind of agonizing choice and take these types of risks. However, we can change this Catch-22. The Work Incentives Improvement Act will make several important changes. Most significantly, it will provide new options for Medicaid and Medicare coverage for disabled individuals who enter the workforce, and expand access to employment services for disabled individuals who are building their employment skills. By enabling workers with disabilities to buy-in to the Medicaid program, this legislation will permit Americans with disabilities to enter the workforce without worrying about losing the prescription drug coverage, personal care services, and other health care services they need to work in the first place. It also allows States to establish sliding-scale premiums for workers with higher incomes, therefore ensuring that as workers' income increases, they maintain their health coverage but are less financially dependent on public programs. This proposal will also allow States to continue covering people whose health condition has improved through treatment made possible through Medicaid coverage. Finally, through a ten-year demonstration, the Work Incentives Improvement Act will determine whether permitting SSDI beneficiaries to continue their Medicare coverage is a cost-effective strategy for providing health insurance to individuals who lose SSDI when they return to work. This legislation will also reduce barriers to employment for Americans with disabilities by providing new mechanisms for these individuals to receive the vocational rehabilitation and employment services they need from the providers they choose. In addition, it will encourage SSDI and SSI beneficiaries to develop their skills and venture into the workplace by providing a new assurance that their cash benefits will remain available, if necessary. These individuals may still lose their cash benefits, depending on their working income, but they can be assured that their SSDI and SSI eligibility application would be expedited if their work experience ultimately proves unsuccessful. As we look towards the next century, we know that America's economic strength and sense of national community are dependent on the contributions of each and every American. We need to take the necessary steps to ensure that all Americans will have a chance to enjoy the American dream. Americans with disabilities have the same dreams as the rest of us--including a productive and rewarding working life that enables them to support their families and achieve economic self- sufficiency. We should do our best to help make these dreams a reality.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I voted no on this Omnibus spending bill. I did so reluctantly, because most of what I know about it--which is contained in the pages about agriculture, education and other areas--I like. It is because of the several hundred pages that are a complete mystery to me that I vote no. Mr. President, democracy should not work this way. The people send us here to deliberate serious matters of public policy and to represent their interests and the nation's in the debate. In this case there was no debate, and it was not possible to represent anyone's interests because it is impossible to know how, if at all, those interests comport with a bill whose 3,800 pages were not even published until the dark of last night. Lest the American people be confused about why it has come to this, there is a simple answer. The majority party did not schedule Congress' time to do the work the people pay us to do. One of the Congress' most basic duties is to decide how the people's money is to be spent. That process involves the passage of 13 appropriations bills, of which we managed to pass a whopping total of five in several months. The majority party found ample time to debate matters of such crashing importance as the scourge of human cloning and the name of the airport from which most of us are going to flee this scene later today. Let there be no mistake about it: The necessity of a $500 billion omnibus bill did not arise from grand ideological disputes. It came from a failure, plain, simple and unadulterated, to do our jobs because the majority party chose to use the Congress' time to do other things. As a result, the American people suspect that what has happened over the last few days was a back-room deal involving hundreds of billions of dollars of their money being spent with no opportunity for their input, debate or, for that matter, even for their elected representatives to see the final product. Why is that? I submit the reason might be that this bill was a back-room deal involving hundreds of billions of dollars of their money being spent with no opportunity for their input, debate or, for that matter, even for their elected representatives to see the final product. Later today I intend to participate in a panel discussion featuring the senior Senator from New York, who will discuss his new book on secrecy and national security. His thesis is that excessive secrecy produces suspicion, mistakes and unnecessary costs. I completely agree with him. This budget process--which the Senator from New York has aptly noted moves us toward something akin to a parliamentary system in which decisions are made behind closed doors by a select few--proves that the Senator's thesis on secrecy in national security applies equally to secrecy in domestic policy. It breeds suspicion, and it breeds mistakes. There are few things I can say with certainty about this budget, since very few of its several thousand pages were available before yesterday, but I can predict one thing with total confidence: When the smoke clears and the budget is actually read, there are going to be things in it that would never have survived a public debate. The majority will protest that this last-minute flurry was caused by threats of vetoes from the President. I am not overly sympathetic on that point, Mr. President. The current occupant of that office has held it for six years. His views on appropriations bills are not a mystery sprung on the majority party at the last moment. He submitted a budget at the beginning of this year outlining what he wanted. He does not schedule the Senate's time for debate. We cannot go on like this year after year, Mr. President, taking money from the pockets of taxpayers and then huddling behind a closed door to negotiate among a select few--many of them unelected--how to spend it. This is not government of, by and for the people. It is only half in jest that I say, sadly, that it is more like government by four people. As I said, Mr. President, I cast my nay vote reluctantly because I am pleased with much of what I know about this bill. I am glad we succeeded in convincing the majority of the need to extend a helping hand to America's first industry--agriculture--at a time of grave crisis. I believe children in school are going to learn more and better because we are putting teachers in the classroom. I'm delighted the tax portion of this bill includes a provision much like a bill which I have introduced which would prevent working families from paying higher taxes by allowing them to deduct their child care, child and education credits under the Alternative Minimum Tax. This bill also provides a much-needed extension of the R&D tax credit and will help the self- employed, particularly farmers, by accelerating the deductible amount of their health insurance costs. At the same time, I am very disappointed the livestock price reporting provision, which I authored in the Senate, was dropped from this package. I do not believe the home health care problems we face will be ``solved'' by this bill and we should not be led to believe that the agriculture crisis in this country will come to an end as a result of this bill. In addition, I firmly believe that the thousands of people in this country waiting for organ transplants, will be hurt, not helped by further delay in issuing regulations governing organ transplant allocations. But what I object to the most is not what we know about this bill, but what we do not, and can not. You can stir up a lot of mischief in a bill that runs over 3,800 pages that no one has read. Maybe we can take some comfort in the hope that the 106th Congress will do better. We won't be perfect. But perhaps we can get a jump on our pursuit of perfection by acting like a democracy, then by doing the work we are paid to do. