Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I want to be sure. I intend to speak on the Superfund amendment, though I support the amendment by the Senator from California. And I assume that, once having that recognition from the floor, I will be able to continue my remarks.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for clearing the agenda. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to talk about the section 628 of the pending regulatory reform bill. I am delighted to cosponsor this amendment. It deals with environmental cleanup. As the former chairman and current ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee with the jurisdiction over Superfund, I believe that adoption of this amendment is critical to achieving real reform in the program. Let me begin by explaining it. The language sought to strike has nothing to do with reforming the regulatory process. It has everything to do with undermining and invalidating specific regulations. It does not allow the reform regulatory process to work. Rather, it is an effort to mandate an outcome of that process. The Superfund provision in the Dole-Johnston substitute makes an exception to the general rules established in the bill so that efforts to regulate Superfund sites--and only Superfund sites--are to be treated differently [[Page S 9848]] than all other regulatory actions. As we know, the bill currently says that only if a regulatory decision costs more than $100 million it is considered a major rule, thus triggering lengthy reviews and certain protections in the bill. Only a small percentage of Superfund sites involve costs of more than $100 million. As a result, most Superfund sites would be exempt from the procedures I just mentioned that are established by the bill. That was apparently unacceptable to those who want to avoid costs and delay in cleanups. As a result, they created the lower threshold of $10 million which would apply only to Superfund sites. And if that triggers some suspicion in the minds of those who are trying to figure it out, that suspicion is warranted. Every other regulatory decision has to cost more than $100 million before it is considered a major rule. But at Superfund sites--and only there--the threshold will be considered to be a major rule when it starts at $10 million. There is no logical explanation of why; no justification for the exception, just a little provision that treats Superfund differently than any other program in the Federal Government. Mr. President, to me it is obvious that there is intentionally or otherwise a mission here that would emasculate the Superfund program. That may satisfy some who will do what they can to delay the cleanups required, or at least for it to kill the program. It may help those who want to escape their obligation to pay for the cleanup of sites but it will not satisfy those who want to get after the environmental blight, and it should not satisfy anyone who wants to protect the health and safety of the millions of Americans who live, work, or play near Superfund sites. By the way, for many, that is not an option. That is where home is. That is where work is. That is where a school might be. They did not choose to build or to live near these sites. But, unfortunately, once these environmental problems were discovered it was a new learning experience for people. Suddenly, they learned that perhaps the water supply may be contaminated or the ground that their kids are playing on may be dangerous for them. One of the many unintended impacts of this bill is the dead certain proposition that it will make the problems that plague the Superfund program worse. This bill would have the effect of stopping Superfund cleanups in their tracks apparently under the theory that we need to spend more time doing more studies before deciding what we can do to clean up the mess that we have already been studying for years and years. Let us be candid. The Superfund program already contains an extensive risk analysis and cost-benefit evaluation. The private parties who are responsible for the cleanup are already involved in the remediation process. And so is the affected community. The criticism of the Superfund program is that it studies too much and does too little. Look at what we do already. Superfund site remediation decisions are not made casually or without consideration of risks or cost benefit. Under the present law, EPA must conduct numerous studies and consider costs and other factors in selecting a cleanup remedy. During the remedy selection phase, a detailed risk assessment is conducted by looking at the people and the environment exposed to the risks associated with the Superfund with this toxic site. For the pathways of exposure, such as ground water, surface water, air, soil, however, the contamination travels in the specific contaminants present at the site. Following these studies, EPA announces a proposed cleanup approach, receives public comment on that approach, and issues a record decision to memorialize its final cleanup decision. Often the private parties performing the studies in cleanups have been very involved in developing the appropriate remedy. We do all of that now. Yet, S. 343 says that we ought to do more studies which would, of course, mean less cleanup. It allows a party to reopen the whole process once a decision about how a cleanup process ought to proceed. In fact, it will allow a party to reopen the whole program even after construction and implementation of the cleanup program has begun. This legislation virtually requires an expensive, slow, and often duplicative study process even if