Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, just days ago Ida Klaus, properly described as a ``labor law pioneer,'' died at the age of 94. I had the great privilege of working with her in the Kennedy Administration in 1961 when she advised us on the development of Executive Order 10988, ``Employee-Management Cooperation in the Federal Service,'' a defining event in the history of federal employment. She was a brilliant person, warm and concerned for others in a way that made possible her great achievements. Mr. President, I ask that her obituary from The New York Times of May 20, 1999 be printed in the Record. The obituary follows: Ida Klaus, 94, Labor Lawyer For U.S. and New York, Dies (By Nick Ravo) Ida Klaus, a labor law pioneer who became a high-ranking New York City official in the 1950's and who wrote the law that gave city employees the right to bargain collectively, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94. Ms. Klaus was a lifelong labor advocate whose sympathy for the working classes was instilled in her by her mother. As a young child growing up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, she helped give free food from the family grocery to striking factory workers. She organized her first union while still in her teens. She was one of three college women working as a waitress in the summer with several professional waiters at the Gross & Baum Hotel in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. One day, she heard that the hotel planned to lay off some of the waiters. ``I don't known where I got the nerve, but I said, `Let's get together and have a meeting,' '' she said in a 1974 interview in The New York Times. Ms. Klaus became the spokeswoman for the waiters and waitresses, and told the hotel management that if anyone was discharged, they would all go. ``At which point, Mr. Baum said he knew he shouldn't have hired college girls,'' she recalled. ``But he didn't fire anyone.'' Ms. Klaus's desire to become a lawyer also derived from the experience of watching her mother battle the court system for 10 years over her husband's estate. But after graduating from Hunter College and, in 1925, from the Teachers Institute of Jewish Theological Seminary of America, now the Albert A. List College, she was denied admission to Columbia University Law School because she was a woman. She taught Hebrew until 1928, when she was admitted to the law school with the first class to accept women. She received her law degree in 1931. After graduation, Ms. Klaus worked as a review lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington. In 1948, she took the post of solicitor for the National Labor Relations Board, a position that made her the highest-ranking female lawyer in the Federal Government. In 1954, she was hired as counsel to the New York City Department of Labor under Mayor Robert F. Wagner. She became known as the author of the so-called Little Wagner Act, the city version of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which recognized workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively through unions of their choosing. The Federal Wagner Act was named for the Mayor's father, Senator Robert F. Wagner. She also wrote Mayor Wagner's executive order creating the first detailed code of labor relations for city employees. ``She is one of the pioneers and champions of bringing law and order into labor relations,'' said Robert S. Rifkin, a lawyer and longtime friend whose father, Simon H. Rifkin, was a law clerk for Ms. Klaus. ``She believed labor relations ought not to be under the rule of tooth and claw.'' Ms. Klaus briefly worked in the Kennedy Administration in 1961 as a consultant for the first labor relations task force for Federal employees. She returned to New York in 1962 as director of staff relations for the Board of Education, where she negotiated what was reported to be the first citywide teachers' contract in the country. She left in 1975 to become a private arbitrator. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her one of the three negotiators in the Long Island Rail Road strike. Ms. Klaus, was born on Jan. 8, 1905, received Columbia Law School's Medal for excellence in 1996, and an honorary doctorate in 1994 from the Jewish Theological Seminary. No close relatives survive.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, David Ignatius has written a charming brief essay for The Washington Post on his former teacher Daniel Bell, ``the dean of American sociology.'' Professor Bell, who is now Scholar in Residence at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a colleague and neighbor of mine for many years and a friend for even longer. He has no equal, and as he turns 80 he is indeed, as Mr. Ignatius writes, ``a kind of national treasure--a strategic intellectual reserve.'' The nation is hugely in his debt. (A thought which I fear would horrify him!) I ask that the article by David Ignatius in The Washington Post of May 23, 1999 be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From The Washington Post, May 23, 1999] Big Questions for Daniel Bell (By David Ignatius) Cambridge--Having a conversation about ideas with Daniel Bell is a little like getting to rally with John McEnroe. Trying to keep up is hopeless, but it's exhilarating just to be on the court with him. Bell, the dean of American sociology, turned 80 this month. In an era when big ideas have largely gone out of fashion, he continues to think bigger than anyone I know, of any age. That makes him a kind of national treasure--a strategic intellectual reserve. The questions that interest Bell today remain the great, woolly ones that make most people throw up their hands: What are the forces shaping modern life? What are the relationships between economics, politics and culture? Where is the human story heading? You can chart the intellectual history of the past 50 years in part through Bell's attempts to answer these big questions: ``The End of Ideology,'' published in 1960; ``The Coming of Post-Industrial Society,'' published in 1973; ``The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism,'' published in 1976. Next month, Basic Books will reissue Bell's prophetic study of post-industrial society. This was in many ways the first serious effort to describe the new technological society that has emerged in the United States over the past quarter- century. Many of Bell's ideas are now commonplace--we are surrounded by evidence that his analysis was correct--but at the time, the transformation wasn't so obvious. To accompany the 1999 edition, Bell has written a new 30,000-word foreword. (``I don't know how to write short,'' he says.) Bell writes that in the new information age, even the boundaries of time and space no longer hold. Economic activity is global and instantaneous; the traditional infrastructure that gave rise to cities--roads, rivers and harbors--is becoming irrelevant. We are connected with everywhere. Yet with all diffusion of information, Bell observes, true knowledge remains rare and precious. The problem that vexes Bell is one of scale. He argues that societies tend to work smoothly when economic, social and political activities fit well together. But there is an obvious mismatch in today's global economy--where financial life is centralized as never before but political life is increasingly fragmented along ethnic and even tribal lines. ``The national state has become too small for the big problems of life, and too big for the small problems,'' Bell writes. ``We find that the older social structures are cracking because political scales of sovereignty and authority do not match the economic scales.'' Bell is part of the Dream Team of American letters--the group of Jewish intellectuals who grew up poor in New York in the 1930s, learned their debating skills in the alcoves of City College and went on to found the magazines and write he books that shaped America's understanding of itself. Because of the antisemitism of American universities at the time, most of them couldn't get teaching jobs at first. But today, their names are legendary: Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, Norman Podhoretz and Bell. What's especially admirable about Bell is how little he's changed over the years. Many of the New York intellectuals began as radical socialists and ended up as neo- conservatives--a long journey, indeed. But Bell holds roughly the same views he did when he was 15. ``I'm a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics and a conservative in culture.'' he said. He thinks it's a mistake to force these different areas of thought onto a single template. That ways lies dogmatism. Another of Bell's virtues is that he doesn't go looking for fights. He explains that as a matter of life history. His father died in the influenza epidemic of 1920, when Bell was just eight months old. His mother had to work in a garment factory--leaving him in an orphanage part of the time. Bell wanted to hold onto his friends, he says. Religion has been an anchor in Bell's life, too. Indeed, he said he began to doubt the Marxist view of history when he considered the durability of the world's great religions. He concluded that there were certain fundamental, existential questions--about the meaning of life and death--that were universal and unchanging, for which the great religions had provided enduring answers. The most endearing aspect of Bell's personality is his sense of humor. Big thinkers are not always nimble and light- hearted, but Bell can't go five minutes without telling a joke--usually some sort of Jewish folk tale. Ask why he left an early job at Fortune to go teach at Columbia, and he recalls telling his boss, Henry Luce, that there were four reasons: ``June, July, August and September.'' Recounting his family history, Bell remembers a grandmother's remark when told at the end of World War I that because of a border change, the family now lived in Poland, rather than Russia. ``Thank God! I was getting so tired of those Russian winters!'' Bell was my teacher and friend nearly 30 years ago at Harvard. In those days, he taught a seminar on the history of avant-garde movements. One of the assignments was to think up a name for a polemical avant-garde journal. So I ask Bell to take his own test. what name would he give a journal if he was to start one today? He replies instantly: ``THINK.'' As much as anyone in American life, he can lay claim to that one.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Rear Admiral James W. Nance, a gentleman and a patriot. I will leave it to others to talk about Bud's accomplishments in the Navy, at the White House, in the private sector and in academia, and here in the Senate. They are legion. I wish to highlight the central role he played in assisting the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, which I chaired. Senator Helms was a Commission Member. Bud understood the importance of keeping some secrets. But he also understood that excessive secrecy is a mode of regulation. The most pernicious mode, really, since we don't know what we don't know. It is a fitting tribute to Bud, his wisdom, and his talents that the Commission unanimously issued its report containing recommendations for protecting and reducing government secrecy. Bud battled his illness gallantly, which is no surprise. His death from that illness is no surprise, either, but it hurts nonetheless. We who were privileged to know Bud will miss him. The country will miss him. He and I were frequent correspondents. His last letter to me, from last October, is characteristics. He wrote, As I mentioned in a discussion we had several months ago, I have myelodysplasia, or smoldering leukemia. I have had all the experimental treatments they do out at NIH without success. At present, I am living on transfusions. This problem does not worry me in the slightest because I have had 77 wonderful years and have had the privilege of knowing some of the great people of my time. Not the slightest tinge of self-pity, remorse, regret, or bitterness. He was confident in his faith and comfortable in his accomplishments. Rather, he was concerned about the imminent dangers our country faced in the Balkans and elsewhere: What does bother me, Senator, is I am extremely worried about our country. In 1939, I did not register for the draft for World War II. The reason I did not register was because they already had me . . . Everywhere we look around the world things are bad--Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, India/Pakistan (nuclear testing), North Korea, Latin America is stewing in drugs, et. al. We should remember what Charles DeGaulle said, ``There are no friends in international politics.'' We have countries that respect us; countries that fear us; and countries that hold us in contempt. I see too many cases where we are held in contempt. We have to do better internationally. Bud wrote to me, with his characteristic modesty, ``In the roughly 60 years that I have been with the government in both the executive and legislative branches I have always tried to make our country a little safer and a little better.'' This, rhetoricians will tell you, is understatement. If I may paraphrase General Robert E. Lee, Bud did his duty in all things. He could not do more. And it's obvious he never wished to do less.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President: I commend the efforts of my respected colleagues from Florida, Senator Mack and Senator Graham, as they work to modernize the tax rules that apply to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). I have worked with the REIT industry over the years and have seen it grow to be a major contributor to the strength of the real estate sector in New York and nationally. Congress first authorized REITs in 1960 so that investors of modest means could invest in income producing real estate assets. During the last four decades, REITs have provided not only real estate ownership opportunities for individual investors, but also an important source of capital for real estate investment. As tax policy makers we have the responsibility to make sure that tax laws governing REITs are updated to reflect the realities of a dynamic market and to maintain a proper competitive balance between real estate owned through the REIT structure and through more traditional corporate and partnership structures. But because REITs are pass-through entities, we also have a responsibility to ensure that they are not used as vehicles for sheltering corporate taxes in a manner inconsistent with Congressional intent. In fact, twice in the last Congress the Finance Committee crafted legislation, later signed into law, to stop inappropriate use of the REIT structure in the case of so- called ``stapled entities'' and liquidating subsidiaries. The Administration has included a proposal in its FY 2000 budget that would, among other things, allow REITs to own a taxable REIT subsidiary. The legislation introduced by Senators Mack and Graham builds on the Administration proposal, and would expand the permissible business activities of REITs. The approach taken in the proposals advanced by the Administration and by Senators Mack and Graham warrant consideration. I have asked my staff to review the legislation and work with the authors of the bill. It is my hope that Congress can enact REIT modernization legislation this year.