Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we agree with the Senator's idea of a voice vote. Then we can move on.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the amendment sounds as if it protects Medicare, but it would cause even deeper cuts in education and law enforcement and would make implementing Medicare reforms more difficult in the future, including implementing a prescription drug benefit. I recommend that my colleagues vote against this amendment and hope it will be defeated.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I commend Senator Schumer for submitting this resolution. I, too, have had the privilege of working with Senator Pat Moynihan on the Environment and Public Works Committee for almost 18 years. There are few people who have a better knowledge of history, design, and concept than does our friend, Pat Moynihan. I join Senator Schumer in his comments about Senator Pat Moynihan. I am very familiar with the railroad station. Many people from New Jersey, and people from all over the country, will get to see this station and the contributions Senator Moynihan has made to our national well-being. I urge passage of the bill.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Saving Women's Lives through International Family Planning Act of 2000. I would like to thank Senator Snowe, Senator Boxer, and Senator Murray for joining me as cosponsors and I invite others to join us. Congresswoman Maloney introduced this legislation in the House in February, and it has gained the support of 94 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle in that body. Mr. President, while global population growth has slowed, the world's population reached 6 billion in 1999 and is expected to rise to 8.9 billion by 2050. Nearly all of this growth is occurring in developing nations. High population density puts tremendous strain on water and other resources and takes an increasing toll on the quality and length of human life. Each year, more than 585,000 women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. And millions of women suffer serious health problems following childbirth. International family planning programs are our best hope to slow population growth and decrease mortality rates, and that's why the legislation I'm introducing today is so important. Tomorrow is World Health Day, an appropriate occasion to remember that international family planning programs save the lives of millions of women all over the world. Providing reproductive health care and health education results in safer pregnancies and safer motherhood. Yet this country is paying hundreds of millions of dollars less on international family planning programs today than it did five years ago. We need to restore this country's commitment to helping those in developing countries raise their standards of living, and family planning must be an important part of that assistance. Without this renewed commitment, high fertility rates and rapid population growth will prevent people in the poorest countries from rising out of poverty. The Saving Women's Lives through International Family Planning Act of 2000 authorizes $541.6 million--the funding level requested by President Clinton--for bilateral family planning programs and related assistance abroad. It also provides $35 million for the United Nations Population Fund, known as UNFPA. This would return our level of international family planning assistance to where it was in fiscal 1995. This is a sound investment that will bring returns for decades to come. This bill would also reverse the so-called ``gag rule'' that restricts USAID grants to non-governmental organizations abroad that use their own funds to advocate a woman's right to choose or to perform legal medical procedures. Under this bill, the requirements we apply to NGOs would not be more restrictive that the requirements on foreign governments that receive similar assistance. I have fought for years, as a member of the Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, for adequate funding for international family planning programs without restrictions which would limit the reach or effectiveness of our aid. Last year, we were forced to accept the gag rule in exchange for congressional agreement to pay U.S. arrears to the United Nations. It was a bitter pill to swallow and we must eliminate this provision now. It's unfair and undemocratic. By restricting the freedom of organizations to engage in public policy debates, the gag rule undermines a central goal of U.S. foreign policy, the promotion of democracy--which has at its core the principles of free and open debate and citizen involvement in government decisions. And this restriction is a serious impediment to our efforts to bring global population levels under control and to protect the lives of millions of women by letting them choose to have only as many children as they can care for responsibly. Mr. President, family planning is even more critical to the health of people in developing countries than it is here in America. Many developing countries lack the hospitals and clinics and doctors and other health-care professionals to provide women with the advice and care they need to have a safe pregnancy. Many lack the facilities and expertise to provide obstetrical and prenatal care women need to deliver healthy babies. Sometimes, a pregnancy can be dangerous, especially if the woman is too young or too old to bear a child. In many poor societies, families have many children because so many die before they reach adulthood and children provide the only support in their parents' later years. As a result, families too often have more children than they can realistically support and face malnutrition or even starvation. Finally, there are those who do not properly consider the potential transmission of deadly diseases such as AIDS or who do not have access to contraceptive devices. For many poor women abroad, family planning clinics offer the only general health care available. Without the critical funding provided in this bill, many of these women will unnecessarily suffer and even die. With this assistance, women and children will have a better chance of living longer, healthier lives. We need this legislation to reduce mortality rates, to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and to give the poorest nations an opportunity to meet their social, environmental, and economic needs by making family planning available worldwide. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join in support of the Saving Women's Lives through International Family Planning Act of 2000. We all have a stake in helping people in the worlds poorer nations plan their families and helping control the impact of population growth on the planet we share.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I will try to consolidate my remarks because I know everybody is anxious to complete work on the budget resolution. I am compelled, as I listen to the discussion here, to talk to the Reed amendment and to talk to those who would disparage our efforts to have sensible gun violence control in this society. I heard it said that what we need in law enforcement is more enforcement; that what we need is a more sincere effort, as if to imply that President Clinton and his administration want to let criminals wander the streets. It is somewhat akin to the argument we hear from those who are NRA spokespersons who say President Clinton is looking for more killings to make his political case. It is an outrageous thing. We hear that all we have to do is note how many laws are on the books. I ask the question: Is the deciding factor how many laws we have on the books? I heard someone say today we have 20,000 laws on the books related to guns. But in this country we kill more than 20,000 a year with guns. We kill over 30,000. That is only a page per victim, if you want to judge it on that basis. It is outrageous. That is not the problem. The problem is that people here don't believe guns kill. People here don't believe a gun is a lethal weapon. People here don't believe we ought to know who it is who buys a gun at a gun show. That is the problem. This morning, I had the privilege of standing with Senator Reed and the head of the State police department from Maryland. What he was advocating was more law enforcement, more laws to give them the tools to work with. We had police officers from the area around Providence, RI. They were asking the same thing. They said, give us the tools. It is said, you have enough tools, like the weight of the number of the bills, the numbers of pieces of legislation that you have--again, as if that were the yardstick by which we measure the performance of the society. Go tell the parents of the kids who were killed in Columbine or those who stood in prayer in Fort Worth, TX, or the kids who attended the school in Los Angeles who ran away in fear of a gunman's weapon or in Conyers, GA. Tell those families we have enough laws on the books. Tell them we don't enforce the laws sufficiently--that they will accept that as OK. Well, then I can understand the sacrifice that was made in my family, my home, and the school. I said earlier today that we have a Million Mom March headed for Washington on May 14 this year--a million women from across the country. What are they saying to us? They are saying to us, if you really want to protect women's rights, then tell us our children can go to school, enter the school safely, and leave in the same condition at the end of the day. These are hollow arguments. I hear that we don't prosecute enough. In 1996, there were 22 percent more criminals behind bars for weapons offenses than in 1992. Firearms crimes put 25,000-plus in jail in 1996 compared to 20,681 in 1992. Prosecutions were up 16 percent in 1996 compared to 1992. In 1992, there were 4,754 Federal firearm prosecutions; 1999, 5,500. The argument misses the point when it comes to talking about law enforcement, when in some cases there is no law to enforce. Anybody can walk up at a gun show, go to an unlicensed dealer--an unlicensed dealer can operate in most gun shows, and he is kind of the piggy bank for those who want to escape identity--put their money on the table, and he won't ask them a question. He just gives them as many guns as they can carry, or maybe more than they can carry, in one trip if they want to buy them. Whether you are on the Ten Most Wanted list or you are Osama bin Laden, a terrorist who took refuge in Afghanistan, it doesn't matter; you can buy a gun. We are trying to defend in some peculiar way the right of people to buy guns anonymously. We don't know who they are; we don't know where they are taking the guns. We do know in the Columbine killing, a young woman related to that killing testified before the Colorado Legislature. Robyn Anderson testified she and the two boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed the other students, went to the Tanner gun show on a Saturday. She testified: I remember this as being November or December of 1998. When Eric and Dylan had gone the previous day, a dealer told them they needed to bring someone back who was 18. They were both 17 at the time. This was a private--not a licensed dealer. While we were walking around Eric and Dylan kept asking sellers if they were private or licensed. They wanted to buy their guns from someone who was private--and not licensed-- because there would be no paperwork or background check. They bought guns from three sellers. They were all private. They paid cash. There was no receipt. I was not asked any questions at all. There was no background check. All I had to do was show my driver's license to prove I was 18. Dylan got a shotgun. Eric got a shotgun and a black rifle that he bought clips for. The rest, unfortunately, is history. She says: I don't know if Eric and Dylan could have been able to get guns from another source, but I would not have helped them. It was too easy. I wish it had been more difficult. I wouldn't have helped them to buy the guns if I faced a background check. We may need a couple more laws. Despite the fact there are