Charles Robb

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. ROBB. Thank you, Mr. President. As I say, this amendment will reestablish the investigative unit for the Office of Civil Rights. It will provide the additional money necessary for the outreach for minority and socially disadvantaged farmers. This is precisely what the Secretary of Agriculture said is necessary to solve a vexing problem that has been with the department for decades. Literally it has been documented time and time again. I thank all Senators who worked on finding the appropriate offsets so we could provide the funding that the department has requested. I believe it has been cleared and approved on both sides. With that information, I urge adoption of the amendment at this time.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill that will provide USDA with the resources to reestablish the Department's investigative unit and to improve outreach efforts, ensuring equal access for all farmers in USDA programs. This amendment will allow the Department of Agriculture to resolve the backlog of complaints made by farmers who have suffered racial discrimination at the hands of USDA, and will provide the Department with the resources necessary to eradicate discrimination and improve small and minority farmers' participation in agricultural programs. Mr. President, discrimination of any kind is offensive. But it is even more repugnant when it is practiced by people within the Federal Government--the very body that is supposed to come to the aid of the disadvantaged and the dispossessed. Sadly, Mr. President, the Department of Agriculture has had a long history of discrimination against minority and disadvantaged farmers, as well as minority and women employees. Mr. President, for too long serving the needs of small and disadvantaged farmers has clearly not been a priority for USDA, and until recently the Department had not supported any coordinated effort to address this problem. In fact, despite decades of documented discrimination in program delivery and employment, USDA acknowledges today they have a backlog of nearly 800 racial discrimination complaints by farmers, some of which have been pending for over 7 years. Even Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman admits that for ``far too long USDA has turned a blind eye to serious, pervasive problems with [the] civil rights system.'' Fortunately, Secretary Glickman is committed to fixing this long-standing problem, but he needs the tools to accomplish the task. Mr. President, I have discovered that although studies, reports, and task forces from 1965 to 1997 have all documented discrimination and mistreatment of minority and socially disadvantaged customers, as well as agency employees, many do not know the extent of these long-standing problems plaguing the Department. The reality is black farmers in the United States are dwindling at three times the rate of farmers nationwide--nearly to the point of extinction. In December 1996, after a group of black farmers demonstrated outside the White House calling for fair treatment in agricultural lending programs, Secretary Glickman promptly called for a national forum, and appointed a Civil Rights Action Team to conduct a thorough audit of USDA civil rights issues inside and outside the department. Within 90 days, the Civil Rights Action Team published a 121-page report confirming not only that small and minority farmers had often not been served at all, but in many cases the service provided by USDA appeared to be detrimental to their survival. Minority farmers have lost significant amounts of land and potential farm income as a result of discrimination by USDA agencies. Secretary Glickman came to the Capitol just last week and addressed the House Agriculture Committee on racial discrimination. The Secretary admitted that his Department has ``a long history of both discrimination and perceptions of unfairness that go back literally to the middle of the 19th century.'' The Secretary acknowledged that USDA does not fully practice what they preach, and during field hearings he had spoken to people who had lost their farms and lost their family land, as he said, ``not because of a bad crop, not because of a flood, but because of the color of their skin.'' The Secretary went on to state his desire to close this chapter of USDA's history and stated his goal is ``to get USDA out from under the past and have it emerge in the 21st century as the Federal civil rights leader.'' I commend the Secretary for his leadership in candidly and openly addressing an issue that for too long has plagued the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I am convinced that his commitment to eradicating discrimination at USDA is genuine, but before we can solve the problem prospectively, we have to focus on the problem at hand, the nearly 800 pending complaints. I initially intended to offer an amendment to the Agricultural appropriations bill that would give USDA the necessary authority and resources to eliminate any legal impediments and expedite the settlement of the nearly 800 pending discrimination complaints by farmers against the Department of Agriculture. After speaking to Secretary Glickman on Monday, the Secretary indicated that he intends to settle claims out of the Judgment Fund and that he does not view the identification of a funding source as an impediment to entering into appropriate settlements. Because he is persuaded that existing mechanisms can be used to provide appropriate remedies to those aggrieved, my original amendment, at this time, will not be necessary. The Secretary did alert me to two areas where he urgently needs additional funds, however. These two areas are directly related to resolving the current backlog of racial