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President: I commend the efforts of my respected colleagues from Florida, Senator Mack and Senator Graham, as they work to modernize the tax rules that apply to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). I have worked with the REIT industry over the years and have seen it grow to be a major contributor to the strength of the real estate sector in New York and nationally. Congress first authorized REITs in 1960 so that investors of modest means could invest in income producing real estate assets. During the last four decades, REITs have provided not only real estate ownership opportunities for individual investors, but also an important source of capital for real estate investment. As tax policy makers we have the responsibility to make sure that tax laws governing REITs are updated to reflect the realities of a dynamic market and to maintain a proper competitive balance between real estate owned through the REIT structure and through more traditional corporate and partnership structures. But because REITs are pass-through entities, we also have a responsibility to ensure that they are not used as vehicles for sheltering corporate taxes in a manner inconsistent with Congressional intent. In fact, twice in the last Congress the Finance Committee crafted legislation, later signed into law, to stop inappropriate use of the REIT structure in the case of so- called ``stapled entities'' and liquidating subsidiaries. The Administration has included a proposal in its FY 2000 budget that would, among other things, allow REITs to own a taxable REIT subsidiary. The legislation introduced by Senators Mack and Graham builds on the Administration proposal, and would expand the permissible business activities of REITs. The approach taken in the proposals advanced by the Administration and by Senators Mack and Graham warrant consideration. I have asked my staff to review the legislation and work with the authors of the bill. It is my hope that Congress can enact REIT modernization legislation this year.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing three bills that will provide much needed financial support for America's 144 accredited medical schools and 1,250 graduate medical education (GME) teaching institutions. These institutions are national treasures; they 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. The growth of managed for-profit care combined with GME payment reductions under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) have put these hospitals in dire financial straits. Hospitals are losing money-- millions of dollars every year. And these losses are projected to increase, as additional scheduled Medicare payment reductions are phased in. Many of the teaching hospitals that we know and depend on today may not survive--including those in my state of New York--if these additional GME payment reductions are not repealed. To ensure that this precious public resource is maintained and the United States continues to lead the world in the quality of its health care system, the three bills I am introducing today --the Graduate Medical Education Payment Restoration Act of 1999, the Managed Care Fair Payment Act of 1999, and the Nursing and Allied Health Payment Improvement Act of 1999--will provide critically required funding for teaching hospitals. Everyone in America benefits from the research and medical education conducted in our medical schools and affiliated teaching hospitals. They are what economists call public goods --something that benefits everyone but which is not provided for by market forces alone. Think of an army. Or a dam. The Medicare program is the nation's largest explicit financier of GME, with annual payments of about $7 billion. In the past, other payers of health care have also contributed to the costs of GME. However, in an increasingly competitive managed care health care system, these payments are being squeezed out. Earlier this year, I reintroduced the Medical Education Trust Fund Act of 1999. This legislation requires the public sector, through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and the private sector, through an assessment on health insurance premiums, to contribute broad-based and equitable financial support for graduate medical education. I hope that one day Congress will see the wisdom of enacting such a measure. However, our teaching hospitals need help now. We are in the midst of a great era of discovery in medical science. It is certainly no 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. It started in the late 1930s. Before then, the average patient was probably as well off, perhaps better, out of a hospital as in one. Progress since that point sixty years ago has been remarkable. The last few decades have brought us 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. One can hardly imagine what might be next--but we do know that much of it will be discovered in the course of ongoing research activities in our teaching hospitals and medical schools. That is a process which is of necessity unplanned, even random--but which regularly produces medical breakthroughs. To cite just a few examples: At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the world renowned teaching hospital in New York City, researchers in 1998 discovered among many other things a surgical biopsy technique that can predict whether breast cancer has spread to surrounding lymph node tissue. This technique will spare 60,000 to 80,000 patients each year from having to undergo surgical removal of their lymph nodes. In 1997, at Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center, it was discovered that malignant brain tumors in young children can be eradicated through the use of high-dose chemotherapy and stem-cell transplants. And in May of last year, a doctor at Children's Hospital in Boston created a global media sensation with his discovery that a combination of the drugs endostatin and angiostatin appeared to cure cancer in mice by cutting off the supply of blood to tumors. Although the efficacy of this therapy in humans is not yet known, the research holds great promise that a cure for cancer may actually be within reach. And it was discovered in a teaching hospital. The Graduate Medical Education Payment Restoration Act, with a total of 15 cosponsors, will freeze the current schedule of BBA reductions to the indirect portion of GME funding. Congressman Rangel today is introducing a similar bill in the House. Under the BBA, the indirect payment adjustor is scheduled to be reduced from 7.7 percent to 5.5 percent by FY 2001. This bill will maintain the current payment adjustor at its current level of 6.5 percent, thereby rolling back about half of the indirect GME funding cuts in the BBA. In total, this provision restores about $3 billion over 5 years and $8 billion over 10 years in indirect GME funding for teaching hospitals. The Managed Care Fair Payment Act, with nine cosponsors, will redirect more than $2.5 billion over 5 years of Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) funds from the Medicare managed care payment rates to the more than 1,900 hospitals that qualify for DSH funding. Congressman Rangel introduced a similar bill in the House this past March. More than two-thirds of teaching hospitals also qualify for DSH funds. Under the current payment method, payments to managed care plans include these DSH funds, but unfortunately, these funds are not necessarily passed-on to DSH hospitals. Managed care plans often do not contract with DSH hospitals, and when they do the negotiated payment rates often do not include these DSH payments. Like GME funding under current law, this bill would carve out DSH funds from the managed care rates and require the Health Care Financing Administration to pass them on directly to qualifying hospitals. The third bill I am introducing today, which has 13 cosponsors, is the Nursing and Allied Health Payment Improvement Act. This bill was introduced by Congressmen Crane and Bentsen on April 20 of this year. While Congress in the BBA of 1997 recognized the need to carve-out GME funding from managed care rates, it unintentionally did not carve out the funding for the training of nurses and allied health professionals. Like DSH funds, without the carve-out, funding for these education programs is unlikely to reach the more than 700 hospitals that provide training to these vitally important health professionals. This bill seeks to correct this problem by carving out the funding for the training of nurses and other allied health professionals and directing them to the hospitals that provide these training programs. Combined, these three bills will strengthen 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 these bills, the state of our nation's teaching hospitals and the delivery of health care will remain in jeopardy. I ask that the text of the bills, along with two articles from the New York Times, be included in the Record. The material follows:

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing three bills that will provide much needed financial support for America's 144 accredited medical schools and 1,250 graduate medical education (GME) teaching institutions. These institutions are national treasures; they 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. The growth of managed for-profit care combined with GME payment reductions under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) have put these hospitals in dire financial straits. Hospitals are losing money-- millions of dollars every year. And these losses are projected to increase, as additional scheduled Medicare payment reductions are phased in. Many of the teaching hospitals that we know and depend on today may not survive--including those in my state of New York--if these additional GME payment reductions are not repealed. To ensure that this precious public resource is maintained and the United States continues to lead the world in the quality of its health care system, the three bills I am introducing today --the Graduate Medical Education Payment Restoration Act of 1999, the Managed Care Fair Payment Act of 1999, and the Nursing and Allied Health Payment Improvement Act of 1999--will provide critically required funding for teaching hospitals. Everyone in America benefits from the research and medical education conducted in our medical schools and affiliated teaching hospitals. They are what economists call public goods --something that benefits everyone but which is not provided for by market forces alone. Think of an army. Or a dam. The Medicare program is the nation's largest explicit financier of GME, with annual payments of about $7 billion. In the past, other payers of health care have also contributed to the costs of GME. However, in an increasingly competitive managed care health care system, these payments are being squeezed out. Earlier this year, I reintroduced the Medical Education Trust Fund Act of 1999. This legislation requires the public sector, through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and the private sector, through an assessment on health insurance premiums, to contribute broad-based and equitable financial support for graduate medical education. I hope that one day Congress will see the wisdom of enacting such a measure. However, our teaching hospitals need help now. We are in the midst of a great era of discovery in medical science. It is certainly no 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. It started in the late 1930s. Before then, the average patient was probably as well off, perhaps better, out of a hospital as in one. Progress since that point sixty years ago has been remarkable. The last few decades have brought us 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. One can hardly imagine what might be next--but we do know that much of it will be discovered in the course of ongoing research activities in our teaching hospitals and medical schools. That is a process which is of necessity unplanned, even random--but which regularly produces medical breakthroughs. To cite just a few examples: At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the world renowned teaching hospital in New York City, researchers in 1998 discovered among many other things a surgical biopsy technique that can predict whether breast cancer has spread to surrounding lymph node tissue. This technique will spare 60,000 to 80,000 patients each year from having to undergo surgical removal of their lymph nodes. In 1997, at Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center, it was discovered that malignant brain tumors in young children can be eradicated through the use of high-dose chemotherapy and stem-cell transplants. And in May of last year, a doctor at Children's Hospital in Boston created a global media sensation with his discovery that a combination of the drugs endostatin and angiostatin appeared to cure cancer in mice by cutting off the supply of blood to tumors. Although the efficacy of this therapy in humans is not yet known, the research holds great promise that a cure for cancer may actually be within reach. And it was discovered in a teaching hospital. The Graduate Medical Education Payment Restoration Act, with a total of 15 cosponsors, will freeze the current schedule of BBA reductions to the indirect portion of GME funding. Congressman Rangel today is introducing a similar bill in the House. Under the BBA, the indirect payment adjustor is scheduled to be reduced from 7.7 percent to 5.5 percent by FY 2001. This bill will maintain the current