Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two members of my staff, John Sparrow, a Presidential management intern, and Jerome Pannullo, a legislative fellow, be granted access to the Senate floor for the duration of the debate on H.R. 434.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I believe there are several Members who wish to speak as in morning business, and Senator Grassley and I will be more than happy to accommodate them at this point.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise in complete accord with the resounding statement of the Senator from Iowa. I know he would agree with me when I say we are both here speaking in the intellectual grasp of our chairman, Senator Roth, who will return to the Senate next week after necessary surgery and who is so much responsible for our being here today. The Senator from Iowa said the world is watching. The world is watching and has been watching with dismay for 6 years as we seem to have backed away from that tradition which Cordell Hull took up at the depths of the recession, which I will get to, and we have carried on, on a bipartisan basis, right into the nineties and then we seem to have stopped. This is the first trade bill to come to the Senate floor in 6 years. More, we have defeated measures. We have denied the President the trade negotiating authority for trade agreements. It took the administration too long to ask for it. It responded to the same domestic pressures we saw in Seattle and we saw in front of the World Bank, baffling in some instances, but powerful. Now we return to our tradition. The Senator from Iowa spoke of sending a resounding message. Can there be a more resounding message than our vote this morning of 90-6 to proceed to the consideration of this measure, following, perhaps, an equally, more astounding and equally resounding measure, a vote in the House of 309-110 to send us this conference report? Senators will recall that the House had sent over to us the African Growth and Opportunity Act. This was a measure to give some measure of trade stimulation to sub-Saharan African countries in the area of apparel exports. The distinguished chairman, our revered Senator Roth, saw to it, in a near to unanimous Finance Committee, that the Caribbean Basin Initiative, an initiative begun by President Reagan, that this, too, was included in the bill--it is a combined measure--with a number of other provisions of interest to the Senators. The importance of the CBI, as we say for purposes of simplification, in this regard is very simple. Having created the North American free trade area, we created an incentive to develop trade ties with Mexico-- in essence, Mexican production would enter the United States on a completely free basis, whereas its neighbors in Central America and nearby Caribbean islands were suddenly disadvantaged. We will call it an unanticipated consequence. It had to be dealt with. We do not completely deal with it here, but we acknowledge that it is an urgent matter, and we begin it. Nearly all the Senate provisions--the bill passed the Senate 76-19-- were retained, thanks to extraordinary exertions by our respective staffs who we will thank fulsomely in time. We must particularly acknowledge that this 5 months of negotiation, and often going into 5 in the morning, would never have come to any conclusion absent the active participation of our majority leader who convened the meetings in his own office and listened to a lot of incomprehensible discord over tariffs. I speak as a veteran, if I may, and ask the indulgence of the younger and more vital persons. I was one of the three persons who negotiated the Long-Term Cotton Textile Agreement of 1962 for President Kennedy, that having become a condition of passing the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 by the textile industry and the garment industry, which we successfully did, but it was not an easy effort with the French at the height of Gaullist recidivism. That 5-year Cotton Textile Agreement, which we negotiated nearly 40 years ago, is now in its eighth reincarnation and will continue well into the now new century. Still, we got it. And we got as well the series of trade rounds in the GATT about which Senator Grassley has spoken. Finally, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which authorized our participation in the World Trade Organization, was enacted in 1994. I make the point that in establishing the WTO, we were only getting back to where we were in the immediate aftermath of World War II when, at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, the British-American-Chinese-French negotiators thought of how to establish a world which would not have the profound instability of the 1930s, and they envisioned three institutions: One, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which we call the World Bank, headquartered here; the International Monetary Fund, to deal with monetary fluctuations, which we established here; and an international trade organization, which was to be headquartered in Havana--I acknowledge that that died in the Senate Finance Committee. So we established, on an ad hoc basis, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Eric Wyndham White, a British Treasury official, with three or four assistants, managed these negotiations in Geneva which would take place periodically. In time, we got back to the World Trade Organization. This moved so well. But suddenly we find ourselves anxious about proceeding in a policy direction that has been so profoundly successful for two-thirds of a century--66 years, since Congress enacted the Reciprocal Trade Agreements program. We recognize the extraordinary results of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. It is a point not often noted that there has not been a tariff bill on the Senate floor since 1930. We tried that and it did not work. I think it is fair to say that the dynamics of horse-trading--I will do this for your product; you do this for mine--are not suited to a world in which trade is so important today. Indeed, also the 19th century tariff legislation was hugely acrimonious and at times divisive. I think the division between North and South had something to do with the tariffs imposed in the early part of the 19th century. As the Senator from Iowa has said, if you would make a short list of five events that led to the Second World War, and the horror associated with that war, the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 would be one of them. Tariffs were increased to unprecedented levels in the United States-- by 60 percent. Incidentally, they are still the legal, official tariffs. It is only through trade agreements that we have negotiated reciprocal reductions. As predicted, imports dropped by two-thirds, in value terms. And all the simple-minded persons who said, if we do not let any foreign products come in, then our producers will prosper, what they did not know is that exports would drop by two-thirds, and the depression settled in. The stock market crash of 1929 would have worked itself out. It was a matter of a crisis on paper. Factories did not close. Factories began to close when there was no market for their products, much of which had been going overseas. The result was ruinous overseas. The British abandoned free trade, which had made them the principal economic power of the 19th century. They had to fight it a very long time, and much later than we think, when they abolished the so-called corn laws, which kept the price of wheat high enough to maintain the economic viability of the large land area of the state and not let that Iowa wheat get into Liverpool. The minute they did, they became an industrial power, and their farms did not disappear either. As a matter of fact, Britain is self-sufficient in agriculture today. But it was free trade that gave them the advantage in the world. And they kept it right up until the Smoot-Hawley tariff, after which they adopted commonwealth preferences. The Japanese began the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. And, sir, in 1933, with unemployment at 33 percent, Adolph Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. That is what you get