John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I join Senator Moynihan in supporting his legislation to designate the headquarters building of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C. as the ``Robert C. Weaver Federal Building.'' Robert Weaver was a stalwart leader in the fight to build a society free from racial prejudice and discrimination. He spent his life in a pursuit of equality and a campaign to end all forms of discrimination based on race. Dr. Weaver was a member of ``the black cabinet'' which sought to ensure that the new government projects of the New Deal applied to and benefitted minority groups during the Roosevelt Administration. His personal crusade led for civil rights led to the selection of the first African-American to be a general in the Army, the naming of the first African-American to be a civilian aide to the Secretary of War, and the appointment of the first African-American to be a high-ranking aide to the head of the Selective Service. In 1955, Dr. Weaver began a long career in housing when he was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Housing for the State of New York. Later that year, he became the state rent administrator. In 1960, Dr. Weaver was selected to be the vice-chairman of the New York City Housing Redevelopment Board, a three-member body responsible for administering the city's urban renewal and moderate-income housing programs. Dr. Weaver's reputation as a skilled housing policy and program practitioner soon extended well beyond New York. President John K. Kennedy named Dr. Weaver as Administrator of the Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, and President Lyndon Johnson nominated him to be the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development when the Department of Housing and Urban Development was formed in 1966. Dr. Weaver's leadership and vision set the course for the future of the housing and urban redevelopment industries. Past Federal housing programs had focused largely on ``bricks-and-mortar'' policies, but Dr. Weaver believed that ``you cannot have physical renewal without human renewal.'' His principal concern was to raise the standard of urban housing and to move away from the bleak high rise projects that scarred the urban landscape and were the origins of many inner city social problems that were just beginning to be recognized. He used all of his various positions and considerable experience to advocate effective public programs to house all Americans and to revitalize communities. He was a true visionary who fought to expand the possibilities of all Americans. I can think of no better person to name the first building to house the Department of Housing and Urban Development than Dr. Robert Clifton Weaver, the first African-American Cabinet member in New York State, the first African-American member of a President's cabinet, and the federal government's first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. This tribute is even more fitting because Robert Weaver, along with then Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey and others, laid the cornerstone of this building during his tenure as Secretary.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, some years ago this body was graced by the presence of an extraordinary woman from the State of Maine. Senator Margaret Chase Smith came to be known by her trademark red rose, an apt symbol for a woman who epitomized the bipartisan spirit that leads to good legislation for our constituents and the country. I supported the amendment offered by the current Senior Senator from Maine [Ms. Snowe], which the Senate passed last night and added to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform proposal, because, like much of the bipartisan work of her distinguished predecessor, Margaret Chase Smith, this amendment--if the Senate ever is allowed to vote on it and, as I am confident it will, add it to the campaign finance reform legislation the majority of Senators have demonstrated they want to pass--can help to advance the cause of genuine campaign finance reform. As I said on Tuesday, the McCain-Feingold legislation is by no means a perfect bill. But the original version of that bill moved us significantly in the right direction toward reforming our campaign finance laws. But among the many obstacles, procedural and otherwise, which are standing in its way is a cynical bill, the Lott-McConnell bill, the so- called, misnamed ``Paycheck Protection'' legislation, which is offered to us under the guise of campaign reform. Mr. President, it is no such thing. Make no mistake--the Lott-McConnell bill is not reform. It is a devious device designed to divide the supporters of real reform in order to defeat McCain-Feingold. But the Lott-McConnell bill is not merely a poison pill, presented in a cynical effort to destroy any chance for reform. It is also bad legislation. Let me explain why. First, McCain-Feingold already codifies the Beck decision; it requires unions to notify non-members of the right to a reduction in fees if they object to the use of those fees for campaign purposes. Lott-McConnell, instead, covers only union members. It constitutes an unacceptable intrusion into the right of free association of union members which is guaranteed by the same First Amendment its proponents profess to care so much about. It also is grossly, transparently discriminatory, singling out only unions, because the authors of this bill have concluded that unions more often than not support their opponents, or the opponents of other candidates from their party. Like any members of voluntary organizations, those working men and women who choose to join and receive the privileges of union membership, such as voting for officers, running for office and choosing the rules that guide the union, cannot pick and choose which union expenses they want to fund. The union makes those decisions according to its organizational procedures. Those who like what the union does can choose to affiliate. Anyone who does not like what the union does--in any respect, be it campaign involvement or otherwise-- can choose not to affiliate. Just imagine the outcries from the National Rifle Association, or from thousands of other organizations from one end of the philosophical spectrum to the other, if they had to seek advance written approval from their members each time they sought to take a position on an issue or broadcast their views. The Chamber of Commerce does not let a member cut its dues by the amount spent lobbying against air pollution regulations if the member happens to disagree with that position. The NFIB did not provide such an option to its small business members when, although many of them understood the need for the long-overdue minimum wage increase we recently adopted, the organization spent its funds to fight the legislation to increase the minimum wage. It is impossible to run any organization that way--and the Senators from Kentucky and Mississippi both know that. Although this totally one-sided, anti-union provision does nothing to curtail the freedom of giant corporations to play fast and loose with our current campaign finance system, this unimaginative recycling of a tired idea still has the potential to divide us. And that is why I supported, and urged my colleagues to support, the Snowe Amendment, and why I oppose and will vote against cloture on the Lott-McConnell proposal. I commend Senators Snowe, Jeffords and Chafee for their courage and for their serious effort to keep hope for real campaign finance reform alive. In the context of McCain-Feingold, it deserves our support. Their amendment, offered to replace the Lott-McConnell proposal, would, in essence, prevent both labor unions and for-profit corporations from using their treasury funds to run any broadcast ads which mention candidates within 30 days of a primary and within 60 days of a general election. The Snowe-Jeffords-Chafee amendment thereby places essentially the same limits on union and corporate spending as S. 25, the McCain-Feingold bill--but it takes the added step of specifically naming unions and corporations as the target of those limits. It is important to note that the Snowe amendment would not restrict unions or corporate PACs from using ``hard money''--that is, funds regulated by federal campaign finance laws--to pay for such ads, but these PACs would be subject to all the reporting and contribution limits applying to all other PACs. The ads which are the targets of this legislation are ads paid for with union and corporate soft money, and which clearly identify candidates and are aired close to the election, despite the phony claim that they are ``issue ads.'' They are not now subject to federal election laws and their greatly expanded use was a major new development in the 1996 elections. The Annenberg Center for Public Policy estimates that all such soft money ads totaled at least $135 to $150 million. The political parties spent about $78 million of this amount for such soft money ads in the 1996 cycle. The AFL-CIO spent about $25 million. Big business groups, including the Coalition, the Coalition for Change, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others, spent nearly $10 million dollars. If we were simply to ban soft money contributions to the parties, the soft money expenditures made by Labor and corporations would increase exponentially. The Snowe Amendment also makes it unlawful for corporations or unions to launder their treasury funds by contributing to the costs of such ads produced by outside groups, including the so-called non-profits which took a much more active, and largely negative, role in the last election. Finally, and very importantly, the amendment addresses all other radio or TV ads paid for by soft money that mention candidates during the period 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election. It will require anyone making or contracting to run TV or radio ads during those periods to disclose to the FEC all contributions in excess of $500 which are used to pay for producing or airing those ads if they name candidates, once any such person or group has spent $10,000 or more on such advertisements. In considering what this amendment can achieve, we should remember that the McCain-Feingold substitute itself, with its soft money ban, would prohibit the national party ads for which payment is made with soft money (that is, contributions not subject to regulation under the federal campaign laws) that attack candidates. The recent special election to replace the retiring Congresswoman from the 13th District of New York featured $800,000 of such ads paid for by the Republican Party--and all of them were broadcast in the last ten days of that election. The greatest virtue of the Snowe-Jeffords-Chafee Amendment is that it is a good faith effort to address this concern squarely but fairly. Like the McCain-Feingold legislation it amends, it is not perfect. But it enables the advocates of real campaign reform to defeat the grossly unfair Lott-McConnell legislation, assuming the Republican leadership ever permits it to proceed that far legislatively, and that, in turn, keeps real campaign finance reform legislation alive. I commend Senators Snowe, Jeffords and Chafee for their serious effort. Mr. President, we all know that the parliamentary machinations and filibustering tactics of the Republican leadership that opposes real campaign reform may succeed in preventing us from passing any legislation containing this provision. But with this amendment, there remains a possibility of success. On Tuesday, the motion to table McCain-Feingold failed. Last night, having been modified by Snowe-Jeffords-Chafee, another effort to table it failed again. Now it is beyond dispute that there is a majority for genuine reform in this body. I hope the Republican leadership will acknowledge the bipartisan support for McCain-Feingold, as amended by Snowe-Jeffords-Chafee, and will permit this body to act decisively on the single most important issue facing the Congress this year.