payment adjustor at its current level of 6.5 percent, thereby rolling back about half of the indirect GME funding cuts in the BBA. In total, this provision restores about $3 billion over 5 years and $8 billion over 10 years in indirect GME funding for teaching hospitals. The Managed Care Fair Payment Act, with nine cosponsors, will redirect more than $2.5 billion over 5 years of Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) funds from the Medicare managed care payment rates to the more than 1,900 hospitals that qualify for DSH funding. Congressman Rangel introduced a similar bill in the House this past March. More than two-thirds of teaching hospitals also qualify for DSH funds. Under the current payment method, payments to managed care plans include these DSH funds, but unfortunately, these funds are not necessarily passed-on to DSH hospitals. Managed care plans often do not contract with DSH hospitals, and when they do the negotiated payment rates often do not include these DSH payments. Like GME funding under current law, this bill would carve out DSH funds from the managed care rates and require the Health Care Financing Administration to pass them on directly to qualifying hospitals. The third bill I am introducing today, which has 13 cosponsors, is the Nursing and Allied Health Payment Improvement Act. This bill was introduced by Congressmen Crane and Bentsen on April 20 of this year. While Congress in the BBA of 1997 recognized the need to carve-out GME funding from managed care rates, it unintentionally did not carve out the funding for the training of nurses and allied health professionals. Like DSH funds, without the carve-out, funding for these education programs is unlikely to reach the more than 700 hospitals that provide training to these vitally important health professionals. This bill seeks to correct this problem by carving out the funding for the training of nurses and other allied health professionals and directing them to the hospitals that provide these training programs. Combined, these three bills will strengthen 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 these bills, the state of our nation's teaching hospitals and the delivery of health care will remain in jeopardy. I ask that the text of the bills, along with two articles from the New York Times, be included in the Record. The material follows:

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I join today with Senators Roth, Kennedy, and Jeffords in announcing that we have a total of 75 cosponsors supporting the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. This bill would address some of the barriers and disincentives that individuals enrolled in Federal disability programs face in returning to work. We rise today to make the case that this measure deserves consideration in the Senate as soon as possible. We are committed to passing this bill promptly and without amendment. The great enthusiasm and broad support for this legislation has created its impressive momentum. Senators Jeffords, Kennedy, Roth, and I introduced the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 (S. 331) on January 28 of this year. On February 4, the Finance Committee held a hearing on the bill. Our former chairman and majority leader among others testified in emphatic support. On that day, we already had a bipartisan list of 42 Senators. The committee reported the bill without amendment on March 4 by a vote of 16 to 2. At that time, the total cosponsor list reached 60, including 18 Republicans and 42 Democrats. The President included the Senate legislation in his fiscal year 2000 budget, and expressed his support for this bipartisan initiative in his State of the Union Address. The overwhelming support for this legislation is not surprising given its simple and universal goal: to provide Americans with disabilities the opportunity to work and contribute to the fullest of their ability. Its supporters include persons with disabilities and their families, veterans, health care providers, and health and disability insurers. I join Senators Kennedy, Roth, and Jeffords in urging its earliest possible consideration and passage by the Senate.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we have been debating the subject of banking in the Senate since the 18th century. We began to ask ourselves a question, could we have a national bank, which Mr. Hamilton, of New York, thought we could do and should do. We created one. It had a very brief tenure. It went out of existence just in time that the Federal Government had no financial resources for the War of 1812. So it was reinstituted, as I recall, in 1816 for 20 years, and went out of existence just in time for the panic of 1837. We went through greenbacks. There must have been a wampum period. We went to gold coinage. Then a free coinage of silver dominated our politics for almost two decades, as farmers sought liquidity and availability of credit. Finally, at the end of the century of exhaustive debate, we more or less gave up and adopted what we now call the Federal Reserve System. To say we debated this matter for a century is certainly true. In the past few years, we have turned our focus to the nonbank bank. You are really reaching for obscurity when you define an issue as we have done, and yet that seems to be the term with which we have to deal. The issue of the nonbank banks, also referred to as financial modernization, is facing the Senate today. As we consider Chairman Phil Gramm's (R-TX) bill I would like to make two points. The first being that we need financial modernization, that depression era banking laws need to be amended. We all agree on that. The second point that I would like to make is that we must do this in a prudent manner--preserve the things which need to be preserved, and remedy the things which need to be remedied. It strikes me as odd that most corporations are free to engage in any lawful business. Banks, by contrast, are limited to the business of banking. It is generally agreed that the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 need to be amended. Banks, security firms, and insurance companies should be allowed to offer each other's services. They already do by finding loopholes in the law. Congress must catch up, and pass a law that condones this activity. London does it. Tokyo too. Why not New York, which, if I may say, is one of the world's banking capitals? This is a real problem for the existing banks which find themselves under serious constraints they have lived with under depression-era banking laws. Suddenly, they find that their activities are encroached upon and they are not able to do things that they ought to do, that they are going to need to do, if they are going to survive in a competitive world economy. Now is the time to modernize our financial institutions. But the bill before us has certain problems. The most serious of which is that it weakens the Community Reinvestment Act. The CRA, enacted in 1977, has played a critical role in revitalizing low and moderate income communities. New York has benefited from this. A Times editorial states that ``in New York City's South Bronx neighborhood, the money has turned burned-out areas into havens for affordable homes and a new middle class. The banks earn less on community-based loans than on corporate business. But the most civic-minded banks have accepted this reduced revenue as a cost of doing business--and as a reasonable sacrifice for keeping the surrounding communities strong.'' It is for this reason that I cannot support Chairman Gramm's bill. I voted for the Democratic substitute which was offered by Senator Sarbanes. This bill too amends Glass-Steagall and the Bank Holding Company Act. But it preserves the CRA. I want financial modernization as much as the next person. But we cannot do it at the detriment of the CRA. I ask unanimous consent that the New York Times editorial from March 17, 1999 be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise with my colleague and fellow New Yorker, Senator Schumer, to introduce this bill to transfer administrative jurisdiction of less than an acre of land at the Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site from the National Park Service to the National Archives and Records Administration. This legislation would remove the last remaining obstacle to the construction of the National Archives' planned FDR Presidential Library Visitor Center and requires no Federal funds. For the past several years, the National Archives has worked closely with the National Park Service, the New York State Historic Preservation Office, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, and the General Services Administration, to determine the appropriate site for a visitor center. In order to serve the greatest number of visitors, the optimum location was found to be property currently controlled by the National Park Service. Since the National Archives will administer the visitor center, administrative jurisdiction of the property must be transferred from the National Park Service, which the National Park Service supports. To date, $8,200,000 in Federal funds have been appropriated for this project and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute has contributed an additional $3,400,000. Design work is scheduled to be completed in September of 1999, and construction could begin after jurisdiction is transferred. Last year, the House passed H.R. 4829 to accomplish this same goal. Unfortunately, time expired on the 106th Congress before we could take it up in the Senate. This year, Congressman John E. Sweeney has reintroduced the bill, now H.R. 1104, which has a strong chance of passing. We would be most fortunate, indeed, if the Senate would agree to our noncontroversial bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise with my colleague and fellow New Yorker, Senator Schumer, to introduce this bill to transfer administrative jurisdiction of less than an acre of land at the Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site from the National Park Service to the National Archives and Records Administration. This legislation would remove the last remaining obstacle to the construction of the National Archives' planned FDR Presidential Library Visitor Center and requires no Federal funds. For the past several years, the National Archives has worked closely with the National Park Service, the New York State Historic Preservation Office, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, and the General Services Administration, to determine the appropriate site for a visitor center. In order to serve the greatest number of visitors, the optimum location was found to be property currently controlled by the National Park Service. Since the National Archives will administer the visitor center, administrative jurisdiction of the property must be transferred from the National Park Service, which the National Park Service supports. To date, $8,200,000 in Federal funds have been appropriated for this project and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute has contributed an additional $3,400,000. Design work is scheduled to be completed in September of 1999, and construction could begin after jurisdiction is transferred. Last year, the House passed H.R. 4829 to accomplish this same goal. Unfortunately, time expired on the 106th Congress before we could take it up in the Senate. This year, Congressman John E. Sweeney has reintroduced the bill, now H.R. 1104, which has a strong chance of passing. We would be most fortunate, indeed, if the Senate would agree to our noncontroversial bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, a month ago, April 7, as the war in Yugoslavia began to assume its present form, President Clinton spoke to the U.S. Institute for Peace. It was an important statement about the nature of conflict in the years to come. ``Clearly,'' he stated, ``our first challenge is to build a more peaceful world, one that will apparently be dominated by ethnic and religious conflicts we once thought of primitive, but which Senator Moynihan, for example, has referred to now as post-modern.'' I am scarcely alone in this; it has become, I believe, a widely held view. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal began by asking: ``Does Kosovo represent the future or the past.'' The distinguished Dean of the John F. Kennedy School had an emphatic answer. . . . Joseph Nye, a Clinton Pentagon alumnus, forecasts a brave new world dominated by ethnic conflicts. There are thousands of ethnic groups that could plausibly argue they deserve independence, he estimates, making it imperative for the U.S. to decide where it should intervene. ``There's potential for enormous violence,'' he says. In this spirit, just yesterday, The Times spoke of ``The Logic of Kosovo.'' With the cold war over, the country needs to devise a new calculus for determining when its security is threatened and the use of force is warranted. Kosovo is a test case. If the United States and its NATO allies are prepared to let a tyrant in the Balkans slaughter his countrymen and overrun his neighbors with hundreds of thousands of refugees, other combustible regions of Europe may face similar upheavals. Almost a decade ago the eminent scientist E. O. Wilson offered a perspective from the field of sociobiology. Once ``the overwhelmingly suppressive force of supranational ideology was lifted,'' ethnicity would strike. ``It was the unintended experiment in the natural science mode: cancel one factor at a time, and see what happens.'' For ``coiled and ready ethnicity is to be expected from a consideration of biological evolutionary theory.'' Throw in television and the like, and surely we are in a new situation. Just as surely, it is time to think anew. The first matter has to do with the number of such potential conflicts. Here it is perhaps the case that the United States bears a special responsibility. For it is we, in the person of President Woodrow Wilson, and the setting of the Versailles Peace Conference who brought to world politics the term ``self-determination.'' It is not sufficiently known that Wilson's Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, of Jefferson County, New York, had the greatest foreboding. Hence this entry in his diary written in Paris on December 30, 1918. ``Self-Determination'' and the Dangers December 30, 1918 The more I think about the President's declaration as to the right of ``self-determination'', the more