Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Virginia has the right to control his time as he sees fit without unanimous consent. That is what is throwing me a bit. I do not know exactly for what he needs a unanimous consent relative to time under his control. Maybe we can work at it the other way around. My good friend from Virginia and I work out these problems every day, and I am sure we can work this one out, even though it is a bit complicated on the time. Parliamentary inquiry: How much time remains to each side?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, was any of the time that was used up tonight deducted from the time of the Senator from Virginia when I was speaking?

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair. What we then have is a total, it seems to me, of approximately 7 hours of time remaining that we have to fit into the period between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., which is 5\1/2\ hours; is that correct?

Mr. LEVIN. Will our good friend from Alabama be speaking on this issue?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it is also true on our side we have a good bipartisan group of supporters for our amendment to strike, including Senators McCain, Lugar, Lieberman, Hagel, Smith of Oregon, Robb, Voinovich, Mack, Lautenberg, Kerry, and Daschle. That is beyond the ones who have already spoken. I am not trying to allocate time for them or others who want to speak on our side tonight, other than to reassure them we are going to do as much as we possibly can with the time we have so that everybody has an opportunity to speak. While the Senator from Alabama is speaking, I wonder if the Senator from Virginia----

Mr. LEVIN. If our good friend from Alabama will yield one more second, it is possible we can at least divide the time tonight after the Senator from Alabama concludes so we will know how much each side has.

Mr. LEVIN. We have 4 minutes more than 3 hours, if anybody at this hour can figure this out.

Mr. LEVIN. This is my last intervention before my friend from Alabama speaks. I wonder if we can get an idea of approximately how long the Senator from Alabama expects to talk tonight.

Mr. LEVIN. It is possible Senator Lautenberg will need 20 minutes. That additional 5 minutes will come out of our time.

Mr. LEVIN. OK.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, S. 434, the Trade and Development Act of 2000 Conference Report breaks important new ground in trade legislation. For the first time, in exchange for granting unilateral trade benefits to a country, the President must give equal consideration to whether a country has met both trade criteria and labor standards. For example, before the favorable trade benefits available in this legislation can be granted, the President must determine not only that a country has demonstrated a commitment to undertaking its WTO obligations on or ahead of schedule, and the extent to which a country provides protection of intellectual property rights, but also the extent to which the country provides internationally recognized worker rights. Mr. President, I am pleased the Conference Report retained the Levin- Moynihan amendment requiring the President to take into consideration the extent to which a country provides internationally recognized worker rights, including child labor, collective bargaining, the use of forced or coerced labor, occupational health and safety and labor standards before the trade benefit can be granted to a Caribbean Basin beneficiary country. The Levin-Moynihan provision sets an important precedent of promoting standards on such things as child labor, collective bargaining, use of forced or coerced labor, occupational health and safety and other worker rights as part of our trade relationships by considering progress toward those goals when unilaterally granting a trade benefit. Most CBI countries are signatories of the International Labor Organization conventions. Considering the extent to which these countries abide by their own international obligations is the least we can do when considering whether they deserve to receive unilateral trade preferences from us. The bill is further strengthened by another important precedent setting provision. The Conference Report also retained the Harkin amendment on Child Labor. As a result, this legislation, for first time, codifies in U.S. trade law ILO convention language on Child Labor by amending the Tariff Act of 1930 to clarify that the ban on articles made with forced and/or indentured labor includes those articles made with forced and/or indentured child labor. It also, for the first time, conditions U.S. trade benefits on meeting child labor standards by adding a new eligibility criterion to the Generalized System of Preferences, which also apply to the eligibility criteria under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, to provide that the President shall not designate a country for benefits if it has not implemented its obligations to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. I hope this legislation will help to bring about greater economic development and democracy to the important regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Because of this hope, and because of the provisions I have mentioned above, I will vote for this bill.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator from Indiana yield for 2 minutes?

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent, after the Senator from Indiana is finished with his remarks, I be recognized to participate in the dialog which is going on between Senator Roberts and Senator Cleland.

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent, after the Senator from Indiana has completed his statement, I be recognized with whatever time is available.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, at this time I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from me along with one I received today from Gen. Wesley Clark, who, until last week, was NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and the senior military commander of the NATO-led operation at Kosovo. It relates to his views on the Byrd- Warner amendment, as it is called, which is part of the military construction appropriations bill.