when you do things like this. The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934--Cordell Hull's innovation of President Roosevelt's initiative--got us back on track. For more than half a century, from one administration to another, without exception, there we have stayed. It had looked like we were going to stray. But here we are, moving again in the context--I daresay, the shadow--of the decision on China coming within the next 2 or 3 weeks. With the African trade bill--the African Growth and Opportunity Act-- for the first time, the United States is, with this legislation, putting in place a trade policy with respect to sub-Saharan Africa, a policy that is long overdue. The economic challenges facing that region may be even greater than they were at the height of the cold war. There has been a decline of institutions on a massive scale. Consider the differing paths of South Korea and Ghana. In 1958, the year after Ghana achieved independence, its per capita gross national product was $203; South Korea's was lower. South Korean per capita GNP at that time was $171. Forty years later, in 1998, South Korea's per capita income has soared to $10,550--even after the financial crisis of Asia a few years back--while Ghana's has stood at a modest, an impoverished, $390. According to the most recent World Bank data, the average per capita GNP for sub-Saharan Africa was $513 in 1998, or $316 if South Africa is excluded. These countries simply do not pose competitive threats to us. They are, if anything, a source of concern for economic aid, peacekeeping forces, and the like. The legislation we have before us, which we will pass overwhelmingly after we hear some arguments that are all too familiar, is intended to assist sub-Saharan Africa to develop one of the basic building block industries of economic development, which is textile and apparel production. It offers duty-free, quota-free treatment to certain categories of apparel--principally those that are made with American fabric that is itself made, indeed, with American yarn. There is some allowance for so-called regional fabric; that is, fabric made in sub-Saharan Africa. But the benefits are subject to a very tight cap, beginning at 1.5 percent of total U.S. imports and growing over the life of the bill to only 3.5 percent of total imports. For a transition period of 4 years, the less developed of the sub- Saharan African countries may use third country fabric as they ramp up their own production capacity. But we should put this in some perspective. In 1999, domestic production of apparel and certain fabricated textile products such as home furnishings--but not fabrics and yarns--in the United States topped $81 billion. That same year, U.S. imports of apparel from sub-Saharan Africa were valued at $584 million--that is to say, 0.7 percent of domestic production and just 1.1 percent of total apparel imports. Should imports from sub-Saharan Africa grow to 3.5 percent of the total U.S. imports--the maximum quantity allowed for regional fabric under the bill--they will barely register in a market this size. The African trade legislation in this package will not reverse years of neglect and decline, but it may provide a decent start. Just a final word on the enhanced Caribbean Basin Initiative, the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act. As I mentioned, it was begun in 1983 under President Reagan, and which the Senate Finance Committee added to this bill, and the House accepted it. The House was very open in this matter. I remarked earlier how the North American free trade area has eroded the market positions of Central America and the Caribbean islands. Senator Roth and I met last fall, in September of 1999, with the Presidents and Vice Presidents and Foreign Ministers of a number of the Caribbean and Central American states--the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, and Costa Rica. They made a simple request. They said: Look, we are here before you as democratically elected or appointed members of stable democratic governments. We are not here asking for aid. But the unanticipated effects of NAFTA have put us at a great disadvantage. All we want to do is trade with you. And that is what our provisions would allow. This is trade both ways, and again, in American textiles. The provisions in the bill will help our producers structure their production in this hemisphere so that they will be in a position to compete with Asian producers when--as I mentioned earlier, after more than 40 years--textile and apparel quotas will be eliminated by January of 2005, as agreed in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. If we don't have a trade infrastructure going with Central America and the Caribbean, we will all be overwhelmed by Asian production; and we can do it simply by passing this legislation--or we think we can do it, and we have not been wrong in our understanding of these matters. I have a brief note about the problem of fine wool fabrics. After months of negotiation, and with great good faith on the part of all interested Senators and industry representatives, we have finally reached agreement on a measure that will begin to address this problem--again, the unanticipated consequence of free trade with Canada and the fact that we have exorbitant tariffs still in place. Senators Durbin, Schumer, Gramm, Hagel, Mikulski, Specter, Nickles, Fitzgerald, Santorum, and Thompson joined me in sponsoring a very modest measure, and we are very happy with the outcome of the effort to provide some relief for our suitmakers. The conference agreement begins to address this problem. It will also begin a data collection process that will give us a better database on this industry in the near future. It is not a perfect solution, and it does not permanently fix the problem, but it is a start. So I strongly support the conference agreement. I signed the papers. We had a long 5- month negotiation. These are exhausting efforts. They tend to exhaust our staffs more than we because we go home at midnight and they stay until daybreak. But we have done it. Just to repeat what my friend from Iowa has said, this is important-- if modest--legislation. A good debate, a strong vote on this conference report will surely set a positive tone for permanent normal trade relations with China. That debate will engage us in the very near future. We have a wonderful beginning. This morning, we voted 90-6 to take up this conference agreement, and I hope that reverberates into the other Chamber. I can speak for the Finance Committee. The China permanent normal trade relations--just normal trade relations--will pass the Senate Finance Committee and will pass the Senate floor, but we need to send a signal to the other Chamber that we are ready. We hope they are willing. Sixty-six years of American trade policy is in the balance. So let's begin this debate and conclude it on the same resounding support that we commenced this morning. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Roth, who will be returning next week, I would like to express the gratitude of the Finance Committee and of our staff. We would not be here without you, who convened the meetings over 5 long months ago that brought us to this point. And with a measure of temerity, may I say this is the first trade measure on our floor in 6 years. I thank you again.