John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, after the devastation of a mill fire in Methuen, MA, threatened the community and 2,400 workers who depended on it, Aaron Feuerstein could have turned his back on his employees and closed the factory or moved it out of State. But he chose to stay. He chose to help, and to give something back to those who worked for him. He offered to pay everyone, and he even gave his employees their Christmas bonuses, will pay their health care premiums for 90 days, and is working to open the factory again as soon as possible. Mr. President, Aaron Feuerstein's extraordinary generosity during this holiday season has moved Massachusetts and the Nation, and made all of us believe again in the power of community and the real spirit of America. What he has done to help so many families will never be forgotten, and I know that my colleagues in the Senate join me in congratulating him for setting an example of loyalty, leadership, and compassion which is too often lacking in contemporary American society. He has shown us what true success in business is all about, and what our economy is all about. It's about helping people and families to prosper and to grow together--build together and work together toward a common goal. The news reports of the reactions of Aaron's workers to his generosity are heartwarming; and the warm response of his loyal employees is a tribute to him and should be the greatest holiday gift anyone could receive. Mr. President, Aaron Feuerstein has earned a special place in our hearts, and has set a new standard for American corporate leadership. I have joined with the distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts and the Massachusetts congressional delegation in pledging to do what we can, at the Federal level, to help this factory and community recover from this catastrophic fire, and I know that my colleagues in the Senate will join me in congratulating Aaron for showing America that loyalty is an essential ingredient not only in business but in the life of a community. Mr. President, I ask that a recent editorial from the Boston Globe by David Nyhan about the generosity of Aaron Feuerstein be printed in the Record. The editorial follows: The Mensch Who Saved Christmas (By David Nyhan) Were it not for the 45-mile-an-hour winds ripping out of the Northwest, the sparks that they carried and the destruction they wrought, Aaron Feuerstein today would be just another rich guy who owned a one-time factory, in a country full of the same. But the fire that destroyed New England's largest textile operation Monday has turned this 70-year-old businessman into a folk hero. If a slim, determined, devoutly-Jewish textile manufacturer can be Santa Claus, then Feuerstein is, to 2,400 workers whose jobs were jeopardized by the fire. The flames, so intense and widespread that the smoke plume appeared in garish color on TV weathermen's radar maps, presented Feuerstein with a stark choice: Should he rebuild, or take the insurance money and bag it? Aaron Feuerstein is keeping the paychecks coming, as best he can, for as long as possible, while he rushes to rebuild, and restore the jobs a whole valley-full of families depend upon. Everybody got paid this week. Everybody got their Christmas bonus. Everybody will get paid at least another month. And Feuerstein will see what he can do after that. But the greatest news of all is that he will rebuild the factory. The man has a biblical approach to the complexities of late-20th-century economics, capsulated by a Jewish precept: ``When all is moral chaos, this is the time for you to be a mensch.'' In Yiddish, a mensch is someone who does the right thing. The Aaron Feuerstein thing. The chaos was not moral but physical in the conflagration that began with an explosion and soon engulfed the four-building Malden Mills complex in Methuen, injuring two dozen workers, a half-dozen firemen and threatening nearby houses along the Merrimack River site. The destruction was near-absolute. It is still inexplicable how no one perished in a fast-moving firestorm that lit up the sky. This was one of New England's handful of manufacturing success stories, a plant that emerged from bankruptcy 14 years ago. The company manufactures a trademark fabric, Polartec fleece, used extensively in outdoor clothing and sportswear by outfits such as L. L. Bean and Patagonia. The company was founded by Feuerstein's grandfather in 1907, and its history over the century has traced the rise, fall and rise again of textile manufacturing in New England mill towns. Most of the textile makers fled south, leaving hundreds of red brick mausoleums lining the rocky riverbeds that provided the waterpower to turn lathes and looms before electricity came in. The unions that wrested higher wages from flinty Yankee employers were left behind by the companies that went to the Carolinas and elsewhere, to be closer to cotton and farther from unions. The Feuerstein family stuck it out while many others left, taking their jobs and their profits with them. The current boss is one textile magnate who wins high praise from the union officials who deal with him. ``He's a man of his word,'' says Paul Coorey, president of Local 311 of the Union of Needleworkers, Industrial and Textile Employees. ``He's extremely compassionate for people.'' The union's New England chief, Ronald Alman, said: ``He believes in the process of collective bargaining and he believes that if you pay people a fair amount of money, and give them good benefits to take care of their families, they will produce for you.'' If there is an award somewhere for a Compassionate Capitalist, this man should qualify, hands-down. Because he is standing up for decent jobs for working people at a time when the vast bulk of America's employer class is chopping, slimming, hollowing-out the payroll. Job loss is the story of America at the end of the century. Wall Street is going like gangbusters, but out on the prairie, and in the old mill towns, and in smalltown America, the story is not of how big your broker's bonus is this Christmas but of how