John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. The Senator from Connecticut is absolutely correct.

Mr. KERRY. I yield for a question.

Mr. KERRY. I would be happy to yield, Mr. President.

Mr. KERRY. No, but it is attached to it. It is attached to it. What we are talking about here is whether or not the President of the United States is going to have this kind of gun held to his head or not. Just take the continuing resolution. They have restrictions on Federal grants, lobbying to public interest groups; they have Medicare part B premium increases, abolition of certain agencies. These are not items that ought to be on what the Senator from Connecticut has adequately pointed out ought to be very simply an extension of the continuing resolution. Mr. President, I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to say, look, we have been here for years, and we have never balanced the budget. That is correct. Some of us tried. We tried with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. We tried with other efforts. We finally have come to an agreement that this year we are going to try to do it. The question is how are we going to do it, not whether we are going to do it. So when anybody hears our colleagues come to the floor and say the Democrats do not want to balance the budget, I hope America will say, ``Wrong; not true.'' We voted, 39 of us, for a 7-year balanced budget on this side of the aisle. The difference is we did not do it by making it more expensive for kids to go to college. We did not do it by cutting out the volunteer corps of America, AmeriCorps. We did not do it by cutting student capacity to have summer jobs. We did not do it by taking hot lunches away from kids. We did not do it by raiding the pension funds of this country. We did not do it by denying the people at the lowest scale of income the earned-income tax credit, the ability to be able to work out of poverty. Do you know how we did it? We did it by not giving to people this extraordinary $245 billion tax break, most of which is unexplainable in the face of this kind of a deficit.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senator from Mississippi knows how to silence the Senator from Massachusetts. If we can get consent on this, the Senator from Massachusetts would be delighted to terminate his colloquy. So I would be happy to move to that consent if we can. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would be delighted to say a few words about that for my colleague from California. The regulatory reform bill presents the most radical, overreaching effort to undo 25 years of environmental protection for the people of this country. The regulatory reform bill that is attached to the debt limit will undo the protection of our citizens for the inspection of food for the potential of carcinogens in that food. To everybody who has read about E. coli poisoning, the incidents of people who have died or gotten seriously ill as a consequence of the lack of inspection, that will now be liberated. That will occur as a consequence of this. I just share a list here. This is a long, rolling list. These are the 88 different openings for people to stop the process of putting out legitimate regulations within the Environmental Protection Agency. This list, which could not pass the Senate, has been attached to the debt limit.

Mr. KERRY. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. KERRY. The Senator from Connecticut has hit the nail on the head. That is all it takes. It is very, very simple. I might add, Mr. President, that if you want to add insult to injury for the American people, it is my understanding that the Republicans have agreed that nobody is going to forfeit any pay. So not only are we going to shut it down temporarily, but everybody is going to go home and are all going to get paid to sit at home. What kind of a revolution is that? I mean this is the most extraordinary fakery I have ever heard in my life. We are going to shut down the Government but we are not going to shut down the Government. People are still going to get paid, in effect. This is going to cost the American people more money, and the farce of it is the revolution is paying people not to do their jobs. Boy, that is a heck of a change in Washington, DC.

