Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. April 28 or May 5.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Well, there will be the formal dedication. There will be, I believe, the National Symphony. There will be a musical. It will be a day-long event. And I hope people will find time for it. There is nothing like it that will have happened in our city--well, for those who do not know the history, the Federal Triangle was moving along very well. The crash came, and they stopped--boom--they just stopped. Now we have finished it. President Kennedy envisioned it. President Reagan made it possible. And we are naming it for President Reagan.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I would like to call to your attention a most momentous and joyful occasion. Theresa and Joseph Palmieri of Brooklyn, New York will celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary on January 31, 1998. Theresa and Joseph were wed at Saint Rosalie Catholic Church in Brooklyn, New York on January 31, 1948. The couple was introduced at a ``Welcome Home'' for Joseph after his return from service during World War II. Living and working on Long Island, New York for the past thirty-five years, the Palmieri family includes daughters Jo Ann and Theresa, sons Paul and Joseph, and seven grandchildren. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``till death do us part . . .'' seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. Mr. President, I ask that you join me, our colleagues, and the entire Palmieri family in recognizing the wonderful sense of achievement and happiness that marks the golden wedding anniversary of Joseph and Theresa Palmieri.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the members of the Jewish Community Council of Pelham Parkway in the Bronx recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of David Edelstein's tenure as their executive director. Twenty years ago the Bronx was a virtual, albeit not entirely appropriate, synonym for urban decay and middle-class flight. The Jewish Community Council of Pelham Parkway is one of the dynamic grassroots neighborhood groups that have helped bring about a dramatic change in this proud borough. Much of the credit for the council's success belongs to its indefatigable executive director. David Edelstein came to the Jewish Community Council of Pelham Parkway on September 7, 1977. He helped establish the council's programs of social service, community development, Jewish cultural enrichment, and civic improvement. He pioneered the creation of programs that led to the reinvestment of over $17 million in the neighborhood's multifamily housing stock and played a key role in the creation of programs that helped settle over 3,000 Soviet Jewish immigrants in the Pelham Parkway neighborhood. David's leadership has enabled the council to sponsor programs that assure the availability of Jewish education for all neighborhood youngsters. David established relationships with New York City's major Jewish organizations, helping to assure that needy families in Pelham Parkway could be helped with the resources available from those agencies. The council distributes over $25,000 in emergency and/or supplemental food to over 500 needy families every year. Hundreds of people have been helped with emergency home care, transportation for the homebound, eviction prevention, and other forms of emergency assistance. David has helped the Jewish Community Council become the unified voice of the Jewish community in the Pelham Parkway neighborhood. Working with the council's active board of directors and maintaining relationships with the police, medical centers, elected officials, and others whose decisions impact on the community's quality of life, David has worked to assure cooperation and consensus on issues of community concern. My childhood friend, the late distinguished New York State Senator Joseph Galiber worked closely with David Edelstein and was fond of noting the Jewish Community Council's many strengths and successes. I know I speak for all of my colleagues in the Senate when I congratulate David Edelstein and the Jewish Community Council of Pelham Parkway on two decades of inspired leadership.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a sense of the Senate resolution commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dorothy Day, a woman who embodies the very idea of service to others. I am pleased to be joined by Senators D'Amato, Wellstone, Levin, Dodd, Torricelli, Reed, Durbin, Mikulski, and Kennedy in paying tribute to her life. The life of Dorothy Day is central to modern Catholic social thought. Hers was a radical brand of discipleship, akin to what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as ``costly grace'' in The Cost of Discipleship. She lived a life of voluntary poverty and hardship, forsaking material comfort and opting to live among the poor whom she served. Just as Jesus befriended the tax collector and the prostitute, Dorothy Day embraced the drug addicted and the disenfranchised. She saw Christ in everyone--especially in the poor and the oppressed--and treated people accordingly. In short, she lived the Gospel. In 1933, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin joined to found the Catholic Worker Movement and the Catholic Worker newspaper ``to realize in the individual and society the express and implied teachings of Christ.'' That same year, they opened the first Catholic Worker Hospitality house, St. Joseph's House, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The country was, by then, in the throes of the Great Depression, a period of suffering unknown to this country before or since. Dorothy Day ministered to the physical and spiritual needs of the legions of poor who arrived on the doorstep at St. Joseph House. Today, some 64 years after its creation, the Catholic Worker Movement remains a vibrant legacy to her life. There are now more than 125 Catholic Worker ``Houses of Hospitality'' in the United States and around the world. Perhaps Dorothy Day's life was summed up best by those at the University of Notre Dame who bestowed the Laetare Medal upon her in 1972 for ``comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable virtually all of her life.'' Indeed she did and we are all the better for it. I ask unanimous consent that the text of a tribute by Patrick Jordan, who knew Dorothy Day from his days living at the Catholic Worker, from Commonweal and the text of the Resolution be printed into the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the German Government has long recognized its moral obligation to assist the survivors of the Holocaust. The landmark reparations agreements of the early 1950's between the West German Government and Jewish groups were predicated on this simple premise. Yet, as years go by, it has become increasingly apparent that a large number of survivors, particularly those living in Eastern and Central Europe, were excluded from these agreements and are now being denied assistance on the flimsiest of technical grounds. As a result, in July Senators Graham, Hatch, and Dodd joined me in introducing Senate Concurrent Resolution 39. I am pleased that the Senate will take up this important issue today. The need for such legislation was reinforced only last week. On November 5, Judge Heinz Sonnenberger in Germany upheld just 1 of 22 claims made by a group of Jewish women seeking payment for their work as slave laborers at Auschwitz. The other claims were dismissed by the judge on the grounds that the women had already received compensation under Germany's Federal Compensation Law. This decision represents the German Government's intractable attitude toward survivors of Nazi slave labor, however, it also presents a small window of hope for the survivors of slave labor who until now have been denied compensation by the German Government. The German Government has continually dealt with the survivors of Nazi persecution in a heartless, bureaucratic manner, basing its decisions on technical questions and eschewing a moral obligation to aid all survivors regardless of past compensation, current financial status, or amount of pain suffered. This practice stands in sharp contrast to the generous disability pensions paid by the German Government to former members of the Waffen-SS and their families. Until last year, when the German Supreme Court ruled that cases of compensation for slave labor could be taken up by the German courts, survivors of slave labor had been told that they should address their claims to the companies that used slave labor and not the German Government. Often companies had already paid a lump sum toward compensation and refused to hear further claims, while other companies, which had never paid claims, refused to pay them altogether. After 50 years of avoidance, it is time for the German Government to take the opportunity this ruling provides and address the issue of compensation to slave laborers head on. Judge Sonnenberger's ruling is the first time that a German court has awarded compensation to a survivor of slave labor to be paid by the German Government. The possibility that this ruling is a precedent may be a bright spot in this otherwise regrettable decision. Perhaps other survivors of slave labor, who have never received compensation from the German Government, will be emboldened by this ruling and bring their own cases forward. This progress is tempered by the rejection of the other 21 claims. In this regard, Judge Sonnenberger's decision carries on the German Government's practice of overlooking humanitarian considerations when judging compensation claims made by the survivors of Nazi persecution. In order to encourage a change in the German Government's position, Senate Concurrent Resolution 39 urges the German Government to expand and simplify its reparations system, to provide reparations to survivors in Eastern and Central Europe, and to set up a fund to help cover the medical expenses of Holocaust survivors. Although half a century has passed since the end of World War II, it is important to remember how many chapters opened by the devastating war remain unfinished. I hope this action will help bring the issue of reparations for survivors of Nazi persecution the fore, and encourage the German Government to make appropriate changes so that the elderly survivors of the Holocaust receive appropriate reparations.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as we approach the end of the 1st session of the 105th Congress, I would like to implore the Senate for one final time to consider the urgency of the year 2000 crisis. This matter has been much discussed and reported, but little action has taken place. In fact, the General Accounting Office last week released a report that the Social Security Administration, once thought to be at the fore of the solution, faces a possible crash of several crucial systems dealing with disability determination services. This report is indicative of the enormity of the problem facing the computer systems of the Federal Government. I introduced S. 22 on the first day of this session to establish a bipartisan national commission to handle this problem--as a civil defense task force would. Try as they might, officials at the Office of Management and Budget simply cannot address the enormity of the task at hand. Every few days I have attempted to keep my colleagues informed of the latest facets of the problem. On this last day of the first session let me add but one more twist to the immense but manageable problem. If only we would act. In the latest U.S. News and World Report, John Marks reports on the troublesome coincidence of converting to the new European currency at the time of the turn of the century. He writes: Even before it is introduced on January 1, 1999, the long awaited euro threatens to cost American business $30 billion or more to buy new software and recode old programs, as companies with interests on the other side of the Atlantic attempt to adapt to the new currency . . . the two problems would seem to be unrelated. But the coincidence in timing-- the millennium bug and the currency change arrive within a year of each other--has transformed them into a larger single crisis for many companies. Thus, international companies are forced to deal with two conversions in the next 2 years; and not surprisingly, experts predict there will be a drought in the supply of consultants who know how to do both. Again, U.S. News: Last year, after dire warnings of a technological disaster at the dawn of the new century, companies rushed to hire programmers to save the day. In doing so, they created a labor shortage at a critical moment. Work on both the millennium bug and the euro transition requires knowledge of outdated COBOL computer systems. So all of a sudden, most of the programmers who might be deployed to manage the transition to the euro already have day jobs. As I have mentioned before on this floor, we must also consider the conversion to the Euro and the labor shortage created over the next few years when we consider the size of the problem at hand. The year 2000 problem is now fairly well known; the need for action plainly clear. With the legislative year coming to a close, I am hopeful my colleagues will realize this fact in the restful period between now and January 27 and be eager to take action on my bill--S. 22 with 18 copsonsors--in the year to come. I ask that the article ``Latest Software Nightmare'' from the November 17, 1997, issue of U.S. News and World Report and ``Social Security Gets Year 2000 Warning'' from the November 5 Washington Post be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 17, 1997] Latest