Mr. LEVIN. I will take 30 seconds to read two paragraphs about the language in the letter from Wesley Clark: These measures, if adopted, would be seen as a de facto pull-out decision by the United States. They are unlikely to encourage European allies to do more. In fact, these measures would invalidate the policies, commitments and trust of our Allies in NATO, undercut U.S. leadership worldwide, and encourage renewed ethnic tension, fighting and instability in the Balkans. Furthermore, they would, if enacted, invalidate the dedication and commitment of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, disregarding the sacrifices they and their families have made to help bring peace to the Balkans. Setting a specific deadline for U.S. pull-out would signal to the Albanians the limits of the international security guarantees providing for their protection. This, in turn, would give them cause to rearm and prepare to protect themselves from what they would view as an inevitable Serbian reentry. The more radical elements of the Albanian population in Kosovo would be encouraged to increase the level of violence directed against the Serb minority, thereby increasing instability as well as placing U.S. forces on the ground at increased risk. Mr. Milosevic, in anticipation of the pullout and ultimate breakup of KFOR, would likely encourage civil disturbances and authorize the increased infiltration of para-military forces to raise the level of violence. He would also take other actions aimed at preparing the way for Serbian military police reoccupation of the province. I know this subject will be a matter of some debate on Monday and Tuesday. I intend to participate in that debate on the appropriations bill containing the Byrd-Warner provision. But at this time, because of the interest in the letter of General Clark, I thought I would ask that be printed in the Record. Again, I thank my friend from Indiana for yielding.

Mr. LEVIN. Is there any time left?