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing and mourning a loss for Massachusetts, New England, and the professional sports community of this country. On Monday, February 23, 1998, William H. Sullivan, founder and former owner of the New England Patriots, passed away at his home in Florida. I join the rest of the Massachusetts delegation in extending to Mary Sullivan, his wife of 56 years, and their six children the condolences of millions of people who were affected by the vast and varied pursuits of Billy Sullivan. His leadership was instrumental in bringing a professional football team to New England, and by overseeing the merger of the American Football League and the National Football League he ushered the entire sport into a new era of cultural prominence. While Billy Sullivan is predominantly identified with professional football and the New England Patriots, to summarize his life with just those references would do a great injustice to a public career that spanned more than 60 years. Billy's pursuits combined the worlds of business, human service, community revitalization, and education. From Little League baseball to cancer research, sports broadcasting to entrepreneurship, Billy Sullivan brought an integrity and drive to any pursuit and collectively we are the better for his efforts. After graduating from Boston College in 1937, he served as Publicity Director for that institution from 1938 to 1940. He briefly assisted the Director of Athletics at Notre Dame, then in 1942 answered the nation's call and served in the Aviation Training Division of the United States Navy throughout World War II. Two years after the war he was back and involved in sports, taking part in two projects that would send both him and professional sports in new directions. In 1948 he became Director of Public Relations for the Boston Braves, a position that sparked his abiding passion for New England and its teams. For his crowning achievement in that post, he produced the first package of highlights from the recently completed Braves season for media and industry distribution. This short compilation of clips revolutionized sports broadcasting and reporting, tapping into a market so strong that he established a company in 1952 to produce these segments for mass distribution. Use of these clips on television broadcasts resulted in the nightly sports segment that is a staple of virtually every news program throughout the country. During that same year came the inspiration for the Jimmy Fund, now an internationally recognized cancer research foundation that provides millions of dollars for research and treatments. Under Billy Sullivan's guidance, The Jimmy Fund grew from an ambitious idea to an organization that now reaches out to thousands of families from all over this country and the world. With an eye towards increased community support and permanence of mission, he enlisted the sports teams and fans of New England in his fight against cancer. This masterful stroke of organizing skill leaves us an alliance whose effectiveness and dedication will allow his helping hand to extend long into the next century. He helped create the Hundred Club, a private organization that aids the families of police officers and firefighters hurt or killed in the line of duty. He also provided distinguished service as a member of the boards of the United Way, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Stonehill College, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Research Corporation and countless others. These are just a few of the dozens of community organizations that were the fortunate recipients of his time and energy. For many New Englanders, though, William Sullivan is foremost the founder of the Patriots and one of the central players in the merger of the AFL and the NFL. We applaud his life, his spirit and his many contributions to the millions whom he touched in one way or the other. We will miss you, Billy.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the minority leader. I simply express on behalf of all of us I think who had an anticipation of an opportunity to bring a number of amendments that this is a setback for the Senate and it is clearly a setback for all those in the country who thought the Senate could approach the issue of reform responsibly. When we talk about filling the tree here, for a lot of people who listen to these debates and don't know what that means, under the rules of the Senate, we are given an opportunity to be able to bring up an amendment according to the rules. But according to the rules, the majority leader has the opportunity of right of recognition to take up all of the options that the rules allow in order to bring up amendments. By doing that, he can choose to deny any other opportunity for an amendment. That is precisely what the majority leader has chosen to do here. When we say he has filled up the tree, he has denied the Senate the opportunity to be able to bring amendments in order to be able to work the legislative process as people sent us here to do. I think what he has asked for is a long process of delay. He has initiated gridlock in the U.S. Senate again, solely to protect a certain group of narrow vested interests represented in this campaign finance debate. It is very, very clear as of today, there are a majority of the U.S. Senate prepared to vote for campaign finance reform. There is a minority that is trying to stop it. They have that right, but they also, I hope, will be subject to the judgment of the American people who will recognize who is for campaign finance reform and who is against it. I thank the leader.

Mr. KERRY. I ask the leader, referring back to the October 30, 1997, Congressional Record, reading from the language of the leader himself, he said: This is not better-- Referring to the agreement-- This is not better necessarily for Democrats or Republicans. But in our view, this is a very big victory for the country. This will give us an opportunity to have a good debate as we have discussed. And then going on further, the minority leader said: I expect a full-fledged debate with plenty of opportunity to offer amendments. Given this agreement, now I have every assurance and confidence that will happen. I recall, having been part of the discussion and referring back to Senator Lott's request, Senator Lott said: I further ask that if the amendment-- Referring to Senator McCain's amendment-- is not tabled . . . the underlying bill will be open to further amendments, debates and motions. There was a clear understanding, if I am correct, and I ask the leader if there was not a clear understanding, that while the Republicans retained the right to filibuster, they would not fill up the tree and they would not deny the Senate the right to have the opportunity to debate and have a series of votes on the substantive issues, but that there would be a distinct opportunity for both sides to be able to amend and follow this debate? Is that the minority leader's understanding, and is that a correct reference to the language that he relied on at that time?

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, will the leader yield for a question?

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the rising cost of seeking political office is nothing less than outrageous. Last year (1996), House and Senate candidates spent more than $765 million --a 76 percent increase since 1990 and a six-fold increase since 1976. In the same time frame, the more telling figure for our purposes, the average cost for a winning Senate race went from a little more than $600,000 to $3.3 million. And some of us involved in 1996 races raised and spent a great deal more. And over the last 3 election cycles ``soft money,'' which is money not regulated by federal election contribution laws, and which largely fuels the barrage of negative attack ads, has increased exponentially. In the 1988 cycle, the major parties alone raised a combined $45 million in soft money. In 1992 that amount doubled--and in the 1995-96 cycle that figure tripled again, to a staggering $262 million. Initial FEC reports show this sorry trend continues in the current cycle. And if Congressional Quarterly and other sources are correct, the Majority's draft of the campaign fundraising investigation of the Governmental Affairs Committee report, due out later this week, will bluntly declare that in 1996 the federal campaign finance system ``collapsed.'' The draft of the Minority's portion of that report, according to the same sources, apparently continues that theme, stating that our dependence on large contributions from wealthy persons and organizations is so great that ``the democratic principles underlying our government are at risk.'' It goes on to state, as reported by Congressional Quarterly: ``We face the danger of becoming a government not of the people, but of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. . . . Activities surrounding the 1996 election exposed the dark side of our political system and the critical need for campaign finance reform.'' Is it any wonder, Mr. President, that Americans believe that their government has been hijacked by special interests--that the political system responds to the needs of the wealthy, not the needs of ordinary, hard-working citizens--and that those of us elected may be more accountable to those who financed our campaigns than to average Americans? Many of them sense that Congress no longer belongs to the people. We are witnessing a growing sense of powerlessness, a corrosive cynicism. The reasons for this cynicism and disconnect are clear. More than anything, Mr. President, they are the exorbitant cost of campaigns and the power of special interest money in politics--the special interest money used to campaign for elective office. Special interest money is moving and dictating and governing the process of American politics, and most Americans understand that. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that by a margin of 77 percent to 18 percent the public wants campaign finance reform, because ``there is too much money being spent on political campaigns, which leads to excessive influence by special interests and wealthy individuals at the expense of average people.'' Last spring a New York Times poll found that an astonishing 91 percent favor a fundamental transformation of the existing system. The evidence of public discontent could not be more compelling. In the 1996 Presidential and Congressional elections we witnessed an appalling no-holds-barred pursuit of stunning amounts of money by both parties and their candidates. And I must admit that in my own re- election campaign, despite an agreement between my opponent and me to limit expenditures, the amounts raised and spent were staggering. The American people believe--with considerable justification--that the scores of millions of dollars flowing from the well-to-do and from special interest organizations are not donated out of disinterested patriotism, admiration for the candidates, or support for our electoral system. They have seen repeatedly that public policy decisions made by the Congress and the Executive Branch appear to be influenced by those who make the contributions. Who can blame them, Mr. President, for believing either that those contributions directly affect the decision-making process, or, at the least, purchase the kind of access for large donors that enables them to make their case in ways ordinary Americans seldom can? It is no surprise that those who profit from the current system-- special interests who know how to play the game and politicians who know how to game the system--continue to try to block genuine reform. If we want to regain the respect and confidence of the American people, if we want to reconnect people to their democracy, we must get special interest money out of politics. That process begins here with the bill before us. One reason the results of the Governmental Affairs Committee's work may have less impact than it should is the perhaps unavoidable need of each party to highlight the sins of the other. But I am not interested today in assigning blame, Mr. President. As our distinguished colleague, the ranking minority Member of the Committee, Senator Glenn has said, ``There is wrong on both sides.'' Indeed, the minority draft, again as reported by Congressional Quarterly, says the investigation showed that: Both parties have become slaves to the raising of soft money. Both parties have been lax in screening out illegal and improper contributions. Both parties have openly sold access for contributions. Mr. President, the creative minds of campaign managers and candidates alike have found ways to undermine every reform over the years. To attack the problem by a piecemeal approach will not work. One man who knew all about abuse of the campaign finance system, Richard Nixon, once said that campaign finance reform cannot work if it ``plugs only one hole in a sieve.'' Thanks to a unanimous consent agreement last fall, we are here today, finally, to have the first real debate and meaningful action in this Congress on a proposal for campaign finance reform advanced by my good friends, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. I supported their original bill, because it assembled a package of meaningful reforms that seemed to Bridge the party divide that has too often poisoned this debate and prevented any real change. And, although its scope is now reduced, I continue to support this version of the bill, because