John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object, I reserved the right to object previously when the time limit was in. I had understood with the second offering there was no time limit. I will object to a restraint at this time on the time.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I didn't understand there was a time limitation on this component.

Mr. KERRY. I will yield.

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment from the Senator from California. I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania that if at some point in time he needs to proceed forward on a unanimous consent request, I would be happy to accommodate. Mr. President, the amendment of the Senator from California is an extraordinarily important amendment for a lot of different reasons. I should like to share some thoughts about that with my colleagues in the Senate. It is perhaps a propitious moment for the Senator from Oregon to assume the chair because he has joined me in an effort to try to change this very debate that we are having right now on the floor of the Senate, where we have already had one series of votes that have been predicated essentially on the same old breakdown of communication with respect to how we are going to deal with education. It was a pretty much party-line vote. It was a vote that reflected an effort to try to block grant money so States could have adequate flexibility to be able to make choices, but on the other hand it did not target it sufficiently and clearly enough for those on the Democrat side, and there was no real meeting of the minds. So once again, the Senate--on the subject most important to Americans--talked past each other, and we wound up with a fairly rote, very clearly partisan vote that takes us nowhere. The Presiding Officer, the Senator from Oregon, and I have obviously tried to suggest to our colleagues that there is a different way to approach this question of education, and that, in fact, most of us are not that far off. We are sort of fighting at the margins, when the real fight is in the center over how best our children can be educated. I do not believe that it is impossible for us, as Members of this great deliberative institution, to be able to come to agreement on things that are best for children. We are not trying to build a system for adults. We are not trying to perpetuate a system that serves the administrators or just the teachers or just the principals; it is the children this is about. It seems to a lot of us here in the Senate that there are some better ways to come at that. The specific amendment of the Senator from California is to fund the afterschool programs to the level that the President requested. I find that there is a great circularity in the arguments of our colleagues on the Senate floor that somehow misses the mark, even when you are talking about this amendment of the Senator from California. We often hear from colleagues: Well, we want the local communities to be able to do these things and make up their minds about them. The fact is, local communities all across this country have made up their minds about afterschool programs. I think it is about 95 percent of the local communities in this country that would like to put an afternoon program into their school structures, but they cannot. Here it is: 92 percent of Americans favor afterschool programs. I am saying that I believe if you ask the administrators in any particular school district, they will leap at an afterschool program. Give us an afterschool program. They plead for it. Their teachers plead for it. Why? Because kids are going home from school to apartments or houses where there is no adult. As an alternative to the afterschool program, they turn on the TV, if they are lucky, if they have a TV. Other kids are hanging around in a courtyard with other kids playing various kinds of games, often getting into trouble, sometimes being sucked into gangs or other kinds of activities. The fact is, most mayors in the country, most school boards in the country are trying to put together afterschool programs. So what is the hangup? The hangup is, far too many urban centers and rural settings in America simply can't afford to put in the programs because their schools are paid for from the property tax. The schools are set up, as schools were originally designed, to essentially follow the old agrarian pattern. You go to school early in the morning; you get out in the afternoon; you work in the fields. That was the original concept. That is not what happens in America anymore. Every day we turn out 5 million of our children who go back to homes and apartments where there is no adult, sometimes until 6 or 7 in the evening. About 8 or 10 years ago, the Carnegie Foundation told us the hours of 2 to 6 in the evening are the hours when most children get into trouble. They get into trouble with the law or they get into trouble with value systems, when they do things such as having children that children are not supposed to have, age 13, 14, 15. Most of the unwanted pregnancies in this country, according to the Carnegie Foundation study, occur during those hours when parents aren't there. Then we wind up with a whole host of subsidiary problems as a consequence of that. Our colleagues are absolutely correct, at least in this Senator's judgment. We don't want the Federal Government telling us precisely what to do. We don't need the Federal Government telling us what kind of afterschool program works best. But if in countless numbers of communities they simply can't afford to even do what they want to do, what they think is best, do we not have a fundamental responsibility to try to step up and help to bridge that gap? Hasn't that been a traditional effort of the Federal Government throughout the years in the Federal, State, and local partnership? The answer is resoundingly, yes. For years, countless lives in the United States of America have been made different and better, and we have fulfilled the promise of opportunity in this country because the Federal Government was prepared to help local communities be able to make ends meet. Countless communities in this country can't do it. Every one of us has a community like that in our State. We have too many of them in Massachusetts. You can go to Lowell, Lawrence, New Bedford, Fall River, Holyoke, Springfield, countless other cities, old urban centers; they don't have the tax base. They can't raise the property tax. They can't and don't want to properly raise taxes on their citizens. Yet here we are with a surplus, with a $1.7 trillion budget, with no greater priority in our country than raising the standards of education, and we are struggling over $200 million. Again, we hear from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Well, a lot of these problems that the Democrats want to try to cure are problems that families ought to take care of or that responsible children ought to somehow be able to solve by themselves. Once again, that is a circular argument. Every single one of us in this Chamber knows that almost 50 percent of the children of this Nation are being raised in single parent situations. Because we properly passed a tough welfare bill a few years ago that changes the culture in this country about work, we now require parents, single parents, to be working, and we should. But we have to understand the consequences of that. The other part of the circular argument is that we are always hearing from people on the Senate floor about personal responsibility and the capacity of local communities to solve these problems. If you analyze the reality of that situation, based on what I said about the change in the American family, the requirements of a single parent to be working and the lack of adequate child care, the lack of adequate safety places for children, the fact