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge October 24-31 as the 13th annual observation of World Population Week. In particular, I draw to the attention of my colleagues the proclamation of World Population Awareness Week by the Governor of Nebraska, Ben Nelson. I ask that the full text of this proclamation be printed in the Record. The text follows: Whereas world population stands today at more than 5.9 billion and increases by more than 80 million per year, with virtually all of this growth in the least developed countries; Whereas the consequences of rapid population growth are not limited to the developing world but extend to all nations and to all people, including every citizen of the State of Nebraska concerned for human dignity, freedom and democracy, as well as for the impact on the global economy; Whereas 1.3 billion people--more than the combined population of Europe and North Africa--live in absolute poverty on the equivalent of one US dollar or less a day; Whereas 1.5 billion people--nearly one-quarter of the world population--lack an adequate supply of clean drinking water or sanitation; Whereas more than 840 million people--one-fifth of the entire population of the developing world--are hungry or mal- nourished; Whereas this unmet demand for family planning is projected to result in 1.2 billion unintended births; Whereas the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development determined that political and appropriate programs aimed at providing universal access to voluntary family planning, information, education and services can ensure world population stabilization at 8 billion or less rather than 12 billion or more; Now, therefore, I, E. Benjamin Nelson, Governor of the State of Nebraska, do hereby proclaim the week of October 25- 31, 1998 as World Population Awareness Week, and urge citizens of the State to take cognizance of this event and to participate appropriately in its observance. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing World Population Awareness Week.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise as a proud original cosponsor of legislation to establish a national Disabled Veterans Memorial here in Washington, DC. I am honored to join my fellow colleagues, veterans and friends Senators McCain and Cleland in establishing a memorial to the brave men and women who have served our Nation with honor and dignity, but have paid a grave price. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to establish and construct a memorial that is not only a tribute to our veterans, but will also serve the residents of the District as a place of civic and national pride. I will insist on an open and fair process as we move forward, and will be diligent in representing the best interests of the veterans, the District, the Nation, and the American people.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise as a proud original cosponsor of legislation to establish a national Disabled Veterans Memorial here in Washington, DC. I am honored to join my fellow colleagues, veterans and friends Senators McCain and Cleland in establishing a memorial to the brave men and women who have served our Nation with honor and dignity, but have paid a grave price. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to establish and construct a memorial that is not only a tribute to our veterans, but will also serve the residents of the District as a place of civic and national pride. I will insist on an open and fair process as we move forward, and will be diligent in representing the best interests of the veterans, the District, the Nation, and the American people.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. First the good news: We won. The Cold War, that is. Now the bad news: We may find the burden of winning that war as heavy as the burden of fighting it. I say that is the ``bad news,'' Mr. President, because it seems like bad news. But I believe it is both our destiny--a mantle that history has placed on our shoulders whether we like it or not--and an opportunity. The opportunity is this: the furnace in which American values are forged throughout the world is fiery hot, and its door is open. That furnace will not be hot forever, Mr. President. Our triumph in the Cold War dissolved an empire and set free the nations that had been chained up by it. The totalitarian idea was stripped of the thin threads of legitimacy to which its aging adherents continued to cling. The birth of freedom--the opportunity to build new institutions of democracy and world stability--opened. This furnace was hot, and still is, Mr. President, but the opportunity to build from the rubble of a fallen empire also brings turmoil. As what we hope are the transitional problems of economic instability, ethnic conflict, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cool and harden into habits, the door to that furnace of opportunity is closing. America has learned before that the smoldering embers of victory contain the fires of reignited conflict. Once in this century we got it wrong. After the first world war, we made the fatal mistake of a vengeful peace. The result was a second world war, after which we got much more right, especially our leadership in rebuilding a crumbled world. Now, like then, we are weary of war's toll, but now, like then, we must bear the burden of leadership in victory. And we must do it while the furnace is hot and the opportunity right. That, Mr. President, is why I am concerned that the 105th Congress is preparing to adjourn with too much foreign policy business left unfinished. The challenges we face around the world are burdens not just for this Congress, but for this country, for every American. The bell of leadership will toll for all of us, and we should not be surprised when it does. I want to outline just a few places where we may hear that call. First, we face a global economic meltdown. Economies throughout the world are slowing and more uncertainty seems to arise everyday. Over the past year we have seen how instability in the Asian financial markets can quickly spread and undermine the stability of the global economy. The impact has been devastating. Overnight, people in Asia and Russia have seen their entire life savings disappear. They have seen the chance to give their children an education and a shot at a better life evaporate. They have seen their standards of living plummet to the point where they must struggle to acquire basic necessities. Failure to act quickly to reverse the situation and promote global economic growth could consign an entire generation--who only months ago were on the verge of building a middle class--to a life of continued poverty. We must know that global prosperity is not possible without a strong U.S. economy. I am pleased with the recent decision by the Federal Reserve to cut U.S. interest