Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I would be happy to make a few comments. I appreciate the statements that have been made by several of our colleagues. I appreciate the statement made by the Presiding Officer, which was right on target. The Presiding Officer, the Senator from Ohio, mentioned this is not about a woman's right to choose, not about a constitutional amendment. It is not about national platforms. It is about whether or not we are going to subsidize abortions by taxpayers. Somebody mentioned polling. I believe the Senator from New Jersey said 70 percent of the people support the right to choose. Certainly that sounds good. If you ask people if they want their tax dollars being used to fund abortion, which is destroying an innocent human life, you will find well over 70 percent say no. And that is all this amendment does. I have heard a couple of my colleagues now say, ``This is the first attack leading to a constitutional amendment that will ban abortion.'' I have been in this body for--this is my 15th or 16th year. We have never voted on a constitutional amendment yet to outlaw abortion. I think some people are trying to scare other people. We have had votes every single year on whether or not we are going to fund abortion with taxpayers' dollars--every single year. I am sure it will continue. Someone said, ``Oh, I wish this issue would go away.'' Well, we have to make decisions on how we are to spend money. Are we going to use our taxpayer dollars in what way? Are we going to use it for fringe benefits that include abortions? We have to make a decision. Are we going to do it or not do it? That is public policy. The Senator from New Jersey said we are a nation of laws. I agree with that. We have to make laws. It is interesting to note we have never made a law legalizing abortion. Congress has never passed a law. But we are not debating that today. That would be a good thing to debate. I know many people in this body support such a law, the codification of Roe versus Wade. Roe versus Wade is a 1973 decision to legalize abortion. That was a Supreme Court decision. That was not an act of Congress. I read the Constitution to say that Congress should pass all laws, article I. Congress should pass all laws. That was the law where basically Roe versus Wade was legalized. That is not what we are debating today. We are debating today the power of the purse, are we going to use taxpayers' dollars to subsidize abortion? Taxpayers pay 72 percent of the cost of Federal employees health insurance. So we have a right to say what is and what is not in it. There are a lot of things not in Federal employees health insurance. We do not have free dental coverage. A lot of people would like to have it, but we do not have it. It may be available somewhere, but you do not have free dental coverage. We have to make decisions. We have to make decisions of how we are going to spend the money. Taxpayers pay 72 percent of the cost of Federal employees health insurance. We have to decide, do we want to include abortion. I heard two colleagues say this is just another medical procedure. I disagree. They may want it to cover abortion just like it would cover-- I do not know--a tooth extraction or maybe anything else that is routine, but this is elective surgery. What does that elective surgery do? It destroys the life of an innocent unborn human being.

Mr. NICKLES. I will not at this point. I will in a moment. It destroys the life of an innocent human being. Now that is serious and it is serious when you say to the taxpayers, ``We want you to pay for three-fourths of it.'' So we are not debating constitutional amendments. We are not debating a woman's right to choose. We are not changing the law. We are debating how we are going to spend money. This amendment says no funds shall be used. We have that right. As I say, we have debated this every single year on Health and Human Services because we deal with Medicaid. That is a national health program for low-income people, and we debate that every year. I might mention, we have had restrictions every year saying we should not use Federal money to subsidize abortion for low-income people. Now we are talking about Federal employees. Federal employees, for the most part, are not low income. Most Federal employees do OK. Maybe they are not all upper income, I did not say that, but the language we have right now, if we allowed it to go in, would basically say, ``Well, we're going to have abortion as a fringe benefit for all Federal employees paid for by the taxpayers,'' 72 percent paid by the taxpayers, regardless of what their income level is. Again, you have to go back to, what are we subsidizing? We are subsidizing the destruction of a human life. A lot of Americans feel very, very strongly that is not the way our tax dollars should be spent. They feel very strongly about it, and that is the reason why we have had these debates every year. Some may say, ``Well, this is delaying the process.'' This Senator has no desire to delay the process. I was happy to have this amendment considered under a 1-hour time limit equally divided. I think everybody in this body knows how they are going to vote. But I just wanted to respond to some of my colleagues. I heard some of my colleagues say, ``I support the right of the freedom of choice. I support the right to