is the absence of afterschool programs, in fact, winds up costing us a huge amount of money. Children who are unsupervised wind up not having their homework done, getting into trouble, being less capable of learning, maybe repeating grades, certainly some of them entering that zone of chronic capacity for unemployment. In fact, we wind up raising the cost to the taxpayer in the long run for the lack of willingness to invest in the short run. I guarantee my colleagues that what I said is not rhetoric. We can go to countless afterschool programs in this country and talk to the students who are in those programs. They will tell us the difference it makes in their lives. Two weeks ago I went to Lawrence, MA, to a program called Accept the Challenge. This is an afterschool program where they go into the high school and interview kids. They find kids who want to accept the challenge of going into this afterschool program, which is tough. It is rigorous. I will tell you something. I met the brightest group of kids who want to achieve, who want to go to college, who want to live by rules, who are gaining enormously in their educational capacity as a result of their participation in the program. What was interesting is, I even heard from one kid--a Hispanic child--who said he was always talking Spanish in school because they had a bilingual program. He hung around with his friends, he then went home, they spoke Spanish at home, and he wasn't learning English. But he went into the Accept the Challenge Program, an afterschool program. It required that he speak English, interacting with the other students, learning in English. The result was that he himself said: I am proud now, the way I can speak English, and I am far better equipped in my capacity to go beyond, to college, to take the SATs, and to get a good job. So there you are--an afterschool program providing the kind of structure that kids need. Ask any child psychologist, or any psychiatrist, or any child interventionist. Every single one of them will tell you, as most wise parents will tell you, children need structure, children need a certain amount of guidance. We historically have always looked to college as the first moment when kids kind of break away and begin to learn how to live without their kind of structure. Some kids can make it sooner. Some kids can go to college. It is extraordinarily hard in the first moments of college, without the structure, to be able to make ends meet. Some kids flounder in that atmosphere. Some kids go to college with more structure, or less structure. Why is it, when we know this so well, that we adults allow our school system to institutionalize the lack of structure in children's lives by letting them go home and letting them out of school knowing they are going to come to school the next day without their homework done and without the capacity to be able to meet the standards of the school? I don't understand it. I don't think most Americans understand the reluctance for accountability. Here we are debating whether or not we are going to put $200 million into afterschool programs that provide structure and guidance and safety for children--safety; I underscore that. An awful lot of kids in this country go back to situations after school where it is chaos; you couldn't do your homework if you were trying to. We ought to be more concerned about that. We have an opportunity to be. General Colin Powell--there is not a more respected figure in the United States--is struggling trying to make what is called ``America's promise'' a reality, struggling to try to leverage the private sector's capacity to help make a difference in the lives of our children. You can go into countless numbers of those efforts, whether it is a boys and girls club, Big Brother, Big Sister, YMCA, YWCA, the City Year programs, or countless numbers of programs, and you will find the kids who are in them are thriving and the kids who are outside of them are generally challenged and having difficulties or where you find the kids who are having difficulties, they tend to be the kids who are outside of it. In countless numbers of these programs, there are waiting lists that are absolutely mind-boggling, with hundreds of kids waiting to get in with the few kids who are on the inside. And the question is, Why? Are we such a poor country that we don't have the ability to offer sanctuary in afterschool programs to every child who needs it or deserves it? That ought to be the goal of the Senate. We ought to declare that every single community in this country, with a combination of corporate, local, State, and Federal effort, is going to be able to provide sanctuary, safety, and structure for children in an afterschool setting. That is the great challenge of the Nation. We are going to have a vote tomorrow morning where we are going to have people come to the floor and kind of play a game. They are going to suggest, gee, we ought to really fully fund IDEA so we take care of that program the Federal Government already mandated, and we are going to strip it away from here. I agree. We ought to fully fund IDEA. We ought to vote if we are really going to have a first-class education system in this Nation. Frankly, I think we can do both. But the question will be put to the Senate ultimately at some point in time as to whether or not we are prepared to do that or whether we just want to play these games that go back and forth and in the end do not ultimately reform our education system. Mr. President, in closing, let me say I am convinced there is a capacity to build a bipartisan compromise on education. I think we all have to begin to look for a different way of doing that from that which we have allowed ourselves to embrace over the course of these past years. If all we do is come to the Senate floor and debate whether or not we are going to have vouchers versus school construction or one particular program versus another, then I think we are going to be guilty of perpetuating the crisis of education in America. If, on the other hand, we try to be holistic--looking at the whole question of the education system, respecting the capacity and desire of local communities to be able to make their decisions, but empowering them to be able to do so by leveraging the specific kinds of things they would like to do by placing large sums of money at their disposal to be able to do it with a strict accountability for the back end--not for the micromanagement of how they go about doing it but to the back end--that we measure at the end whether or not whatever route they choose to undertake is in fact educating their children when measured against the rest of the children in the country, that then we could begin to have accountability in those schools that are failing, I believe we could marry the best programs of what the Republican Party has offered in their ``Straight A's'' and the business of what the Democrats are trying to achieve in the various proposals we have put forward. I hope that ultimately the Senate is going to come to recognize that that is the only way we are going to solve this problem. You could give a voucher to every kid in America. But the bottom line is, they have nowhere to go. Take that voucher. Where are you going to go? There are limited seats at the parochial table. There are limited charter seats. There are clearly limited private seats because a lot of private schools don't want 90 percent of the kids who go to the public school system. Ultimately, there is only one way to fix the education system of America. That is to fix the place where 90 percent of America's children go to school; that is, the public school system. Every time we have something like a voucher program come along, we are basically offering America a kind of ``Schindler's List'' for schoolchildren. We are saying to them: If you have