rates; although I admit I wish they would have cut it further. As the economic engine that drives the world, we must be prepared to take bold action to ensure world economic growth. Let me be clear, not only do we seek to improve the lives of people around the world through economic growth, we act with an element of self interest. A healthy global economy is the surest way to maintain a robust economy in the United States. As the farmers in my state know, without markets for U.S. products abroad, our own prosperity is threatened. Should this economic crisis deepen, should we start seeing credible signs of global depression, this Congress and the Administration must be prepared to act boldly to stimulate economic growth. In that regard, I am pleased we are taking a proactive role in trying to prevent the economic crisis from spreading further to places like Latin America. We should continue to work cooperatively with other nations, like Japan, to assist them in implementing the kind of economic and legal reforms that will help them rebuild their economies. Out of this crisis, we are also learning that economic instability leads to political instability. We see this in Russia, where financial shocks have created a political crisis which threatens Russian democracy. The situation in Russia demands our attention. As a nation with a capability to launch thousands of nuclear weapons, we cannot afford to allow Russia to slip into anarchy. I still believe the Russian transition will be successful, but it will be measured in decades, not years. We must be prepared to help the Russian people over the long run to create a democratic system based on the rule of law. At the same time, we cannot allow the wealth of challenges we face both at home and abroad to embolden despotic leaders to flaunt international standards. Recent missile tests by North Korea only too clearly demonstrate the need to remain committed to the security of our friends in Asia. It refocuses our attention on this troubled region. A divided Korea is one of the few lingering vestiges of the Cold War. But a change there is inevitable. I see two potential scenarios on the Korea Peninsula. In the first scenario, North Korea will acquiesce to the tide of history, renounce totalitarianism, embrace democracy, and peacefully reunite with the South. In the other scenario, North Korea implodes into an irrational and dangerous nation threatening the peace and security not only of South Korea, but of the entire region. While we should strive to ensure the former scenario, we should prepare for the latter. First, we should reaffirm our military ties with South Korea and Japan. The 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea, and the tens of thousands stationed throughout Asia, should serve as ample warning of our intent to stand by our allies and respond to all threats. Second, we should continue to support South Korea as it rebuilds its economy and implements further democratic reforms. Finally, we must maintain our active containment of North Korea with the cooperation of all of our partners in the region. As we remain vigilant in Korea, we cannot release the pressure we have built on Saddam Hussein's regime. We are all concerned about Saddam's unwillingness to live up to his agreements, to fully disclose all information on his weapons of mass destruction programs, and to cooperate with United Nations Security Council Resolutions and mandates. Iraq's refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM monitors can not be allowed to go unchallenged. But ultimately, our success in Iraq will not come from winning a game of hide and seek with Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, but through the establishment of democracy in Iraq. We must change our policy from containment of Iraq to the replacement of Saddam Hussein with a democratic government. I am pleased legislation sponsored by Senator Lott and myself--designed to set the Iraqi people on the path to self- government--was recently passed by both the House and the Senate. As Americans, we should strive for no less. This policy is both noble, and with our assistance, possible. In the Balkans, recent election victories by Serbian hardliners in Bosnia once again raise concerns about the prospects for a lasting peace. While enormous progress has been made since the days of open warfare and ethnic cleansing, more must be done to assure that Bosnia will become a peaceful, multi-ethnic state. Let us be clear, the chance for peace in Bosnia did not come from a sudden willingness of the warring parties to come together. It came from our willingness to use our own military power. I am extremely proud of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who have served in Bosnia as a part of IFOR and SFOR. Their ability to bring peace to Bosnia is the best example of the effectiveness of U.S. leadership in the world. We should not forget that before the U.S. military intervention in Bosnia, our nightly news was filled with images of the destruction of Bosnian villages; of men, women, and children being gunned down in the streets of Sarajevo; and of families being separated and never seeing each other again. But because we acted--because men and women in America's armed forces put their lives on the line--the fighting was stopped, the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, and the people of Bosnia have been given the chance to return to a normal life. Ultimately, the success or failure of our efforts in Bosnia will be determined by the capability to fully implement the civilian components of the Dayton Accords and our ability to help the people of Bosnia establish democracy and the rule of law based on ethnic security. However, just as we allow ourselves to be hopeful for the people of Bosnia, we see more senseless killing of innocent civilians in the Balkans. The situation in Kosovo--while different and perhaps more complex than Bosnia--presents another challenge. Once again, we are faced with the question: do we have the resolve to confront Serb aggression and to halt the spread of ethnic conflict in the region? In answering this question, we must heed the lesson of Bosnia--at times, the credible use of force precedes diplomacy. Over the past few months, Serbia has been given ample warning by the international community that its policies of ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate destruction of villages, and brutality toward civilian populations would not go unchallenged. However, Mr. President, President Milosevic did not respond to the demands of the international community until NATO began serious consideration of military action. One of the reasons I voted for NATO enlargement earlier this year was my firm belief that the inclusion of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic--nations that had only recently thrown off the yoke of dictatorial regimes--would make the Alliance more willing to act in defense of freedom. Therefore, I was heartened to see President Vaclav Havel providing leadership and insisting that NATO respond to Serb action in Kosovo. I am hopeful that the agreement reached earlier this week will improve the prospects of peace in Kosovo and will avert the pending humanitarian crisis. But if we have learned one lesson in dealing with Slobodan Milosevic in the past it is this: believe his actions, not his words. Mr. President, as I look out onto the world these are only a few of the foreign policy challenges we face. I come before my colleagues today with a simple message: America must lead. But for America to lead, Congress must act. First, Congress must ensure a strong national defense. I