the private parties involved are not wanted and did not believe it was necessary. This bill would virtually require reconsideration and reevaluation of the cleanup strategies that are being developed and instituted at hundreds of sites. This would be a tragic development and a tremendous waste of resources. It would cause great consternation at the sites where communities have negotiated and agreed to a level of cleanup that could be overruled by this law. How do we explain to the residents living near Superfund sites that we are going to throw out years of study, years of work, and construction in many cases and stop and restudy the whole cleanup from start to finish? During the last Congress, EPA, industry and the environmental community produced a set of consensus proposals to reform Superfund, to reduce litigation, to speed cleanups, to cut repetitive analysis and to improve public participation in the cleanup process. Mr. President, I was again then chairman of the subcommittee, and everybody worked hard--Democrats, Republicans, the administration, outside groups, be they industry, academic, Government, environmentalist. Everybody pitched in to try to reform Superfund because there have been problems with it. No one can deny that. But its mission is a purposeful one. As a result of some obstruction, we did not pass that reform Superfund proposal. Frankly, I thought it was an environmental tragedy after so much work and so much agreement had been hammered out with parties that typically disagree, and here we are today now first reviewing the Superfund program. Once again, it is nearing its expiration date. Lots and lots of money has been spent, billions by the way, and much of it in the learning process because, unfortunately, it was not the job that we expected to have to do when we set out to do it. It took a lot more because the toxic contamination was a lot worse, and as a consequence we are now in a situation where the moneys spent up front are beginning to pay off. But we did not get the chance, we did not have the outcome that we wanted to have to speed cleanups and to reduce litigation costs. Additional changes to speed cleanup are now being considered in the Environment and Public Works Committee, and they are likely to be approved. This bill threatens to go in the opposite direction by increasing litigation, adding more needless analyses and slowing cleanups while saddling EPA with new paperwork burdens. Now, I am working with the chairman of the Superfund subcommittee, Senator Smith of New Hampshire, on Superfund reform and reauthorization. We do not necessarily agree about how the program ought to be changed, but the fact is that we are talking, and we are bringing in witnesses, and we have had testimony and hearings. I think it has improved the atmosphere as well as the possibility that Superfund reform is going to be accomplished in fairly short order. I believe that we agree that reform is supposed to increase speed and reduce redundant studies. This bill is inconsistent, Mr. President, with that vision of reform. It is also inconsistent with a serious effort to get Superfund reformed and reauthorized rather than have this buried as a subsection of this long and complex bill dealing with regulatory reform. This is not the way to do business. Mr. President, Superfund is not necessarily popular with everybody, but cleaning up our hazardous waste is a mission that all of us I believe can agree upon. It is a very expensive proposition. It has been looked at over the last 50 years, and finally in 1980, a law was established to move the process along. Now, private parties do not like cleaning up the mess if they caused it or if they are found jointly or severally responsible. Insurance companies do not like it because they have to pay the claims. But the strongest criticism of our hazardous waste cleanup programs is our unending studies to determine the proper remedy. In fact, Congress recently spoke to this issue. During the last rescissions bill, $300 million was rescinded from the Department of Defense cleanup program because it was felt that too [[Page S 9849]] much money was being spent on studies and not enough on cleanups. This provision would require yet more money be spent on just such studies which would both delay cleanups and leave less money for that task. I do not want to go back to Superfund sites in my State and explain to my constituents who live near Superfund sites that agreed upon remedies are going to be reopened for a further round of studies. I do not want to have to explain that a new study phase will delay cleanup for years and years. They do not like that news. I do not want to have to tell them that cleanups already begun will suddenly be halted when they have already lived with threats to them and their family's health for already too long a period of time. Why is this delay inevitable? Well, in addition to the opportunities it gives to private interests to create delay, look at what it does to the Government's ability to move forward quickly. The EPA now processes about 10 major rules a year. Under this bill, it is estimated that EPA will have to do a complete risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis for about 45 major rules each year for the various programs it administers. I wish to make clear what happens with a major rule. It involves lots and lots of people. It involves lots of computer use. It involves lots of calculation. It involves lots of time and lots of money. This is not to say that we should not be doing studies. We should. But we have already done them, done them sufficiently I think