hard it is to keep working. The day after the fire, Bank of Boston announced it will buy BayBanks, a mega-merger of financial titans that will result in the elimination of 2,000 jobs. Polaroid, another big New England employer, announced it would pare its payroll by up to 2,000 jobs. Across the country, millions of jobs have been eliminated in the rush to lighten the corporate sled by tossing overboard anyone who could be considered excess baggage by a Harvard MBA with a calculator for a heart. Aaron Feuerstein, who went from Boston Latin High School and New York's Yeshiva University right into the mill his father owned, sees things differently: The help is part of the enterprise, not just a cost center to be cut. ``They've been with me for a long time. We've been good to each other, and there's a deep realization of that, that is not always expressed, except at times of sorrow.'' And it is noble sentiments like those, coming at a time when they are most needed, that turns times of sorrow into occasions of triumph.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I speak today in support of the passage of H.R. 1358, legislation which conveys the Gloucester laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Under H.R. 1358, the Gloucester lab, which was built in the 1960s and is now federal surplus, will receive a new mission, direction and purpose. Under budget-mandated federal consolidations, the NMFS activities formally carried out at the Gloucester lab have been transferred to newer facilities in other locations. Loss of the NMFS programs will be mitigated by a plan to make productive use of the now unused laboratory site as home to a state marine fisheries laboratory and a new consortium of marine science programs from Massachusetts's colleges, universities, and high schools. Under the plan, the facility will be used primarily for education and research in the marine sciences. It will enable undertaking various marine science projects and initiatives, and continue ongoing efforts to address the problems that face the traditional fishing industry of Massachusetts and all New England. With its fishing heritage and close ties to the rhythms of the sea, the city of Gloucester is a natural location for such a facility. The schools participating in the project include Salem State College, the University of Massachusetts, Essex Agriculture College, Boston University's City Lab program and Gloucester High School. Projects planned for the facility include shellfish safety research and testing, the development of aquaculture techniques, and introduction of high school students to sophisticated science such as DNA sequencing. I would like to thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Stevens, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Pressler, and the Committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Hollings, for preparing this bipartisan bill and bringing it to the floor. I also would like to acknowledge the work by staff on both sides, including Penny Dalton and Lila Helms on the Commerce Committee minority staff and on the majority side, Tom Melius and Trevor McCabe. I would like to acknowledge the work of Kate English of my staff and Steve Metruck, a congressional fellow in my office. This bill represents a win-win solution for Massachusetts and the taxpayers--it gives renewed life to a site the Federal Government no longer needs, and it makes available to State and local organizations laboratory facilities that are needed for research into important health, economic, and marine science issues. Consequently, I hope that we can complete action and send this legislation to the President for his signature as soon as possible.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today is a very important day in the history of the modern world. It is a crucially important day in the history of human-kind's efforts to achieve peace and avoid armed conflict. For over 50 years following the end of the World War II, the United States was locked in what came to be known universally as the cold war. That war, while it only occasionally broke into open armed conflict, was a very destructive conflict. It consumed the wealth of much of the world as armaments were stacked upon armaments to prepare for the open conflict that we hoped would never come. There have been countless periods in the history of the world during which there have been uneasy periods of standoff of one power against another. But there has been none even nearly approximating the cold war. The reason is terrifyingly simple. The cold war was the first time in the world's history when human beings possessed weapons of mass destruction in the form of thermonuclear weapons. First the United States and then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics obtained the ability to manufacture and use nuclear weapons. Eventually that capability was acquired by other nations. The use of just one such weapon is sufficient to annihilate an entire city. The use of many not only could obliterate an entire nation and all its people from the face of the earth, but arguably might set in motion natural reactions which could lead to the extinguishment of most if not all life on this planet. All of us in this Chamber endured most if not all of the cold war. We know of many of its human costs, although they will never be fully calculated. We also know today that there were a number of occasions where the world teetered on the very brink of the use of such weapons, which very likely would have been followed by a general exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, and which very likely would have involved use of their nuclear weapons by the other nations possessing them. What we also know, Mr. President, is that there was and is no higher objective--while preserving the liberties for which this Nation was founded and for the preservation of which so many have sacrificed so greatly--than to reduce both the threat of and the ability to wage nuclear war. This objective has been reflected in numerous efforts initiated by both Republican and Democratic