money, you can buy your way out of your predicament, but we are only going to take so many of you. For the rest of you, you are stuck. That is what happened. Some may not think the analogy is accurate. But I will tell you, for those kids stuck in some of those schools where they don't have opportunity and they don't have progress, it is a kind of living death because they are condemned to the lower standards of our economy, to the lower opportunities, to the lower pay scales, and in many cases, unfortunately, because of other things that happen to them, to prisons or even sometimes to violent death in the streets of this country. We can do a lot better than that. It is very clear to me that a country that produced generations that won World War I and World War II, that took us through the remarkable transition of the cold war-- most of those leaders coming out of public schools and most of this country's core citizenry coming out of public schools is evidence of what those schools can be. That evidence is everywhere in this Nation. We have great public schools in places where people are lucky enough to have broken out or to have put together the ingredients of that great school. The Senate needs to embrace those things that have allowed those schools to be what they wanted to be, to adopt the best practices of any other school in the country and to allow them to have the kinds of accountability that will lift the entire system. That is the only debate we ought to be having--not saving part of it but saving all of it. What the Senator from California is trying to do with this amendment is to recognize one critical component of that, one of the most important components. It is absolutely vital. There are four critical ingredients of educating. One, we continue to have standards. Mr. President, 49 States have now adopted standards or are about to adopt standards. Those standards will make a difference. Two, we have to permit our teachers to teach to the standards which require quality of teaching, ongoing teacher professional development, mentoring, higher pay, more teachers, less class size, all of the ingredients of being able to teach to the standards. Three, we need to provide an opportunity for the children to learn to the standards. That means afterschool programs, the opportunity for remedial work, the opportunity for the kind of teachers and other efforts that make a difference in their education. Four, we need strict accountability. That means the capacity to be able to fire people who don't perform, to be able to help people to perform, the capacity to be able to improve our ability to attract a broader cross section of people into the great challenge of teaching, and to respect those who are there doing the enormous job they are doing. I hope we can engage in that larger and real debate sometime over the course of the next few days. I congratulate the Senator from California. This amendment embraces one of the single most important considerations of how we will protect our children to learn and how we will provide schools with the capacity to be able to live up to the standards we all want. I congratulate the Senator for this fight. I hope our colleagues will join in a vote for the protection of the children of this country.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I appreciate the chairman's willingness to engage in a colloquy regarding the FY00 Energy and Water conference report. The conference report, which passed the House last night and is being considered in the Senate Chamber this morning, includes $1 million in Department of Energy's Biological and Environmental Research (BER) account for cancer research at the Burbank Hospital Regional Cancer Center. It is important that the word ``research'' be addressed in the Record, since the original request by my Massachusetts colleague in the House, Representative John Olver, asks that funds be made available for the Burbank Hospital Regional Cancer Center in Fitchburg, MA. Since this is a small hospital serving a rural area, I and my colleague in the House want to stress the importance of the $1 million's being dedicated to the hospital for the underserved population, rather than for research purposes. If the chairman could clarify to the Department that the $1 million should be made available to the Burbank Hospital in Fitchburg, MA, without its being contingent on ``research,'' it would be greatly appreciated. I thank the gentleman very much for his time and effort.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I realize that this year Senators Bond and Mikulski are facing a challenging appropriations season with tight budgetary constraints. However, I wanted to bring to their attention three projects which I think are particularly important to Nebraska, projects that I believe will directly benefit many of our Nebraska citizens.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the President.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois for the substance of his comments, and also for his generous comments about my efforts and the efforts of the ranking member and others on this bill. I thank each of our colleagues who have come to the floor--the Senator from Michigan, the Senator from Rhode Island, and others--each of whom have spoken very eloquently and very forcefully about the need to increase housing, and section 8 particularly. All of us are very mindful of the particular predicament the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from Missouri have faced. We have said many things on the floor this morning about their commitment to this effort. I am particularly grateful to the Senator from Maryland for her statements a moment ago about the efforts they will make in the course of the conference. After discussions with Secretary Cuomo, and discussions with the chairman and with the ranking member, we are convinced the best course at this point in time is to continue to respect what the ranking member said--that this is a working process--to do our best in the course of the next weeks to honor the efforts of those Senators on the floor today who have spoken about the need. I am convinced we can do that. I think there is no purpose at this point in time in taking the Senate to a vote, given the assurance of those efforts by the administration and ranking member, and therefore I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to withdraw the amendment at this time.

Mr. KERRY. A final, quick comment. I couldn't agree more with what the Senator from Missouri, the chairman, said about the problems of the budget. What we are asking today is, when we go into the final negotiations and the numbers that are being fought over as to what the allocations really will be, when we have an opportunity to perhaps make good on certain efforts, that this program, this effort of housing, will be at the forefront of those priorities. We understand the limitations of the current allocation, but most people are assuming we have an opportunity to change that. Secondly, the Senator from Missouri is correct about the problem of building housing, but that will never resolve the current problem of low-income working families who are simply out of reach of affordable housing. I think everybody understands that section 8 and other affordable housing efforts within HUD are the key measures that try to lift people up when they play by the rules, go to work, do their best to try to get ahead, but simply can't afford to put one half of their entire earned income into rent, therefore, at the expense often of health care, of food, of adequate clothing, and of the other essentials of life. I think that is really what we are talking about. Even in the best of circumstances, if we start building housing today, there will still be millions of American families in that worst-case situation.