to answer all of the concerns that people have. But if our amendment fails here and EPA must do a cost-benefit and risk assessment for Superfund sites over $10 million, it will have to do approximately 650 additional risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses. Mr. President, my argument can be summarized in these three points. First, the bill before us treats Superfund in an unjustified, special, and unique way. It contains a special carveout for the particular interests that want to reduce or evade their responsibility to pay for cleanups. Second, the bill before us will inevitably delay cleanups, prolonging the risks those toxic hot spots pose to human beings and to the environment. That delay is a function of the overt mechanisms in the bill which require new studies and the practical inability of EPA to conduct the number of studies which will be required. We want EPA to be an organization that conducts cleanups. We do not want it to devote all of its time to doing studies. So the bill will cause delay in cleanup, the one thing that we all want to hasten. And third, there is no finding that these new studies are required. Superfund already has sophisticated cost-benefit and risk analysis. If you think there ought to be changes in the way that analysis is conducted, then require those changes when we reauthorize Superfund in an orderly process. Do not try to force them into a bill that has a much more general goal of reforming the process by which we regulate. Mr. President, we ought to let the authorizing committee handle Superfund. We are working toward that goal. And when we bring legislation to the floor we can understand it, we can debate it, and justify the decisions that we make. Doing reform in the backdoor manner proposed by this bill is totally unacceptable. I want to point out what is here on the chart to emphasize, that is, that presently we have already 430 sites where cleanup is underway. We have decisions being made at 211 sites. We have remedy selections at 74 sites and studies already underway at 263 sites. If S. 343 passes as it is, then what we will do is we will have to study 763 sites. It means practically the end of serious decisions about cleanup and beginning the process. What we will be left with is 215 sites with cleanup underway, as opposed to 430, and decisions underway for 211 other sites. We will move into the study phase. This will turn out to be a calculous laboratory where everybody will be participating in studies and not getting work done and will exaggerate criticism that now exists that all we do is study things to death. We have studied things, I hope not to death, but we have studied them for a long time. The decisions are made on the science available, and there is an orderly process. We ought not tinker with it, but reform it in an orderly way. So, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support the motion that is now before us to strike the special relief language for special interests that are now in this bill. I yield the floor. Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I listened with interest to my colleague's review of what this amendment is about within the bill as it is structured. The one thing I have not heard is anyone deny this success ratio. From 1988 until the present day we have reduced toxics being emitted into the air, the water, and on the land by 42 percent--2 billion pounds in a period of 5 years, 2 billion pounds less of toxic material hanging around our kids, hanging around our families, hanging around our school yards. Gone. And it does not mean diddly, as we say, in terms of the company's responsibility. We are not arresting anybody. We are not fining anybody. What we are saying is that they simply have to report. It is sunshine. Let the public know what it is that they ought to be concerned about, in the event of a particular emission. It is great for fire departments. In one city in New Jersey, we had a fireman's protective gear melt off his body because of the chemical mixture. At least if they know this information, emergency response people can prepare the materials necessary to fight a particular release, explosion, or fire. What we are doing now is we are saying, Okay, the public really does not have a right to know this kind of thing. All of these materials that are released are toxic, Mr. President. They do not get out there willy-nilly. This is not an administrator's dream of torture.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Very briefly for a question.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Say it again, please.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. There is a requirement that they have to file this information.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. If there is an accident that endangers the public health, yes, someone will look at it. I would love to respond to my friend from Louisiana, but we are using my time and he is in opposition, so I do not want to give him my time to oppose this brilliant amendment. The Senator from Massachusetts has asked for some time. He has worked very hard on these issues and I would be delighted to yield as much time as he needs, not to exceed 10 minutes.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes. I do not want to continue to use my time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. If I might ask, Mr. President, how much time do I have left on my side?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Senator from Mississippi was going to be here at--was that 8?