administrations to negotiate limits on the manufacture and testing of nuclear weapons, to negotiate limits on the types, capabilities, and numbers of weapons systems armed with nuclear devices, and to negotiate various other measures designed to reduce the likelihood that a nuclear weapon will be used in anger. The treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms--the so-called START II Treaty--which is before the Senate today is one of the most significant milestones among these efforts. It builds upon the foundation established by the original START Treaty signed by the United States and the Russian Federation in 1991. That first START Treaty was the first treaty that provided for real reductions--rather than just limits on further growth--of strategic offensive arms of both nations. It provided for overall reductions of 30 to 40 percent, and reductions of up to 50 percent in the most threatening systems. That treaty now acts to emphasize and enhance stability in times of international crisis. It provides for rough equality of strategic forces between the two sides, and was painstakingly crafted to be effectively verifiable. That treaty will result in the elimination of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems from the territories of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine and accession of these three states to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons [the NPT] as non-nuclear state parties. As a result, after 7 years, of the states formed upon the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, only Russia will possess deployed strategic offensive arms. START II adds to these very significant accomplishments. It increases the stability of the nuclear balance. It bans deployment of the most destabilizing type of nuclear weapons system--land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads [or MIRV's]. Under its terms, Russia and the United States will reduce the number of nuclear weapons each possesses to 3,500. Mr. President, some believe that with the passing of the former Soviet Union, and the economic weakness and chaos that have in many respects permeated its successor states, there no longer is a danger of nuclear conflict. Some would argue that these nations and their people, already struggling to make their way in a world that passed them by during the cold war period, would never risk losing literally everything they are and have by initiating a nuclear conflict. But that is an incomplete if not naive view of the world situation. As long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a danger they will be used. Disagreements can escalate, and sometimes become dangerously personalized as national leaders struggle to maintain power and control. It is conceivable that rogue elements of a nation's military could gain control of one or more weapons--or even the entire nuclear apparatus of a nation--and launch one or more or many of those weapons. There are countless scenarios where those weapons could be employed. There is no better reason than this simple reality, Mr. President, for putting in place the reductions contained in the START II Treaty. As we seek to bring to a conclusion the business of the Senate prior to this weekend of great significance to families and religions, I will not take the Senate's time to exhaustively detail all of the reason why this treaty will provide increased stability to the world, will reduce the danger of nuclear conflict and nuclear accidents, and will do this while preserving the defensive capability of the United States so that it unquestionably can effectively defend our democracy and liberties that are so precious to us. The legislative record of the treaty is available for all to see, and other Senators already have spoken eloquently to these issues. There is simply no question, Mr. President, that the immediate ratification of this treaty is in the best interests of the United States and, indeed, the world. All of our most senior national security leadership concurs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff joined by all the Chiefs have so testified. Our intelligence leadership has so testified. Our diplomatic leadership has to testified. The agreement is neither partisan nor regional. While exceedingly little of vital importance occurs with absolutely unanimity, the START II Treaty comes as close as any major foreign policy or national security issue of which I am aware. It is for this reason, Mr. President, that I was distressed, and remain distressed, that the Senate's action on this treaty was delayed for many months when the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee held it hostage in an attempt to compel Members of this body to acquiesce to his plan to constrain the diplomatic capacity and media that are of critical importance to our Nation and its leaders-- regardless of their party affiliation. For months many other Members of this body and I struggled to free this treaty for Senate action. Finally, last month, the negotiation effort succeeded, and we were assured the Senate would at least take up the treaty before the end of this year. I am pleased to have helped accomplish this. It is not just that it was and is regrettable that, because of this hostage-taking, the United States did not do everything in its power to speed this beneficial treaty into effect, and thereby the increased safety and security it offers have been unnecessarily delayed. That is regrettable enough--and I only hope that history does not show that this failure resulted in loss of life. The delay, in fact, has placed the entire treaty in jeopardy. While I think there is virtually no doubt that the Senate, when it is permitted to finally act on this treaty, will vote overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis to approve it, the deteriorating situation in the Russian Federation makes approval by the Russian Duma increasingly uncertain. As nationalists and reconstructed Communists push successfully for greater influence in Russia, it is quite possible they will reject an treaty they see as resulting in