Software Nightmare--The Currency Change in Europe Could Cost U.S. Firms Billions (By John Marks) For the past year or so, American businesses have been forced to grapple with the ``millennium bug,'' a computer programming glitch that threatens to wipe out bank accounts, financial statements, and databases when the year 1999 becomes the year 2000. Now, companies must brace themselves for another daunting--very expensive--software-related problem, this one involving the new European currency known as the euro. Even before it is introduced on Jan. 1, 1999, the long- awaited euro threatens to cost American business $30 billion or more to buy new software and recode old programs, as companies with interests on the other side of the Atlantic attempt to adapt to the new currency. No later than Dec. 31, 1998, people doing business in Europe will have to rewrite their computer software to handle three different base currencies at once. The value of the euro will have to be determined on a daily basis by its relationship to both the dollar and other European currencies. In other words, every bill, every financial statement, and every stock price in the nine countries set to join what is known as the European Monetary Union will have to be ``triangulated.'' So far, says Sarwar Kashmeri, a corporate consultant specializing in the issue, no commercial software exists to make that calculation. ``We have been focusing very hard on the year- 2000 problem, but we've been missing the euro,'' says Gary Johnson, an American attorney specializing in European securities markets. The two problems would seem to be unrelated. But the coincidence in timing--the millennium bug and the currency change arrive within a year of each other--has transformed them into a larger, single crisis for many companies. The well-publicized millennium-bug problem was unwittinly created by computer programmers in the 1960s. In an effort to maximize scarce computer memory, programmers left the first two digits out of the year designation, so that 1997 reads merely ``97.'' Theoretically, when the year 2000 arrives, 90 percent of the world's computers will ``think'' it is 1900, creating all kinds of chaos. According to the cost conservative estimates, fixing the millennium bug will cost American business between $50 billion and $150 billion. Bug zapper Last year, after dire warnings of a technological disaster at the dawn of the new century, companies rushed to hire programmers to save the day. In doing so, they created a labor shortage at a critical moment. Work on both the millennium bug and the euro transition requires knowledge of outdated COBOL computer systems. So all of a sudden, most of the programmers who might be deployed to manage the transition to the euro already have day jobs. ``There is a tremendous shortage of those kinds of skill sets,'' confirms Chris Fell, an executive at International Data corp. Though the euro will be introduced in January 1999, it will not become the sole currency in Europe until July 1, 2002. On that date, all other currencies will be taken out of circulation. While a large part of the U.S. business community remains skeptical that Europe will pull off this monetary feat, many companies have begun to accept that it will. A few have begun to accept that it will. A few have begun to take steps. DuPont, which has a significant presence in Europe, has put together a team to prepare for the introduction of the currency. United Parcel Service has done the same. Both firms are looking into how to adapt their computer systems. The change to the euro will affect some companies more than others. For example, Bloomberg Financial Markets, the world's largest provider of financial information, will have to add the euro to 10 year's worth of records--everything from trading prices to financial statements. In a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Alliance Gaming Corp. announced that it would probably have to ``redesign new and, possibly, existing'' slot machines to accept new currencies. While the initial changeover to the euro may be a financial headache, the vast new market created by the currency is expected to be lucrative for American companies. And no matter what it costs businesses on this side of the Atlantic to adjust their information technologies, they can rest assured that their European counterparts will be out even more: The most recent estimate puts the price of converting to the euro at $70 billion for European businesses.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, December 15, 1997 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Order of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement. The Order was founded by Father Lewis T. Watson and Mother Lurana White in Garrison, New York with the goal of promoting Christian unity. The Friars and Sisters continue their mission work through the promotion of the Week of Christian Unity and the operation of ecumenical centers and libraries. Through the years, the Friars and Sisters of the Atonement have remained in Garrison where they now operate the Graymoor Ecumenical and Religious Institute. At Graymoor they publish a monthly magazine, Ecumenical Trends, and operate St. Christopher's Inn, a temporary shelter for homeless men, whom they refer to as ``Brothers Christopher'' or Christ Bearers. The influence and the good work of the Friars and Sisters extends well beyond the Hudson Highlands region of New York, reaching throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. They operate day care centers, Retreat Houses, Head Start programs, and shelters for battered wives and children. They minister to the poor, feed the hungry, and embrace the marginalized worldwide. Not only do they seek unity of the Christian community, but also unity of the human spirit and unity of the human community. True to their cause of Christian unity, they have dedicated their lives to the hope ``that all may be one. . .that the world may believe.'' I commend their single-heartedness and congratulate them on the occasion of their 100th anniversary.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 867, the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. This legislation promotes adoption and makes important reforms in foster care. It includes provisions drawn from two bills I co-sponsored earlier this year, S. 511 [the ``SAFE'' Act] and S. 1195 [the ``PASS'' Act]. We have been able to work out bipartisan legislation with two goals we all share-- ensuring the safety of children in the child welfare system, and finding permanent homes for as many children in foster care as possible. Children in the child welfare system, victims of abuse and neglect, are among the most vulnerable in our society. Just this week, in my own state, we learned of another tragic death, that of little Sabrina Green. Sabrina, nine years old, lived in the Bronx. After both her mother and her latest foster mother died, Sabrina went to live with her oldest sister, Yvette Green. After what appears to have been months of abuse--such as burning Sabrina's hand over a stove as punishment for taking food out of the refrigerator--she was found beaten to death. Her sister and her sister's boyfriend have been accused of this crime. We owe it to these abused and neglected children to do our best on their behalf. And I am encouraged that a group of our colleagues has worked together--on a bipartisan basis--to develop this legislation. I thank Senators Chafee, Rockefeller, Roth, Craig, Jeffords, Kerrey, Coats, DeWine, Landrieu, and the others who have played important roles in this effort. This bill clarifies that the health and safety of the child are to be the ``paramount'' concern when making the difficult decisions involved in the child welfare system and it contains several other ``safety first'' provisions, such as requiring criminal records checks for prospective adoptive and foster parents. The bill accelerates the process for determining the permanent placement for a child in foster care, so that children do not spend years bouncing among foster homes. H.R. 867 also promotes adoption by providing states with financial incentives to get children in foster care adopted, and by breaking down health insurance and geographic barriers to adoption. This legislation is an important step forward in our efforts to help abused and neglected children. I am proud to support it.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I would like to call to your attention a most momentous and joyful occasion. Rose Marie Pitman and John Lawrence Hughes will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on November 27, 1997. Rose Marie Pitman, daughter of Reine and Hugo Pitman, and John Lawrence Hughes, the son of Margaret and John Hughes, were wed at the Chapel of the Royal Hospital in London, England 50 years ago. Living and working for many years in New York City and Connecticut, the Hughes family includes sons Timothy and Ian, and daughter Sandra. In an era when nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of till death do us part seriously, demonstrating successfully the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity. Mr. President, I ask that you join me, our colleagues, and the entire Hughes family in recognizing the wonderful sense of achievement and happiness that marks the occasion of the Lawrence and Rose Hughes' golden wedding anniversary.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, there has been considerable discussion on the Senate floor in the last week in the matter of the fast-track legislation, as we refer to it, about the trade deficit and the size of the present deficit and the projections that it will increase. It has been suggested that this deficit began to take form in the context of the 1974 legislation providing fast-track authority to the President, and that to extend that authority would only be to continue and deepen that deficit. My very good friend from Maryland has been I think of this view. My colleague and friend from North Dakota has proposed a commission to look into the whole matter, which can do no harm as long as we keep to the economics of this matter as it is now understood. Many persons have opposed fast-track legislation because of the deficit, and it seems to me necessary, useful to put into the Record the fact that these are not in fact connected any more than in 1974 the fast-track authority represented some break in the Executive role in trade. It did not. From 1934 on, since the time of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the President has had one form or another of negotiating authority delegated to him by the Congress in the aftermath of the fearsome experience of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, when we brought a tariff bill to the Senate floor and in the end disabled our own economy, or helped to do, and set the world economy into a downward spiral. If you would list five events that led to the Second World War, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 would be one. And we have not had a tariff bill in the Chamber as such since 1930. We have proceeded in this mode, through periods of trade surpluses, trade deficits and relatively evenly balanced accounts. The most important thing to state is that the current trade deficit is not a result of trade policy. It is a result of budget policy. It is a result of the decisions which I think now are behind us in which during a long 15 year period we incurred an enormous national debt in consequence of a long sequence of very large budget deficits. This is not to say that the budget deficit is the only determinant of trade deficit, but it is the key indicator of the matter because it is the relationship between domestic savings, which until this year has been substantially reduced by annual Federal deficits in excess of $100 billion, and domestic investment. That is the key, but not only factor in the sense of which, as economists would say, the trade deficit is a dependent variable. I have a chart to make this point. It is not any more complicated than most of the charts we bring to the floor these days in the age of television. In 1975, the United States was a creditor nation. We owned net foreign assets of some $74 billion. By 1996, we had become a debtor nation with a worldwide negative net investment of $871 billion. You go from a surplus to being a net debtor in the amount of almost $1 trillion. Foreign investors have more capital in the United States than we have abroad on balance, and that reflects the increase in our Federal debt. In 1975, we had a Federal debt of $395 billion. In 1996, we had a Federal debt of $3.733 trillion. The net result was a trade deficit in a manner that is entirely predictable. What we understand about economics, the general consensus of economists is such that if you were to propose that such a change in net budget deficits would take place, the economics profession overwhelmingly would say then your trade balances will change in the same direction. It is also clear that foreign persons will end up with the dollars that we need to borrow. Given that our savings rate is so low because our deficits are so high, foreign persons will end up with dollars to lend us only if they export more to us than we export to them. Last week it was noted on the floor that an October 1997 report entitled ``The Trade Deficit: Where Does It Come From And What Does It Do?'' by Peter Morici, of the Economic Strategy Institute, a group founded in 1989, in effect challenged the traditional mainstream economic view that trade deficits are closely related to the imbalance between domestic savings and domestic investment. Again, I say, Mr. President, it is the mainstream view of economists