convinced I am of the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races. It is bound to be the basis of impossible demands on the Peace Congress, and create trouble in many lands . . . . The phrase is simply loaded with dynamite. It will raise hopes which can never be realized. It will, I fear, cost thousands of lives. In the end it is bound to be discredited, to be called the dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late to check those who attempt to put the principle into force. What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered! What misery it will cause! Think of the feelings of the author when he counts the dead who dies because he coined a phrase! A man, who is a leader of public thought, should beware of intemperate or undigested declarations. He is responsible for the consequences. There have to be limits, and it should be a task of American statecraft to seek to define them. It is not that 185 members of the United Nations are enough. There is room for more. But surely there needs to be a limit to the horrors we have witnessed in the Balkans in this decade, and in Kosovo this past month. From the Caucuses to the Punjab, from Palestine to the Pyrenees, violence beckons. It is not difficult to get started. At least one American diplomat holds a direct view of the origin of the present horror. I cannot speak for every detail of his account, but some are well known, and his view is not, to my knowledge, contested. The current phase of the Kosovo crisis can be traced back to 1996, when financial collapse in Albania (small investors lost their meager life savings in a classic Ponzi scheme condoned by the then government) led to political and social chaos. President Berisha (a Geg from the misnamed Democratic Party) was forced out amidst massive rioting in which the army disappeared as its armories were emptied. Arms found their way into the armed gangs and eventually to an incipient Kosovo Albanian guerrilla movement that called itself the Kosovo Liberation Army. The new government of Socialist Fatos Nan (a Southerner, a Tosk, and a former Communist) was unable to establish effective control over the north and Berisha made a conspicuous point of not only supporting the KLA, but actually turning his personal property in the north over to the KLA as a training base. Supporting fellow Gegs apparently makes for good politics among the northerners. The KLA's strategy was very simple: Target Serbian policemen and thus provoke the inevitable brutal Serb retaliation against Kosovo Albanian civilians, all in the hopes of bringing NATO into the conflict. They have succeeded brilliantly in this goal, but have not proved to be much a fighting force themselves. These are not arguments new to the Senate. A year ago, April 30, 1998, my eminent colleague John W. Warner and I offered cautionary amendments concerning NATO expansion eastward. I went first with a proposal that new NATO members should first belong to the European Union. I received, as I recall, 17 votes. My colleague then proposed to postpone any further enlargement of NATO for a period of at least three years. That proposal, again if I recall, received 41 votes. We felt, on the whole, somewhat lonely. Now, however, we learn that Defense Secretary William Perry and his top arms-control aide, Ashton Carter, as related by Thomas L. Friedman in The Times of March 16, 1999. Mr. Perry and Mr. Carter reveal that when they were running the Pentagon they argued to Mr. Clinton that NATO expansion ``should be deferred until later in the decade.'' Mr. Perry details how he insisted at a top-level meeting with the President, on December 21, 1994, that ``early expansion was a mistake,'' because it would provoke ``distrust'' in Russia and undermine cooperation on arms control and other issues, and because ``prematurely adding untried militaries'' at a time when NATO itself was reassessing its role would not be helpful. The Secretary of Defense lost the argument; in Friedman's view domestic politics overrode strategic concerns. But who won? The various pronouncements that issued from the recent NATO summit come close to a telephone directory of prospective new NATO members. Before we get carried away, might we ask just how many of them have the kind of internal ethnic tension so easily turned on? Which will be invaded by neighbors siding with the insurgents? Must NATO then go to war in the Caucuses? The second matter of which I would speak is that of international law. The United States and its NATO allies have gone to war, put their men and women in harm's way for the clearest of humanitarian purposes. They have even so attacked a sovereign state in what would seem a clear avoidance of the terms of the U.N. Charter, specifically Article 2(4). The State Department has issued no statement as to the legality of our actions. An undated internal State Department document cites Security Council Resolution 1199 affirming that the situation in Kosovo constitutes a threat to the peace in the region, and demanding that the parties cease hostilities and maintain peace in Kosovo. The Department paper concludes: ``FRY actions in Kosovo cannot be deemed an internal matter, as the Council has condemned Serbian action in Kosovo as a threat to regional peace and security.'' A valid point. But of course the point is weakened, at very least, by the fact of our not having gone back to the Security Council to get authorization to act as we have done. We have not done this, of course, because the Russians and/or the Chinese would block any such resolution. Even so, it remains the case that the present state of international law is in significant ways a limitation on our freedom to pursue humanitarian purposes. Again, a matter that calls for attention, indeed, demands attention. In sum, limits and law.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the Auto Choice Reform Act of 1999, a bill submitted by my distinguished colleague, Senator McConnell. This legislation is designed to create a new option in auto insurance for consumers who would prefer a system that guarantees quick and complete compensation. This alternative system would change most insurance coverage to a first-party system from a third-party system and it would separate economic and noneconomic compensation by unbundling the premium. Therefore, drivers would be allowed to insure themselves for only economic loss or for both economic and noneconomic loss. I simply would remark that this issue has been with us for 30-odd years and I wish to provide some of the background and a particular perspective. The automobile probably has generated more externalities, as economists and authors Alan K. Campbell and Jesse Burkhead remarked, than any other device or incident in human history. And one of them is the issue of insurance, litigation, and compensation in the aftermath of what are called ``accidents'' but are nothing of the kind and are the source of so much misunderstanding. When a certain number of ``accidents'' occur (I think that in 1894, if memory serves, there were two automobiles in St. Louis, MO, and they managed to collide--at least, it has been thought thus ever since), they become statistically predictable collisions--foreseeable events-- in a complex transportation system such as the one we have built. This began to be a subject of epidemiology in the 1940's, and by the 1950's, we had the hang of it. We knew what we were dealing with and how to approach it. The first thing that we did--I think it fair to say it was done in New York under the Harriman administration, of which I was a member-- was to introduce the concept of passenger safety into highway and vehicle design. Safety initiatives were undertaken, first at the State level. The, in 1966, Congress passed two bills, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the Highway Safety Act, to establish pervasive Federal regulation. At the time, the last thing in the world an automobile manufacturer would suggest was that its product was a car in which one could safely have an accident! Perhaps other motorists, driving other companies cars, had accidents. It took quite a bit of learning--social learning--but eventually it happened: safety features such as padded steering wheels and dashboards, seat belts, and airbags became integral design considerations. Now it is routine; we take such features for granted. It wasn't always thus. Social learning. And then the issue of insurance and litigation and so forth arose. In 1967, if I could say, which would be 32 years ago, I wrote an article for The New York Time Magazine, which simply said, ``Next, a new auto insurance policy.'' By ``next,'' I meant a natural evolution, building on the epidemiological knowledge we had developed regarding the incidence of collisons and the trauma they caused to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. And I had a good line here, I think: ``Automobile accident litigation has become a twentieth-century equivalent of Dickens's Court of Chancery, eating up the pittance of widows of orphans, a vale from which few return with their respect for justice undiminished.'' The are several fundamental problems with the current system of auto insurance, as I explained back then. First, determining fault, necessary in a tort system, is no easy task in most instances. Typically, there are few witnesses. And the witnesses certainly aren't ``expert.'' The collisions are too fast, too disorienting. And adjudicating a case typical occurs long after the collision. Memories fade. More important, as I remarked at the time, is that ``no one involved (in the insurance system) has any incentive to moderation or reasonableness. The victim has every reason to exaggerate his losses. It is some other person's insurance company that must pay. The company has every reason to resist. It is somebody else's customer who is making the claim.'' This leads to excessive litigation, costly legal fees, and inefficient, inequitable compensation. A 1992 survey of the nation's most populous counties by the U.S. Department of Justice found that tort cases make up about one-half of all civil cases filed in state courts. Auto collision-related lawsuits account for 60 percent of these tort cases--more than all other types of tort lawsuits combined. Such lawsuits are time consuming: 31 percent of automobile tort cases take over one year to process. They are clogging our courts, displacing other types of civil litigation far more important to society. And for all the time, money, and effort these lawsuits consume, they do not compensate victims adequately. On average, victims with losses between $25,000 and $100,000 recover just over half (56 percent) of their losses, and those persons with losses over $100,000 receive just nine cents on the dollar in compensation. ``Auto Choice,'' as our legislation is known, will curtail excessive litigation by changing insurance coverage to a first-party system--at the driver's option. Individuals will insure themselves against economic damages regardless of fault. They can, if they wish, insure for non-economic losses, too. They simply pay a higher premium. In the event they sustain damages in a collision, under Auto Choice, they bypass litigation altogether, and they receive just and adequate compensation in a timely fashion. I earnestly hope that Congress will enact this important legislation this year. It will benefit all American motorists. Its savings are bigger than any tax cut Congress is likely to enact, and they won't affect our ability to balance the budget. But even more important, I think, is the fact that ``auto choice'' will take some of the strain off our overburdened judiciary. I don't know if we can calculate the value of such a benefit.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the Auto Choice Reform Act of 1999, a bill submitted by my distinguished colleague, Senator McConnell. This legislation is designed to create a new option in auto insurance for consumers who would prefer a system that guarantees quick and complete compensation. This alternative system would change most insurance coverage to a first-party system from a third-party system and it would separate economic and noneconomic compensation by unbundling the premium. Therefore, drivers would be allowed to insure themselves for only economic loss or for both economic and noneconomic loss. I simply would remark that this issue has been with us for 30-odd years and I wish to provide some of the background and a particular perspective. The automobile probably has generated more externalities, as economists and authors Alan K. Campbell and Jesse Burkhead remarked, than any other device or incident in human history. And one of them is the issue of insurance, litigation, and compensation in the aftermath of what are called ``accidents'' but are nothing of the kind and are the source of so much misunderstanding. When a certain number of ``accidents'' occur (I think that in 1894, if memory serves, there were two automobiles in St. Louis, MO, and they managed to collide--at least, it has been thought thus ever since), they become statistically predictable collisions--foreseeable events-- in a complex transportation system such as the one we have built. This began to be a subject of epidemiology in the 1940's, and by the 1950's, we had the hang of it. We knew what we were dealing with and how to approach it. The first thing that we did--I think it fair to say it was done in New York under the Harriman administration, of which I was a member-- was to introduce the concept of passenger safety into highway and vehicle design. Safety initiatives were undertaken, first at the State level. The, in 1966, Congress passed two bills, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the Highway Safety Act, to establish pervasive Federal regulation. At the time, the last thing in the world an automobile manufacturer would suggest was that its product was a car in which one could safely have an accident! Perhaps other motorists, driving other companies cars, had accidents. It took quite a bit of learning--social learning--but eventually it happened: safety features such as padded steering wheels and dashboards, seat belts, and airbags became integral design considerations. Now it is routine; we take such features for granted. It wasn't always thus. Social learning. And then the issue of insurance and litigation and so forth arose. In 1967, if I could say, which would be 32 years ago, I wrote an article for The New York Time