Mr. LEVIN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this weekend, hundreds of thousands of mothers and ``honorary mothers'' will convene in Washington, DC and communities around the country to call for sensible gun legislation for safe kids. On Sunday, Americans will unite for the Million Mom March, the first- ever national march for gun-safety. The mothers from Michigan and around the country come from all walks of life. They live in cities, in suburbs and in rural America. They are of all races, all religions and all political persuasions. They are our friends and neighbors, our community leaders. On Mothers' Day, 2000, these ``mothers and others'' will join together to grieve over the loss of their loved ones, and the loss of more than 4,000 young people who are killed by gunfire each year. Among these mothers will be Veronica McQueen, the Michigan mother who lost her six year old daughter, Kayla Rolland, to gun violence earlier this year. Ms. McQueen said, ``I just don't want to see another parent have to bury another baby over this, over something that is preventable, something that is very, very preventable.'' Gun violence is preventable. But mothers can not act alone. Mothers in the Million Mom March know: In order to reduce the level of gun violence in their homes and communities, Congress must pass legislation to keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals. Some of us in this Congress have heard the cry of families around this country and worked to pass sensible legislation to protect our nation's children. That legislation would limit access to guns by prohibited persons by, among other things, closing the gun show loophole-- applying background checks to guns sold at gun shows. The Lautenberg-Kerrey gun show amendment that passed in the Senate, but not in the House of Representatives, is one of the most important provisions we can pass this Congress. It will close the loophole that allows criminals and other prohibited persons to buy guns at gun shows that they would not otherwise be permitted to purchase. It a loophole that is often exploited by those who do not want to undergo background checks--including Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine killers. Harris and Klebold used four semiautomatic assault weapons in their now infamous attack on their classmates. Of the four guns, three were purchased by Robyn Anderson at a gun show in Adams County, Colorado. Robyn, who was 18 at the time, bought three semiautomatic assault weapons for her younger friends. She later testified before the Colorado Legislature about her purchase and the need to close the gun show loophole. She said: ``Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had gone to the Tanner gun show on Saturday and they took me back with them on Sunday. . . 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.'' Robyn continues: ``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 that I was 18. Dylan got a shotgun. Eric got a shotgun and a black rifle that he bought clips for. He was able to buy clips and ammunition without me having to show any I.D. The sellers didn't write down any information.'' ``I would not have bought a gun for Eric and Dylan if I had had to give any personal information or submit any kind of check at all. I think it was clear to the sellers that the guns were for Eric and Dylan. They were the ones asking all the questions and handling all the guns.'' Robyn concluded: ``I wish a law requiring background checks had been in effect at the time. I don't know if Eric and Dylan would 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 buy the guns if I had faced a background check.'' The Columbine killers took advantage of the gun show loophole and the result was deadly. Congress has the chance to close this loophole with the Lautenberg amendment. That amendment requires prospective purchasers to undergo background checks at gun shows and gives law enforcement up to three business days to those checks if there is any potentially disqualifying information--as set forth in the current Brady law. Honest, law-abiding Americans are not affected by these background checks. 72 percent of the checks are completed within three minutes, and 95 percent are cleared within two hours. FBI records reveal that the five percent of people whose background checks take more than 24 hours to complete, are 20 times more likely to have a criminal record or otherwise be prohibited from accessing weapons. Congress must pass legislation that gives law enforcement up to three business days, when needed, to complete background checks at gun shows, and truly close the gun show loophole. As of this day, Congress has failed to do so, and has subsequently failed the families of the Columbine victims and others who have lost loved ones to gunfire. On this Sunday, I will march with the families of those victims from Michigan and around the country, who are calling on Congress to end their agony. In the words of one mother, it's time to turn tears into action. Congress must pass ``sensible gun laws for safe kids.'' Let's start by closing the gun show loophole today. It's time to end the plague of gun violence on America's children.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I want to commend Senator Cleland and Senator Roberts for instituting this bipartisan dialogue relating to the global role of the United States. We normally only discuss these issues when a real-world contingency is looming and we do so under significant time constraints and within the dynamic of rapidly unfolding crises. This dialogue, which allows us to discuss these issues in a better setting, will hopefully contribute in a better understanding of the various perspectives on these issues and may bring us closer to a consensus on the fundamental issue of the global role of the United States. This week's subject--``Multilateral Organizations''--is a very broad area. I will confine my remarks to those multilateral organizations that have responsibilities relating to the maintenance of international peace and security. I have in mind organizations like the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the mutual defense treaties to which the United States is a party. I would like to briefly discuss several recent international crises and the role that the various multilateral organizations played in addressing those crises. I want to note, at the outset, that sometimes they were successful and sometimes they failed. Mr. President, I don't know how many of my colleagues have ever been to Dubrovnik. It is an ancient and breathtakingly beautiful seaside city on Croatia's Dalmatian coast. When the Yugoslav Army subjected Dubrovnik to indiscriminate shelling in October 1991, resulting in the systematic destruction in the old city and the loss of many civilian lives, the European Union or the Western European Union should have used force to end this barbarity in their own backyard. If they had, the ensuing damage and loss of life throughout the Balkans might have been avoided. Instead of acting with force, however, the