choose.'' I heard that. We are talking about a life. We are talking about an unborn child. I want people to have the maximum degree of freedom and liberty imaginable. I want people to have the right to choose almost anything everywhere. This is America. This is the land of opportunity, the land of the free, but that does not include destroying other human beings. There are certain restrictions. That does not include hurting or harming someone else, and it certainly does not include having taxpayers pay for it. So that is what this amendment is all about. We do not think that taxpayers should be forced to subsidize Federal employees in paying for abortions. That was the policy of our Nation, that was the law of the land from 1984 to 1993. President Clinton and his administration were successful in changing that 2 years ago. We had a good, heated debate then. We lost by two votes. Hopefully, we will not lose today. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I will be happy to yield on the Senator's time.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I inquire how much time remains.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to thank my friend and colleague from Montana for his excellent statement. I yield such time as he may consume to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. NICKLES. I yield the Senator from Montana such time as he may require.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Also Senator Craig and Senator Coats be added as cosponsors.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senate Armed Services Committee members and staff for working closely with me and my staff on this amendment. I also want to thank my friend and colleague Senator Inhofe and his staff who played a key role in getting this amendment adopted. This amendment adds the requirement that once the Department of Defense submits its report to Congress regarding depot maintenance as required in this bill, the GAO be given 45 days to review the information and the conclusions from the Pentagon's recommended depot policy and submit that analysis to Congress. In my view this is an appropriate and non-controversial amendment. By providing the Congress with an analysis of the Pentagon's proposal for depot maintenance the Congress will have an independent viewpoint on the recommended changes. This analysis will be critical as the Congress decides whether to adopt the [[Page S 11315]] recommendations of the Pentagon or stay with the existing depot policy. Once again, I wish to thank the members and staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senator Inhofe for their cooperation and assistance in having this amendment included in this bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first I wish to compliment my friend and colleague, Senator Kassebaum, the chairman of the Labor Committee, for her statement. I hope people heard her statement. Also, I will mention the reason why I offered this second-degree amendment. The second-degree amendment says Congress should take up and consider and vote on comprehensive welfare reform before the end of this year. I think that is a very high priority. Maybe I think it is a higher priority than increasing the minimum wage, because I happen to believe increasing the minimum wage will cost jobs. The Senator from Kansas, as chairman of the Labor Committee, said she will have a hearing on minimum wage. I might mention, that is more than our friends on the other side did. The sponsor of this amendment, when he was chairman of the Labor Committee for the last 2 years, I do not believe they had hearings on increasing the minimum wage. I know, if my memory serves me correctly, Senator Mitchell, when he was majority leader the last 2 years, they did not pull up legislation on the floor of the Senate to increase the minimum wage. Now they offer an amendment to this bill, the State Department authorization bill, and the amendment says we should consider and take up and vote on increasing the minimum wage. No. 1, that is an amendment that has nothing to do with the State Department authorization. It is kind of saying: We were running the Senate for a number of years and it was not a high enough priority for us to do it then, but now we want to do it while Republicans are controlling the Senate. I disagree. Senator Dole is the majority leader. He is the one who sets up the agenda of the Senate, not the Senator from Massachusetts. So I have offered an amendment in the second degree. It says Congress should take up welfare reform. I think that is important. I know the majority leader thinks that is important. I think the majority leader should set the agenda of the Senate. So I compliment my friend from Kansas. I appreciate her cosponsoring this amendment. I hope people will place this amendment as a higher priority. I will mention, actually, probably neither amendment should be on this bill. We should be considering the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina. We ought to be voting on it. I will say we ought to be voting on it in 15 minutes, because this entire body, by the majority leader, was told we will have votes not before 6 o'clock. For us to take up nongermane amendments, for us to debate a lot of things and not take up the legislation pending, I think is irresponsible. We have a lot of work to do. A lot of us would like