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise with my distinguished colleague and fellow New Yorker, Senator Schumer, to introduce the ``Governors Island Preservation Act of 2000.'' This bill will establish the Governors Island National Monument preserving two of New York Harbor's earliest fortifications, Fort Jay and Castle Williams. The balance of the property will be conveyed to the State of New York. New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and New York State Governor George E. Pataki have developed a plan for the reuse of Governors Island. Their agreement has helped to make this bill possible, and both deserve much credit. Congress stipulated in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that Governors Island be sold ``at fair market value'' no sooner than Fiscal Year 2002. Without the benefit of an appraisal, the Congressional Budget Office determined its value to be somewhere between $250 million and $1 billion. As Congress continued its work on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, $500 million of Federal revenue was identified in Fiscal Year 2002 through the sale of Governors Island. A fantasy perhaps, but no matter, the money had been found. Governors Island has played a significant role in every major military conflict from the American Revolution through World War II. In April of 1776, General Israel Putnam and 1,000 officers arrived on Governors Island and began erecting fortifications. Three months later, the guns at Governors Island prevented Admiral Howe's 400 ships and Lord Cornwallis' army--32,000 men strong--from crushing General George Washington's badly overwhelmed forces during the Battle of Long Island. Outflanked in Brooklyn, Washington's men retreated to the island of Manhattan across the East River under the cover of the Governors Island's guns. At the risk of falling into what historians term a ``teleological trap,'' I would suggest that the Revolution could well have ended right then and there. During the War of 1812, the guns at the ``cheese-box'' shaped Castle Williams--and those at the Southwest Battery--dissuaded the British from mounting a direct attack on New York City, then the Nation's principal seaport. During the Civil War, Governors Island served as the primary Eastern Seaboard recruiting depot for Union soldiers. Nearly 5,000 Union draftees and volunteers were stationed there. Its inaccessibility proved useful for garrisoning the most recalcitrant of Confederate soldiers, who were confined both in Castle Williams and Fort Jay. Only one, Captain William Robert Webb, managed to escape. It will give my colleagues some measure of satisfaction to learn that this artful rebel was later appointed U.S. Senator from Tennessee. After the U.S. Congress declared war with Germany and Austria-Hungary on April 6, 1917, Governors Island became an embarkation point for the war effort. Several years earlier, the Island was expanded to its current 172-acre size by the excavation of the Lexington Avenue Subway line, which generated over 4.7 million tons of fill. The additional space permitted the construction of over 70 buildings providing a combined total of 30 million square feet of storage space. As the War escalated, estimates place the value of goods transported from Governors Island to the European theater at over $1 million per day--in 1917 dollars. More than 20 years later, the famed General Hugh Drum commanded the First Army from Governors Island as the United States prepared for the Second World War. Once war was declared, Governors Island served as the headquarters for the Eastern Defense Command, which was tasked with protecting the Eastern Seaboard from Nazi attack. In 1966, the Coast Guard assumed control of Governors Island, and remained there for 30 years. After lighting the refurbished Statue of Liberty from Governors Island on July 4, 1986, President Reagan grew fond of Governors Island. On December 7, 1988, he chose the Admiral's House on Governors Island to meet Soviet Premier Mikhail S. Gorbachev to present each other with the Articles of Ratification of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. It is inconceivable that Congress would permit this site, so rich in history, to be recklessly sold to the highest bidder. In January of this year, Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani announced an agreement on a preservation plan for Governors Island. The Governors Island Preservation Act is based upon that plan and calls for the establishment of the Governors Island National Monument to be comprised of Fort Jay and Castle Williams (so named after Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams, the first superintendent of West Point). Once the Monument is established, all of the historic New York Harbor forts--Fort Wood (the base of the Statue of Liberty), the Southwest Battery (now Castle Clinton National Monument), and Fort Gibson (partially demolished to provide for the construction of Ellis Island)--will be within the National Park Service inventory. The remaining portions of the Island will be conveyed to the Empire State Development Corporation, as agreed to by Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki. Their plan will incorporate a public park, athletic fields, a museum dedicated to the history and ecology of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, a family center modeled after Colonial Williamsburg, a conference center, and a hotel. After 200 years of Federal occupation, Governors Island will at last be open to the public. I thank the chair and I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise with my distinguished colleague and fellow New Yorker, Senator Schumer, to introduce the ``Governors Island Preservation Act of 2000.'' This bill will establish the Governors Island National Monument preserving two of New York Harbor's earliest fortifications, Fort Jay and Castle Williams. The balance of the property will be conveyed to the State of New York. New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and New York State Governor George E. Pataki have developed a plan for the reuse of Governors Island. Their agreement has helped to make this bill possible, and both deserve much credit. Congress stipulated in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that Governors Island be sold ``at fair market value'' no sooner than Fiscal Year 2002. Without the benefit of an appraisal, the Congressional Budget Office determined its value to be somewhere between $250 million and $1 billion. As Congress continued its work on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, $500 million of Federal revenue was identified in Fiscal Year 2002 through the sale of Governors Island. A fantasy perhaps, but no matter, the money had been found. Governors Island has played a significant role in every major military conflict from the American Revolution through World War II. In April of 1776, General Israel Putnam and 1,000 officers arrived on Governors Island and began erecting fortifications. Three months later, the guns at Governors Island prevented Admiral Howe's 400 ships and Lord Cornwallis' army--32,000 men strong--from crushing General George Washington's badly overwhelmed forces during the Battle of Long Island. Outflanked in Brooklyn, Washington's men retreated to the island of Manhattan across the East River under the cover of the Governors Island's guns. At the risk of falling into what historians term a ``teleological trap,'' I would suggest that the Revolution could well have ended right then and there. During the War of 1812, the guns at the ``cheese-box'' shaped Castle Williams--and those at the Southwest Battery--dissuaded the British from mounting a direct attack on New York City, then the Nation's principal seaport. During the Civil War, Governors Island served as the primary Eastern Seaboard recruiting depot for Union soldiers. Nearly 5,000 Union draftees and volunteers were stationed there. Its inaccessibility proved useful for garrisoning the most recalcitrant of Confederate soldiers, who were confined both in Castle Williams and Fort Jay. Only one, Captain William Robert Webb, managed to escape. It will give my colleagues some measure of satisfaction to learn that this artful rebel was later appointed U.S. Senator from Tennessee. After the U.S. Congress declared war with Germany and Austria-Hungary on April 6, 1917, Governors Island became an embarkation point for the war effort. Several years earlier, the Island was expanded to its current 172-acre size by the excavation of the Lexington Avenue Subway line, which generated over 4.7 million tons of fill. The additional space permitted the construction of over 70 buildings providing a combined total of 30 million square feet of storage space. As the War escalated, estimates place the value of goods transported from Governors Island to the European theater at over $1 million per day--in 1917 dollars. More than 20 years later, the famed General Hugh Drum commanded the First Army from Governors Island as the United States prepared for the Second World