that this is a pattern that is almost automatic; that the trade deficit is a dependent variable related to the level of domestic savings. I am not going to argue, dispute the fact that the causes of the trade deficit are complex. To quote from Dr. Morici's report, he says, ``History seems to confirm the importance of multidirectional causality.'' Here is an able economist looking at the conventional wisdom, which I have been setting forth, and saying, ``No, matters are more complex than that,'' which one welcomes. That is how any science, any field of inquiry advances. When persons challenge the accepted judgment of the time, sometimes a new paradigm emerges. But, in arguing the importance of multidirectional causality, Dr. Morici does not deny the importance of the deficits of the early 1980's. He writes. . . . the combination of Reagan Administration tax cuts and new defense spending increased the combined government current and capital account deficit from $34 billion in 1981 to about $146 billion in 1983, and the demands imposed by the U.S. Treasury on capital markets drove U.S. interest rates well above German and Japanese levels. High U.S. interest rates served the purpose of attracting foreign private investment to finance growing U.S. government deficits. * * * I will take the liberty of repeating that sentence: ``High U.S. interest rates served the purpose of attracting foreign private investment to finance growing U.S. government deficits.'' In turn, these foreign private capital flows created much increased demand for dollars in foreign-exchange markets and the real exchange rate for the dollar rose more than 50 percent. In large part, it was the appreciation of the dollar that caused the trade deficit to rise from $16 billion in 1981 to more than $100 billion a year from 1984 to 1988. Dr. Morici's analysis points to the causality. It may be more complex than we now suppose, but basically, if you have as large a budget deficit as we ran in the 1980's, you will raise interest rates, your dollar will appreciate, and the result is a trade deficit. Earlier, I was commenting with my friend from Michigan, Senator Levin, that the strong dollar of the 1980's seemed to many people a statement that somehow we had a strong economy. Just the opposite. And Senator Levin suggested, if we can, we get rid of that usage ``strong dollar'' or ``weak dollar' as if they were some reflection on the general state of the economy as against the price of money, which is what it is all about. What has puzzled many is why the process has not reversed since we have brought the deficit down. Why hasn't the trade deficit declined as the budget deficit has declined? This is a fair question. However, economists have never argued that budget deficits caused trade deficits but, rather, that trade deficits result when domestic saving is not sufficient to support domestic investment. In the early 1980's, it was easy to identify the huge Federal budget deficits as the source of the savings shortfall. Now it is more complex, but let me note several factors. We have a strong economy with expansion now in its seventh year. For the first time in 10 years the growth of real gross domestic product has averaged more than 4 percent for four quarters. Not unexpectedly, with a strong economy straining at full employment, investment has increased over the past 5 years from about 9 percent of GDP to 10 percent as firms strive to meet demands by adding new plants. At the same time--and here is a mystery for which you will find no explanation on the part of this Senator--at the same time, private saving has declined from about 16 percent of GDP to about 15 percent during this period. That is why, during the period 1992 to the present, the trade deficit as a percentage of GDP has not declined, even as the budget deficit has fallen dramatically. In an op-ed article last month in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Eisner, a distinguished professor emeritus at Northwestern University and former president of the American Economic Association, reminded us of the gains from trade that accrue to all nations. He wrote: The U.S. has the mightiest economy in the world, and generally the most productive. The classical economic law of comparative advantage, going back to David Ricardo, tells us that, even if a country is more productive than other countries in all areas, it can gain from trade. It does so by specializing in those industries in which it has the greatest advantage, and exporting their products. It then imports from others the products of industries on which it has a lesser advantage. Even though there is an advantage in both cases, you maximize by concentrating on the most pronounced. As Professor Eisner notes, the United States has the mightiest economy in the world. We are in a period of unprecedented economic expansion with real growth at 4 percent; unemployment at 4.7 percent, a 24-year low; measured inflation of about 2 percent and a budget deficit rapidly approaching zero. Our economy is the envy of Western Europe and Japan. On average, G-7 countries have roughly half our growth rate and half again as much unemployment. While undesirable in the long run, our trade deficit has not undermined our economy. As the chart makes clear, there appears to be no relationship between the size of the trade deficit and the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate has gone up and down, up and down. It was very high in the early 1980's when the interest rates were very high, and the Federal Reserve Board undertook to break the inflation at the time, and now down to the lowest level in 24 years. In the meantime, this trade deficit has grown. But as should be very clear from this chart, there is no relation one to the other. It is not a causal relationship of any kind. At least, it has not been established as such, and I do not think it is possible to do so. U.S. industrial production increased 18 percent from 1992 to 1996. Over the same period, U.S. manufactured goods exports increased 42 percent, agricultural exports grew by 40 percent, and service exports by 26 percent. These are not the signs of economic weakness, notwithstanding the trade deficit. Finally, I make the point that if there is one cloud over the horizon with respect to the trade deficit, it is the looming retirement of the baby boom generation. With this in mind, I agree that it would be preferable to run trade surpluses to accumulate assets abroad so that the burden of financing the retirement of the baby boom generation can in part be financed with earnings from those foreign assets. Last week I introduced a Senate resolution which resolved that: It is the sense of the Senate that: (1) any unified budget surpluses that might arise in the current expansion should be used to reduce the Federal debt held by the public; and (2) to achieve this goal during this economic expansion that there be no net tax cut or new spending that is not offset by reductions in spending on other programs or tax increases. Adoption of that resolution and the policies it suggests will increase national savings, as we should during an expansion phase of the business cycle. Even if one believes, as the Economic Strategy Institute report suggests, that mainstream economic theory does not adequately explain the trade deficit, that view does not require one to oppose fast track. In fact, Mr. Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute, supports this legislation. In an op-ed article in the Washington Post last month, Prestowitz wrote: Congress must give the President fast track. It is inconceivable that the United States will not be at the table when the globalization cards are dealt. Inconceivable last week. Very near to probable today, I have to say with great regret. But it is a point to be made that in the U.S. Senate, by 2-to-1 margins, we have supported fast track, and should there be a change of spirit in the other body, we will be here in that same position, hoping to be of service and knowing the consequences of failure on all our parts. With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Prestowitz article be printed in the Record, and I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Senators Chafee, Bond, Warner, and Baucus are to be commended upon their successful negotiations with the House to produce a short-term extension to the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act [ISTEA] of 1991. This bill will provide the States with the necessary funding while Congress completes its consideration of a 6-year authorization bill early next year. I am pleased that the agreement authorizes the States to spend up to $9.7 billion in highway funds and up to nearly $3 billion in transit funds over the next 7 months. The bill also provides an additional $5.5 billion in advance contract authority for the future continuation of our highway program. The bill provides States with flexibility to transfer money among program categories. The Secretary of Transportation is required to ensure, however, that all transferred funds be restored to their original intended use once a long-term bill ISTEA is passed. I intend to join with my colleagues to make sure that the Secretary faithfully carries out this directive and that none of ISTEA's key environmental programs, like CMAQ and Enhancements, will suffer because of the flexibility granted in this measure. The bill also provides $78.5 million directly to the metropolitan planning organizations, so they will not be adversely affected by this flexibility provision. New York will be apportioned $325 million in new highway funds and $380 million in transit funds. With its existing balances, New York will be able to spend nearly $900 million over the next half year on transportation. I am confident that with this measure, New York will be able to maintain its highway and transit construction program over the short term. I am concerned, however, that come May, the House and Senate will still not be close to agreement and we will face the need to pass another short-term measure. It is essential that the process for passing any future ISTEA extensions be inclusive and address the needs of the transit program, which, unlike highways, will have almost no unobligated balances by May. ISTEA's goal was to create an intermodal transportation system and I will fight any attempt to divorce highway needs from transit needs. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Adlai E. Stevenson remarked of Eleanor Roosevelt that ``She would rather light candles than curse the darkness and her glow has warmed the world.'' So it is with my dear friend and colleague, Representative Floyd Flake of Queens, who will be retiring from Congress this Saturday, November 15. Few individuals can match his accomplishments, which have materially and spiritually benefited so many. I view his departure as bittersweet. He is going home to his church, answering God's call ``to a greater ministry and to a greater work,'' as he has put it. Surely, his congregants will be happier for his decision. But we will sorely miss him here in Congress. Representative Flake was born in Los Angeles and raised in Houston--1 of 13 children born to parents with fifth- and sixth-grade educations. Modest circumstances. But in the words of an October 19, 1997 New York Times magazine article by James Traub, ``they (people who told Flake he would never go to college) hadn't reckoned on his mother, who taught the kids how to sew and wash and cook, or his fiercely self-improving father.'' Representative Flake received an undergraduate degree from Wilberforce University, the first black college in America, founded in 1856 in Ohio under the auspices of the African Methodist Episcopal [A.M.E.] Church and named after the great English statesman and abolitionist, William Wilberforce. From there, on to graduate study at Payne Theological Seminary and Northeastern University and jobs early in his career as a Head Start social worker and market analyst for Xerox. In 1976, Representative Flake--barely 31--became pastor of the Allen A.M.E. Church in Jamaica, Queens. At that time, the church congregation numbered about 1,200; the church's annual budget was about $250,000. There were three employees. Now, some 20 years later, the congregation has grown to nearly 9,000 souls. The church and its subsidiaries have an annual budget exceeding $24 million. Tithes and offerings alone exceed $5 million--this from a mostly middle-class congregation. When considering Reverend Flake's stewardship, the Parable of the Mustard Seed comes to mind. Allen A.M.E. Church-sponsored community development enterprises now include a 300-unit apartment complex for the elderly; the Allen Christian School, which has an enrollment of some 400 elementary students--and a growing waiting list; hundreds of single-family and two-family homes; a strip mall; an office complex; a home care agency; a credit union; and a transportation company. The Allen A.M.E. Church and its subsidiaries employ 800 people. Only Kennedy Airport employs more people in the Sixth District. In the middle of this remarkable stewardship, he earned a Doctorate of Ministry degree from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, and he became a Member of Congress. He has ably represented the Sixth District, which covers southern and southeastern Queens, since 1986. As a result of his efforts, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration are building major facilities in the district. As a senior member of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, he has been an indefatigable architect of innovative public and private urban investment programs. While other politicians have abandoned urban communities, Floyd Flake has found ways for such communities not only to survive, but to thrive. While others curse the darkness, Floyd Flake lights candles. Perhaps the capstone of his accomplishments is the new Allen A.M.E. Church cathedral on Merrick Boulevard. The $23 million cathedral is 93,000 square feet and seats 2,500. It is the largest church structure to be built in New York City since 1954. Heinrich Heine remarked that it takes more than mere opinion to erect a cathedral, it takes conviction. Indeed it does. Reverend Flake secured a $15 million mortgage for the project from Chase Manhattan Bank Corp.--the largest loan Chase has ever made to a religious institution. That's conviction. Given all of these commitments, it is understandable that Floyd Flake feels he must go home and minister to his church community full-time. The community will be richer for his presence. We here will be poorer. Mr. President, the inscription on Sir Christopher Wren's tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral reads, Si monumentum requiris circumspice. ``If you would see the man's monument, look around.'' If you would see Floyd Flake's monument, go to Jamaica, or to St. Alban's, or to Rosedale, or to Laurelton, or to nearly any neighborhood in Queens, and look around. And so, to my friend, his wife Elaine, his daughters, Aliya and Nailah, and his sons, Rasheed and Hasan, I say, ``Godspeed.''