too great a reduction in power-projecting weapons systems. So, ironically, in the very kind of situation where the reduced threat of nuclear conflict would be most significant and valuable, the short-sighted actions here in the Senate could deny us and the world the heightened security this treaty offers. That would be a catastrophe of monumental proportions, Mr. President. If it comes to pass, history will properly and caustically criticize those who have delayed Senate action or acquiesced in that delay. Before I complete my remarks, Mr. President, I want to address a related issue that is of great importance. There are some who would draw a connection between this treaty and the establishment of a ballistic missile defense. That, in turn, raises questions of continued adherence to the anti-ballistic missile or ABM Treaty. Such a linkage of this treaty to the question of ballistic missile defense is not necessary, is inappropriate, and could be tremendously counterproductive. I have long and strongly supported development of effective defenses against theater and short-range ballistic missiles. Our troops and sailors deserve such protection whenever they are sent into harm's way. But I have equally fervently supported the ABM Treaty as a critical link in the chain of United States-Russian relations. So much about the cold war--and so much in our new and still unfamiliar post-Soviet relationship--is dependent on each nation feeling confident of its ability to protect its homeland and repel aggressors. The ABM Treaty has made and continues to make an absolutely vital contribution to that confidence. The treaty provides confidence that, in case of an attack launched by the other side, the attacked nation would be able to effectively counterattack with its ballistic missiles. This uneasy but effective balance acted to keep the cold war from ever going hot. Now, in the form of the START Treaty and the START II Treaty, we are reducing the terror arrayed on both sides, and reducing the likelihood that what remains will be used in anger. But the confidence must remain. The START II Treaty increases confidence on both sides. Nothing in it prejudices the consideration of how to provide for defense against theater and short-range ballistic missiles while maintaining the critical balancing tool of the ABM Treaty. Ratification of the START II Treaty certainly does not increase the need for a national missile defense that would be in violation of the ABM Treaty--to the contrary, it reduces the danger of attack and removes the most threatening of the Russian nuclear delivery systems. Mr. President, immediately is not too soon to provide the Senate's overwhelming approval of this treaty. All who labored in its negotiation are to be commended for their service to the security of this Nation, the security of the world, and the safety of our citizens and those around the globe. I compliment especially the distinguished Senator from Indiana, Senator Lugar, and the distinguished ranking Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Pell, and their staffs, for their roles in managing the treaty and moving it toward approval by the Senate. I urge the majority leader, and the Democratic leader, to ensure that the Senate acts finally and expeditiously on the treaty just as soon as the Senate returns to session after the holidays. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I ask that I simply be permitted to say to the Senator from Mississippi that I share with the Senator what I know is his devotion to balancing this budget. We have offered, again and again, 7 years, CBO figures, a good-faith offering of several different budgets by our side--two of them, as a matter of fact--a moderate so-called budget and another by the entire Democratic Caucus, both of which, by CBO figures, balance the budget. This is unnecessary. Shutting down of the Government is unnecessary. This hostage taking is unnecessary. I simply will close by saying it is very regrettable--regrettable for the country. I will not object.

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. KERRY. I would just like to finish. I know----

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President. I ask my colleague, then, if I may just answer the question myself and say a couple of words, and then I will not object. I know there are members of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and others waiting. I am a veteran and I am waiting. I am hearing from a lot of veterans, and they are not happy with the notion that some of their claims cannot be processed, but they are also not happy--some of these veterans I have talked to in the spinal cord injury division of the Brockton VA--that some of them are going to be thrown out after 18, 20 years of living there with injuries suffered that they received serving their country. Speaking as a veteran, but much more just as a citizen, not even as a Senator, it is incomprehensible to me that we are going to claim common sense and rectitude with respect to the reduction of this deficit, while telling our workers of this country they are going to be paid for not working and not serving the country. If this is the price we pay, this hostage-taking of an entire budget and Government for simply one group of people getting their way, this is a sad day in the democracy of this country.

Mr. KERRY. Reserving, again, the right to object, could the Senator tell me how one explains to Americans, at a time when we are supposedly trying to reduce the deficit and show common sense, that we are announcing to people that people are not going to work, but they are also going to be paid for not working? Now, what is the common sense in that?

Mr. KERRY. Yes.

Mr. KERRY. I may not object, but I want to ask the Senator from Mississippi a question. Is it true that it is the stated intention of the leadership that those people who are currently not working as a result of this shutdown are going to be paid?

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. KERRY. Am I not correct that this is an amendment and, therefore, it is subject to debate?

