Richard Lugar

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to permit local school districts to waive the cost requirements of foreign students studying in our public high schools in the United States on F- 1 visas. The law now mandates that all foreign students who are not in a government-funded exchange program must pay or reimburse the costs of their education in American public schools. In those public school districts flooded with foreign students who pay no taxes, this requirement makes good sense. However, in those school districts which enroll a small number of foreign students and bear a tolerable burden there may be no need or desire for reimbursement. The decision to enroll and to require cost reimbursement should be made at the local level. Current law, however, does not permit this local discretion. The bill I am introducing will allow local school districts to waive the requirement that foreign students must pay for the cost of their education. The decision to waive or not waive this requirement should be made at the grass roots level, not in Washington and my bill seeks to preserve this principle. It would amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). Foreign exchange students bring knowledge, cultural exposure and understanding to American students, schools and communities. I have been a proponent of cultural and educational exchanges and have supported most international exchange programs over the years--both those which bring foreign visitors here and those which send American students, scholars and practitioners abroad. I remain committed to these programs. In 1996, I supported the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. This law states that as of November 30, 1996, IIRIRA prohibits any alien from receiving an F-1 student visa to attend a public elementary school, grades K-8, or a publicly-funded adult education program unless they pay the unsubsidized, per capita cost of their education in advance. My bill would not change current law relating to elementary schools or adult education. It would not pertain to students on formal, government-funded international exchanges. It would simply allow high school officials to waive the cost of education of high school-level foreign students in order to enroll an exchange student, should they wish to do so. I believe this has been an unintended consequence of IIRIRA. Several cities have ``Sister City'' arrangements between American cities and cities in foreign countries. One valuable component of these arrangements is an exchange program for high school students enabling American youth to spend a year in a foreign high school while students from abroad spend a year in a high school here. No tuition is generally exchanged under the sister city agreement, but current U.S. law states that visitors to our country must pay the unsubsidized cost of their education, even though American students are exempted from the cost requirement. Along the Alaska-Yukon, Alaska-British Columbia and U.S.-Mexican borders there are schools serving very remote communities on both sides of the border. After enactment of the 1996 law, Canadian or Mexican students were no longer eligible to enter the United States to attend the local public school even though governments and the local school districts agreed to enroll the students. Many school districts prefer to enroll one or two exchange students a year. Reciprocal exchange agreements are beneficial and host families enjoy these students in their homes. American exchange students attending schools in Germany, for example, are not subjected to the same tuition requirements for their schooling, yet they gain an understanding of German history and culture and benefit from their travels. Currently, U.S. law requires foreign students to pay tuition before they arrive in the United States. The extra paper work, the up- front costs and the extra burden these requirements place on foreign students tend to undermine the purposes of cultural exchanges. I remain mindful to past abuses of F-1 visas and am sympathetic to the burden that large enrollments of foreign students place on American public schools. My purpose in introducing this bill today is not to weaken the law as it currently reads, but to provide an outlet for our schools to give an educational opportunity for enrolling international exchange students.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. I would like to say to my good friend from Utah that I am aware that this issue has arisen in the past and that it is an important one. I agree with Senator Hatch that the measure deserves a hearing in the near future, and I would be happy to work with him to that end.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Clearly, the President, in the case of an emergency, has a right to impose whatever sanction he wants. There is no prohibition. Obviously, when national security is involved--and the national security situation is explicitly mentioned--I think that is important. But I ask the President to tidy things up. In other words, after imposing the sanction, he should state, if he has not already, the objectives and benchmarks and the cost to the American people of jobs and income. Some administration people have objected to the President playing by the same rules as the Congress. Nevertheless, the amendment is evenhanded. He has to fill it in. But he has emergency powers, of course.

Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, to answer the question posed, both the President and the Congress can reauthorize the action after two years. Additionally, they are constrained simply to explain how successful things have been and what their objectives were to begin with. But the law--at least my amendment--explicitly gives them the ability to reauthorize. They have to take that affirmative action.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, Republicans will continue to press for prompt action on appropriate legislative vehicles. We will join our House colleagues on both sides of the aisle in asking for a vote this year on fast-track authority, and we want to proceed with all Senators to move ahead on IMF replenishment and reform. We are hopeful of seeing passage of sanctions reform legislation. We are determined to create additional demand for American farm products and thus higher prices and hopefully higher income. We are working with farm groups all over the country for implementation of those portions of the farm bill which have led to the lowering of costs, so that the bottom line in terms of net income for farm families might be more positive. I share the general feeling in this debate that these are stressful times for millions of people in farm country. We have to address that up front and soberly. In these comments this morning, Mr. President, I have tried to illustrate that I believe the general outline of the farm bill has led to more income, more cash in these 3 years for farmers, and will in the next 4; that we have great possibilities, given Freedom to Farm, to do things on our farms that are most profitable guided by market signals. And finally, we have our work cut out for us in the Senate in dealing with the strengthening of our foreign trade position and the demand that we must have. Not long ago, I heard a lecture using this same general idea, that a third of our sales now go abroad--a third exported of our farm commodities and farm animals. The suggestion was, as a matter of fact, that already a third of the world trade that we were doing was with Asia. We had hoped for more expansion, and that seemed on the horizon, given the rise in Asian incomes prior to this year. Most of that third of the Asian trade is gone temporarily. We may have some success with this sale in Pakistan, and I hope that we will. Certainly, we are active as a Nation in South Korea, and there are some possibilities for sales there. The Indonesian market for the time being is devastated, and likewise not too much from Thailand, from Malaysia, and from other countries that have been afflicted. If you take away a third of the third of income that already was exported, that amounts to about one-ninth the demand for all that we do. It is no wonder that prices have fallen, but it should be a wonder if we do not act to market, to sell, to move this grain and this livestock by originating new policies that make a difference in world trade, where our bread and butter will come in agricultural America. For these reasons, I hope Senators will reject the amendment before us dealing with the marketing loan fix. In my judgment, it will be expensive, with money we do not have, it will depress prices rather than lead to an increase, and it will give the impression that this is in any way even a partial solution when, in my judgment, it will be a strong step backwards. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee for his insistence on my gaining recognition. I appreciated the colloquy between the distinguished Senator from North Dakota and the distinguished Senator from South Dakota and the earlier comments of the distinguished Senator from Minnesota. I come before the Senate as a fifth-generation family farmer; that is, five family generations of Lugars, from the 1820s in Grant County, through the present farming operation we have in Marion County, have been involved in the business of farming. We take the family farming very seriously on the 604 acres of corn and soybeans and tree stands that I am now responsible for and have been for the last 42 years. The contents of farm legislation are interesting to me as a citizen of this country, certainly as a member of the Agriculture Committee, and as one who is affected by those policies as I try to determine what I ought to plant, what my opportunities are as a family farmer in Indiana. I have been a long-time member of the Indiana Farm Bureau, as was my father, Marvin Lugar, and my uncle, Harry Lugar, a long-time member of the farmer's union in Indiana. I have been responsive to both groups and to others who have been involved in organizational agriculture as we helped to fashion the last four farm bills. I come before the Senate today just having addressed a meeting 2 days ago of the American Farm Bureau President's Group. At least on a couple of occasions a year, the president of each of the 50 State farm bureaus come to Washington, along with the various persons in their organizations. During the course of that colloquy with the farm bureau presidents, I was approached by a gentleman who mentioned he is the president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau. His name is Jim Harmon. Jim Harmon, the president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau, gave to me an article which he had published in the North Dakota Farm Bureau Journal. I quote from his article. Mr. Harmon says: It seems whenever things get difficult in farming, we look for someone or something to blame. That is certainly the case with the financial crisis facing farmers and ranchers in the northern plains where we have had continuous years of adverse growing conditions, now compounded by low prices. Some would like to assign blame to the ``Freedom to Farm'' bill; and have Congress reopen it to ``fix'' the price problem. This is the wrong route to take, because ``Freedom to Farm'' is not the problem--only the scapegoat. If the Act is reopened, I fear that farmers stand to lose much more than they can possibly gain. Mr. Harmon continues: The argument is being made that we need to reinstate the old ``safety net'' program of the last 50 years. Fifty years ago, we had almost seven million farmers in the United States. We now have two million. What kind of ``safety net'' lets that many producers slip through it? The only thing those programs guaranteed was a price ceiling on most commodities in most years. Stable prices at low levels with rising production costs is not the prescription for profitability in farming. In the current legislation, the ``safety net'' of price supports and disaster declarations (not always successful), was replaced by ``transition payments'' to offset the impact of depressed prices, and the