am pleased that we have passed both the Defense Authorization and Appropriations Bills, which in my opinion are two of the most important pieces of legislation we pass on an annual basis. The United States maintains the best equipped and most skillfully trained military the world has ever seen. This is not bravado, but a fact. A fact that should serve as a constant reminder to any nation contemplating a challenge to our interests. A strong American military, one that's ready to deploy and one that's backed up by the will of the American people, is a tremendous deterrent, and is likely to prevent conflict and the need for U.S. intervention. Next, we must ensure that we maintain our intelligence capabilities. Americans should not suffer the illusion that we currently have the intelligence capacity to know everything that's going on in the world. We simply do not. We are not allocating enough resources to make certain our military is getting the intelligence it needs to identify threats and protect our national interests. But more importantly, we are not allocating enough resources to make certain policymakers are informed so that conflicts that might occur can be avoided. Mr. President, I believe we will not be able to allocate sufficient resources to our intelligence needs until we declassify the current budget and have a public debate about how we spend those dollars. As I look at the legacy of the 105th Congress, I see many areas in which we have failed to provide the leadership necessary to guide the United States through these troubled times. We have left an unfinished agenda that we must confront in the 106th Congress. Our first line of national defense is diplomacy. But we in Congress have spent far too little of our time and resources on ensuring we have a strong, well-financed diplomatic corps. In fact, as of today, the Senate has failed to act on over 20 State Department nominees-- including over 15 nominations for ambassadorial positions. How can the United States represent its interests abroad without having our diplomatic representatives in place? Like our military, we should strive to make our diplomatic corps the envy of the world. I am convinced a strong diplomatic presence would reduce the chance of having to use our military forces. In the same manner, Congressional refusal to provide funding to meet our international financial obligations puts a range of U.S. interests at risk. Currently, the United States owes over $1 billion in arrears to the United Nations. At a time in which we are trying to strip Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction programs through the auspices of UNSCOM and the U.N. Security Council, it would be foolish to believe that our failure to pay our debts does not impact our credibility. While I support efforts to reform U.N. operations, too often the payment of our arrears has been held hostage by those simply opposed to U.S. engagement in the world or by unrelated political debates. Former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci said it best: ``One thing is certain--we can't reform the U.N. if we're the biggest deadbeat.'' It's time for the United States to act like the most powerful nation in the world, it's time for Congress to pay our debts to the United Nations. This Congress has not done enough to promote arms control. Specifically, our failure to debate and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty during this Congress has relinquished our historic role as the leader in the effort to end the testing of nuclear weapons. Mr. President, the American people overwhelmingly support the Test Ban Treaty because they understand ratification of the treaty will give us new tools to fight the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology and will help us better monitor compliance of other nations. The nuclear tests conducted earlier this year by India and Pakistan highlight the danger that can arise when nations engage in nuclear brinkmanship. The potential consequences of increased tensions in the region arising from additional testing by India and Pakistan should cause each of us concern, and should elevate this issue to the top of our priority list. The recent declaration by the Prime Ministers of both India and Pakistan of their intention to join the CTBT offer hope that we can make this treaty work. When the 106th Congress reconvenes, the Senate must bring this treaty to the floor. We cannot insist that potential rogue nuclear states adhere to the precepts of the CTBT if the United States Senate gives it less time for debate than bills changing the names of airports. I spoke earlier about the challenge presented by the global economic crisis. One of the few tools the international community has for extinguishing the sudden brush fires of global crisis is the International Monetary Fund. In response to the crisis, President Clinton requested $18 billion to replenish the IMF's capital base. On two separate occasions, the Senate has overwhelmingly voted to provide this funding, sending a clear message of our belief that the threat to the prosperity of the American people is too great not to act. I am pleased with reports that the funding will be provided as a part of the FY99 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. While imperfect, the IMF is the only institution that pools the world's resources to address large-scale financial crises. Finally, I was disappointed by our failure to renew fast track authority for the President to negotiate future trade agreements. I believe it's unfortunate because without fast track authority it will be more difficult to negotiate reductions in non- tariff barriers throughout the world that would stimulate demand for American products and create jobs for American citizens. I have outlined a heavy burden, Mr. President, one whose weight may surprise us. Many Americans thought we won, no doubt, and that the burden of leadership--along with the cloud of danger--had passed. We did win, Mr. President, our blood and treasure struck a tremendous blow for freedom. Our pride is not diminished by the fact that our work is not done. Shortly before the Soviet Union fell, one of the great soldiers of the Cold War, General Colin Powell, met with General Jack Galvin-- commander of NATO--to discuss threats to our security. General Galvin wore a worried look on his face as he plodded through threat after threat after threat that remained. General Powell responded: ``Smile, Jack. We won.'' Smile, Mr. President. But we must also steel our will. The burden of war is behind us. The burden of victory remains.