Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, a short while ago, the Senate adopted the foreign operations bill. Last week, the Senate adopted the Department of Defense authorization bill. Previous to that, we adopted the Defense appropriations bill for the coming year--all of those aimed at keeping America both strong and involved in the world. There is no small measure of common sense and reason for us to do that. Mr. President, all we have to do is follow the news of the day to see how much our own leadership in the world is depended upon by other people and how critical that leadership is to the peace and stability of the world. This is, apparently, the last day in which the people's forum, the Senate Chamber, will be open for public discussion, particularly in morning business, which is such an extraordinary and, I think, constructive forum for public debate. I want to address my colleagues on two matters that may well be acted upon, or decided partially at least, in the time after we leave this first session of the 105th Congress and before we come back in January. Those are events abroad relating to, first, Bosnia and then to Iraq. Mr. President, if I may speak briefly about the situation in Bosnia. As the record is clear here, acts of aggression were occurring, acts of genocide, slaughter, unseen in Europe since the end of the Second World War which, in this case, was being portrayed on our television screens every night, bringing understandable agitation and demands for action. Ultimately, particularly after the fall of Srebrenica and the slaughter that occurred there, the President led the NATO forces to decisive airstrikes, which led to the Dayton conference, which led to the Dayton peace accords and to the cessation of hostilities on the ground in Bosnia and the beginning of a civilian reconstruction of that war-torn country, based on the Dayton agreements, based on a goal of trying, over a period of time, to reconstruct a multiethnic country there in Bosnia, on the premise that partition into ethnic conclaves was inherently unstable because one group would inevitably strike another group. If one looks at this glass, there is still plenty of empty room in it. It is also a glass that, thanks to the allied effort, an effort that encompasses in this case Russia as well, not only has the slaughtering stopped and have troops been disengaged, but there is substantial progress being made on the road to civilian reconstruction. I have felt all along, Mr. President, that we made a mistake in setting deadlines for the presence of American personnel as part of, first, the IFOR and then the SFOR--Implementation Force and then the Stabilization Force--in Bosnia. I understand that the deadline was probably attached as a way to garner sufficient support for the American involvement. But, in my opinion, respectfully, it was a mistake. Better to have set out goals for our participation in Bosnia and when those goals were reached to withdraw, than to establish the expectation, both in this Chamber and more broadly among the public, that we were going to pull out by a date certain, only to have to come back and say, no, no, no, that is not what we meant, and then imposing another deadline. It is clear from statements that are coming from the President, the Secretary of State, others in the administration of our country, and our allies in Europe, that there is a strong inclination to keep American troops on the ground in Bosnia as part of a follow-on force after the previously, and I think mistakenly, set deadline of June 30, 1998. I support that inclination. I hope it is a fact, because I think if we pull out now--we Americans--the Europeans will follow suit, and what is likely to take place at this stage is a slide back downward into the pit of separation and of conflict. I do hope that, in extending our presence there, we are mindful of two factors. One is to not repeat the mistake of again setting an artificially explicit deadline. If we are going to stay there, let's try to define the goals most comfortably related to the Dayton process, the Dayton agreement, and see if we can express more generally what those goals are, and when we achieve them, be ready to pull out. Some have said--and it may be a good beginning point--that we can and should leave, we should not be there for a long time, we certainly should not be there forever. We can and should leave when the Dayton peace process appears to be self-sustaining. That is not a bad goal. So I hope, one, we don't repeat the mistake of setting an artificial and misleading deadline. Second, if we decide to keep American troops as part of the follow-on peacekeeping force in Bosnia as a way of guaranteeing that the conflict does not erupt there again, that we don't threaten stability in Europe, that we don't run the risk of a wider war throughout the Balkans and beyond. If we decide to keep American troops there, I hope we will leave it to the professional soldiers, to the Pentagon, to the Secretary of Defense, advised by our military on the ground in Bosnia, by the chiefs of the services involved here in the Pentagon, as to how many American troops we want to leave there. There has been some indication, some comment, that it would be a good idea to reduce the number of American personnel there as a way of showing that we continue to be on the way out. The fact is that we started out with almost 30,000; we are down to about 8,500 American personnel. The point I want to make is this: The administration should not feel pressured, as a way to build more support here or among the American people for our continued presence in Bosnia, to reduce the number of American soldiers that are there, unless that is what the generals in charge and the Secretary of Defense advise and request. We are getting down to a relatively small number of Americans there. We have an obligation to each and every one of them to make sure that we keep a critical mass present on the ground so that, in case of trouble, in case of conflict, in case of the eruption of hostilities, we have enough people and resources there so that we can minimize the risk of any damage to our personnel. This is an occasion like the next one I want to speak of, where, though there is disagreement here among Members of the Senate and the other body and the American people about whether or not and under what circumstances or not American personnel should remain in Bosnia, this Senator is convinced that if the President as Commander in Chief states the case, and particularly one which is strongly backed up, as to the number of American personnel there by our military, the majority of the Congress across party lines will support the President in that leadership. Second, Mr. President, is the question of Iraq--once again, very much on our minds and, once again, threatening stability under Saddam Hussein in the Middle East, an area of vital interest to the United States, morally, militarily and economically. This is a crisis that is totally the work of one man--Saddam Hussein. An agreement made to end the gulf war, in which we were the dominant power, with our allies involved an agreement by Iraq to have international inspection teams constantly there to make sure that Saddam Hussein and his government were not concealing or constructing weapons of mass destruction-- ballistic missiles--done not in a punitive way, but because the record makes clear who Saddam Hussein is and what he is prepared to do. In the time he has been the leader of Iraq--I believe I have this number right--he has carried out five invasions of neighboring countries. When he has had capacity to wage warfare with gas, a relatively rudimentary form of chemical warfare, he has done so. He has used gas against his own people in Iraq to suppress an uprising. He used it against the Iranians in the Iraq-Iran war during the 1980's. There is some evidence to believe that he would have armed his personnel in the gulf war with chemical weapons that might have been used against American personnel were it not for his fear that we might retaliate with nuclear weapons. So we know the ambitions of this leader, we know his willingness, beyond the formal considerations of devastation to humans, to use every weapon in his control to achieve a wider hegemony over the Middle East and particularly over the oil resources there that we continue to depend on. As I said before, this crisis is one that is totally of his making-- by forbidding Americans from being part of this international inspection team, by threatening now to evict, to eject, to push out of Iraq that small number of Americans that are part of that inspection team. And while the threat posed at the current moment is not as visually frightening and destabilizing as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, its consequences, the consequences of U.N. inspections stopping and the Iraqis developing and broadening their capacity at special warfare, at warfare with weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missile capacity to deliver them to distant targets, is every bit as consequential and profoundly disruptive of stability in the Middle East and profoundly threatening to the vital interests of the United States, and we have little choice but to respond. The threat may be at least as fundamental and destabilizing as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But the challenge to leadership internationally will be to marshal the same kind of international coalition against the possibility of Iraqi aggression that was marshaled in 1990 and 1991. Part of the problem is that time has passed and people's taste for conflict is reduced. People in some sense have to be reminded of what is on the line. Part of the problem is that some of those nations that stood by our side and fought with us in the Gulf war may have short memories and be drawn more by economic interests in doing business with Iraq than a realistic appreciation of the consequences of allowing Saddam Hussein to develop chemical weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles to deliver them. It won't be easy for those in the alliance--the international alliance--who understand the seriousness of this threat from Iraq under Saddam Hussein to marshal as broad an international coalition to respond. But it is most certainly a worthy effort and in our national interest. If we cannot by inspection guarantee that Saddam Hussein is not developing weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missile capacity to deliver them against our troops on land and sea in the region to our allies in the Arab world and in Israel, then we must consider doing so by intervention--if not by inspection, then by intervention. Because history tells us--and it is fresh history--that whatever capacity for war making Saddam Hussein develops and possesses, he will use. And that is why it is so critical to deny him that capacity. The specific course that President Clinton and some of those of our allies who seem more likely to stand with us--such as the British, probably the Turkish, others, hopefully in the moderate nations of the Arab world--the specific course that President Clinton as Commander in Chief chooses to take is, of course, respectfully his judgment. But I hope in the fateful days that are ahead when this Congress is out of session and these decisions will probably have to be made that the President appreciates what I sense as I talk to colleagues here in the Senate, that there is a broad bipartisan understanding of the seriousness of the challenge that Saddam Hussein has cleverly and diabolically set before us; and that there will be broad bipartisan support for an effective response as determined by the President of the United States, hopefully in joint action with a large number of our allies. So, Mr. President, this has been a long session--a session of extraordinary accomplishments, certainly on the balanced budget, and some disappointment, of course, as always is the case in other areas. But, as we depart, we leave some immense decisions to be made by the President and the administration. And I hope that they will be made in the spirit that this Congress across party lines will support the Commander in Chief when he chooses to lead, and that across party lines we understand that partisanship, though it may occasionally rear its head too often perhaps here in Congress, certainly does end at the Nation's coasts when our security and our values are threatened throughout the world. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleagues for their patience. I yield the floor. Mr. ALLARD addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask if it is appropriate that I be allowed to address the Senate in morning business?

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and I thank my friend and colleague from Michigan. Mr. President, I come to the floor to urge our colleagues to support this fiscal year 1998 national defense authorization bill. I am proud to be a member of the committee from which this bill has emerged, the Senate Armed Services Committee. I particularly wish to thank our chairman, Senator Thurmond, and our ranking Democrat, Senator Levin. These are two extraordinarily able, wise Members of the Senate who have worked together very well to produce this bill that meets our national security needs. We all know that we are in a post-cold war period. Perhaps the needs of defense are less in the minds of the public, but these are not matters that should be decided by public opinion polls. These are matters of national security, at the very root of why governments are formed, and they call out for leadership by those who have been given the privilege of serving, leadership in the interest of national security by all of us across party lines, across both Chambers of Congress, across Pennsylvania Avenue between the Congress and the White House to do the best that we can to provide for our national defense today and, in some ways even more difficult, particularly at a time of relative security such as we are in today to make the investments that are necessary so that we will meet the multiple possible threats to our security in the decades ahead. This bill I think does about as well as we could do at this point, and I am therefore proud to be here to urge our colleagues to support it. I want to state first that this is a bipartisan bill. There are a lot of things that happen around the Capitol that are much too partisan. Somehow we come here and we feel as if we have suddenly been placed on two teams on either side of the tug-of-war and you have to get on your side, and sometimes on all sides we lose a bit of sight of what the problem is and the urgency of working together in the national interest across party lines. I am very proud that on the Armed Services Committee, of course, there are disagreements, sometimes they tend to split more partisan than at other times, but as this bill, the product of the better part of a year's labor of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, shows we have gotten together. We have come halfway across the bridge on a whole host of issues and problems, matters of real concern, and the feeling is we have had our voices heard both in the committee, in the Chamber and in conference. This bill really represents an act of bipartisanship. Because so much attention is focused on the partisanship around here, I think it is important to note that with some satisfaction and again thank the bipartisan leadership of the committee for having made that possible. Second, Mr. President, this is a bill that is a compromise and that has compromises in it. As a conferee on the Senate side, I must admit that the conference negotiations over this bill were protracted, difficult. There was much give and take. But in the end, which is again the nature of this process at its best, we were able to overcome many obstacles, some of which seemed intractable at times, all of which arose from what initially appeared to be difficult to reconcile positions. And despite these obstacles, the end result I think is a good bill that achieves the goal of adequately providing for our national defense. It is not a perfect solution, but we rarely achieve perfect solutions here. The question is will we be willing to bend a bit to get to a point where we have any solutions, and I think this bill does. It reflects compromise, the kinds of compromises that are honorable and make our political system unique and produce results. In the end, I would probably say that none of the conferees, House or Senate, were completely satisfied but none were completely disappointed neither, and the end result is a bill that moves us forward. I do want to say in a more targeted way that the bill protects the Senate position on two controversial issues, Bosnia and the B-2. Mr. President, the third basic point is that this bill has provisions that are essential to maintaining our military strength and particularly in providing adequately for our men and women in uniform, the finest fighting force in the world. But they will not continue to be so unless we provide for them. Let me cite a few of the matters in the bill that are so critical. There was some discussion of what would normally be unthinkable, that we might not pass a DOD authorization bill this year. But that would have been done at great peril and loss. This bill, for instance, provides authority for adequate funding for critical equipment procurement and R&D, research and development. I am privileged to serve as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Acquisition and Technology, chaired by my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Santorum. There are some very important investments here that will provide dominance for the American military a decade or two from now. All of the glory that we achieved, the victory that we achieved in the gulf war, so much of it was made possible by research and development that began, not in 1990 or 1991 when we fought the war, but in the 1970's. This budget provides the same kind of first investments in future military dominance. Second, the bill provides authority for the Department of Defense to begin construction of fiscal year 1998 military projects, construction projects which include quality of life, and training-related facilities which are so critical, both to the morale of our forces and their capacities. Third, the bill provides lower end strength levels and increased flexibility for managing personnel strength. That is very important to the commanders. Fourth, the bill includes significant reforms of the existing structure for housing allowances and subsistence allowances for members of the military. Fifth, the bill includes authority for significant increases in the special pay and bonus structure, designed to respond to critical recruiting and retention problems, particularly in the Air Force. Sixth, the bill includes a 2.8-percent pay raise for active duty military members--it is not a lot, but at least an increase--a pay raise of 2.3 percent for Federal civilians, and an additional 0.5 percent increase in locality pay. It is a big bill. It is an important bill. It achieves some things that would not be achievable were this bill not passed. Senator Levin was speaking when I came into the Chamber. He was speaking about the depot issue. Obviously, there has been a lot of concern about that over the last several weeks--months, in fact. Today, as we consider this bill, some are still suggesting that the depot provisions of the bill may invite a Presidential veto. I certainly hope not. I hope such a veto is not being seriously considered within the White House because it would be profoundly harmful to our national defense by delaying authorizations such as those I have just described, which are critical for maintaining our current military readiness as well as delaying investments in our future military strength by way of critical procurement and R&D programs. The depot provisions of the bill provide, in my opinion, a level playing field among current Government depots and those which are being privatized. I understand the intense feelings in the various localities affected by this. But here again, across party lines, the best effort was made to achieve a compromise. These provisions on depots in the bill, I think, are fair and equitable to all sides involved in this extremely complex issue. No one set of interests prevailed. No one side achieved all their end goals. At the same time, no side walked away without retaining some of their core objectives here. In a very real sense, the depot provisions of this DOD authorization bill reflect the long and detailed, bipartisan effort of all of the conferees. I honestly believe that the conferees produced the very best possible legislation, not only generally but particularly on this issue which was so divisive and was thought to be possibly fatal to the chances of the overall bill, so important to our national defense, even passing. So, I say, respectfully, that any move to veto this bill because of the depot provisions would be very unfair and unwise. A veto would freeze other provisions in the bill for an unacceptable length of time, and there is no guarantee that what would follow would be a solution any better for the parties involved intimately than the one already painstakingly worked out. Last, a veto might act to dismantle current support for the bill and open up partisanship on a host of other issues, partisanship or parochialism, divisiveness, on a host of other issues which have already been resolved in the underlying bill through a lot of hard work. Let me say, finally, that I know there are many in Congress, some in the country, who feel we are still spending too much for defense. As hard as we on the committee struggled to authorize, as closely as we worked with the appropriators, the fact is--and I think it is important to point this out to our colleagues and to the public--this represents the continuation of more than a decade of defense budgets that have been lower in real dollars than the previous year. I believe this is the 13th straight defense budget of the United States of America that has been lower, in real dollars, than the preceding year's. First, I say that to say to those who say the military industrial complex, whatever, the hawkish people here, are not recognizing the change in the post-cold-war years and are still spending as much, that is just not true. Second, just look at the newspapers. Look at the instability in the Middle East with Saddam Hussein again acting against America's interests, against the world's interests. Probably, as the news today suggests, people in the U.N., not the United States, are alleging that Saddam Hussein is taking the action he has to try to frustrate inspection for the reason that we would guess--to conceal behavior, development of systems in his country that are not only a breach of the agreement he made to end the gulf war but which could be disastrous for the security of American personnel in that region, for the security of our allies, for the overall balance of power in that region. Look at the acts of terrorism that continue throughout the world. Even consider the efforts that the President made and has been making--they were highlighted last week because of the visit of the President of China, Jiang Zemin--an effort to try to find a course of peace, cooperation, integration; not to treat the Chinese as if they were our enemies inevitably--which is probably the best way to make them our enemies--but to try to build cooperative relations. That is the kind of effort that can only be made if we feel strong enough militarily to know that if our optimistic view does not work, we have the strength to protect our security interests and those of our allies--in this case in the Pacific region. There is a lot of change going on within our military structure, a lot of adjustment to the changing threats that we face, the reduced resources available. The outgoing immediate past Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, presided over the presentation of a visionary document, ``Joint Vision 2010.'' Where should we be in the year 2010? How can we get our services to work better together? How can we take advantage of the enormous leaps forward in technology? The Quadrennial Defense Review, completed earlier this year, which was authorized in the DOD authorization bill for this year, fiscal year 1997, created, in my opinion, the broadest involvement within the Pentagon of personnel post cold war, about what the shape of the future threat is and what we need to face it. The National Defense Panel, also an independent panel created in the DOD bill last year, is in the final stages of its work. It is a Team B that we created of retired military personnel, outside experts and independent thinkers to provoke us, to make sure that we are doing everything we can to produce the best defense at least cost, that we are taking advantage of new technologies, of new forms of management. Mr. President, the military cannot be any more immune than the rest of the world to the changes occurring. I have told this story probably too many times. It goes back some months now. One day earlier this year, the lead story in the Wall Street Journal was how General Electric, which happens to be headquartered in my State, was going to be reporting record profits--billions. What was the focus of attention within that company, under a visionary, demanding president, Jack Welch? ``How can we change to make sure that we continue to be as successful in the future as we are today?'' Nobody who sits still is going to remain successful and strong. That is as true of our military as it is of any great institution in the private sector. That process is beginning. The Armed Services Committee has played a leading role in encouraging it. We have to keep that moving, as this bill does. So, overall this bill is a good bill, and it is an important bill, and it is a necessary bill. So I urge my colleagues across party lines to vote for the bill with a strong show of support as we send it eventually to the President with the very urgent hope, and I think the strong case, that the President will sign this bill knowing that it truly serves the primary goal of our Government, which is the national security. Mr. President, I again thank the chairman of the committee for his extraordinary leadership and the ranking Democrat, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my good friend and partner Senator Coats in introducing legislation that would speed the progress of what is arguably the most promising engine of education reform in America today, the charter school movement. Before discussing the legislation itself, I think it's important to talk first about the context in which it is being introduced and the ongoing debates here in Congress over how best to improve our public schools and expand educational opportunities for all students. In listening to much of the back and forth recently, particularly about efforts to promote a limited school choice program, it seems that too often these battles are being waged, in the words of the great John Gardner, between uncritical lovers and unloving critics, those who would defend the status quo in public education at all costs and those who would attack it at the drop of a hat, with neither side doing much listening. Making matters worse, the uncritical lovers have helped reduce this challenging, vitally important discussion to a simplistic either-or equation. Either you are for public education, which means you subscribe to a certain orthodoxy and dare not depart from it, or you are against it. Either you subscribe to a small set of educationally correct methods of reform or you are subverting public education as we know it. In my view, this shortsightedness is shortchanging our children. Given how many students are being served poorly by the status quo, particularly those living in urban areas who are trapped in deadening and in some cases deadly public schools, and given the crucial role that education will play in determining whether the American dream can be made real for those kids in the information age, we have an obligation to leave no policy stone unturned or untested and judge ideas by the simple, unalloyed standard of what works. We must be open to trying any plan or program that offers the hope of better education for our children. That is why Senator Coats and I have been advocating for some time that we experiment with private school choice, sponsoring a series of bills to set up pilot programs in our cities to see if giving low- income students the chance to attend a private or faith-based school will enhance their learning and force those failing public schools to improve. And that is why today we want to take this opportunity to express our support for the growing public charter school movement and to outline our plans to help make these innovative, independent programs the norm rather than a novelty in this country. I have been a long-time advocate of the charter approach, which grants educators freedom from top-heavy bureaucracies and their redtape in exchange for a commitment to meet high academic standards. After visiting, this week, with a group of passionate charter school operators and teachers at a national conference here in town, I am all the more convinced that charter schools represent what may be the future of public education. These folks are driving a grassroots revolution that is seeking to reinvent the public school and take it back to the future, reconnecting public education to some of our oldest, most basic values--ingenuity, responsibility, accountability-- and refocusing its mission on doing what's best for the child instead of what's best for the system. The results speak for themselves. Over the past 3 years, the number of public charter schools have more than tripled, with more than 700 of them operating in 23 different States and the District of Columbia, and parents in turn have given these programs overwhelmingly high marks for their responsiveness to them as consumers. Broad-based studies done by the Hudson Institute and the Education Department show that charters are effectively serving diverse populations, particularly many of the disadvantaged and at-risk children that traditional public schools have struggled to educate. And while it's too soon to determine what impact charter schools are having on overall academic performance, the early returns in places like Massachusetts suggest that charters are succeeding where it matters most, in the classroom. Perhaps most heartening of all, a recent survey done by the National School Board Association found that the charter movement is already having a ripple effect that is being felt in many local school districts. The NSBA report cites evidence that traditional schools are working harder to please local families so they won't abandon them to competing charter schools, and that central administrators often see charters as a powerful tool to develop new ideas and programs without fearing regulatory roadblocks. The most remarkable aspect of this movement may be that it has managed to bring together educators, parents, community activists, business leaders, and politicians from across the political spectrum on common ground in support of a common goal to better educate our children through more choice, more flexibility, and more accountability in our public schools. In these grassroots may lie the roots of a consensus for renewing the promise of public education. We want to build on this agreement and the successes of charter schools and do what we can at the Federal level to encourage the growth of this movement. So today we will be introducing bipartisan legislation that will strengthen the Federal investment in charter schools and help remove some of the hurdles preventing charters from flourishing in every State. Our bill, the Charter School Expansion Act, would revamp the Federal Charter School Grant Program to make it more focused on helping States and local groups create new schools and meet the President's goal of creating 3,000 charters by the year 2000. We want to increase funding for grants to new schools, which help charter operators meet the high costs of starting a school from scratch, and better target that aid to the States that are serious about expanding their charter program. Our hope is that these changes will give States that have been slow to embrace the charter movement an incentive to get on board. In the near term, we feel this bill can be a starting point for overcoming our partisan and ideological differences and reaching a consensus on how to improve our schools and safeguard the hopes of our children. This proposal has already generated bipartisan interest both here in the Senate and the House, the administration has expressed its support, and we are optimistic it will be passed next year overwhelmingly. In closing, I would like to thank Senator Kerry and Senator D'Amato for joining Senator Coats and myself as original cosponsors of this bill. I would urge the rest of our colleagues, if they have not yet already done so, to take a close look at some of the truly innovative charter school programs being run in your home States and around the country. And I would ask you to join us in supporting this legislation to build on all the great work that's being done at the State and local level and help us chart a new course in education reform in America.