Mr. KERRY. With respect to the community builders--and I think the Senator from Rhode Island summarized it; I will not repeat that--I have heard from many people in Massachusetts concerned about the cut. Many of them have had very positive experiences with the community builders. I ask unanimous consent that letters supporting the Community Builders Program from the mayor of Boston, Mayor Menino; from the mayor of Springfield, Mayor Albano; from the Boston Police Department; and from the Veterans Department be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY. I will take a quick minute. Other colleagues are waiting. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island very much. He is a valuable and very thoughtful member of our committee; and clearly representing Rhode Island, he understands the pressures people are under in this respect. I thank him also for raising the issue of community builders and putting the letter from Secretary Apgar in the Record. I ask unanimous consent that a memorandum from Ernst & Young, which discusses the Community Builder Program, and a letter from Harvard University regarding the training process for the community builders be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, again, let me summarize this as succinctly as I can. It is a critical topic and one I want to talk a couple of minutes on in order to share with my colleagues where we stand with respect to housing and section 8 in the effort to try to provide affordable housing in the country. I have nothing but enormous respect for the difficult circumstances under which the Chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee have labored. It is fair to say their situation has been unfair, untenable, and it wasn't until there was a raid on the labor and education money that they conceivably had enough money to try to bring a bill to the floor. Most Members know what will happen: There will be some other kind of raid which will take place to try to restore some money back into the labor and education fund so we can somehow bring a bill to the floor and create a fiction that we were able to do something. My comments are not directed at the Chair or the ranking member, who have done an exemplary job of dealing with the most difficult constraints of almost any committee within the Senate. But there are some tough realities about which the rest of us, properly representing our States and our citizens, need to talk. Those tough realities are the situations we face with respect to housing in the country. The amendment I have offered redirects $288 million in funds needed to renew the existing section 8 contracts, and to use those funds to provide an additional 50,000 section 8 vouchers. I come after this as the ranking member of the authorizing committee with an understanding there are back-end costs. I know the Chair will say it is not just the 50,000 you put up today; there will be back-end costs. I will talk about that in a moment. I fully acknowledge that reality. However, the amendment we offer is supported by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Housing Conference, the Catholic Charities USA, the Center for Community Change, the National Housing Law Project, and the National Association of Home Builders which call for an increase in section 8 vouchers. I also point out the statement of administration policy in their letter on this bill says they object to the committee's decision not to fund new incremental section 8 vouchers. The President asked for 100,000 new vouchers. I think the President's request for 100,000 new vouchers represents the commitment we reinstituted last year to try to begin a process of recognizing what was happening to housing in the country. The fact is we now face an extraordinary and growing shortage of affordable housing for poor and working families in America. It seems to me, and to a lot of my colleagues, in the economic times we have in this country, when the stock market--though obviously it is up and down, and yesterday was down--is at its highest level, the economy has been remarkable in its sustained consecutive months of growth, unemployment is at a record low--we all know those statistics--in the middle of this remarkable growth, when ownership of homes is at a new and historic high, we are seeing the stock of affordable housing decline. Indeed, we now have a record number of families that face a housing crisis of some proportion. Nearly 5.6 million American families have what is called worst case housing needs. Yesterday, HUD released new data showing that number was added to by some 260,000 households in the past 2 years. We are talking about worst case needs, according to our own definition. These families pay one half of their income in rent. I ask all of my colleagues to think about that. We have a pretty good salary and a lot of Members in the Senate have income from other sources and don't face some of the choices that a lot of our fellow citizens have, but one half of family income going to rent for these families is an unacceptable level by any of the standards or guidelines we offer. Increasingly, these families are working families. For them, the economic bump in the road that can result is a bump that brings shortages of food, utility cutoffs, and even evictions and homelessness. This is illustrated by a study recently completed by the Institute for Children and Poverty which shows that homelessness is rising among working families. The study shows that in Newark, working families constitute 44 percent of the homeless families. Mr. President, 44 percent of homeless families are also working families. In Boston, I know we found a huge increase in the rental market. So there is increasing difficulty for working families with students to be able to find adequate housing. I might add, it is not just in the short term that this presents us a problem, it is in the long term that it presents us a problem. We have 50,000 or 100,000 vouchers we are looking for, which will only take care of a fraction of the need or the demand. But it is help that is sorely needed, and it reflects the efforts of the Government to try to respond within the limits we face today. I might add, this money is available. We are not taking it from somewhere else. We are taking it from unspent funds within HUD itself because of their lack of expenditure at this point in time. Let me share with my colleagues one of the aspects of this problem on which a lot of people do not focus. Dr. Alan Meyers, who is a pediatrician at the Boston Medical Center, did a series of studies on the impact of high housing costs on child nutrition. In each case, he found that children of poor families receiving housing assistance were better nourished and in