Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Bradley today as a cosponsor of the Interstate Child Support Responsibility Act of 1995. My esteemed colleague from Connecticut, Representative Johnson, introduced a similar bill in the House, and I thank them both for their leadership on this issue. The bill will greatly strengthen our child support enforcement system. This year, as Congress debates dramatic changes to our welfare system, we should make child support enforcement a key part of our welfare reform agenda and should pass the comprehensive reforms set forth in this act. A tough child support enforcement system has three far-reaching benefits for our society. First, child support directly improves the lives of millions of children. An increasing number of our children depend on child support. Thirty years ago the vast number of children lived with both of their parents. But an astounding 50 percent of all children born in the 1980's will spend some time in a single-parent family. Children living with only one parent are all too likely to experience poverty. In 1992, half of the children living in single- parent families--over 8 million children--were poor. Improving child support enforcement will directly improve the quality of these children's lives and their chances for a bright future. Second, enhancing child support enforcement will help keep families off of public assistance. About 45 percent of families enter our welfare system as a result of a divorce or separation, and another 30 percent seek welfare assistance after having a child out-of-wedlock. Receiving support from the absent parent can make the difference for many families between self-sufficiency and dependency. Third, strengthening child support enforcement sends a critical message of responsibility to parents. The decision to have a child has profound moral content. Our child support policies must clearly signal that our society will hold all parents accountable for births and rising teen pregnancy rates, child support enforcement payments must become a well known and unavoidable fact of life for absent fathers and mothers. Would-be ``dead-beat'' dads must know that they can't simply cross a State border to escape support payments. For too many parents today, child support collection is not a certainty. Less than 60 percent of custodial mothers establish a child support order. And only half of support orders are paid in full. The Urban Institute estimates that the gap between the amount of child support parents should be paying and the amount we are actually collecting is $34 billion a year. The bill we are introducing today will help close that child support collection gap. It will help States at each step of the child support collection process. The bill will make it easier for States to locate absent noncustodial parents; establish paternity; establish a court order; and enforce payment of court orders. To help States locate parents and collect child support the bill, among other things: Requires States to automate and centralize child support order data to aid in enforcement of interstate cases; requires employers to notify States of new hires and establishes a Federal directory of new hires to aid in locating parents; streamlines procedures for voluntary paternity establishment; provides States with greater financial incentives to establish paternity; requires more frequent modification of child support orders so awards will increase with parents' earnings; requires States to have procedures for suspending drivers licenses and professional licenses of deadbeat parents; and provides greater incentives for States to increase child support collection. The bill will also support State demonstration projects to address an underlying cause of some parents' failure to pay child support because access or visitation rulings limit their involvement in their children's lives. The bill will help States try new ways of working with families to increase noncustodial parents' visitation privileges and their financial commitment to their children. While the bill will impose modest administrative costs on States and the Federal Government, it will also save both levels of government money over the long term. That is why State welfare administrators support it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Reports that for every $1 spent on child support enforcement, $4 is collected. The collected funds are delivered to families and are used in part to reimburse Federal and State governments for welfare expenditures. This bill's provisions will increase the rate of return on our investment, benefiting children, families, and taxpayers. Mr. President, let me reiterate that child support enforcement must be a part of our welfare reform strategy. Last month I introduced S. 246, the Welfare Reform That Works Act--a bill that would help States make bold changes to their welfare systems to move welfare recipients into the work force and strengthen families. I stated when I introduced the bill, and I want to reiterate now, that the States ability to achieve our welfare reform goals will be limited if we do not improve our child support enforcement programs. States' welfare caseloads will be higher and their budgets lower if deadbeat parents can continue to evade their responsibilities, if teenagers know that they can continue to have babies without consequences. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join Senator Bradley and the bill's other cosponsors in supporting the act.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators McConnell and Kassebaum today in introducing the Liability Reform and Quality Assurance Act of 1995. I thank Senator McConnell for his leadership on the bill. Mr. President, our present system for compensating patients who have been injured by medical malpractice is ineffective, inefficient, and in many respects, unfair. The system promotes the overuse of medical tests and procedures, and diverts too much money away from victims. The Rand Corp. has estimated that injured patients receive only 43 percent of spending on medical malpractice and medical product litigation. And victims often receive their awards after many years of delay. Our medical malpractice system is a stealth contributor to the high cost of health care. The American Medical Association reports that in the 1980's liability insurance premiums grew faster that other physician practice expenses. The cost of liability insurance has been estimated at $9 billion in 1992. So called defensive medicine costs are an even greater concern. The Office of Technology Assessment has found that as many as 8 percent of diagnostic procedures are ordered primarily because of doctors' concerns about liability. These defensive practices present a hidden but significant burden on our health care system. The health care and hospital charges for defensive medicine were as high as $25 billion in 1991. Taxpayers and health care consumers bear the financial burden of these excessive costs. Liability insurance and defensive medicine premiums drive up the cost of Medicare and Medicaid and of private health care premiums. Further, in some specialties, such as obstetrics, where malpractice premiums have skyrocketed, malpractice liability may be reducing access to quality health care. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists report of that malpractice costs for ob/gyns increased 350 percent between 1982 and 1988, and that by 1988, 41 percent of those ob/gyns surveyed indicated that they had made changes in their practice patterns, such as ceasing to serve high-risk patients, because of malpractice concerns. The bill we're introducing today will begin to address these inefficiencies and perverse effects of our malpractice system by directing a greater portion of malpractice awards to victims, by discouraging frivolous law suits, and by enhancing quality assurance programs. Key provisions of this malpractice reform bill include: Establishing a uniform statute of limitations, 2 years from the date the injury was discovered. Allowing periodic payments for awards greater than $100,000. Applying several, not joint and several liability for noneconomic and punitive damages. Limiting attorneys' contingency fees to 33\1/3\ of the $150,000 of an award and 25 percent of any amount above $150,000. Establishing a clear and convincing evidence standard for doctors delivering a baby who had not previously treated the pregnant women. Requiring States to establish mandatory alternative dispute resolution. Strengthening the standard for awarding punitive damages and establish State health care quality assurance programs funded with 50 percent of punitive damage awards. Requiring providers and insurers to participate in risk management programs every 3 years to better detect and prevent practices which may result in patient injury. Increasing consumer access to the National Practitioner Data Bank which contains information on disciplinary actions against health care providers. The bill also incorporates legislation I introduced earlier this year with Senator McConnell and others, S. 303, the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act of 1995. That bill seeks to ensure that raw materials continue to be available for use in life-saving medical devices. It allows suppliers of raw materials or biomaterials used to make medical implants to obtain dismissal, with minimal legal costs, from certain tort suits in which plaintiffs allege harm from a finished medical product containing the biomaterial. Many of the reform ideas in the legislation we are introducing today were proposed or cosponsored by Democrats and Republicans in the last Congress as part of comprehensive health care reform bills. A number of these ideas were embraced last year by a group of us participating in the bipartisan Senate mainstream coalition. But we had little chance to debate these issues in the last Congress. I am optimistic that we will have the opportunity in this Congress to pass a bipartisan medical malpractice reform bill. I encourage my colleagues to consider this legislation and join Senator McConnell, Senator Kassebaum, and me as we seek to improve our medical malpractice system.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend from North Dakota. This is a matter of national importance. Mr. President, I have had the honor for the last 6-plus years to stand and speak on many occasions on behalf of the people of Connecticut. Today, I stand to crow on behalf of the people of Connecticut because of the extraordinary accomplishments of the University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams. Mr. President, Connecticut, a small State, is proud of its many firsts: The world's first written Constitution; the world's first warship and nuclear-powered submarine; the world's first American dictionary was published in Connecticut. But another first today: The first time that a university's men's and women's basketball teams were rated No. 1 in the country at the same time. Connecticut is a small State, but these extraordinary athletes and their fine coaches have made us all feel 10 feet tall today. We congratulate them. We know it has not come easily. They have worked hard and played by the rules. In the spirit of the amendment under discussion, they are an extremely balanced team, and they have been rewarded with the victory and recognition they have now received. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. I hope this debate moves expeditiously during the day so that it will allow Senator Dodd and I to go to the UConn-Georgetown game at the arena tonight.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment to require us to pass a detailed plan on how we will balance the budget before we act to send this proposed balanced budget amendment to the States for ratification. This amendment makes good sense because it requires us to consider in the here and now--not at some undefined time in the future--just what steps we will take to get our books in order. I support getting us to a balanced budget. And I support tough cuts in programs to get us there. But taken alone, I am not convinced that a balanced budget amendment will get us to make those tough cuts. Taken alone, I am not convinced that a balanced budget amendment will get us in balance by the year 2002. In fact, taken alone, I am concerned that the balanced budget amendment may have the unintended consequence of taking us further, not closer to, the goal of a balanced budget. That is why I support this right to know amendment. What I do not support is an amendment which might make us all feel better but will not make us behave better with taxpayer dollars. Taken alone, the balanced budget amendment is long on the atmospherics and short on the details--the amendment does not take Social Security off the table, it does not provide for a continued strong national defense, it does not require us to choose difficult cuts over increased taxes. And although I know it is not intended to be I am fearful that this amendment is potentially dangerous to our economic fearful that this amendment may lull us into a false sense of security--that we have balanced the budget just by saying we will do so. Mr. President, this Chamber has just spent long hours debating the unfunded mandates bill. The idea behind that bill is that we should not pass on costs to other levels of government, particularly if we have no clear idea what those costs will be. In a certain sense if ever there was an unfunded mandate it is asking the States to ratify the balanced budget amendment without fessing up to what that amendment will cost. By refusing to give the details on how we will achieve the goal of a balanced budget, we are hiding the costs, and