to keep most of the August recess. We would like to spend a little time in our States and with our families. So I think it is important for us to pass this bill. I know the Senator from North Carolina urges us to do so. We have a couple of amendments that are pending. There are a couple of amendments we have the yeas and nays ordered on. I hope we will vote on those. I hope we will vote on those tonight. We have a lot of other amendments, very, very important amendments, that we may be dealing with, talking about reorganizing the State Department, abolishing agencies, restructuring--I compliment the sponsors of the bill before us. It is very substantive legislation. We have also heard some in the administration say, ``Let's not let this pass. Let's allow it to be slowed down.'' I regret that. But I think we should take up the legislation. I think the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts needed to be amended, so I have offered an amendment. I hope my colleagues will support it. Again, I repeat, what this amendment is, it says Congress should take up before the end of this year comprehensive welfare reform. I know the President of the United States spoke to the Governors and he urged we have welfare reform. I know the Senate majority leader spoke to the Governors today and he said we should have welfare reform. So, hopefully, Congress will work out its difference and we will pass a bipartisan welfare reform bill this year. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2030 to Amendment No. 1977

Mr. NICKLES

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

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I rise today in support of the resolution that is before the Senate, the resolution sponsored by Senator Dole, Senator Lieberman, and many others. I compliment them for this resolution. I also compliment many of my colleagues who spoke so eloquently on this issue yesterday. I was one that wanted to speak. I noticed the Presiding Officer made an excellent speech last night. Several other of my colleagues, Senator McCain and others, spoke eloquently on the need for this resolution. I compliment them for it. Madam President, my involvement in the former Yugoslavia probably started with a trip that I made with Senator Dole to Yugoslavia in the summer of 1990. I learned a lot about the former Yugoslavia and some of the Republics at that time. I must say my eyes were opened. I was shocked by some of the things I had seen, by some of the discrimination, and I will say hatred, by some of the leaders in Serbia, particularly Mr. Milosevic. I remember Senator Dole and others on the trip, we wanted to go into Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic did not want us to go. I remember there were so- called elections in Serbia about that time. He stole the elections. But he did not want us to go into Kosovo because of all the problems. We wanted to go into Kosovo because we heard of human rights violations. They did not want us to find out about it. The people of Kosovo wanted us to go, and we initially went. We went because of the leadership of Senator Dole. Even the State Department said they did not know about this, but Senator Dole said no, we are going to go, and we went after hours of haggling negotiations. We eventually went. We saw thousands of people--Albanians. Kosovo is about 85 percent Albanian. They were really oppressed. They had been denied jobs. Their newspapers had been shut down. They were denied access to radios. They were expelled from hospitals, from universities, and other institutions. Frankly, the leaders in Serbia--and I hope you will note I am talking about the leaders, because not all Serbs are bad. Certainly, in my opinion, they have some very bad leadership. They distorted the whole thrust of our intentions. Our intentions were to listen to the people, and they tried to deny us that access. We did listen to many of the people in Kosovo on both sides of the issue. We saw mass demonstrations, thousands of people. In many cases, the police tried to deny them access to us. I will not forget that trip. I will not forget the leadership that Senator Dole had in trying to make sure that we were able to see the people in Kosovo, and also I will not forget the way that Mr. Milosevic had distorted our trip, distorted the press afterward, and how he had suppressed some of the people in Kosovo. It reminds me of the same trip where we were also in other countries, some of the Eastern European countries that were now experiencing democracy, and how excited they were; and then, to see this happening in the former Yugoslavia, and how sad that was. Now we see some results later. I might mention as a result of that, we passed an amendment. I will mention that amendment. In the fall of 1990, that was opposed by the Bush administration, but the result of it was if we are going to give economic assistance to the republics in the former Yugoslavia, they must be showing some respect for human rights and democracy. Serbia did not qualify. Other Republics did qualify. We had a heated debate on that. We had a conference on that one issue that lasted for hours. We passed that amendment--so-called Nickles-Dole amendment. It was one of the first legislative items we had dealing with the former Yugoslavia that said we want to support the forces that are trying to get human