Mr. KERRY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, this is a profound and important debate about welfare reform that tests our resolve to change a system that is in need of change, but it is a debate which also tests our commitment to community to the sick and the hurting--to the elderly and the thousands of people who are looking for a helping hand from a government that will help them help themselves Every Senator here today knows the importance of helping families get back to work--get on the job and off the dole; but they also know the devastation of poverty--the lack of hope and the despair and frustrations that all of use see in our States. Unfortunately the bill which we passed to reform welfare has turned for the worse in conference and threatens to injure children and people with disabilities. Mr. President, this conference bill will increase poverty--not decrease it. It will increase despair and destroy hope among some of the poorest, sickest, and weakest Americans. I cannot in good conscience--and I will not--vote for such an ill advised retreat from real reform--no matter how well intended it may be--no matter how deeply some or the other side of the aisle might feel about it. This bill eats away at the strength of America because the strength of America is not found in its willingness to separate the rich from the poor. No, the strength of America, as Hubert Humphrey said: Lies with its people. Not people on the dole but on the job. Not people in despair but people filled with hope. Not people without education but people with skill and knowledge. Not people turned away but people welcomed by their neighbors as full and equal partners in our American adventure. This is our strength, but this bill we are asked to vote on today does not play to that strength. Mr. President, we all want to move people from welfare to work. But the conference report reduces the ability to put people back to work. This conference bill is wrong because it's too harsh and it will injure children and families in significant ways. It reduces SSI benefits for a large majority of disabled children by 25 percent. These are kids, Mr. President, with cerebral palsy, kids with Down's syndrome, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and AIDS. I'm told that by the year 2002, some 650,000 low income children would be affected by this cut. In real numbers that means that the benefits to seriously disabled children would be cut from 74 percent of the poverty line to 55 percent of the poverty line; and with all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that cut was not in the Senate bill. The current law ensures that AFDC families receive Medicare coverage. Under this bill that provision of the law would be repealed, leaving 1.5 million children at risk--and at least 4 million mothers would lose health coverage. This conference bill undermines the school lunch program. It denies school lunches to certain categories of immigrant school children, including legal immigrants, and it would create an entire bureaucracy to determine the status of the children. It would deny SSI and food stamps to immigrants who are legal permanent residents of the United States. The bill includes $32 billion in food stamp benefit cuts to the elderly and working poor--which means about a 20-percent cut to those families who are already working, who are struggling to make ends meet on a minimum wage job or with a Social Security check struggling to pay for basics to keep them from losing their apartments and ending up homeless and on the street. When fully in effect the food stamp cuts will lower the average benefit level from 78 cents per person per meal to 62 cents--62 cents a meal. Mr. President, what are we doing? Is this the kind of nation we have become? The whole point of welfare reform was to identify the people who are on welfare but who are capable of working, and getting them off welfare and into jobs. This conference bill does not accomplish that goal in the way we did in the Senate passed bill. This bill hurts children, the sick and the elderly. It hurts dependent children, more than half of whom live below the poverty line. It hurts disabled children, sick children, hungry children, children without a chance and often without a prayer for survival. It hurts disabled elderly people, who deserve more in their old age, who seek only a little dignity and a little respect. This bill raises the age at which impoverished elderly people could qualify for SSI, from 65 to 67 or even higher--and who does this affect? It is aimed primarily at poor elderly women--widows with limited work experience outside the home. These poor women, already on the edge, would have the principal component of their small safety net ripped away. They could lose their Medicaid. And many of them will be forced into severe poverty and bouts of homelessness. Does this sound like welfare reform? Is this what the American people had in mind when they think of welfare reform? In other words, Mr. President, this bill goes for the easy targets. It hurts the people who can't fight back. In the end it hurts America. There is not enough in this bill about helping people find work, but there are plenty of sweeping cuts to impress constituents with hollow, vicious attacks on people that anyone can attack. This bill raises the suffering level and lowers the promise of hope and of jobs. The bill simply does not provide adequate resources for work programs. According to CBO estimates, funding will fall $5.5 billion short of what is needed to fund the work program in 2002 alone, and that's assuming that the States maintain their safety net for poor children. Over a 7-year period, funding for the work program will fall about $14 billion short of what is needed. Is this a job program? The original Contract With America recognized this problem and provided $10 billion for work programs--but that money is not in this bill. Mr. President, I am voting against this legislation because it steps back from important safeguards that were contained in the Senate bill-- safeguards for children, for elderly, for work--that are the true heart of welfare reform. Mr. President, I voted for the bill that left the Senate. I will not vote for this conference report today. And I will not vote for it because there are some dramatic differences between this conference report and what we voted for. Most importantly, this conference report takes away a fundamental guarantee in this country that children will have health care. It takes away a fundamental guarantee about standards in this country with respect to health and safety for child care. In addition to that, it reduces the most important lifeline that we guaranteed in the Senate bill, that those who are required to go to work who have children will be able to find the proper care for their children. And that has been reduced in this bill. In addition to that, it takes away the personal responsibility contract and it reduces the child nutrition program. This bill will hurt children, and for that reason, Mr. President, as a conference bill I cannot vote for it. I hope we will return to the Senate with a more appropriate conference at some point in the future.