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Friday, the 7th of November 1997, on the occasion of the bicentennial of the birth of Joseph Henry, the Joseph Henry Medal was presented to Dr. Frederick Seitz at a dinner of the Smithsonian Council. Clearly, this was a special occasion, and it was singularly appropriate that Frederick Seitz should be the honoree. The citation of the splendid gold medal reads: The Board of Regents gratefully presents the Joseph Henry Medal to Frederick Seitz in recognition of his manifold contributions to The Smithsonian Institution. His advancement of the Smithsonian's research and educational programs in the sciences, history, and the history of science has exemplified the ideals of James Smithson's mandate . . . ``for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.''--May 4, 1997. Having received the medal, Dr. Seitz, with his enormous erudition and no less prodigious self-effacing manner, presented a paper of great interest. Entitled, Joseph Henry: 200th Anniversary of Birth, he wrote of the belated appearance of science as a large-scale activity in the American Republic, but also of four early pioneers: Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Thompson, Henry A. Rowland, and Joseph Henry himself. Which of us would know that Franklin discovered the Gulf Stream? That is just one of the absorbing details of this fascinating disquisition. I ask that it be printed in the Record in honor of Frederick Seitz, Joseph Henry, and all that splendid company. The material follows: Joseph Henry; 200th Anniversary of Birth When I first heard the rumor that I would receive the Joseph Henry Medal on this special anniversary, I assumed it was a case of mistaken identity. Very friendly calls from Senator Moynihan, Homer Neal and Marc Rothenberg, however, finally carried conviction. Needless to say I will continue to experience a sense of awe in playing a role on this special anniversary since the scientific community, of which I have been part for most of my life, owes so much to Henry, as I shall presently relate. Our country, had so many difficult practical problems to solve in its early days, that it did not take much interest in the fundamental aspects of science, in contrast to the European countries, until the end of the nineteenth century, that is, about a hundred years ago when it created what was then called the National Bureau of Standards. Even this step had a very practical aspect since we were encouraging exports and wanted to be in tune with standards of manufacture internationally as well as at home. It is true that we did have the closely linked Smithsonian Institution and National Academy of Sciences at that time. However their existence was in the last analysis tied closely to the unsolicited gift in 1832 of James Smithson, an English scientist who admired the promises for the future of mankind that our republic offered. Moreover, he felt that it was inevitable that we would eventually become deeply involved in the pursuit of basic science. Even though our country did not encourage the development of the basic sciences until the century we are now leaving behind, we did manage to produce from our own soil a few world-class scientists, including four truly great physicists, not least Joseph Henry, during the previous two centuries. I would like to say a few words about each. The first was no less a person than Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston in 1706, but more generally linked to Philadelphia, his adopted home. We all know about the experiment with lightning and the kite and his research with lightning arrestors, however, this is only part of the story. He discovered, as a result of extensive correspondence, that our continental weather tends to have a strong eastward drift; he discovered what we now term the Gulf Stream which encircles the Atlantic Ocean, although he falsely ascribed it not to winds and Coriolis forces, but to the influence of the emergence of a yet undiscovered underground river. Perhaps even more remarkably, he was apparently the first person to provide a good measure of molecular dimensions. He noted that when a quantity of the right kind of oil is poured onto water it spreads rapidly at first, but then stops spreading and retains cohesion. He concluded that the thickness of the oil film at the point of maximum spread mut be linked to what we would now term the size of its molecular constituents. Using measured quantities of oil he obtained an entirely reasonable value for those dimensions. The second great scientists, namely Benjamin Thompson, is probably entirely unknown to many of you. He was born in Woburn, in what was then the colony of Massachusetts in 1753, and developed a strong interest in science during his youth. He was not sympathetic to the Revolution and moved to England in 1776 where he joined the military and served throughout the war as an administrator. In 1794, after serving in various roles in England and on the continent he was offered a high post in the Bavarian government which he held for eleven years. There among many other activities he supervised the boring of canon in the royal arsenal. Being highly observant, he noted that the extent to which the canon became heated during the drilling was essentially proportional to the length of time the drilling had taken place. He concluded that the heat content of the metal was a form of energy closely related to the energy of work. This proposal stood in sharp contradiction to the popular theory of the time to the effect that heat was the manifestation of the presence of a special weightless fluid called phlogiston. He wrote a convincing treatise on this topic, thereby opening the doorway to the field of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics which occupied some of the best scientific minds during the next century. I should add that the great Chemist Lavoisier, who was guillotined in 1794 and whom Thompson knew, had also come to the conclusion that the phlogiston theory must be wrong. Thompson's treatise pointed the way to a new positive approach. Thompson, incidentally, joined with Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society in establishing the Royal Institution in London where Humphrey Davy and Michael Faraday later carried out their great researches and gave popular public lectures on science. It is easy to imagine that Smithson had the Royal Institution in mind as a role model for our country when he gave the money to create the Smithsonian. I should also add that Thompson came to terms with his native land at the end of the Revolutionary War, establishing good relationships with the Massachusetts community. Skipping chronological order for the moment, the third great American scientist in my list is Henry A. Rowland, born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania in 1848. He received his higher education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and was appointed to the chair in physics at the Johns Hopkins University when it opened its doors in 1876. He carried on research in many areas of physics, but is probably best known for the development of a machine which engraved on a material such as glass so-called diffraction line gratings that were of special use in separating different wavelengths of light. He was also interested in telegraphic equipment and invented a widely used form of teletype machine. Rowland gained early fame as a result of an experiment he carried out in Europe in the laboratory of Hermann Helmholtz in 1875, the year before he took residence in Baltimore. In the previous decade, the very brilliant Scottish physicists, James C. Maxwell, had collected all known information concerning electromagnetic phenomena and placed it in the form of a mutually consistent set of four mathematical equations, generally known as Maxwell's equations. To achieve what his intuition told him would provide appropriate symmetry and balance in the equations, he modified one of the set of four. In effect, the modification amounted to saying that an isolated, moving electric charge would have a magnetic field related to the velocity associated with it, but one so weak for normal velocities achievable at the time that it would be very difficult to measure. Helmholtz, recognizing that the young American was an exceedingly talented experimenter, suggested that he attempt to measure that field, which Rowland did with ingenuity and notable success in a remarkably short time. It should be added that Rowland had to repeat the experiment twice in later decades in order to convince others who had tried to duplicate his work without success. I should also add that Maxwell noted that one set of solutions to his modified equations describe free electromagnetic waves traveling with the speed of light in a vacuum. He decided that ordinary visible light must consist of electromagnetic waves. Helmholtz was quick to pick up on this and convinced his brightest young colleague, Henrich Hertz, to look into the matter on a laboratory scale to see if he could generate much longer waves, independent of a light source, using available electrical equipment. The ages of wireless telegraphy, radio, television and radar loomed over the horizon. It would be equivalent to shipping oil from Texas to Saudi Arabia for me to present a detailed biography of Joseph Henry on this occasion since his background is well known to most of you. In brief, he was born in Albany, New York, just 200 years ago and spent a portion of his early years living with his grandmother in nearby Galway, a few miles west of Saratoga. Incidentally, if you chance to pass through Galway please note the handsome high school building, probably built in the 1920's, which bears Henry's name. He studied at the Albany Academy, which still exists, and early on had difficulty deciding whether to become an actor or a scientist. Fortunately, science won. He began a series of highly innovative experiments with electromagnets and soon discovered the induction of electric fields by changing magnetic fields--the basis for one of Maxwell's equations. Michael Faraday, in England, made the same discovery somewhat later, but published his results before Henry managed to. Never the less the international community has given credit to Henry by naming the unit of measurement of magnetic inductance after him. In connection with this research, he invented the so-called electric transformer, so valuable in alternating current circuits. Although well established at the Albany Academy, he accepted an appointment at what is now Princeton University in 1832, and continued to carry on his research there, focusing in part on various aspects of telegraphy. Much of his original equipment is well preserved in the physics department. In 1846 he was offered the post of Secretary of the newly created Smithsonian Institution which he accepted even though he was reluctant to leave the special environment that he had enjoyed at Princeton. He was soon widely recognized as the dean of American science as he developed the new institution into a center for research as well as public exhibitions related to science. He was to serve in the post for thirty two years. In 1863, when the Civil War broke out, a small group of scientifically oriented individuals in Washington, led by Alexander Bache, a great grandson of Franklin, and Commodore Charles Davis, succeeded in having a bill that created a National Academy of Sciences passed by the Congress. Their intention was to rally the available scientific community into research associated with the war effort. The bill was sponsored by Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts. President Lincoln signed the charter. Henry took an interest in the activities of the new organization from the start, recognizing fully its potentialities. During the course of the war Henry became a good friend of President Lincoln who expressed much admiration for him. When, at the end of the war, the founders were at somewhat of a loss in deciding what to do with the Academy during peacetime, Henry agreed to become its president and retained leadership until his death in 1878. During that period he essentially made the Academy a temporary wing of the Smithsonian, holding regular scientific meetings, expanding the membership and challenging the members to do everything they could to increase the amount of basic scientific research being carried on in the country. By the time of his death, the National Academy, although still closely tied to the Smithsonian, was a well-running organization prepared to play a major role in guiding the progress of good science in the Republic. I should add at this point that immediately after World War I, another great Secretary of the Smithsonian, Charles D. Walcott, who had served as the very effective president of the Academy during that war, succeeded in obtaining private funds which made it possible for the Academy to have a new home of its own on Constitution Avenue. Walcott, incidentally, was also a New Yorker, having been born in New York Mills near Utica in 1850. Our debt to Joseph Henry can perhaps be summarized by saying that, in addition to establishing a high standard for scientific research through his own laboratory work, he encouraged general acceptance of those standards and took leadership in establishing National institutions which could carry them forward. In other words, he did for the promotion of science in our country what Washington had done in helping to establish the republic in which we have the good fortune to live. I can think of no higher praise.