discrimination complaints by farmers, and my current amendment addresses this need. In 1983, the civil rights investigative unit at USDA was simply abolished. For 14 years, farmers were led to believe their cases were being investigated when in truth they were not. As a result, determinations were being made on some cases based on preliminary findings often compiled by the person accused of discrimination and the backlog of cases has grown to 798 complaints. Without investigation, virtually none of the complaints can now be settled. That's why the Secretary needs to reestablish the investigative unit to finally resolve the longstanding problem plaguing the Department of Agriculture. The Secretary's goal is to establish a 34-person investigative unit to address the backlog by July 1998 and to ensure timely resolution of all future complaints, and my current amendment provides the Secretary with $2 million for that purpose. Mr. President, the process for resolving complaints has failed our Nation's farmers. Today, we have to give the Secretary the necessary resources so that he may back up his sympathetic words with action. We have to begin investigating these complaints so the farmers' cases, some over 7 years old, can finally be settled. Mr. President, the Secretary has also indicated that the funding level currently in the Agriculture appropriations bill for the Outreach for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Program is insufficient. My new amendment provides USDA with an additional $1 million to improve USDA outreach efforts. The Department acknowledges that poor outreach efforts are central to the USDA's failure to meet the needs of minority farmers. Increased funding, as well as improved targeting, will improve minority participation in USDA programs and will demonstrate the Department's commitment to serving their needs. Virginia farmers have told me the importance of this outreach effort and I agree, equal program access for all farmers is crucial. Before President Clinton can lead this country in a discussion about race relations, we must first confront the discrimination within our Federal Government. We must resolve the underlying civil rights problems at USDA to make the system work for both customers and employees. Congress can help those individuals at the U.S. Department of Agriculture actually interested in improving USDA's ability to serve agriculture and our Nation with the necessary resources to provide appropriate remedies for those aggrieved. For it is only after USDA makes amends for its past injustices that they can face the bigger challenge of eradicating discrimination at all levels within the Department of Agriculture. Mr. President, if reluctance to resolve these longstanding issues continues much longer, then the problem may well sadly resolve itself. Without immediate action we could lose all of our minority farmers and an important part of our heritage forever. I would certainly hope that no Member of Congress would want to see that happen. Mr. President, very briefly, I thank the chairman and the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee. A number of Members in agricultural States presented difficulties with the original proposed solution, none more important than the current Presiding Officer who apprised this Senator of concerns about one of the original offsets. We have now worked it out, where there is agreement on both sides. It is supported by the administration. Basically, this reestablishes the investigative unit for the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I have an amendment that we have been working very hard to work out. I commend and appreciate the cooperation of the chairman and the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee. It is an amendment that has been requested specifically by the Secretary of Agriculture to address a very serious problem. We have had documented discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against minority and impoverished farmers over an extended period of time. A report that he requested that took 90 days to compile again documented the same problem. We have reports going back to 1995 to document the problem. To the best of my knowledge, no Senator who has worked with me or worked on this particular problem has suggested in any way, shape, or form that the problem does not exist and that we do not have an obligation to solve it. The only difficulty that we have run into is identifying the precise offset. The offset that the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture recommended is one in terms of a very small reduction in the crop insurance Program, taking it down from 28 to 27.9, I believe it is. I hope that by the time the vote will actually be required we will have resolved this particular question. If we do not, I say and I pledge to those involved on both sides of the aisle that we will do everything we can between now and conference to ensure that we have an offset that is consistent with the programs that the various Members are interested in protecting but, most importantly, addresses this situation. The bottom line is that the investigative unit in the Department of Agriculture, unbeknownst to the farmers who were affected by the discrimination, was abolished 13 years ago, and they were relying on that. The Department of Agriculture says they need this particular remedy to solve the problem. We will work with the committee and work with the conferees, if necessary, if we can't come up with the right offset. But I hope that this can be accepted, and if it is not, I hope that we get a vote on it--a very positive vote on it. We will certainly work hard to make sure that we have the appropriate offset at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. President.