pushing the tough decisions we must make into the future. We may also be pushing the costs of getting our financial house in order onto our States and our localities. At least one Treasury study shows that a balanced budget amendment would reduce Federal grants to Connecticut by $1 billion a year. Treasury estimates that if Social Security and defense are off the table, Connecticut would be faced with truly draconian cuts in education, job training and the environment. If those are the decisions we intend to make, then let us debate them. If they are decisions that we would prefer to avoid, let us figure out what we can support in a rational and thoughtful way. What we really need to do, is figure out how we intend to get to a balanced budget and map out that strategy. If we are serious about balancing the budget, the least we can do is provide those details and start working toward our goal. Because I believe that it is both desirable and possible to come up with a workable roadmap to a balanced budget, I strongly support the right-to-know amendment which calls for a 7-year approach to get us to a balanced budget by the year 2002. This approach makes good sense and prods us toward action sooner rather than later. The consequences of waiting are daunting and quite frankly, the balanced budget amendment gives us the excuse to wait. If we wait until the year 2002, when this amendment would go into effect, the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] has estimated that we would need to cut $322 billion--that is billion with a ``b''--out of the Federal budget in a single year. That would create national, local and personal chaos. What we need to do is start acting now by making the kind of tough spending cuts that will bring us closer to our goal of a balanced budget and by implementing policies that will help our economy to grow in a healthy way. Standing in front of the mirror and announcing that you are going to lose 10 pounds does not take the weight off, dieting and exercise does. That is what this Chamber must pledge to do. As Hobart Rowen noted a few weeks ago, ``By itself, such an amendment would cut neither a dollar nor a program from the Federal budget.'' As anyone who has read the resolution mandating a balanced Federal budget can tell you, it is sketched with a very broad brush. It excludes nothing from the requirements of a balanced budget--not Social Security, not defense, not veterans' benefits. Nor does it leave higher taxes off the table. And it allows 40 rather than 50 percent of the House and Senate to hold up the entire Federal budget in the event that there is a Federal deficit. I have spent a tremendous amount of time exploring ways to bring that deficit down. At the same time, I do not support increasing the power of large States with lots of Members of the House. By decreasing the number of House Members needed to hold up the budget we would be doing just that. When you come from a small State like mine, changing the rules in this way just does not sit well. I want us to balance the budget in a responsible and thoughtful way. For this reason, I support drawing up a 7-year plan toward that goal. Regardless of what happens in this particular debate, I hope that all of us in this Chamber will pledge to work together to make that happen.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am introducing today, together with Senator McCain and others the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act of 1995. This bill directly addresses a major threat to many of the miracles of modern medicine. By taking this small step now, millions of Americans will no longer have to worry about the supply of life-saving medical devices. Over the next few years, public health may be seriously jeopardized if makers of the life-saving medical devices that we take for granted today are no longer able to buy the raw materials and components necessary to produce their products. The reason is an all too common one nowadays--an out-of-control product liability system. How could this happen? Last year, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulation and Government Information, I held a hearing to examine this problem. Witness after witness pointed out that the current legal system makes it too easy to bring lawsuits against raw materials suppliers and too expensive for those suppliers to defend themselves-- even when they were not at fault and end up winning. Because of this, many suppliers have decided that the costs of defending these lawsuits are just too high to justify selling raw materials to the makers of implantable medical devices. In short, for those suppliers, it just isn't worth it. How could this happen? A recent study by Aronoff Associates paints a clear, but dismal, picture. That study surveyed the markets for polyester yarn, resins such as DuPont's Teflon, and polyacetal resin such as DuPont's Delrin. The study showed that sales of these raw materials for use in manufacturing implantable medical devices was just a tiny percentage--0.006 percent--of the overall market--$606,000 out of total sales of over $11 billion. In return for that extra $606,000 in total annual sales, however, that raw material supplier, like others, faced potentially huge liability related costs, even if they never lose a lawsuit. To take one example, a company named Vitek manufactured an estimated 26,000 jaw implants using about 5 cents worth of DuPont Teflon in each device. The device was developed, designed and marketed by Vitek, which was not related to DuPont. When those implants failed, Vitek declared bankruptcy, its founder fled to Switzerland and the patients sued DuPont. DuPont has won virtually all these cases--one of the last cases was dismissed earlier this month--but the cost has been staggering. The study estimated that DuPont alone has spent at least $8 million per year over 6 years to defend these suits. To put this into perspective, DuPont's estimated legal expenses in these cases for just 1 year would buy over a 13-year supply of DuPont's Dacron polyester, Teflon and Delrin for all U.S. makers of implantable medical devices, not just makers of jaw implants. Faced with this overwhelming liability, DuPont decided 2 years ago to stop selling its products to manufacturers of permanently implanted medical devices. DuPont has subsequently allowed manufacturers to purchase up to 3 more years worth of raw materials. One supplier's decision alone might not be troublesome except that there is no reason to believe that the economics will be different for other suppliers around the world. One of the witnesses at the hearing testified that she has already contacted 15 alternate suppliers of polyester yearn worldwide. All were interested in selling her raw materials--except for use in products made and used in the United States. By itself, this is a powerful statement about the nature of our American product liability laws, and makes a powerful case for reform. There's more at stake however, here than just protecting suppliers from liability. It's more than just making those raw materials available to the manufacturers of medical devices. What's at stake is the health of millions of Americans who depend on medical devices for their every day survival. What's at stake is the health of children like Thomas Reilly from Houston, TX, who suffers from hydrocephalus, a condition in which fluid accumulates around the brain. A special shunt enables him to survive. But continued production of that shunt is in doubt because the raw materials' suppliers are concerned about the potential lawsuit costs. At our hearing last year, Thomas' father, Mark Reilly, pleaded for Congress to move forward quickly to assure that the supply of those shunts will continue. What's at stake is the health of adults like Peggy Phillips of Falls Church, VA, whose heart had twice stopped beating because of fibrillation. Today, she lives an active, normal life because she has an implanted automatic defibrillator. Again, critical components of the defilbrillator may no longer be available because of potential product liability costs. Ms. Phillips urges Congress to move swiftly to enact legislation protecting raw materials and component part suppliers from product liability. The scope of this problem affects young and old alike. Take a pacemaker. Pacemakers are installed in patients whose hearts no longer generate enough of an electrical pulse to get the heart to beat. To keep the heart beating, a pacemaker is connected to the heart with wires. These wires have silicone rubber insulation. Unfortunately, the suppliers of the rubber have begun to withdraw from the market. With this pacemaker, thousands of Americans can live productive and healthy lives for decades. Take another example, a heart valve. Around the edge of a heart valve is a sleeve of polyester fabric. This fabric is what the surgeon sews through when he or she installs this valve. Without that sleeve, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to install the valve. Without that valve, patients die prematurely. In short, this developing product liability crisis will have widespread and serious effects. We cannot simply allow the over 7 million people who own their health to medical devices to become casualties of an outmoded legal liability system. Because product liability litigation costs make the economics of supplying raw materials to the implantable medical device makers very unfavorable, it is imperative that we act now. We cannot rationally expect raw materials suppliers to continue to serve the medical device market out of the goodness of their hearts, notwithstanding the liability related costs. We need to reform our product liability laws, to give raw material suppliers some assurance that unless there is real evidence that they were responsible for putting a defective device on the market, they cannot be sued simply in the hope that there deep pockets will fund legal settlements. I have long believed that liability reform could be both proconsumer and probusiness. I believe the testimony we heard on this subject last year proved this once again. When fear of liability suits and litigation costs drives valuable, lifesaving products off the market because their makers cannot get raw materials, consumers are the ones to suffer. When companies divert money from developing new lifesaving products to replace old sources of raw materials supply, consumers are again the ones to suffer. When one company must spend millions just to defend itself in lawsuits over a product it did not even design or make--for which it simply provided a raw material worth 5 hearing dramatically illustrated that efforts to increase compensation for the injured can sometimes come at an unacceptably high cost. Based on the testimony we heard, I, along with my distinguished colleague from Arizona, are committed to forging a solution to remedy this immediate threat to our national public health. Today, we are introducing the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act of 1995, which will establish clear national rules to govern suits against suppliers of raw materials and component parts for permanently implantable medical devices. Under this bill, a supplier of raw materials or component parts can only be sued if the materials they supplied do not meet contractual specifications, or can properly be classified as a manufacturer or seller of the whole product. They cannot, however, be sued for deficiencies in the design of the final device, the testing of that device, or for inadequate warnings with respect to that device. I believe that enactment of this bill would help ensure that America's patients continue to have access to the best lifesaving medical devices in the world. We must act now, however. This piece of legislation is preventative medicine at its best and is just the cure the patients need. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the exemplary and commendable efforts of Tomas Jicinsky to bring about democracy in the former Czechoslovakia. Mr. Jicinsky was instrumental in orchestrating and supplying democratic forces with information within the former Czechoslovakia. I salute the effort of Glenn Piasecki of Southington, CT, in recognizing Tomas Jicinsky's tireless struggle. Mr. Jicinsky supplied democratic forces with information within the former Czechoslovakia, and organized underground meetings to begin the eventual downfall of the Communist regime. He worked with Charter 77, an organization dedicated to initiating and sustaining democratic principles throughout the world. I salute Mr. Jicinsky for his dedication to bring about democracy in the former Czechoslovakia. Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Michigan. I am glad to rise in support of the amendment that is currently being discussed, offered by the Senator from Michigan. Last week I discussed at some length concerns that I have about the competitive disadvantage that will result to the private sector from this legislation. In particular, I discussed my concerns with the provision that creates a presumption that the Federal Government will pay 100 percent of the costs of the mandates, even where those mandates apply in the same manner to amendment I introduced last week, which was defeated, acknowledge that there were in fact many areas covered by the provisions of this bill, S. 1, where the public and private sectors do compete. The sponsors of the legislation have stated in response to inquiries from colleagues they have sought to address that concern about the disadvantage to the private sector by requiring that the authorizing committee state in its report the degree to which Federal payment of public sector costs or the termination of the mandate would affect the competitive balance between State or local governments and the private sector, and any steps that the committee has taken. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes to complete my statement pursuant to the generous offer of the Senator from Michigan, that coming from the time which he has been allocated on the next amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, and my colleagues, I just want to add a word to say, as this debate has gone on, the Senator from Ohio, as is not just his habit but is at the very core of his nature, has conducted himself in a most thoughtful and serious way. In the 6 years I have been privileged to be a Member of the U.S. Senate, I do not think I have known a less partisan Member than John Glenn of Ohio. This complicated bill, with ramifications on just about every section of the United States Code annotated, I think we made a better bill as this process has gone on. A good part of the responsibility for making it better goes to the former chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, on which I am privileged to serve, and now the ranking Democrat, the Senator from Ohio. Whatever is being said in Ohio by any newspaper, I do not know, but if they are critical of Senator Glenn in his conduct on this bill, in my respectful opinion, they are wrong. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan and congratulate him on offering this amendment which is, in essence, S. 993, which was reported out of the Governmental Affairs Committee last year, an extremely balanced approach to the very real and justifiable concerns of State and local governments that we, in Washington, are passing measures which force them to spend money, but we do not give them money to pay those costs. This measure had the widespread support of Governors and mayors. It forced Congress to confront the fiscal impact of our actions. Unfortunately, S. 1, which is before us now, simply goes too far. It creates an unintended, but I am convinced, very real and inequitable burden on private sector entities, businesses that are affected by these mandates but will not have the extra protection of a second point of order in this measure. I am concerned also that S. 1 will put at risk a whole array of Federal laws protecting the environment, people's health, people's safety, people's rights that the public simply does not want us to endanger and, in that sense, the consequences of this bill are not only unintended, they are undesired. Mr. President, this has not been a filibuster. This has been a reasonable, thoughtful discussion of a measure which, frankly, most people on the Democratic side of the Senate want to support but feel, in its current form as S. 1 simply goes too far and loses the balance, the critical balance that was so much a part of S. 993. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment by my colleague, Senator Levin. The amendment that he offers includes the text of the bipartisan legislation, S. 993, reported last year by the Governmental Affairs Committee on which I am privileged to serve, which I thought adopted a balanced approach to addressing the justifiable concerns of State and local governments about unfunded mandates. It had the widespread support of Governors and mayors. This amendment establishes the principle that Congress must be forced to confront the costs that may be incurred by the State and local governments when we pass legislation. Through the point of order provision, it provides an opportunity for the fullest discussion if there is not a CBO cost estimate and if there are not funds authorized in the legislation we adopt to cover the costs on State and local governments. I was cosponsor of S. 993 and I am pleased to support this amendment now. Last week in connection with the debate on an amendment I offered along with Senators Kerry, Levin, Bumpers, Dorgan, Glenn, and others, I set forth in detail my concerns about the changes made in S. 993 as part of S. 1. In particular, S. 1 creates a new and, I think, threatening presumption. Under S. 1, if the bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report increases the Federal intergovernmental mandate by more than $50 million in a given year, a point of order will lie unless there is a funding mechanism provided. S. 1 as originally introduced also provides that if the funding mechanism is an authorization for the full amount of the mandate, then the bill must designate a responsible Federal agency, and establish procedures for that agency to direct that the mandate will become ineffective or reduced in scope if the full amount of the appropriations is not provided in any fiscal year. In short, the presumption in S. 1 is that the Federal Government will pay 100 percent of the cost of obligations imposed by the Federal Government on States and localities. So S. 1 is a much more extensive reach than that adopted in this amendment. It takes a problem and in its response reaches too far; and in doing so creates an unintended, and I am convinced, very real and inequitable burden on private-sector entities, businesses that are affected by these mandates. And I have been concerned that it also puts at risk a whole array of Federal law protecting the environment, people's health, people's safety, people's rights that the public simply does not want to endanger, that the public wants us to continue to protect. Mr. President, let me now say that I believe the discussions of the last several weeks have made numerous very important improvements in the bill. I cannot overstate the outstanding work of Senators Levin and Byrd who spent numerous hours working carefully through every provision of the bill and demonstrating persuasively to the sponsors that many of the provisions were not well thought out and made little sense. They convinced the sponsors to agree to important amendments that make S. 1 a far better bill. In particular, I am pleased about: First, Senator Byrd's amendment which will ensure that Congress has an important role in the final decision on whether and how mandates will fail or become reduced in scope; second, Senator Levin's amendment providing that if CBO cannot do a cost estimate on public sector mandates, the second point of order will not lie. Let me say there that S. 1 could have been improved at an earlier stage. S. 1 is extremely important piece of legislation. Its provisions potentially affect virtually all of our laws. Yet it was rushed through the Governmental Affairs Committee without any opportunity for careful consideration. The markup took place one full working day after the hearing on the bill. The Republicans opposed consideration of all amendments and voted on a party-line basis to report the bill to the floor without a report. I associate myself fully with the remarks of Senator Glenn earlier this morning. This is not how the Governmental Affairs Committee usually operates and I hope we'll be returning to our usual careful approach to considering legislation. I know, however, that even with the amendments, the basic presumption in S. 1 that I am concerned about remains: That the Federal Government will pay 100 percent of the cost of obligations imposed by the Federal Government on States and localities still exists. I will not go into all my concerns with this presumption. As I have previously stated, I believe that this presumption is inappropriate where laws apply in the same manner to sector. The presumption is inappropriate because it creates an unintended, but I am convinced very real and inequitable burden on private sector entities, businesses that are also affected by these mandates. Second, I am concerned that the process will create an unintended hurdle that may well impede the protection of people's health, safety, and employee's rights. Third, I am concerned that we may create differential standards for protection of our citizens. When we pass a law, we have determined that the national interest requires that the law achieve a goal, that there is a problem out there that requires a national solution to protect public health or the environment. We are adopting legislation establishing a value, a goal, to protect people. A family where the grandparents are suffering from emphysema do not care if the incinerator that is belching dirty air is publicly or privately owned. They believe the Government has an obligation to ensure that they get clean air regardless of who is providing that air. Fourth, I am concerned about the extra burden on businesses, particularly small businesses, if publicly owned facilities do not do their share of cleaning up the air or our estuaries. Fifth, those of us who represent States which are victims of pollution from upwind are particularly vulnerable under this proposal. If municipal sewage plants in New York are exempt from future requirements, Connecticut industries will bear an even greater burden in cleaning up Long Island Sound. I think the Levin and Byrd amendments make some inroads into limiting the impact of this presumption. But I remain convinced that the presumption itself is inappropriate and that this amendment, embodying last year's bipartisan bill endorsed by Governors and mayors is the right approach. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. The second letter is from the American Legislative Exchange Council to Speaker Gingrich dated Jan. 12, 1995. This group describes itself in the first paragraph of the letter as the ``nation's largest bipartisan individual membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and individual liberty''. The letter states: We are concerned that efforts underway to address mandates on state and local governments will unfairly impede the balance of competition, regulating private industry to meet standards not required by the public sector. Everyday private industry competes against the public sector to provide Americans with goods and services in areas such as transportation, the environment and many others. One example of this is waste water treatment facilities. Under the current mandate reform scenario, regulations on state and local governments would be lifted on many services. Unfortunately, private industry would not be exempted from these same regulations. Instead, they would continue to be forced to pass the costs of these regulations on to the consumer. This problem would obviously create an unfair advantage in favor of publicly operated services. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this letter be included in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, as I set forth during the discussion of my amendment last Thursday, I do not believe it is appropriate to create a presumption of 100-percent Federal payment in any case where a law applies in the same manner to both the public and private sector. But certainly where we have a committee finding that such a disadvantage to the private sector will be created, the presumption of 100-percent funding is totally inappropriate. Otherwise, what is the point of the committee stating whether or not there will be a competitive disadvantage created? The Levin amendment would make certain that the presumption does not apply in those circumstances. Mr. President, I strongly support the Levin amendment, but I want to emphasize that it does not go far enough. As Senator Roth indicated in the debate relating to my amendment: we know right now that the public and private sector compete in many areas covered by S.1. Let me take a few minutes to read from two letters I received on these issues after the debate on my amendment concluded. The first letter is from the International Association of Environmental Testing Laboratories dated Jan. 19, 1995, in support of the amendment I offered last Thursday. It states: S. 1 as currently written threatens public health and the environment and disadvantages commercial environmental testing laboratories that provide the same services as government laboratories. * * * (B)y exempting government laboratories from costs associated with important quality standards compliance, this legislation disadvantages commercial testing laboratories that provide the same services as government laboratories. Such a double standard not only hurts private sector laboratories, it also reduces tax revenues resulting from commercial laboratory operations: I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this letter be included in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the Levin amendment would take an important step forward in eliminating unfair advantages to the private sector that may result from this legislation. I urge adoption of the amendment. Exhibit 1 International Association of Environmental Testing Laboratories, Alexandia, VA, January 19, 1995. Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Lieberman: The International Association of Environmental Testing Laboratories (IAETL) is writing to support the Kerry, Levin, Lieberman proposed amendment to Senate Hill No. 1 concerning unfunded mandates. As a trade association representing two-thirds of the environmental testing industry, IAETL supports your proposed amendment concerning the even-handed application of environmental laws to apply to both the public and private sectors. S. 1 as currently written threatens public health and the environment and disadvantages commercial environmental testing laboratories that provides the same services as government laboratories. Environmental laboratories provide critical analysis of soil, air, and water for toxic contaminants. Such analysis is the basis for important public health and environmental decisions. IAETL believes that public health and the environment are threatened by exempting government laboratories from standards designed to ensure the quality and reliability of laboratory data. In addition, by exempting government laboratories from costs associated with important quality standards compliance, this legislation disadvantages commercial testing laboratories that provide the same services as government laboratories. Such a double standard not only hurts private sector laboratories, it also reduces tax revenues resulting from commercial laboratory operations. Accordingly, IAETL supports your proposed amendment to S. 1 and suggests that you add the following bullet to your ``Dear Colleague'' letter concerning this issue: Public laboratories, which provide analysis of soil, air, and water to protect public health and the environment from toxic contaminants, would be exempt from quality standards that apply to commercial laboratories performing the same critical services. IAETL looks forward to working with you on the issue of unfair competition between the public and private sector. Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions concerning this issue. Sincerely, Linda E. Christenson, Executive Director and General Counsel.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of Connecticut's most devoted civic servants, Mr. Jonathan H. Woodward. Mr. Woodward was educated in private schools from the 1st grade. After attending St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, Mr. Woodward studied at Harvard College. There he excelled both in the classroom and on the baseball field. Following his graduation Mr. Woodward joined the Army Air Force and served under a wide variety of different posts until the end of the war in 1945. Following his service in the military, Mr. Woodward went to work at, and ultimately purchased, the J.M. Layton Company. Indeed, his business sense would propel Mr. Woodward to such positions as director of the Merchant's Bank and Trust Company, South Norwalk Savings/Gateway Bank, Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce, Connecticut Public Expenditure Council, and Maritime Center at Norwalk. As stated by his son David, Mr. Woodward, ``Believed that in hiring good people and having them serve the clientele to the best of their ability both the firm and the individuals would prosper.'' In 1953, Mr. Woodward was elected to Norwalk Hospital's Board of Trustees. He would later be elected and serve as the hospital's president from 1966 to 1970. His involvement in the development of this hospital was capped by his efforts to raise nearly $20 million to expand the facility in 1991. Through this astounding effort, the Norwalk hospital has been able to greatly increase its service to the state of Connecticut. Counterbalanced by his strong business prowess, was his undeniable desire to serve the public good. ``He was a towering figure in the city both psychically and civically . . . he was very proud of his heritage and equally interested in the good of all citizens in the city.'' Through this desire to serve the populace, Mr. Woodward became the director of such charitable institutions as the Norwalk YMCA, Norwalk Community-Technical College Foundation, and United Way of Norwalk. John Woodward lived a life that should be an example to all of us. He loved and provided for his family while at the same time excelling both in the workplace and in his service to the environment. He will forever be remembered as a man who touched many and helped countless others. The state of Connecticut has much to remember him by. We are grateful for his good work and for his dedication to the people of our fine state.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the Jewish Federation of Greater Bridgeport for their extraordinary efforts to provide for the Jewish population in the State of Connecticut. For nearly 55 years, the Jewish Federation of Greater Bridgeport has served and represented Jews in need in its service cities and towns of Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Monroe, Stratford, and Trumbull by providing health, social, and educational opportunities to their citizens through agencies such as the Greater Bridgeport Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Home for the Elderly, Jewish Family Service, and Hillel Academy and Merkaz Community Hebrew High School. The Jewish Federation of Greater Bridgeport, through the continuing national work of the United Jewish Appeal, has aided both with social and humanitarian services countless hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel and in 40 countries the world over. The tide of peace in 1994 has rolled in and washed over the nations and peoples of the Middle East as never before, witnessed by the signing of a treaty ensuring peaceful cohabitation in the region between the people of Jordan and Israel, limited self-rule of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jericho and the Gaza Strip, and the final emigration of Jews from Syria while talks continue between those two nations toward a comprehensive peace. The annual combined super Sunday telethon campaign of the Jewish Federation of Greater Bridgeport, and the United Jewish Appeal will take place on Sunday, February 5, 1995, in order to raise vitally needed funds to continue providing these worthwhile services here at home, in Israel, and around the world.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed an opportunity to speak for up to 10 minutes that I was provided for in morning business, and that the time for resumption of consideration of S. 1 and the corresponding time for a vote on amendments that have been set down be moved up accordingly.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, before our new colleague from Missouri leaves the floor I want to add my welcome. I do so with a personal sense of pride and pleasure because he and I were classmates together at college. It gives me great pride to see him join Members here. The Chair will no doubt hold this revelation against the Senator from Missouri and me, but in any case, he was an honorable, decent, intelligent person when I knew him back more years than I will state for the record. I know he brings those talents with him here and beyond. As the senior Senator said, he is a person of extraordinary faith and comes here not only with great talent but with an appropriate spirit and a religious sense of humility. We could use that around here. I look forward to working with him in the years ahead. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Lieberman pertaining to the introduction of S. 246 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I would at this point yield up to 10 minutes of my time to the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg].

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank my friend and colleague from North Dakota. His advocacy for small business, for small farmers, and for common sense is well known and respected in this Chamber. He did in fact help write the bill, in fact strongly supports the underlying purpose of the bill, but also supports the amendment which gives me great confidence to go forward. I thank him for his very eloquent words. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerrey] be added as cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will be glad to yield to my colleague.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum so Senators on our side can consult.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, at the same time, by exempting the smokestacks and discharge pipes operated by State and local governments from complying with future environmental standards, S. 1 would force a wide range of businesses to bear even more of the burden to meet overall clean air and clean water goals. For example, if publicly owned incinerators or landfills do not reduce emissions contributing to smog, carbon monoxide, and particulates, private sources of pollution would have to do more in order to meet the cleaner environmental goals. Let me illustrate, if I might, in a little greater detail how this legislation could hurt private businesses. States and businesses advocate water pollution laws that establish an overall pollution loading limit for individual bodies of water. That has been something that the sources of pollution, potential sources, have asked us to do. We have done it. This is based on the notion that each body of water is best managed for cleanup based on a scientific understanding of what that river or lake or bay can withstand in the way of pollution, identifying the sources, and then assigning the source's limits based on what they contribute. This is very fair, and it creates a cooperative effort to clean up a body of water. All sources of pollution, whether industry or sewage treatment plants operated by cities, get divided up for that pollution limit; so much for this sewage treatment plant, so much for that factory, et cetera, et cetera. But if publicly owned wastewater treatment plants are permitted to discharge, for instance, more nitrates into our rivers and bays, well, who are we going to have to turn to to make up the difference to reach the standard, the threshold, the goal that we have for cleaning up that water? Is it going to be the factory along the water, the rancher, or the farmer who is using fertilizer upstream? Not only would S. 1 hurt business under this scenario, it would usurp State and local efforts to clean up their rivers, bays, and lakes, based on sound science and local control. Mr. President, those of us who represent States which, in some part at least, are victims of pollution from upwind or downstream are particularly vulnerable and feel so under this proposal. Let me be very specific. If municipal sewage plants in New York will be relieved of future requirements to comply with water pollution standards because the Federal Government has not paid 100 percent of the cost of that cleanup, Connecticut industries and residents will bear a much greater burden if we are ever going to clean up Long Island Sound. In fact, it would be impossible to ever clean up the Sound if New York City sewage treatment plants were exempt from water pollution control requirements. New requirements for more flexible approaches to cleaning up our rivers, coast lines, lakes, and estuaries focus on watershed-based planning in which wastewater treatment plants, industrial discharges, and farmers all work together to meet the loading tolerance of a particular body of water. These are zero sum gains. If the requirements on public sources of water pollution go down, the requirements on the private sources will go up and, believe me, they will be costly and burdensome. Connecticut also has one of the most severe air pollution problems in the country, because we are the victims of dirty air transported from upwind States. Emissions of sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen from powerplants in upwind States, including Midwestern States, contribute significantly to our smog problem and are responsible for the acid rain that falls on our State and many States throughout New England. If powerplants that may be operated by a public entity are exempt from future requirements under the Clean Air Act, Connecticut's industries will bear a greater cleanup burden, and the plain fact is--and it is a sad fact--that our citizens will breathe dirtier air and they will be sicker. I share the concerns raised about the potential negative impact of unfunded mandates legislation on Connecticut's severe air pollution problems, particularly dirty air transported into Connecticut from other States, by my colleague Congressman Chris Shays during the markup of House unfunded mandate legislation in the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. The same points he raised apply to S. 1. Mr. President, let me provide just some general statistics relating to the unfair burden that may be inadvertently created by S. 1. In its 1992 report to Congress, EPA examined the sources of pollution in estuary waters. Of the 8,000 square miles of impaired estuarine waters, municipal sewage treatment plants affect 53 percent of impaired miles, and urban runoff/storm sewers affect 43 percent of those impaired miles. Obviously, if we allowed some or all of these sources to be exempt from future water pollution requirements, the resulting burden on industries contributing to the pollution would rise dramatically if we are to succeed in cleaning up our estuaries. Mr. President, I find it particularly ironic that we are considering this legislation right after we passed S. 2, the have managed to impose the discipline of our laws on ourselves and now we are talking about a huge potential loophole in applying our laws to State and local governments. In a way, I fear that this act, S. 1, might, if it is passed as it reads now, come to be known as the State and Local Government Unaccountability Act of 1995. There are other consequences of the presumption in S. 1 that could result which are perverse and clearly unintended. A town that operates its own hospital and incinerator would, in effect, be receiving tax dollars from a town where there was a private incinerator and hospital. In other words, it is unfair to the taxpayers who pay for the disproportionate burden. Mr. President, finally, I am also concerned about the potential legal issues raised about this point of order that is created in S. 1. In a letter to Senators Roth and Domenici, dated January 8, 1995, seven professors of law contend that the procedure in this point of order may create problems under article 1, section 1 of the Constitution. Although it is settled that Congress may delegate to executive agencies the power to devise policy to meet congressional objectives, Congress must establish an intelligible principle to which the executive must conform. These professors state that the procedure in S. 