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, in the last 15 years America has been invaded by what has been known as information technology. Like the body snatchers of ``Alien'' that penetrated deep into the human body, computers and communication technologies have penetrated deep into our lives. Unfortunately, the ``Alien'' metaphor may not be apt since for the most part we have invited this force into our homes. We invited these technologies into our homes and our businesses because they allowed us to do things faster, to do things better and to do things cheaper. Among other things these technologies have reduced the cost of running a home, made our businesses more competitive, opened new markets by bringing buyers and sellers closer together, and expanded the horizons of our students not to mention adding entertainment value to our lives. The good news of computer and associated communication technology have been offset by our growing dependence. To see how much we are dependent one need only look at the high level of concern surrounding the Y2K problem. Computer software is written so that at a second after midnight on January 1, 2000, while hundreds of millions of humans will be celebrating the end of an old millennium and the beginning of a new, our computers will act as if it is January 1, 1900. To the machines this will be the equivalent of day light saving century. To some this is the beginning of a humorous and good news story: No income tax, a chance to correct the terrible mistakes of the past 100 years, and so forth. However, for those who operate our banking, emergency response, air traffic control, and power systems this will be nothing to laugh at. So dire are the predictions of some who understand how dependent on computers and software we have become that they talk as though they are storing up food and medical supplies just in case. None of this would have happened if the century had ended 20 years earlier because computers, chips, and microprocessors were not yet running things. Twenty years ago I was hearing people tell me about how computers were going to change the world. It would be 5 more years before I had my first personal computer: an Apple IIE. In 1983 portable computers were available to those with strong backs or a fork lift. E-mail was in its infancy. The internet was 10 years away from its grand opening to the public. Software was built into mainframes and was available to those who knew how to navigate the procession of prompts and confusing signs. Speed was a snail's pace. Capacity was like a rain drop in the desert. Mr. President, what happened in the past 20 years is that we were thirsty for the things a computer could do for us. Rapid and accurate calculations enabled even small businesses to get costs under control. Personal computers empowered us. Desk tops enabled us. Lap tops liberated. Decision making - once driven from the top down by men and women with MBA degrees--has been distributed outward and downward. Mr. President, now, any PC or Macintosh with average speed and power with state of the art connectivity makes its user a publisher, broadcaster, editor, opinion maker, and analyst of large amounts of previously confusing data. Advances in computer and telecommunications technology have spurred change and growth in our economy. These changes have generated wealth and jobs by creating new businesses and destroying old ones. Market oriented businesses have had to adjust or perish. Public institutions, because of the nature of democracy--in other words, Majority rules but narrow interests win elections--have been changing much more slowly. Slowly but surely the work of transferring knowledge from a teacher to a student is being done with the assistance of computers, software, and new systems where new skills are needed. The vision of this 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act is that this agency will move from a paper to an electronic world. The National Imaging and Mapping Agency--a consolidated combat support agency--will in a few years talk about maps as those things we used in the good old days back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. In fact, nowhere are the changes of the computer age more pronounced than in our military and intelligence gathering forces, which is what I choose to discuss on the floor today. Computers and communication technologies have made America's fighting forces stronger and more effective. We should be proud of the men and women who have trained and prepared themselves to take advantage of these new tools. However, we also need to be alert to a hard truth: With strength comes vulnerabilities. Just as Achilles was held by his heel as he was dipped in the potion that made him unbeatable, we need to be alert to those small spaces where a determined enemy could do us great harm. If we are to maintain our economic success and provide the security our citizens expect and deserve, we must as a nation turn to address our weaknesses. The ability of people to use information technology to reach into our homes and to amass vast amounts of personal data threatens our sense of privacy. The omnipresence of this technology has caused our society to develop a dependency on silicon chips and the wires that connect them. And, the connectivity that now brings us so many benefits may also be a vulnerability that nations and terrorists could use to threaten our security. We have been blessed by our dominance in high-technology industries and in our society's acceptance of new information technology. Information systems are the backbone of America's telecommunications and electrical power grids, banking and finance systems, our transportation systems, broadcast and cable industries, and many other businesses besides. They have helped American workers become more productive, have brought new efficiencies in the use and distribution of resources, and have helped our Nation grow to be the most advanced and competitive economy in the world. We owe a large part of that success to the ingenuity, perseverance, and vision of America's information technology companies and their employees. The story of how computer companies started in garages can grow into multibillion dollar corporations is almost legendary. An industry virtually non-existent twenty five years ago has brought enormous wealth and opportunity to thousands of Americans. Mr. President, information technology has transformed our Nation's economy, and, as we enter into the 21st century, our Nation's livelihood will depend on continued development of this industry. But the wonder of this technology is how its success has brought extraordinary changes to other aspects of our lives. Modern information technologies provide us with unheard-of opportunities in education, business, health care, and other life- enriching areas. Information technology empowers people to continue their educations and upgrade their skills throughout life. Education no longer ends at the schoolhouse door. In addition, new technologies are extending lifesaving medical care to remote rural areas and promoting healthy communities across the country. These new avenues to information better inform our electorate, and the improved means of communication make it far easier for individual citizens to express their views to the general public and to their elected representatives. In combination, these technological benefits allow people--both young and old--to develop new skills, explore new interests, and improve their lives. America's technological strength is the envy of nations around the globe. But that strength, if not understood and protected, may also be our Achilles' heel. We have been blessed this year with a number of warnings about this grave and far-reaching threat. We have been blessed with warnings about the interdependence of our information infrastructures, the interlocking network that can make local hospitals and airports victims just as easily as multinational corporations and media conglomerates. We need to heed the warning and respond to this danger. Just a few weeks ago, the media reported that the electronic mail programs the vast majority of Americans use had vital, hidden flaws. Simply opening an e-mail message could unleash a malicious virus and allow that virus to freeze your computer, steal data, or erase your hard drive. I realize there are some people in the United States--many of them here in the Senate--who still do not use e-mail. But our society today relies upon electronic mail for use in Government and commercial communications, for business management and project coordination, and personal entertainment and missives. A malicious person could potentially have used