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my good friend and partner Senator Coats in introducing legislation that would speed the progress of what is arguably the most promising engine of education reform in America today, the charter school movement. Before discussing the legislation itself, I think it's important to talk first about the context in which it is being introduced and the ongoing debates here in Congress over how best to improve our public schools and expand educational opportunities for all students. In listening to much of the back and forth recently, particularly about efforts to promote a limited school choice program, it seems that too often these battles are being waged, in the words of the great John Gardner, between uncritical lovers and unloving critics, those who would defend the status quo in public education at all costs and those who would attack it at the drop of a hat, with neither side doing much listening. Making matters worse, the uncritical lovers have helped reduce this challenging, vitally important discussion to a simplistic either-or equation. Either you are for public education, which means you subscribe to a certain orthodoxy and dare not depart from it, or you are against it. Either you subscribe to a small set of educationally correct methods of reform or you are subverting public education as we know it. In my view, this shortsightedness is shortchanging our children. Given how many students are being served poorly by the status quo, particularly those living in urban areas who are trapped in deadening and in some cases deadly public schools, and given the crucial role that education will play in determining whether the American dream can be made real for those kids in the information age, we have an obligation to leave no policy stone unturned or untested and judge ideas by the simple, unalloyed standard of what works. We must be open to trying any plan or program that offers the hope of better education for our children. That is why Senator Coats and I have been advocating for some time that we experiment with private school choice, sponsoring a series of bills to set up pilot programs in our cities to see if giving low- income students the chance to attend a private or faith-based school will enhance their learning and force those failing public schools to improve. And that is why today we want to take this opportunity to express our support for the growing public charter school movement and to outline our plans to help make these innovative, independent programs the norm rather than a novelty in this country. I have been a long-time advocate of the charter approach, which grants educators freedom from top-heavy bureaucracies and their redtape in exchange for a commitment to meet high academic standards. After visiting, this week, with a group of passionate charter school operators and teachers at a national conference here in town, I am all the more convinced that charter schools represent what may be the future of public education. These folks are driving a grassroots revolution that is seeking to reinvent the public school and take it back to the future, reconnecting public education to some of our oldest, most basic values--ingenuity, responsibility, accountability-- and refocusing its mission on doing what's best for the child instead of what's best for the system. The results speak for themselves. Over the past 3 years, the number of public charter schools have more than tripled, with more than 700 of them operating in 23 different States and the District of Columbia, and parents in turn have given these programs overwhelmingly high marks for their responsiveness to them as consumers. Broad-based studies done by the Hudson Institute and the Education Department show that charters are effectively serving diverse populations, particularly many of the disadvantaged and at-risk children that traditional public schools have struggled to educate. And while it's too soon to determine what impact charter schools are having on overall academic performance, the early returns in places like Massachusetts suggest that charters are succeeding where it matters most, in the classroom. Perhaps most heartening of all, a recent survey done by the National School Board Association found that the charter movement is already having a ripple effect that is being felt in many local school districts. The NSBA report cites evidence that traditional schools are working harder to please local families so they won't abandon them to competing charter schools, and that central administrators often see charters as a powerful tool to develop new ideas and programs without fearing regulatory roadblocks. The most remarkable aspect of this movement may be that it has managed to bring together educators, parents, community activists, business leaders, and politicians from across the political spectrum on common ground in support of a common goal to better educate our children through more choice, more flexibility, and more accountability in our public schools. In these grassroots may lie the roots of a consensus for renewing the promise of public education. We want to build on this agreement and the successes of charter schools and do what we can at the Federal level to encourage the growth of this movement. So today we will be introducing bipartisan legislation that will strengthen the Federal investment in charter schools and help remove some of the hurdles preventing charters from flourishing in every State. Our bill, the Charter School Expansion Act, would revamp the Federal Charter School Grant Program to make it more focused on helping States and local groups create new schools and meet the President's goal of creating 3,000 charters by the year 2000. We want to increase funding for grants to new schools, which help charter operators meet the high costs of starting a school from scratch, and better target that aid to the States that are serious about expanding their charter program. Our hope is that these changes will give States that have been slow to embrace the charter movement an incentive to get on board. In the near term, we feel this bill can be a starting point for overcoming our partisan and ideological differences and reaching a consensus on how to improve our schools and safeguard the hopes of our children. This proposal has already generated bipartisan interest both here in the Senate and the House, the administration has expressed its support, and we are optimistic it will be passed next year overwhelmingly. In closing, I would like to thank Senator Kerry and Senator D'Amato for joining Senator Coats and myself as original cosponsors of this bill. I would urge the rest of our colleagues, if they have not yet already done so, to take a close look at some of the truly innovative charter school programs being run in your home States and around the country. And I would ask you to join us in supporting this legislation to build on all the great work that's being done at the State and local level and help us chart a new course in education reform in America.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased and honored today to introduce legislation with my colleague Senator Dodd to name the Federal courthouse in New Haven, CT, after our dear friend and the former eight-term mayor of New Haven, Richard C. Lee. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is introducing the same proposal in the House of Representatives. If it may be said that Federal buildings should help reflect the very best of the principles, purposes and spirit of America, then this courthouse could have no more appropriate name above its doors than that of Mayor Lee. For Dick Lee is the quintessential American, proud, principled, hardworking, and productive. In New Haven, he shook loose entrenched bureaucracies and forged new community coalitions dedicated to rebuilding New Haven after years of neglect and blight. He became a nationally recognized urban pioneer and helped to change the landscape of the American city. Dick Lee was born in New Haven. He loves the city and its richly diverse people. In May of last year, Mayor Lee was honored by the New Haven Colony Historical Society. During that tribute, Prof. Robert Wood of Wesleyan University drew inspiration from Mayor Lee's eloquence about his work. Dick Lee said that the core of a mayor's job was ``wiping away tears from the eyes'' of a city's people so that ``each tear becomes a star in the sky'' and not a source of daily despair. ``Filling the sky above with stars'' was his highest calling. ``The tears in the eyes of the young and the old, the hungry, the unloved, the ill-housed, the ill-clothed, and worst of all, the ignored'' were not to be tolerated. Dick Lee was raised in a devout Irish Catholic family that was not blessed with wealth but with greater gifts: with faith, talent, and the willingness to work hard to better themselves and their community. He served for many years on the Board of Aldermen of New Haven and held a number of journalism jobs, including 10 years in public relations at Yale University. In 1949, he became the youngest man to run for mayor in New Haven's history. He lost that year by 712 votes. He lost 2 years later by only two votes. But he did not give up on himself, or the city of New Haven and was elected mayor in 1953. Once in office, Dick Lee devoted himself with extraordinary energy and imagination to the human and physical renewal of New Haven. One of his most provocative ideas was that the greatest post-World War II problems in our cities--poverty, unemployment, and poor housing--could not be solved by the cities or States alone. The Federal Government had to become a partner in America's urban redevelopment. Dick Lee worked tirelessly and with enormous success during the Eisenhower Administration to bring Federal programs to New Haven. As head of the Urban Committee of the Democratic National Committee in 1958, Lee authored the first versions of Model Cities and War on Poverty legislative proposals. And after his dear friend, John F. Kennedy was elected, Dick Lee exercised a large and constructive influence on the national effort to renew America's urban areas and to restore hope and opportunity to the people who lived in them. Dick Lee also understood that just as the human face of New Haven needed reinvigoration, so did the city's physical appearance and infrastructure. For this, Dick Lee turned first to a plan by Maurice Rovital who developed a blueprint for New Haven while a member of the Yale faculty. But then he boldly invited many of America's greatest architects to design buildings for his city, making New Haven one of America's greatest architectural crossroads. Dick Lee appointed a deputy mayor and administrator of redevelopment. From there, the real work began. That work included rebuilding downtown New Haven, salvaging the Long Wharf area, restoring Wooster Square, constructing the Knights of Columbus headquarters and the Coliseum, residential rehabilitation, rent supplements, nonprofit housing sponsors and the renewal of inner-city neighborhoods. Mayor Lee forged new coalitions to reaffirm his city's sense of community and make it easier to get things done. His Citizens Action Commission was a unique amalgam of business, labor and civic leaders and was designed to build support for the redevelopment effort. Robert Dahl, in his book ``Who Governs? Democracy and Power in the American City,'' wrote that Mayor Lee ``had an investment banker's willingness to take risks that held the promise of large long-run payoffs, and a labor mediator's ability to head off controversy by searching out areas for agreement by mutual understanding, compromise, negotiation, and bargaining. He possessed a detailed knowledge of the city and its people, a formidable information gathering system, and an unceasing, full-time preoccupation with all aspects of his job. His relentless drive to achieve his goals meant that he could be tough and ruthless. But toughness was not his political style, for his overriding strategy was to rely on persuasion rather than threats. Robert Leeney, former editor of the New Haven Register and a wise and eloquent observer of the local scene wrote: New Haven and the problems of New Haveners have shaped Dick Lee's life. When the Senate seat, later filled by Thomas Dodd, hung like a plum within his grasp he wouldn't reach for it because the Church Street project was badly stalled and home needs took first priority in his public vision and on his personal horizons. His simple belief in--and his unshakeable dedication to--this city and its people started young and they have never ended. . .. He grew up to citizenhood with a classic, almost a Greek, sense of the city-state's call upon his talents and of its shaping effect upon his life and the lives of his neighbors. . .. Mr. President, law is the way we choose to express our values as a community, our aspirations for ourselves and our neighbors. In that fundamental sense, naming the grand federal courthouse in New Haven which sits proudly on the old New Haven Green and next to city hall is an honor which Mayor Dick Lee thoroughly deserves. In his public service, he worked tirelessly to express the best values of his community and to help its people realize their dreams for themselves. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased and honored today to introduce legislation with my colleague Senator Dodd to name the Federal courthouse in New Haven, CT, after our dear friend and the former eight-term mayor of New Haven, Richard C. Lee. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is introducing the same proposal in the House of Representatives. If it may be said that Federal buildings should help reflect the very best of the principles, purposes and spirit of America, then this courthouse could have no more appropriate name above its doors than that of Mayor Lee. For Dick Lee is the quintessential American, proud, principled, hardworking, and productive. In New Haven, he shook loose entrenched bureaucracies and forged new community coalitions dedicated to rebuilding New Haven after years of neglect and blight. He became a nationally recognized urban pioneer and helped to change the landscape of the American city. Dick Lee was born in New Haven. He loves the city and its richly diverse people. In May of last year, Mayor Lee was honored by the New Haven Colony Historical Society. During that tribute, Prof. Robert Wood of Wesleyan University drew inspiration from Mayor Lee's eloquence about his work. Dick Lee said that the core of a mayor's job was ``wiping away tears from the eyes'' of a city's people so that ``each tear becomes a star in the sky'' and not a source of daily despair. ``Filling the sky above with stars'' was his highest calling. ``The tears in the eyes of the young and the old, the hungry, the unloved, the ill-housed, the ill-clothed, and worst of all, the ignored'' were not to be tolerated. Dick Lee was raised in a devout Irish Catholic family that was not blessed with wealth but with greater gifts: with faith, talent, and the willingness to work hard to better themselves and their community. He served for many years on the Board of Aldermen of New Haven and held a number of journalism jobs, including 10 years in public relations at Yale University. In 1949, he became the youngest man to run for mayor in New Haven's history. He lost that year by 712 votes. He lost 2 years later by only two votes. But he did not give up on himself, or the city of New Haven and was elected mayor in 1953. Once in office, Dick Lee devoted himself with extraordinary energy and imagination to the human and physical renewal of New Haven. One of his most provocative ideas was that the greatest post-World War II problems in our cities--poverty, unemployment, and poor housing--could not be solved by the cities or States alone. The Federal Government had to become a partner in America's urban redevelopment. Dick Lee worked tirelessly and with enormous success during the Eisenhower Administration to bring Federal programs to New Haven. As head of the Urban Committee of the Democratic National Committee in 1958, Lee authored the first versions of Model Cities and War on Poverty legislative proposals. And after his dear friend, John F. Kennedy was elected, Dick Lee exercised a large and constructive influence on the national effort to renew America's urban areas and to restore hope and opportunity to the people who lived in them. Dick Lee also understood that just as the human face of New Haven needed reinvigoration, so did the city's physical appearance and infrastructure. For this, Dick Lee turned first to a plan by Maurice Rovital who developed a blueprint for New Haven while a member of the Yale faculty. But then he boldly invited many of America's greatest architects to design buildings for his city, making New Haven one of America's greatest architectural crossroads. Dick Lee appointed a deputy mayor and administrator of redevelopment. From there, the real work began. That work included rebuilding downtown New Haven, salvaging the Long Wharf area, restoring Wooster Square, constructing the Knights of Columbus headquarters and the Coliseum, residential rehabilitation, rent supplements, nonprofit housing sponsors and the renewal of inner-city neighborhoods. Mayor Lee forged new coalitions to reaffirm his city's sense of community and make it easier to get things done. His Citizens Action Commission was a unique amalgam of business, labor and civic leaders and was designed to build support for the redevelopment effort. Robert Dahl, in his book ``Who Governs? Democracy and Power in the American City,'' wrote that Mayor Lee ``had an investment banker's willingness to take risks that held the promise of large long-run payoffs, and a labor mediator's ability to head off controversy by searching out areas for agreement by mutual understanding, compromise, negotiation, and bargaining. He possessed a detailed knowledge of the city and its people, a formidable information gathering system, and an unceasing, full-time preoccupation with all aspects of his job. His relentless drive to achieve his goals meant that he could be tough and ruthless. But toughness was not his political style, for his overriding strategy was to rely on persuasion rather than threats. Robert Leeney, former editor of the New Haven Register and a wise and eloquent observer of the local scene wrote: New Haven and the problems of New Haveners have shaped Dick Lee's life. When the Senate seat, later filled by Thomas Dodd, hung like a plum within his grasp he wouldn't reach for it because the Church Street project was badly stalled and home needs took first priority in his public vision and on his personal horizons. His simple belief in--and his unshakeable dedication to--this city and its people started young and they have never ended. . .. He grew up to citizenhood with a classic, almost a Greek, sense of the city-state's call upon his talents and of its shaping effect upon his life and the lives of his neighbors. . .. Mr. President, law is the way we choose to express our values as a community, our aspirations for ourselves and our neighbors. In that fundamental sense, naming the grand federal courthouse in New Haven which sits proudly on the old New Haven Green and next to city hall is an honor which Mayor Dick Lee thoroughly deserves. In his public service, he worked tirelessly to express the best values of his community and to help its people realize their dreams for themselves. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and thank my friend and colleague from Georgia for his very kind comments. May I say, with his leadership on this issue, he has come right to the forefront of the national movement for education reform. Let me say first, briefly, how grateful I am, and I know the Senate across party lines, for the bipartisan leadership for the agreement that was achieved yesterday on scheduling the consideration by the Senate of campaign finance reform, which is important in its own right because of the significance of that effort, but also important because it frees us now to approach on the merits issues such as this. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this Education Savings Act for Public and Private Schools. It is a bipartisan cosponsorship, as will be clear from those who speak on behalf of it. Mr. President, it seems to me that of all the challenges that we have before us as we try to make this great country of ours even greater and spread the opportunities beyond those who have them best now, the most important place we can invest is in education, the education of our children. As we look at the education system in our country, I think we can say with some pride that the system of higher education is really doing quite well, but that it is the elementary and secondary schools, in making sure that our children get a good start on the road to education and self-sufficiency, that really need help. There are a lot of good things happening in our public and private and faith-based schools, but too many of our kids are still being educated in schools that are either in terrible shape physically, schools in which their personal security is threatened by crime in the schools, or schools in which there is not adequate teaching and innovation going on. This measure is a classic attempt to create a partnership between the Government and families and businesses to help people better educate their children at the elementary and secondary level. It is a tax incentive, a small one. It is like dropping that pebble into the lake, and it is going to create ripples out for individual children and for our society that I think will be dramatic. I want to make just a few points. This recommendation of these educational savings accounts builds exactly on the higher education savings accounts that we adopted just a few months ago with broad bipartisan support. In that case, you could put $500 in. The income would be tax free, particularly if you took it out for years in higher education. It had income limits in it for means testing, if you will. This proposal of ours takes that idea and simply extends it to K-12 education, with one big change--two, I suppose. One is that you can put in not just $500 but $2,500 in and others can invest in those accounts--grandparents, uncles, aunts, businesses. I wouldn't be surprised, if this is adopted, that labor unions will begin to negotiate with their employers to put matching contributions into the savings accounts for their kids. The point I want to make is this. A lot of anxiety and opposition has been expressed about this proposal. It is the same proposal that most of us voted for enthusiastically just a few months ago for higher education. So why is it so frightening now and it was so much accepted before? Why was it middle-class-tax relief then and it is now some sort of giveaway to wealthy people? I think if you focus on the merits of this, understand what independent analysis has told us that 70 percent of those who will benefit from this will be sending their kids to public school, that it can be used not just for tuition payments but for a broad array of support services--transportation, home schooling, purchasing a computer, et cetera. This is the kind of program that dreams are made of, that dreams are realized from. Parents who are working hard trying to find a better way for their children will be able to put a little money in these accounts or have some relatives put some money in, or convince the employer to put some money in and make it easier for them to take their children and put them in the schools where they want them, public or private or faith-based, or give the kids the support they need to get the better education. I think this is a good proposal whose time has come, and I am proud to be a cosponsor. I thank Senator Coverdell for his leadership on this, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today The Innovative Environmental Strategies Act of l997. I'm honored that Senators Daschle, Moynihan, and Kerrey have joined me as cosponsors, and that the legislation is being introduced in the House by Congressman Dooley and Congresswoman Tauscher. I'm also very pleased that the legislation has been endorsed by the Clinton administration and has received positive responses from representatives of industry and environmental groups. I look forward to a process of building further consensus on this bill from all affected interests. The legislation allows companies to propose alternatives to environmental requirements if those alternative proposals will achieve better environmental performance. The legislation provides EPA with the authority to waive or modify regulatory requirements for this purpose. It is designed to encourage more pollution prevention and to promote better, more cost-effective solutions for environmental protection. This legislation seeks to build on both the work of President Clinton's Project XL--standing for excellence and leadership--and the Aspen Institute which undertook a 3-year effort to reach consensus among a wide group of divergent interests on an alternative path to achieving a cleaner, cheaper way to protect and enhance the environment. The Aspen Institute's work resulted in an excellent report, ``The Alternative Path, A Cleaner, Cheaper Way to Protect and Enhance the Environment.'' This bill modifies legislation introduced at the end of last Congress. At that time, I indicated that I welcomed all proposals and suggestions on how to alter and improve the bill. I have received a significant number of comments from industry, governmental and environmental group representatives. The new bill attempts to reflect many of those comments, in addition to a new GAO report examining EPA's reinvention efforts, ``Challenges Facing EPA's Efforts to Reinvent Environmental Regulation,'' and a recently released report by the National Academy of Public Administration, ``Resolving the Paradox of Environmental Protection.'' The National Academy report recommends statutory authorization for EPA's XL program. There is clearly a wide consensus in this country that our environmental laws have performed remarkably well. As the writer Gregg Easterbrook has pointed out, environmental protection is probably the single greatest success story of American government in the period since World War II. In many cases, however, we need to do more to provide the level of protection most Americans expect from government. For example, over one third of our rivers and lakes still do not fully meet water quality standards. Health advisories for eating fish have increased. The number of people suffering from asthma has reached epidemic proportions in some communities, particularly among children. Pollution prevention--preventing pollution before it occurs--is one approach that can help us do both better both in terms of protecting the environment and actually saving companies money. The greater efficiency resulting from less waste disposal and reduced use of toxic chemicals can significantly bolster the competitiveness of companies. Recently, I listened to a presentation indicating that perhaps the Nation is not doing as well in pollution prevention as we should be. A l995 report by the research group INFORM, ``Toxics Watch l995,'' reviewed thousands of documents submitted by industry to EPA to show whether progress was made to further pollution prevention. While 25 percent of the forms indicated some effort in pollution prevention had been made, the remaining 75 percent gave no such indication. And, according to INFORM, while some leading companies have taken major pollution prevention steps, the broader picture is troublesome: total waste generation is increasing. While these facts show there is