better health than similar families without such assistance. In a stark illustration of the choices the unassisted families face, he found children were most likely to be undernourished during the 90 days after the coldest month of the year, highlighting what he called the ``heat or eat dilemma.'' In addition, let me underscore that lack of proper nourishment is only one problem that comes out of the housing crisis. The fact is, children who have a housing crisis are also forced to move from school to school. Social workers in Charlotte, NC, have told us about children they have seen going to as many as six different elementary schools in a single year. One expert estimated that as many as half the children in the Washington, DC, foster care system could be reunited with their parents if their families had access to stable housing. So here we are in the Senate, arguing about changes in the welfare culture, arguing about schools that do not work, arguing about the need to have parents involved in families, and clearly one of the links that reunites parents with families and provides stability in the school system and capacity for children to stay out of trouble is available, affordable housing. It is an astonishing statistic, that half the children in Washington, DC, in the foster care system could actually be reunited with their parents if we had adequate housing available. Some people will say to us that this costs a lot of money and is hard to do. There was a report that came out recently called ``Out Of Reach,'' which was done by the National Low-Income Housing Alliance. In my home State of Massachusetts, a person would have to work 100 hours every week at the minimum wage just to afford the typical rental on a two-bedroom apartment. It is even worse in a number of other cities where you need to work 135 hours a week or earn the equivalent of $17.42 hourly, more than three times the minimum wage, in order to afford to put a roof over your head. Massachusetts is not alone. Virginia, Maine, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, and other States are feeling the economic crunch of the housing shortage and the impact on families as a consequence of that. We also talk a lot around here about making work pay. The fact is, if people go to work and work according to all the rules but they have a work-week of 135 hours, or 100 hours, at a wage of $17, which is three times the minimum wage, we are obviously creating a gap that breaks faith with the capacity of the Government to provide value for that work. I think that is a serious issue. In addition, let me point out, this is not an enormous request. I ask my colleagues to look at this chart. In 1978, we were putting out 350,000 housing units a year; in 1979, close to 350,000; in 1980, 200,000; 1981, about 200,000; and from 1981 through the entire 1980s we went through a dramatic drop in housing, and in 1984, with the passage of the Balanced Budget Act, we went through the most dramatic decrease in housing, and we have had zero increase in housing starts until last year when, thanks to the good efforts of the chairman of the committee and ranking member and others working on it, we were able to get the first year's increase in 50,000 initial, new vouchers for section 8 housing. But that only tells one part of the story. My colleagues in the Senate--and I share this belief--understand we have a lot of budget problems. But we ought to be treating things fairly. Every time we have a crisis in the Senate, in the budget, whether it is a hurricane, whether it is a farm problem, whether it is some other issue of Government, where we need to find funding for some project, the piggy bank is housing. What we have seen over the last years is what I call the ``Great HUD-Way Robbery.'' From 1995 until 1999, we have seen a year-by-year cut, or rescission, or diversion from housing. So it is not that housing was not originally on people's minds. It was not that we did not have an original sense that housing ought to be part of the budget process. But every time somebody wants to fund something else, they take it out of housing's hide. The fact is, in 1995 we had $6.462 billion of rescissions; the next year, $114 million; the next year $3.8 billion; $3.03 billion the next year; $2 billion the next year. So we have had rescissions of $15.41 billion. We have had program cuts of $4.8 billion. So housing has lost $20 billion-plus in the course of the last years. It is absolutely imperative that housing receive its fair share within this budget. In the final analysis, it is as critical a component of the social fabric and the social security of this country as almost anything else we do. We need to make work valuable. We need to ensure our citizens understand, if they play by the rules, it pays off. It is most important for our children and for a generation that are shunted from place to place, or separated from their parents, or taken from school to school to school. This is one of the things that contributes to juvenile violence, to the problems we have in our cities, people feeling disconnected--not just in the cities, also in rural communities--and I hope we will change it. I look to our colleagues on the committee, who I know are committed to trying to do something, to hopefully share with us this sense that, even though in the conference ultimately there will be a negotiation-- we all know that; ultimately there is going to be a showdown on what the final numbers are going to be--to guarantee, when that showdown comes, housing is not again going to be the piggy bank for everything else; it will be a priority at the forefront of our efforts and we will be able to continue the good work the chairman, I know, cares about, and the ranking member is equally committed about, that they began last year where they began to increase funds for housing. Again, this is not a problem of their choice or their making. I know they share a belief this ought to be different. They were given the toughest budget figures of anybody in the Senate. That is why this is one of the last appropriations bills to be able to come to the floor. Everyone knows it only came to the floor by robbing Peter to pay Paul, by taking money from education and from the labor account in order to even make this possible. I hope we are going to change that trend in the next weeks. We certainly have that opportunity. I also believe we have that obligation and responsibility. I know a couple of others of my colleagues wanted to say a few words. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, we now move to the last amendment I have, amendment No. 1761.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oregon for his comments and for his own personal dedication to this issue.