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, can we have order, please? It is hard to hear the Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I want to point out one thing before we respond directly.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank you, Mr. President. It is the end of a long day. People are restless. But we have an important matter to settle here. [[Page S 9899]] The fact of the matter is that this has been a very successful program. We have reduced in 5 years 40 percent of the toxic materials emitted. We have go from 4.8 billion pounds a year down to 2.8 billion pounds a year, a reduction of 2 billion pounds being released into the atmosphere, the water, the land, whatever waste stream the company chooses. Why is it necessary to change it? Mr. President, it is obvious to me. It is necessary to change it to accommodate someone who does not like the chemical that is listed there. We are not talking about chewing gum here. We are talking about chemicals that now are listed as chronic. These chemicals can cause cancer, teratogenic defects, serious or irreversible reproductive dysfunctions, neurological disorders, heritable genetic mutations, and other chronic health effects. What the Senator from Mississippi wants to do is say unless two- thirds of this list--that is the reality--meet the acute test that none of those conditions that I just mentioned should permit those materials to be listed. These are toxics that are listed here. I would submit to you that it would be a pity to say to the American public that we are taking away the sunshine. We ask you now to accept the ``right to know''--not go from the ``right to know'' to the ``right to know nothing.'' It is a law that has very little demand. All they have to do--the manufacturer, the transports--is list the chemicals that you emit into the air, list the chemicals that you emit into the water; list the toxics that you store in wasteland fills. Mr. President, there is very little here that has a negative effect. We have reduced the amount of exposure that our people have to suffer. The thing works well. To leave it there now when this is not a matter of regulation--this is a matter of governance. I think it would be a mistake honestly to continue to leave the language in there that would eliminate a program that has been very, very successful. If we are going to eliminate it, it ought to be through the process of hearings and committees and the legislative process instead of sweeping it all under the pretense that we are making regulation and making life easier for our citizens. As a matter of fact, it makes life considerably more hazardous. I yield the floor, Mr. President, and hope that my colleagues will not agree to tabling this amendment. Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I will. [[Page S 9888]]

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor and support the Daschle-Bradley amendment even though I am disappointed that it is necessary to offer the amendment. But we do need to offer the amendment because, once again, our Republican colleagues seem to be more responsive to the special interests than the public interest. It is unacceptable for this body to put thousands of lives at risk in the name of regulatory reform. Yet that, in my view, is what this bill does. Let me give you an example. An estimated 4,000 people die each year as a result of meat and poultry tainted with harmful bacteria. Another 5 million become ill, but survive. These numbers are too high. You would think the Federal Government would feel an obligation to respond to that problem. This bill is a response. But it is the wrong response. It weakens our ability to regulate food safety rather than strengthen it. In 1995, the sale of unsafe meat and poultry is unacceptable and deplorable. It is a scandal that meat today is inspected by the same standards first developed in the early 1900's. That is right, today's meat inspection process is nearly the same as it was 100 years ago-- inspectors must rely on sight and smell. USDA recently proposed rules that would finally bring meat and poultry inspection into the 20th century. Scientific testing would be used to prevent contaminated food from reaching American consumers. These changes would save thousands of lives and prevent millions of Americans from suffering the ill effects of this harmful bacteria. Death from E. coli poisoning can be excruciatingly painful. Symptoms range from diarrhea and vomiting, to extreme headaches, to neurological damage. Body functions often shut down one at a time. Blood transfusions are necessary. Death is common for children and survivors can suffer from the aftereffects of this poisoning for years. Last year, I introduced the Katie O'Connell Safe Food Act with Senator Bradley. Katie O'Connell was a 23-month-old girl from Kearny, NJ, who died as a result of eating a fast-food hamburger infected with E. coli bacteria. This act sought to prevent future tragedies like that suffered by Katie O'Connell and her family. I am pleased that after many years, the USDA proposed new standards that would do just this. There are thousands of Katie O'Connell's across the Nation whose lives could be saved if we had a proper system in place to assure the safety of our food. We owe it to our children and their families to ensure the safety of our food system. But the so-called regulatory reform bill before us now, even with the Dole amendment, will delay this long-awaited improvement in our meat and poultry inspection system. It will encourage challenges to rules which have already taken too long to be developed. It will delay USDA's ability to issue regulations which we need and most