these flaws to blackmail people or companies, to disrupt Government and commercial activity, or to sabotage civilian or military databases. Just a few months ago, one satellite orbiting more than 22,000 miles above the state of Kansas began tumbling out of control. It was the worst outage in the history of satellites. By conservative estimates, more than 35 million people lost the use of their pagers, including everyone from school children and repairmen to doctors, nurses, and other emergency personnel. All of that was the result of one small computer on a satellite 22,000 miles into outer space. Earlier this year, we were in the middle of a very tense standoff with Saddam Hussein. And we were able to track an attack on the Pentagon's computer system to a site in the Middle East, in the United Arab Emirates. There was a legitimate question at the time: Was this an act of war? Was it a terrorist? Or was it, as it turned out to be, teenage hackers inappropriately and illegally using their home computers? The implications of an effective attack against our military's information systems would be devastating during a time of crisis. This attack failed, but will we be as fortunate in the future? I do not think these incidents are a statement about software companies, the satellite industry, or teenage computer aficionados. These incidents are a warning--loud, clear, and wide--about the dependence of the American economy and the American people on information technology. Our use of information technology has helped us achieve and maintain our status as the world's strongest nation. But our dependence on information technology also brings exploitable weaknesses that, like the Lilliputians to the giant Gulliver, may enable our weaker adversaries to cause great damage to our nation. In Jonathan Swift's tale, the Lilliputians used their mastery of mathematics and technology to defeat their much more powerful adversary Gulliver. Today, weaker adversaries may use their mastery of information technology to invade our privacy, steal from our companies, and threaten our security. The revolution in Information Technology has propelled the United States to an unparalleled position in the global economy. The principles of freedom and democracy that we champion are ascendant throughout the world. We have the world's largest economy, and we trade more than any other nation. Our military strength, in conventional and nuclear terms, is greater than that of any other nation. In short, we are the sole remaining superpower in the world. And yet, we still find ourselves vulnerable to individuals or groups--terrorists, criminals, saboteurs--who have a fraction of the manpower, weaponry, or resources we possess. In many ways, we are a technological Gulliver. America's massive shift toward an economy that is based on information technology has been a mixed blessing. Because we have the most complex, multifaceted economy, we are a multifaceted target. And our strategic vulnerability has risen hand-in-hand with our economic power. Like the Lilliputians, there are people who have used the principles of mathematics and science to master technology. They are so small in scale compared to the threats that we usually see that we have to strain our eyes just to identify them and figure out what they are doing. Gulliver, if you recall, did not win his freedom with a single act or weapon. He used a combination of things: sometimes he used his power, sometimes he used wit, and he learned from his experience how to deal with his adversaries. Mr. President, Congress urgently needs to establish a bipartisan agenda designed to create more economic opportunities in technology and to close our vulnerabilities. The following is my attempt to suggest what is needed: 1. We need more competition, not less. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 with the hopes of increasing competition and improving access to communications technologies. Unfortunately, competition has not developed on the scale anticipated when the Act was passed. Nearly 3 years after the Act, most telecommunications customers lack the ability to simply switch telephone companies. In 1999 I hope Congress will make changes in the law needed to bring the benefits of competition - lower prices and higher quality - to the American household. 2. We need a special effort to make technology a part of our educational system. More money should be appropriate for research and training. Regulations need to be written so the market can offer curricula-relevant courses to students in the home and school. We need to settle the disputes surrounding the E-Rate so our school boards can plan and budget accordingly. 3. We need bipartisan agreement on how to protect privacy and security. The encryption debate has hobbled our efforts to write laws that enable our law enforcement and national security agencies to carry out their mission of keeping Americans safe while harnessing the power of the market to increase security and privacy. Any discussion of security on-line must inevitably involve encryption issues. Over the past five years, the debate over encryption policy has pitted law enforcement, national security, privacy, and commercial interests against one another. Yet, all these interests would agree that providing security in our public networks is essential to fully exploit the potential of information technology. Personal privacy in the digital world should not suffer at the hand of unreasonable export laws. Therefore, Congress should take action in the coming year to remove export restrictions on encryption products of any strength. I am confident that through cooperation between Government and industry, encryption can be exported without compromising the legitimate needs of law enforcement and national security. A compromise can be crafted if all parties, both private and public, are willing to work together to solve the common goal of maintaining America's national security in the new digital age. 4. We should create in law a panel consisting of members of Congress, Administration officials, and leaders in high-technology industries to address the implications of information technology on our society and our security. We should also create a new national laboratory for information technology that will both perform research in this field and serve as a forum for further discussions of the issues arising from information technology. Mr. President, it is this fourth idea--a new panel and a new laboratory--that I would like to discuss today. Why do we need this? We need this, for starters, because the new threat of information warfare requires a new paradigm in which the military must rely like never before on other organizations and institutions to achieve success. Even if all of the information safeguards for the Defense Department's data, equipment, and operations were airtight, that would not be adequate. Currently, more than 95% of all wide-area defense telecommunications travel on commercial circuits and networks. And it would be impossible to replicate that type of capability on our own. Should an electronic attack come, it will likely not be aimed just at military targets, but at civilian sectors as well. It is not simply that the private sector relies on the military. The military relies on the private sector. That is one reason we as a government cannot afford to ignore the defense of the public and private sector infrastructure: We cannot do our most basic job--protecting national security--without that. In this new world of technology, if one of us gets tripped, we all risk a fall. Our Government, as it is now organized, can scarcely cope