some 20,000 on the books, that hasn't protected approximately 33,000 who lose their lives every year. There are 13,000 homicides, a bunch to suicides, a bunch to accidents. I think the ultimate example of carelessness with guns in our society was when the 6-year-old killed the 6-year-old in Michigan. The gun was left out casually where the child could reach it. Shouldn't we have laws that say a person who owns a gun is responsible for keeping it out of the hands of children? I certainly think so. We are finding the NRA has a broad reach. It reaches into this Chamber. The hand of the NRA muffles sound. It muffles the sound of tearful parents--not necessarily those who lost children but those who are afraid their children might get lost. Those are the sounds we hear, the parents and the grandparents who are saying, in poll after poll: For crying out loud, close that loophole; close that gun show loophole. It is common sense. It doesn't make sense to the gun lobby because they are afraid one inch is a yard. It is ridiculous when we are talking about human lives. I agree with the Senator from New Mexico that we are doing some silly things. But the silliest is to defend against some sensible gun legislation. Ask the people around the country. I know what they want to see. They want their kids protected, their households protected, their communities protected. One thing we have yet to try in this country is to know who owns guns and where the guns will be. We had an incredible battle some years ago when we tried to put the Brady law into place. It is demonstrated on this placard: Gun show loophole goes right through the Brady law. Under Brady, 400,000 people, judged not fit to own a gun, were denied gun permits. We still argue about whether or not there is enough time to check applicants' backgrounds sufficiently to make sure they are not unfit to own a gun. They want to reduce the time from 3 business days to 24 hours. The FBI will tell you; they are out there hunting for 1,500 guns that were sold improperly because they didn't have time to check the information. As we near the close of this debate on a budget resolution, citizens across this country should be aware not only did we work on the numbers, not only did we work on the resources, not only did we work on the guns, we also worked on protecting your children when they go to school. We know the costs that guns have exacted on our society. Yet we cannot pass sensible gun legislation. I commend the Senator from Rhode Island for his amendment. I sincerely hope we can get past the partisan discussion and look into the faces of the families, distant though they are, listen to the pleas of the mothers, the fathers, the grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers, and sisters and say we have done the right thing--we have tried to reduce gun violence in our society. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Since we are clarifying the record, could I ask the Senator from California whether or not she discussed the photograph that she displayed on the floor?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. mineral receipt sharing administrative costs

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

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for his courtesy and kind remarks. We have done a lot of work. I commend Senator Reed from Rhode Island for his leadership. He had a career in the military before he came to the Congress. He used that background to understand the problem and to put it into perspective. I commend him for his leadership on gun violence issues. I was pleased to hear from our friend from Vermont, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee. Vermont is known to have a lot of hunters. Vermont is known as a place where there are a lot of guns. As I heard Senator Leahy say, a lot of these hunters were disappointed at the unwillingness of the gun lobby, personified by the National Rifle Association, in their organization's unwillingness to step forward and make some commonsense adjustments to the law, getting legislation on the books that says guns should not be available willy-nilly to people who want to buy a lethal weapon. I hope we will soon deal with an amendment that will codify our interest in controlling gun violence. We are soon coming upon a very important anniversary. April 20 is the 1-year anniversary of the awful tragedy at Columbine High School. Few can forget that awful day, the shock we all felt when we heard about young people in the high school being assaulted by gunmen and looking at the pictures on television and seeing a young man reaching out for help, fearful for his life, and young people running frantically from the school to get out of the way of the bullets. The consequences were disastrous: 12 classmates were killed, the 2 killers, and a teacher. Twenty-three other students and teachers wounded. I shutter when I recall that bloody carnage. No parent or grandparent can avoid thanking the Lord for the safety of their own families when they see the horror of those moments. Yet that assault was not only an assault on Columbine High School, it was an assault on the sensibilities of our country--the innocent young people scared, desperate, running away from gunmen. Frankly, I thought that would be the ultimate outrage; that would be the ultimate insult to the lawfulness of our society, to our respect for law, to our respect for life; that this would be it and people would stand up and say: Enough; we have had enough; we want to make a change. The cries of people, the tearful students who lost friends and those who lost relatives, sons and daughters, sent an image across this country which I thought would shake through the halls of this Congress which says: Hey, listen, it's time. Poll after poll was done at that time. The numbers were that 80 to 90 percent of the people said they wanted the gun show loophole closed. There are over 4,000 gun shows a year where anyone--any thief, any felon, anyone who is listed on the 10 most wanted list of the FBI--can walk up, take