Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I have discussed this unanimous consent agreement we are about to enter with the Democratic leader. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that at 7:15 today the Senate proceed to a series of votes on or in relation to the following amendments in the order specified, and, further, prior to each vote there be 2 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form: Senator Bumpers, No. 330; Senator Bumpers, No. 331; Senator Bond, No. 324, which I understand will be a voice vote; Senator Gramm, No. 320; Senator Ashcroft, No. 322; Senator Ashcroft, No. 323; Senator Inhofe, No. 301. Mr. President, I make that unanimous consent request.

Mr. LOTT. I further ask unanimous consent that following adoption of House Concurrent Resolution 84, the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I want to express my appreciation for the cooperation from the chairman and ranking member and the Democratic leader for getting this agreement. This will, I think, be a fair way and expeditious way to complete our action. And we will then get all amendments voted on and final passage beginning at 9:30 tomorrow morning. I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Acknowledging the valid concerns raised by Representative Bateman is appreciated. I believe together we can find the right definition to ensure our national security is protected. No one wants to jeopardize our military capabilities. S. 629 would also grant the United States a 2-year extension for the title XI shipbuilding loan guarantee program to continue under its current terms and conditions. This too is a move toward equitable implementing language. However, other signatories, including Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and South Korea, were provided special arrangements, exemptions, and transition programs under the Agreement. When the House of Representatives amended H.R. 2754 in the last Congress, it provided a 3-year transition period for the title XI program. This is an essential component for a fair agreement and I intend to work with Senator Breaux to restore the full 3-year transition period as provided in last year's House bill.

Mr. LOTT. I anticipate a swift resolution of the jurisdictional issue. The Senate should focus on the successful enactment of a corrected version of S. 629. I look forward to working with the other members of the Senate Commerce and Finance Committees to develop fair implementing language. I want to personally thank you John for your dedication to America's maritime industry and I look forward to a continued partnership in finding an acceptable consensus for the agreement's implementing language.

Mr. LOTT. Many of our American shipbuilders also expressed their concern to me that several countries with a significant shipbuilding industrial presence are not signatories to the agreement. This reduces the effectiveness of the agreement. S. 629 includes a provision not found in last year's House bill which would direct our Trade Representative to seek the prompt accession to the agreement by these other countries. This is one step in the right direction. Another step is that S. 629 also would direct our Trade Representative to use the mechanisms already available under existing U.S. trade laws to redress efforts by non-signatories to undermine the agreement. Additionally, I expect our Trade Representative to vigorously protest the recent approval of approximately $2.1 billion in restructuring aid to shipyards in Germany, Spain, and Greece. I'm sure that all will agree that the agreement has no chance of holding together if any signatories work around its provisions in order to continue unfairly subsidizing their shipyards.