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on Thursday, in the Wall Street Journal, two articles appeared highlighting additional facets of the year 2000 [Y2K] problem. While the computer and business industries have been the primary focus of news articles in the past, these reports focused on the legal and accounting fields. And today, in an editorial in the New York Post, the editors warn that ``attorneys hope to make a killing off the so called Year 2000 problem.'' In the Journal article entitled ``Threat of Computer Glitch in 2000 Has Lawyers Seeing Dollar Signs,'' the authors report that ``corporate lawyers are urging clients to review their information systems and write warranties into their contracts.'' The possibility of future litigation has caused New York law firms, such as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, Flom, to establish special groups of attorneys to ensure that all contracts contain Y2K warranties. The other article, ``CPA Group to Issue Guidelines on Costs of Year 2000 Bug,'' reports that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants will advise ``auditors on how to push corporations to disclose and account'' for Y2K costs. Further, many companies have yet to begin the process of changing their systems to alleviate the problem, and are unaware of the enormous costs that lie ahead. This could well lead to misstatement of profits or loses of 10 percent or more. Lastly, in their no-holds-barred manner, the Post editors write: ``this [problem] could make the litigation over breast implants and asbestos look like chump-change wrangling.'' My dutiful peer, Senator Bennett of Utah, has been looking into these matters, as Chair of the Banking Subcommittee on Financial Services and Technology. And for that we are most grateful. Yet his voice, like that of Congressman Stephen Horn, is being lost among the din over many less pressing issues. Mr President, we are beginning to see the ripple-like effects of this most serious issue. The overall costs have been estimated as high as a half a trillion dollars, and that widespread failure to comply could lead to a global recession, in the opinion of New York Federal Reserve Bank President William J. McDonough. Above all, from our standpoint, we have an obligation to get our own house in order. The lagging response of the U.S. Government to this problem, a relative benchmark, as the United States is ahead of most countries, is without excuse. With just under 800 days left, we cannot have half of our agencies still assessing how many mission critical systems will be affected. This is but the first phase of three-- renovation and testing/implementation are the other two. We need an outside body to ensure this problem is fixed. My bill, S. 22, will do just that. I ask that the articles from the Wall Street Journal and the editorial from the New York Post be printed in the Record. The articles follow: [From the New York Post, Nov. 8, 1997] The Millennium Bug--and The Lawyers Plaintiff's lawyers plan to celebrate the millennium in a big, and profitable, way--with the mother of all class-action suits. And experts say this could make the litigation over breast implants and asbestos look like chump-change wrangling. The attorneys hope to make a killing off the so-called Year 2000 Problem: Many computer systems, especially older mainframes, recognize only the last two digits of a year, so when the century ends and the calendar flips over to double zeros, the computers will crash or, even worse, produce crazy outputs. This is a serious--and hugely expensive--worldwide problem, affecting almost every industry and governmental operation, from payrolls to nuclear-missile safeguards. Computer consultants estimate the worldwide cost of fixing the ``millennium bug'' at as much as $600 billion. The reality of a Year 2000 crisis has been creeping up gradually on most firms in recent years. But now that it's been widely recognized, the race is on for a solution: Massive computer failure isn't in anyone's interests. Inevitably, of course, some firms will fall behind the pack. Just as inevitably, the trial lawyers are licking their chops. While computer consultants hunt through billions of lines of code looking for YR2000 liabilities, a conference of lawyers in San Francisco this week devoted itself to scoping out possible litigation targets, the Wall Street Journal reports. We're not surprised to find the tort bar gearing up. What's even more disturbing is that the government is sitting on its hands. Some federal agencies don't even know the extent of their YR2000 problem. Congress issued a report card in September rating various agencies' efforts to avoid millennial meltdown. Three failed, including two Cabinet departments: Education and Transportation. And that's not the bad news. The Pentagon got a ``C'' and the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission got ``Ds.'' It's hard to say what would happen if defense and nuclear-monitoring computers went berserk at the turn of the century--but it wouldn't be anything pretty. Even in New York, the systems that control everything from traffic lights to arrest-monitoring are poised to break down or malfunction unless they are fixed soon. Government officials at all levels admit that it's unlikely all the kinks will be ironed out in time. But the trial lawyers aren't getting excited: Taxpayers have no class-action standing.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my friend and colleague Senator D'Amato in introducing a bill that will authorize a small but most significant addition to the National Park system by designating the Lower East Side Tenement Museum a national historic site. For 150 years New York City's Lower East Side has been the most vibrant, populous, and famous immigrant neighborhood in the Nation. From the first waves of Irish and German immigrants to Italians and Eastern European Jews to the Asian, Latin, and Caribbean immigrants arriving today, the Lower East Side has provided millions their first American home. For many of them that home was a brick tenement; six or so stories, no elevator, maybe no plumbing, maybe no windows, a business on the ground floor, and millions of our forbearers upstairs. The Nation has with great pride preserved log cabins, farm houses, and other symbols of our agrarian roots. We have reopened Ellis Island to commemorate and display the first stop for 12 million immigrants who arrived in New York City. Until now we have not preserved a sample of urban, working class life as part of the immigrant experience. For many of those disembarked on Ellis Island the next stop was a tenement on the Lower East Side, such as the one at 97 Orchard Street. It is here that the Lower East Side Tenement Museum shows us what that next stop was like. The tenement at 97 Orchard was built in the 1860's, during the first phase of tenement construction. It provided housing for 20 families on a plot of land planned for a single family residence. Each floor had four 3-room apartments, each of which had two windows in one of the rooms and none in the others. The privies were out back, as was the spigot that provided water for everyone. The public bathhouse was down the street. In 1900 this block was the most crowded per acre on Earth. Conditions improved at 97 Orchard Street after the passage of the New York Tenement House Act of 1901, though the crowding remained. Two toilets were installed on each floor. A skylight was installed over the stairway and interior windows were cut in the walls to allow some light throughout each apartment. For the first time the ground floor became commercial space. In 1918 electricity was installed. Further improvements were mandated in 1935, but the owner of this building chose to board it up rather than follow the new regulations. It remained boarded up for 60 years until the idea of a museum took hold. The tenement museum will keep at least one apartment in the dilapidated condition in which it was found when reopened, to show visitors the process of urban archaeology. Others are being restored to show how real families lived at different periods in the building's history. Across the street there are interpretive programs to better explain the larger experience of gaining a foothold on America in the Lower East Side of New York. There are also plans for programmatic ties with Ellis Island and its precursor, Castle Clinton. And the museum plans to play an active role in the immigrant community around it, further integrating the past and present immigrant experience on the Lower East Side. This bill designates the tenement museum a national historic site. It also authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to enter into a cooperative agreement with the museum to ensure the marking, interpretation, and preservation of the site. The Secretary will also coordinate with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Castle Clinton sites to help with the interpretation of the immigrant experience. It will be a productive partnership. Mr. President, I believe the tenement museum provides an outstanding opportunity to preserve and present an important stage of the immigrant experience and the move for social change in our cities at the turn of the century. I know of no better place than 97 Orchard Street to do so, and no other place in the National Park system doing so already. I look forward to the realization of this grand idea, and I ask my colleagues for their support.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I join my distinguished colleagues, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, in introducing legislation to establish a commission to study the Federal statistical system. Congressman Stephen Horn of California and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York plan on introducing identical legislation in the House of Representatives. This legislation is similar to bills I introduced in September 1996, and again at the beginning of this Congress. The commission to study the Federal statistical system would consist of 15 Presidential and congressional appointees with expertise in fields such as actuarial science, finance, and economics. Its members would conduct a thorough review of the U.S. statistical system, and issue a report including recommendations on whether statistical agencies should be consolidated. Of course, we have an example of a consolidated statistical agency just across the northern border. Statistics Canada, the most centralized statistical agency among OECD countries, was established in November, 1918 as a reaction to a familiar problem. At that time, the Canadian Minister of Industry was trying to obtain an estimate of the manpower resources that Canada could commit to the war effort. And he got widely different estimates from statistical agencies scattered throughout the government. Consolidation seemed the way to solve this problem, and so it happened--as it can in a parliamentary government-- rather quickly, just as World War I ended. Last spring, a member of my staff met in Ottawa with the Assistant Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada. He reported that Statistics Canada is doing quite well. Decisions about the allocation of resources among statistical functions are made at the highest levels of government because the Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada holds a position equivalent to Deputy Cabinet Minister. He communicates directly with Deputy Ministers in other Cabinet Departments. In contrast, in the United States, statistical agencies are buried several levels below the Cabinet Secretaries, so it is difficult for the heads of these statistical agencies to bring issues to the attention of high- ranking administration officials and Congress. Statistics are part of our constitutional arrangement, which provides for a decennial census that, among other purposes, is the basis for apportionment of membership in the House of Representatives. I quote from article I, section I: . . . enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within ever subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. But, while the Constitution directed that there be a census, there was, initially, no Census Bureau. The earliest censuses were conducted by U.S. Marshals. Later on, statistical bureaus in State governments collected the data, with a Superintendent of the Census overseeing from Washington. It