War. Once war was declared, Governors Island served as the headquarters for the Eastern Defense Command, which was tasked with protecting the Eastern Seaboard from Nazi attack. In 1966, the Coast Guard assumed control of Governors Island, and remained there for 30 years. After lighting the refurbished Statue of Liberty from Governors Island on July 4, 1986, President Reagan grew fond of Governors Island. On December 7, 1988, he chose the Admiral's House on Governors Island to meet Soviet Premier Mikhail S. Gorbachev to present each other with the Articles of Ratification of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. It is inconceivable that Congress would permit this site, so rich in history, to be recklessly sold to the highest bidder. In January of this year, Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani announced an agreement on a preservation plan for Governors Island. The Governors Island Preservation Act is based upon that plan and calls for the establishment of the Governors Island National Monument to be comprised of Fort Jay and Castle Williams (so named after Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams, the first superintendent of West Point). Once the Monument is established, all of the historic New York Harbor forts--Fort Wood (the base of the Statue of Liberty), the Southwest Battery (now Castle Clinton National Monument), and Fort Gibson (partially demolished to provide for the construction of Ellis Island)--will be within the National Park Service inventory. The remaining portions of the Island will be conveyed to the Empire State Development Corporation, as agreed to by Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki. Their plan will incorporate a public park, athletic fields, a museum dedicated to the history and ecology of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, a family center modeled after Colonial Williamsburg, a conference center, and a hotel. After 200 years of Federal occupation, Governors Island will at last be open to the public. I thank the chair and I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on February 22, my beloved colleague, the junior Senator from New York, introduced legislation to authorize the President to award a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to John Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, in recognition of his accomplishments as a priest, a chaplain, and a humanitarian. Congress finds that His Eminence, John Cardinal O'Connor, was a man of deep compassion, great intellect, and tireless devotion to spiritual guidance and humanitarianism. I think it is a special note that the Cardinal joined the Navy Chaplain's Corps in June of 1952 during the Korean conflict. He served with elements of both the Navy and the Marine Corps and saw combat action in Vietnam. He later served as chaplain of the United States Naval Academy and was appointed Chief of Chaplains of the Navy with the grade of rear admiral, from which position he retired 4 years later. In May 1979, he was ordained a bishop by Pope John Paul II. He then served as Victor General of Military Ordnance--now the Archdiocese for Military Services--until 1984. This son of a working-class laborer, a union man from Pennsylvania, found himself, on the one extreme, in the jungles of Vietnam saying mass in foxholes and asking himself, as he saw the deaths on all sides of all the combatants, why? He came back with that same courage to the Archdiocese of New York. There are 2.37 million of us, and we have been rancorous from the first, and continue so. He quickly adapted to that environment and adopted some of those characteristics. But he was a wonderful priest. As my friend, Senator Schumer, said, he was a healer and a man who reached out to others. He is in his heaven now. As we mourn his passing, we celebrate his life. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I rise just to say I have no words at this moment for what my beloved colleague said. We have been 22 years together on the Committee on the Environment and Public Works and on the Finance Committee. He will succeed me soon, I hope, as chairman of the Finance Committee. He has my profound and lasting gratitude for what he has just said. I am sure he will continue in that mode. I thank my dear colleague.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today, with Senator Cochran and Senator Frist, legislation to authorize the construction of a base facility structure in Hilo, Hawaii, to house the staff and laboratory operations of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Submillimeter Array (SMA) atop the summit of the ancient volcano Mauna Kea. The advanced SMA is an array of eight moveable radio telescope antennas. Its combined images can produce high-resolution detail 50 times sharper than those achieved by any telescopes currently making observations at these wavelengths. Ultimately, this telescope array will be used to study a host of astronomical objects and phenomena emitting images in the submillimeter range, the narrow band of radiation between radio and infrared waves, a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum largely unexplored from the ground. Using the latest technology, the array will be able to probe the murky clouds of the Milky Way where stars are born, peer into the hearts of exploding galaxies, study cool faint objects of our own Solar System, and explore other great questions in astronomy, gaining insight into the processes and cataclysmic forces involved in the ultimate formation and evolution of stars, planets and galaxies. Like the innovative Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is now sending back stunning images from space, essentially all of the Submillimeter Array's equipment was designed and prototyped at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And, just as the Smithsonian collaborates with NASA on the groundbreaking Chandra project, it collaborates with the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan on the advanced SMA. On September 29, 1999, by tracking and observing 230 gigahertz (230 billion cycles per second) of radiation from Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter, SMA scientists made their first test observation--thereby achieving the submillimeter equivalent of ``first light''--and took a critical step in the ultimate success of this project. This is but yet another milestone in the history of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Founded in 1890 by Secretary Samuel Langley as a center for ``the new astronomy,'' where one might study the physical nature of astronomical bodies as well as their positions and motions, SAO pioneered studies of the relationship between the solar and terrestrial phenomena. In the earliest days of the Space Age, SAO established and operated a worldwide network of satellite-tracking stations, including one on the island of Maui, and developed experiments for some of the first orbiting space observatories. Today, SAO, the Smithsonian unit with the largest budget, is headquartered--in a partnership with Harvard University--in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At that facility more than 300 scientists are engaged in a broad program of astronomy, astrophysics, and earth and space sciences supported by Federal appropriations, Smithsonian trust funds, Harvard University funds, and contracts and grants. In addition to the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii, SAO maintains a major data-gathering facility at the Whipple Observatory near Tucson, Arizona and operates the Oak Ridge Observatory in Massachusetts. The legislation I am introducing today authorizes the Smithsonian to plan, design, construct, and equip approximately 16,000 square feet of laboratory, administrative, and support space at the base of Mauna Kea, replacing inadequate, temporary leased space. It further authorizes an appropriation of $2,000,000 in fiscal year 2001 and $2,500,000 in fiscal year 2002. This is a very modest investment to ensure the continuation of the scientific achievement and research excellence that have been a tradition at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for 110 years. I urge the speedy