Mr. LOTT. The congressional participation in the OECD shipbuilding agreement continues in the 105th Congress. On April 22, 1997, Senator Breaux introduced S. 629, the OECD Shipbuilding Agreement Act. On April 30, 1997, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, chaired by Senator McCain, held a hearing on trade matters which included the OECD shipbuilding agreement. On June 5 that hearing will be continued with the focus on this particular maritime trade policy. I must say that S. 629 represents the administration's attempt to reconcile their earlier legislative proposal made in the 104th Congress with the successful amendment made by the House of Representatives to that bill. Let me be clear, while the current bill does not address all of the concerns voiced by America's largest shipbuilders, it is a positive step in the right direction. My colleagues must not ignore it. It also begins to deal with issues I raised in my two colloquies in the Senate with Senator Snowe. I intend to work with Senator Breaux to amend S. 629 so that all appropriate maritime solutions are incorporated. At a recent maritime function, I challenged the audience to examine the new language and to offer constructive improvements. Our Nation has international maritime responsibilities and we must respond to the challenge. I believe that with the introduction of S. 629, the administration has made an honest attempt to address the majority of the concerns. I plan on working with my colleagues in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to ensure that acceptable ratification and implementation legislation for the OECD shipbuilding agreement is passed by this Congress.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, today the Senate will immediately resume consideration of Senate Concurrent Resolution 27, the first concurrent budget resolution. Senator Kennedy will be recognized immediately to offer his amendment on tobacco taxes. Following the disposition of the Kennedy amendment, Senator Gramm will be recognized to offer his amendment regarding deficit-neutral natural disaster relief. Members can expect rollcall votes in relation to these amendments and others, and all Members will be notified when these votes are specifically scheduled. I am still hopeful that the Democratic leader and I can join together in an effort to yield back additional time off the statutory time limitation, which is 50 hours, for the budget resolution and permit the Senate to complete its work on the budget resolution today. Subsequently, Senators wishing to offer amendments to this legislation should notify the chairman of the Budget Committee or the ranking member of the Budget Committee of their intentions this morning. Again, Senators can expect rollcall votes throughout the day. We have a good deal of other work that we need to complete before the Memorial Day recess. For instance, tomorrow we already have a time agreement for 3 hours on the Chemical Weapons Convention implementation legislation. We would, of course, like to complete this resolution and have it go to conference where, hopefully, there will be very little problem in working out the conference. Hopefully, there will be no real differences between the two bills. That is going to take a lot of discipline on our part throughout the day until we complete this legislation. We also have at least three nominations that will require some small amount of time--judicial nominations, district courts--and three recorded votes. The supplemental appropriations bill, or some version thereof, very likely would need to be voted on this week also. So it is essential that we stay with it and that we complete the budget resolution today, if at all possible. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that we made good progress yesterday. I think almost 10 hours have been used or yielded back already. We did take up some amendments and had votes. While it was difficult and delicate, the amendments were defeated by considerable margins. We need to continue to do that. There are going to be a lot of good and appealing amendments offered today. It will be difficult to resist those. But this is a very delicately crafted budget agreement that the Republican leadership signed onto and that the Democratic leadership has agreed to. The chairman and ranking member have been working together more so than I have ever seen before. I commend them for that effort. So I hope that we will continue to hold the line. If we start down the trail of changing the mix, where will it end? I know of several amendments that I am very attracted to. The one by Senator Gramm obviously is very attractive. He basically says we should have some revenue-neutral process to have funds set aside for the annual disaster relief bill. We have to come every year for $5 billion, $6 billion, or $7 billion. He says we should go ahead and set that aside so we have that planned for. That is attractive. But that was not included in the budget agreement, so we probably should not do that here. There will be an amendment offered by Senator Warner with regard to highway funds. I would like to see more money go into the highways and bridges in America out of the highway trust fund, which is there for that purpose. Of course, there is the amendment offered by Senator Kennedy here with regard to child health care. I want to emphasize that we discussed this at great length during the budget negotiations and in reaching the budget agreement. There are funds in here for that area. There are more than enough funds in that area. In fact, I think there will be a struggle to find the best way to provide those funds to the people that want to have child health care. So it will be a very, very bad change in the makeup of this legislation and could unravel the whole budget agreement, if the Kennedy amendment is approved today. So I hope that we start off the day by having a fine discussion about what is in the bill, and what the alternative offered is. But we need also to recognize that is a substantial increase in what is provided in this particular area. It is totally different from what was in the budget agreement that the administration agreed to. So I urge my colleagues to keep calm. Let's keep working. But let's not start passing amendments that will change the mix of the make up of this budget agreement. I yield the floor at this time, Mr. President.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I will be brief because I know everybody knows what the issue here is now. We are ready to vote. I want to urge my colleagues to vote to table the Kennedy-Hatch amendment. This is a deal breaker. I have had occasion now to again talk to the President. And his press representative has gone out and said, while he supports the concept of what is in this amendment--he recognizes it--it is a deal breaker, and this amendment should be defeated. We have money in the agreement, $16 billion, for child care that the Finance Committee is going to be able to take and work with and come up with a proper solution. That is the way we should go. We should not add this on this resolution because the net result would be this whole resolution and agreement would come unglued. I urge my colleagues to vote to table this amendment.

Mr. LOTT. I further ask unanimous consent all amendments be subject to second-degree amendment as provided under the Budget Act.

Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent all first-degree amendments in order to Senate Concurrent Resolution 27 must be offered by the close of business on Wednesday, May 21.

Mr. LOTT. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. LOTT. I now ask for the vote to occur on Domenici amendment No. 307, and it be considered a first-degree, and, following that vote, the Senate proceed to vote on or in relation to amendment No. 297, with 4 minutes of debate to be equally divided, all without intervening action.