it does move us forward. Throughout my years in this body my goal has been the same as John McCain's and Russ Feingold's: to get special interest money and special interest access out of politics. As we begin this debate, most of the pundits tell us that true reform again has no chance. My friend, the junior Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell) has assured us all repeatedly that McCain-Feingold is dead. Yesterday, however, The Washington Post, said that ``the success of this venture depends on the stubbornness of the advocates.'' I am proud to count myself among this group which is determined to see that real reform begins now. And that means continuing to work in the coming days with all those on both sides of the aisle with the fortitude to keep reform alive. In a recent speech, Bill Moyers quoted a distinguished Republican, former Senator Barry Goldwater, who said some ten years ago that the Founding Fathers knew that ``liberty depended on honest elections,'' and that ``corruption destroyed the prime requisite of constitutional liberty, an independent legislature free from any influence other than that of the people.'' The Senator continued: To be successful, representative government assumes that elections will be controlled by the citizenry at large, not by those who give the most money. Electors must believe their vote counts. Elected officials must owe their allegiance to the people, not to their own wealth or to the wealth of interest groups who speak only for the selfish fringes of the whole community. Those who join John McCain and his hardy band could do no better than to follow Barry Goldwater's advice today. Today's version of McCain/Feingold still correctly identifies a number of glaring deficiencies in the current campaign finance system and seeks to remedy them. This bill should pass, Mr. President. The American people want these reforms. Mr. President, because it so fascinates those on the other side of this issue, I'd like to take a moment to explain briefly why the so- called First Amendment objections to a soft money ban do not hold water. Simply put, as a distinguished group of 124 law professors from across the country has pointed out, there is nothing in Buckley v. Valeo that even suggests a problem in restricting, or even banning, soft money contributions. Last September, those distinguished constitutional scholars, led by New York University Law School Professors Ronald Dworkin and Burt Neuborne, joined in a letter to the sponsors of this amendment. We need to remember that this 1976 Supreme Court decision expressly reaffirmed the right to ban all hard money, corporate and union political contributions in federal elections, stating that Congress had a basis for finding a ``primary governmental interest in the prevention of actual corruption or the appearance of corruption in the political process.'' And the Court recognized the potential for corruption inherent in the large campaign contributions that corporations and labor organizations could generate. These esteemed scholars point out that the most vital statement of the Supreme Court came in 1990, in Austin vs. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The scholars tell us, and I quote, the Court found that corporations can be walled off from the electoral process by forbidding both contributions and independent expenditures from general corporate treasuries. Surely the law can not be that Congress has the power to prevent corporations from giving money directly to a candidate, or from expending money on behalf of a candidate, but lacks the power to prevent them from pouring unlimited funds into a candidate's political party in order to buy preferred access to him after the election. Accordingly, these professors continue--and again, I am quoting-- ``closing the loophole for soft money contributions is in line with the longstanding and constitutional ban on corporate and union contributions in federal elections and with limits on the size of individual's contributions that are not corrupting.'' There have also been a number of references in this debate to the 1996 Supreme Court case of Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee vs. FEC. These same scholars have said that any suggestion that [the Colorado Republican case] cast doubt on the constitutionality of a soft money ban is flatly wrong. [The Colorado Republican case] did not address the constitutionality of banning soft money contributions, but rather expenditures by political parties of hard money, that is, money raised in accordance with FECA's limits. Indeed, the Court noted that it ``could understand how Congress, were it to conclude that the potential for evasion of the individual contribution limits was a serious matter, might decide to change the statute's limitations on contributions to political parties.'' Mr. President, I suggest to you that these definitive findings on the First Amendment issue have settled the argument. We can now move forward to a healthy and productive debate within the boundaries our Constitution sets before us. I will acknowledge that, in my judgment, this amendment does not go far enough. Its useful reforms are by no means all we need. That is why, Mr. President, I, along with Senators Wellstone, Glenn, Biden and Leahy, introduced S. 918, the ``Clean Money, Clean Elections Act'' last June. Like the bill before us, S. 918 also bans soft money and takes steps--stronger steps than we can take today--truly to rein in those phony issue ads that are only thinly veiled, election-oriented advocacy ads, many of which are purely negative attacks. It would also strengthen the Federal Election Commission, reduce the costs of campaigning in many ways, such as by requiring free air time for candidates--and it would effectively reduce the length of campaigns. Our bill contains nearly all the other solid reforms included in the original McCain-Feingold bill. But fundamentally, the Clean Money bill creates a totally new, voluntary, alternative campaign finance system that removes virtually all private money--and all large private contributions--from federal election campaigns for those who choose to participate. Let me briefly summarize our proposal: Any Senate candidate who demonstrates sufficient citizen support by collecting a set number of $5 qualifying contributions from voters in his or her state is eligible for a fixed amount of campaign funding from a Senate ``Clean Election Fund.'' To receive public funds, a Clean Money candidate must forego all private contributions (including self-financing) except for a small amount of ``seed money'' (to be used to secure the qualifying contributions raised in amounts of $100 or less), and he or she must limit campaign spending to the allotted amount of ``clean money'' funds. Additional matching funds, up to a certain limit, will be provided if a participating candidate is outspent by a private money candidate or is the target of independent expenditures. ``By placing a premium on organizing rather than fundraising,'' as Ellen Miller of Public Campaign has pointed out, Clean Money Campaign Reform shifts ``the priorities of electoral work back toward those that ought to matter most in a representative democracy: issue development and advocacy, canvassing, and get-out-the-vote drives.'' And most important, once elected, Clean Money office holders are free to spend full-time on the jobs they were elected to do. The days of dialing for dollars would truly be over. This reform effort began in the State of Maine where in November 1996, a statewide Clean Money, Clean Elections initiative passed by a margin of 56 to 44 percent. Last June Vermont's state legislature adopted a similar measure by a two-thirds margin in the Senate and by better than six to one in the House. Other efforts are underway across the nation. In my home State of Massachusetts, 2,000 volunteers collected 100,000 signatures for a Clean Money initiative--well over the number needed to place it on the ballot this fall. In thirteen other states, from John McCain's Arizona to Connecticut, from Georgia to Oregon, coalitions of effective grassroots advocates are all working hard for Clean Money reform. I believe the day is coming, Mr. President, when the Congress will have no choice but to approve this fundamentally simple reform. It will finally put an end to the senseless money chase and totally eliminate the influence of private money in our campaigns--and thereby let the people buy back their politicians. That day is not yet here. I am a realist. Although the grassroots work in the vineyards of state legislatures and state initiative campaigns is on the march, we are not close enough to reach that goal in this chamber today. But today we can make a down payment on the debt we owe the people who sent us here by supporting McCain-Feingold. I support it without reservation. I congratulate and thank both sponsors of this bill for their efforts in putting together this bill and fighting for it. It is good legislation. It is needed legislation. It heads us in the right direction. I commend Senator Feingold for his hard work, his determined bipartisanship, and his commitment to making our political process a cleaner, better and more democratic system. The junior Senator from Wisconsin, who joined this body after a race in which he was outspent three to one, has worked tirelessly to make real progress possible. And I especially commend the work of Senator McCain. All of us understand the stamina it takes to assume a mission of this kind, and to stick with one's convictions despite opposition from friends. John McCain has always excelled as a patriot, and with this legislation, he has done so again. He courageously pursues a just cause. I am proud, once again, to stand with John McCain and support his amendment. Mr. President, one reason the nay-sayers are again predicting defeat for reform is their reliance on smokescreens like the so-called ``paycheck protection'' proposal that is clearly designed as a poison pill to sink this reform. We cannot let that effort deter us. Nor can we ignore the plain fact that it is being pressed by the big business lobbyists whom my friend Russ Feingold has called ``the Washington Gatekeepers,'' the ones who in many cases decide who get the largest contributions. These folks, as the Senator points out, are the ones ``who transfer the money to the politicians and produce the legislative votes that go with it.'' The American people must not--and I believe they will not--be fooled by these attempts at sabotage. This is not a complex issue. All of us face a stark, but simple choice--a choice between the disgraceful status quo and an important step forward. Despite the efforts to muddy the waters, we can and should prevail--especially if all those hearing and reading about this debate will let their voices be heard now by contacting their own Senators. Mr. President, I want to strongly emphasize one point--the single most important point today, in fact the only important point today--as we approach this vote on this amendment. Do not be deceived by this complicated explanation or that complex rationale. Do not be misled by diversions and red herrings. Understand this vote for what it is. This is the most important vote the 105th Congress will have cast to date on campaign finance. It is, in essence, stunningly simple. Because this vote will show which Senators are for real campaign finance reform and which Senators are against real campaign finance reform. There is no place to run, and no place to hide. If a Senator is for real campaign finance reform--for reducing the influence of special interest money on the key decisions of our democracy--he or she will vote for the McCain-Feingold amendment. If a Senator votes against this amendment, no one will need further evidence that, despite all the lofty rhetoric about constitutionality, about freedom of speech, about personal rights, and all the rest, that Senator is not committed to real campaign finance reform. If McCain-Feingold prevails on this vote, the effort goes on. If the opponents of reform defeat this amendment, they have prevailed for the 105th Congress. Perhaps yesterday's New York Times said it best: It is too early to predict how this fight will turn out. But when it ends, Americans will know where each Senator stands on protecting his or her own integrity and the integrity of government decision-making from money delivered with the intention to corrupt. I urge all my colleagues to support the McCain-Feingold amendment. Mr. President, this is without any question the most important vote we will have had in this Congress and no one should mistake that this vote is about the First Amendment or that this vote is about one genuine alternative versus another. It is really a choice between