1 might go far beyond such delegations because Congress could expressly authorize administrative agencies to amend or temporarily nullify statutes which could be held to be an unconstitutional attempt to delegate legislative powers to executive agencies. I do not know if this analysis is correct, but I am concerned about it. I am concerned about whether we have assurances that agencies will be fair and evenhanded when they determine how to reduce the scope of the mandate and whether S. 1 contains adequate safeguards in that regard. Mr. President, this amendment would simply narrow the scope of the second point of order in S. 1. It leaves intact most of S. 1. In fact, it leaves intact the 2 points of order that would lie against the largest costs on State and local governments of Federal mandates. They are all still left intact. It would still ensure, that is to say, that a point of order would lie if we do not have full information about the costs of mandates to State and local governments. It would still ensure that the committee report state whether there is funding for those mandates. It would still contain the second point of order for mandates that relate specifically to State and local governments, and are not part of trying to solve a broader national problem. But for those mandates that apply to State, local, or tribal governments and the private sector, it would close a loophole that is unfair to the private sector and which would potentially exempt State and local governments from a whole host of environmental health and safety laws. And it would have, therefore, severe consequences, in my opinion, for the health and safety of the American people. So let us pass a good bill here, Mr. President. I want to vote for S. 1, but I just feel that, in its current state, it goes too far. Let us pass a bill, not a Pandora's box filled with unintended consequences. Again, I say, if the American people knew about the impact of this legislation, it would have not only unintended consequences but undesired consequences, consequences which the American people clearly do not desire. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment and I yield the floor. Mr. KEMPTHORNE addressed the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I have called up this amendment on behalf of Senators Kerry, Levin, Lautenberg, Bumpers, Dorgan, and myself. And I am pleased to say that this is a very germane amendment. I share the very, very serious concerns that have been raised by officials of State and local government about the regulatory compliance and other burdens that have been placed on States and local governments by the Federal Government, by us. There is a problem here. It is a real problem, and we ought to deal with it. Last year, there was bipartisan legislation, S. 993, reported by the Governmental Affairs Committee on which I am privileged to serve, which I thought adopted a balanced approach to addressing the justifiable concerns of State and local governments about unfunded mandates. We established the principle there that Congress must be forced to confront the costs that may be incurred by the State and local governments when we pass legislation, whether or not we have authorized funding for those costs. There must be an opportunity for the fullest discussion, if there are not funds provided in the legislation we adopt to cover the costs on State and local governments. In other words, that kind of legislation should be subject to a point of order if there is not information about the costs. I think that was a very important principle that was established in S. 993, a very important response to a very real problem, a very constructive response. I was pleased to be a cosponsor of S. 993 because it was all about knowledge and congressional accountability. But I regret to say that in my opinion S. 1, though it does some very good things, in one particular way--others as well--but in one particular way it goes too far. It simply takes a good idea and takes it so far that it creates a new, and I think very threatening presumption. Under S. 1, if the bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report increases the Federal intergovernmental mandate by more than $50 million in a given year, a point of order will lie unless there is a funding mechanism provided. S. 1 also provides that if the funding mechanism is an authorization of appropriation for the full amount of the mandate, then the bill must designate a responsible Federal agency, and establish procedures for that agency to direct that the mandate will become ineffective or reduced in scope if the full amount of the appropriations is not provided in any fiscal year. In short, the presumption in S. 1 is that the Federal Government will pay 100 percent of the cost of obligations imposed by the Federal Government on States and localities. If the legislation states that the Federal Government will pay the cost, the money must be appropriated or the agency must declare the mandate ineffective or reduced in scope. So S. 1 is a much more extensive reach, a much different approach to the problem of unfunded mandates than that adopted in S. 993, which was reported out of the committee last year. That is why I say it takes a problem, unfunded mandates, and in its response reaches too far; and in doing so, creates an unintended--but I am convinced very real and inequitable--burden on private-sector entities, businesses that are affected by these mandates. And it also puts at risk a whole array of Federal law protecting the environment, people's health, people's safety, people's rights, that the public simply does not want to endanger, that the public wants us to continue to protect. So under the mantle of dealing with unfunded mandates, this bill will have the consequence, I am convinced, of putting extra burdens on business, particularly small business, and in the process will create a hurdle that will impede the protection of people's environmental health, safety, and employee rights. Let me say that in trying to separate out those mandates that uniquely place responsibilities on State and local governments, and for which we should feel a special obligation to pay the costs of those mandates, and those mandates which deal with a problem and in doing so place responsibilities--call them mandates--on public as well as private sources of that problem, we are creating a real inequity. But let me say what this amendment leaves intact. It leaves intact in the underlying bill, S. 1, the requirement that Congress confront the cost of our actions. It may be when doing so, no matter how worthy the aims of the particular legislation, how protective it may be, how popular it may be, that Congress, Members of Congress, in our wisdom, will decide that it is not worth the cost. That is left in place in this bill. Also left in place is the second point of order, with all the extra burdens, all the extra responsibilities on the Federal bureaucracy to pay for the cost of mandates, or cut back or terminate those mandates if they apply specifically to State and local governments. The amendment is structured on a principle, and that principle is that if Congress requires other levels of government to perform governmental services, then Congress should pay the State and local governments to do that. The appropriate area for legislation is where States and localities are providing those governmental services, mandated by Congress, that Congress is unwilling to fund; responsibilities that are exclusively governmental, that do not apply to private industry or private citizens. The purpose of the amendment is to assure a fairer partnership between those State and local governments and the Federal Government in carrying out governmental programs. In its report on S. 1, the Governmental Affairs Committee stated: State and local officials emphasized in the committee's hearings . . . that over the last decade the Federal Government has not treated them as partners in the providing of effective governmental services to the American people, but rather as agents or extensions of the Federal Government. But there is an enormously expensive governmental service obligation associated, still, with many of the programs covered by this legislation that our amendment would not affect. In fact, they are the big-ticket mandate items for States and local governments: Medicaid, AFDC, child nutrition, food stamps, social service block grants, vocational rehabilitation State grants, foster care, adoption assistance and independent living, family support welfare services, and child support functions. Those are all examples of responsibilities on State and local governments, not on private entities. We essentially delegated a governmental responsibility from the Federal to the State and local governments. And those are mandates whose treatment would be left untouched by my amendment; whose treatment under S. 1 would be left untouched by my amendment. For Congress to act to pass or reauthorize those mandates beyond the $50 million annually exempted, there would have to be the finding that Congress had put the money forth to pay for the State and local costs of those programs or the point of order would appropriately lie and Congress would be tested to express its will. Governor Voinovich of Ohio has stated: Many States cannot spend a greater share of tax dollars on education because new Medicaid mandates consume more and more of our resources. They account for 70 percent of Ohio's mandate costs, nearly $1 billion over 4 years. Medicaid was 19 percent of Ohio's budget in 1982. It represents one-third today. So to me these are the most consequential, most costly mandates that we at the Federal level have put on the States. And those are the ones where we ought to have the process be forced to go through the extra hurdles in S. 1. Senator Bond, our colleague from Missouri, at the hearing held on S. 1 this year said: Unfortunately, the State [State of Missouri] projects that unfunded mandates will exceed $250 million. These are costs that have been documented with respect to specific measures. The Clean Air Act cost, in 1997, two-thirds of a million dollars; total environmental mandates are estimated only at $3.5 million. I stop my quote from our colleague from Missouri here. Let me just emphasize that I think what many of us have been thinking about is the unfunded mandates, environmental particularly. As our colleague from Missouri said in his testimony before the committee, consumers put a relatively small burden--and as I will come back and argue, it is a fair burden because it is also one placed on private sources of pollution. Then the Senator goes on to say the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Act cost the State $16 million in unfunded mandates, $16 million as compared to $3.5 million for total environmental mandates on Missouri. The Department of Social Services, as one would expect, Senator Bond says, was the big winner having the privilege of almost $130 million of a very limited budget to comply with Federal mandates. The Federal unfunded mandates survey for the National Association of Counties lists the most costly unfunded mandate as the Immigration Act. That is the type of mandate that applies specifically to State and local governments and the type of mandate for which we should be tested, forced to confront the costs, and go over the higher hurdle set in S. 1. The city of Chicago survey of mandates listed airport restrictions, arbitrage rebates, and bond financing restrictions, as the most consequential to the city. I would distinguish these mandates from other so-called ``mandates'' which really are about the adoption of a law at the Federal level to respond to a problem--clean air, clean water, safe drinking water, fairness to employees, as in the Family and Medical Leave Act, where the source of the problem or potential problem is both public and private. This amendment would eliminate that inequity. It exempts from the definition of a Federal intergovernmental mandate, as is in the bill, it is a very simple amendment with big consequences. It simply changes the definition of Federal intergovernmental mandate in the bill and exempts from that definition, for purposes of the requirement that the legislation must provide a funding mechanism for 100 percent of the cost to avoid the point of order, provisions which apply in the same manner to the State, local, or tribal governments and the private sector. For example, suppose legislation requires that all incinerators limit emissions of dioxin to 12 parts per billion by the year 2000. That would apply obviously to both public and private sector incinerator operators. Under the amendment, the authorizing committee in its report is still required to state the amount--this is under S. 1 if the amendment were adopted--the authorizing committee in its report is still required to state the amount of any decrease or increase in funding whether the committee intends the mandate to be funded or unfunded and any sources of Federal funding. Under the amendment, the director of CBO would still be required to provide an estimate of the cost to State and local governments of this requirement having to do with emissions of dioxin that I have set up as the hypothetical here, and to state if those costs are greater than the $50 million threshold in the bill. Under this amendment, if it is agreed to, the point of order would still lie if the committee report does not contain that estimate except as modified by the amendment of the Senator from Michigan which we adopted earlier today. However, under this amendment, there would be no point of order if the bill did not provide a funding mechanism for 100 percent of the cost of compliance with this dioxin