promise of meaningful risk management tools to reduce the effects of natural disasters. For North Dakota farmers, the promise of an improved crop insurance program in our risk management tool kit still needs to be fulfilled. A recent study by researchers in the Agricultural Economics department at NDSU indicated that about three-fourths of North Dakota's 1997 decline in net farm income was due to yield and quality reductions, and one-fourth to low commodity prices. Blaming the current farm bill for the depressed cereal grain prices is also off the mark. The bill authorizes $500 million for the Export Enhancement Program. Only $150 million was appropriated, of which NONE has been used until the now famous EEU barley shipments into the United States. Adequate funding of the Market Access Program, along with a comprehensive strategy for expanding foreign markets for our commodities are tools that must be developed and implemented if agriculture is to succeed in the global marketplace. Mr. Harmon continues: Another area that deserves attention is the fact that the United States has made sanctions against countries that comprise 11 Percent of the world wheat market (accounting for 40 percent of the world wheat export market). Given American agriculture's dependence on export markets, trade sanctions usually punish farmers more than the leadership of the country we're mad at. Farm Bureau strongly believes that the following components are necessary to ensure the success of the current farm programs: Mr. Harmon says: Improve Federal Crop Insurance and develop new cost- efficient income coverage programs. Utilize to the fullest extent, all of the trade tools available, including EEP, GSM 102 and 103 Credit Programs, MAP, and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) Programs. Provided promised reforms in the areas of wetlands, pesticides, air and quality regulations. Expand agricultural research funding. Other items that will complete an integrated ag package include FARRM accounts, income averaging, estate and capital gains tax relief. Changing current farm law will only open the door to false hope for those of us who need real answers. Real answers can be found by using the tools available to their fullest potential. I believe that Mr. Harmon, the president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau, has made the case very well for the current farm bill. He has also offered some excellent suggestions. I am hopeful that, as Senators meet with the President today, the President will subscribe to many of the suggestions that Mr. Harmon has made. Let me simply add, as that conversation with the President commences, that it would be helpful to have in front of the President U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the farm bill now in force in this country is providing payments totaling $17.180 billion over the 1996-1998 marketing years; that is, the first 3 years of this new farm bill. This $17.18 billion of payments to producers is in comparison to what would have been paid under the old farm bill. That would have been only $9.63 billion. In essence, the current farm bill, during 1996, 1997, and 1998, will have made available to producers in these transition payments $7.55 billion more than they would have received if we had continued the old farm bill. I think that is an important point, Mr. President, because that amount of income, $7.5 billion, is out there in farm country now. It is in the hands of family producers, family farmers, and it is reality, as opposed to speculation. Further, the transition payments under the farm bill are made earlier in the planting season than were the old deficiency payments. This has allowed family farms more latitude for planning as they go into planting their crops. Under the new farm bill, farmers have the flexibility as to what types of crops to plant and in what amounts. Farmers plant for the market rather than for the Government. The distinguished Senator from North Dakota noted that was one portion of the new farm bill that he liked. It is a very important one. As a family farmer, let me simply testify that for many years we planted corn because we were in the corn program and failure to plant corn might diminish the base on which our support payments were based. Therefore, we had to follow the dictates of the Federal Government that often asked us to set aside 5, 10 or 15 percent of our cropland. We could have produced things that did not have a program, Mr. President, but that would have diminished the base, so that if we wanted to return to the program, we would have been out of luck. As a result, for years, USDA essentially dictated the amounts of corn, wheat, cotton and rice--so-called program crops--to family farmers. Now, as a matter of fact, with Freedom to Farm, we are exercising that freedom. We are planting what the market signals the market wants. We are maximizing our opportunities. It is a critical point, Mr. President, but totally impossible under the old supply management of the farm bills of 60-some years. I note that current farm prices have prompted some Senators to suggest that the 1996 farm bill should be changed to alleviate what they perceive to be a farm crisis. Mr. President, we have had a lot of testimony before the Agriculture Committee and, indeed, we have heard farmers from the Dakotas and from the Chair's own State of Montana, and from northern Minnesota, testify about terrible weather problems, multiple crop failures--extraordinary difficulties that were recognized by this body when emergency disaster relief aid went to the Dakotas and to some other States last year. Mr. President, let me just say that even granted this crisis--and it is one that hopefully can be met by many farmers through the crop insurance that they have taken out, and participation in the Dakotas, where crop insurance is intensive, perhaps more so than most any other two States--given marketing opportunities that have been available that, hopefully, will be available again given the cyclical nature of crop prices, and certainly the changes in the weather that dictate from day to day very sharp changes in the futures market, we are all hopeful of trying to alleviate the crisis as perceived by some States and some counties that have a genuine crisis. I just point out, however, to all Members that 1998 farm prices--the ones we now have either for crops that have been harvested, or prospectively, for those in the fields--are low in comparison to the unusually high prices of 1995 and 1996. But they are about equal to the 1990-94 average price levels for wheat, corn, and soybeans. I point out that 1995 and 1996 had some unusual factors; namely, that the USDA guessed wrong and required farmers, such as myself, to set aside acreage and, in fact, the weather did not cooperate and we had very small crops in the country. Prices went up, predictably. I just say, Mr. President, that we are now in more normal planting situations in which there are not excessive stocks around the world. Farmers are planting for the market. And my point is that the prices now are roughly the 1990-94 average for wheat, corn, and soybeans. USDA projects that farmers, this year, will receive an average of between $2.70 and $3.10 for the 1998 crop of wheat. The 1990-94 average was $3.11. Corn prices are projected between $1.95 and $2.35, according to the USDA, and that is certainly much more speculative given the fact that we still have some time to make that crop, as compared to an average of $2.30 in the early 1990s. Mr. President, anyone who has watched the futures markets in the last few weeks has seen prices reverse direction drastically and dramatically. December corn closed on June 23, for example--not long ago--at $2.67 and three-quarters, a recovery of 30 cents from the contract lows--all in one fell swoop. Similarly, November soybeans closed at $6.40 and three-quarters, a 70 cent recovery from contract lows earlier in the season. Today's low prices are not caused by the farm bill. They reflect large world grain supplies, a direct result of the high prices of 1995 and 1996, distorted somewhat by USDA set-asides. But they reflect something much more, Mr. President, and that is a profound crisis in the economies of many Asian nations. If it were not for the Asian crisis, this Nation would be well on the road to setting another all- time record for the dollar value of farm exports. USDA's current projection of $56 billion in 1998 exports is about $4 billion less than the record--$60 billion--in 1996. If Asian demand simply matched last year's level, with no growth, we would have matched and exceeded the $60 billion figure. USDA forecasts that our exports to non-Asian countries will actually be 8 percent greater than in the record-setting year of 1996. The farm bill is a source of help and not harm for farm income. From 1996 to 1998, as we pointed out, the payments have been $17.18 billion, $7.5 billion more than the old farm bill. I just simply say that this money continues throughout the duration of the current farm bill. The payments are well known to farmers. So in terms of forward planning of their operations, they understand the money in the bank that is provided by the current farm bill. Let me just say that one of the ways in which many northern plains farmers who have been especially afflicted by very bad weather, and sometimes by wheat scab disease--a number of the northern plains farmers have adapted to these wheat problems, and scab and other disease problems, by changing the crops that they plant--oilseed acreage, for example, in North Dakota. And other States have expanded dramatically at the expense of wheat acres. Such wholesale shifts could not have occurred under the old farm policy. The disincentives to change crops were simply too great. Freedom to Farm is a package deal. Its aim is to leave planting decisions in the hands of the farmers and not the Government. And to achieve this goal, the FAIR Act provides full planting flexibility, bans production controls, and decouples income support payments. Another element in the farm bill is the relatively low loan rates, and that is the subject of the amendment before us. The purpose of the loan rates in the farm bill now is the same as the act's other features: to make certain that price supports are a short-term marketing tool and not an alternative market. Loan rates should not be set high enough to influence farmers' planting decisions, and they should not tie up grain in storage for such a long period of time that market signals are distorted. To state it another way, Mr. President, I have been asked by Senators, ``Why is it a bad thing for marketing loans to bring grain into the hands of the Federal Government?'' The basic reason is that grain doesn't disappear on its own accord. It is there; it is a drag on the supply side. It means everybody taking a look at futures markets knows it is still there. It has to be sold at some point. It depresses price. It depresses income. It is not a quick fix; it is not a good fix. Under the current farm bill, it is not meant to happen. That is why proposals to raise loan rates or extend the time for loans are doubly objectionable. Not only do they put a further strain on the Federal budget, but they put the Government back in the business of substituting its judgment about crop decisions for the market's judgment, and for that matter, about marketing the stores of grain the Government accumulates. The projected crop prices for the 1998 marketing year are much lower than I would like to see, particularly when compared to the high prices of 1995 and 1996. Mr. President, there are a number of steps that we will need to take in the Agriculture Committee and on this floor to assist farmers to obtain higher prices. I want to discuss some of those later in the day. But for the moment on the current amendment, just for the benefit of Senators, the amendment deals with removing the 1996 farm bill ceiling on loan rates. And it would mean that the USDA would be free to raise the 1998 crop loan rate to 85 percent of the past 5-year market price average excluding the high and the low years. The