rights, freedom, and democracy. Again, I say, this is back in the fall of 1990, so this is not a new issue. Mr. President, in thinking back a little more, and more recently, I remember an issue we had in the summer of 1993, where this Senator and others raised the prospect that we felt like this administration was trying to delegate too much authority to the United Nations. We had a vote on this floor. Actually, we had an amendment, and fought it for 2 days on the floor, saying we did not think U.S. military combatants should be placed under U.N. control. We eventually lost that amendment. I think we made a point. Our point was that this administration was very intent on delegating U.S. military authority under the auspices of the United Nations. We stated then, 2 years ago, that would not work. I think the events in Bosnia, the events in the former Yugoslavia, have proven that to be the case. They have not worked. The United Nations is not a military machine. It may be a diplomatic effort, but their efforts on the military front will certainly fail. They have failed. We are witnessing a real tragedy, a real tragedy, and a lack of leadership from the United Nations, a lack of leadership from the United States. A lot of mistakes have been made. We continue to see war-torn Bosnia suffer as a result. Mr. President, myself and others have met with the Prime Minister of Bosnia, and he said, ``Let us defend ourselves. Lift the arms embargo. The arms embargo that was placed in 1991 was placed on the entire Yugoslavia. There is not a Yugoslavia today.'' The arms embargo was not placed on the State of Bosnia. Maybe we made a mistake in recognizing the State of Bosnia. But we have done that. That may have been a mistake. But Bosnia is an independent nation. They have a right to defend themselves. Under the auspice of the United Nations, we said, well, we will have a resolution, we will designate safe areas. Those safe areas are not safe. The Senator from Texas pointed out last night, they are not safe. It is a real tragedy, a human rights tragedy, when we see today genocide taking place, when we see people either being slaughtered, raped, or separated from their families with men on one side, women on another, and there are other people transported out--ethnic cleansing, happening today, in 1995, in the so-called safe areas, where we have a U.N. resolution saying this will be a safe area, and it is not safe. Certainly, we should accede to the request of the people of Bosnia who say, ``At least let us protect ourselves.'' We should give them that opportunity. They have requested that opportunity. Some people say if we do that, think of the consequences. I think that is important. We should think of the consequences. What will happen? Who is in the best situation to make those determinations? I say the people of Bosnia. The people of Bosnia are saying they are going to ask the U.N. so- called peacekeeping troops to leave. If they wish to do so, let us let them do so. If they want to have the ability to be able to protect themselves, certainly we should allow them to do that. Senator McCain said on the floor last night that there are worse things than dying. Certainly if a family is being separated from their loved ones, they ought to at least have the opportunity to be able to fight for their families. We are not giving them that. We have given them a false umbrella called the U.N. safekeeping area, safe haven, and they have not proven to be safe. Surely we owe it to those individuals to allow them to be able to protect themselves. We have not done that under this administration. As a candidate, President Clinton said he wanted to lift the embargo. They have made a couple of failed attempts. To me, again, that shows real lack of leadership. They made an attempt through the United Nations early in 1993 to have a multilateral lifting of the embargo. But it was not successful. What happened between this and the previous administration when we had a world crisis in the Persian Gulf with the Bush administration? They were able to pass U.N. resolutions and enforce those U.N. resolutions. They had teeth. They had respect, and we were successful in getting our allies in the United Nations--and some people who you would not consider our allies in the United Nations--to support those resolutions to expel Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis from Kuwait. We built up a worldwide effort and community to oppose his aggression, to finance the opposition to that aggression and militarily put the forces together to repel that aggression. We passed U.N. resolutions, and we enforced those resolutions. This administration 2 years later is not able to convince our allies to lift the embargo and, instead, is leading us down a road to surely significant U.S. military involvement, which I know has not been stated as the intention of this administration. Now they say, ``Well, if we lift the embargo, the U.N. troops are going to leave, and surely then it would be Americanization of the war.'' Why? Because this administration said we will supply 25,000 troops to get the U.N. troops out. So now we have U.S. ground troop involvement in Bosnia. Where did they come up with the 25,000 troops? Madam President, 2 years ago when we had this debate on the floor and I was arguing against delegating U.S. authority to the United