reduction proposal for the State and local governments. Mr. President, this amendment covers only the situation where duties and obligations apply in the same manner to private sector and State and local governments. S. 1, in its current form, potentially, under its procedures, sets up a two-track process here between private and public entities and would exempt State and local governments from the environmental safety, employee rights, and environmental standards that competing private businesses must meet. So S. 1 would potentially result in a competitive disadvantage for private enterprises engaged in the same activities that the State or local governments are engaged in. In the example I gave a moment ago, the burden would fall on the privately operated incinerator to spend whatever was necessary to reduce the emissions of dioxin whether or not Congress gave any help in meeting the cost of that upgrading but would not similarly apply to the publicly owned incinerator if Congress did not provide full funding. Of course, the other consequence here, Mr. President, is that the application of S. 1 as it exists now would probably result in disproportionate risks to our citizens. I can tell you that the people living around that incinerator would not care whether it was publicly or privately owned. They want to be protected from toxins coming from the incinerator. Let me give some other examples. Under S. 1, the bill before us, and in future legislation, State and local governments could be exempt from paying their employees an increase in the minimum wage or providing family and medical leave, requirements that all private businesses would have to meet. Publicly owned or operated incinerators could be exempt from air pollution standards while privately operated incinerators would be required to meet those standards. Publicly run drinking water systems might not have to provide pure water in the same way that private water companies would have to provide. Public universities and hospitals could be exempt from the requirements for handling radioactive wastes while private hospitals, including nonprofit hospitals, religiously supported hospitals and labs, would be required to meet those standards. Cars owned by the State or local government could be exempt from requirements to run on cleaner burning fuels which apply to all other citizens of the State, not just to private businesses, but to everybody else in the State. States or local governments that operate schoolbuses could be exempt from safety requirements that would apply to buses operated by private companies. State-owned liquor stores could be exempt from standards of conduct that would be applied to privately owned and operated stores. States and municipalities could be exempt from requirements to retrofit or replace air conditioning units to remove CFC's while private entities would have to do that. Certainly, Mr. President, we do not mean to say that there should be a presumption, if Congress determines a law is necessary to regulate safety, for instance, on school buses, safety of our kids, that they must also provide 100 percent of the compliance costs of publicly owned buses or else they do not have to meet that standard. The point here is that in adopting legislation [[Page S1162]] which we have given--I think unfairly in this case--the pejorative term ``mandate'' for expressing a value, for setting a national goal, we are trying to protect people. I do not think that the people who sent us here want us to protect them any more from dirty air or dirty drinking water than from accidents of their kids on school buses. They do not want any lower level of protection if the source of those threats to their safety and well-being are from public as opposed to private sources. Let me talk for a moment about the consequences of public health. It has been my honor to serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and this is an area in which I have spent some time. And I am particularly concerned about the unintended, and I think undesired by the American people, consequences of S. 1 on environmental laws. When we pass a law, we have determined that the national interest requires that law to achieve a goal, that there is a problem out there that requires a national solution to protect public health or the environment. For example, more than 25 years ago, Congress determined that the basic principle is that the Federal Government should be the ultimate guarantor of minimum standards for clean water and clean air. And there is a rationale for that. It is not just a power grab by the Federal Government for the sake of having power. Environmental problems do not end at State borders. Dirty air and dirty water move. Only the Federal Government can ensure that an up-river or upwind city or State does not dump its pollution on downwind or downstream States or localities. Only the Federal Government can ensure that one area of the country does not so lower its standards for clean air or clean water for the purpose of attracting business, for instance, to the detriment of its neighboring States. Federal pollution standards apply to all sources of pollution. It is obvious that you cannot solve the problem if you just apply a national solution to one part of the problem, whether or not the source of pollution is run by a public or by a private entity. I can tell you that a family where the grandparents are suffering from emphysema do not care if the incinerator that is belching dirty air is publicly or privately owned or operated. They believe that the Government has an obligation to ensure that they have clean air. The parents whose child gets diarrhea from drinking dirty water does not care whether a public or private entity provided that water. They want the Government to ensure that the water is pure, regardless of who is providing that water. During the last 25 years, the Federal Government, in fact, has chosen to provide billions of dollars to assist State and local governments in complying with some of these pollution control laws. I have fought myself for that funding and will continue to do so. But it seems to me that when we identify a serious national problem such as dirty air and dirty water, dirty drinking water, it is wrong to place a mandate on ourselves to say that if we are not able to pay for 100 percent of the compliance cost, that a State or local government can escape those pollution controls that apply to all other sources of pollution. If we took it to its extreme, it would take the concept that is generally accepted, which is that the polluter pays. We can turn it on its head and say we have to pay the polluter. S. 1 could result in vastly different levels of protection for citizens throughout this country, or even within one State. Citizens living near or downwind from a publicly owned facility could be exposed to toxins emitted from an incinerator which could be exempted from pollution control standards, while citizens living near a private facility would be protected from those emissions because that private facility would not be exempt. Let me talk about the competitive consequences I have referred to. Obviously, results like those I have talked about would put private entities at a competitive disadvantage. In a letter to our colleague from Idaho dated December 16, 1994, Browning-Ferris Industries, a waste management company, discussed some of the potential consequences of unfunded mandate legislation: The results would severely skew the marketplace in favor of Government rather than the private sector services, because the private sector would have to add in prices to its consumers for compliance with these various Federal rules that customers of the public sector would not have to pay. The Environmental Industry Association, in a letter dated January 9, 1995, an association of a lot of companies that produce environmental cleanup equipment and are involved in the waste business, states this-- and they support a lot of this bill: Notwithstanding provisions in the bill for parity of treatment between the public and private sectors for the purposes of analysis, there seems to be an inconsistency in actual treatment between the two sectors because the legislation subject to the point of order vote applies only to the Federal intergovernmental mandates and not private sector mandates. This is the Environmental Industry Association Business Group: We respectfully restate our basic concern that to exclude State and local government--but not the private sector--from the costs of compliance with providing goods and services where both sectors compete would be both unfair and unfaithful to the core principles of the Job and Wage Enhancement Act-- art of the contract for America--of which S. 1 is the first piece. Those are strong statements from private sector entities who fear exactly the disproportionate burden that this amendment of ours would eliminate from the bill. Mr. President, the unintended consequences of the legislation, in fact, and ironically, may be to encourage an expansion of Government, which is exactly the opposite of what the people supporting this in its current form want. Government could be motivated to contract out fewer services to private industry because the cost charged private industry probably would be higher. This issue was highlighted for me by the National School Transportation Association, which represents the portion of the familiar yellow or orange school bus fleet operated by the private sector which is about a third of the Nation's school bus fleet. Presumably, those school districts which have contracted out this function have saved money. But in a letter dated January 10, 1995, the private operators point out that one of the consequences of S. 1, the legislation before us, may be to remove the incentives for school districts to contract out for those services, because by keeping the services in-house, the costs of compliance with various Federal requirements can be avoided. The letter states: Such an outcome would be sharply at odds with the burgeoning wave of privatization that is realizing, for financially strapped school districts, significant savings and could disrupt the level playing field for our industry that has worked so hard over the past decade to achieve these advances. Mr. President, I ask that the full text of two letters from the National School Transport Association be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I will speak on my own time. I say also to my friend from Mississippi that we may not consume all the time available on our side. There is one other Senator who has asked to speak in support of the amendment, and if he arrives on the floor, obviously, I will yield to him. Otherwise, I will speak for a brief time. I presume that my friend and colleague from Idaho will want to speak for a little bit. And if it is OK with him, I would like to wrap it up. Mr. President, I do want to make clear here a few points in response to some of the opposition to the amendment. This is not some special exemption that we are creating. We are in fact trying to create an equality of enforcement of S. 1 to make it clear that it applies equally to the public and the private sectors, and that it does not, by setting a higher hurdle for so-called mandates on State and local governments, exempt them and put them at a competitive advantage in regard to, or in respect to private entities that are doing the same thing that they are doing. I feel very strongly, Mr. President, that this amendment does not go to the heart of this bill. This bill, which I fully support, one, wants Congress to be forced to face an estimate of the costs of what we are about to do. It sounds as if we should have done it a long time ago, and we should have. What is rational or fair about passing a bill which requires other levels of Government or the private sector to take action when we do not know how much it will cost them? As much as we support some of the goals that are the subjects of legislation we adopt, we might decide that it is not worth it, that on a cost-benefit basis, it is not worth it. My amendment leaves that intact. We will be forced to face the cost of potential legislation. CBO must give an estimate of the cost impact on both public and private entities of anything we are about to do. The amendment, if passed, leaves the second point of order in place created by S. 1 so far as it relates to mandates specifically on State and local government for governmental functions where there is no private-sector competition. In my opinion, that affects the most significant and certainly the most costly mandates that we put on State and local governments. They still would be covered by S. 1, if amended by the amendment that we have put in. And it is just there in the dollars and cents. It was there in the testimony [[Page S1175]] that I read from Governor Voinovich of Ohio and, indeed, from Senator Bond. When you look at the impact, the big-ticket items, the big-ticket mandates, the most costly mandates on the State and local governments are the ones that are uniquely on them--education and social services particularly. The current occupant of the chair made the point there are other mandates we put on the States uniquely, and the motor-voter legislation, which the current occupant of the chair cited, is a good example. There is no private sector impact of that. In a sense that is the classic Federal mandate. We had a ``good idea,'' and we asked the States and localities to do it. We forced them to do it. But we did not give them the money to pay for it. And that would still, if my amendment passed, be required to pass the second hurdle, be subject to the point of order, and be put on the track which would eventually lead