the money out of their pocket, put it down on the table, and nobody asks: What is your name? Where do you live? From what town do you come? That is not what the American people want. I do not understand the NRA and other members of the gun lobby who say this is somehow an intrusion on their personal rights. Where are the personal rights of the family to know that when their children go to school each and every day, they will return home in the same healthy condition as when they went to school? Everyone here has to be aware that on May 14 we are going to have the Million Mom March. I met with people from New Jersey who are participating. I will tell you something. If you talk to women's groups, talk to individual women across this country about what really counts with them, what is the most important thing on their agenda: Is it equal opportunity for jobs? Is it to make sure that pay scales are the same for men and women? What is it that is the most important thing? I will tell you what the most important thing is: To know their children are safe when they go to school. The Million Mom March is organized around that precept that children should be safe, that this society of ours has had enough of guns and the havoc it wreaks in our Nation. That tragic day, almost a year ago, was enough to offend women across the country to organize a million person march in State after State where it will be taking place. But what has the Congress done to answer the anguished cries of people who have lost a child? Anybody who knows a family who has lost a child, particularly to violence--I guess it does not matter how you lose a child; once you lose a child, it is a terrible thing. The family never recovers. The circumstances never change. Columbine High School will never be the same, even though they had yet another crazy incident there. What happens to those cries? What happens to those pleas? They fall on deaf ears. That is what happens. Not enough people listen, to say: You know what. Yes, we understand there is some debate about the possession of a weapon. But there is nothing in the Constitution--no matter how hard the proponents of guns try--that says you cannot wait a few days while we check to see who you are before we give you a gun. Before we give you an automobile, we check out who you are. What is it that prevents us from saying, look, come on; get together, gun lovers, NRA and the others? What is it that says we have to permit gun purchases by anonymous buyers? There isn't anything in the Constitution that says that. There isn't anything in the Constitution that says you should not have to have a license, that you should not have to be trained before you buy a gun. The Senator from Rhode Island, who is going to propose this amendment, as I indicated, was in the Army as an officer. He is a West Point graduate. He served in Vietnam. He knows what it is to be in war. He served during the period of the Vietnam conflict. I served in Europe during World War II when the shooting was going on. I know what the purpose of a gun is. I learned how to use it. I have never owned one since I got my discharge, I can tell you. But what is it that prevents us from taking up the simplest, commonsense legislation? It is the gun lobby. The response to the cries of the people who want their kids to be able to go to school safely and return is: No, we have a greater allegiance to the NRA and the gun lobby than we have to families across America. What an outrage. But it does not get anything done. I am hoping, with Senator Reed's leadership, we are going to get something done today. Congress has done nothing since that time to protect families from gun violence. When I wrote the law to prohibit domestic abusers from getting guns, it was said that it was an unnecessary thing, it was an imposition of law on our citizens. But 33,000--I thank the Senator from Nevada for mentioning it--33,000 domestic abusers have been prevented from owning a gun. We know something else. We know the statistics show that about 150,000 times a year a gun is put to the head of a woman, often in front of her children, and a man threatens to blow her brains out. There is no visible wound, but I guarantee you, there are wounds that carry through life. The children never forget. But we cannot act on it. We are now waiting for something to happen. We are waiting for the juvenile justice bill, which passed overwhelmingly and went to the House, with our gun-loophole-show closer, and it died. The conference committee has been appointed, but nothing has happened since that time. We have had support in the past from Senators on the other side of the aisle on the gun show amendment. Senators DeWine, Fitzgerald, Lugar, Voinovich, Warner, and Senator Chafee--who is no longer with us--voted for my amendment at that time. The final juvenile justice bill, as we heard from Senator Leahy, passed by a vote of 73-25. So there was strong bipartisan support for moving forward on juvenile crime and trying to reduce gun violence. But that was back on May 20--11 months ago. What has happened since then? Shootings have not stopped. We saw a 6-year-old murder another 6- year-old in Michigan. From Mount Morris, MI, to Los Angeles, CA; from Fort Worth, TX, as youngsters in a prayer session were violated by a gun-wielding assaulter, to Conyers, GA; no community is safe from gun violence. But while the vast majority of Americans want Congress to act, some special interests--the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby--have worked with their few allies in Congress, where less than 3 million members of the NRA determine what actions we take on behalf of 260 million Americans. It is not right. Sooner or later, the voters are going to rebel and say: If you do not vote to put common sense into gun possession in this country, we are going to vote you out of office. That is what ought to happen. Boy, if one time that happens in an area where this is the dominant subject, that would be the end of the gun lobby. It is the same old reaction. Every time Congress wants to pass gun