Mr. KERRY. I think we are going to pass this amendment. I am happy to yield for a quick comment.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this amendment increases housing opportunities for people with AIDS--the AIDS account--and the section 811 disabled housing account by $7 million each. As I said, this is with the consent of the Chair and the ranking member. I appreciate their willingness to work with me on this amendment. These funds are going to help provide housing for an additional 1,850 people with HIV-AIDS, and also crucial new housing for the disabled. This particular effort, housing opportunities for people with AIDS, serves a unique function within the HUD budget. It is a vital program for people with HIV-AIDS. Fully 60 percent of them will face a housing crisis at some point during their illness. Tragically, at any given time, half the people with AIDS are either homeless or on the brink of losing their homes. This amendment would go a long way to solving that problem. I look forward to working with the Chair and the ranking member to maintain this in conference.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. Let me quickly proceed to the amendment that I know is going to be accepted. I have an amendment at the desk, No. 1756. We have worked out a modification with the ranking member and the Chair. I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is my understanding that Senator Brownback wants to make a brief comment.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to discuss how it is that we decided to seek $12 million. This year the U.S. commitment to the Multilateral Fund is $38 million. The Senate has approved roughly $26 million in the International Operations Programs at the State Department. By restoring $12 million into the EPA program, this amendment will allow us to fulfill the U.S. commitment of $38 million. Further, we have funded the EPA program for the Multilateral Fund at $12 million in FY96, FY97 and FY98, and at nearly $12 million in FY99. Therefore, by providing $12 million we will meet our 1999 obligation and essentially level fund this program. I want my colleagues to know that even if this amendment is accepted, it will do nothing to pay down the U.S. arrears to the Multilateral Fund--which is now at $23.8 million. Mr. President, that is unfortunate. I wish that we could do better--and I applaud President Clinton for requesting enough to pay our debt to the Fund--and urge my colleagues to support this amendment so that, at the very least, we can meet our obligations for this year. In closing, I want to stress the bipartisan nature of this effort, and not just this amendment. The Montreal Protocol was finalized in 1987 by the Reagan administration, and it passed the Senate by a vote of 93-0. The Multilateral Fund was created in 1990 by the Bush administration. Under the Clinton administration, with the EPA and the State Department's stewardship, the Protocol has been strengthened and the Multilateral Fund operated effectively and efficiently. And today, our amendment is sponsored by 9 Democrats and 6 Republicans. The Montreal Protocol's Multilateral Fund deserves our nation's full support. I believe the offset we have chosen is reasonable and fair. I thank my colleagues who have sponsored this amendment, and want to thank again Senator Bond and Senator Mikulski for accepting the amendment. Exhibit 1--The Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy SUPPORT FUNDING FOR THE STRATOSPHERIC OZONE MULTILATERAL FUND IN EPA FY 2000 APPROPRIATION The Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, the largest industry coalition involved on the issue of stratospheric ozone protection, urges the continued funding of the US treaty obligations to the Stratospheric Ozone Protection Multilateral Fund. The Administration budget request for FY 2000 is $21 million in the EPA budget. This amount, plus funding under the State Department budget would allow the US to meet its year 2000 treaty obligations and to allow it to make up its arrears to the fund. FY 99 funding for this activity in the EPA budget was approximately $12 million. Industry supports this fund for several simple reasons. First, the fund to assist developing countries in the phase out of ozone depleting substances was part of the original bargain when the Montreal Protocol was negotiated in the late 1980s. Industry has been supportive of this treaty because it assured world wide compliance rather than damaging unilateral action. Second, the developing country phase out of these compounds is the last critical step towards restoring the Earth's protective stratospheric ozone layer, without developing country phaseout the environmental objective cannot be completed. Third, US industry has invested billions of dollars in substitute technologies to replace the ozone depleting compounds. The Multilateral Fund is designed to facilitate the shift to these new technologies. If the US does not meet its treaty obligations, it puts US industries at a disadvantage against competitors from Japan and Europe. Fourth, US industry has been taxed more than $6 billion in excise taxes since 1990 on the ozone depleting compounds! Total contributions to the Multilateral Fund since 1991 have been less than $300 million! The international effort to protect the earth's stratospheric ozone layer has been one of the most successful global environmental protection efforts ever, with an unprecedented level of cooperation between and among governments and industry. To not fulfill our treaty obligations at this time is bad environmental policy, hurts US credibility around the world especially in important developing country emerging markets, and is self-destructive towards US industry and workers who have, in effect, already paid for this contribution. The Senate Appropriations Committee is urged to restore the funding for this important United States treaty obligation. A list of the Alliance members is attached. Please contact us if you have further questions regarding this matter. 1998-1999 membership list 3M Company, Abco Refrigeration Supply Corp., Aeroquip Corporation, Air Conditioning Contractors of America, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Institute, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Wholesalers Association, Air Mechanical, Inc., Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp., AlliedSignal Inc., Altair Industries, American Pacific Corp., Anderson Bros. Refrigeration Service, Inc., Arthur D. Little, Inc., Ashland Oil, Association of Home Appliances Manufacturers, Ausimont USA Inc., Bard Manufacturing Co., Beltway Heating & Air Conditioning Co., Inc., Branson Ultrasonic Corp. Cap & Seal Company, Carrier Corporation, Central Coating Company, Inc., Cetylite Industries, Inc., Chemical Packaging Corp., Chemtronics, Inc., Commercial Refrigerator Manufacturers Association, Commodore CFC Services, Inc., Copeland Corporation, Department of Corrections--Colorado, Dow Chemical U.S.A., Dupont, E.V. Dunbar Co., Elf Atochem, Engineering & Refrigeration, Inc., Envirotech Systems, Falcon Safety Products, Inc., Foam Enterprises, Inc., Food Marketing Institute, Ford Motor Company. Forma Scientific, FP International, GE Appliances, Gebauer Company, General Electric Company, General Motors, Gilman Corporation, H.C. Duke & Son, Inc., Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, Halotron