to no money, no mandate. And that ought to be. But when we are dealing with something that affects both the public and private sector, I just do not think it is right to lower the bar, the hurdle, for the public sector and keep it up here for the private sector. That is inevitably going to mean that the private sector will be put at a competitive disadvantage where they are playing a zero sum game as they are in so many clean air, clean water situations where you have a set level of pollution reduction that the public and private sector share. If we ask less of the public sector, the private sector is going to have to bear more of a burden and pay more of a cost. And ironically, and unintended, I know, is one of the consequences that I foresee, which is that, if this amendment were passed, it would inhibit the move toward privatization which so many of us support here, privatization of public functions, because a private entity performing a public function will be held to higher responsibilities, have higher costs, and therefore governments will be less likely to privatize because they will get this bargain. So I think this is an amendment that is equitable. The underlying bill is very necessary, and the amendment does not diminish the impact of the underlying bill. In fact, it supports it and it supports it in a way that is more fair because it does not increase the burdens on the private sector. Now, people who feel there are too many regulations generally, Federal regulations and Federal mandates, may think that if this passes in this form, because of the inequity that is being created between the public and private sector, the next step will be to remove mandates from the private sector. I would respectfully suggest that is a big step which is not likely to follow, and therefore the private sector will be left holding the bag, paying the extra cost of this proposal. The reason I think that big step would not be taken is that then--and I speak as someone who has worked on market incentives for environmental protection and is concerned about deregulation--but if you started to talk about pulling off some of the regulations, then you are going to put in play a lot of laws that the public wants us to keep out there.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Welfare Reforms That Work Act of 1995. The welfare system is in crisis. The United States has one of the most expensive welfare systems in the world. But 20 percent of America's children are poor, a higher percentage than any other industrialized country. The welfare system is a disaster for those who are on it and those who pay for it. This Congress has a historic opportunity to begin to fix this disaster. The primary welfare program--Aid to Families With Dependent Children [AFDC]--is viewed by those participating in it and those paying for it as a failure. It is failing at its primary task, moving people into the work force. Worse yet, it is contributing to the cycle of poverty. By rewarding single parents who don't work, don't marry, and have additional children out of wedlock, the current system demeans our most cherished values and deepens society's most serious problems. Democrats, Republicans, and the American [[Page S1224]] public agree that the system must be changed. But little consensus exists on how best to reform the system so that it promotes work and family. Last year both President Clinton and Republicans in Congress proposed legislation that would impose time limits and work requirements on welfare recipients and would begin to turn welfare incentives around. But in this Congress some have gone further. The Republican Contract With America proposes, among other things, ending benefits abruptly for teenage mothers who have children out of wedlock. More recently some Members have advocated giving the States total control of AFDC and other Federal welfare programs, ending the entitlement status of these programs, and capping Federal outlays. While I believe that each of these ideas should be tested to see if they will produce better results than the current failed welfare system, I cannot support mandating any of them nationally because no one knows whether they will work. If Congress imposes them nationally and they do not work, millions of children's lives will be put at risk. While I am pleased to see that my colleagues are advocating State flexibility, I am concerned about their blank-check approach. I agree that States should be the testing ground for bold programmatic changes. But handing the AFDC Program over to the States with no strings attached does not guarantee reform and may produce national division and welfare shopping. And, placing caps on block grants works against State flexibility by limiting State experiments to those that save money in the short term but may do nothing to promote work and reconstruct families in the long term. The American people are asking us to reform, not eliminate, the way we are carrying out our responsibility to help poor children. Mr. President, today I am proposing an alternative welfare reform approach that I hope will meet our welfare reform goals in a way that is acceptable to both sides of the aisle--the Welfare Reforms That Work Act. The bill would allow States to test--with appropriate Federal oversight--bold welfare reform initiatives that are promising but unproven, and that involve some human or financial risk. It would also establish a process for identifying successful reform approaches-- welfare reforms that work--that can be applied nationally. The bill does not preclude our mandating immediately those reforms about which there is growing agreement--such as requiring unwed teenage mothers to live at home as a condition of receiving welfare payments--and which involve limited human risk or Federal expense. States should be at the forefront of reform for three reasons. First, a State-based approach is financially prudent. Some reforms that merit testing--including imposing time limits and work requirements or expanding residential child care options, including orphanages--will cost money in the short term. In an article in the New Republic, Paul Offner of the Senate Finance Committee staff advises us to learn an important lesson from the 1988 Family Support Act: overly ambitious and underfunded reform efforts are doomed to failure. They do little to change the expectations of those working in the system or those using it. My bill would allow States to fund ambitious changes at the more affordable city, county, or State level. Second, a State-driven approach allows us to test bold changes responsibly. We have few proposed reforms that we know will work, and those that have been tested, such as the model education and training programs launched in California and Florida, have delivered only marginal results to date. In a recent Wall Street Journal James Q. Wilson bluntly confessed that he simply does not know what reforms will work. Absent better information, we would be wise to heed the advice of proverbs and avoid zealous acts without knowledge. Changes to welfare are consequential. They affect people's lives, children's lives. Under my bill States could test bold welfare rules changes--such as totally denying benefits to teenage mothers or establish orphanages--but only if the States can ensure that children are not unintended victims of these tests. As we try to change the behavior of parents, we must not cause more pain to the children. Third, States are eager and able to lead our reform efforts. In testimony last year before the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, the American Public Welfare Association [APWA] and other State organizations indicated their strong desire to pursue innovative strategies. When I introduced S. 1932, a similar State-based welfare reform bill last year, all 11 States that commented on the bill praised the bill's general approach. States are already leading the way. Over half the States have proposed reforms and received waivers from Federal rules under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to implement their proposed changes. My own State of Connecticut recently received a waiver to implement a comprehensive reform initiative. But the waiver process does not go far enough. In testimony before the House Committee on Government Operations last September, the APWA, State welfare administrators, and other witnesses testified that the budget neutrality requirement of the current process creates a substantial barrier to reform. As States seek to promote work and family through changing eligibility rules, it give States an incentive to test sticks but not carrots. Witnesses at the hearing urged that the Federal Government share in the cost of demonstrations programs, make the results of demonstrations readily available, and tallow States to adopt, without a waiver, those demonstrations that prove effective. In other words, we must be honest and acknowledge that we may have to spend a little more money in the short run to save a lot more money and a lot more lives in the long run. My bill addresses these and other concerns voiced by States about the current waiver process. To ensure that States will be able to test the broadest array of reforms, my bill authorizes $675 million over 5 years to support demonstration projects and independent program evaluations. Half of these funds would support innovative pilot programs specified in the bill, and the remaining half would fund other State-proposed demonstrations. Demonstration projects would last up to 5 years. States would report on progress annually. As results of interim and final reports on State tests become available, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] will submit legislation to Congress to provide for the national implementation of successful programs. As a result of this process, those innovations that proved successful could be rapidly adopted by other States or imposed nationwide. The bill promotes State-initiated welfare reforms that meet what I believe should be our four main reform goals: moving welfare recipients into the work force; strengthening families, stopping illegitimate births and breaking the cycle of welfare dependency; increasing child support collection and paternal responsibility, and improving the delivery of welfare services. title i authorizes initiatives to move welfare recipients into the work force We must make returning to work the primary focus of the welfare system. The current system demands little of people on welfare. It often impedes, rather than empowers, those who seek to return to the work force. If an AFDC mother goes back to work, her income increases only minimally--often not enough to cover child care--and she loses her Medicaid benefits. She is likely to be economically worse off if she returns to the work force, so she stays on welfare. Title I includes initiatives to move people on welfare into the work force. Two pilot programs focus on teenage parents--those at greatest risk for long-term welfare dependency. The first allows States to condition AFDC benefits for single parents under 20 years of age on: first, attending school, participating in job training or holding a job; and second, living at home. The second allows States to include young AFDC clients in the Job Corps--a successful, residential antipoverty program for youths 16 to 22 years of age. Title I also allows States to require 30 days of State-assisted job search or, where appropriate, substance abuse treatment, during the usual lag time between application for and receipt of search from the day they first seek a welfare grant. Other provisions in this title assist people on welfare in accumulating assets to invest in education or to start a small business. title II authorizes initiatives to strengthen families and break the cycle of welfare dependency Current Federal welfare rules discourage family unification and encourage out-of-wedlock childbearing. This title seeks to turn these incentives around. It recognizes that while welfare is a privilege granted by Government, not a right for parents, the States and the Federal Government have a moral responsibility to ensure the well-being of American children. The title seeks to address what is perhaps the most compelling and difficult challenge of welfare reform, to discourage out-of-wedlock births without harming children. An increasing percentage of those entering the welfare system are never-married mothers at greatest risk of long-term welfare dependency. Between 1983 and 1992, families headed by unwed mothers accounted for about four-fifths of the growth in people on welfare, and at least 40 percent of never-married mothers receiving AFDC remain in the system for 10 years or more. Never-married teen parents are particularly likely to fall into long- term welfare dependency. More than one half of welfare spending goes to women who first gave birth as teens. As William Raspberry noted last winter in a Washington Post column aptly entitle ``Out of Wedlock, Out of Luck,'' children born to parents who had their first child out-of- wedlock before they finished high school and reached the age of 20 are ``almost guaranteed a life of poverty.'' In other words, they and their parents are almost guaranteed a life on welfare. Citing William A. Galston's analyses, Raspberry notes that a startling 79 percent of children in this category lived in poverty in 1992. In contrast, only 8 percent of children whose parents had achieved all three milestones-- marriage, graduation, and the 20th birthday--before having their first child were living in poverty. The potential effect of welfare on illegitimacy has taken center stage in the welfare reform debate but there is considerable disagreement about its effects. David