Mr. LOTT. What the Senator from Utah is trying to do, along with the Senator from Massachusetts, is mandate how this problem should be addressed and add more money beyond what is needed to get the job done, and to put it in the budget resolution. We had lengthy discussion about how to deal with this. Meeting with the President's representatives, talking with the President, we came up with what we thought was a reasonable compromise in terms of the amount of money, $16 billion, without the Government takeover provisions, without the Federal mandates. I have information here that indicates there are five new major Federal mandates included in this bill, which will, in fact, complicate the job of insuring the children. We have an adequate amount of money. We are saying to the Finance Committee and the Members of the Senate, in a subsequent vote that we will have on a reconciliation bill, that there is an area where we need to help children who are not covered. We have the funds to do it. And for them to come up with proposals. They will be able to do that. But, no, the Senator is saying: Do it our way and do it with an additional $20 billion. Clearly, this is not going to get through the process. It just cannot, because we will not have a budget agreement if this is included in there. I do not mean that as any sort of threat. I just mean, if we start down that trail there are going to be other amendments offered that then--look, if the agreement we shook hands on is going to be wiped out here with this amendment, where does it stop? There are other amendments pending out there. There are amendments I would like to vote for. I intended, on our side, to oppose them because they were not part of the agreement. I would like us to have a disaster fund set up in advance. The Senator from Texas has an amendment on that. I do not think there are adequate tax cuts in this agreement. I think we should have more. If we are going to start doing that, we will wind up with at great big mess on our hands and no budget agreement. That is what is at stake here. Over the insistence that we do it the way the Senator from Massachusetts says, to add another $20 billion above what we agreed to and what is necessary, we are going to threaten to take down a multitrillion-dollar budget agreement that gets us to a balanced budget, that has some reforms in it, some restraint on spending--not nearly enough--and some tax cuts, and not nearly enough in that area either. I don't think it is worth jeopardizing a multitrillion-dollar agreement that the President signed on to. If he has changed his mind, if he has walked away from this, I think he owes me, you know, the right to know if that is the case. I expect that before the day is out we are going to have some votes. We are going to see whether the Democrats are going to live up to holding this package to the way we agreed to it or not. If you are not, then how am I going to be able to do that? I have taken the flak, I have kept my word. This clearly will defeat the whole purpose of the agreement and what has already been approved in the House of Representatives last night in the wee hours of this morning, and what came out of the Budget Committee on a 17-to-4 vote. Now we are going to rewrite it here on the floor, mandating it has to be done this way. I just think it is absolutely the wrong thing to do, Mr. President, and we intend to resist it all the way.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could regain my time--

Mr. LOTT. I will yield, yes.

Mr. LOTT. I was not aware that it was actually that restrictive, but I know the Senator, who is a former Governor, knows what the States already have been doing and is familiar with the specifics of this proposal and how it would make it even more difficult to provide the coverage that is needed.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I can reclaim our time, I would certainly like to have a reaffirmation of our support of what was in the budget agreement, that we worked through very carefully. I agreed to what was in there reluctantly. If we then come along and vote for the Senator's amendment, we have undercut, we have broken out of the agreement, and we will reverse the affirmation we just voted on. That does not make any sense. So, I yield the floor at this time so the second-degree amendment can be offered.

Mr. LOTT. Maybe they will get together someday; and this would be a good day for them to be together.

Mr. LOTT. I knew he would take the opportunity, the first opportunity that came along, to do that. That is fine. But I think he has to understand this is a very carefully crafted budget agreement which we really spent 4\1/2\ months putting together. We cannot allow this amendment in this form to be added to the budget resolution. So we will find a way, hopefully, to accomplish that.

Mr. LOTT. It is my intention that this amendment not be added to the budget resolution. Now, there are a lot of different ways we can do that. We can have second-degree amendments adopted, or we can defeat the Senator's amendment on a straight up-or-down vote. But I would have to have assurances from your leadership and from the White House, from the President, that in fact it is going to be defeated. If that does not occur, then our only other option would be to pull down this budget resolution and move on to other issues. You know, the Senator has made his case here today.