Inc., Halsey Supply Co., Inc., Hill Phoenix, Hudson Technologies, Inc., Hussmann Corporation, ICI Klea, IMI Cornelius Company, Institute of International Container Lessors, International Assoc. of Refrigerated Warehouses, International Pharmaceutical Aerosol Consortium. Join Journeymen and Apprentice Training Trust. Johnson Controls, Joseph Simons Company, Kysor Warren, Lennox International, Library of Congress, Lintern Corporation, Luce, Schwab & Kase, Inc., MARVCO Inc., Maytag Corporation, McGee Industries, Inc., MDA Manufacturing, Mechanical Service Contractors of America, Merck & Co., Inc., Metl-Span Corporation, Mobile Air Conditioning Society, Montgomery County Schools, Nat. Assoc. of Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors, National Refrigerants, Inc., New Mexico Engineering Research Institute, North American Fire Guardian. North Carolina State Board of Refrigeration Examiners, Northern Research & Eng. Corp., NYE Lubricants, Inc., Owens Corning Specialty & Foam Products Center, Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association, Polycold Systems International, Refrigeration Engineering, Inc., Refron, RemTec International, Revco Scientific, Ritchie Eng. Co., Inc., Robinair Div., SPX Corp., Salas O'Brien Engineers, Sexton Can Company, South Central Co., Inc., Society of the Plastics Industries, Sporlan Valve Co., Stoelting, Inc., Sub-Zero Freezer Co., Inc., TAFCO Refrigeration Inc., Tech Spray, Inc., Tecumseh Products Co., Tesco Distributors, Inc., Thermo-King Corporation, Thompson Supply Co., Tolin Mech. Systems Co., Total Reclaim, Inc., Trane Company, Tu Electric, Tyler Refrigeration Corp., Union Chemical Lab, ITRI, United Refrigeration, Inc., Unitor Ships Service, Inc., Valvoline Company, Vulcan Chemicals Co., Wei T'O Associates, Inc., Whirlpool Corporation, White & Shauger, Inc., W.M. Barr and Company, Worthington Cylinder, W.W. Grainger, York International Corp., Zero Zone Ref. Mfg.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will be proceeding momentarily on two amendments, one of which will be accepted, and one of which, it is my understanding, we still want to have a discussion about to see how we can proceed. Before we do that, last evening, the chairman and the ranking member graciously agreed to include in the legislation an amendment with respect to the Montreal Protocol. Senator Chafee and I, the original cosponsors, along with Senator Brownback and others, were not able to be here at that time. We wanted to take a very quick moment on that amendment, if we could. We promise not to tax our colleagues' patience. We want to say a few words about this because of its importance. We are very grateful to Senator Bond and Senator Mikulski for working with us to accept this amendment. I am very grateful to Senator Chafee for his long commitment and labor in this area. He is chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and he is one of the architects of the very successful Montreal Protocol. I also want to thank our colleagues, Senators Brownback, Snowe, Lieberman, Leahy, Moynihan, Kennedy, Bingaman, Jeffords, Daschle, Roth, Boxer, and Grams, who are cosponsoring this amendment. Let me say very quickly where we are with respect to this. The Montreal Protocol is the landmark international agreement to halt and eventually reverse the growing hole in the Earth's ozone layer. It is extremely important as an agreement in the context of international efforts for the environment as well as for public health. The destruction of the ozone layer and the resultant increase in ultraviolet radiation has been clearly scientifically linked to higher instances of skin cancer, premature aging, and other skin problems; to cataracts and other eye damage; and the suppression of the human immune system. The American Cancer Society reports melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, is expected to be diagnosed in 44,200 people in 1999. It is one of the fastest growing cancers in the United States--growing 4 percent per year since the early 1970's. And, according to the EPA, one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their life time--and that amounts to one American dying every hour from this disease. According to a scientific assessment called the Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion and published in 1998 by the United Nations, exposure to increased UV radiation can be highly destructive to the human eye. The assessment concludes that, ``The increases of UV-B radiation associated with ozone depletion are likely to lead to increases in the incidence and/or severity of a variety of short-term and long-term health effects.'' The effects, according to the report, will include cataracts, blindness from cataracts, ocular melanoma and other eye cancers, and death associated with cancers of the eye. Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world, and in 1992 alone, the United States spent $3.1 billion treating cataracts. It is because of this danger to human health that American Academy of Dermatology and the Physicians for Social Responsibility are supporting this amendment. In addition to these health impacts, increased exposure to UV radiation can degrade terrestrial and aquatic species, including commercial crops. The damage caused to ecosystems can vary widely depending on the species in question--and we're learning more about how UV radiation can subtly--and not so subtly--damage a species. For example, it is becoming increasingly evident that UV-B and UV-A radiation have adverse effects on photoplankton, macroalgae and seagrasses. Now, I know it's not every day that we talk about photoplankton, macroalgae and seagrass, but if you care about fisheries and the well-being of our oceans, then to you these things matter. They are the building blocks of the marine ecosystem, the matter of the web of life and if they're not healthy, then our ocean and fisheries will not be healthy. The multilateral fund, which is the specific program that our amendment supports, is the policy mechanism within the Montreal Protocol to reduce the emissions of ozone-depleting substances from developing countries. I want to emphasize this. It happens by chance that the Chair at this moment is deeply involved in the issue of Kyoto and global warming. This is not global warming. But it does reflect the same principle of getting less developed countries to participate in the effort to be responsible about environmental damage. The Montreal Protocol specifically brought developing countries into the process through the efforts of the multilateral fund. The United States and other nations leading the effort to protect the ozone layer have long understood that emissions from developing countries which were not included in the last round of cuts because of their relatively low emission levels and their relative inability to act in the long run would be equally as destructive to the ozone layer as the emissions from the United States. So to address the problem in 1990 we passed this effort, and we are now restoring $12 million to the funding within EPA's budget in order to support the Montreal Protocol. To address this problem, the United States negotiated in 1990 the Multilateral Fund to provide technical and financial assistance to developing nations to undertake projects to reduce their emissions. It has been