with these new challenges. We need to address the development and vulnerability of the American information infrastructure now. The regulatory frameworks established over the past 60 years for telecommunication, radio and television may not, in fact, most likely will not, fit the Information Economy. Existing laws and regulations should be reviewed and revised or eliminated to reflect the needs of the new electronic age. As a government, we need to reassess the areas of responsibility of our different parts, and the lines of authority that connect them, to ensure we are best organized to face this threat. More than two dozen federal agencies have either jurisdiction or a direct interest in the regulation of information technology as it applies to national security or electronic commerce. The Congress is no better off. In Congress, some 19 committees are responsible for legislation on the same issues. The Government has much to offer, through our understanding of security concepts and technology, along with the vulnerabilities of information technology and systems. We are strongly committed to share this knowledge with the private sector. Such partnerships are crucial, but there are some pitfalls, and we will need to build a balanced approach. For example: We have to be careful not to give the impression that Government wants to increase its involvement in the day-to-day operations of individual businesses. This is not at all the case, and few things will drive the private sector away like the potential for more Government intrusion and regulation. ``Government Knows Best'' is not the message we want to send. As a general principle, Government should step in only when problems exceed the capabilities of the private sector and the remedies of the marketplace. However, in cases where there are no reasonable business reasons for companies to make preparations, such as to counter a coordinated, simultaneous attack against multiple infrastructures, then Government should be prepared to provide economic incentives and support. A natural market exists for security and, ultimately, that will be our best course of action: a solution that combines the entrepreneurial strength and energy of the private sector with the national mission of the Government. One cannot overstate how important it is to get the Government- industry relationships right, because without them as a foundation, the value of all other efforts will be significantly diminished. A fundamental challenge in many cases is getting information about vulnerabilities and threats itself, and this simply cannot be done without the foundation of public-private sector information sharing. We cannot solve this by unilateral Government efforts. We have to move together to solve it. Mr. President, it is no surprise that both the Government and private sector are finding this difficult and complicated and frustrating. To combat cyber attacks--whether by terrorists, spies, disgruntled employees, pranksters--one needs both technical sophistication and cooperation among numerous companies, agencies and nations. It is going to be imperative for the protection of our information infrastructure that the private sector, national security officials, and law enforcement work together--not just on this issue, but on issues for the future. Many fear these discussions would lead to Government intrusiveness and abuse of power. Americans have always had a healthy skepticism towards Government power and our Constitution sets strict limits on what Government can and cannot do. We are a strong and vibrant nation directly because we enjoy rights of free speech, free assembly, and against unreasonable searches and seizures. Information technology can allow us greater exercise of those rights. When we examine the security of information technology, these rights must remain our guiding principles, and our Government policies should reflect them. We must get past the suspicion between the private sector and Government and move forward. The information infrastructure is vital to America's defense and to America's economy and we cannot preserve one without protecting the other. Here we need two things: First, we need a mechanism that transcends narrow organizational politics to bring consensus; and, secondly, we need a facility for advanced research into information technology protection that also provides a venue for constructive and ongoing dialog with industry, the Government, and academia. I believe Congress should act as soon as possible to create a blue- ribbon panel of top federal officials, key leaders from Capitol Hill, and experts from the high-technology field to address the issues of information assurance, infrastructure protection, and encryption that cut across committee lines. We need to have a panel that can speak with authority on both politics and policy. From the White House, we need to see a commitment of time, attention, and resources at the highest levels. Cabinet officers need to play an active role in shaping the solutions that are going to emerge from such a panel. These issues are complicated and they have far-reaching implications, so at the end of the day we need to have leaders in their respective areas--Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials--who are prepared to forge the necessary compromises and make the case to industry and to the public. Congress needs to take a similarly pragmatic approach. Committee chairpersons, with their expertise in different areas and institutional memory, need to be on this panel and give it all the attention they would a piece of legislation. But in addition we need to acknowledge the politically charged nature of these issues and be prepared to deal with them. So I propose that we not only have representatives by issue area, but representatives who are designated to speak for each major faction in the Congress: a representative of the majority in the Senate, and one for the House, a representative of the minority in the Senate, and one for the House, and representatives of the legislative caucuses that have an interest. Clearly Government cannot do this alone. We need the perspective, the insight, and the vision of experts who are part of the developments in the information technology field and who can predict on the basis of that experience where technology is going. We need their expertise and a willingness to work with their government, for otherwise this problem will only grow worse. The panel I envision must therefore have a strong component of private sector experts devoted both to the advancement of technology and to the security of our country. The complement to this Congressional panel should be a forum where Government, industry, and academic officials can work on these problems in a systematic, confidential, and dispassionate way. I propose that we learn from our experience and look to those models of industry-and- Government cooperation that have worked in the past. We can learn from agencies like the National Safety Transportation Board, DARPA, and other federally funded research and development centers. Specifically, Congress should pass legislation that would enable the President to create a new national laboratory and research facility to address information infrastructure protection. The role and mission of such an organization would be to target those specific areas that are now suffering from sporadic, contradictory, or insufficient attention. We must have a structure that can address the entire range of national security planning and execution--in other words, threat assessment and evaluation, development of requirements, R&D, acquisition and