Mr. LOTT. Surely.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee for yielding this time and for the outstanding work he has been doing. We have before us a budget resolution that has been in the making for 4 months. A lot of hard work went into it, a lot of give-and-take. It is truly a bipartisan agreement. It is not a Democratic package, and it is certainly not a Republican package. It is one that we came to agreement on. There are provisions in it that I don't agree with. There are changes that I wanted to make until the very end, and some I would like to make at this very moment. But we entered into an agreement, House and Senate, Republican and Democratic leadership, working with the Budget Committee leaders and the administration, specifically the President of the United States. We came to a budget agreement. We shook hands. Now we have this budget resolution to implement that agreement. The House spent a very long day yesterday and they stuck with their commitment. They kept the faith. They passed the budget resolution that will carry out the budget agreement. It took them until 3:30 this morning. One amendment that was offered, which was very attractive, was one that I would like to vote for, to put more money in transportation. I think we should take more money out of the highway trust fund and put it in the roads and bridges of America, and so do many of the leaders in the House on the Republican side. But, no, they fought off a very powerful, very important chairman by a vote of 216 to 214. The amendment was defeated. They kept their word. The leadership worked all night to keep their word, to stick with the agreement. And they did it and they passed a budget resolution. Just yesterday, here in the Senate, I worked with Senator Daschle, Senator Domenici worked with Senator Lautenberg, and we resisted amendments that would break us out of the agreement. Senator Dodd from Connecticut had an amendment he felt compelled to offer and was very serious about. But with some nine Democrats and most Republicans, we defeated that amendment. Senator Allard, the Senator from Colorado, had an amendment. I voted against his amendment. I didn't want to. I am proud of this new, fine Senator from Colorado, and I agreed with what he was trying to do. But, no, I kept my word. I kept the faith. Now, my colleagues, this is a show-stopper. This takes us outside the budget agreement. Remember, in the agreement is $16 billion for child health care. I thought that was excessive, but we came to an agreement. We do need to make sure that, for some children who are not covered in America, there is a way for them to be covered. We said: Finance Committee, here is $16 billion to address this problem, and we believe there are ways that can be found to get that done. I care about children in America. I am a parent. I am from a State where there are children who are not covered and should be. But we have a program here that we have agreed to, $16 billion, and the committee will work with that, and I hope and think they will come up with many innovative ideas of how we can make sure these children are covered. That is why we are here now. We have an agreement we are committed to, that addresses this problem. Now we have an amendment that will take us, clearly, outside the parameters of the agreement. We must defeat this amendment. We must have bipartisan support against this amendment, or how am I going to be able to stand up here and vote against some of the amendments that will be offered from my side of the aisle that will take some of the spending out of our agreement and put it in more tax cuts? I would like to do that. I want to do that. The American people are overtaxed and overworked, for what they get back, in terms of being able to keep their own money. But I am prepared to say no, we have to stick with this agreement. Paragraph 3 of the bipartisan agreement between the President and the leadership of the Congress reads: Agreed upon budget levels are shown in the tables included in this agreement, including deficit reduction levels, major category levels of discretionary, mandatory, and tax receipt levels. This amendment would change those agreed-to budget levels. Like yesterday's amendment by Senator Dodd of Connecticut, the pending amendment would break our bipartisan agreement with the President by increasing spending and taxes beyond the levels in this agreement. By the way, I thought the original Kennedy-Hatch bill just provided for $20 billion. We have $16 billion in this package. If you add $20 billion on top of that, now it is $36 billion. The Kennedy-Hatch amendment would create $20 billion of new entitlement spending above and beyond what is already in this resolution. The sponsors of the amendment claim the amendment would increase the tobacco tax. That is not true. It is false. The budget resolution cannot tell the Finance Committee which taxes to raise and which to cut. The practical effect of this amendment on taxes is not to raise a specific tax. It is, instead, to reduce the size of the net tax cut by $30 billion, to only $55 billion over 5 years. That is not enough to do what we have committed to do--some tax credits for families with children, some capital gains tax rate cuts for Americans who are entitled to it and deserve that opportunity, some modification of the estate taxes. And it puts an additional squeeze on the President's education program. We cannot do what we have committed to do with this change. I am a party to the bipartisan agreement with the President that we entered into and we outlined in paragraph 2 of the agreement. I am going to keep the faith on this amendment and other amendments. We are going to stick with our budget resolution agreement. I have talked to the President, because the President is in on this. He has made it clear he supports the concept of Kennedy-Hatch. But he is also committed to me that he is going to work to try to get Democrat votes for our second-degree amendment and against making this change in the budget resolution. That is what I have been told by the President of the United States. If anybody doubts that here on the floor or in the news media, call the White