Members of this body want. Regulations that are vital to the public health ought to be protected from additional delay. That is what the Daschle-Bradley amendment does. And that it why I support it. Let us use some common sense and pass this amendment in the name of protecting the public health and safety. Mr. President, let me close by saying that I hope we will have the opportunity to examine other amendments that will put the public health ahead of the special interests. Mr. JOHNSTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the nomination of Greg Stewart to be general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC]. Greg Stewart is a native New Jerseyan and has most recently served as the director of the division of civil rights for the State of New Jersey. I believe that Greg Stewart has the qualifications and the experience to make an excellent general counsel at EEOC. Mr. President, Greg Stewart has been involved in civil rights issues for over 13 years. He has served as the director of the division of civil rights in New Jersey under both a Democratic and Republican governor. He has also worked for the department of the public advocate in New Jersey, again under Democratic and Republican Governors. During whatever free time he has had since he graduated from Rutgers Law School in 1981, he has taught constitutional and civil rights law at Rutgers School of Law and John Jay College. Greg Stewart has an outstanding scholar. He has a three degrees from Rutgers; a B.A. in political science, an M.A. in political science, and a J.D. from the Rutgers Law School in Newark. He has received several academic honors including an Eagleton Institute of Politics fellowship. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Greg has also been involved in community service. In fact, he received the Community Service Award for the New Jersey Conference of the NAACP branches and the Equal Justice Medal for the Legal Services of New Jersey. Mr. President, our country is on the brink of a national debate on affirmation action and civil rights laws. I think Greg Stewart can make an excellent contribution to this debate as general counsel to the EEOC. He has a vast amount of experience in civil rights law and he has served under Republicans and Democrats with a sincere respect for the law, objectivity, and a unique sense of balance. I am proud to support his nomination and urge the Senate to confirm his nomination to EEOC general counsel.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I join with my colleagues in paying tribute to Abby Safford on her retirement from the Senate. Knowing Abby, I can only imagine that when she leaves us, she is planning a full life of travel and continued learning and challenge. Anyone familiar with her energy, sharp intelligence, political commitment and love of the Senate knows she will continue to follow our activities with close attention. I know all of us are going to miss her advice, incredible attention to our needs, her knowledge of the Senate and her ability to help make this institution work. On the eve of her retirement from the Senate I want to wish Abby the very best and hope that her next 25 years will be as satisfying as those she spent in the Senate, and filled with challenge, satisfaction, love, and contentment. She has made an enormous contribution to this institution and the many Senators who have occupied these desks since she began here many years ago, sitting in the staff gallery following the Senate floor for her Senator. It is a pleasure to simply say, in return, ``Thank you, Abby.''

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished occupant of the chair. Mr. President, the Republican budget before us purports to solve our deficit problem in 7 years. However, it will not do the job. For one thing, the budget claims balance by using billions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund. In some ironic way that is almost a joke because no company, no corporation--and I come with some experience having been the CEO of a major American corporation, the one that I helped build with a couple of other young fellows--none of them would dare propose to show their balance sheets, or their financial statement, as having been balanced using the company's pension fund. By the way, Mr. President, I allow myself up to 20 minutes or such time less than that which I care to use.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we will yield to the Republican side now, despite the fact that we had only one Democrat speak after two Republicans in a row. But we have a distinguished friend on the other side, Senator Grassley from Iowa, who wishes to speak. I now yield so that the Senator can use some of his time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, no corporation would dare use the pension fund that does not belong to them as a line on their financial statement suggesting that in fact they have had a pretty good year. That would amount to absolute fraud. And I think any chairman or president of a company who signs such a statement, the financial officer, could be accused and charged with fraud, and could be charged with violation of the accounting rules that apply to public companies. Meanwhile, my Republican colleagues claim that they are going to balance the budget in 7 years, but only by using billions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund that are reserved for senior citizens, the beneficiaries. I hope they will not break their arms patting themselves on the back about this. In any case, Mr. President, there is a much larger question involved in this