Magazine, which simply said, ``Next, a new auto insurance policy.'' By ``next,'' I meant a natural evolution, building on the epidemiological knowledge we had developed regarding the incidence of collisons and the trauma they caused to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. And I had a good line here, I think: ``Automobile accident litigation has become a twentieth-century equivalent of Dickens's Court of Chancery, eating up the pittance of widows of orphans, a vale from which few return with their respect for justice undiminished.'' The are several fundamental problems with the current system of auto insurance, as I explained back then. First, determining fault, necessary in a tort system, is no easy task in most instances. Typically, there are few witnesses. And the witnesses certainly aren't ``expert.'' The collisions are too fast, too disorienting. And adjudicating a case typical occurs long after the collision. Memories fade. More important, as I remarked at the time, is that ``no one involved (in the insurance system) has any incentive to moderation or reasonableness. The victim has every reason to exaggerate his losses. It is some other person's insurance company that must pay. The company has every reason to resist. It is somebody else's customer who is making the claim.'' This leads to excessive litigation, costly legal fees, and inefficient, inequitable compensation. A 1992 survey of the nation's most populous counties by the U.S. Department of Justice found that tort cases make up about one-half of all civil cases filed in state courts. Auto collision-related lawsuits account for 60 percent of these tort cases--more than all other types of tort lawsuits combined. Such lawsuits are time consuming: 31 percent of automobile tort cases take over one year to process. They are clogging our courts, displacing other types of civil litigation far more important to society. And for all the time, money, and effort these lawsuits consume, they do not compensate victims adequately. On average, victims with losses between $25,000 and $100,000 recover just over half (56 percent) of their losses, and those persons with losses over $100,000 receive just nine cents on the dollar in compensation. ``Auto Choice,'' as our legislation is known, will curtail excessive litigation by changing insurance coverage to a first-party system--at the driver's option. Individuals will insure themselves against economic damages regardless of fault. They can, if they wish, insure for non-economic losses, too. They simply pay a higher premium. In the event they sustain damages in a collision, under Auto Choice, they bypass litigation altogether, and they receive just and adequate compensation in a timely fashion. I earnestly hope that Congress will enact this important legislation this year. It will benefit all American motorists. Its savings are bigger than any tax cut Congress is likely to enact, and they won't affect our ability to balance the budget. But even more important, I think, is the fact that ``auto choice'' will take some of the strain off our overburdened judiciary. I don't know if we can calculate the value of such a benefit.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, this past Sunday the Queens Jewish Community Council honored an important member of the staff of the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council). Her name is Jackie Ebron and she helps serve the more than 100,000 clients who are helped by this remarkable organization. Ms. Ebron, the Met Council's longest serving employee and Director of Crisis Intervention is an African-American whose exceptional service to impoverished Jewish New Yorkers was recently highlighted in New York's Jewish Week newspaper. In the past seven years the Met Council has developed 1300 units of special needs housing for the elderly, mentally ill and the homeless; every day they provide nearly three thousand poor elderly individuals with home care services; they provide job placement to more than one thousand people a year and have trained more than 20,000 home attendants since 1993. Their food programs impact on the lives of well over 100,000 people and they also provide furniture and clothing to thousands. The Met Council's coordination of a network of two dozen Jewish Community Councils across New York City helps deliver services where they are needed in a timely and efficient manner. The Met Council is also one of the most efficient non-profit organizations today. They spend 98% of their budget on programs and services; only 2% is spent on administration. I ask that the Jewish Week article on Jackie Ebron be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the Jewish Week, Mar. 19, 1999] They Call Her `Mitzvah Mama' (By Heather Robinson) By the time she was 8 years old, Jackie Ebron, who is soon to become the first African-American to receive the Queens Jewish Community Council's Chesed Award, had begun helping the elderly. Growing up in the Grant Projects on 125th Street, her family had an elderly neighbor who rarely left her apartment. ``My mother would never send me to the store that I didn't knock on this woman's door and ask, `Do you need a loaf of bread or milk?' '' recalled Ebron on a recent afternoon. ``So [the motivation to help] was with was a child.'' Ebron has channeled that motivation into more than two decades of work helping the elderly and others in need. Over the years, she has visited more than 5,000 needy homes and helped many thousands more clients over the phone. And through her work, she quickly overcame an initial prejudice: ``In my background,'' she says, ``the words Jewish and poor didn't go together. But there is a very big Jewish poor population at the poverty level or below.'' Now the director of crisis intervention services for the Metropolitan Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council) in Manhattan, Ebron will receive the Chesed Award on Sunday at the Third Annual Installation Breakfast of the Queens Jewish Community Council (QJCC). Shea Stadium's Diamond Club, the site of the event, will go kosher for the first time in honor of the breakfast for the QJCC, an organization representing more than 90 synagogues and Jewish organizations throughout the borough. At the event, Ebron will share her honor with Jane Blumenstein, family violence crisis specialist for Met Council. The pair has been selected because of the extraordinary dedication they bring to their work, according to Manny Behar, executive director of the QJCC. He added that he and other officers of the QJCC chose this year's recipients, as they always do, based on character. ``We always give the award to someone who exemplifies chesed, which is Hebrew for acts of loving kindness, and this time, one of the people we selected happens to be African- American and non-Jewish,'' he said. Because the QJCC and Met Council work together frequently, Behar said he has had many opportunities to observe the rare sensitivity and respect for people which Ebron--whose colleagues call her ``Mitzvah Mama''--brings to her work. Behar recently watched Ebron provide assistance to a homeless, mentally ill man, and he admired her manner. ``The patience and understanding she showed him were absolutely inspiring,'' he recalled. According to Peter Brest, chief operation officer at Met Council, Ebron ``combines a great and giving heart with a common sense approach to problem solving.'' While Met Council, which receives public funding, assists many needy non-Jews, it also receives private funds and specifically targets Jewish poverty. The result is that about 80 percent of Ebron's clients are Jews, a fact which is no obstacle to her dedication. ``To me it doesn't matter what race or religion you are,'' she said. ``If you are hungry or homeless, I see your need.'' A social worker for more than 25 years, Ebron, 48, grew up in Harlem, the eldest of seven children raised by a single mother. She attended Washington Irving High School in Gramercy, which was an all-girls school at the time. After graduating, she started working at Heights Senior Citizens' Center, where her responsibilities entailed escorting elderly people to the bank and helping them with financial transactions. That was during the '70s, before direct deposit, when older people carrying social security checks were frequently targets for thieves. That job was followed by a stint as an investigator for the mid-Bronx Senior Citizens' Council, a position that involved a large amount of what she describes as ``leg work'' to find elderly people in need. Met Council hired her in 1977 to work on a special project arranged by a donor. In that capacity, she made home visits to needy families, and reported what she observed to the benefactor, who then provided financial aid to the neediest cases. After a series of other jobs, five years ago, Met Council appointed Ebron director of crisis intervention services. A supervisor of six employees, she deals directly with clients, working to provide them with assistance from Met Council and a host of additional agencies. That assistance can take many forms, such as securing job training for a young immigrant, providing funds to prevent an elderly woman from being evicted, or arranging temporary nursing help for a woman who has just given birth to multiple children. About 65 percent of her clients are elderly, 25 percent are families and the rest are young single people, Ebron said. As an African-American woman serving the needs of a mostly Jewish population Ebron has encountered resistance on both sides of the racial and religious divide. ``I've been asked, `How come a black woman is in charge of Jewish money?' '' said Ebron, adding that she responds, `` `Does it matter what I look like? What matters is I'm able to serve you to help you overcome your problem.' '' Similarly, she said, African American colleagues have questioned her choice to work for a Jewish agency. ``I'll say to them, `My clients are Jewish. Well, I didn't know. I was so focused on the fact that they're people who need my help.' Usually when I answer that way there's no problem, no fight . . . It seems my calling is above all of that.'' Ebron, who is single and describes herself as ``married to [her] job,'' said she is gratified to work for an agency which began modestly and has since launched an array of life- and hope-sustaining programs. ``After 21 years I feel I made the right choice,'' she said.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Fairness for Legal Immigrants Act of 1999, a bill to restore to legal immigrants eligibility for a number of safety net benefits denied to them by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. I am glad to be joined by my colleagues Senators Graham, Kennedy, Durbin, Feinstein, Wellstone, and Leahy. The provisions of the 1996 law concerning legal immigrants were based on the false premise that such immigrants are a burden to us all. On the contrary. A recent comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that immigration actually benefits the U.S. economy. In fact, the study found that the average legal immigrant contributes $1,800 more in taxes than he or she receives in government benefits. Many Americans may not realize this, but legal immigrants pay income and payroll taxes. And without continued legal immigration, the long- term financial condition of Social Security and Medicare would be worsened. It is in our interest to see that these immigrant families have healthy children, enough to eat, and support if they become disabled. And it is not merely wise, it is just. These immigrants have come here under the rules we have established and they have abided by those rules. If harm should befall them, it is right to extend a hand. The Fairness for Legal Immigrants Act contains several provisions. First, it would permit states to provide Medicaid coverage to poor legal immigrant pregnant women and children, as well as coverage under the new Child Health insurance program (CHIP) for legal immigrant children, whenever they arrive in the United States. Under current law, states are not allowed to extend such health care coverage--which is so important for the development of healthy children--to families who have come to the U.S. after August 22, 1996, until the families have been here for five years. Five years is a very long time in the life of a child. It is common knowledge, emphasized by recent research, that access to health care is essential for early childhood development. We should, at a minimum, permit states to extend coverage to all poor legal immigrant children, no matter when they have arrived here. This builds upon our recent achievements in promoting health care for children--legal immigrant children should not be neglected in these efforts. The bill also permits states to restore Medicaid coverage to certain legal immigrants in nursing homes. These individuals would be eligible for states' ``medically needy'' Medicaid coverage if they were citizens, having ``spent down'' their income and assets in nursing homes to the point of destitution. Several states continue to pay nursing homes for these frail seniors without federal support. We should do our share to care for them. Next, the bill restores Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility for legal immigrants who have come to the U.S. after August 22, 1996, and have since then, unfortunately, become disabled. While it would be preferable to restore full SSI eligibility for these legal immigrants, at this time we propose only that the disabled be again eligible for SSI, because they are the population most in need. A modicum of a safety net. We have made great strides in assisting the disabled in this country in recent years. We should not then, deliberately, refuse aid to individuals who have come to our nation lawfully and then suffered a disability. The bill also completes the process, begun in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, of restoring SSI eligibility to elderly pre-1996 legal immigrants. Fourth, since the 1996 welfare law was enacted we have been successful in restoring a limited amount of food stamp eligibility for the most vulnerable legal immigrants--children, the disabled, the elderly. A Physicians for Human Rights survey in 1998 found that almost 80 percent of immigrant households suffered from limited or uncertain availability of nutritious foods, and that immigrant households reported ``severe hunger'' at a rate more than 10 times that of the general population. While this survey was conducted before the limited restoration of food stamp eligibility in 1998, it suggests the magnitude of the hunger problem among legal immigrants. We need to do more, and this bill restores food stamp eligibility to all legal immigrants who were in the U.S. prior to the 1996 enactment of the welfare law. Finally, there is another vulnerable immigrant population for which we need to do more: victims of domestic violence. The 1996 welfare law put severe limits on the assistance which can be provided to non- citizens suffering from domestic abuse, particularly if they came to the U.S. after August 22, 1996. This legislation will expand the circumstances under which immigrant victims of domestic violence are eligible for Medicaid and TANF assistance, and restores eligibility for food stamps and SSI. These programs provide essential resources to break the economic dependence on a violent relationship. It also ensures that elderly legal immigrants who are abused by their children can obtain access to these benefits as well. Mr. President, simple decency requires us to continue to provide a measure of a safety net to legal immigrant families. I urge the enactment of this legislation to ensure that we do so. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the legislation and a summary of it be included in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Fairness for Legal Immigrants Act of 1999, a bill to restore to legal immigrants eligibility for a number of safety net benefits denied to them by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. I am glad to be joined by my colleagues Senators Graham, Kennedy, Durbin, Feinstein, Wellstone, and Leahy. The provisions of the 1996 law concerning legal immigrants were based on the false premise that such immigrants are a burden to us all. On the contrary. A recent comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that immigration actually benefits the U.S. economy. In fact, the study found that the average legal immigrant contributes $1,800 more in taxes than he or she receives in government benefits. Many Americans may not realize this, but legal immigrants pay income and payroll taxes. And without continued legal immigration, the long- term financial condition of Social Security and Medicare would be worsened. It is in our interest to see that these immigrant families have healthy children, enough to eat, and support if they become disabled. And it is not merely wise, it is just. These immigrants have come here under the rules we have established and they have abided by those rules. If harm should befall them, it is right to extend a hand. The Fairness for Legal Immigrants Act contains several provisions. First, it would permit states to provide Medicaid coverage to poor legal immigrant pregnant women and children, as well as coverage under the new Child Health insurance program (CHIP) for legal immigrant children, whenever they arrive in the United States. Under current law, states are not allowed to extend such health care coverage--which is so important for the development of healthy children--to families who have come to the U.S. after August 22, 1996, until the families have been here for five years. Five years is a very long time in the life of a child. It is common knowledge, emphasized by recent research, that access to health care is essential for early childhood development. We should, at a minimum, permit states to extend coverage to all poor legal immigrant children, no matter when they have arrived here. This builds upon our recent achievements in promoting health care for children--legal immigrant children should not be neglected in these efforts. The bill also permits states to restore Medicaid coverage to certain legal immigrants in nursing homes. These individuals would be eligible for states' ``medically needy'' Medicaid coverage if they were citizens, having ``spent down'' their income and assets in nursing homes to the point of destitution. Several states continue to pay nursing homes for these frail seniors without federal support. We should do our share to care for them. Next, the bill restores Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility for legal immigrants who have come to the U.S. after August 22, 1996, and have since then, unfortunately, become disabled. While it would be preferable to restore full SSI eligibility for these legal immigrants, at this time we propose only that the disabled be again eligible for SSI, because they are the population most in need. A modicum of a safety net. We have made great strides in assisting the disabled in this country in recent years. We should not then, deliberately, refuse aid to individuals who have come to our nation lawfully and then suffered a disability. The bill also completes the process, begun in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, of restoring SSI eligibility to elderly pre-1996 legal immigrants. Fourth, since the 1996 welfare law was enacted we have been successful in restoring a limited amount of food stamp eligibility for the most vulnerable legal immigrants--children, the disabled, the elderly. A Physicians for Human Rights survey in 1998 found that almost 80 percent of immigrant households suffered from limited or uncertain availability of nutritious foods, and that immigrant households reported ``severe hunger'' at a rate more than 10 times that of the general population. While this survey was conducted before the limited restoration of food stamp eligibility in 1998, it suggests the magnitude of the hunger problem among legal immigrants. We need to do more, and this bill restores food stamp eligibility to all legal immigrants who were in the U.S. prior to the 1996 enactment of the welfare law. Finally, there is another vulnerable immigrant population for which we need to do more: victims of domestic violence. The 1996 welfare law put severe limits on the assistance which can be provided to non- citizens suffering from domestic abuse, particularly if they came to the U.S. after August 22, 1996. This legislation will expand the circumstances under which immigrant victims of domestic violence are eligible for Medicaid and TANF assistance, and restores eligibility for food stamps and SSI. These programs provide essential resources to break the economic dependence on a violent relationship. It also ensures that elderly legal immigrants who are abused by their children can obtain access to these benefits as well. Mr. President, simple decency requires us to continue to provide a measure of a safety net to legal immigrant families. I urge the enactment of this legislation to ensure that we do so. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the legislation and a summary of it be included in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I wish to have printed in the Record the final portion of Mark A. Bradley's award winning article on the disappearance of the U.S.S. Scorpion. I have had the previous two parts of this article printed in the last two Records. I would like to applaud Mr. Bradley once more for his outstanding achievements, and thank him for serving as a loyal and valued member of my staff. The material follows: Submiss: The Mysterious Death of the U.S.S. ``SCORPION'' (SSN 589), Part III (By Mark A. Bradley) Such dire predictions prompted Admiral David McDonald, then Chief of Naval Operations, to follow Admiral Schade's request and approve the development and testing of the experimental ``Planned or Reduced Availability'' overhaul concept in the submarine fleet. In a June 17, 1966, message to the commanders of both the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets, he wrote that in response to ``concerns about [the] percent [of] SSN off-line time due to length of shipyard overhauls, [I have] requested NAVSHIPS develop [a] program to test `Planned Availability' concept with U.S.S. Scorpion (SSN 589) and U.S.S. Tinosa (SSN 606). On July 20, 1966, he officially approved the Scorpion's participation in this program which aimed at providing the service's submarines with shorter and cheaper but more frequent overhauls between missions. An undated and unsigned confidential memorandum entitled ``Submarine Safety Program Status Report'' summarizes what lay behind the creation of this new concept: ``The deferral of SUBSAFE certification work during certain submarine overhauls was necessitated by the need to reduce submarine off-line time by minimizing the time spent in overhaul and to achieve a more timely delivery of submarines under construction by making more of the industrial capacity available to new construction.'' Admiral Moorer, who succeeded Admiral McDonald as CNO, expanded upon what he hoped this new plan would accomplish in a September 6, 1967, letter to Congressman William Bates. In that letter, he stated that ``it is the policy of the Navy to provide submarines that have been delivered without certification with safety certification modifications during regular overhauls. However, urgent operational commitments sometimes dictate that some items of the full safety certification package be deferred until a subsequent overhaul in order to reduce the time spent in overhaul, thus shortening off-line time and increasing operational availability. In these cases, a minimum package of submarine safety work items is authorized which provides enhanced safety but results in certification for unrestricted operations to a depth shallower than the designed test depth.'' According to an April 5, 1968 confidential memorandum, the Navy did not expect the Scorpion to be fully certified under SUBSAFE until 1974, six years after she was lost. On February 1, 1967, the Scorpion entered the Norfolk yard and began her ``Reduced Availability'' overhaul. By the time she sailed out on October 6, she had received the cheapest submarine overhaul in United States Navy history. Originally scheduled for more extensive reconditioning, the Scorpion was further hurt by manpower and material shortages in the yard because of the overhaul of the U.S.S. Skate (SSN 578), Norfolk's first of a nuclear submarine. This retrofit had gobbled up both workmen and resources at an unprecedented rate. This meant that a submarine tender--a maintenance ship--and the Scorpion's own crew had to perform most of the work normally done by yard workers. She received little more than the emergency repairs required to get her back to sea and the refueling of her reactor. Out of the $3.2 million spent on her during these eight months, $2.3 million went into refueling and altering her nuclear reactor. A standard submarine overhaul of this era lasted almost two years and cost over $20 million. When the Scorpion left Norfolk on February 15, 1968, on her Mediterranean deployment she was a last minute replacement for the U.S.S. Sea Wolf (SSN 575), which had collided with another vessel in Boston Harbor. During her last deployment, the Scorpion had 109 work orders still unfilled--one was for a new trash disposal unit latch--and she still lacked a working emergency blow system and decentralized emergency sea water shutoff valves. She also suffered from chronic problems in her hydraulics. This system operated both her stern and sail planes, wing-like structures that controlled her movement. This problem came to the forefront in early and mid-November 1967 during the Scorpion test voyage to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as she began violently to corkscrew in the water. Although she was put back in dry dock, this problem remained unsolved. On February 16, 1968, she lost over 1,500 gallons of oil from her conning tower as she sailed out of Hampton Roads toward the Mediterranean. By that time, she was called ``U.S.S. Scrapiron'' by many of her crew. On May 23, 1993, the Houston Chronicle published an article that highlighted these mechanical problems. The article quoted from letters mailed home from doomed crew members who complained about these deficiencies. In one of these, Machinist's Mate Second Class David Burton Stone wrote that the crew had repaired, replaced or jury- rigged every piece of the Scorpion equipment. Commander Slattery also was worried about her mechanical reliability. On March 23, 1968, he drafted an emergency request for repairs that warned, among other things, that ``the hull was in a very poor state of preservation''--the Scorpion had been forced to undergo an emergency drydocking in New London immediately after her reduced overhaul because of this--and bluntly stated that ``[d]elay of the work an additional year could seriously jeopardize the Scorpion material readiness.'' He was particularly concerned about a series of leaking valves that caused the Scorpion to be restricted to an operating depth of just 300 feet, 200 less than SUBSAFE restrictions and 400 less than her pre-Thresher standards. This portrait is sharply at odds with the one the Navy painted after the Scorpion was lost. From the outset, the service claimed the submarine was in excellent mechanical condition. At his first press conference on May 27, 1968, Admiral Moorer told the gathered newsmen that the Scorpion had not reported any mechanical problems and that she was not headed home for any repairs. This was followed by other Navy statements that claimed the Scorpion suffered only from a minor hydraulic leak and scarred linoleum on her deck before her Mediterranean deployment. On May 29, however, then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford pointedly asked the Navy's high command for information about the Scorpion's participation in SUBSAFE, her overhaul status in general and any known mechanical deficiencies. The Court of Inquiry did not ignore these questions and asked several of its witnesses what they knew about the Scorpion's mechanical condition and her maintenance history. Vice Admiral Schade told the Court that her overall condition was above average and that her problems were normal reoccurring maintenance items. He added that the Scorpion suffered from no known material problems that affected her ability to operate effectively. Schade's testimony was supported by Captain C.N. Mitchell, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics and Management and a member of the Vice Admiral's staff. Mitchell testified about the Scorpion's Reduced Availability overhaul and stated that she was in ``good material condition.'' Captain Jared E. Clarke, III, the commander of Submarine Squadron 6, also told the Court the Scorpion was sound and ``combat ready.'' In