Mr. KERRY. I want to finish the colloquy with the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut is absolutely correct. I think it is an essential component of what people in America need to understand; that while the dilemma is simply extending the budget because the homework has not been done--and I repeat in direct contrast to what happened last year under the Democratic leadership where all 13 appropriations bills were completed on time--the Republicans who were supposed to bring a revolution to the U.S. Senate and to Washington have failed to complete the work on the vast majority of these appropriations bills. Now the issue before the American people is how do you have a budget since they failed to do this work, and how do you continue to keep the Government moving for a short period of time? But instead of just passing a short-term continuation of the budget, what they have purposely done is added to these measures a list of items that they know are calculated to punch hot buttons, and calculated to serve political purposes for campaigns at home so they can come in and say, ``Look. We tried to get this. But the President will not give it to us.'' Those items are items which could not pass here independently, and they effectively result in a kind of legislative political blackmail. They hold the gun to the head of the President. They hold a gun to the country, and they say to the country, we cannot get our way any other way. So we are going to get our way by pushing the country to the brink of default for the first time in American history, and tell the President of the United States he either gives us our way or the country be damned.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the U.S. Government is one of the least intrusive governments in the world. We pay the lowest taxes of any industrialized country. We have a constitution that guarantees an extensive list of freedoms upon which the government cannot infringe. Many believe that one of the causes of the 1994 election results was a desire by the public to minimize government's role in the everyday lives of its citizens. Yet Senators have brought a bill to the floor that would require women to risk their lives. Perhaps the sponsors of this bill do not understand the issue at hand. The Supreme Court has ruled that abortions are legal. It is completely legal for a woman who wants to have an abortion to obtain the services of a doctor who is willing to provide an abortion. Now we as a legislature are going to start decreeing to both pregnant women and their physicians which procedures a woman can choose? This is not our role. We are not obstetricians, and we should not insert ourselves in this picture. Yet proponents of this bill come to the floor to introduce legislation that would force women whose lives are most at danger, whose fetuses are usually malformed in some way, to either endure the painful and life-threatening procedure of birth or to endure another form of abortion that may be more dangerous or painful. This is tantamount to torture and I am appalled that we are standing here debating this issue. But I know why we are here. In fact, every Member of this body knows why we are here. We are here because abortion opponents are exploiting this painful, rare surgical procedure to try to convince the public that all abortions are similar to this procedure. Mr. President, any surgical procedure is disgusting if described to a layman. I could stand here and describe any number or legal medical procedures and probably convince someone out there that the procedure sounds terrible and wrong. But describing and discouraging a legal medical procedure is not my job. I could also stand here and describe the horrible details of a birth of a malformed fetus that kills both the fetus and the mother and does so in the worst and most chilling fashion. But unlike others who have held this floor, I see no benefit to scare tactics. Mr. President, proponents of this bill hope that this bill and the proceedings surrounding it will further stigmatize abortion and humiliate women who have had or who may someday have legal abortions. They also hope to chip away one piece at a time the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Theirs is an unbecoming effort. I believe this effort will fail. I believe that the public knows more and is more perceptive than this bill's proponents think. I urge my colleagues to stand in opposition to this bill. Send it to the Judiciary Committee when it can be properly analyzed.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, during the interval, I had an opportunity to visit with the majority leader, and I think that we have agreed to try to find a way to resolve some of the impasse here. But I would just like to say for the Record, and I think it is a very important principle that we need to try to set out on the Senate floor at this time with the hopes that it will enable us to depart from a new point tomorrow with respect to the issue of the State Department reorganization and the reauthorization bill, S. 908. There is currently a direct linkage, regrettably, between the passage of the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act and the arrival at an agreement by the managers of S. 908. I would simply like to say for the Record, and I do not intend to go on at great length about this or to try to create a firestorm of any kind, but I do want to say for the Record that there are many, many Members on the Democratic side, and particularly all of the members on the Democratic side of the Foreign Relations Committee, who feel very, very strongly that it is inappropriate to link the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act to a reorganization, an internal reorganization of departments of foreign policy in this country. One represents an internal bureaucratic decision; the other represents an agreement by the United States of America, signed by the President of the United States, to engage in a certain set of actions with respect to a very volatile issue universally accepted to be one of the most complicated and important to the United States and to other countries in the world. Our ally, Israel, does not deserve to have the peace process made hostage to a bureaucratic decisionmaking process in this country. My hope is that in order to permit us to go forward, we can be told that that linkage will not exist; that that linkage is inappropriate. I think the time is of the essence here, because this facilitation act will expire within hours--the next 24 hours--and we have a small window of opportunity here to try to correct this situation. I might also add, Mr. President, and I say this purely for the purposes of making the Record clear as to where we stand, that there are now 18 nominations being held up within the Foreign Relations Committee; the START treaty is being held up within the Foreign Relations Committee, and the chemical weapons treaty is also being held up. Clearly, there is a lot of hostage-taking here, and while I understand completely the desire of the chairman to move in a certain direction, I think it is equally important that we try to do so with comity, within a collegiate atmosphere and with bipartisanship, because foreign policy has always been stronger when