clearly a need to improve protection of our environment and pollution prevention, there is just as clearly a need to review our methods of environmental protection in order to find better, more efficient, more innovative ways to achieve greater progress toward meeting our environmental goals. In some cases, the traditional approaches to regulation have hindered companies from doing a better job at pollution prevention. There is a growing consensus that innovative environmental strategies can form the basis for a new approach to environmental protection that will achieve superior environmental results, including greater pollution prevention, at less cost for regulated industry. This consensus can be seen, for example, in the work of the President's Council on Sustainable Development which brought together leaders from government, environmental, civil rights, labor and native American organizations in an effort to achieve consensus on national environmental, economic and social goals, as well as in the work of the Aspen Institute. This bill establishes an innovative environmental strategies program at EPA. The Administrator of EPA is authorized to enter into approximately 50 agreements with regulated entities seeking modifications or waivers from environmental requirements if certain criteria are met. The basic premise of the bill is that better environmental performance can be achieved by allowing environmental managers at companies, in partnership with an active group of community stakeholders, to develop their own means of reaching environmental goals. This approach recognizes that the regulated industry is now in an excellent position to experiment and decide what approaches will yield better environmental results than the company is achieving under existing regulations. Allowing flexibility can substantially reduce compliance costs and make industries more competitive, provide for much greater community involvement in the decisions of their neighboring industrial plants, foster more cooperative partnerships, and encourage greater innovation and pollution prevention. Another key element of this program is incorporating the lessons learned from the innovative environmental strategies into the overall regulatory structure of the Agency, where appropriate. While the bill authorizes approximately 50 innovative strategy agreements, these individual strategies should have widespread benefits for other companies as the Agency incorporates the lessons learned into its overall approach to environmental protection. Let me discuss a few specific provisions of the bill. First, the bill establishes benchmarks from which to determine whether better environmental results will be achieved under the innovative environmental strategy. For existing facilities, the benchmark generally will be either the level of releases of a pollutant into the air, land or water actually being achieved by the facility or the level of releases allowed under the applicable regulatory requirements and reasonably foreseeable future requirements, whichever is lower. The Administrator is given some flexibility in determining the appropriate measurement for the benchmark. For example, measuring releases per unit of production encourages pollution prevention but may result in releases of concern to the community; the Administrator should take both these factors into account in determining whether a per unit measurement is appropriate. The Administrator shall determine whether an innovative environmental strategy achieves better environmental results based on the magnitude of reduction in the level of releases or improvement in pollution prevention relative to each benchmark. In addition, the Administrator shall evaluate other benefits that would result from the strategy. These include whether the strategy results in environmental performance more protective than the best performance practice of comparable facilities or improvement in environmental conditions that are priorities to stakeholders, even if those conditions are not regulated under EPA statutes. Different types of innovative environmental strategies are possible under this legislation. For example, in some cases, a facility may demonstrate better environmental results by showing a reduction in releases of pollutants and, in exchange, seek a modification of reporting or other paperwork requirements. In other cases, a facility may demonstrate better environmental results by showing a reduction in releases of pollutants, but seek modification of a rule to allow for flexibility with respect to emission levels at different sources within the facility. There may be some cases where the innovative environmental strategy would result in large decreases in some pollutants while resulting in a small increase in another pollutant. But there are a number of specific requirements that must be met under those circumstances. Among other requirements, the Administrator must determine, based on a well-established analytic methodology acceptable both to the Administrator and the stakeholders, that the strategy will achieve better overall environmental results with an adequate margin of safety and will not result in an increase in the risk of adverse effects or shift the risk of adverse effects to the health of an individual, population, or natural resource affected by the strategy. I recognize that it is difficult to make such determinations because we have inadequate information about many chemicals and we often do not know how properly to evaluate cumulative or synergistic effects. The Administrator should pay close attention to these factors in evaluating projects. These examples are only illustrative of a range of potential projects. The bill also provides that in appropriate cases, the Administrator may establish a benchmark for measuring better environmental performance based on pollution prevention. The bill requires that the innovative environmental strategy provide a means and level of accountability, monitoring, enforceability and public access to information for all enforceable provisions at least equivalent to that provided by the rule that is being modified or waived. A related requirement is that adequate information must be made accessible so that any member of the public can verify environmental performance. Other requirements that must be met by the petitioner are set forth in section 7. Effective stakeholder participation is the second key element of the legislation. Any company submitting a proposal must undertake a stakeholder participation process. One of the criteria for approval of a project by EPA is that the stakeholders have obtained adequate independent technical support for an effective stakeholder process. Under the bill, the stakeholder process is open to anyone, except a business competitor, subject to manageability factors. The stakeholder group should genuinely represent the full range of interests affected by projects and the policies to be shaped by projects. Involving citizens, including workers and members of the local community, in the development of an innovative environmental strategy is absolutely critical. Companies that have formulated successful innovative environmental strategies have told me that without the support of the local community these strategies simply will not work. Empowerment of the local community through stakeholder processes will help build trust and make implementation of the agreement easier. In other words, the innovative environmental strategy should be a partnership between the proponent and the stakeholders. The bill requires the Administrator to give great weight to the views of the stakeholders. Obtaining broad community support for the strategy, as shown through stakeholder support, is very important. Additionally, the stakeholders and the proponent of the strategy may decide as part of the guidelines setting up the stakeholder process, that the stakeholders as a group or individual stakeholder participants should have a veto right with respect to whether the strategy goes forward. If the proponent still presents a proposal for the strategy even with such objections, the Administrator is required to reject the strategy if the objection has a clear and reasonable foundation and relates to the criteria for approval. The principle here is simple: stakeholders and the facility owner need to come to agreement on the guidelines that will govern the project. This agreement on the guidelines should be reached at the start of the process. It must be followed; if not, the Administrator will not be able to make the finding that the requirements of section 6 of the statute have been met. The bill also attempts to address the recommendations made in the GAO report of July 1997, ``Challenges Facing EPA's Efforts to Reinvent Environmental Regulation'', which examined EPA's XL program. First, the GAO concludes that EPA will be limited in its ability to truly reinvent environmental regulation without legislative changes. Second, the GAO recommends that the Agency's reinvention initiatives include an evaluation component measuring the extent to which the initiative has achieved its intended effect. Therefore, the bill requires that, within 18 months after entering into an agreement, the Administrator provide a report evaluating whether the lessons learned from a particular strategy can be incorporated into the overall regulatory or statutory structure of the Agency. The legislation also requires a broader report to Congress within 3 years. Finally, the GAO proposes that EPA develop a systematic process that would help address problems that come up during reinvention projects in a timely fashion. This process should be set up to identify the kinds of problems that can be resolved at lower levels within the Agency and which should be elevated for management's attention. While the bill does not specifically address this recommendation, I hope that EPA will seriously examine how it can implement this constructive recommendation. As the GAO report notes, the EPA has undertaken a broad range of reinvention efforts. This legislation in no way affects the ability of EPA to proceed under its appropriate authorities with those efforts, including agreements under XL. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the legislation be included in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today The Innovative Environmental Strategies Act of l997. I'm honored that Senators Daschle, Moynihan, and Kerrey have joined me as cosponsors, and that the legislation is being introduced in the House by Congressman Dooley and Congresswoman Tauscher. I'm also very pleased that the legislation has been endorsed by the Clinton administration and has received positive responses from representatives of industry and environmental groups. I look forward to a process of building further consensus on this bill from all affected interests. The legislation allows companies to propose alternatives to environmental requirements if those alternative proposals will achieve better environmental performance. The legislation provides EPA with the authority to waive or modify regulatory requirements for this purpose. It is designed to encourage more pollution prevention and to promote better, more cost-effective solutions for environmental protection. This legislation seeks to build on both the work of President Clinton's Project XL--standing for excellence and leadership--and the Aspen Institute which undertook a 3-year effort to reach consensus among a wide group of divergent interests on an alternative path to achieving a cleaner, cheaper way to protect and enhance the environment. The Aspen Institute's work resulted in an excellent report, ``The Alternative Path, A Cleaner, Cheaper Way to Protect and Enhance the Environment.'' This bill modifies legislation introduced at the end of last Congress. At that time, I indicated that I welcomed all proposals and suggestions on how to alter and improve the bill. I have received a significant number of comments from industry, governmental and environmental group representatives. The new bill attempts to reflect many of those comments, in addition to a new GAO report examining EPA's reinvention efforts, ``Challenges Facing EPA's Efforts to Reinvent Environmental Regulation,'' and a recently released report by the National Academy of Public Administration, ``Resolving the Paradox of Environmental Protection.'' The National Academy report recommends statutory authorization for EPA's XL program. There is clearly a wide consensus in this country that our environmental laws have performed remarkably well. As the writer Gregg Easterbrook has pointed out, environmental protection is probably the single greatest success story of American government in the period since World War II. In many cases, however, we need to do more to provide the level of protection most Americans expect from government. For example, over one third of our rivers and lakes still do not fully meet water quality standards. Health advisories for eating fish have increased. The number of people suffering from asthma has reached epidemic proportions in some communities, particularly among children. Pollution prevention--preventing pollution before it occurs--is one approach that can help us do both better both in terms of protecting the environment and actually saving companies money. The greater efficiency resulting from less waste disposal and reduced use of toxic chemicals can significantly bolster the competitiveness of companies. Recently, I listened to a presentation indicating that perhaps the Nation is not doing as well in pollution prevention as we should be. A l995 report by the research group INFORM, ``Toxics Watch l995,'' reviewed thousands of documents submitted by industry to EPA to show whether progress was made to further pollution prevention. While 25 percent of the forms indicated some effort in pollution prevention had been made, the remaining 75 percent gave no such indication. And, according to INFORM, while some leading companies have taken major pollution prevention steps, the broader picture is troublesome: total waste generation is increasing. While these facts show there is clearly a need to improve protection of our environment and pollution prevention, there is just as clearly a need to review our methods of environmental protection in order to find better, more efficient, more innovative ways to achieve greater progress toward meeting our environmental goals. In some cases, the traditional approaches to regulation have hindered companies from doing a better job at pollution prevention. There is a growing consensus that innovative environmental strategies can form the basis for a new approach to environmental protection that will achieve superior environmental results, including greater pollution prevention, at less cost for regulated industry. This consensus can be seen, for example, in the work of the President's Council on Sustainable Development which brought together leaders from government, environmental, civil rights, labor and native American organizations in an effort to achieve consensus on national environmental, economic and social goals, as well as in the work of the Aspen Institute. This bill establishes an innovative environmental strategies program at EPA. The Administrator of EPA is authorized to enter into approximately 50 agreements with regulated entities seeking modifications or waivers from environmental requirements if certain criteria are met. The basic premise of the bill is that better environmental performance can be achieved by allowing environmental managers at companies, in partnership with an active group of community stakeholders, to develop their own means of reaching environmental goals. This approach recognizes that the regulated industry is now in an excellent position to experiment and decide what approaches will yield better environmental results than the company is achieving under existing regulations. Allowing flexibility can substantially reduce compliance costs and make industries more competitive, provide for much greater community involvement in the decisions of their neighboring industrial plants, foster more cooperative partnerships, and encourage greater innovation and pollution prevention. Another key element of this program is incorporating the lessons learned from the innovative environmental strategies into the overall regulatory structure of the Agency, where appropriate. While the bill authorizes approximately 50 innovative strategy agreements, these individual strategies should have widespread benefits for other companies as the Agency incorporates the lessons learned into its overall approach to environmental protection. Let me discuss a few specific provisions of the bill. First, the bill establishes benchmarks from which to determine whether better environmental results will be achieved under the innovative environmental strategy. For existing facilities, the benchmark generally will be either the level of releases of a pollutant into the air, land or water actually being achieved by the facility or the level of releases allowed under the applicable regulatory requirements and reasonably foreseeable future requirements, whichever is lower. The Administrator is given some flexibility in determining the appropriate measurement for the benchmark. For example, measuring releases per unit of production encourages pollution prevention but may result in releases of concern to the community; the Administrator should take both these factors into account in determining whether a per unit measurement is appropriate. The Administrator shall determine whether an innovative environmental strategy achieves better environmental results based on the magnitude of reduction in the level of releases or improvement in pollution prevention relative to each benchmark. In addition, the Administrator shall evaluate other benefits that would result from the strategy. These include whether the strategy results in environmental performance more protective than the best performance practice of comparable facilities or improvement in environmental conditions that are priorities to stakeholders, even if those conditions are not regulated under EPA statutes. Different types of innovative environmental strategies are possible under this legislation. For example, in some cases, a facility may demonstrate better environmental results by showing a reduction in releases of pollutants and, in exchange, seek a modification of reporting or other paperwork requirements. In other cases, a facility may demonstrate better environmental results by showing a reduction in releases of pollutants, but seek modification of a rule to allow for flexibility with respect to emission levels at different sources within the facility. There may be some cases where the innovative environmental strategy would result in large decreases in some pollutants while resulting in a small increase in another pollutant. But there are a number of specific requirements that must be met under those circumstances. Among other requirements, the Administrator must determine, based on a well-established analytic methodology acceptable both to the Administrator and the stakeholders, that the strategy will achieve better overall environmental results with an adequate margin of safety and will not result in an increase in the risk of adverse effects or shift the risk of adverse effects to the health of an individual, population, or natural resource affected by the strategy. I recognize that it is difficult to make such determinations because we have inadequate information about many chemicals and we often do not know how properly to evaluate cumulative or synergistic effects. The Administrator should pay close attention to these factors in evaluating projects. These examples are only illustrative of a range of potential projects. The bill also provides that in appropriate cases, the Administrator may establish a benchmark for measuring better environmental performance based on pollution prevention. The bill requires that the innovative environmental strategy provide a means and level of accountability, monitoring, enforceability and public access to information for all enforceable provisions at least equivalent to that provided by the rule that is being modified or waived. A related requirement is that adequate information must be made accessible so that any member of the public can verify environmental performance. Other requirements that must be met by the petitioner are set forth in section 7. Effective stakeholder participation is the second key element of the legislation. Any company submitting a proposal must undertake a stakeholder participation process. One of the criteria for approval of a project by EPA is that the stakeholders have obtained adequate independent technical support for an effective stakeholder process. Under the bill, the stakeholder process is open to anyone, except a business competitor, subject to manageability factors. The stakeholder group should genuinely represent the full range of interests affected by projects and the policies to be shaped by projects. Involving citizens, including workers and members of the local community, in the development of an innovative environmental strategy is absolutely critical. Companies that have formulated successful innovative environmental strategies have told me that without the support of the local community these strategies simply will not work. Empowerment of the local community through stakeholder processes will help build trust and make implementation of the agreement easier. In other words, the innovative environmental strategy should be a partnership between the proponent and the stakeholders. The bill requires the Administrator to give great weight to the views of the stakeholders. Obtaining broad community support for the strategy, as shown through stakeholder support, is very important. Additionally, the stakeholders and the proponent of the strategy may decide as part of the guidelines setting up the stakeholder process, that the stakeholders as a group or individual stakeholder participants should have a veto right with respect to whether the strategy goes forward. If the proponent still presents a proposal for the strategy even with such objections, the Administrator is required to reject the strategy if the objection has a clear and reasonable foundation and relates to the criteria for approval. The principle here is simple: stakeholders and the facility owner need to come to agreement on the guidelines that will govern the project. This agreement on the guidelines should be reached at the start of the process. It must be followed; if not, the Administrator will not be able to make the finding that the requirements of section 6 of the statute have been met. The bill also attempts to address the recommendations made in the GAO report of July 1997, ``Challenges Facing EPA's Efforts to Reinvent Environmental Regulation'', which examined EPA's XL program. First, the GAO concludes that EPA will be limited in its ability to truly reinvent environmental regulation without legislative changes. Second, the GAO recommends that the Agency's reinvention initiatives include an evaluation component measuring the extent to which the initiative has achieved its intended effect. Therefore, the bill requires that, within 18 months after entering into an agreement, the Administrator provide a report evaluating whether the lessons learned from a particular strategy can be incorporated into the overall regulatory or statutory structure of the Agency. The legislation also requires a broader report to Congress within 3 years. Finally, the GAO proposes that EPA develop a systematic process that would help address problems that come up during reinvention projects in a timely fashion. This process should be set up to identify the kinds of problems that can be resolved at lower levels within the Agency and which should be elevated for management's attention. While the bill does not specifically address this recommendation, I hope that EPA will seriously examine how it can implement this constructive recommendation. As the GAO report notes, the EPA has undertaken a broad range of reinvention efforts. This legislation in no way affects the ability of EPA to proceed under its appropriate authorities with those efforts, including agreements under XL. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the legislation be included in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation aimed at returning some common sense to one aspect of the Federal Government's Indian lands policies. My bill, the Indian Trust Lands Reform Act of 1997, arises out of a problem Connecticut and other States have been struggling with for the last few years. The bill would amend the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to reinforce its original purpose: helping Indian tribes and individual Indians to hold on to or obtain land they need to survive economically and become self-sufficient. Congress passed the 1934 act after the landholdings of some tribes had dwindled down to acres. Tribes and their members were selling and losing land to foreclosures, tax arrearages, and the like. The 1934 act gave the Secretary of the Interior the authority needed to help tribes hold on to or acquire land on which they could earn a living and, further, to hold those lands in trust for them so they would not be sold or otherwise lost. Once the United States takes land into trust for a tribe through this process, the land becomes part of the tribe's sovereign property. This means that State and local governments no longer have jurisdiction over the land, and the land is removed from those governments' tax, zoning, and police powers. Economic conditions for some tribes have improved since 1934 through a variety of commercial, agricultural, and other enterprises, but many are still struggling. Few could be described as rich or even comfortable; far too many still live in poverty. The 1934 act should remain available to help those tribes who still need assistance from the Federal Government in attaining economic self-sufficiency. As our experience in Connecticut has shown, however, that act is now being used to achieve goals far removed from its original purpose. As a result of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, many tribes have established casinos and gambling operations, and, although gaming has not brought riches to many of those tribes, some have been very successful, particularly in my home State. One of the most successful gambling casinos in the country is located in eastern Connecticut and is owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. The success of the tribe's Foxwoods Casino has been well chronicled. Established in 1992, the casino has been open 24 hours a day, 7-days a week ever since. Whatever one thinks about the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act or gambling, either morally or as a vehicle for economic growth, the Mashantucket Pequots seized the opportunity presented to them by the Indian Gaming Act. They have developed an extraordinarily successful, well-run casino in record time. Annual casino revenues for the 500- member tribe reportedly approach $1 billion. By any measure, the tribe has become very wealthy. Given the tribe's tremendous financial success, it is not at all surprising that it has decided to buy more land near its reservation in order to expand and diversify its businesses. According to press accounts, the tribe owns over 3,500 acres outside of the boundaries of its reservation, in addition to the approximately 1,320 acres that is held in trust on its behalf within the reservation. The tribe is now the largest private landowner in southeastern Connecticut. It already runs several hotels outside of its reservation's boundaries, and tribal leaders have at various times talked of building a massive theme park and golf courses on its off-reservation land. The tribe owns its land in fee simple and so is free to develop it like any other property owner might. But unlike other property owners-- who must develop their land in compliance with State and local zoning laws and who must pay taxes on the land and on the businesses conducted on the land--the tribe has claimed it has the option, under the 1934 act, to ask the Department of the Interior to take that land in trust on the tribe's behalf, thereby removing the land from all State and local jurisdiction. This is an option because the Department of Interior interprets the 1934 act as being available, with limitations, to all federally recognized tribes, regardless of whether the tribe's situation bears any resemblance to the conditions that originally spurred Congress to enact the 1934 provisions. And, this is an option the Mashantucket Pequots have exercised. In 1992, the Department of Interior granted the tribe's request to take into trust approximately 20 acres located outside the tribe's reservation boundaries in the neighboring towns of Ledyard and Preston. In January 1993, the tribe filed another application, this one to have an additional 248 off- reservation acres taken in trust. The affected towns of Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston challenged that request. Nevertheless, the Department of Interior granted that request in May 1995, subject to certain conditions regarding the land's development--a decision the towns and the Connecticut attorney general are challenging in Federal court. In March 1993, the tribe applied to have 1,200 more off-reservation acres taken in trust. That request was sent back to the tribe because of legal deficiencies in the application, but reapplication by the tribe is expected, and past statements by tribal leaders suggest that more applications may be filed in the future. The effect of the tribe's and the Department of Interior's decisions involving off-reservation lands has been unsettling, to say the least, on the tribe's neighbors--the residents of the small towns that border the reservation. Once the United States takes land into trust on behalf of a tribe, as it has attempted to do here, boundaries change permanently. The land is no longer within the jurisdiction of the State or local governments. It is not subject to local zoning, land-use or environmental controls. Taxes cannot be collected on the land or on any business operated on the land. And State and local governments may exercise no police powers on the land unless invited by the tribe to do so. The plight of the towns surrounding the Mashantucket Pequot lands show that these problems are not just theoretical. Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston are small communities whose combined population is about 25,000--less than half the number of visitors the Foxwoods Casino receives on a typical summer weekend. The towns have a combined annual tax revenue of approximately $25 million--less than half the amount of revenue the casino's slot machines generate in 1 month alone. Obviously, towns of this size cannot absorb a business of this size without there being any consequences. As a result of the Casino's success, the character of the towns has been permanently altered, and the costs of local government--from crime prevention to road maintenance to countless other things--have increased, all at the same time that the 1934 act has precluded the towns from exercising zoning and other controls and from collecting taxes to help defray the newly imposed costs. Given the financial resources of the tribe and the apparent willingness of the Department of Interior to take land into trust on their behalf regardless of any evidence that the tribe needs additional trust lands, many residents wonder where this will lead. I question the policy justification for the United States to change the boundaries of three Connecticut towns unilaterally so that an extraordinarily wealthy tribe--this one or any other --can expand its gaming or other business enterprises, free of taxes and local land-use controls, particularly when that tribe is perfectly capable of expanding its businesses on the thousands of trust and nontrust acres it presently owns. I question whether Congress--which enacted the 1934 act ``to provide for the acquisition, through purchase, of land for Indians, now landless, who are anxious to make a living on such land * * * '' and ``to meet the needs of landless Indians and of Indian individuals whose landholdings are insufficient for self-support'' (Senate Report No. 1080, 73d Congress, 2d Session 1-2 (1934))--intended in 1934 that the law would be used in this fashion. The authority for the Department of Interior to grant the tribe's request is now subject to review in the courts. The courts will have to decide whether the 1934 act even applies to this tribe and, if so, whether the Secretary acted properly. The courts will have to decide as well whether the 1983 Mashantucket Pequot Settlement Act independently prohibits trust acquisition by the tribe outside of reservation boundaries and whether the trust acquisition complied with applicable Federal environmental laws. To avoid future disputes and controversy, my bill would amend the Indian Reorganization Act to return to its original purpose. It would prohibit the Secretary of Interior from taking any lands located outside of the boundaries of an Indian reservation into trust on behalf of an economically self-sufficient Indian tribe, if those lands are to be used for gaming or any other commercial purpose. It directs the Secretary of Interior to determine, after providing opportunity for public comment, whether a tribe is economically self-sufficient and to develop regulations setting forth the criteria for making that determination generally. Among the criteria that the Secretary must include in those regulations to assess economic self-sufficiency are the income of the tribe, as allocated among members and compared to the per capita income of citizens of the United States, as well as the role that the lands at issue will play in the tribe's efforts to achieve economic self-sufficiency. May I note that I understand that some tribes do not have reservations in the traditional sense, and so the language of this bill will have to be adjusted in the future to address the situation of those tribes. In short, my bill is very narrow in scope, aimed solely at ensuring that the Department of Interior's awesome power to remove lands from State and local authority is used only in accordance with the original intent of the 1934 Act. The bill would not impose any restrictions on the Department's authority to take on-reservation land into trust. It would not affect the ability of the Secretary to assist tribes that genuinely need additional land--whether on or off their reservations-- in order to move toward or attain economic self-sufficiency. It would not even affect the ability of the Department of Interior to take into trust off-reservation land for wealthy tribes needing the land for non- commercial purposes. The bill contains explicit exemptions for the establishment of initial reservations for Indian tribes, whether accomplished through recognition by the Department of Interior or by an act of Congress, and in circumstances where tribes once recognized by the Federal Government are restored to recognition. And, of course, it does not impact the ability of wealthy tribes to buy as much land as they want for whatever purpose they want it. The only thing my bill does do is to require tribes who are economically self-sufficient and who wish to engage in commercial activity outside of their reservation's boundaries to do so in compliance with the same local land-use and tax laws applied to every other land holder. Mr. President, many residents of Connecticut applaud the success that the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe has had with its Foxwoods Casino. The tribe employs thousands of Connecticut residents in an area of the State that was hard hit by a lingering recession and cuts in defense spending. The tribe's plans for economic development of the region, while not universally liked, have many in the area genuinely excited about future opportunities. I have discovered though that even among residents cheered by the tribe's success and supportive of its plans, there is a strong sense of unfairness about how the land in trust process is being used. They believe there is no reason why this tribe, or any other in a similar situation, needs to have the U.S. Government take additional, commercial land in trust on the tribe's behalf outside of its reservation boundaries. What is at stake here, after all, is not preserving a culture or achieving self-sufficiency, but expansion of an already successful business on lands that are owned by the tribe and developable by them, as they would be by any other landowner. Extra help is simply not needed, and continuing to grant it is not fair and, in my view, ultimately counterproductive for all involved. It is time for Congress to make this common-sense clarification in the law. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation, and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill appear in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation aimed at returning some common sense to one aspect of the Federal Government's Indian lands policies. My bill, the Indian Trust Lands Reform Act of 1997, arises out of a problem Connecticut and other States have been struggling with for the last few years. The bill would amend the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to reinforce its original purpose: helping Indian tribes and individual Indians to hold on to or obtain land they need to survive economically and become self-sufficient. Congress passed the 1934 act after the landholdings of some tribes had dwindled down to acres. Tribes and their members were selling and losing land to foreclosures, tax arrearages, and the like. The 1934 act gave the Secretary of the Interior the authority needed to help tribes hold on to or acquire land on which they could earn a living and, further, to hold those lands in trust for them so they would not be sold or otherwise lost. Once the United States takes land into trust for a tribe through this process, the land becomes part of the tribe's sovereign property. This means that State and local governments no longer have jurisdiction over the land, and the land is removed from those governments' tax, zoning, and police powers. Economic conditions for some tribes have improved since 1934 through a variety of commercial, agricultural, and other enterprises, but many are still struggling. Few could be described as rich or even comfortable; far too many still live in poverty. The 1934 act should remain available to help those tribes who still need assistance from the Federal Government in attaining economic self-sufficiency. As our experience in Connecticut has shown, however, that act is now being used to achieve goals far removed from its original purpose. As a result of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, many tribes have established casinos and gambling operations, and, although gaming has not brought riches to many of those tribes, some have been very successful, particularly in my home State. One of the most successful gambling casinos in the country is located in eastern Connecticut and is owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. The success of the tribe's Foxwoods Casino has been well chronicled. Established in 1992, the casino has been open 24 hours a day, 7-days a week ever since. Whatever one thinks about the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act or gambling, either morally or as a vehicle for economic growth, the Mashantucket Pequots seized the opportunity presented to them by the Indian Gaming Act. They have developed an extraordinarily successful, well-run casino in record time. Annual casino revenues for the 500- member tribe reportedly approach $1 billion. By any measure, the tribe has become very wealthy. Given the tribe's tremendous financial success, it is not at all surprising that it has decided to buy more land near its reservation in order to expand and diversify its businesses. According to press accounts, the tribe owns over 3,500 acres outside of the boundaries of its reservation, in addition to the approximately 1,320 acres that is held in trust on its behalf within the reservation. The tribe is now the largest private landowner in southeastern Connecticut. It already runs several hotels outside of its reservation's boundaries, and tribal leaders have at various times talked of building a massive theme park and golf courses on its off-reservation land. The tribe owns its land in fee simple and so is free to develop it like any other property owner might. But unlike other property owners-- who must develop their land in compliance with State and local zoning laws and who must pay taxes on the land and on the businesses conducted on the land--the tribe has claimed it has the option, under the 1934 act, to ask the Department of the Interior to take that land in trust on the tribe's behalf, thereby removing the land from all State and local jurisdiction. This is an option because the Department of Interior interprets the 1934 act as being available, with limitations, to all federally recognized tribes, regardless of whether the tribe's situation bears any resemblance to the conditions that originally spurred Congress to enact the 1934 provisions. And, this is an option the Mashantucket Pequots have exercised. In 1992, the Department of Interior granted the tribe's request to take into trust approximately 20 acres located outside the tribe's reservation boundaries in the neighboring towns of Ledyard and Preston. In January 1993, the tribe filed another application, this one to have an additional 248 off- reservation acres taken in trust. The affected towns of Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston challenged that request. Nevertheless, the Department of Interior granted that request in May 1995, subject to certain conditions regarding the land's development--a decision the towns and the Connecticut attorney general are challenging in Federal court. In March 1993, the tribe applied to have 1,200 more off-reservation acres taken in trust. That request was sent back to the tribe because of legal deficiencies in the application, but reapplication by the tribe is expected, and past statements by tribal leaders suggest that more applications may be filed in the future. The effect of the tribe's and the Department of Interior's decisions involving off-reservation lands has been unsettling, to say the least, on the tribe's neighbors--the residents of the small towns that border the reservation. Once the United States takes land into trust on behalf of a tribe, as it has attempted to do here, boundaries change permanently. The land is no longer within the jurisdiction of the State or local governments. It is not subject to local zoning, land-use or environmental controls. Taxes cannot be collected on the land or on any business operated on the land. And State and local governments may exercise no police powers on the land unless invited by the tribe to do so. The plight of the towns surrounding the Mashantucket Pequot lands show that these problems are not just theoretical. Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston are small communities whose combined population is about 25,000--less than half the number of visitors the Foxwoods Casino receives on a typical summer weekend. The towns have a combined annual tax revenue of approximately $25 million--less than half the amount of revenue the casino's slot machines generate in 1 month alone. Obviously, towns of this size cannot absorb a business of this size without there being any consequences. As a result of the Casino's success, the character of the towns has been permanently altered, and the costs of local government--from crime prevention to road maintenance to countless other things--have increased, all at the same time that the 1934 act has precluded the towns from exercising zoning and other controls and from collecting taxes to help defray the newly imposed costs. Given the financial resources of the tribe and the apparent willingness of the Department of Interior to take land into trust on their behalf regardless of any evidence that the tribe needs additional trust lands, many residents wonder where this will lead. I question the policy justification for the United States to change the boundaries of three Connecticut towns unilaterally so that an extraordinarily wealthy tribe--this one or any other --can expand its gaming or other business enterprises, free of taxes and local land-use controls, particularly when that tribe is perfectly capable of expanding its businesses on the thousands of trust and nontrust acres it presently owns. I question whether Congress--which enacted the 1934 act ``to provide for the acquisition, through purchase, of land for Indians, now landless, who are anxious to make a living on such land * * * '' and ``to meet the needs of landless Indians and of Indian individuals whose landholdings are insufficient for self-support'' (Senate Report No. 1080, 73d Congress, 2d Session 1-2 (1934))--intended in 1934 that the law would be used in this fashion. The authority for the Department of Interior to grant the tribe's request is now subject to review in the courts. The courts will have to decide whether the 1934 act even applies to this tribe and, if so, whether the Secretary acted properly. The courts will have to decide as well whether the 1983 Mashantucket Pequot Settlement Act independently prohibits trust acquisition by the tribe outside of reservation boundaries and whether the trust acquisition complied with applicable Federal environmental laws. To avoid future disputes and controversy, my bill would amend the Indian Reorganization Act to return to its original purpose. It would prohibit the Secretary of Interior from taking any lands located outside of the boundaries of an Indian reservation into trust on behalf of an economically self-sufficient Indian tribe, if those lands are to be used for gaming or any other commercial purpose. It directs the Secretary of Interior to determine, after providing opportunity for public comment, whether a tribe is economically self-sufficient and to develop regulations setting forth the criteria for making that determination generally. Among the criteria that the Secretary must include in those regulations to assess economic self-sufficiency are the income of the tribe, as allocated among members and compared to the per capita income of citizens of the United States, as well as the role that the lands at issue will play in the tribe's efforts to achieve economic self-sufficiency. May I note that I understand that some tribes do not have reservations in the traditional sense, and so the language of this bill will have to be adjusted in the future to address the situation of those tribes. In short, my bill is very narrow in scope, aimed solely at ensuring that the Department of Interior's awesome power to remove lands from State and local authority is used only in accordance with the original intent of the 1934 Act. The bill would not impose any restrictions on the Department's authority to take on-reservation land into trust. It would not affect the ability of the Secretary to assist tribes that genuinely need additional land--whether on or off their reservations-- in order to move toward or attain economic self-sufficiency. It would not even affect the ability of the Department of Interior to take into trust off-reservation land for wealthy tribes needing the land for non- commercial purposes. The bill contains explicit exemptions for the establishment of initial reservations for Indian tribes, whether accomplished through recognition by the Department of Interior or by an act of Congress, and in circumstances where tribes once recognized by the Federal Government are restored to recognition. And, of course, it does not impact the ability of wealthy tribes to buy as much land as they want for whatever purpose they want it. The only thing my bill does do is to require tribes who are economically self-sufficient and who wish to engage in commercial activity outside of their reservation's boundaries to do so in compliance with the same local land-use and tax laws applied to every other land holder. Mr. President, many residents of Connecticut applaud the success that the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe has had with its Foxwoods Casino. The tribe employs thousands of Connecticut residents in an area of the State that was hard hit by a lingering recession and cuts in defense spending. The tribe's plans for economic development of the region, while not universally liked, have many in the area genuinely excited about future opportunities. I have discovered though that even among residents cheered by the tribe's success and supportive of its plans, there is a strong sense of unfairness about how the land in trust process is being used. They believe there is no reason why this tribe, or any other in a similar situation, needs to have the U.S. Government take additional, commercial land in trust on the tribe's behalf outside of its reservation boundaries. What is at stake here, after all, is not preserving a culture or achieving self-sufficiency, but expansion of an already successful business on lands that are owned by the tribe and developable by them, as they would be by any other landowner. Extra help is simply not needed, and continuing to grant it is not fair and, in my view, ultimately counterproductive for all involved. It is time for Congress to make this common-sense clarification in the law. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation, and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill appear in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my friend and colleague Senator Lott, and the other cosponsors, in offering this bill which addresses what I believe is one of the most serious and urgent national security threats facing this country. Ballistic missiles in the hands of a nation that has been our most implacable foe in the recent past and that has been the single most intransigent supporter of terrorism against this Nation and our allies should fill any right thinking person anywhere with the most profound fear and concern. Indeed, we here in this body have often expressed our concern. We have given the administration the tools to address this problem, specifically in the Arms Export Control Act and in the Iran-Iraq Sanctions Act. Regrettably, our concern and these tools have not yet resolved this threat. In fact, it is widely and reliably reported that persons in Russia continue to provide both technology and assistance to Iran such that Iran may be now only 8 months from acquiring ballistic missiles that could be combined with weapons of mass destruction to threaten United States forces and our allies and friends in the Middle East. And soon after that, our forces and allies throughout Europe. This would be a profound change in the balance of power in the region, and strike a serious, perhaps fatal blow to our ability to contain Iran until it becomes a responsible member of the community of nations. It would allow Iran to threaten friendly Arab states, making it harder for them to cooperate with the United States. It would raise the risks to U.S. military forces in the region. And it would threaten the free flow of oil in this critical region, which could create crises in places far from the Persian Gulf. We must act to try to prevent this from happening. We must tell Russia in no uncertain terms that we are serious, and that the time for slow progress in shutting off Russian assistance is past. Many of us are aware that the degree of government control over dangerous technology in the former Soviet Union has eroded considerably. While trying to remedy this potentially frightful situation, the Russian Government must contend with other pressing internal issues. The results are that persons or groups within Russia have had the latitude to transfer technology to rouge states such as Iran. We have the opportunity as well as the obligation to stand up, be counted, and take reasonable steps to deter this type of potentially cataclysmic activity. While we cannot expect to prevent all such technology transfers to rogue states, we do have the ability to check the flow of it through sanctions aimed at persons engaged in such activity. We also are able and must take appropriate action against those governments that condone such activity, whether they are organizing and abetting such transfer or merely looking the other way when their citizens engage in these activities. For many years, the United States and the few other members of the missile club of nations could be reasonably assured that these missiles armed with nuclear weapons would not be used. That was because the leaders of these nations were generally reasoned individuals who shared many of the same goals. As this technology has spread to other countries--and continues to expand at an alarming rate--some of the leaders share very different views on methods to solve confrontation. We have to actively guard against these weapons becoming available to what most of the world considers to be unstable states governed by leaders whose thinking is outside the mainstream. We have been engaged in dialogue across a wide spectrum with our friends and allies in trying to prevent this from happening. As I mentioned earlier, the prospect of a nuclear capable, militarily powerful Iran armed with ballistic missiles, is clearly not in our national interests. Our efforts at putting controls on the flow of technology to rogue states have been laudable, but the sieve has been leaking. The sanctions we are proposing will further stop the diffusion of technology and lead toward a more stable Middle East. I fully support this effort because it will help prevent further technology transfer into an area that has seen several major wars in the last thirty years and that remains a region of vital national interest not only to us but to most of the industrial world. In closing, I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Senator Lott for his leadership in this matter. This is an important step toward a safer world.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my friend and colleague Senator Lott, and the other cosponsors, in offering this bill which addresses what I believe is one of the most serious and urgent national security threats facing this country. Ballistic missiles in the hands of a nation that has been our most implacable foe in the recent past and that has been the single most intransigent supporter of terrorism against this Nation and our allies should fill any right thinking person anywhere with the most profound fear and concern. Indeed, we here in this body have often expressed our concern. We have given the administration the tools to address this problem, specifically in the Arms Export Control Act and in the Iran-Iraq Sanctions Act. Regrettably, our concern and these tools have not yet resolved this threat. In fact, it is widely and reliably reported that persons in Russia continue to provide both technology and assistance to Iran such that Iran may be now only 8 months from acquiring ballistic missiles that could be combined with weapons of mass destruction to threaten United States forces and our allies and friends in the Middle East. And soon after that, our forces and allies throughout Europe. This would be a profound change in the balance of power in the region, and strike a serious, perhaps fatal blow to our ability to contain Iran until it becomes a responsible member of the community of nations. It would allow Iran to threaten friendly Arab states, making it harder for them to cooperate with the United States. It would raise the risks to U.S. military forces in the region. And it would threaten the free flow of oil in this critical region, which could create crises in places far from the Persian Gulf. We must act to try to prevent this from happening. We must tell Russia in no uncertain terms that we are serious, and that the time for slow progress in shutting off Russian assistance is past. Many of us are aware that the degree of government control over dangerous technology in the former Soviet Union has eroded considerably. While trying to remedy this potentially frightful situation, the Russian Government must contend with other pressing internal issues. The results are that persons or groups within Russia have had the latitude to transfer technology to rouge states such as Iran. We have the opportunity as well as the obligation to stand up, be counted, and take reasonable steps to deter this type of potentially cataclysmic activity. While we cannot expect to prevent all such technology transfers to rogue states, we do have the ability to check the flow of it through sanctions aimed at persons engaged in such activity. We also are able and must take appropriate action against those governments that condone such activity, whether they are organizing and abetting such transfer or merely looking the other way when their citizens engage in these activities. For many years, the United States and the few other members of the missile club of nations could be reasonably assured that these missiles armed with nuclear weapons would not be used. That was because the leaders of these nations were generally reasoned individuals who shared many of the same goals. As this technology has spread to other countries--and continues to expand at an alarming rate--some of the leaders share very different views on methods to solve confrontation. We have to actively guard against these weapons becoming available to what most of the world considers to be unstable states governed by leaders whose thinking is outside the mainstream. We have been engaged in dialogue across a wide spectrum with our friends and allies in trying to prevent this from happening. As I mentioned earlier, the prospect of a nuclear capable, militarily powerful Iran armed with ballistic missiles, is clearly not in our national interests. Our efforts at putting controls on the flow of technology to rogue states have been laudable, but the sieve has been leaking. The sanctions we are proposing will further stop the diffusion of technology and lead toward a more stable Middle East. I fully support this effort because it will help prevent further technology transfer into an area that has seen several major wars in the last thirty years and that remains a region of vital national interest not only to us but to most of the industrial world. In closing, I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Senator Lott for his leadership in this matter. This is an important step toward a safer world.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the National Research Investment Act of 1998, which Senator Gramm and I introduced this morning, is important legislation designed to reverse a downward trend in the Federal Government's allocation to science and engineering research. Although America currently enjoys a vibrant economy, with robust growth of over 4 percent and record low unemployment, we should pause for a moment to examine reasons which underlie our current prosperity. In one of the few models agreed upon by a vast majority of economists, Dr. Robert Solow won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that at least half of the total growth in the U.S. economy since the end of World War II is attributable to scientific and technological innovation. In other words, money spent to increase scientific and engineering knowledge represents an investment which pays rich dividends for America's future. Dr. Solow's economic theory is the story of our Nation's innovation system--a system that has transformed scientific and technological innovation into a potent engine of economic growth for America. In broad terms, our innovation system consists of industrial, academic, and governmental institutions working together to generate new knowledge, new technologies, and people with the skills to move them effectively into the marketplace. Publicly funded science has shown to be surprisingly important to the innovation system. A new study prepared for the National Science Foundation found that 73 percent of the main science papers cited by American industrial patents in two recent years were based on domestic and foreign research financed by governments or nonprofit agencies. Patents are the most visible expression of industrial creativity and the major way that companies and inventors are able to reap benefits from a bright idea. Even though industry now spends far more than the Federal Government on research, the fact that most patents result from research performed at universities, government labs, and other public agencies demonstrate our dependence on these institutions for the vast majority of economic activity. Such publicly funded science, the study concluded, has turned into a fundamental pillar of industrial advance. Last week's awarding of the Nobel Prize to Dr. William Phillips from the Government's National Institute of Standards and Technology provides a wonderful example of how publicly funded science pays dividends. Dr. Phillips was honored for his work which used laser light to cool and trap individual atoms and molecules. I am told that the methods developed by Dr. Phillips and his coworkers may lead to the design of more precise atomic clocks for use in global navigation systems and atomic lasers, which may be used to manufacture very small electronic components for the next generation of computers. Dr. Phillips' achievement is the most visible recognition of the Department of Commerce's laboratory. Since 1901, however, the agency has quietly carried out research to develop accurate measurement and calibration techniques. The NIST laboratory, together with Commerce's technology programs, have greatly aided American business and earned our Nation billions of dollars in industries such as electrical power, semiconductor manufacturing, medical, agricultural, food processing, and building materials. Yet, despite the demonstrated importance of publicly funded scientific research, the amount spent on science and engineering by the Federal Government is declining. Senator Gramm has already noted that ``in 1965, 5.7 percent of the Federal budget was spent on nondefense research and development. Thirty two years later, that figure has dropped by two-thirds to 1.9 percent.'' If you believe as I do, that our current prosperity, intellectual leadership in science and medicine and the growth of entire new industries are directly linked to investments made 30 years ago, then you have got to ask where will this country be 30 years from now? At the same time, it is likely that several countries, particularly in Asia, will exceed on a per capita basis, the U.S. expenditure in science. Japan is already spending more than we are in absolute dollars on nondefense research and development. This is an historic reversal. Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and India are aggressively promoting R&D investment. These facts led Erich Bloch, the former head of the National Science Foundation, to write that the ``whole U.S. R&D system is in the midst of a crucial transition. Its rate of growth has leveled off and could decline. We cannot assume that we will stay at the forefront of science and technology as we have for 50 years.'' The future implications of our failure to invest can be better understood if we consider what our lives would be like today without the scientific innovations of those past 50 years. Imagine medicine without x rays, surgical lasers, MRI scanners, fiber-optic probes, synthetic materials for making medical implants, and the host of new drugs that combat cancer and even show promise as suppressors of the AIDS virus. Consider how it would be to face tough choices about how to protect the environment without knowledge of upper atmospheric physics, chemistry of the ozone layer or understanding how toxic substances effect human health. Imagine communication without faxes, desktop computers, the internet, or satellites. Less tangible but nonetheless disconcerting, is the prospect of a future for our country of free thinkers, if all new advances and innovation were to originate from outside of America's shores. Although difficult, the partisan conflicts and rifts of the past several years may have performed a useful service in clarifying the debate over when public funding on research is justified. Senator Gramm and I have discussed this topic at some length. We believe it is a mistake to separate research into two warring camps, one flying the flag of basic science and the other applied science. Rather the research enterprise represents a broad spectrum of human activity with basic and applied science at either end but not in opposition. Every component along the spectrum produces returns--economic, social, and intellectual gains for the society as a whole. The Federal Government should patiently invest in science, medicine, and engineering that lies within the public domain. Once an industry or company begins to pursue proprietary research, then support for that particular venture is best left to the private sector. This is what we mean by the term ``precompetitive research.'' With introduction of the National Research Investment Act of 1998, we begin a bipartisan effort to build a consensus that will support a significant increase in Federal research and development efforts. I am particularly appreciative of the support given today from nearly 100 different scientific and engineering professional societies which collectively represent many more than 1 million members. Accomplishments of your members illuminate the role that science and engineering plays in the innovation process. In a Wall Street Journal survey of leading economists published in March, 43 percent cited investments in education and research and development as the Federal action that would have the most positive impact on our economy. No other factors, including reducing Government spending or lowering taxes, scored more than 10 percent. While Senator Gramm and I are certainly committed to fiscal responsibility and balancing the budget, we think that the country would be best served by promoting investments in education and R&D and reducing entitlement consumption spending. Failure to do so now may well imperil America's future economic vitality and our leadership in science and technology.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the National Research Investment Act of 1998, which Senator Gramm and I introduced this morning, is important legislation designed to reverse a downward trend in the Federal Government's allocation to science and engineering research. Although America currently enjoys a vibrant economy, with robust growth of over 4 percent and record low unemployment, we should pause for a moment to examine reasons which underlie our current prosperity. In one of the few models agreed upon by a vast majority of economists, Dr. Robert Solow won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that at least half of the total growth in the U.S. economy since the end of World War II is attributable to scientific and technological innovation. In other words, money spent to increase scientific and engineering knowledge represents an investment which pays rich dividends for America's future. Dr. Solow's economic theory is the story of our Nation's innovation system--a system that has transformed scientific and technological innovation into a potent engine of economic growth for America. In broad terms, our innovation system consists of industrial, academic, and governmental institutions working together to generate new knowledge, new technologies, and people with the skills to move them effectively into the marketplace. Publicly funded science has shown to be surprisingly important to the innovation system. A new study prepared for the National Science Foundation found that 73 percent of the main science papers cited by American industrial patents in two recent years were based on domestic and foreign research financed by governments or nonprofit agencies. Patents are the most visible expression of industrial creativity and the major way that companies and inventors are able to reap benefits from a bright idea. Even though industry now spends far more than the Federal Government on research, the fact that most patents result from research performed at universities, government labs, and other public agencies demonstrate our dependence on these institutions for the vast majority of economic activity. Such publicly funded science, the study concluded, has turned into a fundamental pillar of industrial advance. Last week's awarding of the Nobel Prize to Dr. William Phillips from the Government's National Institute of Standards and Technology provides a wonderful example of how publicly funded science pays dividends. Dr. Phillips was honored for his work which used laser light to cool and trap individual atoms and molecules. I am told that the methods developed by Dr. Phillips and his coworkers may lead to the design of more precise atomic clocks for use in global navigation systems and atomic lasers, which may be used to manufacture very small electronic components for the next generation of computers. Dr. Phillips' achievement is the most visible recognition of the Department of Commerce's laboratory. Since 1901, however, the agency has quietly carried out research to develop accurate measurement and calibration techniques. The NIST laboratory, together with Commerce's technology programs, have greatly aided American business and earned our Nation billions of dollars in industries such as electrical power, semiconductor manufacturing, medical, agricultural, food processing, and building materials. Yet, despite the demonstrated importance of publicly funded scientific research, the amount spent on science and engineering by the Federal Government is declining. Senator Gramm has already noted that ``in 1965, 5.7 percent of the Federal budget was spent on nondefense research and development. Thirty two years later, that figure has dropped by two-thirds to 1.9 percent.'' If you believe as I do, that our current prosperity, intellectual leadership in science and medicine and the growth of entire new industries are directly linked to investments made 30 years ago, then you have got to ask where will this country be 30 years from now? At the same time, it is likely that several countries, particularly in Asia, will exceed on a per capita basis, the U.S. expenditure in science. Japan is already spending more than we are in absolute dollars on nondefense research and development. This is an historic reversal. Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and India are aggressively promoting R&D investment. These facts led Erich Bloch, the former head of the National Science Foundation, to write that the ``whole U.S. R&D system is in the midst of a crucial transition. Its rate of growth has leveled off and could decline. We cannot assume that we will stay at the forefront of science and technology as we have for 50 years.'' The future implications of our failure to invest can be better understood if we consider what our lives would be like today without the scientific innovations of those past 50 years. Imagine medicine without x rays, surgical lasers, MRI scanners, fiber-optic probes, synthetic materials for making medical implants, and the host of new drugs that combat cancer and even show promise as suppressors of the AIDS virus. Consider how it would be to face tough choices about how to protect the environment without knowledge of upper atmospheric physics, chemistry of the ozone layer or understanding how toxic substances effect human health. Imagine communication without faxes, desktop computers, the internet, or satellites. Less tangible but nonetheless disconcerting, is the prospect of a future for our country of free thinkers, if all new advances and innovation were to originate from outside of America's shores. Although difficult, the partisan conflicts and rifts of the past several years may have performed a useful service in clarifying the debate over when public funding on research is justified. Senator Gramm and I have discussed this topic at some length. We believe it is a mistake to separate research into two warring camps, one flying the flag of basic science and the other applied science. Rather the research enterprise represents a broad spectrum of human activity with basic and applied science at either end but not in opposition. Every component along the spectrum produces returns--economic, social, and intellectual gains for the society as a whole. The Federal Government should patiently invest in science, medicine, and engineering that lies within the public domain. Once an industry or company begins to pursue proprietary research, then support for that particular venture is best left to the private sector. This is what we mean by the term ``precompetitive research.'' With introduction of the National Research Investment Act of 1998, we begin a bipartisan effort to build a consensus that will support a significant increase in Federal research and development efforts. I am particularly appreciative of the support given today from nearly 100 different scientific and engineering professional societies which collectively represent many more than 1 million members. Accomplishments of your members illuminate the role that science and engineering plays in the innovation process. In a Wall Street Journal survey of leading economists published in March, 43 percent cited investments in education and research and development as the Federal action that would have the most positive impact on our economy. No other factors, including reducing Government spending or lowering taxes, scored more than 10 percent. While Senator Gramm and I are certainly committed to fiscal responsibility and balancing the budget, we think that the country would be best served by promoting investments in education and R&D and reducing entitlement consumption spending. Failure to do so now may well imperil America's future economic vitality and our leadership in science and technology.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am honored to be joined by my distinguished colleagues Senators Hagel, Kerrey, and Murkowski to introduce the United States-China Relations Act of 1997. I would also like to thank Congressman Bereuter whose bill H.R. 1712, we have included in this act. The United States-China Relations Act of 1997 is legislation that will set us on a course toward more fully integrating China into the international community of nations while protecting our national economic and political interests and preserving our values. We are at a critical juncture in our relations with the People's Republic of China. How we choose to manage China's emergence as a major global power will profoundly impact the shape of the international system in the 21st century, a situation not dissimilar to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States emerged to challenge Britain and France for world leadership. British and French diplomacy failed although their task was not an easy one. Two terrible wars stained the history of this century. We must try to do better. We must work to establish an acceptable framework for peacefully integrating China into the evolving international economic, security, and political systems. And the core question is whether to continue on our current path of cooperation and integration or choose the path of containment and isolation. During this session there has been much debate about which direction we should take in our relations with China. Most of the legislation that has been introduced regarding China has assumed the worst, centered on containment, and favored economic sanctions to remedy a host of Chinese transgressions. This policy of containment is ultimately premised on a view that China will be our next great enemy. Some of my colleagues ask us to pass laws that use punishment as the primary tool in our bilateral relationship. These proposals overlook a number of realities: the ineffectiveness and unproductiveness of punitive legislation in changing China; the importance of maintaining and fostering trust and confidence in such an important bilateral relationship; the real potential for retaliation by China; and the potential upsides of a constructive relationship with China. Ultimately, those bills proposing containment of China will neither achieve their stated aims of changing China's behavior nor promote America's more general national and international interests. The rest of the world will not join us in our effort to isolate China. That makes containment improbable. Our best policy option is to work to integrate China. Before rushing to any conclusions about China's intentions, it is helpful to take a closer look at its development over the past 20 years. China has been engaged in a slow but steady effort to integrate itself into existing international systems. It has made efforts to be active in the United Nations, it has participated in a number of multilateral organizations, and has adapted some domestic institutions and policies to the demands of the international community. I visited China last March with my friend and distinguished colleague, Senator Connie Mack of Florida, and was struck by the revolutionary changes occurring there. This time the revolution is being driven not by Mao's little red book, but by the mass quest for cellular telephones and personal computers, and incidentally, all the personal freedom of communication that goes with them. The central government in China is still not tolerant of opposition. Political and religious dissidents are in jail. On the other hand, average Chinese seem to have lost their fear of open and spirited conversations with Westerners. And Senator Mack found the Catholic churches during that Holy Week before Easter packed with worshipers. The Chinese Government has undertaken a slow but steady deregulation of the economy since it allowed for free enterprise in the countryside in 1982. Deregulation and the marketization of the Chinese economy has led to unprecedented improvements in the living standards--and purchasing power--of ordinary Chinese. In the past 15 years, China's per capita GDP has more than tripled, from $889 to $2,923, and is forecast to be $4,190 in 2000. Not uncoincidentally, China's demand for United States exports has increased in similarly substantial leaps. United States goods and services exports destined for China have increased from $3.7 million in 1980 to $11.1 billion in 1995. China is now America's fifth largest trading partner. Similarly, United States foreign direct investment in China has increased significantly. On the other hand, we have a large and growing trade deficit with China that is unacceptable. A prosperous and stable relationship will only continue for as long as we have fair access to China's markets. On balance, China's economic and political reforms are becoming more, not less, consistent with American core values. The transformation of a socialist command economy into a controlled market system has allowed for the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs and has promoted individuals' freedom to decide what to consume, where to live, what to do as a livelihood. The State sector of the economy has steadily declined, and increasing numbers of Chinese now work for employers that do not answer directly to the central government or the Communist Party. This means that the Communist Party's ability to control and monitor individual's social, political, and economic lives has diminished substantially. Explicit political reforms have been fewer, but today there are more local elections being held in China than at any other time in its modern history. The legal system has been reinvented over the past two decades, and has seen in recent years substantial, though still inadequate, improvements in criminal procedure and judicial review of administrative abuses. It can be said in summary that, the reforms of the past two decades have led to increased personal liberty, a strengthened legal system, and the beginnings of a civil society, although there is still a very long way to go. In the clearest and most significant vote about China this year, a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives chose to continue China's most-favored-nation trade status. But, after the vote, a flurry of bills were introduced expressing congressional opposition to China's economic, military, and human rights record. It is unfortunate that the Congress is sending mixed messages about this very important bilateral relationship. To encourage China's current path of reform and development and to help ensure that China's inevitable transformation into a global economic and strategic power occurs in a way not adverse to United States interests or values, the United States must have an active China policy that aims at integration instead of isolation, and relies on carrots rather than sticks. To ensure that our economic interests are met, we need to encourage China's increasing integration into international trade and investment regimes on commercially viable terms. This should help promote further liberalization of the Chinese economy while at the same time increasing American access to China's markets and thus decreasing the United States-China trade deficit. At the same time, the United States Government can more actively promote bilateral economic ties with those regions in China where human rights and labor conditions have shown improvement. Moreover, we should at every opportunity encourage China in the research and development of new energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. China's integration in international regimes also promotes American strategic interests. The bilateral strategic relationship can be strengthened, however, by developing closer exchanges with the Chinese military leadership. By opening ongoing lines of communication with the military, we will be in a better position to obtain accurate information about China's military modernization program. Through such proactive measures we will be in a better position to make Beijing more accountable for its strategic weapons exports. It is time for Congress to end the ambivalence and build a consensus for a new China policy. Toward that end, along with my distinguished colleagues Senators Hagel, Kerrey, and Murkowski, I am today introducing the United States-China Relations Act of 1997. This legislation assumes that China will emerge as a superpower in the coming decades and become a nation with which the United States can and must have cooperative relationships --and that our relationships will be more cooperative if our economic, strategic, human rights, and environmental relations are viewed as distinct components of a larger, mutually-beneficial whole. It is based on a conclusion that China today is different from the China of the Cultural Revolution two decades ago and the China of Tiananmen Square a decade ago. Here are some of the key provisions of the United States-China Relations Act of 1997: Require an annual accounting of our economic relationship with China. Despite the growing significance of our trade relationship, barriers to U.S. exports should not be tolerated. The President would be required to submit an annual Economic Balance of Benefits Study to the Congress. The report would analyze the impact of existing bilateral trade agreements with China on United States employment, balance of trade, and United States international competitiveness. Encourage China's integration into multilateral economic organizations. Just as it is important to have enforcement sticks, there should be carrots to encourage China's international economic integration. The bill requires the President to develop criteria for support of China's participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and G-7 meetings, two groups that China is far from being accepted into, but in which it aspires to membership. Give China permanent MFN upon accession to the WTO. First, I would like to credit Congressman Bereuter for this innovative idea. This provision seeks to induce China to grant United States exporters adequate trade benefits and/or make significant progress toward WTO membership by authorizing a tariff increase on imports from China if those conditions are not met and by granting permanent MFN status once China becomes a WTO member. Require greater information on energy and national security issues. The President should establish a bilateral United States-China committee on energy security and one for food security. These committees would help develop a bilateral policy for securing a stable supply of energy from politically volatile regions and securing food for China's large population. The bill also includes a sense-of-the- Senate resolution that the President and Congress continue to expand contact and exchanges between United States and Chinese national security personnel. Establish a commission to promote the rule of law, respect for individual rights, religious tolerance, and civil society in China. This includes a bilateral commission on human rights with China; an exchange of legal professionals, government staff and religious leaders; and multilateral action on human and workers' rights. This last provision would include a prisoner information registry with information on all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and prisoners of faith. The commission could recommend the imposition of specified sanctions to the President for human rights violations. There is one provision more than any other that characterizes the tone and thrust of this act. It calls for the formation of a commission to prepare a profile of China province by province. This profile then would serve as a basis for consideration of transactions with China by the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in those identified provinces. This provision is particularly helpful in improving and strengthening our relations with China. By opening up OPIC programs to regions that have acceptable human rights, labor, and environmental standards, we are increasing investment into China at the same time we are advancing our values. It is a provision that encourages China to improve its human rights record without punitive economic sanctions. It uses a carrot instead of a stick. America's economic and strategic interests, as well as our fundamental values, are best served by encouraging China on its path of economic and political reform. China's geopolitical and economic rise are inevitable developments. How we react to China's transformation and manage the bilateral relationship, however, is within our discretion. United States-China relations are at a critical turning point, and the real challenge before us now is how to peacefully integrate China into the world community, and work with China to ensure world prosperity and stability in the 21st century. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the United States-China Relations Act of 1997 which I am proud to introduce with Senators Hagel, Kerrey, and Murkowski be placed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am honored to be joined by my distinguished colleagues Senators Hagel, Kerrey, and Murkowski to introduce the United States-China Relations Act of 1997. I would also like to thank Congressman Bereuter whose bill H.R. 1712, we have included in this act. The United States-China Relations Act of 1997 is legislation that will set us on a course toward more fully integrating China into the international community of nations while protecting our national economic and political interests and preserving our values. We are at a critical juncture in our relations with the People's Republic of China. How we choose to manage China's emergence as a major global power will profoundly impact the shape of the international system in the 21st century, a situation not dissimilar to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States emerged to challenge Britain and France for world leadership. British and French diplomacy failed although their task was not an easy one. Two terrible wars stained the history of this century. We must try to do better. We must work to establish an acceptable framework for peacefully integrating China into the evolving international economic, security, and political systems. And the core question is whether to continue on our current path of cooperation and integration or choose the path of containment and isolation. During this session there has been much debate about which direction we should take in our relations with China. Most of the legislation that has been introduced regarding China has assumed the worst, centered on containment, and favored economic sanctions to remedy a host of Chinese transgressions. This policy of containment is ultimately premised on a view that China will be our next great enemy. Some of my colleagues ask us to pass laws that use punishment as the primary tool in our bilateral relationship. These proposals overlook a number of realities: the ineffectiveness and unproductiveness of punitive legislation in changing China; the importance of maintaining and fostering trust and confidence in such an important bilateral relationship; the real potential for retaliation by China; and the potential upsides of a constructive relationship with China. Ultimately, those bills proposing containment of China will neither achieve their stated aims of changing China's behavior nor promote America's more general national and international interests. The rest of the world will not join us in our effort to isolate China. That makes containment improbable. Our best policy option is to work to integrate China. Before rushing to any conclusions about China's intentions, it is helpful to take a closer look at its development over the past 20 years. China has been engaged in a slow but steady effort to integrate itself into existing international systems. It has made efforts to be active in the United Nations, it has participated in a number of multilateral organizations, and has adapted some domestic institutions and policies to the demands of the international community. I visited China last March with my friend and distinguished colleague, Senator Connie Mack of Florida, and was struck by the revolutionary changes occurring there. This time the revolution is being driven not by Mao's little red book, but by the mass quest for cellular telephones and personal computers, and incidentally, all the personal freedom of communication that goes with them. The central government in China is still not tolerant of opposition. Political and religious dissidents are in jail. On the other hand, average Chinese seem to have lost their fear of open and spirited conversations with Westerners. And Senator Mack found the Catholic churches during that Holy Week before Easter packed with worshipers. The Chinese Government has undertaken a slow but steady deregulation of the economy since it allowed for free enterprise in the countryside in 1982. Deregulation and the marketization of the Chinese economy has led to unprecedented improvements in the living standards--and purchasing power--of ordinary Chinese. In the past 15 years, China's per capita GDP has more than tripled, from $889 to $2,923, and is forecast to be $4,190 in 2000. Not uncoincidentally, China's demand for United States exports has increased in similarly substantial leaps. United States goods and services exports destined for China have increased from $3.7 million