safety laws, the NRA works hard to prevent its passage. Lately, we heard a lot of criticism about the enforcement of gun laws. But this is kind of a joke because the rhetoric ignores the facts. The number of Federal firearms cases prosecuted by the U.S. attorneys increased 16 percent from 1992 to 1999--4,754 in 1992 to 5,500 in 1999. So the suggestion that law enforcement is not fighting gun crimes is just wrong. But more importantly, this rhetoric suggests a false choice between enforcement or stronger laws. What we need is both. Mr. President, I yield the floor, but not without making mention of the fact that Smith & Wesson, a prominent gun manufacturer, has agreed that they need to do more on gun safety. The company reached an agreement with the administration that will incorporate many of the measures stalled in the conference committee: Background checks at gun shows, child safety locks, and preventing the use of ammunition clips with more than 10 rounds. Congress ought not be trailing behind gun manufacturers when it comes to gun safety. The conference committee ought to complete its job. I support Senator Reed's resolution. When it is presented, I hope that all of my colleagues will vote for it. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 2985

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank my friend from Nevada. I commend the Senator from Virginia for his very thoughtful amendment. I listened carefully to what he had to say. Senator Robb has the respect of all of us, regardless on which side of the aisle your political initiation or interests fall. As he said, if it looks like and sounds like and talks like it, then we kind of know what it is. I think that is a proper characterization, in all fairness to the distinguished Senator from Georgia. If it is a tax-saving device that later can be used for contributions to private schools, it obviously is. If it is not a voucher, it sure enough resembles one so much that the disguise is more than penetrable. But I wish to talk about the Robb amendment. Senator Robb talks about the need to modernize our Nation's schools. Boy, I salute that. I am the product of public education. In fact, my parents barely could afford to send me to a free school. I have taken an interest in the community from which I came, Paterson, NJ. It is industrialized, one of the poorest cities in the State of New Jersey--in fact, one of the poorest cities in America in ranking. I looked at the situation with the schools there, schools that I attended. In particular, I looked at one school, a school that we called school No. 6, that I attended where they are barely able to keep plaster on the walls and keep the place in fit condition. I also went to high school in the same city for a while. Knowing my age, one recognizes how old those schools might be. The fact is, we both weathered storms, the schools and I, over a lot of years. But wear and tear shows. We look at these schools and see how inadequately prepared they are for contemporary times. We question what we ought to do there. Since I come out of the computer business, those are my roots. I am a member of something that probably is not noticeable on everybody's calendar, but I am a member of the Information Processing Hall of Fame, which is in Dallas, TX. My former colleague, Bill Bradley, was a Hall of Famer, but of a much more recognizable Hall of Fame, also a much more recognizable participant. But what I know is that unless we go to the Patersons of the country, unless we go to the cities of the country that are in desperate need of improvements in the physical structure of their schools, we are going to find ourselves leaving out a significant portion of our population-- whether rural or urban. I do not mean to boast, but I personally made a contribution to a school in Paterson and stood there and pulled wires with people from the telephone company, who, on a voluntary basis, all pulled wires. And I paid for some small part of the installation of cable that would enable this school, if they ever got the equipment, to at least hook up to the Internet and the world outside their physical building. That is necessary. It is not that we are being good to these kids. We are being good to America. We have to have people who can learn, and we don't care what their background is. If they have the capacity to learn, we ought to give them the tools, as the most advanced country, the largest power in the world that has students who can learn but who don't always get the benefits of the proper tools for an education. That includes the simplest thing, not just pulling cable to hook them up to the Internet, but to make sure the buildings are sound enough to provide reasonable temperatures in the summer and the winter. Nothing is more discouraging to the learning process than to expect someone to function in a school that doesn't have the basic comforts. We have all heard the horror stories about sanitary facilities located floors away from where the classrooms are, where windows are broken, kids can be injured by falling plaster or, worse, even today, asbestos still used in the construction. I commend the Senator from Virginia for standing up for what is right. It is a small cost, when you think about it, as to what we might get in return on investment. Those of us who are in the business world do look at return on investment, and this is one really good one. I hope we are going to get by the partisan divide. We are worried about the digital divide, but we also have to worry about the partisan divide as we discuss the budget and its requirements. We have to kick this football. This is where the game starts, right here in the budget resolution. What we ought to do is have a good clean kickoff and make sure we do it right. I hope when the roll is taken, we defeat the Coverdell amendment and support the Robb amendment.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I would like to ask this. Can't we limit the clock and keep the promise to 10 minutes instead of having 1 or 2 persons cause the other 98 to be here?