passage of this legislation and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today, with Senator Cochran and Senator Frist, legislation to authorize the construction of a base facility structure in Hilo, Hawaii, to house the staff and laboratory operations of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Submillimeter Array (SMA) atop the summit of the ancient volcano Mauna Kea. The advanced SMA is an array of eight moveable radio telescope antennas. Its combined images can produce high-resolution detail 50 times sharper than those achieved by any telescopes currently making observations at these wavelengths. Ultimately, this telescope array will be used to study a host of astronomical objects and phenomena emitting images in the submillimeter range, the narrow band of radiation between radio and infrared waves, a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum largely unexplored from the ground. Using the latest technology, the array will be able to probe the murky clouds of the Milky Way where stars are born, peer into the hearts of exploding galaxies, study cool faint objects of our own Solar System, and explore other great questions in astronomy, gaining insight into the processes and cataclysmic forces involved in the ultimate formation and evolution of stars, planets and galaxies. Like the innovative Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is now sending back stunning images from space, essentially all of the Submillimeter Array's equipment was designed and prototyped at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And, just as the Smithsonian collaborates with NASA on the groundbreaking Chandra project, it collaborates with the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan on the advanced SMA. On September 29, 1999, by tracking and observing 230 gigahertz (230 billion cycles per second) of radiation from Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter, SMA scientists made their first test observation--thereby achieving the submillimeter equivalent of ``first light''--and took a critical step in the ultimate success of this project. This is but yet another milestone in the history of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Founded in 1890 by Secretary Samuel Langley as a center for ``the new astronomy,'' where one might study the physical nature of astronomical bodies as well as their positions and motions, SAO pioneered studies of the relationship between the solar and terrestrial phenomena. In the earliest days of the Space Age, SAO established and operated a worldwide network of satellite-tracking stations, including one on the island of Maui, and developed experiments for some of the first orbiting space observatories. Today, SAO, the Smithsonian unit with the largest budget, is headquartered--in a partnership with Harvard University--in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At that facility more than 300 scientists are engaged in a broad program of astronomy, astrophysics, and earth and space sciences supported by Federal appropriations, Smithsonian trust funds, Harvard University funds, and contracts and grants. In addition to the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii, SAO maintains a major data-gathering facility at the Whipple Observatory near Tucson, Arizona and operates the Oak Ridge Observatory in Massachusetts. The legislation I am introducing today authorizes the Smithsonian to plan, design, construct, and equip approximately 16,000 square feet of laboratory, administrative, and support space at the base of Mauna Kea, replacing inadequate, temporary leased space. It further authorizes an appropriation of $2,000,000 in fiscal year 2001 and $2,500,000 in fiscal year 2002. This is a very modest investment to ensure the continuation of the scientific achievement and research excellence that have been a tradition at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for 110 years. I urge the speedy passage of this legislation and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on Sunday, the anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam conflict, the Washington Post carried on its Op-Ed page a thoughtful, healing reflection on those events by Senator Kerrey entitled, ``Was It Worth It?'' A hero--and casualty--of that conflict, the only Member of Congress ever to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor, he might understandably have turned his attention to those who did not think so and did not serve. Instead he allowed that for a period he had shared the same doubts, but had overcome them. As he contemplates the human destruction done by the dictatorship that followed, he concludes: ``I believe the cause was just and the sacrifice not in vain.'' He is now, as he was then, a person of limitless courage. I ask that his article be included in the Record. [From the Washington Post, Apr. 30, 2000] Was It Worth It? (By Bob Kerrey) The most difficult war of the last century was not Vietnam; it was World War I. In 1943, the year I was born, veterans of the Great War Were remembering the 25th anniversary of their armistice while their sons were fighting in Italy and the Pacific against enemies whose military strength was ignored on account of the bitter memories of the failures of the First World War. So, as I remember April 30, 1975, I will also remember Nov. 11, 1918, and what happened when America isolated itself from the world. But I will also remember the pride I felt when I sat in joint sessions of Congress listening to Vaclav Havel, Kim Dae Jung, Lech Walesa and Nelson Mandela thank Americans for the sacrifices they made on behalf of their freedom. The famous photo of South Vietnamese ascending a stairway to a helicopter on the roof of our Saigon embassy represents both our shame and our honor. The shame is that we, in the end, turned our back on Vietnam and on the sacrifice of more than 58,000 Americans. We succumbed to fatigue and self- doubt, we went back on the promise we had made to support the South Vietnamese, and the Communists were able to defeat our allies. The honor is that during the fall of Saigon, we rescued tens of thousands of our South Vietnamese friends, and in the years that followed we welcomed more than a million additional Vietnamese to our shores. For a young, college-educated son of the optimistic American heartland, the war taught some valuable lessons. My trip to Vietnam gave me a sense of the immense size and variety of our world. I was also awed by something that still moves me: that Americans would risk their lives for the freedom of another people. At the Philadelphia Naval Hospital I learned that everyone needs America's generosity--even me. During the war, I knew the fight for freedom was the core reason for our being in Vietnam. But after the war, as I learned more about our government's decisionmaking in the war years, I became angry. I was angry at the failure of our leaders to tell the truth about what was happening in Vietnam. I was angry at their ignorance about the motives of our North Vietnamese adversaries and the history of Vietnam. Our leaders didn't seem to understand the depth of commitment of our adversaries to creating their version of an independent Vietnam. I particularly detested President Nixon for his duplicity in campaigning on a promise to end the war and then, once in office, broadening the war to Cambodia. But time has taught me the sterility of anger. So, as I recently told former secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara, I forgive our leaders of the Vietnam period. I am able to forgive, not out of any great generosity of mine but because the passage of time and the actions of the Communist government of Vietnam proven to me we were fighting on the right side. In their harsh treatment of the Vietnamese people, in denying them medicine and essential consumer goods, and in persecuting religious practice, the Vietnamese Communists in the postwar years proved themselves to be-- Communists. The most eloquent comment on life under Ho Chi Minh's heirs was the flight of millions of Vietnamese who risked death on the high seas rather than live under that regime. If there was to be a trial to determine whether the Vietnam War was worth fighting, I would call the Boat People as my only witness. Was the war worth the effort and sacrifice, or was it a mistake? Everyone touched by it must answer that question for himself. When I came home in 1969 and for many years afterward, I did not believe it was worth it. Today, with the passage of time and the experience of seeing both the benefits of freedom won by our sacrifice and the human destruction done by dictatorships, I believe the cause was just and the sacrifice not in vain.