European Union declined to take any forceful action. For its part, the UN Security Council imposed an international embargo on the supply of arms to the combatants, thus succeeding in locking in the advantage that the Yugoslav Army enjoyed. It doesn't appear that NATO even considered taking action at that stage of the Balkan conflict. This was an example of the inability or unwillingness of the United Nations, the European Union, NATO and other multilateral organizations to effectively deal with a real-world crisis that had the potential of spreading. It should be noted that NATO has substantial forces under its command but the United Nations does not have a standing UN army, nor, in my view, should it. The United Nations is dependent upon the political will of its members to supply the forces and the financial resources to take action. It is ironic that politicians of all nations feel free to criticize the United Nations for failing to successfully carry out its missions but the reality is that any failure of the United Nations is a failure of the UN member nations to provide the UN with the necessary means for its missions. We can't have it both ways--we can't refuse to provide the UN with the necessary means to do its job and then hammer the UN for its failings. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in commenting upon a December 1999 Report of an Independent Inquiry that he commissioned and that documented the UN failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda and on his own earlier report on the UN's failure to safeguard Srebrenica, stated that ``Of all my aims as Secretary General, there is none to which I feel more deeply committed than that of enabling the United Nations never again to fail in protecting a civilian population from genocide or mass slaughter.'' Mr. President, I welcome Secretary General Kofi Annan's statement, but I recognize the reality that the UN's ability to take effective action in the future--even to prevent genocide--remains dependent upon the political will of UN member nations to provide the UN with the forces and the financial resources it needs. Mr. President, just as the United Nations has learned some hard lessons in places like Rwanda and Srebrenica, so the United States learned a hard lesson in Somalia, where we lost 18 of our finest soldiers in a single engagement. In response to the need for an effective peacekeeping capability in Africa, the United States, Britain and France are embarked on parallel and coordinated programs to enhance the capabilities of African countries to carry out humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Africa. The United States program, called the African Crisis Response Initiative or ACRI, has trained over 6,000 peacekeepers from the African nations of Benin, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Uganda, and Senegal. The ACRI program, whose program of instruction has been approved by the UN Department of Peacekeeping, also promotes professional apolitical militaries and reinforces respect for human rights and the proper role of a military in a democracy. Mr. President, while most people only associate the UN with peacekeeping or peace enforcement missions, there are other actions that it has undertaken. In December 1992, the UN Security Council, at the request of the Government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, established a preventive deployment mission in Macedonia in an effort to prevent the Balkan conflict from spreading into that nation. Originally composed of a Nordic battalion, it was augmented by a U.S. Army contingent in July 1993. The conflict did not spread to Macedonia, perhaps because of this mission. It was the first deployment of an international force prior to an initiation of hostilities. The crisis in Kosovo also produced unprecedented actions by several multilateral organizations. In 1998, amidst mounting repression of the ethnic Albanian population by the Yugoslav Army and special police, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic reached an agreement with U.S. envoy Dick Holbrooke to comply with UN demands for a cease-fire and to accept an intrusive verification regime of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Involving approximately 2,000 unarmed personnel, this was the largest, most complex and potentially most dangerous mission ever undertaken by the OSCE. Additionally, NATO deployed an Extraction Force to neighboring Macedonia that was poised to come to the assistance of the OSCE personnel if they came under attack. While the OSCE mission was not able to prevent all armed attacks, particularly the mass killing of ethnic Albanians in Racak in January 1999, it did enable international humanitarian relief organizations to provide direly needed assistance to the Kosovar population until forced to withdraw on March 20, 1999 in the face of an untenable situation, including additional large-scale deployments of Milosevic's military, special police and paramilitary forces into Kosovo. By the time of the OSCE's withdrawal from Kosovo, repression of the ethnic-Albanian population of Kosovo escalated to a full-scale attempt to ethnically cleanse Kosovo. Unfortunately, the UN Security Council was unable to act as both Russia and China signaled that they would veto any resolution authorizing the use of force against the security forces of Slobodan Milosevic. Despite the lack of international legitimation that a UN Security Council authorization would have provided, NATO was resolute and launched a 78-day air campaign that forced Slobodan Milosevic to accede to NATO's demands. This was the first time in its fifty-year history that NATO had embarked on a large-scale combat operation. Following the air campaign, the UN Security Council established a UN mission to administer Kosovo and authorized an international armed force under NATO leadership to provide a secure environment. And for the first time in the 20th Century, ethnic cleansing in Europe was reversed. The United States bore the major burden in NATO's air campaign but the European Union pledged to bear the major share of the reconstruction effort and has provided most of the peacekeeping forces for Kosovo. I welcome the fact that the United States is playing a junior role in the peacekeeping effort with only about 15 percent of the troops, and I also welcome our European NATO allies' expressed determination to play a more substantial role in future conflicts in Europe, either as part of a NATO or a European Union-led effort. Additionally, in a departure from the normal UN practice, the UN Mission in Kosovo or UNMIK has been organized into four pillars, under the overall supervision of the UNMIK head, Dr. Kouchner. Those four pillars are: civil administration under the United Nations itself; humanitarian assistance, led by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; democratization and institution-building, led by the OSCE; and economic reconstruction, managed by the EU. Despite the fact that our NATO allies would have borne the effects of a massive flow of