those who want to keep campaign finance reform alive, those who really want to vote for campaign finance reform, and those who don't. Every conversation on the Hill reflects that. There are countless quotes that have appeared from individuals on the other side of the aisle in the House or Senate, talking to their colleagues about how this is really a vote about institutional power and the capacity to stay in power and be elected. The simple reality is that all Americans are coming to understand is that Republicans have a stronger finance base, they have raised more money, more easily, they pour more money into campaigns, and money is what is deciding who represents people in the United States of America. Last year, the House and Senate candidates spent $765 million, a 76 percent increase over 1990 and a sixfold increase from 1976. We have seen voting in America go down from 63 percent in 1960 to 49 percent in the last election because increasingly Americans are separated from a Government that they know is controlled by the money. The fact is that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where I ran for re-election last year I spent $12 million to run for the U.S. Senate. I had never spent more than $2.5 or $3 million on media alone in a previous race. That is a measure of the escalating costs of campaigning under the system in place today. In a recent speech, Bill Moyers quoted Barry Goldwater, a leader of the conservative movement in this country, who reminded us 10 years ago that the Founding Fathers knew that ``liberty depended on honest elections'' and that ``corruption destroyed the prime requisite of constitutional liberty, an independent legislature free from any influence other than that of the people'' to be successful. Senator Goldwater also said ``. . . Representative government assumes that elections will be controlled by the citizenry at large, not by those who give the most money. Electors must believe their vote counts. Elected officials must owe their allegiance to the people, not to their own wealth or to the wealth of interest groups who speak only for the selfish fringes of the whole community.'' So that is what this vote is about today. Mr. President, to those who hide behind the First Amendment, let me make it clear that there is nothing in the First Amendment that prohibits a ban on soft money or prohibits what we seek to do in this legislation. Simply put, a very distinguished group of 124 law professors from across the country has pointed out that there is nothing in the 1976 Supreme Court decision of Buckley v. Valeo that even suggests a problem in restricting or banning soft money contributions. Last September, those distinguished constitutional scholars sent a letter to the sponsors of this amendment and they said we need to remember that the Buckley decision expressly reaffirmed the right to ban all hard money, corporate and union political contributions in Federal elections. And it stated that Congress specifically has a basis for finding a ``primary governmental interest in the prevention of actual corruption or the appearance of corruption in the political process.'' More than twenty years ago, Mr. President, the High Court recognized the potential for corruption inherent in the large campaign contributions that corporations and labor organizations could generate. In the more recent 1990 Supreme Court case of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, these scholars pointed out, ``the Court found that corporations can be walled off from the electoral process by forbidding both contributions and independent expenditures from general corporate treasuries.'' Mr. President, it is clear not only in that language, but in the language of Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC-- which the other side often tries to cite to the contrary --there is a certainly a legitimate basis for banning soft money consistent with the other restraints that the Court has already found permissible with respect to hard money. The Supreme Court said there that it could indeed understand how Congress might ``conclude that the potential for evasion of the individual contribution limits was a serious matter,'' and might indeed ``decide to change the statute's limitations on contributions to political parties.'' And it's absolutely inconsistent that we should be allowed to set limits on campaign contributions, which we are allowed to--that we are allowed to have Federal limits on the total amount of contributions somebody can make--$25,000--and not be able to restrict in the context of soft money, the same kinds of contributions. So, Mr. President, this is about power and money. And most people in America understand precisely what is going on here. Our colleagues have an opportunity to vote for reform, and I hope they will embrace that today. If they don't, it will be clear who stands in the way of that reform.

Mr. KERRY. Unless the Senator wants to be good enough to give it to me.

Mr. KERRY. The time was yielded to the Senator from Michigan, but the Senator from Massachusetts wanted to inquire if we could lock in a sequence if possible. Would it be possible to ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for 5 minutes following the Senator from Michigan?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the text of the eulogy I gave for my friend, Thomas M. Belodeau, on November 10, 1997. The eulogy follows: Mrs. Belodeau, Michael; Ann, Tommy's sisters Patricia and Mary; his brothers Leo, James, Joseph, and Larry, to all his relatives, and to his brothers from Vietnam--particularly Del Sandusky from Illinois and Gene Thorsen from Iowa--his crewman on PCF 94--to the Doghunters and to all of Tommy's friends and extended family. A number of us thought once foolishly that we brothers of Vietnam had gotten used to saying goodbye to our friends before their time. But Tommy is proving us dangerously wrong. We will never get used to it--and well we should not. So now the question is, how do you say goodbye to a man whose steady hand and courageous heart helped keep you alive? How do you say goodbye to a man who shared the most challenging and terrifying moments of your life? First, you should all know that we are saying goodbye to a hero. We are saying goodbye to the genuine article--a patriot--a young kid fresh out of Chelmsford High who in difficult times saw his duty and who did it. Tommy was one of America's children who went to war against a people he knew precious little about in a land he'd never been to--for reasons never honestly stated--and he was, like so many, forever changed. It is hard for me to convey to you the full measure of what that means in 1997, particularly here, today. But in 1966, Tommy and I unwittingly became brothers in the great, divisive, confusing enterprise called Vietnam. We were both class of `66--he from high school and me from college. Though we came from different backgrounds, we didn't in the sense that we both believed in service to our country. We both chose to go into the Navy. We both volunteered for Swift boats in Vietnam. We met when we were thrown together as a crew after his first skipper got hit in an ambush. I inherited Tommy and the rest of his seasoned crew, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Many of you may have read Tom's obituary the other day. It said he had won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with Combat V for serving in Vietnam. That only told you part of the story--and no one here would be surprised that Tommy never told you the rest. He also won the Navy Commendation medal: Let me share with you what Admiral Zumwalt said in awarding it to Tom: ``For heroic achievement while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in armed conflict against North Vietnamese and Viet Cong communist aggressors in the Republic of Vietnam on 5 July, 1968. Seaman Belodeau was serving as a crewman on board Patrol Craft 27 which was blockading the beach in the vicinity of air strikes on an enemy platoon near the village of My Lai, Quang Ngai Province. Observing a Viet Cong suspect run from the enemy position, Seaman Belodeau's Patrol Craft fast moved in to attempt a capture and was immediately taken under enemy fire. Seaman Belodeau, ignoring the enemy fire around him, calmly moved into the open to make the capture. He helped pull the suspect from the water and got him aboard his boat. Seaman Belodeau's courageous actions in capturing a Viet Cong suspect under enemy fire were in the highest tradition of the United States Naval Service.'' Seaman Belodeau is authorized to wear the Combat ``V''. That was just a day that happened to be notice, sandwiched between many more like it or worse, that were not. That was the measure of the man I inherited on my crew. From the day we came together, we gelled as a crew. And it was the way it ought to be. The crew didn't have to prove themselves to me. I had to earn my spurs with them. When the Chief Petty Officer, Del Sandusky--known as ``Sky'', who came from Illinois to be with Tom today, finally gave me the seal of enlisted man's approval, Tommy was the first to enthusiastically say: ``I told you so, Sky, he's from Massachusetts!!" You have to understand that we lived together as closely and as intensely on 50 feet of floating armament as men can live. And we learned all there is to learn about each other. Sometimes it was a funny learning process, as when Mike Medeiros exhibited a hard time understanding Tommy. ``Are you from Brooklyn?'' he would ask. Tommy would respond with pride and impatience: ``Nah: I'm from Boston.'' There was the time we were carrying special forces up a river and a mine exploded under our boat sending it 2 feet into the air. We were receiving incoming rocket and small arms fire and Tommy was returning fire with his M-60 machine gun when it literally broke apart in his hands. He was left holding the pieces unable to fire back while one of the Green Berets walked along the edge of the boat to get Tommy another M-60. As he was doing so, the boat made a high speed turn to starboard and the Green Beret kept going--straight into the river. The entire time while the boat went back to get the Green Beret, Tommy was without a machine gun or a weapon of any kind, but all the time he was hurling the greatest single string of Lowell-Chelmsford curses ever heard at the Viet Cong. He literally had swear words with tracers on them! There was, of course, the moment in February, 1969 when he was positioned in the very bow of the boat--in the totally exposed peak tank--with more than half his body just sticking up exposed to the enemy, when 3 boats turned toward the river bank and Tommy found himself staring straight into an ambush 20 yards ahead. He never flinched as he charged the beach and routed the enemy--not just once, but twice. For Seaman Belodeau's devotion to duty, courage under fire, and exemplary professionalism, in the highest tradition of the Navy he was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat V. I cannot adequately convey or describe to you the measure of this man at war--standing in his peak tank in the bow, screaming up a river in the dead of night, no moon, 50 yards from Cambodia literally bouncing off the river bank, waiting for a mine to go off or a rocket to explode--and always steady, always dependable, always there for the rest of the crew. All Belodeaus, Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and the United States should be proud of this warrior. But, perhaps the greatest reason for pride as we bid our Tommy goodbye, is not what he did, but who he was. In many ways, Tommy walked in the footsteps of Emerson and Thoreau. He was a man who wanted to walk quietly to his own tune--never with any in your face attitude. He just quietly wanted to be, and was, his own man. From what I know, he always had this special quiet quality. His expression spoke for him. As many of you know, he was not a man of many words. So he'd just give you a look. And the look would tell it all- fierce determination; rollicking good fun; profound sadness. I know you can see his expression for any mood he had. My favorite look of all was his bemused, ``What the hell does the skipper think he's doing now?" Tom would join a great group of veterans who had been involved in my `84 campaign called the Doghunters. We would gather irregularly for a black tie dinner and each time everyone would eagerly await Tom's non-speech. He was clearly the most beloved member of our group despite his distaste for saying anything in public. In his reticence to draw attention to himself or speak in public lies the true measure of this great friend. Because in 1984, and again in 1996, it was his passionate, personal commitment, his driving sense of loyalty, that against all his other instincts drew him