debate. And that question is Whose side are you on? Those on the Republican side of the aisle are on the side of high- income people with lots of assets. And so it is not surprising that they advocate a tax cut for the wealthy. They claim it will help the economy. I think it was at one point called trickle down. Trickle down was something like--I know this is a play on words--trickle-dee trickle-dum. But the fact is that trickle down economics did not work. Meanwhile, Mr. President, we Democrats are here to represent ordinary Americans. The people who work every day, trying to provide for their families, trying to buy a home, a roof over their heads, trying to supply an education for their children, trying to reserve funds for their older age, or trying to help a parent. These people will not benefit by a tax cut to the rich. Mr. President, the Republicans justify their budget by talking about debt. But there is a lot of confusion about debt. Debt is a recognized and an acceptable aspect of personal and business life in this country. Show me a company, any company of size, a company doing $50 million a year, $100 million a year, probably a lot smaller than that, that does not have debt on its books, and I will show you a private company owned by perhaps one individual. But assume as soon as you get other owners in the business, public companies and so forth, it goes almost without saying that they need debt, that they need to borrow to expand, to invest in the future, to invest in research, product development, and marketing. That is the way it is. What is the dream of the average American family? The largest asset that most Americans have is their home. And I do not know anybody, middle income, modest income, or rich, that buys a home for cash. They go to the bank or they go to a lending institution. They say, ``Lend me money based on my collateral; the brick and mortar that was used to build my house, the piece of property that I own.'' And for many, throughout their lifetime of work, the largest asset that they acquire is their home or the equity in their home at such time as they dispose of it. So it has to be with government at times. And we ought not to make phony comparisons of government to business or government to individuals. You hear the argument that American families balance their budget, so why not government. That is phony. Everybody knows that. Every American family lives like every American business conducts itself. They borrow money. It is part of our system. Yet we should try to balance the operating budget. And there is no question that we need to do much more to cut wasteful spending and move in that direction. There may be some disagreement about the date, whether it is the year 2002 or the year 2005. But both Democrats and Republicans share the overall goal. The question is how do we get there and who pays the ultimate price? Whose side are you on? We have heard our friends on the other side claim that they are not cutting Medicare, or that they are simply cutting into the growth of Medicare. The fact of the matter is that when you take $270 billion out of Medicare over the next 7 years, with the huge growth in the number of beneficiaries, and rising medical costs, that money goes for less per person than it would otherwise. These cuts in Medicare will mean a cut of over $3,300 per individual, almost $7,000 per couple, over the next 7 years. And that is a lot of money for the average family. As a matter of fact, the average senior citizen today pays 20 percent of his or her income in out-of-pocket health care costs. We are talking about people whose incomes at best are modest. Seventy-five percent of Medicare recipients have incomes under $25,000 a year; 35 percent have incomes under $10,000 a year. But we are talking about an average increase for those folks of $3,300 per person, or roughly almost $7,000 for a senior couple. Student loans--it is going to cost students $3,000 more over the period of a student loan. And the question is, who is going to be deprived of the opportunity to go to college? Mr. President, I have heard lots of personal stories about our colleagues. There are some illustrious, distinguished careers that were built among people here in this body with relatively modest starts. And I was one of those people. I came from a family where my mother was widowed at age 36. I was 18 and had already enlisted in the Army to do what I had to in World War II. There was no money in that household-- nothing. The modest allotment that I sent home was small. It helped my mother. She worked hard to take care of my sister and herself and to maintain the small apartment that they lived in. When I got out of the service, I was 22. I wanted to go to college and was accepted to a fine university. Were it not for the GI bill, Mr. President, I do not know which way my career would have gone. But I created a business. I am actually a member of the hall of fame of an industry, the information processing industry, for what is called my pioneering efforts in building the service side of the computer business today larger than the hardware side of the computer business. A company I helped found with two other fellows today employees over 20,000 people. It is a wonderful story about America and the success that can be achieved here from three poor kids, and I was one of them. The other two are brothers. It was the GI bill that sent me to Columbia University. Without that I never would have known which turn to take in the road, very frankly. But with that assistance from the Government, I made a contribution. It is an industry that employs over