we are bipartisan. Let me also say for the Record, I heard the majority leader--and I had a chance to talk with him briefly now--earlier today express his concern that somehow additional requests were made of Senator Helms at a sort of subsequent, post-meeting time that somehow upset the negotiating process. And I simply want to clarify, for the Record, that we have had a series of meetings with Senator Helms. In fact, on September 29, late in the evening, we entered into a unanimous-consent agreement which said that after the managers of the bill have agreed on a managers' amendment, S. 908 would come back to the floor. Subsequently, we went to work trying to reach some kind of an agreement. We had a series of meetings over a period of weeks, and during the course of those meetings, we managed to pull together a certain number of proposals that we made to Senator Helms, including a specific figure of reductions. During the course of the meeting with Senator Helms, he indicated that the offering of reductions was not sufficient and that, therefore, there was really no room for further discussion at that time. And so the meeting, Mr. President, really terminated prior to our having completed all of the issues. Subsequent to that meeting, as progress was made in an offering on the numbers and other issues, it became apparent that there might then be more room for discussion, and so those items that were simply never reached during the course of that meeting were put on the table, as they had been, I might add, in previous discussions. I have secured from the administration a finite list of items. I have indicated to Senator Helms that that list will not change, and it has not changed. I have indicated to Senator Helms that we have even screened out a number of issues from the list that we gave him, which the administration gave us, that we thought were important, but which members of the committee felt strongly that they did not want to delete. So it is already a reduced list. There is one final issue that the majority leader referred to which we think is a fair issue for concern. As we currently stand today in the Senate, a united Democratic caucus is unwilling to allow this bill to move for the simple reason that the caucus objects to having a one- sided process foisted on it, where there is not some kind of give in the legislative process. And so we are concerned that, without some agreement about a Senate position, a Senate consensus, if you will, that we arrive at to go to a conference without some assurance that the Senate position is the position we will try to achieve out of the conference, to effectively do nothing now, because it means that whatever we pass here, without some assurances about where we will go with respect to the Senate position in the conference, would simply open the bill up to be completely rewritten in the conference. So we would simply be back where we are, in a position of not having really furthered the legislative process whatsoever and having forced the Democratic caucus to then come back and filibuster the conference report, which takes none of us anywhere. So the purpose of the agreement we reached on September 29, where we released the Middle East peace facilitation program in order to arrive at the agreement of the managers' amendment, we said the following: We entered into a unanimous-consent agreement that we would turn to S. 908 after the managers of the bill have agreed on a managers' amendment. Now, if we have agreed on a managers' amendment, and that is the reason we allowed the bill to come to the floor, what would the purpose be of taking that position and simply throwing it out the window as we go to the conference? So we have simply asked that as we go into the conference, there be some agreement. We are not unwilling to change what we do; we are not unwilling to suggest that the House might not have a better proposal, or that some other proposal might not be put in front of us at a later time; but we believe that there ought to be a de minimis position that the Senate has arrived at and that, by consensus, we would agree on further changes, not that changes could not be made. That is not an uncommon position for the U.S. Senate to take. We often instruct our conferees that the position taken in the Senate will be the position. We have instructed conferees that we will not recede from a certain position. Indeed, when we have had 87 or 90 votes on a particular issue in the Senate, that has almost automatically dictated that was the consensus position of the Senate--that we would not recede from it. So we do not think we are asking for anything unreasonable, Mr. President. One of the great difficulties here is that, in the unanimous-consent agreement we came to with the chairman of the committee, there are only 4 hours of debate and only one amendment. If we are to come to the floor with a managers' amendment and only one amendment, and that amendment is to contemplate a full reorganization structure with major reductions which would affect salaries, posts, post closings, and administrative capacity, we have to make sure that it is correct. That is not easy. We have to make sure that we have really crossed the t's and dotted the i's and come to an agreement that we can all understand. So I say again to my friend, the chairman from North Carolina, that we are prepared to sit tomorrow, but we are not prepared to sit in a hostage situation. We need to know that the committee business can move forward, and we need especially to know that this particular peace initiative, which is so vital to our ability to move forward in the Middle East, will not be linked to this particular effort. I cannot emphasize that enough. We are at a critical point in the Middle East peace process. Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank town of Janin has just begun. The Secretary has just arrived back from Oman, from the economic summit, where the United States and Japan and Europe are working with countries of the Middle East to finalize the initiatives for the development of the West Bank and Gaza economy. And with the passage, only a week ago, of the Jerusalem initiative in the Senate, it is really even more important that the U.S. Senate fulfill its role, together with the administration, in representing the United States, that we fulfill our role as a facilitator and an honest broker in the peace process. Our policy in the Middle East has always been bipartisan, and we believe that some things should be above politics. And peace in the Middle East is clearly one of them. So the delinkage, we believe, is extremely important, and holding a critical piece of legislation hostage to a proposal about how the foreign affairs bureaucracy in this country is organized, I think, undoes some of that facilitation capacity and honest broker perception. So it is my profound hope that tomorrow we will all make wise decisions dealing with these two items and come to an agreement on a managers' amendment, which I believe is possible. I hope we will do that. I yield the floor. Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Maybe the majority leader and I could visit for a minute and see if we could work that out, Mr. President. Would that meet the minority leader's approval?