was not until 1902 that a permanent Bureau of the Census was created by the Congress, housed initially in the Interior Department. In 1903 the Bureau was transferred to the newly established Department of Commerce and Labor. The Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service, which was originally an independent body, began collecting data in 1866. It too was transferred to the new Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, but then was put in the Treasury Department in 1913 following ratification of the 16th amendment, which gave Congress the power to impose an income tax. A Bureau of Labor, created in 1884, was also initially in the Interior Department. The first Commissioner, appointed in 1885, was Col. Carroll D. Wright, a distinguished Civil War veteran of the New Hampshire Volunteers. A self-trained social scientist, Colonel Wright pioneered techniques for collecting and analyzing survey data on income, prices, and wages. He had previously served as chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, a post he held for 15 years, and in that capacity had supervised the 1880 Federal Census in Massachusetts. In 1888, the Bureau of Labor became an independent agency. In 1903, it was once again made a bureau, joining other statistical agencies in the Department of Commerce and Labor. When a new Department of Labor was formed in 1913, giving labor an independent voice--as labor was removed from the Department of Commerce and Labor--what we now know as the Bureau of Labor Statistics was transferred the newly created Department of Labor. And so it went. Statistical agencies sprung up as needed. And they moved back and forth as new executive departments were formed. Today, some 89 different organizations in the Federal Government comprise parts of our national statistical infrastructure. Eleven of these organizations have as their primary function the generation of data. These 11 organizations are: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Agency Department established ------------------------------------------------------------------------ National Agricultural Statistical Agriculture........... 1863 Service. Statistics of Income Division, IRS. Treasury.............. 1866 Economic Research Service.......... Agriculture........... 1867 National Center for Education Education............. 1867 Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics......... Labor................. 1884 Bureau of the Census............... Commerce.............. 1902 Bureau of Economic Analysis........ Commerce.............. 1912 National Center for Health Health and Human 1912 Statistics. Services. Bureau of Justice Statistics....... Justice............... 1968 Energy Information Administration.. Energy................ 1974 Bureau of Transportation Statistics Transportation........ 1991 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ need for legislation President Kennedy once said: Democracy is a difficult kind of government. It requires the highest qualities of self-discipline, restraint, a willingness to make commitments and sacrifices for the general interest, and also it requires knowledge. That knowledge often comes from accurate statistics. You cannot begin to solve a problem until you can measure it. This legislation would require the Commission to conduct a comprehensive examination of the current statistical system and focus particularly on whether three agencies that produce data as their primary product--the Bureau of Economic Analysis [BEA] and the Bureau of the Census in the Commerce Department, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] in the Labor Department--should be consolidated into a Federal statistical service. In September 1996, prior to when I first introduced a bill establishing a commission to study the U.S. statistical system, I received a letter from nine former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers [CEA] endorsing this legislation. Excluding two recent chairs, who at that time were still serving in the Clinton administration, the signatories include virtually every living former chair of the CEA. While acknowledging that the United States possesses a first-class statistical system, these former chairmen remind us that problems periodically arise under the current system of widely scattered responsibilities. They conclude as follows: Without at all prejudging the appropriate measures to deal with these difficult problems, we believe that a thoroughgoing review by a highly qualified and bipartisan Commission as provided in your bill has great promise of showing the way to major improvements. The letter is signed by Michael J. Boskin, Martin Feldstein, Alan Greenspan, Paul W. McCracken, Raymond J. Saulnier, Charles L. Schultze, Beryl W. Sprinkel, Herbert Stein, and Murray Weidenbaum. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this letter be printed in the Record following my statement. It happens that this Senator's association with the statistical system in the executive branch began over three decades ago. I was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy and Planning in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. This was a new position in which I was nominally responsible for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I say nominally out of respect for the independence of that venerable institution, which as I noted earlier long predated the Department of Labor itself. The then-Commissioner of the BLS, Ewan Clague, could not have been more friendly and supportive. And so were the statisticians, who undertook to teach me to the extent I was teachable. They even shared professional confidences. And so it was that I came to have some familiarity with the field. For example, we had just received a report on price indexes from a committee led by a Nobel laureate, George Stigler. The committee stressed the importance of accurate and timely statistics noting that: The periodic revision of price indexes, and the almost continuous alterations in details of their calculation, are essential if the indexes are to serve their primary function of measuring the average movements of prices. While the final report of the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Index, the Boskin Commission, focused primarily on the extent to which changes in the CPI overstate inflation, the commission also addressed issues related to the effectiveness of Federal statistical programs and recommended that: Congress should enact the legislation necessary for the Department of Commerce and Labor to share information in the interest of improving accuracy and timeliness of economic statistics and to reduce the resources consumed in their development and production. And last week, we were again reminded of the importance of accurate and timely government statistics. The front page of the Wall Street Journal carried this headline on Tuesday October 29: ``An Extra $46 Billion in Treasury's Coffers Puzzles Washington''. No one knows for sure the answer to this puzzle. Surely though, a changing economy which produces more and more services--which are harder to measure the value of than the goods it replaces--needs a top to bottom review of its statistical infrastructure. For if the public loses confidence in our statistics, they are likely to lose confidence in our policies as well. There is, of course, a long history of attempts to reform our Nation's statistical infrastructure. From the period 1903 to 1990, 16 different committees, commissions, and study groups have convened to assess our statistical infrastructure, but in most cases little or no action has been taken on their recommendations. The result of this inaction has been an ever expanding statistical system. It continues to grow in order to meet new data needs, but with little or no regard for the overall objectives of the system. Janet L. Norwood, former Commissioner of the BLS, writes in her book ``Organizing to Count'': The U.S. system has neither the advantages that come from centralization nor the efficiency that comes from strong coordination in decentralization. As presently organized, therefore, the country's statistical system will be hard pressed to meet the demands of a technologically advanced, increasingly internationalized world in which the demand for objective data of high quality is steadily rising. In this era of Government downsizing and budget cutting, it is unlikely that Congress will appropriate more funds for statistical agencies. It is clear that to preserve and improve the statistical system we must consider reforming it, yet we must not attempt to reform the system until we have heard from experts in the field. summary of legislation The legislation establishes a commission to study the Federal statistical system. The commission would consist of 15 members. Two-- the Chief Statistician of the Office of Management and Budget and a high-level government official--serve ex officio on the commission. The high-level official, selected by the President from among Cabinet officers, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller General, or the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers--will serve as chairman. The other 13 members of the commission will be appointed as follows: Five by the President, no more than three of whom are to be from the same political party, four by the President pro tempore of the Senate, no more than two of whom are to be from the same political party, and four by the Speaker of the House, no more than two of whom are to be from the same political party. In an initial 18-month period, the commission would determine whether and how to consolidate the Federal statistical system, and would also make recommendations with respect to ways to achieve greater efficiency in carrying out Federal statistical programs. If the commission recommends consolidation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of the Census, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis into a newly established independent Federal agency, designated as the Federal Statistical Service, the commission's report would contain draft legislation incorporating such recommendations. The legislation would then be considered by the Congress under fast-track procedures. If legislation establishing a Federal statistical service is enacted by the Congress, the commission then would become a permanent body that would: Make recommendations for nominations for the appointment of an Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the Federal Statistical Service; serve as an advisory body to the Federal Statistical Service on confidentiality issues; and conduct comprehensive studies, and submit reports to Congress on all matters relating to the Federal statistical infrastructure, including: An examination of the methodology involved in producing official data; a review of information technology and recommendations of appropriate methods for disseminating statistical data; and a comparison of our statistical system with the systems of other nations. This legislation is only a first step, but an essential one. The commission will provide Congress with the blueprint for reform. It will be up to us to finally take action after nearly a century of inattention to this very important issue.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my friend and colleague Senator D'Amato in introducing a bill that will authorize a small but most significant addition to the National Park system by designating the Lower East Side Tenement Museum a national historic site. For 150 years New York City's Lower East Side has been the most vibrant, populous, and famous immigrant neighborhood in the Nation. From the first waves of Irish and German immigrants to Italians and Eastern European Jews to the Asian, Latin, and Caribbean immigrants arriving today, the Lower East Side has provided millions their first American home. For many of them that home was a brick tenement; six or so stories, no elevator, maybe no plumbing, maybe no windows, a business on the ground floor, and millions of our forbearers upstairs. The Nation has with great pride preserved log cabins, farm houses, and other symbols of our agrarian roots. We have reopened Ellis Island to commemorate and display the first stop for 12 million immigrants who arrived in New York City. Until now we have not preserved a sample of urban, working class life as part of the immigrant experience. For many of those disembarked on Ellis Island the next stop was a tenement on the Lower East Side, such as the one at 97 Orchard Street. It is here that the Lower East Side Tenement Museum shows us what that next stop was like. The tenement at 97 Orchard was built in the 1860's, during the first phase of tenement construction. It provided housing for 20 families on a plot of land planned for a single family residence. Each floor had four 3-room apartments, each of which had two windows in one of the rooms and none in the others. The privies were out back, as was the spigot that provided water for everyone. The public bathhouse was down the street. In 1900 this block was the most crowded per acre on Earth. Conditions improved at 97 Orchard Street after the passage of the New York Tenement House Act of 1901, though the crowding remained. Two toilets were installed on each floor. A skylight was installed over the stairway and interior windows were cut in the walls to allow some light throughout each apartment. For the first time the ground floor became commercial space. In 1918 electricity was installed. Further improvements were mandated in 1935, but the owner of this building chose to board it up rather than follow the new regulations. It remained boarded up for 60 years until the idea of a museum took hold. The tenement museum will keep at least one apartment in the dilapidated condition in which it was found when reopened, to show visitors the process of urban archaeology. Others are being restored to show how real families lived at different periods in the building's history. Across the street there are interpretive programs to better explain the larger experience of gaining a foothold on America in the Lower East Side of New York. There are also plans for programmatic ties with Ellis Island and its precursor, Castle Clinton. And the museum plans to play an active role in the immigrant community around it, further integrating the past and present immigrant experience on the Lower East Side. This bill designates the tenement museum a national historic site. It also authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to enter into a cooperative agreement with the museum to ensure the marking, interpretation, and preservation of the site. The Secretary will also coordinate with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Castle Clinton sites to help with the interpretation of the immigrant experience. It will be a productive partnership. Mr. President, I believe the tenement museum provides an outstanding opportunity to preserve and present an important stage of the immigrant experience and the move for social change in our cities at the turn of the century. I know of no better place than 97 Orchard Street to do so, and no other place in the National Park system doing so already. I look forward to the realization of this grand idea, and I ask my colleagues for their support.