Ellwood, economist and Department of Heath and Human Services official, has found little evidence that welfare contributes to the increase in illegitimacy. In his book, ``Poor Support,'' he points to several other concurrent social changes that are likely contributors to the increase--the growing percentage of women in the work force, the drop in earnings and rise in unemployment among young men, and changes in attitudes toward marriage. Others interpret the data differently. Most notably, Charles Murray believes that welfare is the primary cause of the increase in illegitimate births. In a catalytic Wall Street Journal article published October 29, 1993, Murray argues that welfare has reduced the economic penalty associated with out-of-wedlock childbearing and, in turn, has reduced the social stigma associated with it. He concludes that the removal of both of these disincentives has led to more out-of- wedlock births. Based on this conclusion, Murray recommends the dramatic step of ending welfare altogether. Murray acknowledges that his approach may put this generation of children at risk and advocates, among other things, Government investment in new facilities to care for these children--thus the ensuing brouhaha about orphanages--just the kinds of facilities this act would enable states to create. The stigma of illegitimacy was not just an accident of social history; it was a societal attempt to protect children. Today, the stigma is largely gone and so the children have suffered terribly. Raspberry's previously mentioned article cites polling results indicating that 70 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 believe that people having children out of wedlock do not deserve any moral reproach. That is an outrageous result, one that we must turn around because the decision to bear a child has profound moral and human content. We must infuse our children with a clear understanding of the consequences of teenage childbearing. We must teach them that it is wrong to have children unless you are married, always morally wrong for the mother and father, and usually horrible for the child and the mother. Few would argue that a national campaign to discourage unmarried teenagers from having children is not a good thing to do. Indeed, Senate Minority leader Daschle introduced a bill, S. 8, on the first day of this session to combat teen pregnancy. His bill, among other things, would require unwed mothers under age 18 to live at home or in an alternative adult-supervised living arrangement as a condition of receiving AFDC. This measure seems appropriate; it would eliminate the incentive teenagers now have to bear a child so they can move out of the house, and it imposes little risk to the children of teenagers who have a child anyway. The more difficult question for those of us working on welfare reform is this: Should we pursue changes in welfare policy--such as cutting off benefits to teenage mothers--that may discourage out-of-wedlock births but would put children at risk? Some might say no, believing that there is little correlation between welfare and out-of-wedlock births. The empirical evidence is generally viewed as inconclusive. But some controlled studies have demonstrated a positive association between welfare payments and out-of-wedlock births, and my own conversations with teenage mothers bears this out. If we choose to reduce or eliminate AFDC grants to deter childbearing, however, we should acknowledge that a portion of the current and potential welfare population--perhaps a small but significant portion--is unlikely to respond to stronger inducements and penalties and will continue to have children society must provide for. In a Los Angeles Times article published last January, Adela de la Torre, an economist at California State University at Long Beach, writes that the children of such parents ``become victims of trickle down welfare programs * * * if we deem the parent unfit for welfare support, the child, too, loses.'' De la Torre rejects the notion that building stronger parental inducements into the welfare system will change the behavior of all parents and calls instead for a more child- centered social service agenda that recognizes and serves the needs of children in a more direct, comprehensive, and integrated fashion. She makes an important point. Similarly, Thomas Corbett of the University of Wisconsin asks in a spring, 1993 Focus article whether it is ``compassionate to throw a little bit of welfare into troubled families and do little else to aid the children?'' The answer is, of course, relative. AFDC reflects our best intentions toward these children, but it has more often failed them. Whether cash payments to unresponsive parents is the most compassionate approach, Corbett concludes, ``depends partly on how many children are involved and whether we can design and finance the technologies required to assist them.'' It is incumbent on us, as part of welfare reform, to explore the alternatives to a largely parent-based system, and find the answers to his question. Title II of the bill supports State efforts to do just that. Section 201 allows States to shift part or all of AFDC payments to block grants and combine the grants with other funds available under this bill to care for children, strengthen families, and implement other reforms. In contrast to the Republican block grant proposals, however, the provision requires the Secretary of HHS to ensure that States pursuing the Block Grant Program protect the well-being of affected children. Title II supports other demonstrations as well, including pilots that discourage welfare recipients from having additional children while on welfare by denying benefit increases for additional children and pilots to test innovative teen pregnancy prevention programs. title iii of the bill authorizes state initiatives to increase child support collection and paternal responsibility Too often absent parents, typically fathers, are not held accountable for their children's care. The Federal Government must also take the lead in improving child support enforcement. As a starting point, we should fully implement the recommendations of the U.S. Congress Senator Bill Bradley, a member of the Commission, introduced S. 689, the Interstate Child Support Enforcement Act, to implement the Commission's recommendations. My Connecticut colleague, Congresswoman Kennelly, also a Commission member, introduced a similar bill, H.R. 1961, in the House. This year I will again support Senator Bradley's legislation which will, among other things: Mandate hospital-based paternity acknowledgement programs; require employers to submit W-4 forms for all new employees to State child support enforcement agencies; and provide States the authority they need to assert jurisdiction over nonresident parents. The era of deadbeat dads should end. While improving interstate coordination is critical to strengthening child support enforcement, State innovation should play a role as well. Title III of my bill authorizes State efforts to improve child support collection and paternity establishment. To strengthen welfare recipients incentives to work with authorities to collect child support, it would allow States to increase the child support disregard from $50 to a higher level decided by the State. States could also hold parents accountable for the child support obligations of their minor children. Additionally, States could propose their own demonstrations projects to increase paternity establishment and improve child support collection. title IV authorizes initiatives to diversify and improve the performance of welfare services Changing the welfare system to move people back into the work force and to better serve the needs of children will require changing the way the welfare bureaucracy does business. Too many welfare workers focus on whether and how to get a welfare check to the recipient rather than how to get the recipient off of welfare and back to work. Many welfare offices don't know how many children they have in foster care. Many still operate out of cardboard files and lose people in the shuffle of paper. Offices often suffer from interagency rivalry and bureaucratic bickering. It is tragic when a child suffers needlessly because the system fails under the weight of its own inefficiency. This need not happen. Some innovative States and municipalities have tried to make their welfare systems more efficient and service oriented. At a hearing I held in the last Congress, Carmen Nazario, the Secretary of Health and Human Services in Delaware, testified that her State has brought public and private social services together in a single location and is now developing a computer network to link programs. David Truax from the Maryland Department of Human Resources described a second approach to improving services. Maryland now provides each participant with a debit card that has AFDC, food stamps, and general assistance benefits on it. Electronic benefit transfer [EBT] cards have several advantages: They preclude the trading of food stamps for drugs; they introduce people to the banking system; they make it easier for them to budget their money since they don't have to cash one single check, and they reduce recipients vulnerability to crime. Further, offices should encourage and empower, not discourage and demean, those they serve. It can be done. America Works, a private organization that trains people on welfare for work and places them in jobs, provides proof. During my visit to their Hartford, CT, office I found that clients felt they were getting the help they needed to succeed, and were motivated and optimistic. I asked one young woman who had just completed her training if she expected to be placed successfully in a job. She responded with enthusiasm, ``absolutely.'' This spirit does not typically pervade traditional welfare offices. Most important, welfare offices should be held accountable for results. They need to make the shift from writing checks to moving people on welfare into jobs. To promote this change, we should seek to establish competition among agencies and greater choice for people on welfare. We should encourage public agencies to contract with effective private sector companies and to better reward those public employees who successfully help people become self-sufficient. Title IV supports initiatives to diversify and improve the performance of welfare services. It supports State pilots to provide incentives to private sector, for-profit and nonprofit groups to place people on welfare in private sector jobs. Companies would keep a portion of welfare savings as payment for successful job placements. Title IV also supports State pilots to improve the performance of welfare office employees through, for example, providing direct bonuses to employees and judging their performance based on their clients' progress toward self-sufficiency. In addition, title IV incorporates legislation I introduced earlier this month with Senators Domenici, Feinstein, Pressler, and Hatfield to remove a Federal barrier to improving services. That bill, S. 131, the Electronic Benefits Regulatory Relief Act of 1995, exempts EBT cards from the Federal Reserve Board's regulation E. Regulation E limits cardholder liability to $50 for lost or stolen cards--a policy that promotes fraud and makes EBT Programs costly for States. Earlier this month the Vice President issued the first report from the EBT task force and called for nationwide implementation. Without passage of this provision, that goal will not be reached. finally, title v authorizes offsetting expenditure reductions to ensure the bill is budget neutral In other words, the bills pay for itself. Specifically, it eliminates the three-entity rule. Currently, an individual farmer can qualify for up to $125,000 per year in certain Government subsidies. If he forms two other business entities with two other individuals (say, a friend and a sister), each of these entities can qualify for another $125,000 per year. So the individual farmer can receive up to $250,000 in subsidies per year--$125,000 for his first business entity, and half of $125,000 for each of his second and third entities. My bill says, ``enough is enough,'' and caps the amount of agricultural subsidies any one person gets from the Federal Government at $125,000. A preliminary Congressional Budget Office estimate indicates this change will save $675 million over 5 years, money that is better spent on the truly needy. Americans continue to show concern for the poor, and particularly poor children. A 1994 poll commissioned by the Children's Defense Fund and others found that 64 percent of Americans believe we should spend more on poor children. But the same poll found that 55 percent think we spend too much on welfare, and 68 percent think we should not increase payments to parents for any additional children they have while on welfare. Our current approach to helping the poor is clearly not working. The goal of welfare reform is to shake up the status quo which promotes dependency, illegitimacy, and social disfunctions like crime into a system that promotes work, family, and responsibility and protects children from a life of poverty. The Federal Government does not have a ready formula for how to achieve this goal. I concur with my colleagues who say that we should look to the States for answers. But we must proceed in a way that meets our obligation to ensure the well-being of all of America's children. Our aim should be to make sure that this generation of welfare children do not become the next generation of welfare parents. This bill offers an approach to do just that. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and additional material be printed in the Record.