his testimony he said, ``I know of nothing about her material condition upon her departure for the Mediterranean that in any way represented an unsafe condition.'' When asked about the Scorpion's lack of an operable emergency blow system, Clarke replied that this was not a concern because her other blow systems were more than adequate to meet the depth restrictions she was operating under. Admiral Austin also summoned the two surviving crew members the Scorpion had offloaded for medical and family reasons on the night of May 16, 1968. When asked about any material problems, crewman Joseph W. Underwood told the Court that he knew of no deficiencies other than ``a couple of hydraulic problems.'' Similarly, crewman Bill G. Elrod testified the submarine was operating smoothly with high morale. When asked to speculate on what did happen, Elrod could not. After hearing all this testimony, the Court determined that the Scorpion's loss had nothing to do with her lack of a full SUBSAFE package and that both here ability to overcome flooding and her material condition were ``excellent.'' Although at least one of the dead crewmen's families sent their son's letters spelling out the Scorpion's poor state of repair to the Navy, there is no evidence the Court ever received or considered them. Whatever the truth, the Scorpion's loss triggered neither the klieg lights of the national media nor the congressional investigations that followed the Thresher's demise. Lost somewhere in the murky twilight among the North Koreans' seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo and the Tet offensive that January and the assassinations of Martin Luther King that April and Robert Kennedy that June, the Scorpion's death failed to arouse much interest in a nation whose streets were on fire and whose very fiber was being ripped apart by an increasingly unpopular and bloody war in Vietnam. With phrases like ``body count'' and acronyms like ``MIA'' and ``KIA'' becoming part of the national vernacular, the loss of one nuclear submarine and her crew of 99 men hardly made a ripple. The Navy added to the country's amnesia by conducting its inquiries under a cloak of extraordinary secrecy. Even now, much about the Scorpion's fate remains highly classified and beyond the public's reach, and the crew's 64 windows and over 100 children know little more today about what happened to their husbands and fathers than they did 30 years ago. This gap between what is known and what is not has spawned many conspiracy theories. The most popular is that the Soviets finished the Scorpion in an underwater dogfight. This theory had some credibility after the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested master spy John Walker on May 20, 1985. Walker, a U.S. Navy warrant officer and the leader of a Soviet-sponsored spy right for almost 20 years, did enormous damage to America's security by giving his KGB masters many of the Navy's most closely guarded secrets. On May 20, 1968, he was working as a watch officer in the Navy's closely guarded submarine message center in Norfolk. Although there is evidence to believe that Walker gave the Soviets intelligence about the Atlantic Submarine Force, particularly about its coded communications, there is nothing to suggest that he played any direct in the Scorpion's demise. He appears to have played a much more important role when he passed on to his Russian handlers much of the top secret traffic that came through the message center immediately after the submarine was reported lost. This highly classified information included how the Navy conducted its search, what the U.S. intelligence community knew about the Soviet vessels operating off the Canary Islands, what part SOSUS had played in detecting the disaster and what the service's main theories were for the Scorpion's loss. While it is tempting to blame the Soviets and Walker for this disaster, the probable truth is far different but no less disturbing. Although the theory of a weapons accident on board the Scorpion has officially never been discounted, the physical evidence does not seem to support it. None of the thousands of photographs taken of the wreckage show any torpedo damage nor does the Scorpion's approximately 3,000 feet by 1,800 feet debris field contain any items from her torpedo room as would be expected if that area had suffered a major explosion. All the debris is from her operations center, the locus of her galley and above her huge battery. The more likely cause of the Scorpion's death lies in the Navy's failure to absorb the lessons learned from the Thresher. Hyman Rickover, the father of the Navy's nuclear program, warned after that disaster that another would occur if the service did not correct the inadequate design, poor fabrication methods and inadequate inspections that caused it. Through SUBSAFE, the Navy instituted a program to correct these and maintain and build a nuclear submarine fleet that was both safe and effective. Unfortunately, the strains of competing with the Soviets in the Cold War while fighting an actual one in Vietnam derailed this concept and forced the service to look for ways to decrease the off-line time of the submarines it already had while freeing its already choked yards to build more. The Reduced Availability concept arose from these pressures and allowed the Navy to defer what the Thresher taught could not be delayed. Through an accident of timing, the Scorpion was the first nuclear submarine chosen for this program. She was selected because her next regulatory scheduled overhaul was predicted to set a record in duration, and the Navy's high command believed that the work she received during her 1963-1964 reconditioning in Charleston provided enough of a safety margin to see her through until her next overhauls. She also was chosen because her 1967 overhaul came due during a time when the service was feeling enormous pressure to compete with the Soviets and reduce the amount of time its submarines and yards were tied up with safety retrofits. Rushed to the Mediterranean after the cheapest overhaul in U.S. nuclear submarine history and lacking full SUBSAFE certification, the Scorpion's mechanical condition and safety capabilities were far from what the Navy advertised. A trash disposal unit flood could have set into train a deadly chain of events that triggered a succession of material and systemic failures in an already weakened submarine that left her unable to recover. Although the Court doubted that a hydrogen gas explosion from the Scorpion's battery could have generated enough force to rupture her hull, it did not consider its exploding after being swamped with cold sea water from uncontrollable flooding and filling her with deadly chlorine gas. Even under the best of circumstances, the submarine force was a dangerous place to serve in the 1960s. Its sailors and officers often were engaged in extremely hazardous missions in warships that were like no others that had come before them. With far greater speeds, diving capabilities and complex operating systems, nuclear submarines required far greater care in their construction and maintenance than their diesel predecessors. This was the key lesson from the Thresher and if may well have taken the loss of the Scorpion finally to hammer home this point to the Navy's high command. After this tragedy, the Navy quietly dropped the Reduced Availability concept. In a May 21, 1995, article published by the Houston Chronicle, the Naval Sea Systems Command stated that it had no record of any such maintenance program. The reason for this may lie in a March 25, 1966, confidential memorandum from the Submarine Force: [The] ``success of this `major-minor' overhaul concept depends essentially on the results of our first case at hand: Scorpion.'' Although the cause of her death is still officially listed as unknown, the United States has never lost another nuclear submarine. a note on sources In the 30 years since the Scorpion's loss, not one book has been written on her. The only newspaper articles written about her are eight by Ed Offley for the Virginian-Pilot & Ledger-Star and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and four written by Stephen Johnson for the Houston Chronicle. The most important primary sources are the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry Record of Proceedings and the Supplementary Record of Proceedings. In addition, the Naval Historical Center has over 11 boxes of Scorpion material currently available to researchers and expects to have more as already declassified material is cataloged. These boxes include the sanitized testimony of many of the witnesses who appeared before the two courts of inquiry. Although the Chief of Naval Operations currently is considering releasing more of the Navy's Scorpion material, much still remains beyond the reach of researchers and the Freedom of Information Act. On December 19, 1997, the Navy denied my attempt to get copies of the first Court of Inquiry's Annex. Those documents still retain their top secret rating and are withheld because ``of information that is classified in the interest of national defense and foreign policy.'' The most useful books for this article have been the following: On submarines, Modern Submarine Warfare by David Miller and John Jordan, New York: Military Press (1987); Jane's Pocket Book of Submarine Development, ed. By John Moore, New York: MacMillan (1976); The American Submarine by Norman Polmar, Annapolis: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co., (1981); and Nuclear Navy 1946-1962 by Richard Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (1974). On intelligence matters, Jeffrey Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Cambridge: Ballenger Publishing Company (1989) and Pete Early, Family of Spies, New York: Bantam Books (1988). Stephen Johnson, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, was the first to concentrate on the Scorpion's maintenance and overhaul history and was very generous with both his time and research. Vice Admiral Robert F. Fountain (Ret), a former executive officer on the Scorpion, very kindly consented to an interview as did Rear Admiral Hank McKinney (Ret), the former commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Submarine Force. In May 1998, the Chief of Naval Operations declassified a 1970 study undertaken by a specially appointed Structural Analysis Group that pointed to a battery casualty as the most likely cause for the Scorpion's loss.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Senator Schumer and I have offered this amendment to strike Sec. 314 of S. Con. Res. 20, the Fiscal Year 2000 budget resolution. Sec. 314 expresses the Sense of the Senate that Governors Island will be sold during Fiscal Year 2000. The underlying assumption is that it will be sold for $500 million. Another assumption--not stated in Sec. 314--is that the $500 million will be used as an off-set to help pay for Federal crop insurance reform. At the outset, I must say that I support crop insurance reform. Our farmers are the most productive in the world. I wonder, from time to time, if we appreciate just how affordable--and plentiful--food is in this country. If crop insurance reform will help our farmers to weather natural disasters and low commodity prices, I'm for it. But I have a serious problem with using the sale of Governors Island to pay for it for two reasons. The first is based on principle; the second, on practicality. There is a question of fairness here. Governors Island was part of New York before the United States existed. In 1800, New York State rather magnanimously gave jurisdiction--but not title--over Governors Island to the Federal government. Then, New York spent its own monies to construct Fort Jay and other harbor fortifications and batteries, such as Castle Clinton and Castle William. These fortifications successfully deterred the British from attempting to enter New York Harbor during the War of 1812. Governors Island has served our nation well. It is the site, after all, where Operation Overlord was planned fifty-five years ago. On June 18, 1958, a Federal district court determined that the Federal government needed to take title to the Island and awarded New York one dollar as ``just compensation''. Since then, the Army moved out, and the Island's most recent tenant, the Coast Guard, left in 1997. Now, the 173-acre island sits vacant in New York Harbor. On October 22, 1995, President Clinton invited me to join him at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' General Assembly. On the helicopter flight from Kennedy Airport we flew over the Lower Harbor; I pointed out Castle William, Fort Jay, and some other fortifications and buildings, starting with Cornbury's Queen Anne mansion built in 1708. I noted that the Coast Guard was about to leave and that, presumedly, all would agree that the Island should revert to New York. President Clinton said that was fine with him, providing it would be used for public purposes. I demurred somewhat--that would involve a whole lot of public purpose--but accepted the offer. We left it there with sufficient accord. Governors Island belonged to New York. New York lent it to the Federal government. Now that the Federal government is no longer using it, New York should get it back, for no more than a nominal sum. Unfortunately, and rather to my surprise, when President Clinton submitted his Fiscal Year 1998 budget request, he proposed selling Governors Island in Fiscal Year 2002 for $500 million. Congress seized on the idea--so much so, in fact, that we have ``sold'' Governors Island a couple of times already! Now Members propose that we sell Governors Island, in Fiscal Year 2000, to pay for crop insurance reform. Even if we put principle and fairness aside, there are real practical problems with this proposal. I guess the first is that there are no buyers. None. Certainly not at the asking price. We don't know how the Island will be zoned. There is no regular ferry service. It costs about $12 million to $15 million each year just to maintain the buildings, many of which are historic. Back in 1997, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated fair market value to be between $250 million and $1.0 billion. That's a pretty big range. There was no appraisal. Any appraisal would be highly speculative since the impact of zoning decisions and ultimate disposal of the Island remain unknown. Moreover, I do not believe that any CBO officials ever contacted anyone at the General Services Administration (GSA) who would be, perhaps, more knowledgeable about what sort of price the Island might fetch. I can tell you this: New York State, or New York City, won't pay a dime more than a dollar. So, in this instance, the CBO estimate is highly suspect. The site is magnificent, but it will be a considerable achievement to combine some public and private uses that preserve the historic portion of the Island. The combination eludes us still. In the meantime, we could lose it all if it should go unused for a few more New York winters. So I repeat what I said at the outset: I am for crop insurance reform. But Governors Island won't pay for it, because the Island will not be sold for $500 million next year. It won't be sold for any price because there are no buyers. We haven't figured out what to do with it yet. Governors Island belonged to New York, and New York ought to have it back. It is, at the same time, a national treasure for the historic value of its fortifications, buildings, and what has taken place there. I hope that Congress, and the Administration, will stop this tiresome tendency of ``selling'' it whenever some other program or initiative-- laudable, I'm sure--needs an off-set. I thank the Senator from New Mexico (Senator Domenici) and the Senator from New Jersey (Senator Lautenberg) for their willingness to accept the amendment Senator Schumer and I have offered to strike Sec. 314 from S. Con. Res. 20. governors island and the federal budget