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I join Senators Snowe, Kennedy, and Cohen in introducing the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Amendments Act of 1995. This legislation authorizes appropriations for State grants and Department of Commerce programs designed to manage interjurisdictional fisheries, and amends the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act of 1986 to facilitate the use of available fisheries disaster relief funds. In 1986, we passed the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act to support State activities related to the management of fisheries occurring in waters under the jurisdiction of one or more States and the exclusive economic zone [EEZ], and to promote management of these fisheries throughout their range. This model establishes a mechanism for all who have a major interest in managing a fishery extending over several jurisdictions to work together to make key management decisions. It clearly works successfully. We must continue to support such cooperative partnerships. The bill introduced today also contains important provisions which will clear the way for dispersing previously appropriated economic assistance for fishing disaster relief in New England, the Gulf, and in the Pacific Northwest. In New England, this assistance will be used to alleviate the economic hardships caused by the collapse of the traditional groundfish fishery. The New England Fishery Management Council has closed significant areas of prime fishing grounds on Georges Bank and is now considering the adoption of stricter fishing restrictions to rebuild the groundfish stocks. Many New England fishermen can no longer draw a living from the sea as they have for years before. They, their families, and their communities face a severe economic crisis. I have supported, and will continue to support, a comprehensive approach to addressing this fishery disaster. The New England Fishery Management Council has a tough job ahead in designing a rebuilding program. While the Council continues to struggle with this issue, I have focused my efforts on providing economic assistance to the fishermen and the fishing communities during this crisis and rebuilding period. In March 1995, NOAA announced a $2.0 million pilot program to buy groundfish vessels and begin to address the problem of too many fishermen chasing too few fish. The program began in June of 1995, and on October 11, 1995, NOAA announced that it would be able to buy back 13 vessels. Although the $2 million falls far short of the total amount needed for a full-scale buyout in New England, the pilot program answered many questions about the design, implementation, and potential success of an expanded vessel buyout program. The pilot program has demonstrated that fishing vessel owners are willing to participate in such a program--114 vessel owners applied to participate in the pilot program. If funding was available to accept all 114 offers received--totalling $52 million--groundfish fishing capacity could be decreased by more than 31 percent. This illustrates that such a program could be a successful way to reduce the overcapitalization in the groundfish fleet and may help ease the economic impact of the collapsed groundfish fishery and the strict conservation measures anticipated. The legislation we are introducing today amends the existing Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act of 1986 to facilitate the development of an expanded buyout program in New England. This would allow some fishermen to voluntarily leave the fishery, thereby reducing excess fishing capacity. As a condition of the program, the bill would require that adequate conservation and management measures be in place to restore the stocks and ensure no new boats enter the New England groundfish fishery. It would also expedite fishery disaster relief programs designed for the Gulf and the Pacific Northwest. I urge my colleagues to move quickly to pass the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Amendment Act of 1995.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I join Senators Snowe, Kennedy, and Cohen in introducing the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Amendments Act of 1995. This legislation authorizes appropriations for State grants and Department of Commerce programs designed to manage interjurisdictional fisheries, and amends the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act of 1986 to facilitate the use of available fisheries disaster relief funds. In 1986, we passed the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act to support State activities related to the management of fisheries occurring in waters under the jurisdiction of one or more States and the exclusive economic zone [EEZ], and to promote management of these fisheries throughout their range. This model establishes a mechanism for all who have a major interest in managing a fishery extending over several jurisdictions to work together to make key management decisions. It clearly works successfully. We must continue to support such cooperative partnerships. The bill introduced today also contains important provisions which will clear the way for dispersing previously appropriated economic assistance for fishing disaster relief in New England, the Gulf, and in the Pacific Northwest. In New England, this assistance will be used to alleviate the economic hardships caused by the collapse of the traditional groundfish fishery. The New England Fishery Management Council has closed significant areas of prime fishing grounds on Georges Bank and is now considering the adoption of stricter fishing restrictions to rebuild the groundfish stocks. Many New England fishermen can no longer draw a living from the sea as they have for years before. They, their families, and their communities face a severe economic crisis. I have supported, and will continue to support, a comprehensive approach to addressing this fishery disaster. The New England Fishery Management Council has a tough job ahead in designing a rebuilding program. While the Council continues to struggle with this issue, I have focused my efforts on providing economic assistance to the fishermen and the fishing communities during this crisis and rebuilding period. In March 1995, NOAA announced a $2.0 million pilot program to buy groundfish vessels and begin to address the problem of too many fishermen chasing too few fish. The program began in June of 1995, and on October 11, 1995, NOAA announced that it would be able to buy back 13 vessels. Although the $2 million falls far short of the total amount needed for a full-scale buyout in New England, the pilot program answered many questions about the design, implementation, and potential success of an expanded vessel buyout program. The pilot program has demonstrated that fishing vessel owners are willing to participate in such a program--114 vessel owners applied to participate in the pilot program. If funding was available to accept all 114 offers received--totalling $52 million--groundfish fishing capacity could be decreased by more than 31 percent. This illustrates that such a program could be a successful way to reduce the overcapitalization in the groundfish fleet and may help ease the economic impact of the collapsed groundfish fishery and the strict conservation measures anticipated. The legislation we are introducing today amends the existing Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act of 1986 to facilitate the development of an expanded buyout program in New England. This would allow some fishermen to voluntarily leave the fishery, thereby reducing excess fishing capacity. As a condition of the program, the bill would require that adequate conservation and management measures be in place to restore the stocks and ensure no new boats enter the New England groundfish fishery. It would also expedite fishery disaster relief programs designed for the Gulf and the Pacific Northwest. I urge my colleagues to move quickly to pass the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Amendment Act of 1995.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. KERRY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. KERRY. Yes.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is my understanding that Senator Helms yielded back his time.