amendment would remove loan rate caps for marketing assistance loans for wheat, for feed grains, for cotton, and rice measured in fiscal year 1999 effectively uncapping the loan rates for the 1998 crops. Finally, the amendment would permit the Secretary of Agriculture to extend the term in the marketing assistance loans from the current 9 months to 15 months. I state all of this, Mr. President, because I am not certain in the debate thus far that it has been clear exactly what uncapping the loan rates means. It means, as I have stated, taking the last 5 years in these program crops, excluding the top and the bottom years, and, therefore, the average of the remaining three. And this results, for the benefit of Senators who are wondering about the amounts of money involved, that the current loan ceiling for wheat under the current farm bill is $2.58 a bushel. The calculation of the 85 percent of the 5-year average, excluding high and low prices, would raise that loan rate to $3.16. Mr. President, I make the point about wheat because I have already suggested that the average price of wheat calculated by USDA is now estimated after a pretty good harvest at between $2.70 and $3.10 for the year. Thus, we would be creating a loan rate higher than the likely average price for wheat marketed this year. It is logical in that event that very large amounts of that crop are going to go under the marketing loan. If, in fact, to take a practical example, a wheat farmer has some prospects for the average price of $3.10, or lower than that, he or she might decide to use the marketing loan to get the $3.16, and let the Federal Government worry about what is going to happen generally with the supply of wheat in this situation. For corn, the situation is not quite so generous. The current farm bill marketing loan would be $1.89 a bushel. Given this 5-year averaging, again with the high and low out, that goes up to $2.17. It is conceivable that given a bumper crop of 9.5 billion bushels that corn could dip below $2.17, and, if so, a good bit of corn would come under this procedure. Soybeans are at $5.26, the marketing loan rate. Under the farm bill, that would be $5.54 given the 5-year calculation if you removed the cap. It is hard to tell precisely what the situation would be for beans, but maybe a similar one to corn. In any event, you can predict that stock accumulations would be inevitable. These would lead, I suspect, to calls from the floor for supply control for USDA to step in and try to prevent a further accumulation of a glut of grain that is depressing prices in this country, and depressing farmers as they see those prices going down. Mr. President, this is not even a good quick fix. It is a prescription for enormous difficulty. Mr. President, the amendment before us, as I understand, has been tailored in various ways so that, although the Congressional Budget Office has not yet scored the amendment, it is clear that it would cost at least $1.6 billion, with approximately $400 million of that cost due to extending the term in the marketing loan by 6 months, and the remaining $1.2 billion due to uncapping the loan rates, Mr. President, I point out that in the action taken in this body the other day to make possible the tender offer by Pakistan, if it comes, for 37 million bushels of U.S. wheat, the Congressional Budget Office finally scored that, as I recall, at about $35 million in costs. And a huge scramble occurred to try to find where $35 million is, even to meet that emergency action. They found it. That is why the legislation finally made it through both Houses to be signed by the President. But we are talking now about $1.6 billion in this amendment. The quick fix of this situation is to say, ``Well, it is an emergency outside the budget.'' Unless somebody declared that today with regard to each of the same things that we are discussing, I see no majority support in this body for a declaration of emergency of this character. I see no prospect in the other body for that to occur. The money simply would have to come, if it is to be appropriated in this way, from other agriculture programs. And the scramble will begin as to who will pay the piper. This is a zero sum game. Mr. President, I add, finally, I started my talk by mentioning my visit with the state presidents of the American Farm Bureau. The American Farm Bureau and the 50 presidents who were there are not calling for this amendment. As a matter of fact, they do not believe the amendment is good policy, nor do I. Let me just suggest that there are things for which farm organizations are calling. The distinguished occupant of the Chair organized an important meeting of a good number of producer groups not long ago. During the course of that meeting a number of suggestions were made that are important policy changes. Among those were reauthorization of the Presidential fast-track trading authority. If there is a single item, Mr. President, that is important to higher income on the farm, it is that one, because in order to have an extension of our exports, an extension of our sales and our marketing, the President must have fast- track authority. No other country will deal with it. It is quite apart from the World Trade Organization, which is about to have an important meeting in 1999. At that meeting we are all encouraging Ms. Barshefsky, our Trade Representative, or anybody else who might represent us, including the Secretary of Agriculture, to make certain that agriculture is at the top of the priorities. Normally agriculture is at the bottom of the priorities. And that will take some pushing and shoving, because a good number of other interest groups in our country will say, ``We don't want to hold up a deal with other countries due to their antagonism to agriculture.'' The most protected of all areas is still in agricultural trade. So we have to have fast-track authority. We ought to be debating that if we are talking about agricultural income, and hopefully we will be debating that very soon on this floor. Second, we must have International Monetary Fund reform. I start by ``reform,'' because I appreciate the comments that have been made in various meetings of our committees about how IMF operates. But we are also going to have to have refunding and replenishment for the IMF. The cupboard is almost bare. The possibilities are that the nations of the world--we contribute about 18 percent of that money, and it is good to have at least 82 percent contributed by others. The nations of the world may, indeed, come to the rescue of other nations very promptly. Commodity prices are down worldwide. We are discussing today the problem of agricultural prices in the world. But, if we were in another country at another time, we would be discussing the implications of low oil prices, or low copper prices, or the fact that a certain deflationary trend seems to have come over primary foods and materials throughout the world affecting the economies. Enormous flexibility and safety net situations are going to be required. Third, the agricultural groups almost unanimously have talked about economic sanctions reform with a special emphasis on unilateral sanctions, the ones that we impose all by ourselves, and that we have imposed 61 times in the last 5 years and that have affected maybe $20 billion of American income and several hundred thousand American jobs. Later in this debate on the agriculture appropriations bill, I will be offering as an amendment a sanction reform bill that deals prospectively; that is, just with the future, but at least sets in motion criteria for the administration and for Congress in considering unilateral economic sanctions and estimates as to their cost and a sunsetting provision that we can get rid of them after they have achieved what they were supposed to do. It is a modest amendment, but it is an important amendment in the sense of giving hope to farmers in America. Do we care about them enough to be thinking how the sale is going to be made, how marketing can occur with this most vital of humanitarian commodities, food supply. Fourth, farm groups have called for establishment of normal trade relations with China. They have called for stronger oversight on biotechnology in negotiations with the Common Market and with others so that we are not denied the remarkable breakthroughs in our own science. They have asked for full funding of the agricultural research bill, and hopefully we will pass that as a part of this overall ag appropriations legislation. Earlier, of course, the farm groups were instrumental in helping us all to come to passage of the agricultural research bill itself. And 5 years of crop insurance provisions, which we now see were so critically important given the precarious nature of agricultural income due to weather and other events in so many parts of the country. I would point out that act alone, the Ag Research Act, and the crop insurance provisions for 5 years were tremendously important in making a difference for agricultural income now as well as for the foreseeable future in our country. The farm groups are calling for estate tax reform. Of anything that has come before our committee, that has had greater unanimity in terms of farm families, and these are the same family farms bandied about in the conversation all the time. They are saying, if we are going to have a family farm, we are really going to have to have estate tax reform and reduction and preferably abolition. Hopefully, that will come before the body. These are elements of a successful farm policy. We are finally going to have to come down to the point of discussing the difference between selling the crop and storing the crop, and there is a big difference. What I and many others are advocating is that we sell, that we market, that we move the crop. A third of all that we do in agricultural America has to move; a tough job in the face of the Asian demands falling off precipitously but not impossible. As I have pointed out, we are exporting to non-Asian countries 8 percent more now than we were doing in the 1996 record export year, and that did not happen by chance. It happened because agricultural marketers and farmers taking trade groups and personally visiting countries have done a remarkable job. We have to help that substantially, and we can. The policies I have talked about today are fully within our purview in the Senate to debate and to discuss and to enact. Let me just mention that those of us on this side of the aisle know that there are no quick fixes, but we do know that action is important as well as rhetoric. Less than an hour after the Senate approved the sense-of-the-Senate amendment offered by the distinguished Democratic leader last evening, we gave final congressional approval to the broad exemption of agricultural products from India and Pakistan sanctions under the Glenn amendment. The Senate's action should allow U.S. wheat to compete in today's Pakistani tender for 350,000 metric tons of exports. Yesterday, I joined nine other Senators from farm States in calling for action this session on the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley's Farm and Ranch Risk Management Act, which gives farmers important new tools to manage the variability of farm income. I am hopeful that will be enacted in this session. Also, yesterday nine of us from farm States wrote the Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Glickman, in support of actions which he can take now without legislation to increase exports of humanitarian food assistance. The CCC Charter Act provides authority for a wide range of Secretarial action, and our letter lays out how a new initiative could use existing funds to expand overseas concessional sales of wheat, vegetable oil, feedgrains and other commodities. I ask unanimous consent that both of the letters enunciating these policies be printed in the Record.