Mr. KERRY. I have consent to have the floor.

Mr. KERRY. I cannot say because it depends on--there is no way I can answer that.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senator is correct, and I think that is fair. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed after the Senator from Nevada has completed.

Mr. KERRY. Could the Senator inform us how long he will anticipate speaking?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I rise today in support of the conference report on the Transportation appropriations bill. I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the exceptional work of Senator Lautenberg and Senator Hatfield in developing this compromise approach that is now on the floor. This is a critical time for our public infrastructure investments. There are many of us here in the Senate who are deeply disturbed by the level of reduction on the investment side of the ledger, not just in public infrastructure, but in human beings. I am convinced we will pay a price for that. But measured against the overall choices that we are making in the Senate right now, this transportation bill, I think, has done its best, and Senators Hatfield and Lautenberg have done their best, to strike a balance between transit and passenger rail and highway construction programs. I would have liked to have seen that balance be a little bit different, but I still am heartened by the fact that they held onto important initiatives and, I might add from a parochial point of view, some important initiatives for New England and for Massachusetts. I commend them for doing that. I am particularly pleased that the conference report recognizes the significance of multimodal and fixed guideway transportation projects as well as the need to maintain Federal support for Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor Improvement Program. I am concerned that operating subsidies for mass transit are significantly reduced and in some places, particularly in rural or outlying areas, we are going to see reductions that have a dramatic impact on low-income, disabled, and senior citizens' ability to be able to get to work, to get to shopping places, to move around the community. And while it may look OK on the short-term ledger of a budget, those things build community as much as a lot of other things that we care about. When people cannot get somewhere, storeowners lose, community centers lose, and the people lose. So not having a vibrant transit system is not somehow going to be made up, we know, by the private sector because the bottom line has always been that the private sector cannot make money at it. That is why we have the public transit in the first place. I must express my serious disappointment in the severe reductions in transit operating assistance that will likely mean a reduction of some $3 million for Massachusetts. The conference report reflects the crossroads at which Congress finds itself with Amtrak. Despite the many benefits of passenger rail, some Members do not consider investment in passenger rail an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. Others--and I count myself among this group--know from previous experience both here and abroad that the capital- intensive nature of passenger rail makes it unlikely to survive as a viable transportation mode without some form of Government support. Indeed, the U.S. ranks 35th among the nations of the world in per capita spending on passenger rail--behind such countries as Belarus, Botswana, and Guinea. In appropriating $635 million for Amtrak, which is about $160 million less than the fiscal year 1995 funding level, the conferees anticipate enactment of legislation to reform Amtrak. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has reported legislation to restructure Amtrak so as to place it on a path toward greater fiscal stability and accountability, I pledge to help move this bill forward as soon as possible. My concern for passenger rail is particularly keen when it comes to the Northeast corridor and the need to move ahead with track work, upgrading maintenance facilities and completion of the electrification of the northern section as soon as possible. This project is vital to reducing congestion in the corridor, which in turn will result in important environmental, energy and employment benefits. The $115 million the conference report provides for NECIP, some $85 million less than in fiscal year 1995, will enable work to move forward, albeit more slowly. Another area of special importance to Massachusetts is mass transit. I am frankly disappointed and disturbed by the significant reduction in funding agreed to by the conferees for mass transit operating assistance. From $710 million in fiscal year 1995 down to the $400 million contained in the conference report, this severe cut in funding will have a devastating effect on mass transit systems, particularly in the Pioneer Valley, Worcester, Attleboro, and the Lawrence-Haverhill areas. For Pioneer Valley alone, this means a $1 million reduction, or a cut of more than 47 percent in Federal funds. A reduction of this magnitude will most certainly force the transit authorities to curtail service and raise fares, creating significant hardship for those who depend on mass transit--such as the elderly, disabled, and low-income riders--for basic shopping needs, and to commute to work and to school. It is my hope that this sharp downward trend in critical mass transit funding will be reversed next year. I am grateful to the conferees for including in their report more than $20 million for the south Boston Piers Transitway. The transitway is a critical component of the State implementation plan, and is anticipated to serve 22,000 daily riders. This construction project has stayed on schedule and on budget, and has an impressive cost- effectiveness index of $9 to $16 per new passenger trip. Another important project that will receive $2 million