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I congratulate the distinguished Senator from Illinois for saying, but taking one exception, we ought to think twice about this matter. Dare I hope we might think once. It comes wholly unexpected to us, a massive departure from two centuries of constitutional practice, a measure--one amendment which was longer than the whole of the Bill of Rights, and there is not a single Member on the other side of the aisle listening, wishing to speak, present. There are three of us on the Senate floor with the Constitution in our hands in a matter of 27 hours--the casualness. George Will said on Sunday that we were cluttering the Constitution. We do things palpably ill advised. In the House, they put us on a 1- year balanced budget back into an agricultural cycle, long since gone. There was no mention whatever of the rights of the accused, about which we were very concerned. A people should be concerned when Government accuses someone, and that is why we have the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth amendments. Then to have this endless, tedious, complex amendment about victims' rights and, as the Senator says, no definition whatever of what a victim is. I say to those not present on the opposite side--and there are, of course, supporters on this side--the capacity of American culture in this stage to think of new forms of victimhood is unprecedented. It has been a characteristic of the culture for a generation now to find victims and to declare oneself a victim and demand compensation and consideration therefore. It may become a permanent feature of American culture. I do not know. I doubt it. But it is at high moment now and would this amendment--oh, my goodness. And for the law schools, yes, and for those who design and build courthouses, oh, sure, and judges-- there will be no more judges held up in this Senate. We will need double the Federal judiciary in no time at all. How could we have come to the point where we have so little sense of our history, as the Senator from Illinois so rightly said. James Madison did not think a bill of rights was necessary since the Constitution only gave powers, specifically enumerated powers, to the Federal Government. What it was not given, it could not do. Still, George Mason and others persuaded him and prudence--a hugely important aspect of good government--prudence said: Well, why not have a bill of rights? And we have learned to be glad that we did. Do my colleagues recall the impeachment trial we went through a year ago? I was struck by the managers--fine persons all--but how little reference they gave to the Constitution which provides for impeachment. I may be mistaken--I hope I am--but I did not hear one reference to Madison's notes which he kept during the Convention in Philadelphia, or the notes of the one day in which the impeachment clause was settled. On that day, it was stated, for example, the most important impeachment of the age then was the impeachment of Warren Hastings going on in London. Edmund Burke, well known here as a supporter of the colony's rights, managed the case by the House of Commons in the House of Lords. The point was made by Mason that Hastings was not accused of a crime. That was not why he was being impeached. It was abuse of office. Hence, we have the term ``high crimes and misdemeanors.'' High crimes. Now. Do my colleagues know what the references were in that debate? They were to Hollywood movies. And do my colleagues remember Marlene Dietrich in ``Witness for the Prosecution''? Are we trivializing our oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic? It is scarcely to be believed. Why are the seats empty on the other side? I cannot be certain, but I offer a thought, and I would be happy to hear differently. The administration is negotiating with the sponsors because the administration has indicated a willingness to support this atrocity, this abomination, this violation of all we have treasured in two centuries and more. That the administration should do this is something I could not imagine I would ever see. Yet we have it in writing that they are prepared to do it. I only hope the negotiations break down. I shall have more to say at another time. But I just wanted to make this comment. Now I leave the floor. Our revered senior Senator from Vermont will be the only one remaining. I do not doubt he will have thoughts to disclose. But even he will eventually find himself somewhat distracted by the fact that no one is listening. The distinguished Presiding Officer is here. But there will not be another soul present with such attention and energy as we take up a matter of the greatest possible importance, which is amending the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. We have not, sir, as is evidenced by the fact that I believe we have done it 18 times including the Bill of Rights, which was basically part of the Constitution.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as the Senate once again considers an amendment to the United States Constitution, this time to protect the rights of crime victims, I ask that George Will's column from Sunday's Washington Post be printed in the Record in its entirety. He offers a well-reasoned analysis of the concerns the proposed amendment raises.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Please.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I just make a closing remark. Not meaning to be disrespectful, but there is a joke, a witticism, if you like, that says libraries file the French Constitution under the heading of periodicals: It comes; it goes; it comes; it goes. We have a treasure here, the oldest written Constitution on Earth. It has preserved a republic which is without equal. There are two nations, the United States and Britain, that both existed in 1800 and have not had their form of government changed by violence since then. We live in a world where a century ago there were approximately, as I count, 8 nations on Earth that both existed then and have not had their form of government changed by violence since. If we are to trivialize the Constitution because of passing enthusiasms about this economic theory, that economic theory, we risk the stability of this institution. I make just one reference to the fact that several years ago we passed a law providing for a Presidential line item veto on legislation. It was elementally unconstitutional. The Senate passed it. The House passed it. The President signed it. Three of us--our revered senior Democratic Member, Senator Byrd, Senator Levin, and I--brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which in good time held that the line item veto was indeed unconstitutional. The government appealed to the Supreme Court that as members of Congress we did not have the requisite standing. Then in the following term, the veto had been exercised. We clearly did have standing. We went there as amici. And, bang, the Court said: This is unconstitutional. Does the President not have lawyers? Are there no counsel on the Judiciary Committee here and in the House? It is something that elemental. Sir, we are approaching a dangerous moment in the history of the Republic. As I leave the floor, as I am required elsewhere, I leave the Senator from Vermont who is alone defending the Constitution of the United States. He is alone on the Senate floor. There is not a single person here who supports this monstrosity, this abomination, willing to come forward and say why. Does that not say something? I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure to join my colleagues--Senators Ashcroft, Warner, Bond, and DeWine--in this effort to name the State Department building