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise to propose an amendment that seeks to improve the way Congress and the executive branch consider and impose unilateral economic sanctions on other countries and entities. There has been a dramatic rise in the number and variety of U.S. economic sanctions directed against other countries to achieve one or more foreign policy goals. More often than not they have not been successful. Despite this record, we continue to impose one new unilateral sanction after another. We typically do so without careful analysis of their effects on our interests and our values. Because of this, I believe it is time we engage in a serious debate on the merits of using unilateral economic sanctions to accomplish foreign policy goals. That is the purpose of this amendment. My amendment is a modification of Senate bill S. 1413, the ``Enhancement of Trade, Security, and Human Rights Through Sanctions Reform Act'', or simply the Sanctions Policy Reform Act, which we introduced last November. The companion bill was introduced in the House at the same time. There are now 36 Senate cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. Let me take a moment to note some of the important changes from Senate bill 1413 that are now in my proposed amendment. These changes were included to reflect discussions with the administration, with legal counsel of the Senate, with our colleagues in the House, and with others. First, we clarify in the amendment that our general sanctions guidelines, procedural requirements, analytical reports and sunset provisions pertain only to future sanctions. I underline that point. This amendment deals only with the future. It is not an amendment about sanctions past or sanctions present. We are talking about sanctions in the future and only unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States alone. Our bill is totally prospective. We have eased some of the public notification requirements about the proposed new sanctions. We do not want the President to inadvertently alert a country targeted for sanctions to take steps to avoid our sanctions before they are imposed. If a country knows in advance that we intend to impose an asset freeze, for example, it would initiate moves to conceal, shift, or otherwise avoid our sanctions, thereby undermining their effectiveness. We have strengthened the language in the bill against the use of food, medicine, and medical equipment as a tool of American foreign policy. As a guideline, we believe food should never be used this way except in cases of war or a threat to the security of the United States. We have also included language in the bill that permits a slowing down of the process in the Congress to help guarantee that information about proposed new sanctions is available to the Members prior to their voting on the floor. There are other minor changes in reporting requirements and procedures. The fundamental purpose of my amendment is to promote good governance through thoughtful deliberation on those proposals involving unilateral economic sanctions directed against other countries. My amendment lays out a set of guidelines and requirements for a careful and deliberative process in both branches of Government when considering new unilateral sanctions. It does not preclude the use of economic sanctions, nor does it change those sanctions already in force. It is based on the basic principle that if we improve the quality of our policy process and our public discourse, we can improve the quality of the policy itself. This principle is familiar to us all. James Madison wrote eloquently in the Federalist Papers on the merits of slowing down the legislative process on important matters in order to achieve more careful, thoughtful deliberation and avoid the passions of the moment. This amendment is consistent with Madison's view. When we introduced Senate bill 1413 last fall, we did so because we believed that unilateral economic sanctions, when used as a tool of foreign policy, rarely achieved their goal, and frequently harmed the United States more than the target country against whom they were aimed. The imposition of unilateral sanctions may help create a sense of urgency to help resolve a problem, but it often creates new problems, many of which may be unintended. In some cases, unilateral sanctions may be counterproductive to our interests. Over the past several years, there has been a growing interest in the practice of unilateral economic sanctions as a tool of American foreign policy. Numerous studies have been conducted by think tanks, trade groups, the business communities, the U.S. Government, and foreign governments. These studies reached similar conclusions that unilateral economic sanctions that are utilized to achieve foreign policy objectives rarely succeed in doing so. They further conclude that unilateral economic sanctions seldom help those we seek to assist, that they often penalize the United States more than the target country, and that they may weaken our international competitiveness and our economic security. The studies also show that unilateral economic sanctions have increasingly become a foreign policy of first choice, even when other policy alternatives exist. Because of these studies, data on the use of sanctions are becoming familiar. According to Under Secretary of State, Eisenstat in testimony before the House International Relations Committee, the United States has applied sanctions 115 times since World War I and 104 times since the end of World War II. Nearly one third of the sanctions applied over the last 80 years have been imposed in just the past 4 years. There are now dozens of new proposals before the Congress that would tighten or impose sanctions on one or more countries, many of whom are our friends or our allies. There are other sanctions pending at the State and local level directed at nearly 20 countries. The 1997 Report of the President's Export Council on U.S. Unilateral Economic Sanctions, for example, cited 75 countries representing more than half the world's population, that have been subject to or threatened by U.S. unilateral sanctions. The application of new sanctions in the past 2 years have increased this global percentage to nearly 70 percent of the world's population affected or threatened by one or more U.S. sanctions. These sanctions are not cost-free. They are easy to impose because they appear to be cost-free and are almost always preferable to the use of force or to doing nothing, but they have many unintended victims-- the poor in the target countries, American companies, American labor, American consumers, and, quite frankly, American foreign policy. One cost estimate put the income loss to the American economy from economic sanctions at between $15 billion and $19 billion, while impacting more than 150,000 jobs in 1995 alone. Magnify this overtime, and the economic and foreign policy costs to the United States become enormous. These sanctions weaken our international competitiveness, lower our global market share, abandon our established markets to others and jeopardize billions in export earnings--the key to our economic growth. They may also impair our ability to provide humanitarian assistance. They sometimes anger our friends and call our international leadership into question. Someone compared the use of unilateral economic sanctions in foreign policy to the use of carpet bombing in warfare. He noted that both tactics are indiscriminate and fail to distinguish between innocent and guilty victims. Those who are well-off financially, entrenched politically, or responsible for foreign policy actions we oppose, are those who tend to be least affected by unilateral sanctions. The point is that unilateral sanctions are blunt instruments of foreign policy that are too readily employed against foreign targets, even when other persuasive instruments of foreign policy may be available. The statute regulating our actions against India's and Pakistan's behavior, for example, is unusually inflexible and limits our options to develop solutions that work in South Asia. Our punitive sanctions, however meritorious they may be, do not help us achieve cooperation with either country in coping with regional and global problems; nor do they promote essential American goals of democracy, human rights, religious freedom, or other values we would like to see in both countries. Indeed, these particular sanctions could inadvertently serve to destabilize an already unsteady situation in Pakistan--a nuclear Pakistan--which would not be in anybody's interest. Mr. President, my amendment does not prohibit sanctions. There will always be situations in which the actions of other countries are so outrageous or so threatening to the United States that some response by the United States, short of the use of military force, is needed and justified. In these instances, sanctions can be helpful in getting the attention of another country, in showing U.S. determination to change behaviors we find objectionable, or in stimulating a search for creative solutions to difficult foreign policy problems. Indeed, many unilateral sanctions are intended to achieve very laudable foreign policy goals--human rights improvements, the non- proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, stemming the flow of international narcotics, countering terrorism, prohibiting child labor, and others. These goals are worthy foreign policy objectives. Unfortunately, unilateral economic sanctions are not effective tools for advancing these objectives or our interests. They may, in some cases, undermine them. In the end, they typically inflict punishment on the American people or on the most vulnerable populations in the country against whom the sanctions are directed. Mr. President, if we use unilateral economic sanctions to advance our foreign policy, we must be more sparing in their use, we must improve the process by which we consider international sanctions, and find ways to increase their effectiveness once they are implemented. My amendment proposes to do that by improving the way we consider unilateral sanctions in both branches of the government. It is a modest amendment. It applies to a very limited class of sanctions which are unilateral in scope and which are intended to accomplish one or more foreign policy objectives. My amendment excludes those trade remedies and other trade sanctions imposed because of market access restrictions, unfair trade practices and violations of U.S. commercial or trade laws. It excludes those multilateral sanctions regimes in which the U.S. participates, when other participating countries are imposing substantially equivalent sanctions and taking their burden. Our legislation is prospective and would not change, amend or eliminate existing U.S. sanctions, although I believe they should be reviewed as well. The Sanctions Task Force set up by the Senate leadership is undertaking that review. Finally, the amendment does not pertain to state and local sanctions intended to achieve foreign policy goals. It deals simply with those of the Federal Government. To help achieve a more deliberative policy process, the bill establishes procedural guidelines and informational requirements before unilateral economic sanctions are considered by the Congress or the President. My amendment provides that any unilateral economic sanction proposed in the Congress or by the President should conform to certain guidelines. These should include: clearly defined foreign policy or national security goals; contract sanctity; Presidential authority to adjust or waive the sanctions if he determines it is in the national interest to do so; narrowly targeted sanction on the offending party or parties; expand export promotion if our sanctions adversely affect a major export market of American farmers; efforts to minimize the negative impact on humanitarian activities in targeted countries; and a sunset provision to terminate new sanctions 2 years after they are imposed, unless reauthorized. The amendment includes provisions to fully inform members of the proposed sanctions and requires new sanctions be consistent with these guidelines. It also mandates that all proposed new unilateral sanctions include reports from the President which assess the following: the likelihood that the proposed sanctions will achieve the stated foreign policy objective; the impact of the sanctions on