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce, along with my colleague, Senator Bingaman, a bill that will encourage people receiving public assistance to seek work next year as enumerators for the 2000 census. In the previous census over 350,000 people went from door to door seeking information about those who did not return the census forms they received in the mail. In spite of the best efforts of this army of enumerators, some eight million people were not counted, and a disproportionate number of them were minorities. The Bureau of the Census is going to great lengths to improve on the 1990 count, but finding the tens of millions of people who do not return their forms is an enormous undertaking. We know that many of those who must be sought out live in the low income areas of our cities, and many others are among the rural poor. This bill would allow those receiving financial assistance under any federal program, TANF and others, to be employed as enumerators during calendar year 2000 without having their income count against their eligibility for benefits from those programs. The bill further allows these enumerators to have their employment count towards eligibility for Social Security, Medicare, and other benefit programs. Mr. President, encouraging those who live in the low income areas of our population to serve as enumerators will help to open the doors of their neighbors and those who live nearby. It will help count more of those most difficult to count. And it will provide employment to those who may not be able to find it for various reasons that include lack of transportation to far-off jobs. This bill will help produce a more accurate census and provide employment to those most in need of it. It is a most worthwhile piece of legislation and I encourage my colleagues to support it. I also ask that the text of the bill be included in the Record. The bill follows:

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, at the request of the Administration, I ask unanimous consent that a letter received today from Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky be printed in the Record. The letter follows: Secretary of Commerce, Washington, DC, March 25, 1999. Hon. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ranking Member, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Moynihan: Following up on our testimony at Tuesday's Senate Finance hearing on steel issues, we wanted to apprise you of the most recent developments in our steel policy and the effect on the steel industry. The President and the Vice President are deeply concerned about the impact on our steelworkers, communities, and companies of the recent surge in steel imports, and they are fully and actively committed to effectively addressing it. They are determined to maintain the United States' strong manufacturing base and the good jobs it provides by ensuring that our trading partners play by the rules governing international trade. This Administration has implemented a comprehensive strategy that combines full and timely enforcement of our trade laws, expedited administrative action, and intensified engagement with major foreign steel producing nations to address unfair trade practices injuring our steel industry and its workers. The import numbers for the past three months demonstrate clearly that our strategy is producing results. The preliminary data for February, released earlier today by the Commerce Department, show that total steel imports in February were 45 percent below November 1998 levels--and reached the second lowest monthly level since April 1996. Imports of hot-rolled steel have dropped 81 percent since November. We will work to sustain the positive trends of the past three months are sustained. Our strategy has focused on Japan, Russia, and Korea, which together accounted for 80 percent of the surge in steel imports last year. Through strong public and private statements by the President and other senior Administration officials, we have put Japan on notice that we expect its imports to reach pre-crisis levels, or we stand ready to take appropriate action under our trade laws, including self- initiation of trade cases. We have, in addition, negotiated agreements with Russia that will reduce our overall steel imports from Russia by almost 70 percent, and hot-rolled steel imports from Russia by almost 90 percent this year. We have sought firm commitments from Korea to ensure that its steel industry is fully privatized and placed on a market footing, including through the elimination of improper subsidies. The declines in imports from these countries since November have been dramatic. Hot-rolled exports from Russia fell from over 600,000 metric tons in November to roughly ten tons in February--a nearly 100 percent decline. Imports of hot-rolled steel from Japan fell in that period from over 400,000 tons to less than 5000 tons--a nearly 99 percent drop. Hot- rolled imports from Korea dropped 35 percent since November, while total steel imports from Korea are down 17 percent. And total steel imports from Brazil, which, along with those from Russia and Japan, are subject to an ongoing antidumping investigation, have dropped 64 percent since November. The Department of Commerce has taken forceful steps to eliminate dumping, including issuing critical circumstances determinations only 45 days after initiating dumping investigations on hot-rolled steel, a policy that could result in retroactive application of dumping duties back to last November. Last month, following an expedited investigation, Commerce announced--a full month ahead of the usual time schedule--preliminary determinations that exporters in Japan, Russia and Brazil have dumped hot-rolled steel into our market. The Commerce Department is currently enforcing more than 100 antidumping and countervailing duty orders and suspension agreements on steel products and is currently conducting 45 new steel investigations. We will continue to closely monitor steel imports, and--in an unprecedented new policy--have made preliminary steel import statistics available to the public up to 25 days earlier than under past practice. This will help the Administration, industry, and workers identify and respond to import trends more quickly. At the same time, last year's import surge demonstrated that we need to look closely at our trade laws to ensure that they deliver strong, effective relief in an expeditious manner, while remaining consistent with our international trade obligations. We believe the legislation introduced in the House by Congressman Levin and Houghton constitutes a constructive approach, and we stand ready to work with Members of Congress to develop a bill we can recommend that the President sign. In contrast, we strongly oppose legislation mandating quotas because it would constitute a violation of our international obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and would not be in our nation's economic interest. We are the world's largest exporter, and our firms and workers benefit tremendously from the international trading rules we helped put into place. Quotas or other import restraints imposed outside of WTO-consistent processes contained our trade laws (such as through our ``section 201'' safeguards law or antidumping and countervailing duty laws) violate our international trade obligations. Such quotas or import restraints would not be based on a determination of whether the imports are causing or threatening serious injury, or whether unfair trade or subsidization is involved, as required by the WTO and our laws. Our current trade laws allow U.S. industry and workers to seek such determinations, based upon which we can impose quotas or other trade remedies consistent with our international trade obligations. In addition, when the procedures provided by our trade laws are followed, we can take into account the full range of U.S. industry and worker concerns and fashion remedies that do not result in additional market distortions, import shortages, excessive price hikes or retaliation that could harm U.S. export industries and customers. This Administration firmly believes that the best way to address unfair trade practices or import surges is through vigorous and timely enforcement and use of strong U.S. trade laws that are consistent with our international obligations, and we and our colleagues stand ready to work with you to ensure that objective is fully realized. Sincerely, William M. Daley, Secretary of Commerce. Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. Trade Representative.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to support the Comprehensive Border Protection Act, a bill that addresses the urgent need for increased Customs inspectors and technology along the U.S.- Canadian border. Every day, the U.S. Customs Service must meet the dual challenges of enforcing our trade laws and easing the flow of goods across our borders. Customs carries out this mission at 83 ports-of-entry along the U.S.-Canada border, the world's longest undefended border--some 5,500 miles. The resources, however, that we have provided to the Customs Service to process traffic and trade across this border are woefully deficient. In a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in September 1998, we learned that the current number of authorized Customs inspectors working on the northern border remains essentially the same as it was in 1980, despite the fact that the number of commercial entries they must process has increased sixfold since then, from 1 million to 6 million per year. The increased workload reflects of course the tremendous growth in U.S.-Canada trade: two-way trade in 1988, the year before the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement entered into force, was $194 billion. In 1998, our two-way merchandise trade with Canada reached $331 billion, nearly $1 billion a day. Over one-quarter of our total imports from Canada enter the U.S. through three New York ports- of-entry--Buffalo, Champlain, and Alexandria Bay. This bill aims to correct these problems by authorizing the additional people and technology necessary to handle the increase in trade and traffic between the United States and Canada. In particular, this bill authorizes 375 additional ``primary lane'' inspectors and 125 new cargo inspectors for the northern border, as well as 40 special agents and 10 intelligence agents. The bill also authorizes $26.58 million for equipment and technology for the northern border. The resources available to the Customs Service over the last decade have simply not kept pace with this enormous growth in workload. As trade continues to grow, the day will come when our ports simply will not be able to bear that load, unless we ensure that adequate staffing and equipment are in place.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank my good friend from Texas. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment of my friend from North Dakota, Senator Conrad. He proposes a budget point of order against the use of the Social Security surplus for new spending or tax cuts. He would also devote 15 percent of the unified surplus to Medicare. There is broad agreement in the Senate that the Social Security surplus must be protected. Senator Conrad's approach, in my view, is the right one, unlike a competing proposal under discussion. That proposal would create a new declining debt ceiling on debt held by the public. Inadvertently, but inevitably, it would jeopardize the credit of the United States by hampering the ability of the Treasury to meet the obligations of the Government, absent any financial crisis, but merely as a mechanical result of a bill. Happily, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not brought the proposal to the floor yet, but the budget resolution includes ``advisory levels'' for such a new debt limit, and the Committee Report states that ``it is assumed that separate and apart from the budget resolution a statute will be enacted to enforce these levels.'' A simple explanation: We are going to buy down the debt. It is entirely correct that we should do so. However, anything can happen--a drought to the Midwest, a correction in the markets, a rise in the price of imported oil. In such an event, the revenues of the Government, although growing, will not have grown quite fast enough to have the debt being retired drop to the required level. In that circumstance, that perfectly prosperous economy, perfectly stable government, could find itself in default. We have shut down the U.S. Government any number of times in the course of our history. We have never defaulted on our debt. It is the most secure instrument in the world. There is no reason whatever to put it in jeopardy at a time when we are making it even more secure by bringing the debt down to normal levels. I hope we will not do that. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Yes.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Five minutes.