again into the line of fire. I will never forget the brilliance and eloquence with which he stood up to fight for me and for the honor of our service. Again and again, Tom proved the real value of friendship. For all of us here in this extended family, it will never be the same. No campaign of the future will be the same without you, Tom. No Doghunters' dinner will be complete without your knowing smile and blushing non-speech. None of this in any way suggests that it was all peaches and cream for Tommy. We know it wasn't. His family and his friends could see the sadness in his eyes that some say changed with Vietnam. There were times when all us of us around Tommy knew he needed a lift: but try as one could, his sense of self reliance and pride gave him a sixth sense that something was up and he would quietly find an excuse to slide away or just tell you things were going fine even when they weren't. Joey tells me that stubborn streak came from their father. But always he was the most generous in any group, ready to help another. So Michael, today, we his friends want to reaffirm to you what you must know: your father was enormously proud of you-- loved you dearly--and knew that sometimes his own sense of pride about what he wanted for you prevented him from always living up to his own expectations. But nothing that he did or thought ever diminished his joy in who you are and his trust in what you will grow to be. For everyone who knew and loved him here today, there is a special sorrow; because we all sensed that in his recent return to Massachusetts, Tommy had found a peace and purpose which had liberated him from any demons. He enthusiastically joined in telephoning friends for Chris Greeley's engagement party. He looked happy and engaged. I saw him about 4 weeks ago and he seemed more energized and happy than in some time. There was a gleam in his eye and we promised to get together soon. As Chuck Tamulonis who took such care of him and meant so much to him told me yesterday, ``He was filling the refrigerator with no-fat food, coming home early, and even cooking the meals.'' Last year when our crew came together as a whole at election time for the first time in 27 years, we departed with the expectation that we were hooked up and on the road to growing old together. But God had other plans. And of all people we should not be surprised. We have always said at our Doghunter dinner that one thing we learned in Vietnam was Grace of God, every day beyond Vietnam was extra. Tommy had a lot of extra days and for that we are grateful. So today, as we say goodbye, joined with his family and those he grew up with, what we, his friends, celebrate above all in Tommy's life is his special, gentle decency--a loyal, loyal friend of enormous heart who was generous in spirit beyond expectation and sometimes beyond understanding. To Radarman Seaman, Thomas M. Belodeau, to our friend Tommy: until we meet again, may you have fair winds and following seas. And may we all leave here reminded of the words of the poet William Butler Yeats: ``Think where man's glory most begins and ends. And say, my glory was, I had such friends.''

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I with to recognize and mourn a loss for the working men and women of this country. On Friday, January 2d, 1998, Mr. Daniel J. Kearney of Cohasset, Massachusetts, passed away. On that day the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America lost an individual who embodied and protected the most cherished principles of this nation. From his military service to his fervent support of the labor movement, Mr. Kearney led a quintessentially American life, one that contained family and sacrifice, struggle and victory. He married the late Mary A. MacGrath, and together they raised daughters Gail and Linda. His distinguished service in the U.S. Navy spanned the period from World War II through Korea, and he maintained this commitment to his nation through leadership and service in the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. Mr. Kearney began his long career in the labor community as an apprentice blacksmith at the Boston Naval Yard in 1946, where he graduated from the Boston Naval Shipyard Apprentice School. In 1952, he served as a program engineer for the Navy, and this resulted in his becoming a contract negotiator for shipbuilding in 1956. In this position, Mr. Kearney worked on the construction and conversion of nuclear attack and ballistic missile submarines, helping navigate our nation's defense through a historic and complex transition. His largest contribution to this country, however, was his relentless and passionate advocacy on behalf of working men and women, and his early posts in the Navy yards of Massachusetts were the origin of his life-long campaign for organized labor. He went on to organize, and to serve as a union officer and local president of, various American Federation of Government Employees locals, lead the Philadelphia Council of the AFGE and serve as President of the Massachusetts State Council of Locals. He served as National Vice President of the AFGE, and later as Vice President Emeritus of AFGE's New England District. Dan Kearney's faith in the electoral processes of this country, both local and national, was another passion. Beginning back when John F. Kennedy was first elected to Congress, and continuing through Senator Edward Kennedy's re-election in 1994 and my own re-election in 1996, Mr. Kearney was a welcome fixture in the Democratic campaigns of Massachusetts. For him, coordination of grass roots politics was another tool to help people improve their lives, and he gave it his all. In later years, the issues facing senior Americans became his campaign, and his sincere advocacy of fairness and decency resulted in an appointment to the White House Council on Aging. As recently as several weeks ago, he dropped by my Boston office with thoughts on issues facing seniors, retired government employees, and the labor movement as a whole. He leaves a loving family and many friends, and he leaves the world better for his efforts. As we celebrate his life, we offer our condolences and sympathy to all who knew and loved him.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the distinguished Senator from West Virginia as a cosponsor of this very important child support legislation. He has long been a leader on these issues and I am delighted to work with him to ensure that children get the support they need and deserve. I particularly look forward to working together to pass medical enforcement legislation. At least 700,000 children nationwide have a health insurance order through an ERISA-protected plan where the noncustodial parent fails to provide the required coverage. Providing an efficient, effective way for child support agencies to enforce the requirement for medical child support coverage through ERISA-protected plans would result in more children with private health insurance and reduced public costs for medical coverage.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I wish to pay deep respect and tribute to the men and women of the United States who have made significant sacrifices in the defense of the freedoms and democratic principles upon which our country was founded and to which we pledge our allegiance today. For every American, Veterans Day holds a special meaning because it is a time to remember those veterans who have died, thank those who are living, and reflect on the honorable contributions that each has made to our country. People of all ages and backgrounds marched in parades across the United States on November 11 honoring veterans whom often they have never met, nor seen, nor heard about--and who too often have received little or no recognition for their unwavering devotion to our country. As a veteran of the Vietnam war, I share a memory with many others who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces and ascribe a special meaning to this day. We remember the faces of those who served with us and the experiences of those who served beside us. History will remember the cause, but we will remember the people. I am proud to have served my country and feel blessed that I was lucky enough to return to my family and friends. To those brave men and women who gave their lives for our country or who have survived but paid in human suffering, we collectively owe a great debt and appropriate recognition and respect. We must never forget their service, or their sacrifice, nor must we forget their significance.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to mark a very significant moment in the career of our good friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, who is now in these days entering his 35th year of service in this body. The length of that tenure is really a measure, in my judgment, and I think in the judgment of the people of Massachusetts, of the extraordinary work that he does for our State as well as for the country. He is the most senior Senator from Massachusetts now in history, serving longer than Henry Cabot Lodge, longer than Charles Sumner, longer even than Daniel Webster, all of whom were extraordinary leaders in their own right. There is no question that the reason for this longevity is because of the remarkable persistence of his work for the State on a local basis. It was, after all, our own ``Tip'' O'Neill who said that ``all politics'' was ``local.'' Indeed, no one has fought harder for the people of Massachusetts when it comes to highway or bridge projects, or when it comes to mass transit, to research and development, to assistance for education, to helping our research hospitals, dealing with biotechnology, or defense conversion. The range of Senator Kennedy's accomplishments is really unmatched for our State. However, as everybody knows, he is also more than just the Senator from Massachusetts. He has been a Senator from Massachusetts who has had a national impact of great proportions and who has absorbed and articulated values and aspirations of our people and for the Nation. In the 35 years that he served our State, an awful lot has changed in this country. And it is fair to say that Ted Kennedy has been at the forefront of a great deal of that change. If you go back 30 years to the conditions that prevailed here in the country, there is no doubt that from the moment when he entered the Senate, he has been part of that change. When he came here there was no Civil Rights Act, there was no Voting Rights Act, and the great battle against segregation and for equal justice was only then just heating up. It was Ted Kennedy who fought those battles and who has remained a champion for bringing America closer to the ideals that we espouse. And we are at the center of those fights. When Ted Kennedy entered the Senate, there was no Medicare for senior citizens, there was no Medicaid for the poor and disabled, there were no incentives for private employers to provide health benefits, and large areas of the Nation were medically underserved. It was Ted Kennedy who fought those battles and who even today remains a leader in helping to bring health care to all Americans. When he entered the Senate, the Vietnam war was burgeoning, nuclear weapons were armed and aimed across the globe, South Africa brutally defended its apartheid system, and Eastern Europe remained in thrall to the Soviet Union. Ted Kennedy's great voice for reason and restraint on arms control, against apartheid, and for freedom resonated around the world. It is a memory that many people in many parts of the world carry with them today. Mr. President, we mark anniversaries not simply to recall the amount of time performed in service but to applaud and to take note of the amount of service performed in that time. There are few Senators in history, in my judgment, who match the productivity with longevity as well as Ted Kennedy. I think it can fairly be said that he is one of the very few in this body who has helped to set the agenda of this institution year after year, decade after decade. In just the last 2 years, he has achieved signal success on milestone legislation on behalf of working Americans. Largely due to his leadership, we raised the minimum wage. We now have a better health care system as he continues to fight for still more improvements as we have recognized some of the problems that have arisen even in the changes that have been made. His standing in this institution is based, in my judgment, on two simple attributes. First, he has understood from the beginning the distant goal lines this Nation needed to cross in order to make our dreams for the country a reality. Second, he has consistently moved the ball down the field with a sense of practicality about the limits of what the times and the opposition would allow. Many, many Americans outside this Chamber know Senator Kennedy for the power of his passion, the persuasiveness of his advocacy, and the tenaciousness of his fights. But there is, as we all know in this Chamber, a personal side to his presence here, which only those of us in the Chamber or those who have been touched in some way in their personal lives outside of this Chamber understand. There is probably not a Senator here who would not recount a story of how Ted Kennedy has picked up the phone at a time of stress or distress and has been responsive and caring. There are those of us who have gone through difficult times, who have found that he is one of the first people to offer help. I can personally remember once when I had a phone call at a time when I had pneumonia. The next thing I knew Ted Kennedy was making his house available for my recuperation and urging me to go and take advantage of it. That is the kind of person he is and just one small story of the many that other colleagues here have experienced. So, Mr. President, we are all better off for having this colleague of ours serve and continue to serve, and we are all better off for having him as a friend. I congratulate him on the occasion of his remarkable career. I earnestly hope that my State and this Nation will continue to rely on his capacity and his foresight and his presence in this body for many years to come. I thank my colleagues for their courtesy in allowing me to make these comments prior to another engagement. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. I thank my colleague.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I believe my order is to speak in morning business.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. If I could allow my order to stand, I would be sensitive to the need for a vote, and if need be, I will respond.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, my understanding is when this business is completed that Senator Harkin has unanimous consent for 20 minutes, and I ask unanimous consent, following Senator Harkin, I be permitted to speak in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will speak tomorrow on the subject of fast track. I wish to talk this evening about another subject that has not received as much conversation on the floor of the Senate as it merits--because, while we have been focused on fast track and on a lot of loose ends which must be tied up before this first session of the 105th Congress can be brought to a close, a very troubling situation has developed in the Middle East that has ominous implications, not just for our national security but literally for the security of all civilized and law-abiding areas of the world. Even after the overwhelming defeat that the coalition forces visited upon Iraq in and near Kuwait in the Desert Storm conflict, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's truculence has continued unabated. In the final days of that conflict, a fateful decision was made not to utterly vanquish the Iraqi Government and armed forces, on the grounds that to do so would leave a risky vacuum, as some then referred to it, in the Middle East which Iran or Syria or other destabilizing elements might move to fill. But instead of reforming his behavior after he was handed an historic defeat, Saddam Hussein has continued to push international patience to the very edge. The United Nations, even with many member nations which strongly favor commerce over conflict, has established and maintained sanctions designed to isolate Iraq, keep it too weak to threaten other nations, and push Saddam Hussein to abide by accepted norms of national behavior. These sanctions have cost Iraq over $100 billion and have significantly restrained his economy. They unavoidably also have exacted a very high price from the Iraqi people, but this has not appeared to bother Saddam Hussein in the least. Nor have the sanctions succeeded in obtaining acceptable behavior from Saddam. Now, during the past 2 weeks, Saddam again has raised his obstinately uncooperative profile. We all know of his announcement that he will no longer permit United States citizens to participate in the U.N. inspection team searching Iraq for violations of the U.N. requirement that Iraq not build or store weapons of mass destruction. And he has made good on his announcement. The UNSCOM inspection team, that is, the United Nations Special Commission team, has been refused access to its inspection targets throughout the week and once again today because it has Americans as team members. While it is not certain, it is not unreasonable to assume that Saddam's action may have been precipitated by the fear that the U.N. inspectors were getting uncomfortably close to discovering some caches of reprehensible weapons of mass destruction, or facilities to manufacture them, that many have long feared he is doing everything in his power to build, hide, and hoard. Another reason may be that Saddam Hussein, who unquestionably has demonstrated a kind of perverse personal resiliency, may be looking at the international landscape and concluding that, just perhaps, support may be waning for the United States's determination to keep him on a short leash via multilateral sanctions and weapons inspections. This latest action may, indeed, be his warped idea of an acid test of that conclusion. We should all be encouraged by the reactions of many of our allies, who are evincing the same objections to Iraq's course that are prevalent here in the United States. There is an inescapable reality that, after all of the effort of recent years, Saddam Hussein remains the international outlaw he was when he invaded Kuwait. For most of a decade he has set himself outside international law, and he has sought to avoid the efforts of the international community to insist that his nation comport itself with reasonable standards of behavior and, specifically, not equip itself with implements of mass destruction which it has shown the willingness to use in previous conflicts. Plainly and simply, Saddam Hussein cannot be permitted to get away with his antics, or with this latest excuse for avoidance of international responsibility. This is especially true when only days earlier, after months of negotiations, the administration extracted some very serious commitments from China, during President Jiang Zemin's state visit to Washington, to halt several types of proliferation activities. It is unthinkable that we and our allies would stand by and permit a renegade such as Saddam Hussein, who has demonstrated a willingness to engage in warfare and ignore the sovereignty of neighboring nations, to engage in activities that we insist be halted by China, Russia, and other nations. Let me say that I agree with the determination by the administration, at the outset of this development, to take a measured and multilateral approach to this latest provocation. It is of vital importance to let the United Nations first respond to Saddam's actions. After all, those actions are first and foremost an affront to the United Nations and all its membership which has, in a too-rare example of unity in the face of belligerent threats from a rogue State, managed to maintain its determination to keep Iraq isolated via a regime of sanctions and inspections. I think we should commend the resolve of the Chief U.N. Inspector, UNSCOM head Richard Butler, who has refused to bend or budge in the face of Saddam's intransigence. Again and again he has assembled the inspection team, including the U.S. citizens who are part of it, and presented it to do its work, despite being refused access by Iraq. He rejected taking the easy way out by asking the U.S. participants simply to step aside until the problem is resolved so that the inspections could go forward. He has painstakingly documented what is occurring, and has filed regular reports to the Security Council. He clearly recognizes this situation to be the matter of vital principle that we believe it to be. The Security Council correctly wants to resolve this matter if it is possible to do so without plunging into armed conflict, be it great or small. So it sent a negotiating team to Baghdad to try to resolve the dispute and secure appropriate access for UNSCOM's inspection team. To remove a point of possible contention as the negotiators sought to accomplish their mission, the United Nations asked that the U.S. temporarily suspend reconnaissance flights over Iraq that are conducted with our U-2 aircraft under U.N. auspices, and we complied. At that time, in my judgment this was the appropriate and responsible course. But now we know that Saddam Hussein has chosen to blow off the negotiating team entirely. It has returned emptyhanded to report to the Security Council tomorrow. That is why I have come to the floor this evening to speak about this matter, to express what I think is the feeling of many Senators and other Americans as the Security Council convenes tomorrow. We must recognize that there is no indication that Saddam Hussein has any intention of relenting. So we have an obligation of enormous consequence, an obligation to guarantee that Saddam Hussein cannot ignore the United Nations. He cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a matter about which there should be any debate whatsoever in the Security Council, or, certainly, in this Nation. If he remains obdurate, I believe that the United Nations must take, and should authorize immediately, whatever steps are necessary to force him to relent--and that the United States should support and participate in those steps. The suspended reconnaissance flights should be resumed beginning tomorrow, and it is my understanding they will be. Should Saddam be so foolish as to take any action intended to endanger those aircraft or interrupt their mission, then we should, and I am confident we will, be prepared to take the necessary actions to either eliminate that threat before it can be realized, or take actions of retribution. When it meets tomorrow to receive the negotiators' report and to determine its future course of action, it is vital that the Security Council treat this situation as seriously as it warrants. In my judgment, the Security Council should authorize a strong U.N. military response that will materially damage, if not totally destroy, as much as possible of the suspected infrastructure for developing and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, as well as key military command and control nodes. Saddam Hussein should pay a grave price, in a currency that he understands and values, for his unacceptable behavior. This should not be a strike consisting only of a handful of cruise missiles hitting isolated targets primarily of presumed symbolic value. But how long this military action might continue and how it may escalate should Saddam remain intransigent and how extensive would be its reach are for the Security Council and our allies to know and for Saddam Hussein ultimately to find out. Of course, Mr. President, the greatest care must be taken to reduce collateral damage to the maximum extent possible, despite the fact that Saddam Hussein cynically and cold-heartedly has made that a difficult challenge by ringing most high-value military targets with civilians. As the Security Council confronts this, I believe it is important for it to keep prominently in mind the main objective we all should have, which is maintaining an effective, thorough, competent inspection process that will locate and unveil any covert prohibited weapons activity underway in Iraq. If an inspection process acceptable to the United States and the rest of the Security Council can be rapidly reinstituted, it might be possible to vitiate military action. Should the resolve of our allies wane to pursue this matter until an acceptable inspection process has been reinstituted--which I hope will not occur and which I am pleased to say at this moment does not seem to have even begun--the United States must not lose its resolve to take action. But I think there is strong reason to believe that the multilateral resolve will persist. To date, there have been nine material breaches by Iraq of U.N. requirements. The United Nations has directed some form of responsive action in five of those nine cases, and I believe it will do so in this case. The job of the administration in the next 24 hours and in the days to follow is to effectively present the case that this is not just an insidious challenge to U.N. authority. It is a threat to peace and to long-term stability in the tinder-dry atmosphere of the Middle East, and it is an unaffordable affront to international norms of decent and acceptable national behavior. We must not presume that these conclusions automatically will be accepted by every one of our allies, some