after our 33rd President, Harry S. Truman. It could be named for none other. Harry S. Truman was, perhaps, the most unlikely of the Presidents. A failed haberdasher, as he would say, without a college degree. It seems somewhat paradoxical that this common man, who modeled himself along the lines of the fabled Cincinnatus--returning to the field after rising to meet his country's needs--would leave so much behind. Put simply, President Truman's foreign affairs accomplishments saved the world from the chaos that followed the destruction of Europe in the Second World War, and enabled the ultimate defeat of totalitarianism. To list a few: the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, aid to Greece and Turkey, NATO, and the establishment of the United Nations--the vision of his only rival President Woodrow Wilson. His greatness was not readily accepted while he served, or shortly thereafter. But over time, Harry S. Truman has been reevaluated through such scholarly biographies as those by David McCullough and Alonzo L. Hamby. This son of Independence, Missouri, would surely have rejected the high praise that his name now generates, but he would certainly concur in the appreciation of the enduring success of the policies and institutions he created. McCullough's ``Truman'' contains this reflection: I suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the Cold War began to overshadow our lives. I have had hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle. . . . And always in the background there has been the atomic bomb. But when history says that my term of office saw the beginning of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we have set the course that can win it. . . . Mr. President, few could dispute those sentiments.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure to join my colleagues--Senators Ashcroft, Warner, Bond, and DeWine--in this effort to name the State Department building after our 33rd President, Harry S. Truman. It could be named for none other. Harry S. Truman was, perhaps, the most unlikely of the Presidents. A failed haberdasher, as he would say, without a college degree. It seems somewhat paradoxical that this common man, who modeled himself along the lines of the fabled Cincinnatus--returning to the field after rising to meet his country's needs--would leave so much behind. Put simply, President Truman's foreign affairs accomplishments saved the world from the chaos that followed the destruction of Europe in the Second World War, and enabled the ultimate defeat of totalitarianism. To list a few: the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, aid to Greece and Turkey, NATO, and the establishment of the United Nations--the vision of his only rival President Woodrow Wilson. His greatness was not readily accepted while he served, or shortly thereafter. But over time, Harry S. Truman has been reevaluated through such scholarly biographies as those by David McCullough and Alonzo L. Hamby. This son of Independence, Missouri, would surely have rejected the high praise that his name now generates, but he would certainly concur in the appreciation of the enduring success of the policies and institutions he created. McCullough's ``Truman'' contains this reflection: I suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the Cold War began to overshadow our lives. I have had hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle. . . . And always in the background there has been the atomic bomb. But when history says that my term of office saw the beginning of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we have set the course that can win it. . . . Mr. President, few could dispute those sentiments.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill-- The Teaching Hospital Preservation Act of 2000--that would provide much needed financial support for America's 144 accredited medical and osteopathic schools and 1,250 graduate medical education (GME) teaching institutions. Teaching hospitals are national treasures; these institutions are the very best in the world. Yet, today they find themselves in a precarious financial situation as market forces reshape the health care delivery system in the United States. Markets do not provide for public goods such as teaching hospitals. Everyone benefits from public goods but no one has any incentive to pay. It follows, therefore that for the most part teaching hospitals have to be paid for by the public either indirectly through tax exemption or directly through expenditure. The legislation I am introducing is similar to S. 1023--The Graduate Medical Education Payment Restoration Act of 1999--a bill I introduced during the first session. Congressman Rangel is introducing an identical bill in the House today. My particular interest in this subject began in 1994, when the Finance Committee took up the President's Health Security Act. I was Chairman of the Committee at the time. In January of that year, I asked Dr. Paul Marks, M.D., President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, if he would arrange a ``seminar'' for me on health care issues. He agreed, and gathered a number of medical school deans together one morning in New York. Early on in the meeting, one of the seminarians remarked that the University of Minnesota might have to close its medical school. In an instant I realized I had heard something new. Minnesota is a place where they open medical schools, not close them. How, then, could this be? The answer was that Minnesota, being Minnesota, was a leading state in the growth of competitive health care markets, in which managed care organizations try to deliver services at lower costs. In this environment, HMOs and the like do not send patients to teaching hospitals, absent which you cannot have a medical school. We are, my friends, in the midst of a great era of discovery in medical science--an era which might end prematurely if we are not careful with our finances. It is certainly not a time to close medical schools. This great era of medical discovery is occurring right here in the United States, not in Europe like past ages of scientific discovery. And it is centered in New York City. Progress over the past 60 years has been remarkable: images of the inside of the human body based on the magnetic resonance of bodily tissues; laser surgery; micro surgery for reattaching limbs; and organ transplantation, among other wonders. Physicians are now working on a gene therapy that might eventually replace bypass surgery. I can hardly imagine what might be next. The growth of managed for-profit care, which does not fund public goods, combined with reductions in Medicare support for GME, is having a deleterious effect on the financial position of teaching hospitals. The Medicare program is the nation's largest explicit financier of GME, with annual payments of about $5.4 billion in 1999. However, because of payment reductions set forth by the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997, Medicare support is eroding as well--down from $6.3 billion in 1997. According to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, between 1997 and 1998, the margins for major teaching hospital have been slashed by more than half, and are at their lowest point of the century. And this is an average; individual hospitals have fared far worse. With declining margins and many hospitals operating in the red, the mission of these fine institutions is in jeopardy. The teaching hospitals that we know and depend on today--including those in my state of New York-- may not be able to continue their work, or even to survive. If this is to happen, we could face what Walter Reich has called ``the dumbing down of American medicine.'' Last year, we forestalled some cuts enacted in the BBA by passing the Balanced Budget Refinement Act (BBRA) of 1999, however, this legislation provided only short-term relief and does not go for enough. To ensure that this precious public resource is maintained and the United States continues to lead the world in quality health care, my bill, the Teaching Hospital Preservation Act of 2000 would maintain critically required funding. The Teaching Hospital Preservation Act of 2000, with a total of 23 cosponsors, would freeze the scheduled reductions to the indirect portion of GME funding. Under the BBA, the indirect payment adjustor was scheduled to be reduced from 7.7 percent to 5.5 percent by FY 2001. Last year, the BBRA slowed the cuts by holding the indirect payment adjuster at 6.5 percent in FY 2000, 6.25 percent in FY 2001 and 5.5 percent in FY 2002 and thereafter. BBRA restored about $500 million-- over 5 years--in funding for teaching hospitals. The bill I introduce today would maintain the indirect payment adjuster at 6.5 percent. In total, this bill restores about another $2 billion over 5 years in GME funding for teaching hospitals. This bill would protect our nation's teaching hospitals and ensure that the United States will continue to be in the forefront of developing new cures, new medical technology, and training of the worlds finest medical professionals. Without this bill, the state of our nation's teaching hospitals and the delivery of health care will remain in jeopardy. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the memory of Charles ``Charlie'' Joseph Mohr, the University of Wisconsin's last 165-pound collegiate boxing champion. In April 1960, Charlie was badly beaten in a NCAA championship bout against San Jose State's Stuart Bartell. Minutes later he began convulsing in the locker room and lost consciousness. A week afterward, Charlie died without regaining consciousness. Charlie grew up in Merrick, NY, and learned to box in nearby Long Beach. At age 18, he reached the semifinals of the prestigious New York City Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament. In 1955, Charlie wrote a letter to Wisconsin's boxing Coach John Walsh asking about the possibility of receiving a scholarship. Coach Walsh eagerly obliged. At the university, he excelled in all aspects of campus life. He was a good student who helped other's study for their exams. Charlie was very involved with the local parish St. Paul's Church and even thought about becoming a priest. However, it was in the ring where he gained his notoriety. In his freshman year, he won two university tournaments despite not being able to compete on the varsity team. The next year he won seven of his nine fights. As a junior, he captured the NCAA's 165-pound championship after defeating Jesse Klinkenberg. The cause of Charlie's death is still in question. Doctors dispute whether the brain hemorrhaging that led to his untimely passing was caused by a blow at the hands of Bartell or an aneurysm. No one can dispute the profound impact his death had on the University and the intercollegiate sport. A couple of weeks after Charlie's death the faculty decided to disband the school's boxing program. Soon after, the NCAA followed suit, abolishing boxing as a sanctioned sport. On January 19, 1999, I proposed S. 143, the Professional Boxing Safety Act Amendments of 1999 in order to try to protect fighters from lasting and debilitating head injuries in the ring. The bill passed, as an amendment to S. 305, the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, on July 27 of last year. The bill will require fighters to undergo a computer axial tomography (CAT) scan before a fighter can renew their professional license. Hopefully, the lesson taught to us by Charlie Mohr will not be forgotten.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to extend my condolences to the family of Aaron ``Ari'' Halberstam on the sixth Hebrew calendar anniversary of his death. On March 1, 1994, the 15 year old was shot and fatally wounded, while driving in a van with fifteen other students, on the on-ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge returning home from visiting the late Lubavitcher spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Although the shooter, Rashid Baz, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, there remains a question of what motivated the attack. Many New Yorkers have joined Ari's mother, Mrs. Devorah Halberstam, in calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, to reclassify this hateful attack as an act of urban terrorism. Last May, at the request of the New York Congressional Delegation, the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office agreed to review the case for possible evidence of Federal crimes such as terrorism, civil rights violations, and firearms violations. This investigation is ongoing. We look forward to the swift conclusion of the FBI and US Attorney's review in the hope it will bring peace of mind to the family who has suffered so greatly. Then, we shall hopefully, once and for all, learn what motivated Rashid Baz to commit such a senseless act of violence.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I am joined with Senator Reid and Senator Boxer to introduce the Genetically Engineered Food Safety Act (S. 2315), a bill to require food safety testing for genetically engineered foods. The ability to alter an organism by specifically transferring genetic codes between plants and animals is a new realm of science that we have only begun investigating. This technology has the promise to deliver real public goods: increased crop yields and products which combat disease and improve nutrition. But the technology also has the potential to pose a number of threats to the nation's public health, environment, and economy, and U.S. consumers are understandably concerned. The Federal Government has a duty to ensure that genetically engineered foods (GEFs) are safe to eat. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently requires rigorous pre-market review for pharmaceutical drugs, biological products, and medical devices introduced in the U.S. market. For GEFs, however, FDA only asks the industry to submit safety data voluntarily. Even if industry fully complies, our concern is that a conflict of interest exists when an industry determines its own level of safety review for products it wants to promote. S. 2315 would simply give FDA discretion to conduct its own safety testing of new GEFs and requires that certain factors are examined. GEFs on the market today will remain on the market as long as FDA also reviews these products for health safety. Much like the current practice, funding for these tests will come primarily from industry. A fee system will be developed that is modeled after FDA's current program for reviewing pharmaceuticals and supplemented by Federal funding. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I am joined with Senator Reid and Senator Boxer to introduce the Genetically Engineered Food Safety Act (S. 2315), a bill to require food safety testing for genetically engineered foods. The ability to alter an organism by specifically transferring genetic codes between plants and animals is a new realm of science that we have only begun investigating. This technology has the promise to deliver real public goods: increased crop yields and products which combat disease and improve nutrition. But the technology also has the potential to pose a number of threats to the nation's public health, environment, and economy, and U.S. consumers are understandably concerned. The Federal Government has a duty to ensure that genetically engineered foods (GEFs) are safe to eat. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently requires rigorous pre-market review for pharmaceutical drugs, biological products, and medical devices introduced in the U.S. market. For GEFs, however, FDA only asks the industry to submit safety data voluntarily. Even if industry fully complies, our concern is that a conflict of interest exists when an industry determines its own level of safety review for products it wants to promote. S. 2315 would simply give FDA discretion to conduct its own safety testing of new GEFs and requires that certain factors are examined. GEFs on the market today will remain on the market as long as FDA also reviews these products for health safety. Much like the current practice, funding for these tests will come primarily from industry. A fee system will be developed that is modeled after FDA's current program for reviewing pharmaceuticals and supplemented by Federal funding. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.