Frank Murkowski

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I am concerned with canned salmon.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Well, it would apply to other canned seafood, but it is directed primarily at salmon. There may be a requirement for tuna. Tuna is not one of the fisheries in the northern part of the west coast, so I am not as familiar with it. I do not really think it makes a difference. There is an inspection process--both State and Federal, a mandatory requirement, in order for the product to be placed on the shelf of the grocery stores. That applies to other types of fish in a can, as well-- mackerel, tuna, perhaps.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Certainly, it is the intention of the Senator from Alaska not to exclude any. My interest just happens to be in salmon. The rationale behind that is, we have a considerable amount of salmon that is canned in our State and in the State of Washington, and we look to find relief in selling a portion of that to the USDA in their food program. Much to our chagrin, we find out unless that particular pack has an additional inspection, we cannot break into that market. It is pretty hard to explain why there should have to be an additional inspector in a cannery above and beyond the inspections that are required to put it on the consumer shelf.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. The Senator from Alaska has filed a Greens Creek land exchange amendment. It is my understanding, since we both share a committee assignment relative to some 40 bills that are being held up, that there is also an intent to clear tonight some seven or eight bills that are currently being held in the House, and we hope that they could come over tonight and be accepted. I think Senator Bradley has been involved in directing as to whether or not that process will be cleared. I might add to the Senator from Arkansas that the Greens Creek amendment is also in that package. I might also add that the administration happens to support the Greens Creek amendment. I know of no opposition.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Yes.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Hopefully, it will be. Hopefully, it could go through tonight. It depends on the clearance.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Yes, it has. It is at the desk now. It could go through tonight. I find myself picking up the habit of my friend from Arkansas. I was reminded by my staff that I am wandering around to the extent of my cord. So I had better crawl back. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I assume their opposition is that there will be less inspectors around. They will have to find something else to do, with perhaps retraining. It would certainly save the Government some money. I am certainly sensitive to the inquisitiveness of my friend from Arkansas. The question is if we have adequate inspections of the product, why is it necessary that a Federal agency deems that it must have its own special requirements? I have met with them, I add to my friend from Arkansas, and they have no explanation. They say they have always done it. We said, ``Well, it defies logic. The product meets all Federal and State standards of cleanliness, of quality; otherwise, it could not go on the shelves.'' Do we need more? Obviously, no.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. The answer is no. Amendment No. 3525

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Well, the Senator is incorrect in that assumption. First of all, the Senator from Alaska does not know anything about the chicken business, but I do know something about the salmon business. I assume the Senator from Arkansas knows an awful lot about the chicken business. We are both concerned with quality control, because you are not going to sell your chicken, and I am not going to sell my salmon, unless we have quality control and the assurance that the purchaser receives the highest quality product. Now, that is the case that exists currently in the canned salmon industry, and as far as I know, in the canned fish industry as a whole. The fish must pass inspections that are set out by the State and Federal Government. That seems to be good enough for the consumers of the product, except the USDA, which requires--only on their purchases--not the purchases of the Safeway or Giant--an extra inspection process. They want a person in the cannery-- and the canneries are not located in Juneau; they are located out in the hinterland where the fish actually come in. Now, a Federal inspector works 8 hours a day. It is not good enough to have just one in a plant because your plant may be working 14 hours a day. If there are no fish, you still have to pay for that inspector, because he has to be there. What has occurred here is that a giant bureaucracy has developed. I support the position of the Senator from Arkansas for quality control, maintenance, and so forth. But what we have under the program is an industry check, a State check, a Federal check, and then in the warehouse, a spot check of the entire pack that is going out for sale, where they randomly open certain cases and look at the quality, look at the wholesomeness of it, actually do a test on a portion of the lot, because no one can afford to put a product on the market that does not meet the Food and Drug Administration's safety standard of wholesomeness--just like the chicken industry in the Senator's State simply cannot afford this. If you were in a situation where everybody was buying Arkansas chicken and it met whatever your State requirements were, and your Federal requirements, and suddenly the USDA said, ``Well, for the chicken we are going to buy, that is not good enough. We have to have another inspector in all of your plants, or we are not going to buy any of your product.'' That is the situation we are in today.