humanitarian activities in affected countries; the likely effects on our friends and allies and on related national security and foreign policy interests; any diplomatic steps already undertaken to achieve the specified foreign policy goals; the prospects for multilateral cooperation and comparable efforts, if any, by other countries to impose sanctions; against target country; prospects for retaliation against the U.S. and against our agriculture interests; an assessment as to whether the benefits of achieving the stated foreign policy goals outweigh any likely foreign policy, national security or economic costs to the U.S.; and a report on the effects the sanctions are likely to have on the U.S. agricultural exports and on the reputation of U.S. farmers as reliable suppliers. I include that section, Mr. President, because agricultural exports are usually the first hit in retaliation. This is the area in which our Nation does best and has, by far, the largest surplus. Therefore, this is of special importance to the American agricultural producers that are the focus of our attention today in this appropriations bill. A separate section includes similar analytical requirements for any new sanctions the President considers. These include those sanctions imposed by executive order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). these requirements must be shared with the Congress before imposing new sanctions. However, the bill allows the President to waive most of these requirements if he must act swiftly and if the challenge we confront is an emergency. The requirements on the President are as rigorous as those on the congress. FInally, my amendment establishes an inter-agency Sanctions Review Committee to include all relevant agencies in the executive branch in order to coordinate U.S. policy on sanctions. If unilateral sanctions are approved and implemented, the amendment requires annual reporting on their economic costs and benefits to the United State and any progress they are having on achieving the stated foreign policy goals. There would also be a sunset provision in each new sanction that would terminate new sanctions after two years unless they are re- authorized by the Congress or the President. The agriculture provision merits special comment because it singles out American farmers and ranchers whose exports are especially vulnerable to retaliation and whose products are most easily substituted by foreign competitors. American agriculture is heavily dependent on exports. About a third of all of our sales from the farms of this country are in the export trade. Last year, American agriculture contributed a net $22 billion surplus to our balance of trade, more than any other sector. Economic sanctions can have a serious long-term adverse impact on American agriculture. My amendment provides authority to compensate for lost exports through agriculture export assistance permitted under current statutes and agreements. No new appropriations would be required. To protect American agriculture, my amendment defines humanitarian assistance to include all food aid provided by the Department of Agriculture for the purchase or provision of food or other agricultural commodities. As such they would be exempt from sanctions other than in response to national security threats, where multilateral sanctions are in place, or if we are engaged in an armed conflict. I have focused many of my remarks on the economic and trade consequences of unilateral sanctions because they are more easily measured. But, the use of sanctions also raises a fundamental question about the effects of unilateral sanctions on the conduct of American foreign policy. Can we further our national interests and promote our values as a nation through the use of unilateral sanctions which distance ourselves from the challenges we face, or can we better accomplish our purposes by staying engaged in the world and keeping our options open to solutions? The answer is not always black and white because sanctions can sometimes be an appropriate foreign policy tool. On balance, I believe American interests are better advanced through engagement and active leadership that afford us an opportunity to influence events that threaten our interests. In some cases, unilateral sanctions restrict our ability to take advantage of changes in other countries because trade embargoes impose a heavy bias against dialogue and exchange. Unilateral sanctions may create tensions with friends and allies--including democratic countries--that jeopardize cooperation in achieving other foreign policy and priorities, including multilateral cooperation on the sanctions themselves. U.S. leadership and American values are better promoted through our presence abroad, the knowledge we share and impart, and the contacts we make and sustain. Many countries want to be exposed to our values and ideas if they are not imposed. The lessons of the free market and democratic values are learned more easily when they are experienced first hand, not as abstractions from a distance and not behind artificial barriers imposed by unilateral sanctions. Let me suggest a number of fundamental principles that I believe should shape our approach to unilateral economic sanctions: Unilateral economic sanctions should not be the policy of first resort. To the extent possible, other means of persuasion and influence ought to be exhausted first; If harm is to be done or is intended, we must follow the cardinal principle that we plan to harm our adversary more than we harm ourselves; when possible, multilateral economic sanctions and international cooperation are preferable to unilateral sanctions and are more likely to succeed, even though they may be more difficult to obtain; we should secure the cooperation of the major trading and investing countries as well as the principal frontline states if economic sanctions are to be successful; and we ought to avoid double standards and be as consistent as possible in the application of our sanctions policy. To the extent possible, we ought to avoid disproportionate harm to the civilian population. We should avoid the use of food as a weapon of foreign policy and we should permit humanitarian assistance programs to function; our foreign policy goals ought to be clear, specific and achievable within a reasonable period of time; we ought to keep to a minimum the adverse affects of our sanctions on our friends and allies; we should keep in mind that unilateral sanctions can cause adverse consequences that may be more problematic than the actions that prompted the sanctions--a regime collapse, a humanitarian disaster, a mass exodus of people, or more repression and isolation in the target country, for example; we should explore options for solving problems through dialogue, public diplomacy, and positive inducements or rewards; and the President of the United States should always have options that include both sticks and carrots that can be adjusted according to circumstance and nuance; the Congress should be vigilant by insuring that his options are consistent with Congressional intent and the law. In those cases where we cannot build multilateral cooperation and where our core interests or core values are at risk, we must, of course, consider acting unilaterally. Our actions must be part of an overall coherent and coordinated foreign policy that is coupled with diplomacy and consistent with our international obligations and objectives. We should have a reasonable expectation that our unilateral actions will not cause more collateral damage to ourselves or to our friends than the problem they are designed to correct. Mr. President, the United States should never abandon its leadership role in the world nor forsake the basic values we cherish in the pursuit of our foreign policy. We must ask, however, whether we are always able to change the actions of other countries whose behavior we find disagreeable or threatening. If we are able to influence those actions, we need to ponder how best to proceed. In my judgment, unilateral economic sanctions will not always be the best answer. But, if they are the answer, they should be structured so that they do as little harm as possible to ourselves and to our overall global interests. By improving upon our procedures and the quality and timeliness of our information when considering new sanctions, I believe we can make that possible. We should know about the cost and benefits of proposed new sanctions before we consider them. That is the intent of my amendment. I ask that all Members look closely at my amendment and hope you will agree that it is good governance amendment that will help improve the quality and conduct of American foreign policy. Mr. President, I will conclude by pointing out that a bipartisan sanctions task force has been appointed by the leadership of this body. That task force has met. I look forward to making a contribution to the work of that group. Mr. President, as I mentioned earlier in the debate today, I visited with the presidents of the 50 farm bureaus in our country. I visited with them because they are concerned about the farm prices that we have been talking about, and I am concerned as well. Very clearly, the farm organizations of our country have a strong and clear agenda, to which I subscribe. They believe that we must pass fast track authority for the President, that we need reform of the IMF and replenish those funds, and that we must have sanctions reform. The American Farm Bureau has been a strong contributing member to the U.S.A. Engage movement, which now includes 675 American companies who are involved in exporting. The American Farm Bureau and these American companies are companies who say, first of all, that sanctions have to remain a part of our foreign policy apparatus; that unilateral sanctions, those imposed by ourselves, usually fail and usually cause more harm upon us than upon the target countries; that on occasion we may be so outraged that we may be prepared to accept that cost, understanding that the harm to our jobs and our income will be greater than that which we have fostered. But, Mr. President, the farmers of America and their organizations are crying out in this legislation for attention. I argued on the last amendment that our best policy in this country was to sell grain, to sell livestock--not to store it. I think that is the issue, Mr. President. But if we are to be credible with regard to the export side, farmers and farm groups are saying, ``You must reform. You must do more.'' And I agree with that. That is why I offered this amendment on the appropriations bill for agriculture, because it is a passionate cry by our farmers to take this concrete action to give some hope that their concerns are being addressed, that, in fact, we are going to move exports, and are going to do so because we are beginning to think more carefully here in this body about what we are doing. To reiterate the bidding, Mr. President, before unilateral sanctions alone are imposed, there has to be a purpose stated for why we are doing them. And criteria and benchmarks that would show the degree to which we have been successful in interim reports, and an assessment of the cost to American jobs and the lost income. I mentioned $20 billion of lost income in a year and 150,000 jobs. These are not inconsequential. Debates occur on this floor frequently over 100 jobs or 1,000 jobs. I am asking that to consider very carefully these cost implications before we adopt another unilateral sanction. And finally, I am saying that after 2 years there should be a sunset provision. The sanction ends at that point, unless it is authorized again by the Congress or by the President for valid foreign policy reasons. These sanctions go on forever. This amendment is prospective. It deals with the future. I hope the sanctions task force set up by the leadership will deal with the present and past sanctions. Mr. President, I ask for careful consideration by this body of my amendment. I am hopeful it will be a strong plank in this appropriations bill. I thank the Chair. Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. LUGAR. Yes.

Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Senator.

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

Mr. LUGAR. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, during this debate on the pending amendment, three arguments have been made. I want to respond to them briefly. One came about through Senators suggesting that the President of the United States, who just today proposed sanctions on certain firms in Russia and pertaining to Iranian missile transfers, would not have had the ability to impose those sanctions if the amendment that we are debating had been the law of the land. Later, the distinguished Senator from Arizona, after a careful reading of the legislation, noted that on page 30 of the amendment-- this is the language: ``The President may waive any of the requirements of subsections (a), (b), (c), (d), (e)''--and so forth--in the event that the President determines there exists a national emergency that requires the exercise of the waiver. I made that point in an earlier presentation, but I simply wanted to reiterate there are emergency situations regarding the national security of this country. The President must have the ability to act. Our legislation expressly gives him that waiver ability. Then the distinguished Senator from Arizona raised the question as to whether, in fact, that waiver might be too broad. Perhaps. But, you cannot have it both ways. If on one hand you argue that the President of the United States is constricted in terms of what he may do, but then you find out he has full ability to do it, I suppose you could then argue that you do not want to have full ability at that point. Let me just offer a moment of reassurance. On the same page 30 of the amendment, there is a section setting up a Sanctions Review Committee in the executive branch. It reads: There is established within the executive branch of Government an inter-agency committee, which shall be known as the Sanctions Review Committee, which shall have the responsibility of coordinating United States policy regarding unilateral economic sanctions and of providing appropriate recommendations to the President prior to any decision regarding the implementation of a unilateral economic sanction. Now, that committee is composed of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, the U.S. Trade Representative, and so forth. The point being that the President of the United States should be well advised before he decides on a unilateral waiver for even national emergency purposes. I suspect that this could be perfected further, but during the course of the debate on this legislation I simply note that many Members--and this is understandable--say this is very complex matter and we need more time to walk around it, try to think through the national security implications, the ability of the players to deal with this successfully. I point out, respectfully, that my original legislation on which this is based was introduced last October. This has been widely discussed in this city for many months. It is supported by 37 Senators explicitly who have thought through all the implications of this and have studied it at some length. Finally, Mr. President, I respond to the argument that the India and Pakistan incidents are the reason we are discussing this. As I recall, the distinguished Senator from Arizona pointed out we have resolved some of those problems and, therefore, it may be premature to move on to other problems. But, in fact, India and Pakistan had not gone through their nuclear testing regimes last October. The problem that has to come back to this body is that of the American farmers--the gist of the overall agriculture appropriation bill--need some hope that this body understands the effect of economic sanctions on agriculture. The USA*Engage group, composed of some 675 businesses, including the American Farm Bureau, have strongly encouraged this body to understand the problems faced by American business. I think the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, stated it well: American business is not a special interest. It is not a nefarious group of people with whom we should have no contact as we talk about national security or economic security. American business and American farmers provide the money that gives us the ability to provide security to this Nation. These are the people who actually are out there working and providing jobs. They are saying to us: You folks with all of your sanctions are creating unemployment for 200,000 Americans. That number of people are losing their jobs because of what is occurring in the sanctions regime. Of course, we have to be considerate of each and every aspect of making certain that national security is not compromised. It would be a stretch to think of many of these sanctions that have had a substantial national security implication to begin with. I suspect, finally, there has to be a balancing of interests in our country. Even as we are deeply concerned about democratic procedures in other countries, about religious procedures in other countries, about economic procedures in other countries, we ought to weigh and we ought to have a procedure in which we say we are going to impose a sanction on some country and take the time to state why, and then take time to say, ``What would be considered a success? How would we know we have victory? What are the benchmarks of our success?'' At least once a year, we should think about what the sanction did. Did it make any difference? Did it make a difference in American jobs and income that was totally disproportionate to whatever the impact might have been, in the target country? Now, that is what my amendment calls for--however you weave the argument around it, the need to state the purpose of what we are doing, the benchmarks of success, to examine periodically whether we have hit the mark even remotely, and, in any event, to estimate the cost of sanctions to Americans. It really is time to think about Americans, people in this country, farmers, producers, even as we are spinning wheels of economic sanctions for whatever economic purpose we might think of. From the beginning--and I think everyone has heard this clearly--we are talking about sanctions in the future, prospective sanctions. I hope Senators understand that. But that is the case. Secondly, we are talking about unilateral sanctions which we do ourselves that hurt us, that have no cooperation from others, with every other country grabbing our markets, entering in to eat our lunch. We have prescribed any number of ways in which people in this Congress and the administration have to think about it, and at the same time giving the President, as our Commander in Chief, the ability in terms of our security, to act if he must. Finally, we have said after 2 years the sanction comes to an end unless the Congress reauthorizes it. That is, take some more time to think about what has occurred, what the implications and the costs for Americans have been. I am hopeful this amendment will not be tabled. I regret that the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee feels he must do that at 6 o'clock, but I understand the expeditious procedure of this bill, and it is an important bill, has to go on. I hope Senators will vote against tabling the amendment when that time comes, about an hour from now, because I think that a vote against tabling sends a signal of hope to American farmers that we care, and we had better send that signal. I hope Senators understand that we have a difficult situation in American agriculture, not because of the farm bill but because demand from Asia is down and demand from other countries will be coming down as their income is constricted. We will need all of our weapons of trade in order to meet that, and the same eventually will occur to other industries. I stress agriculture today, Mr. President, because that is the first wave. That is where the first implications of economic downturn have come, with raw materials and food. But it will spread unless we are successful in adopting a new trade strategy that must surely include greater thoughtfulness about sanctions. Therefore, I call for a new regime of thoughtfulness--not a prohibition of sanctions, not a breach of international or national security, but a thoughtful approach, giving full latitude to the Commander in Chief and, hopefully, better latitude to us, to think through what we are doing and to do it more correctly and positively. I conclude by saying, as I recall, the distinguished Senator from Arizona was asking a hypothetical situation whether as to whether the President could act or not, I think I have answered the question that he could have acted on today's sanction. But let's say that the President acts, or the Congress acts; how do we know in advance that this is going to have any particular effect? The answer is that we don't. As a matter of fact, in most cases, the effect has been dismal, inappropriate, and costly to the United States and to our citizens. So I say that the President of the United States has the full ability to act, but whether he will act appropriately is another question. And that is why even the President is asked to consult with his Cabinet, and why we are asked to consult with each other--in the hope that if we do adopt a sanction, it will do some good, that it will have some wisdom behind it, some rationale and some procedure that the American people can follow. I submit, Mr. President, that many of the sanctions we have adopted have not had that wisdom, that procedure, and they have not had a very good effect. It is for this reason that I ask the support of Senators for this amendment and the support, particularly, on the vote to table. I am hopeful that that tabling motion will not be adopted when that moment comes. Mr. President, I thank all Senators for allowing us to have this full debate. I appreciate that there are many other issues that should come before the body. I yield the floor.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LUGAR. I ask the Senator a question. If it is just a parliamentary procedure, I have no objection if it is a noncontroversial amendment, because I would like to help the bill proceed. But I want us to move toward the conclusion of the debate on my amendment.