of which have different interests both in the region and elsewhere, or will be of the same degree of concern to them that they are to the U.S. But it is my belief that we have the ability to persuade them of how serious this is and that the U.N. must not be diverted or bullied. The reality, Mr. President, is that Saddam Hussein has intentionally or inadvertently set up a test which the entire world will be watching, and if he gets away with this arrogant ploy, he will have terminated a most important multilateral effort to defuse a legitimate threat to global security--to defuse it by tying the hands of a rogue who thinks nothing of ordering widespread, indiscriminate death and destruction in pursuit of power. If he succeeds, he also will have overwhelmed the willingness of the world's leading nations to enforce a principle on which all agree: that a nation should not be permitted to grossly violate even rudimentary standards of national behavior in ways that threaten the sovereignty and well-being of other nations and their people. I believe that we should aspire to higher standards of international behavior than Saddam Hussein has offered us, and the enforcement action of the United Nations pursues such a higher standard. We know from our largely unsuccessful attempts to enlist the cooperation of other nations, especially industrialized trading nations, in efforts to impose and enforce somewhat more ambitious standards on nations such as Iran, China, Burma, and Syria that the willingness of most other nations--including a number who are joined in the sanctions to isolate Iraq--is neither wide nor deep to join in imposing sanctions on a sovereign nation to spur it to ``clean up its act'' and comport its actions with accepted international norms. It would be a monumental tragedy to see such willingness evaporate in one place where so far it has survived and arguably succeeded to date, especially at a time when it is being subjected to such a critical test as that which Iraq presents. In a more practical vein, Mr. President, I submit that the old adage ``pay now or pay later'' applies perfectly in this situation. If Saddam Hussein is permitted to go about his effort to build weapons of mass destruction and to avoid the accountability of the United Nations, we will surely reap a confrontation of greater consequence in the future. The Security Council and the United States obviously have to think seriously and soberly about the plausible scenarios that could play out if he were permitted to continue his weapons development work after shutting out U.N. inspectors. There can be little or no question that Saddam has no compunctions about using the most reprehensible weapons--on civilians as readily as on military forces. He has used poison gas against Iranian troops and civilians in the Iran-Iraq border conflict. He has launched Scud missiles against Israel and against coalition troops based in Saudi Arabia during the gulf war. It is not possible to overstate the ominous implications for the Middle East if Saddam were to develop and successfully militarize and deploy potent biological weapons. We can all imagine the consequences. Extremely small quantities of several known biological weapons have the capability to exterminate the entire population of cities the size of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. These could be delivered by ballistic missile, but they also could be delivered by much more pedestrian means; aerosol applicators on commercial trucks easily could suffice. If Saddam were to develop and then deploy usable atomic weapons, the same holds true. Were he to do either, much less both, the entire balance of power in the Middle East changes fundamentally, raising geometrically the already sky-high risk of conflagration in the region. His ability to bluff and bully would soar. The willingness of those nations which participated in the gulf war coalition to confront him again if he takes a course of expansionism or adventurism may be greatly diminished if they believe that their own citizens would be threatened directly by such weapons of mass destruction. The posture of Saudi Arabia, in particular, could be dramatically altered in such a situation. Saudi Arabia, of course, was absolutely indispensable as a staging and basing area for Desert Storm which dislodged Saddam's troops from Kuwait, and it remains one of the two or three most important locations of U.S. bases in the Middle East. Were its willingness to serve in these respects to diminish or vanish because of the ability of Saddam to brandish these weapons, then the ability of the United Nations or remnants of the gulf war coalition, or even the United States acting alone, to confront and halt Iraqi aggression would be gravely damaged. Were Israel to find itself under constant threat of potent biological or nuclear attack, the current low threshold for armed conflict in the Middle East that easily could escalate into a world-threatening inferno would become even more of a hair trigger. Indeed, one can easily anticipate that Israel would find even the prospect of such a situation entirely untenable and unacceptable and would take preemptive military action. Such action would, at the very least, totally derail the Middle East peace process which is already at risk. It could draw new geopolitical lines in the sand, with the possibility of Arab nations which have been willing to oppose Saddam's extreme actions either moving into a pan-Arab column supporting him against Israel and its allies or, at least, becoming neutral. Either course would significantly alter the region's balance of power and make the preservation and advancement of U.S. national security objectives in the region unattainable--and would tremendously increase the risk that our Nation, our young people, ultimately would be sucked into yet another military conflict, this time without the warning time and the staging area that enabled Desert Storm to have such little cost in U.S. and other allied troop casualties. Finally, we must consider the ultimate nightmare. Surely, if Saddam's efforts are permitted to continue unabated, we will eventually face more aggression by Saddam, quite conceivably including an attack on Israel, or on other nations in the region as he seeks predominance within the Arab community. If he has such weapons, his attack is likely to employ weapons of unspeakable and indiscriminate destructiveness and torturous effects on civilians and military alike. What that would unleash is simply too horrendous to contemplate, but the United States inevitably would be drawn into that conflict. Mr. President, I could explore other possible ominous consequences of letting Saddam Hussein proceed unchecked. The possible scenarios I have referenced really are only the most obvious possibilities. What is vital is that Americans understand, and that the Security Council understand, that there is no good outcome possible if he is permitted to do anything other than acquiesce to continuation of U.N. inspections. As the world's only current superpower, we have the enormous responsibility not to exhibit arrogance, not to take any unwitting or unnecessary risks, and not to employ armed force casually. But at the same time it is our responsibility not to shy away from those confrontations that really matter in the long run. And this matters in the long run. While our actions should be thoughtfully and carefully determined and structured, while we should always seek to use peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve serious problems before resorting to force, and while we should always seek to take significant international actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis whenever that is possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a grave threat to the well-being of our Nation or the entire world and it cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise. I believe this is such a situation, Mr. President. It is a time for resolve. Tomorrow we must make that clear to the Security Council and to the world. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. TORRICELLI addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, decent, and affordable housing in healthy neighborhoods for all Americans remains a national goal and a serious challenge. One federal initiative that is an exemplar of good housing policy and a wise investment is the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. Chartered by Congress in 1978 as a public, non-profit corporation, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation's purpose is to increase affordable housing and home ownership opportunities while revitalizing low and moderate income neighborhoods that are in decline. That purpose is carried out in partnership with 174 neighborhood based, non-profit organizations in 44 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. These organizations bring together neighborhood residents, local governments, and the business community to garner diverse resources to carry out neighborhood resident-generated housing and community development plans. At least one measure of the effectiveness of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and its network of local partners is the kind of return gained on the investment. The federal appropriation to the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation for fiscal year 1998 was $60,000,000 which leveraged another $500,000,000 in resources for housing and community development. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation is one of three components of an innovative model of federal-local and public-private partnerships. NeighborWorks' is the network of local non- profit organizations that carry out the development work in neighborhoods. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation provides grants and technical assistance to the NeighborWorks' member organizations, and conducts extensive training for neighborhood residents and local organization staff. The third component is Neighborhood Housing Services of America, a national non-profit secondary market that provides financial services to the NeighborWorks' network. Neighborhood reinvestment requires holistic thinking and action in multiple directions, but basic to neighborhood stability is housing. Preserving the aging housing stock in urban neighborhoods and maintaining housing affordability are key objectives of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and the NeighborWorks' network. Helping low and moderate income homeowners obtain financing and qualified contractors to rehabilitate their houses is a staple activity of NeighborWorks' member organizations. Rehabilitating existing homes on behalf of low and moderate income first-time home buyers adds new stakeholders to neighborhoods. Increasing the supply of affordable rental housing helps to further meet the housing needs of neighborhood residents. Many of the NeighborWorks' member organizations are mutual housing associations, innovative experiments in an alternative form of home ownership that is proving to be very successful. Mutual housing is permanent housing that assures long term affordability and tenure for low and moderate income people in a housing system over which the residents have considerable control. Mutual housing development and units are owned by mutual housing associations. Residents do not directly buy or sell their units, but are represented on the association board of directors. As members of the association and based on their occupancy agreements, the residents in mutual housing are considered in most states to have a personal property ownership interest in the property. Affordability, protection from displacement, democratic participation in the management of the housing, and a resident stake in the sustained health of the neighborhood are all attributes of mutual housing living. Exploring diverse forms of housing, such as mutual housing associations, can help point the way to improving housing affordability for low income people. A key feature of the success of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and NeighborWorks' partnership is the training developed and conducted by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Training Institute. Residents, local organization board members, and local organization staff participate in extensive training in leadership development, engagement of residents in neighborhood organizations, conflict resolution, coalition building, organization management, resource development, and much more. This high quality training is replicated in many parts of the country and the lessons learned put to work in local communities. We are seeing results in communities across the country. In my state of Massachusetts, the Twin Cities Community Development Corporation serves the cities of Fitchburg and Leominster. Terri Murray, the Twin Cities CDC Executive Director, says that ``top down'' neighborhood revitalization does not succeed and the training is invaluable to building strong resident led organizations. The turnaround they are experiencing in declining neighborhoods like the Cleghorn section of Fitchburg is attributed to a combination of the dedication of neighborhood residents, the marshaling of increased municipal services, and the leveraging of private and public grants and loans including federal HOME funds. Becoming a member of NeighborWorks' and thus a beneficiary of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation resources has served to strengthen the capacity of the Twin Cities Community Development Corporation, supporting its housing rehabilitation, home ownership, and small business/micro-enterprise development programs. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate. Along with its partners, the NeighborWorks' network, and Neighborhood Housing Services of America, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation is to be commended for its fine work.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am delighted to join with the Senator from Texas, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, the Senator from Arizona, Senator Hollings, Senator Breaux in strongly supporting Amtrak itself and, equally important, supporting this reauthorization bill which is pending before the Senate. I offer my sincere thanks to the Senator from Texas, Senator Hutchison, for her persistence on behalf not just of the bill but particularly Amtrak, which she just talked about, which she has vision of and of which we share a vision. I also thank Senator McCain who worked hard with all of us. Despite his own very deeply felt misgivings regarding federally subsidized passenger rail, as chairman he was very fair to all of the opinions that existed on the committee and gave us the opportunity to be able to come together to forge what I think is a good compromise. A compromise, obviously, doesn't leave everybody happy. It is not supposed to. There are folks on both sides of the aisle who, if they wrote their own bill, would have written a different bill. Clearly, that is true. But it is because we reached that compromise that I think we put Amtrak in a position not only to survive but to thrive, and we have preserved the rights of labor to be able to negotiate appropriately for their relationship with the management. I will not review, in the interest of time, any of the specific provisions at this moment. Senator Hutchison has done that. Senator McCain has done that. But I would like to take a moment just to emphasize what I think can't be emphasized enough, which is the importance of Amtrak to the country and particularly important to the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project and to the transportation infrastructure of the Northeast region of the country. I think it is important to all the regions it reaches, but I particularly point out that the future completion of the Northeast corridor, which this legislation will help to ensure, is expected to attract 3 million additional passengers annually between New York and Boston. This improved rail service is going to ease the congestion of Logan and other major Northeast airports. The Federal Railroad Administration expects passenger air service between Boston and New York to decrease by 40 percent as a result of these measures and to result in the elimination of over 50 daily New York-Boston flights. Indeed, without this legislation, and without the continued modernization of rail travel in the Northeast, the four airports between New York and Boston would be projected to produce annual passenger delays of over 20 million hours per year. That is lost productivity. That is a lost competitive edge for our country, as well as for the region. We can expect improved Northeast rail service that will come as a result of this legislation to have a spillover positive impact on road congestion. Mr. President, 5.9 billion passenger miles were taken on Amtrak in 1994. These are trips that were not taken on crowded highways and airways. Improved rail service in the Northeast is projected to eliminate over 300,000 auto trips each year from highways that are increasingly overly congested, and it will reduce auto congestion around the airports as well as improving air quality for the country and in the Northeast. As these figures demonstrate, a healthy and financially viable passenger rail system is the key to ensuring an efficient transportation infrastructure in our country. We simply cannot continue, in some parts of the country certainly, to build more and more roads and more and more airports. The space doesn't allow it. We should look to Europe, and we should look to Japan, and we should look to other countries for the experience that they have had as more and more of the square miles of their country are consumed by business and by living space and where they have had to make use of those spaces effectively. The fact is that in the United States of America within the next 20 to 30 years, the vast majority of our population, 75 percent of it, will live within 50 miles of coastline, including the Great Lakes. We will need to consider how we move people and products as those areas become more crowded. So, simply stated, we need Amtrak because we cannot continue to pave our way out of our transportation problems. I would like to take just a quick moment to address some of those in the Congress who criticize Amtrak and any kind of Federal subsidy of rail as a form of some kind of central planning that is inherently dangerous and that supposedly the United States has always avoided. The fact is, Mr. President, we have not only not always avoided it; we have relied significantly on that kind of Federal input and planning to help us to be able to build the network of transportation that we rely on. Throughout our Nation's history, we in Congress have been proactive and aggressive about this kind of assistance. You can drive in one relatively straight line from the northern coast of Maine to Florida on a well-paved road because the Federal Government planned it and because we funded the Interstate Highway System. The planning and construction of our Nation's ports and canal networks, transcontinental railroads, the air traffic control system, and the Interstate Highway System are all examples of Federal leadership in transportation policy which led to overall economic growth, to improved transportation efficiency and, finally, to the development of entirely new industries. Indeed, while we in Congress have argued over whether the Federal Government should or shouldn't ensure a healthy inter-city rail system, internationally it is no secret that a well-founded rail network is an essential ingredient of a strong 21st century economy. In fact, every major economic power, except the United States, invests several billions of dollars annually in passenger rail transportation. The European Union plans to invest more than $100 billion to better utilize and integrate its multibillion-dollar-rail network. And our economic competitors in Asia, including China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea, are all investing heavily in rail. The unfortunate truth is that on a per capita basis, at least 34 countries, including Guinea, Myanmar, South Africa, Iran, and Botswana each spend more than the United States on passenger rail. In this light, which I think is the correct light in which to view what we are doing today, we are doing the bare minimum necessary to ensure continued passenger rail travel in the United States and to maintain a vibrant national transportation network. Finally, I would like to take a moment just to say something about the men and women in Amtrak's labor organizations who work extraordinarily hard daily to ensure that the trains are in working order, that the tracks are maintained and that millions of Americans are able to get to work and travel comfortably and safely from city to city. Much has been made in the arguments over reform about labor provisions in U.S. law which did give protections to those who worked on Amtrak. Those protections were to guarantee that their jobs wouldn't be contracted away or that a specific level of a severance might exist in order to safeguard them. Before one overly criticizes those provisions which we have changed and which, in my judgment, we appropriately came to a compromise on, recognizing the times that we now live in, but it is important to not be overly cynical about them and to, frankly, understand the context in which they came about. Amtrak was formed only in the 1970`s, and the reason it was formed was that the freight carriers were unwilling to continue to provide passenger service. It was unclear at the time whether a new entity, called Amtrak, was going to be able to survive at all. It needed experienced, skillful workers in order to be able to put that survival to the test, in order to try to become a viable entity. So to attract those skilled, viable workers from another job under another umbrella which they worked in where they had a pension and where they had years of experience, it was necessary to say to them, ``You are not going to lose your job immediately. We are going to guarantee you that for taking the risk for helping to make Amtrak work, we will provide you with a guarantee.'' The labor provisions that are at issue in this debate were originally put into Amtrak law in order to attract employees from other carriers so that they would work for Amtrak. Simply stated, the provisions guaranteed that people who came to work for Amtrak when they didn't know it would survive would receive nothing more than the protection they had enjoyed previously. Since that time, I point out to my colleagues, that Amtrak employees have made tremendous financial sacrifices in order to help keep Amtrak going. I don't think those have been recognized. In the early 1980's, Amtrak employees agreed to a 12-percent wage deferral in order to help Amtrak's bottom line. This deferral has never been repaid. So in point of fact, it became not a deferral, it became a wage giveback, a 12- percent wage giveback. From 1987 through 1992, Amtrak employees agreed to have their wages frozen, even though management received salary increases as high as 15 percent during that period. In addition, Amtrak employees are paid considerably less than workers holding similar jobs in other transportation agencies. For example, Amtrak car mechanics will earn $2,200 less than those car mechanics on Atlanta's commuter lines; $6,500 less than those on Chicago's commuter lines; and $16,300 less than those on New York's and New Jersey's PATH commuter lines. A mechanic who started to work at Washington's Metro in 1980 literally would have received over $100,000 more than if he or she had worked for Amtrak. So now with this bill, Amtrak's employees are making yet another sacrifice, and they are giving up statutory protections to allow them severance benefits in the event of route cuts and also to change the contracting-out provisions. Mr. President, one of the reasons we have this bill is because Amtrak employees have agreed to make this sacrifice. I think that those of us in Congress and the millions of Americans who enjoy Amtrak ought to be grateful for their courage and commitment to its continued viability. I believe we have laid the groundwork for Amtrak to survive. Labor would be permitted to negotiate as normally as they can negotiate in the marketing process. I think we have reached an accommodation that will help us keep Amtrak not just alive but on the first steps to becoming a model, hopefully, in the long run as we go into the next century for what a good passenger rail system can be. Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote that was scheduled for 2:15 be delayed until the end of my comments.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, if I might share with my friend from North Dakota information with respect to at least Amtrak. We have an agreement now reached with respect to Amtrak. The language is now in print, and I believe it is being hotlined on both sides. So with respect to the Amtrak effort in terms of any interruption, we would anticipate that going through here in a minimal amount of time. I am not sure how much the chairman of the committee, Senator McCain, wants, but I would not imagine it will take more than half an hour or so. And so I do not think that will interrupt the course of business with respect to fast track in any significant way.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, would the acting leader yield for a minute?