through the Federal Transit Administration's bus and bus facilities account in fiscal year 1996 is the Worcester Intermodal Center. The center, in a renovated Union Station in Worcester, MA, will provide convenient access to commuter rail, buses, and taxis to Worcester County's 710,000 residents. I have heard some concerns expressed about the provisions of the conference report relating to reform of the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, and particularly to those sections dealing with the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. As a member of the authorizing committee that oversees the FAA, I intend to monitor closely the FAA's personnel reform plan to assure that the labor rights of FAA workers are fully protected and will keep the statement of the conference managers to this effect in mind as the Commerce Committee considers legislation to restructure the FAA. Another area about which I am concerned is funding for the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is vital to my State of Massachusetts, with its hundreds of miles of coastline, harsh weather conditions, bustling maritime industry, hearty fishing industry, and thriving recreational boating population. Indeed, the Coast Guard is vital to the safety and well-being of citizens in every coastal State, and in every State with navigable waters. Today, over 50 percent of the U.S. population lives within the coastal zone, and directly benefits from the services the Coast Guard provides. But, indirectly, the Coast Guard, in the performance of its mission, protects every American. In fact, more than two-thirds of the total budget for the Coast Guard goes to operating expenses to protect public safety and the marine environment, enforce laws and treaties, maintain aids to navigation, prevent illegal drug trafficking and illegal immigration, and preserve defense readiness. With this high demand for services I am amazed that the Coast Guard would consider reducing its operations but in response to our budget dilemma that is exactly what it is doing. The Coast Guard is in the process of an internal downsizing and streamlining program which in 4 years will reduce its size by 12 percent or 4,000 people, and cut $400 million. However, despite these cost cutting efforts, the funding for the Coast Guard provided by the conference--$2.579 billion for operations and $362 million for acquisition, construction and improvements--is well below the President's requests of $2.618 billion for operations and $428 million for acquisition, construction, and improvements. The Coast Guard has always been able to do more with less, but I am concerned that this level of funding will be inadequate for the Coast Guard to continue successfully to perform important missions and operations. In addition, the conference report contains contradictory provisions concerning funding--the first provision, which I fully endorse, assumes that additional funding of $300 million will be provided in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Coast Guard operations. The second provision, which I oppose, makes available at the discretion of the Secretary of Transportation the transfer of up to $60 million to the FAA budget. I do not think setting up agencies within a Department to battle one another for funding is a wise course. I am pleased to see that the conference agreement disallowed the closure of any Coast Guard multimission small boat stations for fiscal year 1996. While I recognize the necessity of the Coast Guard's streamlining efforts, I am worried that efforts to downsize field operations may unreasonably increase the threat to life, property, and the environment. I concur with the views expressed in the Senate Appropriations Committee report that cited the very real though intangible deterrence benefits of these stations. Combined with their direct benefits, I believe these outweigh the value of the management efficiencies and small budgetary savings that may result from their closure. I also agree with the conference report which stated that the Coast Guard's station closure methodology failed to fairly consider distinctions among small boat stations, such as water temperature and survival time. I have proposed provisions in the Coast Guard authorization bill that establish a more formal process for station closures and require the Coast Guard to take the appropriators' concerns into consideration while allowing the Coast Guard the flexibility to modify the levels of its resources as it sees fit. Once again, I compliment and thank the Senators from Oregon and New Jersey for their leadership in developing this important legislation. While I would have liked for it to do more in some areas, it is a commendable attempt to meet our Nation's transportation needs within the budget limits allotted to them. I would just like to finally publicly say I am deeply concerned, also, about the reductions in the Coast Guard. I know that the Coast Guard has accepted the Presidential directive and other directives to streamline and to reduce. Those reductions and that streamlining are good, and it is important. But I am convinced that measured against the extraordinary increase in Coast Guard duties and responsibilities, we are asking them to do more than may be possible. More than two-thirds of the total budget for the Coast Guard goes to operating expenses for public safety--the marine environment, to enforce laws and treaties, to maintain aids to navigation, to prevent illegal drug trafficking and illegal navigation, immigration, and also to preserve defense readiness. If you look at the increase in responsibility measured against the last 10 years of reduction in resources, once again I think we have to be very careful that we are not shortchanging ourselves. Madam President, I yield the floor. I thank the Chair. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I thank you very much. I shall not be long.