extraordinarily successful. Mr. President, let me say now what this amendment would do--it's very simple. It restores $12 million in funding within EPA's budget to support the Montreal Protocol's Multilateral Fund. Unfortunately, the VA-HUD bill now provides no funds for the EPA to participate in the Multilateral Fund--despite President Clinton's request of $21 million. To fund this $12 million increase in the Multilateral Fund, the amendment makes an across-the-board cut to other accounts in the EPA's budget. I have sought this offset reluctantly. I strongly believe that Congress is making a mistake by cutting our national investment in environmental protection and natural resource conservation year after year. If it were my decision alone, this Senate would not have capped natural resource spending at $2.4 billion below last year's budget and $3.1 billion below the President's request. I opposed these low caps precisely because they jeopardize important federal programs Multilateral Fund. And, I want to stress that I commend Chairman Bond and Ranking Member Mikulski for the work they done to craft the VA-HUD Appropriations bill--under what I believe are more demanding constraints than any other appropriations committee. Nonetheless, I strongly believe that we should fund this program, and I want to stress that it is only because of critical importance of the Multilateral Fund that I accept this shifting of funds within the EPA accounts. Mr. President, I have asked my colleagues to support this amendment for the following reasons. First and foremost, the Montreal Protocol is a success. In 1998, NASA, NOAA and other scientific bodies coauthored a report called the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion. The assessment concluded--and it could not have been more direct or more succinct--that ``The Montreal Protocol is working.'' Too often we come to this floor to debate the failure of international agreements, whether they're about the environment, trade or peace--but not today. The Montreal Protocol, with the participation of over 162 nations, is working. To support this claim, NASA and NOAA cited two compelling observations that clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the Protocol: Firstly, the abundance of ozone depleting chemicals in the lower atmosphere peaked in 1994 and is now slowly declining. Thanks to the Protocol we have turned the corner and we are now reducing the accumulation of these destructive substances in the atmosphere. Secondly, the abundance of substitutes for ozone depleting chemicals in the atmosphere is rising. The abundance of chemicals that have been created to replace CFCs and other ozone depleting chemicals are on the rise in the atmosphere. These chemicals are providing us the same services we require, but not destroy the ozone. This isn't to say that a danger doesn't still exist. One does--and that's the point of this amendment. The fact is that the ozone hole over the Antarctic was the largest it has ever been in 1998. While we have turned the corner, we must stat vigilant, follow through and get the job done. Mr. President, I want to make an important point: In their report, NASA and NOAA concluded that the success of the Protocol would not have been possible without the strengthening amendments of 1990 that created the Multilateral Fund. The report reads ``It is important to note that, while the provisions of the original Montreal Protocol in 1987 would have lowered the [growth rates in ozone depletion], recovery would have been impossible without the Amendments and Adjustments.''--and it specifically includes the 1990 amendments creating the Multilateral Fund. Second, the Multilateral Fund itself is working. Since its inception in 1990, 32 industrialized nations have contributed $847 million to the Multilateral Fund. These funds have sponsored more than 2,700 projects in 110 nations, whose implementation will phase out the consumption of 119,000 tonnes of ozone depleting substances. These projects for technical and financial in developing countries are selected by an Executive Committee, which the U.S. chairs. In fact, it is the EPA that takes the lead in the U.S. role as chair of the Executive Committee. The Agency provides technical expertise and experience that has been crucial to the Multilateral Fund's success. And the program has been well-run. In 1997, the GAO reviewed the Multilateral Fund's performance and concluded that it was well managed and fiscally sound. GAO reported that the Executive Committee reviews projects for their cost effectiveness and rejects projects that fail to meet cost standards. Further, the GAO concluded that the administrative costs of operating the Fund were appropriate. In fact, the GAO made a single recommendation to improve the program's fiscal operation relating to use of promissary notes--which the Clinton Administration has since instituted at the EPA. Third, the Multilateral Fund has strong business support. I have a letter from the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy urging Congress to fund the U.S. treaty obligations. This letter demonstrates America's leadership in the development, manufacture and marketing of ozone-safe products. Alliance members include General Electric, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Whirlpool, Johnson Controls, AlliedSignal and dozens of the others. These are some of leading names in American business. In their statement, the Alliance writes that they support the fund for very simple reasons: Firstly, the Multilateral Fund was part of the deal when the Montreal Protocol was negotiated in the late 1980s. They argue that American industry has been supportive because a fund to assist developing nations assured world wide compliance. Secondly, U.S. industry has invested billions of dollars in ozone- safe technologies and the Multilateral fund will facilitate the world wide use of these technologies, creating markets for U.S. companies and reducing pollution. These companies know that we are creating jobs and profits by exporting American-made, ozone-safe technologies. According to EPA, the overwhelming majority of ozone-safe products utilized in the Fund's projects are American. Thirdly, these more than 100 companies recognize that the phase out of ozone depleting chemicals in developing nations is the final step in protecting the atmosphere. In a statement to Congress, the Alliance writes, The international effort to protect the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer has been one of the most successful global environmental protection efforts ever, with an unprecedented level of cooperation between and among governments and industry. To not fulfill our treaty obligations at this time is bad environmental policy, hurts U.S. credibility around the world, especially in important developing country emerging markets, and is self-destructive toward U.S. industry and workers who have, in effect, already paid for this contribution. I ask unanimous consent that the statement of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, and a list of its member companies be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Senator. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, for those of us who are trying to bring up amendments on this bill, will the Senator, perhaps, give us an idea of how long he might proceed?