procurement, development of strategy and the conduct of operations across the entire spectrum, from large-scale conflict to peacekeeping and operations other than war. But this center would also help develop techniques, policies, and procedures to make civilian and commercial information technologies secure. To accomplish that mission, the information technology laboratory would have to: Support research and development by industry or Government-industry consortiums that aims to protect our privacy, shield our commercial interests, and defend our nation against information technology threats; ensure that there is a secure conduit for the exchange of information about security threats; provide a forum for developing and managing responses and contingency plans, both directly and in cooperation with a national command authority. The Information Technology Laboratory would be funded through annual appropriations as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center. But it should also be able to establish fee-based contracts with agencies of federal, state, and local government as well as universities for specific services so that budget costs could be kept to a minimum. The Information Technology Laboratory could also contract with private industry to do research and development, while taking special precautions to protect the confidentiality of proprietary data or information. The laboratory would also report annually to the appropriate oversight committees in Congress and the President. In just four years from now, knowledge and information workers will make up one third of all the workers in our multi-trillion dollar economy. We can create a safe corridor for their passage to the next century. Or we can continue to talk past each other while the Information Superhighway attracts more and more robbers and frauds and terrorists. We need to come to this task with a clear sense of purpose and full understanding of the urgency involved. America has gained much from information technology, and stands to gain much more as these systems mature. Our future depends on the success of this technology. But that success and our security depend on finding the policies and practices that will identify and correct vulnerabilities before they are exploited. Together, I am certain we can address this problem. In a noble but imperfect democracy such as ours, answers are not impossible, they are only impending. I look forward to working with my colleagues to face this challenge. I yield the floor. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I have a very simple proposition for the Senate. Let's close an accidental tax loophole for the heirs of people who leave estates worth more than $17 million and use the savings to help self-employed Americans--like the thousands of entrepreneurs on Nebraska's farms and ranches--afford the soaring cost of health care. Today I am submitting legislation to accomplish that purpose. The facts are very simple. Prior to 1997, when we passed the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement, the first $600,000 of an estate was excluded from taxes. The old law gradually phased out this exclusion once an estate reached $17 million. The 1997 Act increases the value of an estate not subject to taxes. But a drafting error in the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement failed to include the accompanying phase out of the exclusion on estates over $17 million. Clearly this error needs to be fixed. Letting this mistake stand uncorrected will cost the American taxpayers nearly $900 million over the next ten years. To give you an idea of how much this provision does to benefit the few, consider that in 1995, the Internal Revenue Service estimates that just 300 tax returns were filed on estates over $20 million. Congress had the opportunity to correct this error during consideration of the IRS Reform bill this year. Regrettably, the objections of a few to making this right overcame the support of the many for doing so. Meanwhile, Mr. President, self-employed Americans are struggling to cope with the rising cost of health insurance, which they--unlike Americans employed by others--cannot fully deduct from their taxable income. The face of their struggle is most evident on farms and ranches. In Nebraska, producers are facing plunging commodity prices at the same time they face soaring costs of living, especially for health insurance. Today they can deduct 40 percent of the cost of their insurance. Under current law, they cannot fully deduct that cost until 2007. So, my proposal is simple. Let's close the loophole that everyone admits was an accident, and use that money to accelerate the full deductibility of health insurance for the self-employed. It's a clear choice between a loophole that nobody wanted to exist and entrepreneurs who--especially those on our farms and ranches--may not exist much longer if we don't get them some help. While I recognize time is short for passing this bill this year, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation and in pursuing this goal next year.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I have a very simple proposition for the Senate. Let's close an accidental tax loophole for the heirs of people who leave estates worth more than $17 million and use the savings to help self-employed Americans--like the thousands of entrepreneurs on Nebraska's farms and ranches--afford the soaring cost of health care. Today I am submitting legislation to accomplish that purpose. The facts are very simple. Prior to 1997, when we passed the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement, the first $600,000 of an estate was excluded from taxes. The old law gradually phased out this exclusion once an estate reached $17 million. The 1997 Act increases the value of an estate not subject to taxes. But a drafting error in the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement failed to include the accompanying phase out of the exclusion on estates over $17 million. Clearly this error needs to be fixed. Letting this mistake stand uncorrected will cost the American taxpayers nearly $900 million over the next ten years. To give you an idea of how much this provision does to benefit the few, consider that in 1995, the Internal Revenue Service estimates that just 300 tax returns were filed on estates over $20 million. Congress had the opportunity to correct this error during consideration of the IRS Reform bill this year. Regrettably, the objections of a few to making this right overcame the support of the many for doing so. Meanwhile, Mr. President, self-employed Americans are struggling to cope with the rising cost of health insurance, which they--unlike Americans employed by others--cannot fully deduct from their taxable income. The face of their struggle is most evident on farms and ranches. In Nebraska, producers are facing plunging commodity prices at the same time they face soaring costs of living, especially for health insurance. Today they can deduct 40 percent of the cost of their insurance. Under current law, they cannot fully deduct that cost until 2007. So, my proposal is simple. Let's close the loophole that everyone admits was an accident, and use that money to accelerate the full deductibility of health insurance for the self-employed. It's a clear choice between a loophole that nobody wanted to exist and entrepreneurs who--especially those on our farms and ranches--may not exist much longer if we don't get them some help. While I recognize time is short for passing this bill this year, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation and in pursuing this goal next year.