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Saving Women's Lives through International Family Planning Act of 2000. I would like to thank Senator Snowe, Senator Boxer, and Senator Murray for joining me as cosponsors and I invite others to join us. Congresswoman Maloney introduced this legislation in the House in February, and it has gained the support of 94 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle in that body. Mr. President, while global population growth has slowed, the world's population reached 6 billion in 1999 and is expected to rise to 8.9 billion by 2050. Nearly all of this growth is occurring in developing nations. High population density puts tremendous strain on water and other resources and takes an increasing toll on the quality and length of human life. Each year, more than 585,000 women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. And millions of women suffer serious health problems following childbirth. International family planning programs are our best hope to slow population growth and decrease mortality rates, and that's why the legislation I'm introducing today is so important. Tomorrow is World Health Day, an appropriate occasion to remember that international family planning programs save the lives of millions of women all over the world. Providing reproductive health care and health education results in safer pregnancies and safer motherhood. Yet this country is paying hundreds of millions of dollars less on international family planning programs today than it did five years ago. We need to restore this country's commitment to helping those in developing countries raise their standards of living, and family planning must be an important part of that assistance. Without this renewed commitment, high fertility rates and rapid population growth will prevent people in the poorest countries from rising out of poverty. The Saving Women's Lives through International Family Planning Act of 2000 authorizes $541.6 million--the funding level requested by President Clinton--for bilateral family planning programs and related assistance abroad. It also provides $35 million for the United Nations Population Fund, known as UNFPA. This would return our level of international family planning assistance to where it was in fiscal 1995. This is a sound investment that will bring returns for decades to come. This bill would also reverse the so-called ``gag rule'' that restricts USAID grants to non-governmental organizations abroad that use their own funds to advocate a woman's right to choose or to perform legal medical procedures. Under this bill, the requirements we apply to NGOs would not be more restrictive that the requirements on foreign governments that receive similar assistance. I have fought for years, as a member of the Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, for adequate funding for international family planning programs without restrictions which would limit the reach or effectiveness of our aid. Last year, we were forced to accept the gag rule in exchange for congressional agreement to pay U.S. arrears to the United Nations. It was a bitter pill to swallow and we must eliminate this provision now. It's unfair and undemocratic. By restricting the freedom of organizations to engage in public policy debates, the gag rule undermines a central goal of U.S. foreign policy, the promotion of democracy--which has at its core the principles of free and open debate and citizen involvement in government decisions. And this restriction is a serious impediment to our efforts to bring global population levels under control and to protect the lives of millions of women by letting them choose to have only as many children as they can care for responsibly. Mr. President, family planning is even more critical to the health of people in developing countries than it is here in America. Many developing countries lack the hospitals and clinics and doctors and other health-care professionals to provide women with the advice and care they need to have a safe pregnancy. Many lack the facilities and expertise to provide obstetrical and prenatal care women need to deliver healthy babies. Sometimes, a pregnancy can be dangerous, especially if the woman is too young or too old to bear a child. In many poor societies, families have many children because so many die before they reach adulthood and children provide the only support in their parents' later years. As a result, families too often have more children than they can realistically support and face malnutrition or even starvation. Finally, there are those who do not properly consider the potential transmission of deadly diseases such as AIDS or who do not have access to contraceptive devices. For many poor women abroad, family planning clinics offer the only general health care available. Without the critical funding provided in this bill, many of these women will unnecessarily suffer and even die. With this assistance, women and children will have a better chance of living longer, healthier lives. We need this legislation to reduce mortality rates, to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and to give the poorest nations an opportunity to meet their social, environmental, and economic needs by making family planning available worldwide. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join in support of the Saving Women's Lives through International Family Planning Act of 2000. We all have a stake in helping people in the worlds poorer nations plan their families and helping control the impact of population growth on the planet we share.