ethnic-Albanian Kosovars, regional instability, and the potential involvement of two of its member nations--Greece and Turkey--on opposite sides of the conflict, no individual European nation had the military or political wherewithal to use force against Serbia to end its barbarous acts. I doubt that a coalition of European nations could have done so. Although the United States had the military capability to carry out such an operation, as Secretary Cohen and General Shelton noted in their joint statement to the Armed Services Committee, ``Operation Allied Force could not have been conducted without the NATO Alliance and without the infrastructure, transit and basing access, host-nation force contributions, and most importantly, political and diplomatic support provided by the allies and other members of the coalition.'' Mr. President, much has been said and written about NATO's use of less than overwhelming, decisive force in the air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NATO's capability was limited to what I call ``maximum achievable force,'' i.e., the maximum force that is politically achievable and sustainable. As General Wes Clark, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander during the air campaign, testified in response to my use of the concept ``maximum achievable force''. ``We knew we had to avoid collateral damage, keep the allies together, do the most we could against the targets on the ground, and avoid the loss of air crews. We had to keep it in balance. It was, as you put it, a maximum achievable force strategy.'' An Alliance goes to war differently than an individual nation does. The United States clearly would have carried out the air campaign more robustly from the outset if we had been acting unilaterally. Overwhelming, decisive force undoubtedly is the first and most preferred option for the United States in any military operation. That is the lesson of Vietnam. But if it is not possible, as it will rarely be when a coalition is considering action, then the next option is to use the maximum achievable force in an alliance setting. The question then becomes whether the greater risks entailed in using less than overwhelming, decisive force are worth taking. If the participation of the whole NATO Alliance was both critical to the success of the military operation against Milosevic and the only politically achievable option, were we wise to proceed? If so, does this mean that we should automatically resign ourselves to using less than overwhelming, decisive force in any future conflict? The answer is we should not resign ourselves to the use of less than overwhelming divisive force. But there will be times when because we can achieve an alliance action with maximum achievable force that it will be worth the risk, and there will be times when it will not. An overwhelming, decisive force strategy is best when U.S. forces are involved in hostilities. In the case of Kosovo, our NATO allies were unwilling to adopt such a strategy. Our remaining options were to do nothing, to go it alone, or to use a maximum achievable force strategy, which meant a phased air campaign and no ground forces. In my view, while there were drawbacks to going to war in Kosovo as part of a coalition, the benefits of fighting as part of the NATO coalition, under all the circumstances, outweighed those drawbacks. Napoleon said it well: ``The only thing worse than fighting in a coalition is fighting against one.'' If the use of overwhelming, decisive force is also not an option in some future conflict, we will once again have to make the judgment whether the risk involved in utilizing maximum achievable force, i.e. less than overwhelming, decisive force, outweighs the risk to U.S. interests of not proceeding. Meanwhile across the globe in East Timor, the international community reacted in horror at the death and destruction wrought by pro- Indonesian militias in the aftermath of a referendum that overwhelmingly favored independence from Indonesia. The UN Security Council authorized a multinational force to restore peace and security in East Timor. Australia took the lead in this peace enforcement mission and the United States provided support but did not provide any ground combat forces. As Admiral Blair, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Command, put it in testimony before the Armed Services Committee, ``East Timor demonstrated the value of having the U.S. in a supporting role to a competent ally, providing unique and significant capabilities needed to ensure success without stretching the capability of U.S. forces and resources to conduct other operations worldwide.'' Mr. President, the United States cannot be the world's policeman. But we also cannot withdraw to fortress America and seek to ignore what goes on in the rest of the world. The United States possesses unparalleled economic and military strength. But no nation--no matter how strong--can go it alone. Understanding this, our forebears formed alliances many years ago throughout the globe. Our collective defense treaties with the other 18 nations of the NATO Alliance and with countries like Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea are major contributors to the protection of our national security interests. Our status as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, with veto power, also enables us to ensure that the actions of the Security Council are consistent with our national security interests. Our Alliances and our participation in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations also help to ensure that there is a shared responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The UN's authorization and approval of a mission adds great universal political support to the undertaking. None of these organizations I have described are perfect and none of them will succeed in maintaining the peace if their Member nations lack the political will to provide the military forces, the financial resources, and, increasingly, the police forces to carry out the missions that are undertaken. Mr. President, I realize that Senators Cleland, Roberts and others talked about the security interests of the United States in a prior week. I don't plan to comment at length on that subject today, but I do believe that it is necessary to touch on it with respect to multilateral organizations. The obvious point is that the extent to which the United States participates with its armed forces in a particular mission will be determined by the extent to which our national interests are involved and the degree of risk it entails, including, as noted above, the greater risks that may result from acting within a coalition. Accordingly, the United States has made clear that it will not provide troops for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the same vein, the United States will not provide troops for the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, the follow-on mission to the Australian-led intervention force, but will provide a few U.S. officers to serve as observers and will, as part of