House and check it. I signed in on the deal and I have taken criticism for it. The President signed in on the deal, and he is going to take some criticism for it. He already has. But this is clearly a deal-buster. If this amendment should be adopted right at the gate, the wheels will come off of this thing. They will come off. And I only have two options: One, offer second-degree amendments, and if we have to, we may go through a series of them, and let me assure you, each one will get hairier and more difficult for Senators to vote against, more uncomfortable. Or the other one is to say, look, we had a deal. Is the deal off? We can pull this down. We have a little work we can do. We can go back to the comptime-flextime bill, to give the working men and women of America an opportunity to make some decisions, taking time to be with their children. We can go onto the chemical weapons implementing legislation. Maybe we can go to other bills, like product liability. That is pending. We could take that up. Or national missile defense. We have other things we could be doing. But we should, instead, vote for the second-degree amendment. It is a very responsible and reasonable amendment. I urge Senators on both sides, vote for the second-degree amendment we are going to offer. Let us move on and complete our work on this today, on this whole resolution, so we can get to conference, meet tomorrow, and pass this budget resolution on Thursday or Friday. The amendment we will offer as a second-degree amendment will allow us to adhere to our bipartisan budget agreement with respect to health care for our children. This amendment accomplishes this by wiping out the increases and decreases in the dollar amounts which have been proposed by our colleagues in the Kennedy-Hatch amendment. It allows us to stick with the balanced budget plan now before us and to provide health care for kids. I think that is the responsible thing to do. I would prefer to even give some direction, maybe even have a vote like they did in the committee, saying what we should do is having 100 percent deductibility of the self-employed. That would be a major help. There are all sorts of things we can do. But we should not break out of the agreement here. We should not mandate a new program at this point, on the budget resolution. We should not raise taxes when there are other options that are as good or better. So, my friends, I just want to sum up by saying I think we have come a long way. A lot of time has been invested in this, a lot of effort. We need to be able to get this budget resolution done so we can go on to the reconciliation bill and the appropriations bills. If we do not defeat this amendment and if we do not pass this budget resolution today or tomorrow, in our effort to get a balanced budget, with spending restraint and some tax relief for working Americans, and some reform in Medicare that will save the program on out well after the turn of the century, we will have made a terrible mistake today. So I urge my colleagues, when we get to the vote, that we vote for the second-degree amendment and we move on to other issues in this area. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding me that time. We don't want to go over everything that has been said two or three times this afternoon, but let me again make it very clear, if the Kennedy health care proposal had been in this budget agreement, I would never have agreed to it. I would have never signed on to it. This is a new entitlement program. It is money on top of what is in the budget agreement. As a matter of fact, I agree with the Senator from Texas, what he just said, the $16 billion was more than I thought was necessary. But it is in the agreement and the Finance Committee is already working, I am sure, on ways to deal with those children that might, in fact, be uninsured or not covered. They have the opportunity to do that. And there is enough money in here to do it. But, now the Senator comes in here and makes all kinds of threats about how we will go on and on and on today, until we get a vote--I guess he presumes to put this in there. And then the argument is made that this does not change the agreement. Would it change the agreement if an amendment is offered to cut spending, which I think should happen--there is not enough spending restraint in this agreement--and add it to tax cuts? I would be inclined to vote for that, want to vote for that. That would be the right thing to do. But that would clearly change the makeup of this agreement. So, to now say that this does not change it, that it is revenue neutral, when in fact it adds a tremendous amount of money to the area of child health care--the Senator from Massachusetts wants a Government takeover in this area. That is what really is at stake here. He knows this clearly is beyond what was included in the agreement and it would completely unravel it. What will come out of this is we will reach a point where we will not have a budget resolution. I think that would be a real tragedy. But I want to make it clear, I am opposed to this amendment, No. 1, because I think it violates what we agreed to, but, also, I am opposed to the Kennedy- Hatch approach here. I think it costs too much money. I don't think it is the answer to the problem. The Finance Committee can work on this and come up with solutions that will get the job done for those children who do in fact have a problem. So I do not think it is fair to imply we are not concerned about this area and we cannot deal with this problem. It is just the Kennedy-Hatch proposal is not the be-all and end-all. There are other proposals out there: 100 percent deductibility or 80 percent deductibility of the cost of this health care is one way to go, with more flexibility for the States. Why, the States are already using that flexibility to make sure children are covered. In the State of Utah already the Governor, with limited flexibility, has been able to make sure that a third of the children that were not covered are in fact covered. That was pointed out in a Wall Street Journal article in April of this year.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Thank you, Mr. President.