Nations, I was quoting administration sources that said they wanted to commit 25,000 troops to an international peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. I argued against that. Yet, that is what this administration is trying to do. They said, ``Well, we have already made a commitment.'' Even when they made that public announcement of, ``Yes, we will put U.S. forces in for the withdrawal,'' a few weeks ago for the relocation of U.N. peacekeeping forces, where did that come from? They said, ``Well, we were continuing with the commitment of the Bush administration.'' That is not the case. That is not factual. The Bush administration never committed putting United States ground forces into the former Yugoslavia for any reason, not relocation of troops, not the extrication of the U.N. troops, not for any reason. They did say, ``Yes, we might have some air support'' for protection, or cover, or for whatever reason, but they did not say we would be putting in ground troops. The Prime Minister of Bosnia has said, ``Why do you need 25,000 troops?'' Almost all of the U.N. troops are on the Bosnian Government's land, Moslem controlled, not Serb controlled area. I think they said 30 or 60 U.N. troops might be under the control of the Serbs. Why do we need 25,000 troops to get them out? So I want to make it perfectly clear, I support the resolution lifting the arms embargo. I do not support the 25,000 troops that President Clinton made without consulting with Congress, certainly in contradiction to the previous administration's commitment in Yugoslavia. I do not think you need 25,000 troops to get U.N. troops out. Those are troops. They can get out. They have the capability of getting out. Why make this kind of unilateral commitment, ``Well, if they are going to get out, we have to make a commitment to help them get out?'' The Bosnian Government said they are going to ask them to leave; they have not been a help; they have not been a positive factor concerning this. I will read a couple of quotes by the Bosnian Foreign Minister: I emphasize once again that we are not asking for foreign troops to come to Bosnia. I emphasize once again that we are only prepared to count on ourselves and no one else. This is July 17 of this year. He also said, and I quote this. * * * it's my assessment that you don't really need these NATO troops and certainly not these U.S. troops. The reason is that when these plans were drawn up, they were drawn up under worst case scenarios--number one, assuming a large number of U.N. and Serb controlled territory, and number two, assuming that Bosnian civilians would, somehow, prevent the U.N. troops from leaving. Well, on the first point, there are almost no U.N. troops left on Serb-controlled territory. They have all withdrawn to government-controlled territory; effectively, now, it is government troops that are protecting them, and we are ready to let them leave. As for Bosnian civilians preventing the U.N. from leaving, they've seen what the U.N. has done for them in Srebrenica, what it's doing for them in Zepa, what it needs to do for them in Gorazde, and, frankly, what it needs to do for them in Sarajevo. It's not a heck of a lot. I think most of the Bosnian civilians--I think all, frankly--would be glad to see the U.N. forces leave. That was made July 18, 1995. So basically the Bosnian Foreign Minister has said they are going to be asking the U.N. forces to leave. They have not helped. The safe areas have not. They are not safe. We have seen what happened in Srebrenica and Zepa. They are afraid of what is going to happen in Sarajevo. They are asking. And we have a letter on our desk that said: Please. I am writing to you today to once again appeal to the American people and the government to lift the illegal and the immoral arms embargo on our people. Today's vote is a vote for human life. It is a vote for right against wrong. It is not about politics. It is about doing the right thing. He basically says, ``Let us defend ourselves.'' So why have a commitment of 25,000 troops? He said, ``We are going to let the troops out.'' The troops can get out. Do we have to get their equipment out? We are going to risk 25,000 troops to get out U.N. equipment? I do not think that equipment is worth it. What happens when some forces happen to shoot down U.S. transport helicopters or destroy military equipment or personnel get locked in, or if they capture more pilots and they hold those captive and hostage? What are we going to do then? We are probably going to send in more troops to make sure we get them out. In other words, the Bosnian people are not asking for United States forces. They are not asking that we send troops. Let us not do it. I think it would be a mistake. I think the administration made a mistake when they unilaterally said, oh, yes, we will commit 25,000 U.S. forces for the extrication of the U.N. forces. I think that is a mistake. And so I am going to be very clear that while I support the lifting of the arms embargo, I do not support U.S. ground forces to pull out the U.N. forces that were probably there by mistake in the first place. Madam President, let us allow the Bosnians to defend themselves. Let us lift this embargo. This embargo was placed on the entire country of Yugoslavia, not on the nation of Bosnia. Bosnia has been recognized by the United Nations. It has