Mr. KERRY. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for such time as I might consume. It will not be long. I assume the Senator from Minnesota wants time.

Mr. KERRY. Is there any time limit at this point in time?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. I listened with interest to the comments of the Senator from Connecticut, with whom I worked on this issue, and others. He is correct that certainly the resolution passed by the Senate with respect to the arms embargo sent a message. But the truth is that the policy that has been put in place in Bosnia that has been successful was the opposite of what that resolution called on the Senate to do. People should reflect on that. The resolution that was passed so dramatically by the Senate said, ``Let's abandon the place and basically just arm them and let them fight.'' Many of us argued that that would have been a disastrous event for the world, for the United Nations, for NATO, and that everybody would have been left asking who was responsible for this extraordinary mess if that had, indeed, been the policy of this country. Courageously, the President pursued a different policy. The different policy that he pursued was to finally elicit from our friends and allies in Europe a willingness to do what the President had been asking them to do for some period of time, which was to be willing to take certain risks, use the power of NATO, and try to force the process to peace talks. There is less killing in Bosnia today than there would have been if the policy of the United States Senate had been pursued. There is less killing today because the President and NATO and the European leaders undertook a policy, which I will agree was one that many of us would have liked to have seen put into place some time previously, but nevertheless, a policy different from that espoused by the Senate. It is a policy which now, hopefully, could conceivably result in a peace, though I think Secretary Holbrooke is accurate to say this is a gamble. There are huge variables, and I do not think expectations ought to be high, though obviously hopes ought to be high.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Parliamentary inquiry takes precedence over request for time.

Mr. KERRY. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. KERRY. The parliamentary inquiry was whether or not the Chair was in the process of giving a ruling which would assist us to know what the relevancy of the waiver is. The Senator would certainly appreciate hearing the ruling.