their normal exercises, periodically deploy U.S. personnel to perform activities such as the rebuilding of schools and the restoration of medical services. Mr. President, I believe that it is in the United States national interest to support the United Nations as it seeks to fulfill its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and stability. We also need to work to strengthen our alliances and to encourage our allies to strengthen their military capabilities so that they can share the common burden. We also need to utilize the various other multilateral organizations that can contribute to international peace and stability. Finally, we need to explore every opportunity to bring about actions that will serve to end conflict at the earliest possible time, as wasn't done in 1991 at the time of the initial shelling of Dubrovnik, and to prevent the spread of conflict, as was done by the UN preventive deployment mission to Macedonia in 1992. Finally, Mr. President, I want to end in the same way that I started; namely, by commending Senator Cleland and Senator Roberts for instituting this dialogue. I look forward to the continuation of this dialogue in the coming weeks and I hope to be able to participate again in the future. I again thank our good friends from Georgia and Kansas. I add my thanks also to the Senator from Indiana for his extraordinarily thoughtful remarks this afternoon. I was not able to hear all of it. I would like to have heard all of it. But I heard enough to know that, as usual, the Senator from Indiana adds an extremely thoughtful and thorough contribution to this debate. I commend our good friends from Georgia and Kansas for carrying on what I consider to be a very significant dialog. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy to do what they are doing. It is critical to this nation's security. Both of them have already made huge contributions to our Nation's security. Now, on the floor of the Senate, they are making an additional major contribution, and this country is again in their debt. I thank my friends. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a member of my staff, an advisor, and a man I feel honored to call my friend, Gordon Kerr. Gordon, who has served as my Chief of Staff since 1982, has retired from government service to join the National Trust for Historic Preservation as the Director of Congressional Affairs. His 17 years as my top aide made him the dean of Senate Chiefs of Staff. Gordon has served me for these many years in a variety of ways. He has been an invaluable advisor on issues of public policy and legislative strategy, as well as on personal and political matters. He has a clear-eyed, straightforward, right-in-your-face way of evaluating issues and events, and expressing his opinion about them which makes it nearly impossible to walk a bad idea past him. At least not without his calling you on it. And yet, the first thing that anyone who knows Gordon immediately says is, ``what a wonderful human being''. How does a plain-speaking, realist like Gordon, come to be so uniformly regarded with such warmth and affection? It's simple when you think about it. Gordon is so open, principled, ethical and kind-hearted in his approach to the people he comes in contact with that it is nearly impossible to take offense at his candid advice. I'm reminded of what I've read about Robert Kennedy who also was known both for his brusque, sometimes harsh candor, but also for his high principles, and thoughtful consideration of others. ``My, he is unassimilated, isn't he?'' poet Robert Lowell was reported to have said when he first met him. In all, Gordon spent more than 30 years on Capitol Hill, beginning as a Legislative Assistant for former-Congressman James Scheuer of New York in 1970, joining former-Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas in 1973, and then working for former-Congressman Jonathan Bingham of New York from 1973 until 1982, when he joined my staff as Chief of Staff. Gordon is a graduate of Yale University with a B.A. degree in Political Science and he holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with Distinction from American University, awarded in 1980. He served in the United States Navy as an Intelligence Officer for three years. In 1990, Gordon served as my campaign manager. Former Senator Eugene McCarthy, with his wonderful irreverent sense of humor, once remarked that practicing politics is a little ``like being a football coach; you have to be smart enough to understand the game, but dumb enough to think it's important.'' Well, Gordon is a brilliant strategist, an outstanding ``coach'', and although his acute sense of humor would appreciate Senator McCarthy's self-deprecating quip, nonetheless he's always known the importance of the game. He's proud of the work he's done in the Senate as a public servant, and rightly so. And, he's proud of his work in the world of campaigns and politics, doing his part on that tough battleground. He was ever-conscious of the role of politics, which we sometimes tend to forget, in the accountability which is at the heart of the democratic system. Characteristic of Gordon is his ability to see things from a new, fresh, sometimes unique angle. In a time when even the public policy debate is increasingly driven by political polls, television sound- bites, and oversimplified sloganeering, it was particularly valuable to me to have his contributions. Even when I did not ultimately adopt his viewpoint or accept his recommendation, having the benefit of Gordon's input nearly always informed my decisions. While Gordon has been a dedicated public servant and loyal and hard- working employee, his first priority has always been his wonderful family. His love of his wife Suzy, his son Charlie and daughter Sarah were evident in his voice whenever he spoke of them and in the special sparkle in his eyes when he was with them. I know I speak not only for myself and the Levin family, but for the entire Levin staff and many in the Senate family, when I say we will miss Gordon and the Kerr family. Fortunately, in his new role at the National Trust for Historic Preservation he won't be too far away. Mr. President, I owe Gordon Kerr a great debt for the loyal service which he has performed; and I believe that all of us here in the Senate, in my home state of Michigan, and in the nation, owe a debt of gratitude to him and the many like him who serve us here. This tribute to Gordon Kerr, in a small way, is an effort to recognize that role.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. In short, then, this legislation neither expands or contracts the authority of GAO in reviewing an agency's rule making nor does it expand or contract a rule making agency's authority to develop or issue a rule. The legislation establishes a process by which a chairman or ranking member of a committee of jurisdiction can request GAO after a proposed rule is published, to review the rule and report to Congress within 180 days, and it gives GAO the staff resources to carry those reviews out. Is that right?