been recognized by the United States. Maybe that was a mistake. But that was in 1991. Surely, they have a right to defend themselves as a sovereign country. Madam President, further vacillations from this administration, which said in the past they are in favor of lifting the embargo but has been so ineffective in getting other countries to join us, is very regrettable. We need strong leadership in the United States, and we have not seen it. So it is with some regret I say that we are really refuting the President's policy, but it needs to be refuted. I think we have serious mistakes that have been made in the former Yugoslavia, and as a result you see a real decline of United States leadership, United States prestige, United States influence, not only in Europe but I am afraid throughout the world. As to our ability in the United Nations, think of where we were under both the Reagan and Bush administrations when we had a great deal of influence in the United Nations where we were the leaders, where we were the leader, and now to see we do not have the capability to convince the allies to lift the embargo I think shows a real impotence by the United States, a real loss of prestige and influence on our allies. I regret that. I do not want that to happen. I do not care who is President. This is a serious vote, one of the more serious votes we will have had in this body, and it is one that I do not relish--having congressional dictation of foreign policy. Many times that can be a mistake. But, Madam President, this administration's foreign policy has been a disaster. It has been a real disaster for the people of Bosnia. We need to change course. I think lifting the arms embargo is the first step. And again, I wish to congratulate Senator Dole and Senator Lieberman and others who have had the persistence to bring this forward, particularly Senator Dole, because, as I mentioned earlier in my comments, I went to the former Yugoslavia with him and I saw his persistence in trying to stand up for what he felt was right in helping the people who are really oppressed--at the time the people in Kosovo. I compliment him for that tenacity. And looking back, since we have been involved in amendments in the Chamber since 1990, this is not just about Presidential politics, as some people have alluded. This is much more important than that. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. I yield the floor. Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my friend from New Jersey, Senator Bradley, in the introduction of legislation to phase- out tax subsidies for the ethanol industry. If enacted, our legislation will reduce the Federal budget deficit by nearly $3 billion over the next 5 years. For 15 years the Federal Government has provided substantial tax breaks to subsidize the development and use of ethanol as a clean, renewable fuel. Those subsidies have proven very effective, as the U.S. ethanol industry will produce over 1 billion gallons of ethanol for blending into fuel this year, costing the government over $700 million in lost tax revenue. However as with most government programs, even though the need for ethanol tax subsidies has ended, the subsidies themselves live on. In fact, the ethanol industry and their friends in the legislative and executive branches are continually seeking to expand those subsidies. We believe the time has come to stop subsidizing a healthy industry. Other clean fuels offer the same benefits as ethanol, but struggle to compete against ethanol's massive tax advantage. Our legislation will even the playing-field by phasing-out the excise tax exemption and income tax credit over 3 years for ethanol produced from crops which are also eligible for U.S. farm program subsidies. This prevents the double-subsidization of some farm production, while allowing continued ethanol tax breaks for alcohol produced from non- subsidized crops or waste products. Mr. President, as we seek to eliminate our budget deficit, it is important that we examine all forms of Federal spending, including specialized tax expenditures. We should not allow our tax code to subsidize healthy businesses, especially when those subsidies create an unfair competitive advantage over others. I am pleased to join Senator Bradley in this initiative.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first I would like to compliment my friend and colleague, Senator Hatch, from Utah and also Senator Roth, from Delaware, for their patience in working on this bill. I will admit that they have shown greater patience than myself. They have, I think, done an outstanding job in managing this bill. It is a very difficult bill. I also want to compliment the majority leader of the Senate, Mr. Dole. I will tell you, we are going to have this third cloture vote, and I think this is the vote. I have heard some of my colleagues say, well, we need to make some more adjustments. We have made I think over 100 adjustments to this bill. I might go through a list, or maybe put a list in the Record, of some of the changes we made. I remember 10 days ago they said we need to increase the threshold from $50 to $100 million. That has been done. We need to eliminate the provisions dealing with Superfund. That has been done. We need to clarify that it does not jeopardize health and safety. We have done that as well. We have had many people mention