in 1980 to $11.1 billion in 1995. China is now America's fifth largest trading partner. Similarly, United States foreign direct investment in China has increased significantly. On the other hand, we have a large and growing trade deficit with China that is unacceptable. A prosperous and stable relationship will only continue for as long as we have fair access to China's markets. On balance, China's economic and political reforms are becoming more, not less, consistent with American core values. The transformation of a socialist command economy into a controlled market system has allowed for the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs and has promoted individuals' freedom to decide what to consume, where to live, what to do as a livelihood. The State sector of the economy has steadily declined, and increasing numbers of Chinese now work for employers that do not answer directly to the central government or the Communist Party. This means that the Communist Party's ability to control and monitor individual's social, political, and economic lives has diminished substantially. Explicit political reforms have been fewer, but today there are more local elections being held in China than at any other time in its modern history. The legal system has been reinvented over the past two decades, and has seen in recent years substantial, though still inadequate, improvements in criminal procedure and judicial review of administrative abuses. It can be said in summary that, the reforms of the past two decades have led to increased personal liberty, a strengthened legal system, and the beginnings of a civil society, although there is still a very long way to go. In the clearest and most significant vote about China this year, a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives chose to continue China's most-favored-nation trade status. But, after the vote, a flurry of bills were introduced expressing congressional opposition to China's economic, military, and human rights record. It is unfortunate that the Congress is sending mixed messages about this very important bilateral relationship. To encourage China's current path of reform and development and to help ensure that China's inevitable transformation into a global economic and strategic power occurs in a way not adverse to United States interests or values, the United States must have an active China policy that aims at integration instead of isolation, and relies on carrots rather than sticks. To ensure that our economic interests are met, we need to encourage China's increasing integration into international trade and investment regimes on commercially viable terms. This should help promote further liberalization of the Chinese economy while at the same time increasing American access to China's markets and thus decreasing the United States-China trade deficit. At the same time, the United States Government can more actively promote bilateral economic ties with those regions in China where human rights and labor conditions have shown improvement. Moreover, we should at every opportunity encourage China in the research and development of new energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. China's integration in international regimes also promotes American strategic interests. The bilateral strategic relationship can be strengthened, however, by developing closer exchanges with the Chinese military leadership. By opening ongoing lines of communication with the military, we will be in a better position to obtain accurate information about China's military modernization program. Through such proactive measures we will be in a better position to make Beijing more accountable for its strategic weapons exports. It is time for Congress to end the ambivalence and build a consensus for a new China policy. Toward that end, along with my distinguished colleagues Senators Hagel, Kerrey, and Murkowski, I am today introducing the United States-China Relations Act of 1997. This legislation assumes that China will emerge as a superpower in the coming decades and become a nation with which the United States can and must have cooperative relationships --and that our relationships will be more cooperative if our economic, strategic, human rights, and environmental relations are viewed as distinct components of a larger, mutually-beneficial whole. It is based on a conclusion that China today is different from the China of the Cultural Revolution two decades ago and the China of Tiananmen Square a decade ago. Here are some of the key provisions of the United States-China Relations Act of 1997: Require an annual accounting of our economic relationship with China. Despite the growing significance of our trade relationship, barriers to U.S. exports should not be tolerated. The President would be required to submit an annual Economic Balance of Benefits Study to the Congress. The report would analyze the impact of existing bilateral trade agreements with China on United States employment, balance of trade, and United States international competitiveness. Encourage China's integration into multilateral economic organizations. Just as it is important to have enforcement sticks, there should be carrots to encourage China's international economic integration. The bill requires the President to develop criteria for support of China's participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and G-7 meetings, two groups that China is far from being accepted into, but in which it aspires to membership. Give China permanent MFN upon accession to the WTO. First, I would like to credit Congressman Bereuter for this innovative idea. This provision seeks to induce China to grant United States exporters adequate trade benefits and/or make significant progress toward WTO membership by authorizing a tariff increase on imports from China if those conditions are not met and by granting permanent MFN status once China becomes a WTO member. Require greater information on energy and national security issues. The President should establish a bilateral United States-China committee on energy security and one for food security. These committees would help develop a bilateral policy for securing a stable supply of energy from politically volatile regions and securing food for China's large population. The bill also includes a sense-of-the- Senate resolution that the President and Congress continue to expand contact and exchanges between United States and Chinese national security personnel. Establish a commission to promote the rule of law, respect for individual rights, religious tolerance, and civil society in China. This includes a bilateral commission on human rights with China; an exchange of legal professionals, government staff and religious leaders; and multilateral action on human and workers' rights. This last provision would include a prisoner information registry with information on all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and prisoners of faith. The commission could recommend the imposition of specified sanctions to the President for human rights violations. There is one provision more than any other that characterizes the tone and thrust of this act. It calls for the formation of a commission to prepare a profile of China province by province. This profile then would serve as a basis for consideration of transactions with China by the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in those identified provinces. This provision is particularly helpful in improving and strengthening our relations with China. By opening up OPIC programs to regions that have acceptable human rights, labor, and environmental standards, we are increasing investment into China at the same time we are advancing our values. It is a provision that encourages China to improve its human rights record without punitive economic sanctions. It uses a carrot instead of a stick. America's economic and strategic interests, as well as our fundamental values, are best served by encouraging China on its path of economic and political reform. China's geopolitical and economic rise are inevitable developments. How we react to China's transformation and manage the bilateral relationship, however, is within our discretion. United States-China relations are at a critical turning point, and the real challenge before us now is how to peacefully integrate China into the world community, and work with China to ensure world prosperity and stability in the 21st century. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the United States-China Relations Act of 1997 which I am proud to introduce with Senators Hagel, Kerrey, and Murkowski be placed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the accomplishments of Hispanos Unidos Contra El SIDA/AIDS, Inc. of New Haven, CT, as they celebrate their 10th anniversary. In 1987, this organization was founded by a group of concerned citizens as Connecticut's first Latino AIDS agency. Since that time, this dedicated group of men and women have worked to both curb the spread of AIDS through education and provided support services to infected members of the Latino community and their families. By serving as a fully bilingual/bicultural resource, support and advocacy agency, Hispanos Unidos Contra El SIDA/AIDS has not only been effective at serving its own clients, but has helped other community and government organizations better serve the Latino community as well. The dedication and commitment of the staff are evident not only in their casework but also in the partnerships and coalitions they form with State and local government and nonprofit agencies. In this way they are able to assist those most immediately in need while also working to better coordinate local, regional and statewide efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. They are the true embodiments of the ideals of compassion and community service, and the people of Connecticut thank them for the important work they have done for the past ten years and will continue to do in the future.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my colleague from Indiana. Let me pick up on what was said by Senator Coats, citing that this amendment is bleeding the system. Good God, the system is bleeding. It is not this amendment that is bleeding it. What is bleeding it is the failure of the system, and the blood that is being lost are the hopes and dreams of thousands of parents and children trapped in the school system who know it is a failure for them, who know it is not working for them. I appeal to my colleagues, particularly my Democratic colleagues, please look at the facts, cut through the rhetoric. I know there is strong pressure from interest groups representing the establishment, the education status quo. I know that my colleagues on the Democratic side are great believers in the public school system. But remember those words that I think were spoken by John Gardner, that too often debates are between those who are unloving critics and uncritical lovers. We all love the public school system, but open our eyes, look what is happening here. Senator Kennedy earlier in charting progress in the school system in the District of Columbia said in the last period of time the number of uncertified teachers went from more than 50 to 33 percent. Is that a sign of progress? Yes, it is progress. That is why Senator Brownback and I are working with Delegate Norton and others to bring more money to the District and support General Becton. But think about the reality. How many Members of this Senate would send their children to a school system in which one-third of the teachers were uncertified, unless they were forced to send them there because they didn't have the money to get them out. The Senator from California earlier said, gee, let's take this money, and my colleague and friend from Illinois added, let's put it on top, give it to all the kids, instead of just benefiting this relatively small group of 2,000. The Washington Post said a while ago in an editorial that the D.C. school system is a well-financed failure. So choice here is whether you will put $7 million on top of the more than $600 million we put into the system and better finance the failure instead of giving that money and focusing it on 2,000 kids and thereby giving them the opportunity for a better education and a better life. The D.C. school system already spends $7,655 a year, more than $1,500 greater than the national average spent, per student in schools, more than $1,000 greater than that spent in the school districts in the neighboring counties of Maryland and Virginia. The debate is not about whether you are for the public schools. Senator Brownback as the chairman and I as the ranking Democrat have worked very hard with General Becton. Progress is being made. This is a system in which buildings are still deteriorating, are deteriorated, kids are afraid to go to schools, teachers are afraid to come and teach. Half the children are dropping out. The longer they stay in the school system, the worse they do compared to national averages on the standardized tests. We are saying here on this amendment, while we are all working with General Becton to improve this school system, let's recognize that this is a building on fire and let's get some kids out of those parts of the building on fire to give them a chance to better themselves. This is not a choice between public schools and private, parochial schools. That is a false choice. You can support this amendment and support the public schools in the District. The true choice here is between preserving the status quo at all costs, which is slamming a door in the face of the parents and children who want to do better, and doing what is necessary to put those children first. In other words, asking whether the status quo of the public education orthodoxy, which is letting down so many children, is so important that we are willing to sacrifice the hopes and aspirations of thousands of children for the sake of a process, not for the sake of the children. What is the interest of government in education? Not to protect a particular form but to educate our children. That is what this amendment is about. It is not a panacea. We have a lot more work to do. There is a recent independent study of the scholarship program similar to this one in Cleveland, and they found it helped produce enormous academic gains in 1 year. The same is true in Milwaukee. Also, it will have an effect on this school system in the District, as competition does, to get them to improve what they are doing. Support for choice is growing widely. In a poll, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found support for school vouchers is surprisingly strong. They concluded it has substantially increased in the last year. A majority of African-Americans, 57.3 percent, and Hispanics, 65.4 percent, supported school vouchers. Mr. President, I want to make a direct appeal to my Democratic colleagues: I don't know why there is only a handful of us who are Democratic Members of this Senate supporting this proposal. This party of ours has been at its best when we have been for opportunity, when we have been for helping people up the ladder of American life--not to give a handout, but to give people a little help, to help them better themselves. That is what this is about. This is not about protecting a status quo, protecting education. Let's focus on human opportunity and the waste of human talent. In my opinion, voting against this measure, I say with respect, is about the equivalent of voting against Pell grants or the GI bill or child care programs or any of the host of other programs that Democrats, majority strong, proudly I say, have supported this year and over history. I think we have just become either uncritical lovers of the school system, the public school system, forgetting our primary education to the children who are there, or are being convinced by those who have a vested interest in the status quo that this is somehow, though on its face a good idea, the proverbial camel's nose under the tent. This is a lifeline for 2,000 children who are trapped in a school system where none of us would let our kids be. I don't mean all of it, but in many cases in this school system many of the schools we simply would not let our kids attend. We see it in the wealthiest section of this city. Choice supporters see that 65 percent of the families living in ward 3, the wealthiest in this city, send their children to private schools. Those ministers and children who came to see us from the poorest sections of this city asked us: Is it fair given this indictment of the District of Columbia public schools by the wealthier families and the wealthier neighborhoods for the Congress to force the poor and disenfranchised to attend schools that we would not ourselves? I appeal to my colleagues. Break out, break free, and let the kids-- 2,000 of them now trapped in this school system--have the freedom that our Constitution provides them, the opportunity that we try to give them, and a future that is their birthright as Americans. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Cloture Motion

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. This, as the tone of the debate indicates, is a critically important debate with consequences that go well beyond the subject at hand, campaign finance reform, because the infusion of massive amounts of money into our political process affects so many other areas in which we are supposed to govern and to legislate, and it is why this appropriately becomes a priority topic. As I hear the seriousness of the debate in the Chamber, I must share my own disappointment that there is murmuring outside the Chamber that nothing is going to happen this year, that there is not going to be any campaign finance reform legislation adopted, that this is just a lot of sound and fury which, as the bard reminded us, will signify nothing. Well, that would be an infuriating tragedy, an outrageous, in my opinion, abdication of our responsibility, a shocking refusal to face the facts that have come out at the hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, on which I am privileged to serve. That committee's hearings show that ours is a system in crisis, and it is a crisis that affects so many aspects of our Government. I hope these murmurings are wrong, and I hope that the debate we have begun in the Chamber will signify more than noise; it will signify the beginning of a genuine effort to change the laws, to go back in some ways to where we were after the last great campaign finance scandal, which was the Watergate scandal, to go back to the laws adopted after that scandal which set limits not only on contributions but on spending in a campaign. In my capacity as a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee, I have had what might be called a front-and-center view of the extraordinary failures of the status quo campaign finance system, failures that routinely stem from the corrupting influence of big money in politics. As if peeling back the layers of an onion, in this case a spoiled onion, our investigation slowly revealed story after story of unseemly and negligent behavior that all too often seemed to cross over the line into lawlessness. I know the Governmental Affairs Committee's hearings were controversial. Sometimes they were criticized for being partisan. In fact, sometimes they were too partisan. But the fact is, though they were not always orderly and they weren't always neat and they weren't always pretty, they told a story. They told a story of a system gone out of control and the consequences it has had on our great democracy. There was the international entrepreneur who never registered to vote because he thought his money was more influential than his franchise. The sad fact is, he was right. There was the story of the White House official who advised a potential contributor, whom he had never met, whom he had just talked to over the phone, about how to effectively skirt tax liabilities on a proposed donation of somewhere between $1 million and $5 million. There was the Republican Party research institute that defaulted on a loan from a Hong Kong businessman and then swindled him out of the interest he had earned on his own money, which was deposited as collateral for the loan; and the party chairman, Democratic Party chairman, who allegedly called on the CIA--although there is doubt on this, conflicting testimony, but an allegation that the chairman called on the CIA to help burnish the image of a questionable contributor. In no uncertain terms, as far as I am concerned, people with fat wallets bought access at the highest levels of our Government, executive and congressional, and some Government leaders were perfectly willing to auction off their clout. As California entrepreneur and major Democratic donor Johnny Chung observed, ``The White House is a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates.'' Clearly, the two parties, in their mad scramble for money, shamelessly exploited during the 1996 election cycle well-intentioned campaign finance laws to the point of rendering them meaningless. In the end, their debased standards of the pressure-cooker world of high- stakes election campaigns mocked one of the basic principles of our democracy, the principle that all citizens have an equal vote, an equal voice in the governance of their country, an equal opportunity to influence its policies. Now we have an unfettered political fundraising system that neither serves the public interest nor deserves the public trust. No wonder the American people look on politics with a jaundiced eye. No wonder more and more of them have concluded their vote doesn't count, so they don't vote. I saw a survey awhile ago of 165 countries in the world today who conduct elections. The United States of America is 139th in terms of those of voting age who actually vote. Our proud democracy--we are proud to call it the greatest democracy in the world--we are 139th among the countries of the world in the percentage of our population that can vote that actually does vote. Don't you think part of that has to do with the conclusion that millions of our fellow Americans have made that their vote doesn't count, not if they don't have money? The proposal offered by Senators McCain and Feingold is, in my opinion, our best hope for changing this unacceptable status quo and for reviving public faith in our Government. The key to real reform, I conclude after sitting through the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearings, is less big money and less special interest money in the election process. That is exactly what the McCain-Feingold bill would do. The central provision of this bill is a ban on soft money; that is, a ban on unlimited contributions to the two national parties from corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals. It is hard to believe, but it actually was 1907 when a law was passed by this Congress that made it illegal for corporations to contribute to political campaigns. In the 1940's a similar law was passed regarding labor unions. How is it that in the 1996 election corporations and labor unions contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars individually, millions in some cases? It is because of this so-called soft money, this little opening that was created in a vaguely worded law that was then interpreted by the Federal Election Commission to allow people to give unlimited amounts of money to parties to help voter registration, get out the vote, that turned into a loophole large enough for a fleet of trucks--not Mack trucks but Brinks trucks--to go driving through. The explosive growth of soft money and the way it is spent represents, in my opinion, the most egregious abuse of our campaign finance laws today. Most of the controversial donations from the 1996 campaigns were soft-money contributions. Most of the foreign money contributions that we took evidence on at the governmental Affairs Committee hearings were soft-money contributions. Soft money has played a role in Federal elections since 1980, the year after Congress tried, the way I mentioned, to enhance the role of national parties. But in 1996 it exploded--$272 million that we know of spent by both national parties in soft money in 1996, 13 times the amount spent in 1984, an increase that has dramatically changed the landscape of campaign fundraising and of American democracy. By the November 1996 elections, the soft-money loophole had become a cash bonanza for the two parties, an irresistible opportunity to raise and spend money, each driving the other to keep up, and the easiest way to do it was to raise big money. It became, for that reason, the most expedient way for an elite class of contributors to buy access; frankly, for an elite class of contributors to be exploited, in some sense coerced, by the political class into giving contributions of unprecedented size. The quintessential example of trading money for access was the brutally honest and now legendary Roger Tamraz. An international banker-businessman, Tamraz donated $300,000 to the Democratic Party because he wanted to talk to President Clinton and other high officials of our Government about his plans to finance an oil pipeline through the former Soviet Union. The National Security Council warned against admitting Tamraz to the White House. They had already decided, in the due and diligent exercise of Governmental decisionmaking, that his proposal was not the right proposal for a pipeline in that particular part of the world. They understood that he was falsely claiming White House support for his projects. They warned that, if high officials of our Government gave him even a meeting, even were seen close to him, he would trade on that proximity in the area of the world in which he was doing business. But Tamraz was nothing if not persistent. He said to us at one point that, ``I'm the kind of person, if I can't find my way through a door, I'll go through a window. And if that window is closed, I'll go through another window until I get in.'' He went so far as to enlist a buddy at the CIA to lobby the administration on his behalf. But what he really did was kept going to the window with his checkbook. Eventually, he was invited to six different social gatherings. The very troubling clincher is this. When I asked Tamraz when, not whether he registered to vote--because I then was going to ask him what party he was in, trying to prove the fact that parties didn't matter to him, ideology didn't matter to him, he was just buying access, he was trying to influence our Government with bucks--when I asked him when he registered to vote he shocked me by saying he wasn't registered to vote. When you think about it, in his world, the world that soft money invites, there is no need to register to vote. His money was more important and bought more access than any vote could. It was as if he was saying: Oh, voting is a nostalgic exercise for those millions of people out there who don't have influence--most Americans. They are the ones who can take the time to register and vote. I buy my way, in America, to the highest levels of power. So Mr. Tamraz seemed to be saying. The right to vote, which was central to the creation of our country, the right to vote, for which our founders and succeeding generations of Americans have fought and died, didn't matter to Tamraz. He figured it out--$300,000 bought him a lot more access in this democracy than anybody who just votes had. This standard is so well embedded in our political system that when I asked him whether he got his money's worth, even though he never actually won White House support for his pipeline nor got a separate private meeting with the President, Tamraz said next time he'd double that donation to $600,000. I am not naive. People have always tried to do what Roger Tamraz did. As long as there have been governments, as long as there have been people with any power in any human society, people have tried to seek favor by conveying items of worth, and they will continue to do so. But, when soft money contributions open the door to unlimited contributions, when the competitive pressure of our political campaigns raises leads to spending without limits, the temptations will be that much greater for the influence peddlers and purchasers, for the hustlers to try to buy something big. Frankly, the temptation will be that much greater and, ultimately, for many, irresistible, for those in power to sell what the influence purchasers are trying to buy. That is why, in short, we have to ban soft money. The attempt to influence Government with purchases is nothing new. Look in the Bible. There is a prohibition there against judges or other leaders accepting gifts from anyone who comes before them for judgment, anyone who is affected by their leadership. The wisdom there was based on an understanding of human nature and the need for those in government to set limits to protect themselves and those they governed. People in government who exercise power are, after all is said and done, beneath their titles, no matter how high they are, just human beings with the same frailties as everyone else. Put them in the public competitive reality of a political campaign, and too many will not be able to say no, particularly while they see their opponents saying yes. The Governmental Affairs Committee's hearings have built significant support for banning soft money. Just last week, John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO--his organization, in fact, contributed millions in soft money, almost all of it to the Democratic Party in the 1996 cycle--said, soft money donations are ``polluting our political system.'' Last week, a group of business leaders made essentially the same statement demanding a ban. Chief executives at Monsanto, General Motors, and Allied Signal have already dropped out of the soft money game. Why? They said it is impossible to track contributions to gauge their success. In other words, the payoff for five- or six- or seven- figure contributions is simply not worth the expense. I will tell you something else they didn't say. Members of the Senate may have heard, as I have, from people who were solicited for soft money contributions, large contributions. They felt coerced. They felt it hard to say no. Think about it, if you are the executive of a business and you have a lot of contact with the Government and are regulated by the Government, if you are the executive of a business that has matters before Congress and a high official in the executive branch or the legislative branch calls you and asks