a million people today, and I take some measure of the credit for having helped create the notion that you could buy computer services outside of your company; you did not have to own the hardware and you did not have to have the programmers, the technicians; you could do it--all because I got a start from my Government. My father during the Depression years was humiliated by the fact that he had to work under a WPA program. It was a very unpleasant experience. But my father knew even more than his dignity, he had to have a week's pay and he had to put some food on the table, and he had to maintain the respectability that he had as head of the household. So he took a Government program job. It was not long, but it was necessary. So here we have education, employment. If only my father had health insurance during the year of his sickness when my mother worked behind the counter of a luncheonette so she could pay doctor bills and administer to him at the same time. So here we have a picture of America, Mr. President. What kind of a country are we? Is our mission primarily to cut taxes for the wealthy or is our mission here to build citizenry in the proudest way possible, to make patriots out of people because they love their country, because their country does something for them? And if it takes us a couple of years more to eliminate a budget deficit, so it shall be. Because the price of not doing it could be detrimental to our country for decades to come. We go to the 21st century with the heaviest competition that this country has ever seen, whether it is from the European Union, 350 million people strong, or from the Pacific rim where energy is just boiling and people want to take our markets and take our products and take our opportunity. We can avoid being in that competition very clearly by not educating our people, by not training them, by not penetrating those markets, by eliminating Government's assistance in helping to get to those markets. We can do those things. In this case, a penny saved is liable to be a dollar lost. So we have to do this with some sense of compassion, with some sense of mission about what our democracy is like. And yet, in this budget, we are going to take away the earned-income tax credit for modest families. We are going to make students pay more to get their loans. And we are going to cut Medicare benefits. But we are going to take care of our friends who are in the high side of the income strata. We are going to make sure that they get their tax cut. I think it is ridiculous. The people who are looking at this placard have to ask themselves the question: Whose side are you on? Where are we going to go? Are we going to be a Government that provides energy and seed money and encouragement for people to develop, or are we going to say, no, no, no, you have to live without these things and if the child does not have sufficient nutrition, so be it. And if the child does not have an education and goes to prison, we will build enough prisons. But will we build enough pride in our citizenry? That is the question. So we are here with a conference report today that says we are going to give out 245 billion dollars' worth of tax cuts, but we are going to take $270 billion out of Medicare and $182 billion out of Medicaid. Medicaid. My goodness, I live in a State that has the second- or third-highest per capita income in the country, New Jersey, but we also have the paradox of some of America's poorest cities in our midst. And those cities and other urban areas, where incomes are not high, very often are totally dependent on Medicaid to carry the hospitals that will serve the needs of children. But we are going to say we are going to cut that because we are saving money. Yes, we are saving over here. We are going to give some to those rich guys over there, but we are saving money. And so those children will not get treated. And what kind of respect will they have for themselves, their families or their country if they have not enough to eat and not enough health care? Not much, I can tell you. They will find other ways to satisfy their basic needs. (Ms. SNOWE assumed the chair.)

Mr. LAUTENBERG. And so, Madam President, the debate will go on and we will have different perspectives, but the one thing that will ring through this debate loudly and clearly in my view is: Whose side are you on? The Democrats believe that people in modest income levels, people in the middle class may need that extra little push to help them move their families along so that they can move up the social and economic ladder. And our friends on the other side will say, no, no, no, we are not going to spend money on those silly programs like child nutrition and day care and those kinds of things. No, we have to give tax cuts to the rich so that they can perhaps let something trickle down for others. I do not believe that is what America wants. It will be interesting to see how the American public receives this debate. And with that, Madam President, I am prepared to yield. Madam President, the next speaker is ordered from the Republican side, and they will allot their time as they see fit. Mr. ABRAHAM addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I believe I bring a somewhat different perspective to the issue of securities than most other Members of this body. Prior to coming to the U.S. Senate, I worked in the private sector. I co-founded a company with two others that today employs over 20,000. After the company went public in 1961, I filed countless statements with the SEC as its CEO. As the CEO, I believed it was important for investors to have as