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

Mr. KERRY. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I see two Senators on my side who are on their feet. We would like to yield back some time.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to express my admiration to a number of Senators who have struggled valiantly to produce a bill acceptable to the great majority of Senators and to the administration, that appropriates funds for the vital services provided to American citizens by the Veterans Affairs Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies. The challenge this posed, in a time when it seems too many in both parties have as their objective scoring political points off the other party rather than reaching reasonable middle ground on contentious issues, proved unfortunately to be an insurmountable challenge at least to this point. And despite the great and perhaps even herculean effort invested in this bill by the chairman of the subcommittee, the distinguished Senator from Missouri [Mr. Bond], and the ranking member, the distinguished Senator from Maryland [Ms. Mikulski], I regret very much I have concluded I have no choice but to oppose the bill, and urge the President to veto it, assuming as I do that it will reach his desk for his action. Its shortcomings are numerous, and they are not minor. With regard to the budget for the environmental Protection Agency, the severe cuts of 22 percent from the President's request threaten public health and the environment. Of particular concern are the significant cuts to the enforcement budget, the Superfund Program and the State revolving funds that finance clean water and safe drinking water remedial action. The conference agreement cuts the EPA's enforcement program by 25 percent--in effect allowing more polluters the freedom to continue to pollute our land and water without challenge. The bill also slashes the Superfund budget by 25 percent, which would slow existing cleanups and prevent new cleanup starts. That means that at least four cities in Massachusetts will have to live with continued exposure of thousands of their citizens to dangerous chemicals. The agreement also reduces by $762 million from the President's budget the funding provided for water infrastructure improvements to States and needy cities across the country. For the past several years--under both the Bush and Clinton administrations--Congress has appropriated at least $100 million for Boston Harbor cleanup alone. However, this bill provides just a fraction of that amount--$25 million, thus neglecting to recognize the dire straits of communities such as those of the Greater Boston area which are grappling with the enormous water rate increases which result from Federal mandates. In addition to inadequate funding levels for vital EPA efforts to ensure that public's health and safety, also of grave concern to me are legislative riders that eviscerate existing environmental safeguards, without the benefit of congressional hearings or any input from the general public. We as a nation have struggled valiantly over the past quarter century to identify and eliminate threats to our environment which directly or indirectly threaten our health, safety or well-being, and to begin to clean up the existing mess. I will not willingly participate in the thoughtless and hurried abandonment of these efforts. Mr. President, I am also voting against this bill because it includes excessive cuts in our Federal housing programs. I am concerned that cutbacks of the magnitude visited on the Department of Housing and Urban Development in this bill and some of the changes it makes in housing policy represent a retreat from our Nation's goal to provide all Americans with decent, safe, and affordable housing, and undercut efforts we have been making to reform the agency and its programs. The conference agreement contains significant cuts in HUD's overall budget and particularly deep cuts in public housing programs, incremental assistance, and homeless assistance. Yet, HUD's purpose has not gone away, and this bill provides no roadmap to meeting the pressing needs in our Nation that agency was established to meet. The unmet housing needs of our people are significant. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are homeless every night. Millions of Americans are still living in substandard housing or paying a painfully heavy portion of their income for rent. Too many young families find the barriers to homeownership insurmountable. The goal of a decent, safe, and affordable home for all Americans is still a valid goal for this country. The needs of our cities--large and small--are national in scope. The distressed neighborhoods around the country--like those in Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Springfield, Boston, and other Massachusetts cities and towns--rely on Federal community development assistance to battle the declines that face all of our older urban areas. We also need to be concerned that the cuts in the bill will have serious consequences by making it much more difficult to resolve some of HUD's management problems. The bill, in fact, may exacerbate rather than ameliorate these problems by reducing funding levels for programs that maintain and operate public housing or prevent defaults on HUD- insured multifamily properties. Fixing some of HUD's programs, quite frankly, will require us to invest more resources, not less--because the the small percentage of public housing authorities that are troubled will require strong intervention by the Federal Government. It will require large sums to rebuild the management capacity of these authorities, tear down and replace the aging stock, and address the housing needs of those who currently live in the buildings. The severely distressed housing program--HOPE VI--is providing funding for innovative approaches to remedying distressed public housing around the country--including efforts to revitalize Mission Main