that it does have a supermandate in it. We said, no, it does not have a supermandate. It does not override the law. Mr. President, my point is that we have bent over backwards to negotiate with our friends and colleagues who have different views, but we have to draw this thing to a closure. We have to have it come to a conclusion. We need to have, unfortunately, cloture. I say unfortunately; I do not like cloture. But if we are going to end this bill, we have to have cloture. We have over 250 amendments filed--250 amendments--many of which are very arbitrary. Some are serious. I wish to compliment my friend and colleague, Senator Johnston from Louisiana, because he has worked tirelessly to put this package together. Is it perfect? No. But is it a giant step toward reining in unnecessary and overly expensive regulations? Yes, it is. And it needs to pass. The cost of regulations today exceeds $6,000 per family. And that is growing out of control. We need to rein it in. This is the bill to do it. We cannot do it if we do not get cloture. I do not think we are going to have another cloture vote. I think this is it. If we do not get cloture today, my guess is we are killing this bill for this Congress, and a lot of people have worked too hard for that to happen. For all my colleagues who say they want regulatory reform, if they want it, they need to vote for cloture. We will have the opportunity to make some adjustments to improve the bill if that is necessary. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture and let us pass a positive bill that will rein in unnecessary regulations.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, negotiations are underway right now to see if we cannot come to a closure on Senator Hutchison's amendment. I think there is general agreement that her amendment is needed. I happen to share that concern. I am happy to be a cosponsor of it. I hope maybe we can alleviate some of the concerns that were raised legitimately by Senator Biden and Senator Levin and pass that amendment. Those negotiations may be going on for a few more minutes. So I would hope that we could move ahead on a couple of other things. I know Senator Kennedy mentioned yesterday that he has an OSHA amendment, that he would like to exempt OSHA. I hope he will bring that to the floor. I hope we can have a vote very quickly on Senator Domenici's amendment which he raised, and it was debated last night. So I would let people know that hopefully we will have soon a vote on the Domenici amendment. I hope Senator Kennedy will bring his amendment to the floor very soon and that we can begin debate on it and hopefully have a vote on it after a short discussion. Maybe a time limit with be necessary on that. Possibly by that time we will have the negotiations completed on the amendment offered by Senator Hutchison. I think her amendment is needed. I also think it is well drafted. Maybe we can solve some of the ambiguities on it. But it is important to let people know that, if they rely on an agency ruling, that ruling made sense and there will not be a retroactive application of a fine or a penalty. If they are given a letter, if they are told by administrative agency, this is OK, this is right, this is in the Congressional Record, you should not have retroactive application and fine or some type of other civil penalty. That would be a mistake. That is not fair. That is unjust. I believe there would be bipartisan support for that. I agree that there should be overwhelming support for this amendment. Hopefully that will be adopted. I see my friend and colleague from Massachusetts. I mention to him maybe we could move forward on his amendment very quickly and try to solve that. I know Senator Dole has real concerns about moving this legislation forward. I want to compliment the managers. I saw Senator Glenn just a moment ago, and Senator Roth and Senator Hatch, because they worked very, very hard to try to make some progress. It was very frustrating the first 2 or 3 days. I think yesterday we made a lot of progress. I compliment Senator Johnston for helping make that happen. So yesterday evening we started making real progress. I might mention for those on the other side of the aisle that had raised a lot of concerns about this bill, I think a lot of those concerns were alleviated. So maybe, again, that will help promote this and make it more possible to pass this bill. I know the majority leader said he would like to have this bill passed no later than Tuesday. I think he is being patient. We started on this bill actually on Thursday before the recess. So we have had a lot of debate. This bill is needed, Mr. President. In my opinion, it is one of the most important pieces of legislation we will consider this year. It is needed for a lot of reasons. One of the primary reasons is because we have a lot of unnecessary regulation in this country. We have a lot of regulations that do not make sense, a lot of regulations that cost too much. So people do feel like they are overregulated, overburdened. When you have regulations coming in that do not make sense or cost an inordinate amount for marginal improvements, we are saying, wait a minute; let us do something different. And that is what this legislation is all about. So I compliment the sponsors of this legislation. The idea of saying that we should have a