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I have the amendment in front of me. I would be happy to read it to the Senator.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I am familiar with it. It does not mandate a purchase of any specific amount of salmon.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder if I might ask my friend a question.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder if my colleague will yield for a question.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wonder if I could finish my one question of the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I would just like to ask my friend from Louisiana, with whom I share the responsibility on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and we work together, if, indeed, on page 2, line 23----

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thought there was a reference to Senator Dorgan.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the Murray amendment. This proposal would create chaos in the National forests. It would repeal a measure we passed just 7 months ago, which the Forest Service and BLM have, at our urging, been moving to implement. Then it provides these agencies with new, conflicting direction. Moreover, the Murray amendment provides the agencies with long-term direction on forest health restoration that: First, was introduced less than one week ago; second, has never been reviewed by the authorizing committees, or been subject to a hearing; and third, is fundamentally and fatally flawed. By contrast, my committee has been working on long- term forest health legislation introduced by Senator Craig and Senator Heflin for over a year. This effort has included extended discussions with minority staff and members of the Energy and Agriculture Committees and the land management agencies. While these discussions have not produced complete consensus, they have produced a bill that is well drafted, addresses many members' concerns, and will be marked-up and reported later this month. The Murray amendment in essence asks us to put this aside and, instead, enact on the floor today a multiyear piece of legislation-- with significant environmental and economic implications--that most of us have never even seen. Well let me share a few high points. Senator Murray would subject all of the salvage timber sales sold in the past year to new administrative appeals and expanded judicial review. This amounts to 1.8 billion board feet of sales that will be stopped in their tracks. Loggers and mill workers will be sent home. The value of the dead and decaying timber will decline as the appeals and lawsuits are heard. In a hearing before our committee last week, Forest Service officials expressed concern over this problem. The original terms of the timber sale contracts will be violated by the Government, and contract damage claims will ensue as timber companies are forbidden to harvest under the terms and, more importantly, timeframes of the contracts. In response to the extraordinary 1994 fire season, we chose 7 months ago to allow, under some conditions, ``logging without lawyers.'' Senator Murray apparently finds an unacceptable restriction on legal employment opportunities. She wants to put lawyers back to work. Maybe that's alright. I don't dislike lawyers--much. But there is a clear choice here. Creating all these new legal jobs will unemploy loggers and millworkers. Let me give you another example. The Murray amendment prohibits forest health and salvage activities in roadless areas. Why? Don't these areas deserve treatment if they are sick? Shouldn't fire-damaged watersheds in roadless areas be stabilized? Maybe people have faith that roadless areas will recover without help. Perhaps this provision was drafted in a Christian Science reading room. Here's another--the Murray amendment eliminates the expediting procedures for salvage sales that were developed by the Bush administration and refined by the Clinton administration. Why are we going to substitute whatever wisdom we can muster here in an hour today for provisions that represent the result of 7 years of bipartisan analysis? On the other hand, if that doesn't trouble you, I shouldn't bother mentioning that the Murray amendment offers a completed new definition of what constitutes a salvage timber sale. Apparently the definition provided by the Forest Service scientists and used both in Public Law 104-19 and Senator Craig's bill, is somehow inadequate. If so, we will never find out why in the hour we have devoted to this issue. But let me close with my favorite. Section 305 of the Murray amendment--for those of us who have had the time to be so precise-- directs the Council on Environmental Quality to develop expedited NEPA compliance procedures for salvage sales. They are given a year to develop these expedited procedures. This chart shows how fast fire- killed timber deteriorates. So what the Murray amendment does is: put everything on hold; reinstate lawsuits and appeals; and maybe in a year or so we will have new, expedited procedures for salvage sales from the CEQ. The Murray amendment appears to address forest health concerns and the needs of forest communities. But understand that no one, least of all the American people, are fooled. This is a vote to appease national environmental groups. They have a lot riding on it. Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. The Senator will accept 5 minutes.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder if I can ask my good friend from Wyoming if he recalls sometime ago this body voted 97 to 1 on a resolution welcoming President Li as he visited his alma mater in New York and the issue of our responsibility to Taiwan at that time was discussed at great length in this body. I think it is fair to say my friend from Wyoming participated in that debate. This body did vote overwhelmingly to support the resolution welcoming President Li to visit his alma mater. I believe, as the Senator from Wyoming has indicated, the amendment has broad bipartisan support and, in view of the recent action by the P.R.C. to intervene in the first free election process in Taiwan, that my friend from Wyoming could give me any indication as to why anyone would object in this body to allowing a substitution so that this amendment could be presented tonight? It is my understanding the amendment was not filed. As a consequence when an effort was made to get a ruling from the Parliamentarian, the Parliamentarian indicated that substitution would be appropriate if it was perhaps unanimous--I am paraphrasing it--and there was an objection. What would be the basis for someone to object to the consequence of the bullying tactics of the P.R.C.?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. If I may follow up with another question. Is the understanding of the Senator from Alaska correct that the objection was from the other side of the aisle?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I hope we have an opportunity tonight to get an explanation as to why there is an objection in this body for bringing up a topic that is, obviously, before the entire world as we look at what China has initiated relative to the launching of missiles to an area adjacent to the island of Taiwan, initiated a naval activity of significant magnitude, when clearly the elections are about to take place on the 23d of March. And it seems, indeed, unfortunate that we cannot get an explanation as a consequence of the commitments that were made under the Taiwan Relations Act to ensure that Taiwan was adequately provided with enough defensive capability to meet their needs subject to a declining amount over the years, as well as a requirement that the President of the United States evaluate the threat to the security of Taiwan, relative to any threat that might exist, and report back to the Congress relative to that threat. I say to my friend from Wyoming, we have obviously had a significant threat, as evidenced by the missiles, as evidenced by the naval activity. I ask my friend from Wyoming if he would not agree that an expression of support to reaffirm the Taiwan Relations Act would not seem to be appropriate, timely, and in order at this time?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to support the Korea visa waiver pilot project legislation. I have worked closely with Senators Inouye, Akaka, and Stevens on this legislation. This bill addresses the problem of the slow issuance of United States tourist visas to Korean citizens, and their, too often, subsequent decision not to vacation in the United States. Koreans typically wait 2 to 3 weeks to obtain visas from the United States Embassy in Seoul. As a result, these spontaneous travelers decide to go to one of the other 48 nations that allow them to travel to their country without a visa, including both Canada and New Zealand. This bill provides the legal basis for a carefully controlled pilot program for visa free travel by Koreans to the United States. The program seeks to capture the Korean tourism market lost due to the cumbersome visa system. For example, in 1994, 296,706 nonimmigrant United States visas were granted to Koreans of which 7,000 came to Alaska. It is predicted that there would be a 500- to 700-percent increase in Korean tourism to Alaska with the visa waiver pilot project. In New Zealand, for example, a 700-percent increase in tourism from Korea occurred after they dropped the visa requirement. This pilot program allows visitors in a tour group from South Korea to travel to the United States without a visa. however, it does not compromise the security standards of the United States. The program would allow selected travel agencies in Korea to issue temporary travel permits based on applicants meeting the same preset standards used by the United States Embassy in Seoul. The travel permits could only be used for supervised group tours. Many restrictions are included in the legislation for the pilot proposal. The Attorney General and Secretary of State can terminate the program if the overstay rates in the program are over 2 percent. The stay of the visitors is less than or equal to 15 days. The visitors have to have a round-trip ticket, in addition, the visitors have to arrive by a carrier that agrees to take them back if they are deemed inadmissible. We recommend to the Secretary of State to institute a bonding and licensing requirement that each participating travel agency post a substantial performance bond and pay a financial penalty if a tourist fails to return on schedule. The one-time return of each tourist in the group would be certified after each tour. Security checks are done to ensure that the visitor is not a safety threat to the United States. This legislation's restrictions ensure that the pilot program will be a successful program. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.