Mr. LUGAR. If that is the correct text of the national security waiver, yes.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, today I rise to offer an amendment to make a technical correction to recently passed bill. This noncontroversial legislation serves to clarify two provisions of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998. Senators Santorum, Collins, Harkin and Leahy are cosponsors of this amendment. The purpose of the amendment is twofold. First, under the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research program in the northeastern United States, the amendment adds a requirement that the Governor of the State of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont make a request to the Secretary before any research is conducted under that particular program. Second, the assessment rate is amended from $0.0075 to $0.01 under the Honey Research, Promotion, and Consumer Information Act. Mr. President, both amendments make technical corrections. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to improve the effectiveness of the Wetland Reserve Program, or WRP. The WRP is a program, administered by the Department of Agriculture, or USDA, which purchases easements to restore and protect wetlands. These easements are purchased from landowners on a willing-buyer and willing-seller basis. Under current law, land going into the WRP is enrolled for different time periods based on one of three types of contracts entered into between USDA and the landowner: (1) cost share contracts (which enroll land for ten years), (2) 30 year easements, and (3) permanent easements. Landowners have expressed more interest in longer term easements than in cost share contracts. However, current law requires USDA to enroll an equal proportion of each contract type (hence the so-called \1/3\, \1/3\, \1/3\ rule), regardless of landowner interest. One part of the amendment which I am proposing would permit USDA to deviate from the \1/3\, \1/3\, \1/3\ requirement based on landowner interest. Landowners would retain the ability to choose among permanent, non-permanent and cost-share agreements. Mr. President, the second part of my amendment would also amend the WRP. Under current law, landowners receive annual payments for land enrolled in the WRP, but, in the case of longer term easements, can elect to receive payments up-front in a lump sum. Annual payments, including those taken in a lump sum, are subject to a $50,000 per person limitation. However, permanent easements are exempt from the limitation. Exempting only permanent easements from the payment limitation tends to discourage landowners from choosing 30 year easements. This amendment solves the inequity by broadening the exemption to include 30 year easements. My amendment is strongly supported by the Audubon Society, Ducks Unlimited, and other conservation groups. It has been scored at no cost by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The amendment makes common- sense improvements to an important program which protects our natural resources. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, there has been a remarkable degree of bipartisan cooperation in moving this bill forward. I would like to thank Senator Biden, Senator Chafee, and Senator Leahy for their help in drafting the Senate bill, which is a companion to H.R. 2870, introduced by Representatives Portman, Kasich and Hamilton. I would also like to thank my twenty nine additional Senate cosponsors from both sides of the aisle for their important support. I would especially like to thank Senator Helms for cosponsoring the bill and moving it expeditiously through the Committee on Foreign Relations, which approved it by voice vote on May 19, 1998. Senator Biden and I have worked together on international environmental issues for many years. The original debt-for-nature bill was the Biden-Lugar Global Environmental Protection Assistance Act of 1989. This was followed by President Bush's Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (EAI), which also linked debt reduction and environmental protection in the developing nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. S. 1758, the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, allows lower and middle income developing countries to reduce certain debts owed to the U.S. Government under the Foreign Assistance Act and the Agricultural Trade and Development Assistance Act. In return, they must place local currencies in a tropical forest fund to protect outstanding tropical forests in their own country. The tropical forest fund in each country would be administered by a local board. These boards would be comprised of representatives of its government, our government and environmental, community development, forestry, scientific and academic organizations with expertise in the protection of tropical forests. A majority of the local board would have to represent these nongovernmental organizations. Oversight would be accomplished through expanding the Enterprise for the Americas Board to fifteen members, with eight members representing federal agencies and seven representing nongovernmental organizations with expertise in the protection of tropical forests. All grants of more than $100,000 would have to be approved by this Board. The United States has a strong interest in helping to protect tropical forests in developing countries. Our world food security depends on tropical forests, which provide genetic materials to enhance world food production and which regulate the hydrological cycles on which world agriculture depends. The fight against cancer depends upon plants in tropical forests. Tropical forests also store carbon, mitigating the build up of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. I urge the Senate to support S. 1758 along with the technical and clarifying amendments which Senator Helms, Senator Biden and I have offered to the Committee reported bill.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, my thanks to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. I appreciate his leadership, that of Senator Biden, and likewise the role of Senator Lott and Senator Daschle in appointing this important task force. I am eager to speak today as an original sponsor of the legislation before the Senate. This bill is appropriate and a good first step toward comprehensive review of economic sanctions that is sorely needed for our Nation's economic security. First, the legislation is timely. Executive agencies have debated whether the Agriculture Department's export credit guarantees for Pakistan should be included in the Glenn Amendment prohibitions, or not. The Justice Department concluded the law did prohibit these guarantees. In fiscal year 1997, Pakistan bought $347 million worth of U.S. wheat with USDA's export credit guarantees. In fiscal year 1998, Pakistan was allocated $250 million in export credit guarantees and has used $162 million of that amount, all for wheat. On July 15, Pakistan will hold a tender for 350,000 metric tons of wheat. Without export credit guarantees, the United States will get none of that business. That will mean the loss of about $37 million in foreign exchange earnings. The Pakistani government will not draw any lessons from our lack of participation, except that the U.S. has chosen to cede another market to its competitors. Other grain exporters are participating in the tender and will make the sales if we do not. Only our farmers will suffer. Quick action by the Congress, however, can resolve the short- term problem. Second, the legislation is appropriate. Food should not be a weapon in foreign policy. The history of unilateral agricultural sanctions over several decades adequately demonstrates their futility. When sanctions are unduly rigid and automatic, they become a roadblock to prudent diplomacy. This is a much more serious issue. In fact, sanctions tend to harm our industries and hamper our foreign policy more than they advance their stated goals. Mr. President, rarely did we state our goals when we adopted any of the 61 sanctions that are now on the books; nor have we established benchmarks that show whether these sanctions have been successful. Obviously, our policy was not successful with regard to the sanctions we are discussing today. Unilateral sanctions rarely accomplish their objectives in the absence of multilateral cooperation. In fact, scholarship on this subject is replete with almost no instance in which unilateral U.S. sanctions have achieved their intended goals, even when the goals were implicit as opposed to being explicit. Finally, the legislation is a good first step. This Senate needs a broad debate on economic sanctions and their consequences. The majority and minority leaders have shown strong leadership in naming a bipartisan task force to consider sanctions policy. The fact that we need to pass this legislation on an emergency basis only illustrates the need for a more comprehensive legislative approach. We need to think through the consequences of unilateral, inflexible sanctions before they are imposed, not after. In the near future, I will offer a modified version of my bill, S. 1413, for the Senate's consideration. That legislation will establish a framework for the consideration and review of future sanctions, and will broadly exempt food and humanitarian assistance. I look forward to working closely with the task force headed by Senator McConnell and Senator Biden. I appreciate that we must examine not only prospective views on any legislation suggested but likewise retrospective views and those of our Chief Executive and Secretary of State. For the moment, we need to pass the bill before us. I commend those who brought this important legislation to the floor today. Mr. President, we will also need to think carefully, as other Senators have suggested, about the overall agriculture situation in our country. As a general rule we ought to be thinking about how we make the sale and move the grain, not about how we store the grain and dismember the farm bill. Congress should grant the President fast track trade negotiating authority. We must have this in order to successfully move our grain to the rest of the world this year, next year, and for many years to come. Fast track is essential for the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations that will be paramount next year. We must also act on International Monetary Fund (IMF) replenishment. This is critical to having any chance of regaining Asian demand. Right now, prices are down because demand is down. It is as clear as that. Finally, we must have broad sanctions reform. Sanctions inhibit us and cost American jobs and American sales. For all of these reasons, Mr. President, this is an important moment, an important bill, and I strongly support its passage.