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from Connecticut for their clarifications.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today I am supporting Senate passage of S. 1198, a bill to provide a three year pilot program for GAO review of certain agency rule makings. These are rule makings where the Chairman or Ranking Member of a committee of jurisdiction in the House or the Senate has requested such a review after the rule has been published as proposed. As first introduced and considered in the Governmental Affairs Committee, I was opposed to this bill. I was concerned that it created a two track rule making process, putting GAO in the shoes of the rule making agency and having GAO carry out its own interpretation of the public comments, scientific studies and economic analyses involved in the development of the rule. But through the work of Senator Thompson and Senator Lieberman, the bill has been reworked and refined to a point where it may provide the agencies, Congress and the public with helpful information in evaluating the work of a rule making in progress without jeopardizing the separate and distinct roles played by the Executive and Legislative branches in the regulatory process. As most of my colleagues know, I, along with Senator Thompson, have been fighting for years for a regulatory reform bill that would establish clear cost-benefit analysis standards for federal rule making agencies. I believe it is very important that federal agencies do a reasonable and proficient job of assessing the potential costs and the potential benefits of a proposed regulatory option and that they inform the public and Congress of those costs and benefits and tell us whether it's likely that the benefits of a proposed rule justify the costs. If an agency can't make that determination or if an agency concludes that the benefits of a rule don't justify the costs, then it should have the obligation to tell us why it is going ahead with the regulation. That, to me, is common sense. And it's particularly important in light of recent studies which show that numerous rules issued by federal agencies don't have benefits that justify the costs. We need to know why and in the future, with that information, we can decide whether we want to regulate under those circumstances. But Senator Thompson and I, despite a wide ranging group of supporters and the commitment of the Administration to sign the bill, have been frustrated in our efforts to get such a bill passed. I think passing The Regulatory Improvement Act, S. 746, should be our first priority--getting the basic systems in place--and then once passed, consider an evaluative role for GAO in reviewing what agencies are doing in response to the requirements of that new law. But in the face of entrenched opposition to the Regulatory Improvement Act, the Governmental Affairs Committee has pushed ahead with the GAO bill, and given the significant amendments made to the bill during the Committee's markup and the amendment we are adopting here, on the Senate floor, today, I am willing to help advance this legislation now. The amendments to which I refer did several important things, including: specifying that GAO's role is to review the work of the agency and not the substance of the rule; beginning GAO's review after the rule has been published as proposed; and ensuring the existing discretion and authority of both the rule making agencies and the GAO. Mr. President, I would like to confirm with the chairman and ranking member of the Governmental Affairs Committee, if they would, my understanding of certain provisions of this bill. First, I understand from this legislation that the rule making agencies retain their authority and discretion with respect to the issuance of rules. Nothing in this bill is intended to alter an agency's authority or discretion with respect to a rule making. Is that right?

Mr. LEVIN. And finally, it is my understanding that when GAO issues its report on a rule pursuant to this legislation, that report, like the audit reports GAO issues now, will allow for the subject agency to respond to the findings and comments of GAO and will embody the agency's response in the GAO report. Is that right?