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I join my distinguished colleagues, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, in introducing legislation to establish a commission to study the Federal statistical system. Congressman Stephen Horn of California and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York plan on introducing identical legislation in the House of Representatives. This legislation is similar to bills I introduced in September 1996, and again at the beginning of this Congress. The commission to study the Federal statistical system would consist of 15 Presidential and congressional appointees with expertise in fields such as actuarial science, finance, and economics. Its members would conduct a thorough review of the U.S. statistical system, and issue a report including recommendations on whether statistical agencies should be consolidated. Of course, we have an example of a consolidated statistical agency just across the northern border. Statistics Canada, the most centralized statistical agency among OECD countries, was established in November, 1918 as a reaction to a familiar problem. At that time, the Canadian Minister of Industry was trying to obtain an estimate of the manpower resources that Canada could commit to the war effort. And he got widely different estimates from statistical agencies scattered throughout the government. Consolidation seemed the way to solve this problem, and so it happened--as it can in a parliamentary government-- rather quickly, just as World War I ended. Last spring, a member of my staff met in Ottawa with the Assistant Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada. He reported that Statistics Canada is doing quite well. Decisions about the allocation of resources among statistical functions are made at the highest levels of government because the Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada holds a position equivalent to Deputy Cabinet Minister. He communicates directly with Deputy Ministers in other Cabinet Departments. In contrast, in the United States, statistical agencies are buried several levels below the Cabinet Secretaries, so it is difficult for the heads of these statistical agencies to bring issues to the attention of high- ranking administration officials and Congress. Statistics are part of our constitutional arrangement, which provides for a decennial census that, among other purposes, is the basis for apportionment of membership in the House of Representatives. I quote from article I, section I: . . . enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within ever subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. But, while the Constitution directed that there be a census, there was, initially, no Census Bureau. The earliest censuses were conducted by U.S. Marshals. Later on, statistical bureaus in State governments collected the data, with a Superintendent of the Census overseeing from Washington. It was not until 1902 that a permanent Bureau of the Census was created by the Congress, housed initially in the Interior Department. In 1903 the Bureau was transferred to the newly established Department of Commerce and Labor. The Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service, which was originally an independent body, began collecting data in 1866. It too was transferred to the new Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, but then was put in the Treasury Department in 1913 following ratification of the 16th amendment, which gave Congress the power to impose an income tax. A Bureau of Labor, created in 1884, was also initially in the Interior Department. The first Commissioner, appointed in 1885, was Col. Carroll D. Wright, a distinguished Civil War veteran of the New Hampshire Volunteers. A self-trained social scientist, Colonel Wright pioneered techniques for collecting and analyzing survey data on income, prices, and wages. He had previously served as chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, a post he held for 15 years, and in that capacity had supervised the 1880 Federal Census in Massachusetts. In 1888, the Bureau of Labor became an independent agency. In 1903, it was once again made a bureau, joining other statistical agencies in the Department of Commerce and Labor. When a new Department of Labor was formed in 1913, giving labor an independent voice--as labor was removed from the Department of Commerce and Labor--what we now know as the Bureau of Labor Statistics was transferred the newly created Department of Labor. And so it went. Statistical agencies sprung up as needed. And they moved back and forth as new executive departments were formed. Today, some 89 different organizations in the Federal Government comprise parts of our national statistical infrastructure. Eleven of these organizations have as their primary function the generation of data. These 11 organizations are: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Agency Department established ------------------------------------------------------------------------ National Agricultural Statistical Agriculture........... 1863 Service. Statistics of Income Division, IRS. Treasury.............. 1866 Economic Research Service.......... Agriculture........... 1867 National Center for Education Education............. 1867 Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics......... Labor................. 1884 Bureau of the Census............... Commerce.............. 1902 Bureau of Economic Analysis........ Commerce.............. 1912 National Center for Health Health and Human 1912 Statistics. Services. Bureau of Justice Statistics....... Justice............... 1968 Energy Information Administration.. Energy................ 1974 Bureau of Transportation Statistics Transportation........ 1991 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ need for legislation President Kennedy once said: Democracy is a difficult kind of government. It requires the highest qualities of self-discipline, restraint, a willingness to make commitments and sacrifices for the general interest, and also it requires knowledge. That knowledge often comes from accurate statistics. You cannot begin to solve a problem until you can measure it. This legislation would require the Commission to conduct a comprehensive examination of the current statistical system and focus particularly on whether three agencies that produce data as their primary product--the Bureau of Economic Analysis [BEA] and the Bureau of the Census in the Commerce Department, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] in the Labor Department--should be consolidated into a Federal statistical service. In September 1996, prior to when I first introduced a bill establishing a commission to study the U.S. statistical system, I received a letter from nine former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers [CEA] endorsing this legislation. Excluding two recent chairs, who at that time were still serving in the Clinton administration, the signatories include virtually every living former chair of the CEA. While acknowledging that the United States possesses a first-class statistical system, these former chairmen remind us that problems periodically arise under the current system of widely scattered responsibilities. They conclude as follows: Without at all prejudging the appropriate measures to deal with these difficult problems, we believe that a thoroughgoing review by a highly qualified and bipartisan Commission as provided in your bill has great promise of showing the way to major improvements. The letter is signed by Michael J. Boskin, Martin Feldstein, Alan Greenspan, Paul W. McCracken, Raymond J. Saulnier, Charles L. Schultze, Beryl W. Sprinkel, Herbert Stein, and Murray Weidenbaum. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this letter be printed in the Record following my statement. It happens that this Senator's association with the statistical system in the executive branch began over three decades ago. I was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy and Planning in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. This was a new position in which I was nominally responsible for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I say nominally out of respect for the independence of that venerable institution, which as I noted earlier long predated the Department of Labor itself. The then-Commissioner of the BLS, Ewan Clague, could not have been more friendly and supportive. And so were the statisticians, who undertook to teach me to the extent I was teachable. They even shared professional confidences. And so it was that I came to have some familiarity with the field. For example, we had just received a report on price indexes from a committee led by a Nobel laureate, George Stigler. The committee stressed the importance of accurate and timely statistics noting that: The periodic revision of price indexes, and the almost continuous alterations in details of their calculation, are essential if the indexes are to serve their primary function of measuring the average movements of prices. While the final report of the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Index, the Boskin Commission, focused primarily on the extent to which changes in the CPI overstate inflation, the commission also addressed issues related to the effectiveness of Federal statistical programs and recommended that: Congress should enact the legislation necessary for the Department of Commerce and Labor to share information in the interest of improving accuracy and timeliness of economic statistics and to reduce the resources consumed in their development and production. And last week, we were again reminded of the importance of accurate and timely government statistics. The front page of the Wall Street Journal carried this headline on Tuesday October 29: ``An Extra $46 Billion in Treasury's Coffers Puzzles Washington''. No one knows for sure the answer to this puzzle. Surely though, a changing economy which produces more and more services--which are harder to measure the value of than the goods it replaces--needs a top to bottom review of its statistical infrastructure. For if the public loses confidence in our statistics, they are likely to lose confidence in our policies as well. There is, of course, a long history of attempts to reform our Nation's statistical infrastructure. From the period 1903 to 1990, 16 different committees, commissions, and study groups have convened to assess our statistical infrastructure, but in most cases little or no action has been taken on their recommendations. The result of this inaction has been an ever expanding statistical system. It continues to grow in order to meet new data needs, but with little or no regard for the overall objectives of the system. Janet L. Norwood, former Commissioner of the BLS, writes in her book ``Organizing to Count'': The U.S. system has neither the advantages that come from centralization nor the efficiency that comes from strong coordination in decentralization. As presently organized, therefore, the country's statistical system will be hard pressed to meet the demands of a technologically advanced, increasingly internationalized world in which the demand for objective data of high quality is steadily rising. In this era of Government downsizing and budget cutting, it is unlikely that Congress will appropriate more funds for statistical agencies. It is clear that to preserve and improve the statistical system we must consider reforming it, yet we must not attempt to reform the system until we have heard from experts in the field. summary of legislation The legislation establishes a commission to study the Federal statistical system. The commission would consist of 15 members. Two-- the Chief Statistician of the Office of Management and Budget and a high-level government official--serve ex officio on the commission. The high-level official, selected by the President from among Cabinet officers, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller General, or