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator. I hope it is clear to everybody who is listening that this is a cut taken without regard for the consequences. It doesn't matter where it comes from. It can come out of Medicare, based on what we are hearing. It could come out of education. It could come out of COPS. Pull in the FBI, cut the number of FBI agents, cut safety programs, cut Coast Guard--cut, cut. It is like the harvest at the end of the growing season--just cut it. The only problem is we have other obligations. Maybe the Senator from Colorado thinks the principal obligation is similar to running an accounting office such as H&R Block, or something such as that. We cut regardless of the consequences. Take down the respirators. Take down the blood transfusions. If the patient dies, the patient dies. We can't have that. Forgive me, but everybody knows that this is a political idea whose time should never come. We cannot plan on eliminating the debt without establishing where it is that the funds are going to come from to pay down that debt. I did not hear the Senator say ``only if there is a surplus.'' He didn't allocate the resource to the surplus. Even if we are in debt because of an economic downturn of some significance, we will just pay down the debt. We will take it out of programs that are life-sustaining programs in some cases--or increasing taxes. That is where we have to go if there is no accounting. I know the Senator, in addition to being a professional, is also, if I may say, a businessman. He knows what balance sheets and P&L statements look like. We are going to just pay down the debt regardless of where it comes from. I know the distinguished chairman of the committee on which I serve, the Budget Committee, has a word or two he wants to pass along. I must say that this proposal, unless we know where and how the funds are going to be generated to pay down that debt, you will forgive me, borders on the reckless. I ask the Senator to answer in short form, because it is on opposition time, where does the Senator plan to get the funds to pay down this debt?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I am sure the Senator considers it reasonable. I point out that this cut would be to reduce the Republican budget resolution plan for spending by $205 billion. I ask the chairman of the Budget Committee what kind of effect this might have if your budget plan for discretionary spending and nondefense was cut, and maybe even throw defense in the $205 billion.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I could see a hefty tax raise coming to pay off the debt.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I have finished with my remarks.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Roth amendment.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I am happy to yield.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the chairman of the Finance Committee. I congratulate Senator Roth for this amendment because this is not an easy one for him to do. The fact of the matter is, there is an assumption that there would be $1.2 billion in revenues resulting from this. But the question is, What is the appropriate thing to do? Again, Senator Roth, chairman of the Finance Committee, knows only too well how difficult it is to raise revenues, but I wanted to make sure we do the right thing. So I am pleased to support Senator Roth's amendment. It expresses very clearly the sense of the Senate that these provisions, those that allow drilling in the ANWR, are not to be included in this resolution. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the second largest wildlife refuge in the United States. It takes in a lot of territory, 19 million acres of mountains, forests, wetlands, wild rivers, tundra. It is home to a spectacular variety of plants and animals--caribou and polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, quantities of migratory birds, the things that everyone of us would like our children and grandchildren to be able to see, to be able to believe that the animals that were here when their father or grandfathers or great grandfathers came on this Earth-- that they will be able to see them as well; not just in picture books, but in real life--grizzly bears and polar bears, wonderful things. A legacy is more important, frankly, than some of the money we are talking about to fund programs. The most important legacy we can leave our children and our grandchildren is a natural condition that enables them to see the animals, see the forests, go fishing in the streams, drink the water. That is the issue. The presence of these migratory birds, and grizzly bears, so many other species, in a nearly undisturbed state, have led some to call the area America's Serengeti. I have been to the Serengeti and I have been to the ANWR. I flew up there right after the Exxon Valdez ran aground. I was up there within 2 days of the time the Exxon Valdez ran aground. I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation, which had the Coast Guard as one of its responsibilities. The Coast Guard airplane picked me up and flew me up there immediately. I wanted to see what was happening. I will never forget the sight of that oil sheen floating across Prince William Sound. By then, very good people in our Government, the Forest Service and others, were up there picking up birds, seals--oil covered, couldn't breathe--on these tiny little islands, put there by helicopters. It looked like a dangerous assignment. But you could see the reach of the oil just fingering out all across Prince William Sound. It was a devastating thing to see. I was an environmentalist before I came here and I still am. By environmentalist I don't mean I just contribute to the environmental organizations or anything like that. I genuinely love the environment. It is the one thing that gives continuity through the ages that perhaps we can protect. The nearby Continental Shelf provides the coastal waters with a rich nutrient base, allowing the region high productivity which in turn supports an unusually wide variety of marine mammal diversity--ANWR. I flew across the ANWR in a single-engine airplane when I was up on my visit to Prince William Sound because I wanted to see what the area was like. What I saw were abandoned oil rigs in an area called Dead Horse, the Prudhoe Bay area. I saw rusting derricks and abandoned junk lying there. It was a pitiful blight on that beautiful expanse of nature. I then flew over the ANWR, this snow desert. I saw signs of some animals. It was a breathtaking sight. I then made a pledge to myself that I would do whatever I could to protect this pristine area. I owed it to my children who may never get up there to see it, but they have a relationship with that area that is inexplicable but nevertheless real. I returned from the South Pole in January. I am not an adventurer, but I am interested in what happens in our world. I went down there to see what was happening with climate change and the National Science Foundation. I went there to see whether or not there were things we could discover about our climate change and our