for a large soft money contribution, it is hard to say no. If we are successful only in banning soft money, however, as important as that is, our work will still be incomplete. Although I must say, if we could just ban soft money, I think we will have achieved enormously significant reform. But in the best of all worlds, it is not enough, and in the best of all bills, the McCain-Feingold bill, they don't stop at banning soft money. It is important to go on. Money is like water, it flows to the weakest point. Just as water spills through an unplugged gap in the dike, once one hole is filled, it will find the next hole, or it will find the weakest point in the dike to make a hole. Political money seeks unregulated gaps in our election laws. I do not say this simply as a matter of physics or theory. I say this, again, as a result of what we heard in the hearings before our committee. Money blocked by contribution limits to candidates flows instead into unlimited soft money contributions to parties. Money blocked by a soft money ban will be diverted in increasingly large amounts to unregulated issue ads. Issue ads are paid for by soft money raised by independent advocacy groups and parties. They are supposed to be about specific policy issues, not specific candidates. That is why unlimited amounts of money may be spent. But issue ads, as we heard discussed on this floor in the 2 days of this debate, have actually become stealth candidate ads. Widespread abuse in the last election saw these ads hiding behind the veil of issue advocacy, even as they promoted or attacked individual candidates. A study by the nonpartisan independent Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 87 percent of the so-called issue advertisements broadcast in 1996 mentioned a candidate by name--87 percent mentioned a candidate. Almost 60 percent showed the likeness of a candidate. The Annenberg study further found that more than 40 percent of the 1996 ads plainly attacked candidates, not issues. One of the witnesses before our committee said last week that by his review of the ads, the issue ads were actually more negative to candidates than the candidate ads were. Some ads don't bother with issues at all. One of these ads, run by opponents of a congressional candidate in Montana, simply used the air time to rehash the candidate's marital problems. Ads broadcast by the Democratic and Republican parties ostensibly on the issues in the 1996 Presidential campaign were little more than biography spots at best, promoting the election of President Clinton or of our former leader, Bob Dole. Issue ad sponsors, like the AFL-CIO or the National Rifle Association, are under no obligation to disclose the money they spend when they do issue ads. But when the ad zeros in on specific candidates, as we all know was the case and as the Annenberg study so brilliantly documents, clearly there is at least a violation of the spirit of the Federal spending limits. It is an end run on what the law says can be spent on a campaign. No one can be held accountable for the false or misleading information those ads might convey, because the public doesn't know who paid for the ads. And yet in the 1996 election cycle, advocacy groups and the two parties spent more than $135 million on issue ads. That is about one-third of the $400 million that was spent on broadcast advertising by all Federal candidates last year. Kathleen Hall Jameison, director of the Annenberg center, concluded that issue ads ``set an agenda different from that of either candidate and, in some cases, drown out the voices of these who are actually running for office.'' We run the risk here, Mr. President, of the candidates becoming bit players in a contest that occurs at a higher level between dueling interest groups spending millions of dollars running issue ads with soft money. McCain-Feingold appropriately proposes a more precise distinction between ads supporting or opposing an issue versus those supporting or opposing a candidate. I am convinced, based on my own reading of the Supreme Court decisions, that that provision will withstand the constitutional test. The soft money ban and the crackdown on illegal issue ads, which I have spoken to, are two of the most critically important and politically realistic reforms that we can hope to make. I say politically realistic in the sense of being related to the political reality that we all have experienced in campaigns, and it was vividly documented in the hearings that the committee held. Other provisions in the McCain-Feingold bill--strengthening disclosure requirements, outlawing the solicitation of campaign donations in Federal buildings and limiting the amount of personal money that candidates may contribute to their own campaign--will also help bring our fundraising system back under control. But, Mr. President, I regret that the bill has been stripped of the voluntary spending limits in it, because I believe that ultimately the best way to end corruption or the appearance of corruption in campaigns is to impose spending limits on campaigns. I know that there is a disagreement among Members on whether that would be constitutional. Under the Buckley versus Valeo decision, mandatory spending limits would not be constitutional. If I had my druthers, as Li'l Abner used to say, personally I would like to see that 1976 Supreme Court decision overturned, because I think the central principle established by that case, that money equals speech, is not right, and, even if it had some validity in theory in 1976, it no longer reflects the reality of the last 20 years of campaign raising and spending. Money doesn't equal speech. How can speech be free if it costs money? How can speech be free if you have to spend money to get it or, as I believe my friend and colleague from Georgia, Senator Cleland, who is on the floor, said in our committee--and I paraphrase knowing I will not achieve the pungency that he did--if money equals speech, if you have to have big bucks to have speech, that means the people who don't have big bucks aren't going to have any speech. Is that what the Framers of the Constitution intended when they adopted the first amendment? I can't believe that they did. Several times in the history of the Supreme Court, the Justices have applied principles of law that did damage to our country and that experience ultimately proved were not realistic. That most tellingly was the case when the Court upheld segregation laws on a theoretical basis of equal protection when the reality of equal protection was not there. It took until 1954 when a massive amount of evidence was brought before the Supreme Court to show that separate but equal was in fact not equal--only then did the Court strike down those discriminatory laws. In another way, this was true with some of the labor laws adopted in the earlier part of this century. Minimum wage laws were originally struck down as violations of employee's rights to contract until a case was built by advocates for those laws which showed that the right to contract, though noble in theory, was not real when you had two unequal parties negotiating the contract. So the Supreme Court reversed itself, and upheld the minimum wage laws and maximum hour laws to protect working people from being exploited. Respectfully, I think the same scenario is true with regard to the interpretation of the first amendment rendered by the Supreme Court of 1976 in Buckley. Let me just point out for the record, which a lot of folks forget--I forgot myself before I went back and read the Buckley decision--that the post-Watergate reforms, the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act didn't just say that Mr. Buckley, who was a part-time resident of my State and truly one of the Lord's noble people, could spend his own money and not being restricted from doing so by the law, but the Buckley decision struck down the preexisting limits on what Members of Congress could spend in their campaigns--the 1974 act actually had limits that Members of both the Senate and the House could spend on their campaigns based on a certain amount per voter in the State--the Court struck that down on the theory that that was an element of free speech. But what is the reality? The reality is that the unlimited spending that has occurred has distorted and constricted free speech. It has limited the free speech of those who don't have the money. It has undercut the other fundamental bedrock principle of our Government that everybody should have equal access to Government. All people are created equal, all created in God's image. Our rights were given to us not by Congress, but by our Creator, as it says in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. That principle clearly has been compromised by the enormous sums of money people are spending in political campaigns today. I must also say that the testimony we heard, and I understand we didn't hear exactly a random sample of contributors of big soft money contributions, but it seemed to me, at least, that those generous contributions were not political speech in the way we normally contemplate. Roger Tamraz did not give $300,000 because he had a particular feeling that he wanted to express about an ideology, a candidate or a party. He was buying access. He was trying to make money. It was clear that he was willing to spend $300,000, $600,000 because he would have made hundreds of millions of dollars if his pipeline proposal had been adopted. Johnny Chung, Yogesh Ghandi, the whole range of people who were buying access through soft money, they were not interested in political speech as we know it, the kind of political speech that the Founders of our country established in our formative documents. They were buying a picture with the President to take back home, as one said, ``to put powder on my face so I would look better so I could convert that into business.'' They were looking to do business. They were looking to influence Government to make them richer. That is not political speech in the traditional way in which it has been known. They were advancing their interests. White House coffees, photo-ops with the President, breakfasts, lunches, dinners with Members of Congress--these are the things that top-dollar contributors enjoy. These are the things that are protected by the Buckley decision. These are things that we do not normally consider to be speech in the fullest sense of our democracy. Jefferson, I think, would be surprised--Madison, Hamilton, Adams, no matter which side they were on, in the early debates of our country's history, they would be surprised to see that it is the rights of Roger Tamraz and Johnny Chung that we are now using the first amendment to protect. The Supreme Court adopted that theory in 1976, but now we have the facts. And with the facts, I hope someday we can reverse this decision. I know that more than 20 State attorneys general of both parties have formed a task force to see if they can find a case to take back to the Supreme Court to relitigate the Buckley decision, because the fact is that you cannot really have contribution limits without spending limits that are effective. When candidates and parties are free to spend as much money as they want, they will. That is what the record shows. They will find ways to raise that money in larger and larger amounts even if it means ignoring the results and breaking the law because the stakes are enormous. Those who continue to argue for the Buckley decision are just not considering the realities of what has happened under that decision. And those realities are based on the realities of human nature and the give-and- take of today's real political world. Despite all of that, we have to legislate within the Buckley decision. We have to recognize that reality. Within that decision, I think the McCain-Feingold proposal, by banning soft money and regulating issue ads, does as much as we can possibly do and does a lot to put us back on course to protect the equal access to and founding principles of our Government. If we do not adopt something like this, I hesitate to think about what the future is going to look like. Despite all the congressional hearings, all the special investigations, all of the concern about foreign money and big money in the 1996 campaign, the fact is that while all this attention has been given, Federal Election Commission records show that the two parties have actually raised $34 million in soft money in the first half of this year, which is not less than the last comparable period, it is 2\1/2\ times the $13 million raised in the 6 months after the last election. These numbers are going to continue to escalate, Mr. President, unless we find the courage to rein in the system, to rein in ourselves. If we face the 2000 Presidential election without any change in the law, I am afraid it is going to be the biggest auction in American history. What is going to be for sale is our Government. And what is going to be lost is the people's faith in public service, which will erode at ever-alarming rates unless we give them, by our actions, reason to respect the political system. Our own integrity, human as we are, full of frailties as we are, our own integrity will continue to be threatened by the pressure to spend big money in an unlimited system and the need, therefore, to raise it. Mr. President, the people are watching. They are skeptical. We can control temptations that inevitably arise when gigantic amounts of money are available for political campaigns. Millions of them have, in fact, given up on us and our system, bringing our great democracy I am afraid to one of the lowest points in its proud history. We have it within our capacity to change all this, to work together across party lines to reform the status quo of the campaign finance system, to return our politics to a higher ground and revive our citizens' trust in their Government by adopting genuine campaign finance reform like that included in the McCain-Feingold bill. The question remains, and it will echo throughout the debate this week and next, will we do it? Will we seize the moment or will this debate ultimately be just a lot of sound and fury that will ultimately produce nothing? I thank the Chair and I yield the floor. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend and colleague from Indiana. I thank him particularly for his consistent leadership in this effort. I am proud to be his cosponsor along with Senator Brownback, a Republican Senator, colleague, and friend from Kansas, and--and I mention this with some pleasure--Senator Landrieu, our new colleague, Democratic Senator from Louisiana, is also a cosponsor. Mr. President, before I get to laying out the reasons why I am for this measure, I just want to respond to something our colleague from California said. The Senator from California kept stressing over and over again this foundation, this nonprofit board that we are setting up to administer these scholarships and talked about the enormous amount of money that it was going to spend--bureaucracy, overhead. In the amendment, which we are putting in to create this program, the noninstructional, the administrative costs are capped to 7.5 percent. It does come to a little bit over a half-million dollars. But take a look at the budget of the District of Columbia Public School System. Noninstructional central administration and overhead, 33 percent. Only two-thirds of the money we give--and we give well over half a billion of public money to the District of Columbia--two-thirds of that gets spent on instruction, one-third on central administration. The amendment Senator Coats and I are putting in caps central administration for this scholarship program at 7.5 percent. So I do not think that is a very good argument to oppose our amendment. In fact, our amendment is pretty tightly drawn where 92.5 percent of the money we give will go to the kids and the parents. Let them decide where they want it to go for their education. Mr. President, this is a very important amendment. There is a certain way in which a lot of us--and I am guilty of this some myself--are kind of predisposed. We go by momentum. We judge, well, which group of my friends, which interest is on which side, which interest group is on the other side. I appeal to people, our colleagues here and, frankly, particularly directly to those in my own party, to take a look at this amendment. Senator Boxer read from the amendment. After you read the amendment, read this: ``Children in Crisis, a Report on the Failure of D.C.'s Public Schools, November 1996,'' written on behalf of the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, the control board we created. What is the conclusion? It is documented in painful--if I had a child in this system I would say infuriating, heartbreaking--detail. I quote: The deplorable record of the District's public schools by every important educational and management measure has left one of the city's most important public responsibilities in a state of crisis, creating an emergency which can no longer be ignored or excused. The District of Columbia Public School [System] is failing in its mission to educate the children of the District of Columbia. In virtually every area and for every grade level, the system has failed to provide our children with a quality education and a safe environment in which to learn. I stress the word ``emergency'' because I am going to come back to that word. There is an emergency in the District of Columbia Public School System and we are devoting a lot of effort--as I said before, over $500 million, $564 million in this bill, going from the Federal taxpayers to the District of Columbia Public School System. We are doing everything we can to try to make it better. What is wrong with taking $7 million, compared to the $564 million, and saying in this state of emergency, good God, let's give 2,000 kids and their parents a chance to get out of the emergency and better their own lives, better their education so they can provide for themselves? That is what this is about. It would do nothing more than offer 2,000 children from low-income homes the opportunity to attend a better school. Incidentally, we often don't mention it, but there is another part of it. It would offer 2,000 additional disadvantaged children of the District of Columbia, who go to the public schools and want to stay there, the opportunity for a $500 scholarship to use for exactly the kind of program Senator Boxer talked about: After-school tutoring, enrichment, the kind of program that will help that child have a better prospect of doing better, even within the tough circumstances in the District of Columbia system. That is all this is about. People talk about this as if, I don't know, it is un-American. It is actually fundamentally American, because it deals with equal opportunity, making it real for kids who are trapped in a school system in which, no matter how much most of them work, and their parents hope for them, they are not going to have an equal opportunity. They are not going to have the same opportunity that those many in the District of Columbia, the richer ones, who send their kids to private schools and other schools, are going to have. Listen to some of the critics of this amendment and you would think we were going to cause the sky to fall down on public education. Just over the last week a number of organizations that I consider to be well-intentioned have flooded the Hill with shrill letters proclaiming that this bill is discriminatory, that it is unconstitutional; possibly, from what you read, the single greatest threat to American education since I don't know what. Even Secretary of Education Richard Riley, a man I admire so much, went so far as to suggest this week that our bill would ``undermine a 200-year American commitment to the common school.'' Mr. Secretary, respectfully, that is just not so. Those of us sponsoring this amendment are having a hard time reconciling the exaggerated rhetoric of our critics with the actual details of our plan. Let me repeat. We are talking about spending $7 million next year to fund this program, compared to the $564 million we are giving to the public schools in the District. That is about two-tenths of 1 percent for this test, for this pilot program, for this lifeline to a couple of thousand disadvantaged kids in the District. We don't take one dime away from the D.C. public schools with this amendment. And this small, experimental program is purely voluntary. No people who are satisfied with their current public school will be forced to make any other choice. The only explanation I can come up with, after the years of listening to the wild allegations that have accompanied the school choice debate, is, if I may put it this way, that love is blind, even in public policy circles. Our critics are so committed to the noble mission of public education that they have shut their eyes to the egregious failures in so many of our public schools and insisted on defending the indefensible; insisted on blocking children in a situation that the D.C. control board describes as an emergency from getting out of that emergency. So they are conditioned to believe that any departure from their orthodoxy is tantamount to the death of their cause. They refuse to even concede the possibility that offering children this kind of choice would give them a chance at a better life while we are investing so much and working so hard nationally and here in the District to repair and reform our public schools. Of course our public schools will always be our priority concern when it comes to educating our children. But what about the ones who are-- this is as if a child was in the middle of a fire and somebody was offering a lifeline out and somebody says, ``Oh, no, no, no, the building they are in is a historic building. That is not fair to the child.'' Listen to the complaints of some of the critics and you will see, I am afraid, that they have concocted a flexible fiction that allows them to believe this fight, their fight, is right, no matter what the facts say. In the alternative universe of the critics, money is the solution to problems that, in fact, are often created by wasteful bureaucracies. Private schools to which many choice critics themselves send their kids are not right, somehow, for children of the poor, seems to be the implication in the criticism, and giving a poor parent the same choices that heretofore have been reserved for those who can afford them amounts, somehow, to an act of discrimination instead of what it is, an act of empowerment. Nowhere have the myths been stretched further than in the case of this D.C. scholarship amendment. I just want to spend a few moments to recite for my colleagues some of the more spurious charges that have been made, and to respond to them. I think it is important to do so because I want to make every effort I can to make sure that Members of the Senate have accurate information about this amendment before they make up their minds on how to vote. I also hope to demonstrate the extraordinary lengths to which our critics have gone to attack this plan and uphold what I feel is a failed dogma, which is irrelevant to and insensitive to the trap in which thousands of D.C. students and their parents find themselves today: Unsafe schools--unsafe structurally and unsafe in terms of crime--where too many teachers are not actually educating the children. I am going to talk about some myths. Myth No. 1: This amendment would drain desperately needed resources from D.C. public schools. I think I have talked a bit about that, but, very briefly, the funding for our program comes from the Federal payment to the city. It would have no impact on the D.C. school budget. Put it another way, if this amendment fails, the D.C. schools will not get one additional penny. This criticism is based on the misguided notion that throwing more money at the D.C. public schools will solve the crisis they are experiencing. The truth is that the Washington Post did not label the D.C. public school system a well-financed failure for nothing. The Senator from California said, ``Why not take the $7 million and give it to 100 percent of the children? Give it to the school system.'' For what? To better finance the failure that too many of them are struggling to get an education and build a life for themselves under? I refer my colleagues briefly to this chart which was taken directly from that D.C. control board study that I referenced earlier. The District of Columbia Public School System in fact has one of the highest per-pupil expenditures in the country, spending an average of $1,100 more per child than cities of comparable size. Here is the District of Columbia. It spends $7,655. These are per-pupil, from 1994 and 1995--$7,655. The national average is $6,084. And look at neighboring districts, districts around the District of Columbia: $6,552. They spend slightly more than $1,000 less than the D.C. school systems spend. You can go on. The chart speaks for itself. Only Newark spends more than the District of Columbia per child. So it is not money here, it is the way the money is being spent. Put $7 million to 100 percent of the kids, what are you going to get? If I may build on the Washington Post conclusion, a better financed failure. Take the $7 million, give it to these 2,000--4,000 students, you are going to give them a chance at a better education and a better life. I will readily concede that the $7 million could be tacked onto the public school budget. But we have to ask ourselves, will that really help the kids who are there now, spreading the money on top of a bureaucracy that is still having trouble counting how many students it has--which is what this Control Board report tells us? Or putting it directly into the hands of 2,000 families so they can attend a school they are confident can educate their child. If we are asking what is best for the students and not what is best for the system, there is no question what will do more good right away, in this coming year, and that is the scholarship program. Myth No. 2, often heard about school choice and heard about this program. The scholarship is too low to pay for private school and there is no space at private schools for these kids, so it is kind of a sham. Wrong. Our critics seem to have a dated image of the universe of private and faith-based schools, one that assumes that every school is Saint Alban's or Sidwell Friends. There are 88 private and parochial schools inside the beltway that cost less than $4,000 per student, including 60 that cost less than the $3,200 scholarship our amendment would provide. There are at least 2,200 spots now open in schools with tuition less than $4,000, and that is according to just a partial survey of the schools inside the beltway. A related complaint we hear is the scholarships will not do much good because private and religious schools can and do discriminate. Certainly not discrimination based on race. This charge ignores what is happening today at private and parochial schools here and in other urban areas around this country. Studies show that Catholic schools, as an example, in New York and Chicago and in my own capital city of Hartford, are serving overwhelmingly minority populations. And that is more than true here in the District. This chart, I think, is a startling one. The student population of the District's 16 center-city Catholic schools is 93 percent African American. Center- city Catholic, 93 percent African-American, actually 5 percent higher than the 88 percent African-American enrollment in the public schools of the District of Columbia. Catholic schools are hardly an exception. For example, Senator Coats and I have been to visit the Nannie Helen Burroughs School, an elementary school run by the National Baptist Convention here in Washington. It is in an area in the northeast section. It has 100-percent African-American school population. We talked to the principal. She said literally they have an open-door policy. She said to Senator Coats and me, ``We will accept anyone who comes to the door--anyone who comes to the door.'' So much for the charge of discrimination. Members of the Senate should also know that this amendment contains explicit civil rights protections that would prohibit schools participating in this program from discrimination based on race, color, gender, national origin, and it references the District of Columbia Human Rights Act, which actually has a broader series of antidiscrimination protections. Myth No. 3: The voters of the District have already rejected choice. That is what the critics say. They will continue to cite the results of a referendum held--when?