and Orchard Park developments in Boston. The conference agreement, unfortunately, cuts this program just as we are showing signs of making progress. I am also concerned that the bill before us establishes a policy that, beginning in 1997, we will only renew expiring section 8 contracts at fair market rents. At the same time, the bill codifies a cut in fair market rents from the 45th to the 40th percentile. Without question, Mr. President, we need to enact changes in the section 8 program that reduce rents where they are excessive and address the burgeoning long-term costs of the section 8 program. We must be careful, however, that a blanket approach does not undermine the viability of existing affordable housing projects. We are responsible for what happens to both the public and assisted housing inventory: the Federal Government walking away from its long-standing involvement in these buildings will have negative consequences for the residents, for the buildings, and for the neighborhoods that surround them. Mr. President, I know the appropriators struggled with a wholly insufficient allocation from the 1996 Congressional budget. Their mission arguably was impossible from the outset. In my judgment, it is simply imperative that the overall budget negotiations provide a higher allocation to the VA/HUD subcommittee. Nonetheless, I do want to acknowledge the chairman's, ranking member's, and subcommittee's actions to help several key programs--and there are some example of their efforts that deserve mention. The subcommittee was able to find $20 million for the Youthbuild Program, though I am extremely disappointed that this level represents a significant cut, realitive to last year, in the resources for this valuable and successful program. I am pleased that the conference agreement preserves the funding levels for the HOME and CDBG Programs at 1995 levels. And finally, the agreement provides $624 million for the preservation of low-income housing; continuing this program is very important if we are to prevent the loss of affordable housing and the displacement of thousands of families across Massachusetts and the entire Nation. There are other deficiencies--serious deficiencies--in this bill--for example, in provisions pertaining to veterans programs and services, about which others have eloquently remarked in this debate, remarks I will not take the Senate's time to replicate. The sum is a bill that is fatally flawed. Mr. President, it disturbs me that this has occurred on yet another bill. It disturbs me greatly that, less than 3 weeks before the end of the calendar year, and nearly 3 months after the beginning of the current fiscal year, the Republican leadership of this Congress still is engaged in the political game of sending the President a bill he already has announced emphatically he must and will veto on the basis of deeply-held, principled conviction--before there have been any definitive negotiations to reach real middle ground. The American people don't understand what is going on, here, Mr. President, and with good reason. It defies rational explanation. But, at the insistence of the intemperate Speaker of the House, the President and the Congress will be required to play out this charade. I thank the President for his courage and steadfastness to vital principles which will be the foundation for the veto he will cast. I remain very hopeful that all parties to the budget negotiations will engage in them diligently and in good faith, that one of the outcomes will be to provide a more realistic allocation of discretionary funding to this bill, and that in the near future we will be debating in this chamber a reasonable bill behind which Senators of good will from both parties can unite and which we can send to the President for his signature.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to recognize the chairman's successful efforts to not only continue the Low-Income Housing Preservation Program in fiscal year 1996, but provide $624 million in funding. This program is extremely important to my state and to many across the country. Thousands of Massachusetts tenants are threatened with displacement if the owners prepay their HUD-assisted mortgages and convert the property to uses other than affordable housing. I am also generally supportive of the reforms to the program that are incorporated in the appropriations language. There is significant concern that the program may provide excessive incentives. I am hopeful that the authorizing committee on which I serve will take another look at the preservation program next year--with a particularly thorough review of the proposed capital grant approach--and make further refinements with the objective of preserving affordable housing and preventing displacement--without unnecessary costs to the taxpayer. Unfortunately, the funding levels and program changes also mean that some owners will now choose to prepay. This raises the concern about the adequacy of protections for the residents of buildings in those circumstances where owners decide to prepay and convert their buildings to other uses. The conference report language protects residents by preventing owners from prepaying their mortgage unless they agree not to raise rents for 60 days following prepayment. The language also raises the value of vouchers to a rent level necessary to allow the residents to stay in the buildings. These are appropriate protections. Section 223 of the current Low Income Housing Preservation and Resident Homeownership Act [LIHPRHA] provides significant protections to residents who are faced with a prepayment action by an owner. It is my interpretation that nothing in the appropriations language would override the protections provided to residents under section 223 of LIHPRHA, and that these protections would still apply to residents in those buildings where the owners decide to prepay their mortgages. Is that also the understanding of the distinguished Senator from Missouri?