environment about which we could do something. Scientists are still trying to search out what it is that is causing the ice melts in the South Pole that causes--I address myself to Senator Roth--a piece of the ice continent to break up, as they described it, twice the size of the State of Delaware and before that a piece the size of the State of Rhode Island. The next thing we know, we are going to see a piece floating out there the size of Texas, and then we will hear a squawk in here because that ice is melting rapidly. Seventy percent of the world's fresh water is stored in the South Pole. I relate the North and South Poles to our existence, and that environmental paradise called ANWR is part of that. Arctic ecosystems are delicately balanced and are some of the most ecologically sensitive ecosystems in the world. The harsh climate and short growing season leave very little time for species that have been harmed to adequately recover. The system's short food chains make a loss of a portion of the chain even more significant. This delicate balance can easily be disrupted by human intrusion. Oil exploration threatens the ecosystems that surround it through noise pollution, air pollution, on and offshore oil spills, and the destruction of the natural habitat. We all remember the horror of the Exxon Valdez spill--the images of the birds and seals and other animals covered in oil, their life literally being choked out of them. We remember the wide eyes on our children's faces as they watched the natural beauty of Alaska being destroyed. We saw it on television. According to the Exxon Valdez Trustee Council, many of the natural resources injured in that spill still show little, if any, sign of recovery. The danger is real. The Exxon Valdez spill took place in 1989. There was a lawsuit against Exxon. It was resolved in a damage suit which awarded $5.3 billion. Of that, $300 million has been paid-- $300 million in a $5.3 billion award. That was over 10 years ago. What restitution was given to the fishermen and those who depend on the area for their livelihood? What restitution was made to those species that were endangered, whether it was eagles, seals, ducks, you name it? Some of them suffocated because of the film of oil that covered their natural structure. Here we are. That is what happens when the environment is damaged. We are all aware of the problems this country is facing from higher oil prices, and our people should not have to pay for profiteering by OPEC, especially those people in the modest income category who depend on oil to heat their homes. Prices at the pump have risen dramatically in the last year. My own State of New Jersey was hit hard by extremely high prices for home heating oil during a surprisingly cold winter, as it was throughout the Northeast. The occupant of the Chair who is from the State of Rhode Island knows about what we are talking. We should use this wake-up call to increase our efforts in conservation. I have not heard two words about conservation.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes from the resolution. We have to talk about energy conservation. We have to work at it, and we need the cooperation of everybody--citizens, automobile manufacturers, all of us. We need to be energy efficient and explore the use of alternative sources of energy, instead of just falling to: Well, let's drill in the ANWR. We should also strongly encourage our friends in OPEC, as President Clinton has, to significantly increase production. I will tell my colleagues straight out, I believe they owe it to us. Although I think the increase that was just enacted should have been larger, I was slightly encouraged by OPEC's decision to increase production which will help to stabilize our prices. It is essential we continue our efforts on this front, and I look forward to another OPEC production increase at their June meeting. We have to remind the oil-producing nations in the Middle East that when they dialed 911, we answered the phone with over 400,000 of our young people put on their soil to defend Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the surrounding area. We placed our young people in harm's way to protect what was interpreted to be a global interest. We sent our young people far from home, into danger, causing a lot of disruption in their lives. We are still not sure of the consequences of exposure to a polluted environment. Our citizens are suffering, and it is time for them to return the favor. Friendship is a two-way street. We have to ask for favors as easily as we dole them out. I am pleased to tell the American people that some relief is in sight. I look forward to more positive news in June. What we cannot do is use this situation as an excuse to endanger even more of our dwindling natural resources. I speak as the ranking member of the Budget Committee. While I disagreed with the outcome of the budget resolution, the fact of the matter is, we worked diligently to fashion a budget resolution on which we could agree. One of the things that passed with a majority vote was to gain $1.2 billion in revenues from drilling in ANWR. Senator Boxer, so eloquent in her response, reminds us that even in the Budget Committee there was doubtful about whether or not this source of revenue ought to be allowed. It was an 11-11 tie. It took a bipartisan effort, even though there was only one Republican. It is significant that this Republican Senator was voting with the Democrats because that is almost a no-no, as we say, but it happened. Senator Roth is making an earnest appeal to save a wildlife preserve, nature's bounty, for all of us. It is not simply an Alaskan problem, it is a national problem. It is a global problem, and we must not allow that drilling to take place. I commend the Senator from Delaware for his amendment. I hope my colleagues will support it. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, if I might have a parliamentary review for just a moment, I heard the distinguished Senator from Alaska ask if this debate could not be continued tomorrow. It is my understanding that, once the time is used on both sides, the proponent's and opponent's, that time is exhausted and there will not be further opportunity to discuss this tomorrow.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. We are talking now about the amendment of the Senator from Delaware.