much information as possible. Each year, I made it a practice to project earnings for the following year. And if those projections needed modification due to changed circumstances, I quickly went to the public to alert them to any revision. This process had significant rewards because investor confidence in my former company caused our stock, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, to sell at among the highest price- earnings ratios of all listed securities on any exchange. As I look back on that period, I know that I was in the forefront of CEO's who provided investors with forward-looking statements on my company's financial health. It made sense to me then. It makes sense to me now. I know many companies want to provide this information but do not because they are concerned about their potential liability should their forecasts turn out to be off the mark. It is not in the public interest for these companies to go out of business because of a lawsuit based on a financial forecast, which despite the company's best efforts, later turns out to be inaccurate. I remember how much the stock of biotech companies dropped when we were discussing health care last year. Should those companies be held accountable for this drop? Of course not. We want to protect such firms. But I believe this bill goes too far in the effort to do that; in fact, I believe the practical effect of this bill will be to immunize certain fraudulent statements. This is just one example of the many instances in which I believe the legislation is too extreme. This is unfortunate because S. 240, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, had the potential to be a good bill, perhaps a very good bill. In my judgement, if a few key amendments had been adopted, this legislation would have eliminated current abuses in existing law without sacrificing investor protections. But, those amendments were not. As a result, the bill that will pass the Senate today and go to conference with the House will, I predict, undermine investor confidence in our markets, chill meritorious suits, and leave investors exposed to fraud. I also predict that Congress will revisit this issue in the foreseeable future. I can only hope that the next Charles Keating, whose fraudulent conduct will be facilitated by this bill, will not cost the taxpayers as much as the original. Too often debate on this bill was reduced to accusations of special interest favoritism. It is a shame that the proponents of this bill believed anyone who opposed this legislation was merely siding with the trial lawyer bar. Likewise, the legitimate concerns of accountants and other deep pockets were downplayed by the opponents of this bill. Mr. President, I oppose S. 240, not because it might hurt trial lawyers and not because I do not believe certain groups are being unfairly targeted as deep pockets, but because it is unfair to investors and because I do not think it will serve as a deterrent to fraudulent behavior. The sponsors of this legislation cite compelling anecdotal evidence of abuse by the so-called professional plaintiffs and their unscrupulous attorneys. I agree there are abusive securities class actions suits filed every year. I also agree that we need to protect companies, and even other shareholders, from these people. But in our zeal to tackle this problem, we should take care not to stifle legitimate claims. Amendments were offered that would have tempered the Senate bill's overreaction to the purported securities litigation boom. There were amendments to: provide aiding-and-abetting liability in private implied actions; insert a safety net to ensure that small investors are able to fully recover their losses; extend the statute of limitations period on these claims, thus making it more difficult for bad actors to hide their fraud; and an amendment I cosponsored with Senator Sarbanes that would not have insulated fraudulent statements as a result of the overly broad safe harbor provision in the bill. All were defeated. In opposing these amendments, the sponsors of the bill cited some of the more egregious practices of professional plaintiffs and certain lawyers. What they do not mention is that this behavior would have been curbed by noncontroversial provisions contained in S. 240, provisions not affected by the amendments I mentioned above. These would include: prohibitions against referral fees and attorney conflicts of interest; requirements that the share of the settlement awarded to the name plaintiffs be calculated in the same manner as the shares awarded to all other members of the class and that the name plaintiff certify that he did not purchase the security at the direction of his attorney; a prohibition against excessive attorneys' fees; and an assurance that all members of the class have access to information held by counsel of the name plaintiff. I did not want to have to vote against a bill to curb frivolous securities lawsuits because I believe there are problems. I have met with accountants and executives of high-technology companies and have heard about their legal nightmares. But I have also heard from the director of my State's bureau of securities, the North American Securities Administrators Association, AARP, dozens of consumer groups, and some organizations with large pension funds. Mr. President, I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill I believe will insulate fraudulent conduct, prevent investors injured by fraud from fully recovering damages, and chill meritorious litigation. In our rush to reform the problems detailed by the sponsors of this bill, we have overreacted.