--17 years ago on a tuition tax credit plan totally different from the scholarship amendment Senators Coats, Brownback, Landrieu, and I are proposing here. A much more recent, May 1997, poll and a more relevant poll, found that 62 percent of low-income parents in the District, the people this program is designed to serve, thought a scholarship plan was an excellent or good idea. Mr. President, the fascinating part of that poll--I don't have the exact number in front of me--is that the more white and higher income the group polled, the more likely they were to oppose this proposal, the more likely also that their children were in private or faith-based schools. The people that this scholarship program is aimed at helping desperately want this kind of lifeline. Later in the debate I will cite a study done among African-Americans nationally that a joint center, distinguished think tank, in town shows remarkable rising support for school choice programs, vouchers, particularly among younger African-Americans. I wonder why, sadly, too many African American children are suffering from a lack of real opportunity in school systems like the one in the District of Columbia. Myth No. 4: There is no evidence, the critics say, that scholarships will improve academic performance. Well, just a few days ago, a research team from Harvard released a study showing that students participating in the Cleveland choice program made significant gains in their first year. Math test scores rose an average 15 percent in 1 year for kids involved in the choice program there; reading tests 5 percent--just 1 year after leaving public schools. That data builds on several convincing studies demonstrating that low-income students attending center-city Catholic schools have achieved far higher scores than their peer groups in the local public schools. Comparable populations in each case, two different settings, kids in the center-city Catholic schools doing much better. A 1990 Rand Corp. comparison of schools in New York City, for instance, found that the Catholic schools graduated 95 percent of their students annually, while the comparable public schools graduated slightly more than 50 percent. These are numbers, but behind these numbers are thousands of children--thousands of children--who, when they don't finish school, are generally confined to a life without real opportunity. Look at the difference: 95 percent of the kids in the Catholic schools graduate; slightly more than 50 percent in the comparable public schools. The Rand Corp. report also showed that the Catholic school students outperformed their counterparts in the public schools and--again, this is in New York City--on the SAT exam by an average of 160 points. A study released earlier this year by Derek Neal of the University of Chicago found that low-income Catholic school students were twice as likely to graduate from college as their public school counterparts. What a story. It shows what we all know; it shows it so powerfully. The problem here is not the kids. Put the kids in an environment where they have a real chance to learn, where they are going to be taught in a way that is focused on them, and they will blossom, they will rise, they will soar, with twice as many graduating from college. Not surprising, then, that Paul Vallas, the man charged with rebuilding the decrepit Chicago Public School System, and doing a great job from all reports, is working closely with educators in the schools of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago to learn what has made these faith- based schools succeed where the public schools have failed. It is surprising, though, that few other urban administrators have been willing to do the same thing. Myth No. 5, another false allegation: This amendment is part of a Republican-only agenda. It is a sad fact that most of the choice proponents in Congress are members of the Republican Party, although I am proud to say that Senator Landrieu and I are cosponsors of this amendment, and in the House, Congressman Floyd Flake of New York and Congressman Bill Lipinski of Chicago have joined in cosponsoring this bill. But you have to go beyond that. To write this effort off as a partisan effort is to ignore the growing demand for programs that give parents greater educational choice, a demand that cuts across partisan, racial, class, and ideological lines. Take a look at who is driving the choice movement at the grassroots level around the country. Mothers like Zakiya Courtney in Milwaukee and Barbara Lewis in Indianapolis. Educators like Howard Fuller, the former Milwaukee superintendent of schools. Legislators like Glenn Lewis from Texas. Civil rights leaders like Alveda King from Atlanta, Dolores Fridge, the Minnesota Commissioner of Human Rights. All happen to be African-Americans. To the best of my knowledge, most of them are Democrats. They are not moved by politics. What moves them is love for their children and frustration and anger that their children are being denied a chance at the American dream because they are being forced, for reasons of income, to attend chronically dysfunctional public schools. These activists have been joined by thoughtful thinkers, independents like Bill Raspberry and Democrats like Bill Galston, former domestic policy adviser to President Clinton, who have both endorsed the program that we are proposing in this amendment today. Consider the fact that polls routinely show that support for just the kind of program we are proposing is growing into a majority. For example, just this week, the Center for Education Reform released a survey showing that 82 percent of American adults favored giving parents greater educational choice, and 72 percent approve of using taxpayer funds to allow poor parents to choose a better school for their child--72 percent on a poll released just this week. This is not partisan. Unfortunately, the vote in Congress too often has been divided along party lines, but that is not the reality out across America. Why? Because the American people are fair, they are realistic, they are practical. They see what is happening to too many of the children in too many of our public school systems. While we are working feverishly to repair those school systems, they think some of the kids are trapped in them, not because they are less able, but only because their parents don't have the money to take them out of those school systems that aren't working for them. The parents and activists and local political leaders who are demanding choices are not out to destroy the public schools, as so often is alleged. Senator Coats and I, Senator Brownback, Senator Landrieu--none of us are out to destroy the public schools. I am the proud product of a public school. I received a great education. I know the role that the public school has played in America as a blender, a meeting ground for people of all kinds who come to the public schools. But the reality is, in too many of our schools today, that is not happening. Mr. President, I can't think of a public school education support proposal that I haven't supported in the 8\1/2\ years I have been in the Senate of the United States. IDEA, special education funding, School to Work Act, the President's national testing initiative, charter school programs, funding, more and more funding for the public schools. What the critics fail to realize is that you can support this scholarship program and support public education. This is not an either/or equation. In fact, Senator Brownback and I, particularly as the Chair and ranking member of the Senate D.C. oversight committee, are working constantly with General Becton, now the head of the D.C. Public School System, to give him real support in meeting the overwhelming challenge he has of resuscitating the D.C. school system. I repeat, again, the very bill on which we are aiming to attach this amendment provides $564 million, over one-half billion dollars of money from the taxpayers of the United States for the D.C. Public School System. General Becton himself concedes that the D.C. public schools-- he said this before our committee--will not get better really to where he wants them to be for at least 5 or 10 years. They are going to get better along the way. He said, ``Don't expect an overnight miracle here. I am not going to reach what you want to make of the school system for another 5 or 10 years.'' What do we tell the children who are in the school system in the meantime, and what do we tell their parents? That in the name of some ideology, for some reason of history, to protect the ideal of the public school system as some of us experienced it that doesn't have any realistic relationship to what is happening every day for thousands of kids in the District of Columbia, in the name of preserving public education, that we as adults are willing to sacrifice children's futures, the kids who are there now, in a system described by the control board as in a state of emergency? We are willing to sacrifice them for the sake of a process, an idea that is not real in their lives? Go into the District school system, go into the schools and see what kids face. It is not acceptable, and that is why we are pushing so hard to establish this scholarship program. Senator Coats and I and the other cosponsors are not suggesting that this is the cure-all for the city's educational woes, but it will give 4,000 kids from disadvantaged families, not kids who are not able, kids who have the same God-given ability as any other group of kids, it will give them the opportunity to realize that ability and a better life. It will make a statement that we are not going to tolerate the unacceptable status quo any longer. In the long run, it will, hopefully, increase the positive pressure on the public schools to become more accountable, to raise their standards, to win back the public's confidence. Mr. President, later in the debate, if there is time, I am going to read from an affidavit filed by a member of the Milwaukee school system in a school choice case where that member testified to the positive competitive effect that the school choice program in Milwaukee had on the public schools. For all this, Senator Coats and the other cosponsors and I are accused of leaving behind or abandoning the 76,000 children who would not have access to the scholarship program. The irony, of course, is that just the opposite is true. Too many of these children have already been abandoned by a school system that has been driven into the ground by too much incompetence, too much indifference to the best interests of the city's families, a system that is so bad that the control board report that I mentioned earlier concludes something that I had to look at two or three times to understand: The longer students stay in the District's Public School System, the less likely they are to succeed educationally. I couldn't believe that. ``The longer students stay in the District's Public School System, the less likely they are to succeed educationally.'' I went back. What does that mean? It means as the grade levels go up, the District school kids fall further and further below the national average on standardized tests. To continue to do nothing, other than to call for more money, while these children suffer is unfair to these children. That is why the onus should not be on us to defend our plan or alternative, our scholarships, but on those who oppose doing anything that does not fit inside the box of status quo public education which is failing thousands of children here in the District of Columbia. We have to ask, what are you willing to do to change things right now? What are we willing to do to rescue these kids who must go to schools that have more metal detectors than computers? To continue to do nothing out of fear of being divisive or offending one or another group is irresponsible. And, you know, that is a major argument against this amendment, that it is divisive. Those who opposed the civil rights laws when they were first proposed also liked to complain that those being proposed were going to be divisive and thereby damaging to the country. It was an unconvincing argument then just as it is now. Mr. President, it is a remarkable twist of fate that we stand debating this amendment, as I am sure my colleagues have seen in the news today, on the 40th anniversary of the desegregation of a Little Rock high school, Central High School. President Clinton will be down there this weekend to commemorate that historic event. Of course, that school was desegregated and other schools were saved from legal segregation. But what is the reality today? Too many schools are still effectively segregated, but really more fundamentally to the point, too many children are being denied the equal opportunity for an education that the desegregation movement, that Brown versus Board of Education, that all the tumult that followed it was all about. The kids in the District school system do not have a real equal opportunity to an education. And that is what our amendment is all about. Mr. President, finally, I want to make a plea to the Members of my own party. If I may be partisan in this sense, this Democratic Party of ours in its modern expression was built on a central principle, equal opportunity, building on the bedrock insight that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have, that everybody is created equal, and that these are inalienable rights that we have, incidentally not given to us by the founders of the country or by Congress or any other group but given to us by our Creator. The Democratic Party in the modern history of this country has focused on making this ideal of equal opportunity real. At our best we have been the party of upward mobility, we have been the party that welcomed people to this country, immigrants to this country. We have stood for giving everybody a fair chance to go up. Getting a decent education was at the heart of that. That ultimately is what is at the heart of this debate--basic fairness, equal opportunity. The reality is that we already have de facto educational choice in this country. It is just limited to those who can pay for it. The question we now face is, whether we make that kind of choice available to the children who really need it most or whether we continue to deny them the opportunity out of some fear of upsetting the status quo or some interest groups who support the status quo. I urge my Democratic colleagues to think about why they became Democrats, what the party is all about, and how, when we think about that, how they can oppose scholarships for 4,000 poor children. Nothing mandatory. Parents have the right to apply for this. Where have we come when we end up in that position that we are denying a lifeline to 4,000 poor children in the District of Columbia? I urge my colleagues to take a look at the final chart I am going to show, which is this one. Ward 3 in the District, the upper northwest part of the District; 65 percent of the families send their children to private schools. So 65 percent of the families send their children to private schools; the poverty rate is 6 percent. Well, look. That is the most, of course, of any ward in the city. Look at Ward 1, a poverty rate of 17 percent; only 11 percent can send their kids to private school. Ward 7, the poverty rate is 18 percent; only 7 percent can send their kids to private school. It is clear what is going on here. And 65 percent of the families from Ward 3 sending their kids to private school is six times the national average. Probably some Members of this Senate are in that statistic in Ward 3. We have to ask ourselves, is it fair, given the factual indictment of the status quo of the D.C. public schools--which, as I said, over and over again today, we are spending a half a billion dollars and working with General Becton in all sorts of ways to fix it--is it fair for us to force the disenfranchised, not by reason of law, not by reason of the God-given potential of each and every one of their children, are we going to force them to go to schools that we ourselves, and in fact that statistics show that most D.C. public schoolteachers, will not risk sending their own children to? I say to my colleagues, as you wrestle with that question, I want to leave you with the wisdom of a Nigerian proverb that I saw on the wall of a D.C. school that I visited recently. It said, ``To not know is bad; to not want to know is worse.'' We can no longer profess not to know about what is happening to thousands of children in the D.C. public school system today who the superintendent of the school system says are in a school system that will not be what we want it to be for 5 or 10 years. We cannot profess any longer not to know this reality. Therefore, for us not to act now, frankly, is not to want to know. And the terror of that is that for that willful ignorance, it is these children who are going to pay the price. So I have spoken strongly here today because I feel strongly about this. Mr. President, this is about kids, this is about their future, this is about the reality of the American dream for those who have the hardest time of reaching for it. This is a small program--$7 million-- to try it out. Hey, can anybody say that things are so good in the District of Columbia Public School System that it is not worth experimenting with an alternative for a couple of years? No. I hope my colleagues will think about this and will face the reality and will give this scholarship program a chance, which is to say, that they will give 4,000 children in the District of Columbia a chance that they will otherwise not have. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to address Senator Reed's amendment to S. 830, the FDA reform bill. The proponents of the amendment have failed to distinguish between devices that are substantially equivalent to devices the FDA has approved and devices for which no predicate exists. That distinction is central to the regulatory scheme for device approval. Most medical devices brought to the market represent a small incremental change. Around 95% of medical device approvals granted by the FDA involve devices that are substantially equivalent to a device already approved by the agency. Most devices are not breakthroughs. They are not devices with bold new uses. They do not represent a sharp departure in medical science. They are devices with a foundation of testing, experience in the field, and most important, devices with a foundation in previous FDA approval. Policies and regulations that are appropriate for devices without a predicate are not appropriate where devices are substantially equivalent to a device that has already received the FDA stamp of approval. If each new device represented such a break with the past, it would be sensible to fully reexamine safety and efficacy every time FDA was asked to grant approval. But in a world of small changes, this unwarranted bureaucratic impediment would strangle progress, limit the benefits available to the public from technological advances, and yield little if any public health benefit. To capture the public health benefits of small incremental change, such devices are approved by the FDA under special procedures called the 510(K) approval process. The critical test applied by the FDA in approving the device is demonstrating that the device is substantially equivalent to a device that has already been approved by the agency. The test of substantial equivalence is a flexible definition that includes both products that are identical to previously approved devices, and those with a certain degree of technological change. In contrast, where the new device represents a major advance and is used in supporting life or avoiding substantial impairment of health, the FDA uses entirely different tests before approving the device. These breakthrough devices undergo extensive safety and effectiveness trials before marketing. They require extensive premarket review because the FDA has no assurance the new device is safe and effective based on studies of a previous device, field experience, or FDA approval. Approving substantially equivalent products expeditiously allows the FDA to concentrate its resources on those devices that involve new technologies or uses rather than waste time and staff conducting full- blown reviews of the equivalent device again and again and again. In the example we have heard so much about over the last few days, U.S. Surgical Corp.--which is headquartered in my State--submitted an application for approval of an advanced breast biopsy instrumentation device in October 5, 1995. The application was granted by the FDA on February 1, 1996. The FDA based their approval on substantial equivalence in design, materials, methods of use, and intended use to biopsy needles the FDA had previously approved. Since that date the ABBI device has been used in over 7,000 cases worldwide. In granting approval to U.S. Surgical, the FDA applied the two statutory tests of substantial equivalence. First, the device was shown to have ``the same intended use as the predicate device'' and second, ``the same technological characteristics as the predicate device''. Some Members have mistakenly stated that U.S. Surgical has marketed the device to remove breast cancer tumors, but the Members are in error. A degree of technological variation is permissible and specifically envisioned in the statute. Where the device has different technological characteristics, it can still be approved under 510(K) if the manufacturer submits * * * information, including clinical data if deemed necessary by the Secretary, that demonstrates that the device is as safe and effective as a legally marketed device, and does not raise different questions of safety and efficacy than the predicate device. ABBI uses a larger cannula than previously approved biopsy needles. The wide cannula allows the physician to extract a broader sample of breast tissue. The wide cross section allows more accurate diagnosis of breast lesions that appear in the x-ray as clusters of tiny particles rather than discrete nodes. U.S. Surgical's product insert states in boxed, large type ``The ABBI* system is to be used ONLY for diagnostic breast biopsy; it is NOT a therapeutic device.'' Its patient pamphlet on the device discusses biopsy uses to the exclusion of any other potential use. In the ABBI example, the FDA requested clinical data from U.S. Surgical about impact of the new technology, broader cannula. U.S. Surgical submitted the data on September 23, 1996 and the FDA updated the 510(K). The sponsors of the amendment state that manufacturers have an incentive to seek approval based on false and misleading statements of intended uses. Under the 510 (K) approval process, the device must have the ``same intended use as the predicate device'' but the amendment sponsors state that manufacturers are able to undercut this test. The amendment sponsors suggest that the FDA be allowed to establish a new intent test for 510(K) approvals that allows the FDA to impute new uses, demand new safety and efficacy tests, and ignore the manufacturers intended uses. First, I would point out that U.S. Surgical specifically responded to the FDA's concerns by adding new labeling to its device clearly stating that the device was to be used ``only for diagnostic breast biopsy''. Second, the FDA already has ample power to confront potential problems in labeling. For example, they sent a warning letter to the U.S. Surgical Corp., on June 3, 1996, regarding labeling and advertising claims made for the ABBI. The warning letter lead to the modifications in labeling and resubmission of the 510(K) application. Finally, the FDA has a host of criminal and civil penalties to prevent the marketing of mislabeled products including administrative detention and seizure, criminal and civil penalties, injunction, mandatory consumer and physician mandatory notifications, mandatory recall, and adverse agency publicity. For example, FDA can administratively detain devices that are misbranded based on FDA's unilateral determination that a detention is appropriated, and can last up to 30 days to permit the agency an opportunity to either perfect a civil seizure through the courts or obtain injunctive relief. Into the middle of this, the Reed amendment would throw a major change. The amendment does not state grounds or procedures by which the FDA would determine that the proposed labeling was ``false'' or ``misleading''. The evidentiary basis by which the FDA will impute the manufacturers intent is unknown, as is the frequency of off-label uses that spurs additional FDA requirements or the adequacy of additional clinical trials necessary to satisfy their concerns. If the amendment passes, manufacturers have to be prepared to conduct trials of safety and efficacy for uses they are not seeking. Furthermore, the additional requirements only apply to the unapproved device--not to the predicate device previously approved by the FDA. The 510(K) process is intended to provide an expedited basis for bringing new versions of previously approved products to the market. It employs relatively simple and easy to apply tests of substantial equivalence. The tests are straight forward and predictable in their application. We should continue to protect this path of technological innovation. The FDA has ample power to prevent mislabeled products from endangering the public health. If the amendment passes, many innovative devices will not be available to consumers and the public health will suffer. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by Senator Hutchinson that would have severe consequences for President Clinton's American heritage rivers initiative. The American heritage rivers initiative is designed to support community efforts on behalf of their own river resources and will help these communities tell the rest of the Nation just how special their river is. The Federal Government has a lot of expertise to offer to local communities on how to accomplish that goal, and we ought to be looking for ways to share that wealth with communities who want it. I wanted to take a moment to explain why I think the initiative is the right way to accomplish these goals. The initiative involves no new regulatory requirements for individuals or State, tribal, and local governments. It is a voluntary, community-defined effort that gives riverbank communities the option to work in partnership with the Government to help cut redtape and match community priorities with services provided by Federal agencies. The initiative will allow communities to partner voluntarily with the Federal Government so that existing resources can be used more effectively. In this time of increasingly scarce funding, this is certainly worth encouraging. Individuals, communities, and organizations already working in the watershed will define the partnership and determine the support they want from the Federal Government to conserve river resources and build the watershed economy. This initiative isn't a land grab by the Federal Government, or even a potential one. It is simply an effort to help sustain and renew river communities, and recognize the rich history and tremendous contributions of rivers to the Nation. Second, safeguards are in place to ensure that the initiative will protect the interests of river communities. Most importantly, nominations for designation as an American heritage river must come from the communities themselves. Unless a community wants an American heritage river, they don't have to have one. And there are opportunities to designate only stretches of river in case the local communities feel that designation of the entire river would be appropriate. The nominations themselves must meet several criteria that demonstrate designation is not going to interfere with anyone's interests. For example, the nomination must have broad support from individuals and organizations along the river. This means that a river won't be designated unless it makes sense to the community--the people who are closest to the resource and understand it best--that this action will be beneficial. Also, the nomination must show that the different interests who live in the community--public, private, and local government groups--are willing to cooperate to protect the river. Now what happens if a river receives an American heritage designation? The Federal Government simply makes a commitment to use existing staff, resources and programs to assist river communities in their river restoration and community revitalization efforts. These are relatively simple services but can be essential for local communities struggling to gain the attention of the Federal Government. For example, an Internet Home Page will be set up to provide communities with information on river conditions and where to access other kinds of information important to the interests of the community such as available grants, and where to get aerial photographs and advice from experts. This kind of non-intrusive assistance will help to streamline the bureaucracy that can be encountered when communities plan initiatives to revitalize their surroundings. A commitment to a better- functioning government is in everyone's interests. In addition, this isn't a perpetual designation--any community may have this designation terminated at its request at any point in the future. If a river receives the American heritage designation, the Federal Government agrees to act as a ``good neighbor'' to those communities involved. This means that the Federal Government will ensure that its actions have a positive effect on the natural, historical, economic, and cultural resources of the river communities. Agencies will be required to identify ways to inform local groups regarding Federal actions and must consult with American heritage river communities early in the planning stages of those actions to take into account the communities' goals and objectives. Communities also will be granted greater flexibility to try out new and innovative approaches that support their needs. Reducing the bureaucratic obstacles communities face and committing the Government to plan around the communities' objectives means that the Federal Government will be more responsive to the needs of local areas--something we all want. The initiative will allow riverbank communities to build their watershed economy and conserve their river resources in better, smarter ways than might be possible currently. In New England, communities along the Northeast's longest river and largest river system--the Connecticut River--are sold on the American heritage rivers Initiative. The Connecticut traverses four States from its headwaters in New Hampshire to Long Island Sound and affects millions of lives and livelihoods in the States through which it flows. Unfortunately, the Connecticut faces problems that State and local governments cannot resolve alone--run-off from lawn care and agricultural fertilizers and discharges from sewage treatment plants pour into the river. Some fish contain unhealthful levels of toxins. Sewers overflow into the river when it rains. A network of ready-and- willing groups up and down the river want to work in partnership with the Federal Government to help the Connecticut. These include State and local conservation and historic preservation groups, local businesses, hydropower dam operators, regional planning commissions, and urban revitalization efforts. Designation of the river as an American heritage river would benefit every regional, state, and local effort to promote the Connecticut River Valley as a place of unmatched quality, where there is an opportunity to raise a family, expand a business, or spend a vacation. Rivers are a cornerstone of this Nation's great history and define the distinctive character of riverfront communities. Rivers are lifelines that rank among our greatest environmental, economic, and human resources. What we say and do in caring for all our rivers will say to future generations not what we think about ourselves here in 1997, but what we want the world to be for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren. The American heritage rivers Initiative will help ensure that our legacy to future generations reflects our commitment to work together to conserve and restore the environment, to protect cultural and historical resources, and to promote responsible economic development and tourism on our Nation's most important assets. The initiative deserves out support. I urge opposition to Senator Hutchinson's amendment. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.