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the African Growth and Opportunity Act which has passed the House in March and is now before the Finance Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. I am the principal Senate sponsor of the bill which I introduced some fourteen months ago. There are ten co-sponsors. I introduced the Africa bill because I believe that our policy towards sub-Saharan Africa should be revised to reflect changing global and regional realities. For too long, our policy has been based on country-by-country aid relationships and devoid of any comprehensive strategy towards the continent. As important as our child survival, health, agriculture, educational and humanitarian programs have been, they have not promoted much economic development, political stability or self-reliance. Nor have they benefitted the American economy. For that reason, it is time to re-evaluate our policy. That is the purpose of the African bill. The African Growth and Opportunity Act is the first serious attempt to formulate a new American strategy towards Africa. It provides a general road map for expanding economic engagement and involvement in Africa through enhanced trade and investment. It seeks to establish the foundation for a more mature partnership with those countries in Africa undertaking serious economic and political reforms. I'm pleased to note that virtually all African Ambassadors have endorsed this bill. It has wide support in the American business community, non-governmental organizations, the African-American community, and the Administration. Indeed, President Clinton mentioned the bill in his State of the Union address in January and Secretary of State Albright included it in her list of the top four leadership challenges for l998. Let me summarize the bill. First, it urges the President to negotiate free trade agreements with African countries with the ultimate goal of a U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Free Trade Area. The President will need Fast Track authority to negotiate this and other free trade measures and I strongly support that effort as well. The bill establishes a US-Africa Economic Cooperation Forum to facilitate senior level discussions on trade and investment. No such dialogue now exists and there exists no long term agenda involving the private sectors here and in Africa. Doing business in Africa will require high-level dialogue and this Forum will signal to the investment and trading communities that we take Africa seriously. Africa lacks the infrastructure needed to promote and sustain economic growth and development. The bill establishes two privately- managed funds to leverage private financing for small and medium sized companies. The two funds would operate under OPIC guidelines and require no official USG appropriations. One is a $150 million equity fund, the other a $500 million infrastructure fund. Given the enormity of the needs, these are modest sized funds. Each of these initiatives will take time to mature. They have worked in other parts of the world. The initiatives in the bill that would bring more immediate economic benefits to Africa and the United States would provide greater access to our markets for African exports. The bill authorizes the President to grant duty-free treatment for products now excluded from the GSP program--subject to a sensitivity analysis by the International Trade Commission. It extends the GSP program to Africa for 10 years, which is important for business planning and predictability. The bill also eliminates quotas on textiles and apparel from Kenya and Mauritius, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa which do not have quota-free access to the United States. They would receive this status only after adopting a visa system to guard against illegal transhipment of goods. Since global textile quotas are scheduled to disappear in the year 2005 under terms of the GATT, our bill merely gives Africa a small head start in a more competitive textile market of the future. Some have argued that granting quota-free and duty-free access to American markets will weaken our domestic textile industries. If that were true, I would not be advocating this provision. African imports of textiles and apparel now account for less than one percent of our total textile imports. The International Trade Commission looked at this issue and concluded that enactment of our bill would increase U.S. imports of textiles and apparel from Africa to between one and two percent of our total textile and apparel imports, a negligible impact. While this amount is small in terms of our overall textile and apparel imports, it can have sizable benefits for Africa. The lower costs of African textiles will also benefit American retailers and American consumers. Warnings about the illegal transhipment of Asian-origin garments through Africa, under liberalized arrangements, are false alarms. The House strengthened these safeguards substantially during its consideration of the bill. Mr. President, let me conclude by saying that we have an historic opportunity to help integrate African countries into the world economy and to wind down our excessive dependency on public assistance as the signature of our ties with Africa. Africa is one of the last frontiers of untapped markets in the world. There are nearly 700 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, 33 of the world's forty-eight least developed countries are in Africa. Despite this, prospects for enhanced trade and investment are bright. Our exports now are twenty percent greater than to all the states of the former Soviet Union combined. Economic growth in Africa will create new markets and new opportunities for U.S. goods but that won't happen if we don't act to make it happen. We now have an opportunity to help strengthen civil societies and political institutions and to assist African societies on the path to greater self-reliance, economic growth and political stability. Nearly thirty countries in the region have conducted democratic elections. Private investment tends to follow good governance and economic reform but the private sector takes cues from government policies and involvement. It is very much in our interest to play a constructive role in the evolving political and economic transition in Africa. That transition is taking place and must continue. If we had ignored Taiwan and Korea in the l960s when they were at stages of economic development comparable to many African societies today, we would have missed enormous opportunities in East Asia. Years from now, I hope we can look back and be able to say that we were there at a crucial juncture in Africa's growth and development, that we played a constructive role in that change and that we did the right thing at the right time. Mr. President, if the United States is a major player, a pro-active player in Africa's economic and political development, we will also be a major beneficiary. I'm pleased the Finance Committee will be marking up the African bill later this month. I hope this bill will be brought to the floor as soon as possible for full Senate consideration. I urge all members to take a close look at the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, look at the mutual long-term benefits it brings to Africa and to our country and support this important bill when it reaches the floor. Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chairman, for his comments and for his interest in this project.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, Senator Coats and I have shared with you this year our strong support for $2 million through the HUD Economic Development Initiative Account for the Midwest Proton Radiation Institute (MPRI). The MPRI is an important economic development and cancer treatment initiative at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. This is an important effort for the University, the City of Bloomington, and the State of Indiana. Funding for this project was not included as one of the 87 projects listed for this account in S. Rept. 105-216. The MPRI project--like several science-related projects slated to receive funding as listed in S. Rept. 105-216--is beneficial from an economic development perspective as well as in the area of health sciences research and cancer treatment. This is our only project request from the VA-HUD Subcommittee this year. As you move forward with consideration of the final VA-HUD Appropriations bill, I hope you will give consideration to including funds for this valuable and worthwhile economic development project of importance to my State.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Reserving the right to object, let me inquire of the manager, the Rose Garden signing for our agriculture research bill occurs at 10:30. My hope had been that the vote would occur--I think that perhaps was the manager's intent--so that those of us involved in that legislation could be there. Therefore, the additional time gives some of us a problem.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, it is my pleasure today to recall that fifteen years ago, the U.S. Congress and the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany resolved to establish and co-sponsor the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program (CBYX). This decision was in recognition of the long-standing ties of friendship between the peoples of Germany and the United States, in particular the special sense of partnership that existed, and still exists, between our two legislatures, and the importance of continuing to build and strengthen that relationship. Our common aim was to make a lasting and substantial contribution to the peace of the world by making it possible for young people from our two countries, regardless of their means, to spend a school year abroad, learning about the other country's culture and way of life through extended first-hand experience. We recognized then, and we should reaffirm now, that this kind and quality of people-to-people exchange is crucial to building and maintaining understanding between nations. Since June of 1983, over 11,000 young people from Germany and the U.S. have participated in this exchange. Perhaps more importantly, German and American families have hosted these 11,000 participants, taking them into their homes and communities, forming enduring friendships, and nurturing their ability to see the world through another's eyes. The earliest of these participants are mature adults now, many of them assuming positions of leadership in their communities, their horizons forever broadened in their youth by their experience in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange. Citizens like these are the foundation upon which the close partnership between Germany and the U.S. ultimately rests. As we look forward to even greater unity among the nations of a Europe that will soon include countries once separated by the Iron Curtain and we recognize the leading role that Germany plays in that process, the importance of this partnership is abundantly clear. The success of the CBYX program over the past fifteen years forms one of the essential elements of this bond, and we should do whatever we can to ensure the program's future. Threfore, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of this remarkable program, I extend very special greetings on behalf of the United States Senate to our fellow legislators in the German Bundestag. I sincerely hope that the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program continues to strengthen the deep ties of friendship and understanding between our two peoples.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.