the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers--will serve as chairman. The other 13 members of the commission will be appointed as follows: Five by the President, no more than three of whom are to be from the same political party, four by the President pro tempore of the Senate, no more than two of whom are to be from the same political party, and four by the Speaker of the House, no more than two of whom are to be from the same political party. In an initial 18-month period, the commission would determine whether and how to consolidate the Federal statistical system, and would also make recommendations with respect to ways to achieve greater efficiency in carrying out Federal statistical programs. If the commission recommends consolidation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of the Census, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis into a newly established independent Federal agency, designated as the Federal Statistical Service, the commission's report would contain draft legislation incorporating such recommendations. The legislation would then be considered by the Congress under fast-track procedures. If legislation establishing a Federal statistical service is enacted by the Congress, the commission then would become a permanent body that would: Make recommendations for nominations for the appointment of an Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the Federal Statistical Service; serve as an advisory body to the Federal Statistical Service on confidentiality issues; and conduct comprehensive studies, and submit reports to Congress on all matters relating to the Federal statistical infrastructure, including: An examination of the methodology involved in producing official data; a review of information technology and recommendations of appropriate methods for disseminating statistical data; and a comparison of our statistical system with the systems of other nations. This legislation is only a first step, but an essential one. The commission will provide Congress with the blueprint for reform. It will be up to us to finally take action after nearly a century of inattention to this very important issue.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise simply to affirm in the strongest terms that the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has been faithful to his duties. He has kept a committee united, minus one vote, in an otherwise unanimous decision. He has been meticulous in his concern that American workers will have their interests pursued here, the environment will be looked after, but ladening these matters on trade negotiations will only ensure they will fail and not bring the benefits we desire. I want to congratulate him. We cannot do any better than we did yesterday, but let's hope we do as well.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. That's been known to happen.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Then you better rewrite your textbooks.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today we introduce a revised War Crimes Disclosure Act which Senators D'Amato, Dodd and I originally sponsored in the 104th Congress as a companion to a measure introduced by Representative Maloney. The measure is a simple one. It requires the disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding individuals who participated in Nazi war crimes. This bill, which Senator DeWine has carefully crafted, builds on our original measure by expanding its scope to include information regarding stolen assets of the victims of Nazi war crimes, and by requiring a Governmentwide search of records to ensure the release of as many relevant documents as possible. A similar search for information regarding Nazi assets was recently conducted under the direction of Stuart Eizenstat, with significant results. Ideally, documents regarding Nazi war crimes would be made available to the public without further legislation and without having to go through the slow process involved in getting information through the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Researchers seeking information on Nazi war criminals are denied access to relevant materials in the possession of the United States Government, even when the disclosure of these documents no longer poses a threat to national security--if indeed such disclosure ever did. Perhaps the most important provision contained in the legislation is the balancing test. This requires that ``there shall be a presumption that the public interest in the release of Nazi war criminal records outweighs the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected to result from disclosure.'' The provision is in keeping with the report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy which recommended that such a balancing test be applied in all classification decisions. The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy was the second statutory examination of Government secrecy. I was honored to Chair the Commission; Representative Combest served as vice-chairman. Also serving on the Commission were John Deutch, Martin Faga, John Podesta, and Samuel Huntington. We presented our report to the President in March, and the congressional members of the Commission introduced legislation to implement the recommendations of the Commission in May. We have welcomed the many editorials and feature articles supporting our efforts as, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, a ``sensible, much- needed proposal for reforming runaway classification of secrets by the federal government.'' And Albany's Times Union assessment that our bill represents a ``bipartisan effort * * * to make more government documents accessible to the public and, in the process, make government more accountable.'' Our's is a report that, I believe, sets out a new framework for how to think about Government secrecy. Beginning with the concept that secrecy should be understood as a form of Government regulation. In the words of the German sociologist Max Weber, writing some eight decades ago: Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret. Bureaucratic administration always tends to be an administration of ``secret sessions''; in so far as it can, it hides its knowledge and action from criticism. The pure interest of the bureaucracy in power, however, is efficacious far beyond those areas where purely functional interests make for secrecy. The concept of the ``official secret'' is the specific invention of bureaucracy, and nothing is so fanatically defended by the bureaucracy as this attitude, which cannot be substantially defended beyond these specifically qualified areas. What we traditionally think of in this country as regulation concerns how citizens are to behave. Whereas public regulation involves what the citizen may do, secrecy concerns what that citizen may know. And the citizen does not know what may not be known. As our Commission stated: ``Americans are familiar with the tendency to overregulate in other areas. What is different with secrecy is that the public cannot know the extent or the content of the regulation.'' Thus, secrecy in the ultimate mode of regulation; the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated. It is a parallel regulatory regime with a far greater potential for damage if it malfunctions. In our democracy, where the free exchange of ideas is so essential, it can be suffocating. We must develop what might be termed a competing ``culture of openness'' fully consistent with our interests in protecting national security, but in which power and authority are no longer derived primarily from one's ability to withhold information from others in Government and the public at large. The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act is in keeping with the work of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. With the passing of time it becomes ever more important to document Nazi war crimes, lest the enormity of those crimes be lost to history. The greater access which this legislation provides will add clarity to this important effort. I applaud those researchers who continue to pursue this important work. I would like to thank Representative Maloney for her original work on this subject in the House of Representatives and I would also thank Senator DeWine for joining me in this effort here in the Senate.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today we introduce a revised War Crimes Disclosure Act which Senators D'Amato, Dodd and I originally sponsored in the 104th Congress as a companion to a measure introduced by Representative Maloney. The measure is a simple one. It requires the disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding individuals who participated in Nazi war crimes. This bill, which Senator DeWine has carefully crafted, builds on our original measure by expanding its scope to include information regarding stolen assets of the victims of Nazi war crimes, and by requiring a Governmentwide search of records to ensure the release of as many relevant documents as possible. A similar search for information regarding Nazi assets was recently conducted under the direction of Stuart Eizenstat, with significant results. Ideally, documents regarding Nazi war crimes would be made available to the public without further legislation and without having to go through the slow process involved in getting information through the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Researchers seeking information on Nazi war criminals are denied access to relevant materials in the possession of the United States Government, even when the disclosure of these documents no longer poses a threat to national security--if indeed such disclosure ever did. Perhaps the most important provision contained in the legislation is the balancing test. This requires that ``there shall be a presumption that the public interest in the release of Nazi war criminal records outweighs the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected to result from disclosure.'' The provision is in keeping with the report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy which recommended that such a balancing test be applied in all classification decisions. The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy was the second statutory examination of Government secrecy. I was honored to Chair the Commission; Representative Combest served as vice-chairman. Also serving on the Commission were John Deutch, Martin Faga, John Podesta, and Samuel Huntington. We presented our report to the President in March, and the congressional members of the Commission introduced legislation to implement the recommendations of the Commission in May. We have welcomed the many editorials and feature articles supporting our efforts as, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, a ``sensible, much- needed proposal for reforming runaway classification of secrets by the federal government.'' And Albany's Times Union assessment that our bill represents a ``bipartisan effort * * * to make more government documents accessible to the public and, in the process, make government more accountable.'' Our's is a report that, I believe, sets out a new framework for how to think about Government secrecy. Beginning with the concept that secrecy should be understood as a form of Government regulation. In the words of the German sociologist Max Weber, writing some eight decades ago: Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret. Bureaucratic administration always tends to be an administration of ``secret sessions''; in so far as it can, it hides its knowledge and action from criticism. The pure interest of the bureaucracy in power, however, is efficacious far beyond those areas where purely functional interests make for secrecy. The concept of the ``official secret'' is the specific invention of bureaucracy, and nothing is so fanatically defended by the bureaucracy as this attitude, which cannot be substantially defended beyond these specifically qualified areas. What we traditionally think of in this country as regulation concerns how citizens are to behave. Whereas public regulation involves what the citizen may do, secrecy concerns what that citizen may know. And the citizen does not know what may not be known. As our Commission stated: ``Americans are familiar with the tendency to overregulate in other areas. What is different with secrecy is that the public cannot know the extent or the content of the regulation.'' Thus, secrecy in the ultimate mode of regulation; the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated. It is a parallel regulatory regime with a far greater potential for damage if it malfunctions. In our democracy, where the free exchange of ideas is so essential, it can be suffocating. We must develop what might be termed a competing ``culture of openness'' fully consistent with our interests in protecting national security, but in which power and authority are no longer derived primarily from one's ability to withhold information from others in Government and the public at large. The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act is in keeping with the work of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. With the passing of time it becomes ever more important to document Nazi war crimes, lest the enormity of those crimes be lost to history. The greater access which this legislation provides will add clarity to this important effort. I applaud those researchers who continue to pursue this important work. I would like to thank Representative Maloney for her original work on this subject in the House of Representatives and I would also thank Senator DeWine for joining me in this effort here in the Senate.