policy to make sure that the benefits justify the costs, I think makes eminent good sense. We have had past Presidents who have put that in Executive orders, but we never had it in the law. Why not put it into law? That is what we are trying to do. We are saying that we should use risk analysis so we can actually prioritize those areas that need a scientific analysis so we will determine where we can focus and concentrate our efforts to make sure that we take the limited resources we have from the regulatory agencies, from the Government, from the taxpayers to concentrate on those that will do the most good. Some people have characterized this bill and said this will be harmful to their health. I do not think so. I think it will be just the opposite. We only have so many dollars in the agencies; we only have so many dollars from the taxpayers. Let us concentrate those dollars where we can get basically the maximum amount of safety, the maximum amount of health from the dollars that are expended. Mr. President, again, if there are additional amendments, I urge our colleagues to bring those amendments forward because I know the majority leader wants to draw this bill to a close. At least one cloture motion has been filed. There may be another one filed. I hope that is not necessary. I hope that everyone in good faith will offer their amendments, bring them to the floor, debate them, debate them today, debate them all day Monday if necessary, maybe very late Monday night if necessary, and come to an agreement where we can have final passage on Tuesday. I also know the majority leader wants to go to a Bosnia resolution on Tuesday. We also have appropriations bills that we must begin consideration of. I think we are making good progress on the Hutchison amendment, and if we could resolve it and have a vote or pass the Domenici amendment, I think that would be progress, and hopefully dispose of Senator Kennedy's amendment. That would be excellent progress as well. So I thank my friends. Again, I compliment Senator Hatch and Senator Roth and Senator Johnston for their leadership on this bill. I would like to see some greater momentum and movement on the amendments pending today. I encourage all Republicans who have amendments to bring them to the floor as well and maybe we can dispose of those today. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will put the question. I ask unanimous consent to reduce the time allotted to both sides by 5 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator withhold?

Mr. NICKLES. I do know Senator Dole wants some votes. I do not want to get into protracted, extended debate. I know Senator Kennedy has an amendment dealing with OSHA that shall be controversial. We need to dispose of it, I hope, pretty quickly. We were in hopes we could have votes on Senator Hutchison's amendment quickly. My thought is we might be able to resolve more with a little side discussion than we could on the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I will be happy to respond to the Senator. I know Senator Dole wants a couple of votes quickly. That is the reason why I thought maybe we could talk. In listening to the Senator from Delaware I thought I heard the Senator say he has real problems with the words that were inserted, ``in good faith.'' If he has other suggestions, I would like us to talk about them and maybe we can resolve that.

Mr. NICKLES. I know several Senators want to know----

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, I think we are making good progress on the Hutchison amendment. Hopefully, that will be resolved very quickly. The unanimous-consent request just agreed to says we now go to the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts dealing with OSHA exemption. Hopefully, we can come to a quick time agreement on that and dispose of that amendment. Rescissions Bill I make one other plea. It is Friday morning, and we still have not passed the so-called rescissions package. Mr. President, I believe about 90-some percent of the Senate agrees with passing the rescissions package. I was at the White House earlier this week and President Clinton said he hoped the Senate would pass it very quickly. I believe there is one or maybe two colleagues that still have some opposition to that package. But I urge that they come forward and agree so we can save the taxpayers $9 billion and we can get some much-needed relief to victims of disasters in California, Oklahoma, and other places. I think it is vitally important. It is also important for us in the appropriations process so we can have those amounts. It would make a big difference on the appropriations levels for 1996. I certainly hope we can pass the rescissions package before we leave today. I see the majority leader on the floor. I also see my friend and colleague from Massachusetts on the floor. I appreciate his cooperation, as well. I hope that we can enter into a time agreement on his amendment very soon. Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. If I might just inquire of the Senator, I have an interest in this language but also I have an interest in getting the bill moved. If the Senator has a suggestion, we are happy to consider those suggestions.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, July 14, 1995, to conduct a hearing on Mexico and the exchange stabilization fund.