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

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. I thank my colleague from Virginia, the Senator from Michigan, and the Senator from Pennsylvania. I will not offer the amendment at this time, and I look forward to working with them in conference. proposed expansion of usuhs

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I recently learned of a dispute between the Department of Defense and a number of contractors regarding the allowability of cost of employee stock ownership plans, known as ESOP's. According to the contractors. DOD has retroactively changed its interpretation of the relevant accounting in a manner that will cost contractors millions of dollars and could drive some of them out of business completely. The contractors also say that DOD has improperly applied the standards of a proposed rule even after that proposed rule has been withdrawn. I am concerned about the effect this could have on these companies and the employee's retirement plans which could be jeopardized by this action. I had intended to attach an amendment to prohibit DOD from applying the terms of the withdrawn rule but because that matter is currently in litigation I will instead withhold that amendment and work this out in conference. In discussions with the Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, he expressed concerns about the equity of any retroactive application as well.

Mr. ROBB. I, too, would like to thank the Senator from New Jersey for bringing this issue to our attention and assure you that the subcommittee will review this issue in conference in the context of our policy of not interfering with the BRAC disposal process and that it will receive the consideration it deserves when it is discussed in conference.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the other five Senators who are the original cosponsors of this particular amendment/sense-of- the-Senate resolution. I join in the gravity that they have already expressed and underlined about the situation that exists now in Cambodia. All of us have spent time in the region. Many of us have spent time in Cambodia dealing with the principal figures that are involved in this particular incident. I myself have visited Phnom Penh on a number of occasions. I have met in Cambodia with First Prime Minister Ranariddh, as well as Co- or Second Prime Minister Hun Sen on a number of occasions there and on at least one occasion here. I am familiar with the difficulties. I watched the process evolve. I observed the time period when the United Nations forces were there helping to try to restore a semblance of stability and to try to develop some respect for the rule of law. We saw elections. Ninety percent of the people in Cambodia voted in those elections. We know the difficulties that existed from the very outset. As my colleagues who fought in Vietnam have already suggested, we have a clash of leadership. Co-Premier Hun Sen is a strong and forceful leader. All of us who have met with him understand that. This, in effect, internationally is an appeal for him to understand that the United States cannot abide the conduct that he has been associated with or that has been carried out in his name in the last few days. We cannot stand by and allow additional genocide, additional violence, which is beyond the rule of law, to be condoned. I happened to be the sponsor of a resolution several years ago that provided for the collection of information that would be essential to any international tribunal that may deal with the atrocities that were committed by the Khmer Rouge in that terrible period under the leadership of Pol Pot and others who were involved in that particular period of genocide in Cambodia. Much progress has been made on that front. Much progress was being made in terms of understanding in Cambodia for the rule of law and some essential elements of peace. All of this represents a setback. It is essential, as this resolution suggests, that the United States exercise its leadership, working with ASEAN, getting ASEAN to get involved as it is at least demonstrating some initial signs of doing even though it is not a military organization, and the international community to speak with one voice and say to those who would purport to represent the violent approach to taking and seizing power that is not obtained through the ballot, that the international community will not support you. That is what this resolution that the six of us who fought in Vietnam are saying to our Government, please take a leadership role in mobilizing the international community to send a very strong message to Hun Sen and those who follow his lead and send a message to the rest of the international community to fall behind the progress that has already been made in Cambodia and not to step back with the actions that have been taken in the last few days. We want to tell Hun Sen and others who might follow that lead that not only we cannot support that, we are going to be actively opposing that and hope that the rule of law and some degree of political pluralism and respect for the principles of peace and democracy could be restored. With that, Mr. President, recognizing the presence on the floor of my colleague from Nebraska, the junior Senator, Senator Hagel, and in joining with Senator McCain from Arizona, Senator Kerry from Massachusetts, Senator Kerrey from Nebraska, and Senator Cleland from Georgia, I am pleased to support this particular amendment in the form of a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. I ask all of our colleagues to do likewise. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. HAGEL addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. I thank my colleague from Arizona. We have given a great deal of attention to the fact that the tooth-to-tail ratio is completely out of whack. It used to be 50-50 10 years ago. It is close to 70-30 now. The tail being the support of everything else. If we want to support force structure, if we want to be capable of carrying out our commitments, we have to cut infrastructure. The savings start as soon as we begin to cut infrastructure. We can argue about how many dollars later on. With that, Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I thank both the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee for their handling of this bill and for their help in bringing it to this particular position. I particularly want to commend my friend, the ranking member, the distinguished Senator from Michigan, for his advocacy of this particular amendment. I am pleased to join as a cosponsor with the Senator from Michigan and the Senator from Arizona and others. But I recognize it is a very difficult amendment for all concerned, as the Senator from Michigan so eloquently explained a few minutes ago on this floor. I know his particular State was more impacted in terms of strategic air base closures. My own State is more dependent on defense spending on a per capita basis than any other State in the Union. Year after year more defense dollars, per capita, are spent in Virginia than in any other State. So this is not a popular or easy issue in my own State. But I have tried to analyze the reasons why most of those who do oppose this particular amendment are opposed. It seems to me, Members are opposing another BRAC round for three principal reasons: No. 1, unwillingness to endure the pain of another closure round; No. 2, concerns about the accuracy of estimated savings; and, No. 3, concerns over the integrity of the process. Regarding the pain of closures, I can only say that I see the choice as a simple one. We can either preserve jobs and facilities in our own States or we can provide desperately needed funding to ensure that our troops can fight and win in future wars, which, of course, is the reason that we have a national defense capability in the first place. By virtually every expert estimate, early in the new century we will simply be unable to fund a force necessary to support a very prudent and measured national military strategy. During the cold war, our massive base infrastructure had substantial duplication built in because of enormous uncertainties about the scale and consequences of a strategic war with the Soviet Union. Much of that duplication we probably could have done without, but I would certainly concede that military construction in Members' home States or districts has undeniable appeal politically. But we no longer have the luxury of duplicating infrastructure just to keep the folks back home happy. As many have noted, every dollar we keep spending on bases we don't really need is a dollar we cannot spend on maintaining end strength, replacing aging weapons systems, advancing our military technology to ensure dominance of the future battlefield, and keeping quality of life at a level that will ensure strong recruiting and retention. The second rationale for opposing a new BRAC round stems from the assertion that because we don't know exactly how much we saved from previous BRAC rounds, that we should not go forward until we do. If we accept this rationale, however, we would never have another round of base closures, which I suspect would be just fine with many who cite this reason for opposing the effort. But if our net savings from another BRAC round are significant, although indefinite, it seems to me we ought to move forward now. Why should we postpone doing what we know we are going to have to do anyway, just because our estimate of savings are imprecise, as long as we know they are significant? The reality is that the long-term savings from the first four-base closure rounds will exceed $5 billion a year when they are completed. It just so happens the Secretary of Defense is still seeking approximately that much money to meet the modernization objectives that he set forth in the Quadrennial Defense Review. New base closure commissions, if they are courageous enough to close the bulk of the remaining excess bases, should add billions in additional savings. If Members want to conduct more studies on exactly how much has been and will be saved by BRAC rounds, that's fine, but let's not hold up this process for a study that we know will tell us that billions will be saved. The third reason Members are opposing a new BRAC round is their concern about the integrity of the BRAC process in light of the attempt to privatize-in-place the work at Kelly and McClellan Air Force depots, or ALC's. To avoid any future ambiguities about this matter, a provision here clarifies that privatization in place will be allowed only if the BRAC explicitly permits this at a military installation. None of these reasons for opposing another base closure round, in my judgment, is compelling. The responsible thing to do, I believe, for our Nation's security is to cut excess infrastructure as soon as possible. Waiting will only delay the inevitable and cost our military billions in funds that are badly needed for maintaining force structure, supporting training and day-to-day operations, and adequately funding modernization. I urge my colleagues, in this case, to make the responsible choice, the choice that the Secretary of Defense, that all of the service Secretaries, that all of the service chiefs and that all of the CINC's agree is the only responsible choice, and that is to begin another round of BRAC closures as soon as possible. With that, I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a resolution commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Presidential Management Intern, or PMI, program. I would request that Senators Mikulski, Sarbanes, Warner, Kennedy, Torricelli, Rockefeller, Santorum, and Kerry be listed as original cosponsors. President Carter established the PMI program to recruit graduate students with excellent management potential and public policy backgrounds to the Federal work force. As many of us know, either from working with PMI's in Federal agencies or even having them on our staffs, these men and women have provided valuable services to our country in a wide variety of areas. Since the program's inception, over 3,500 men and women have participated as PMI's with over half of those remaining in government service today. At a time when many have denigrated Federal employees, I believe we should recognize the outstanding commitment and abilities of these individuals and the program which has worked to ensure that our Government has civil servants of the highest caliber. For that reason, I and my colleagues are introducing this resolution to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Presidential Management Intern program and recognize the outstanding men and women who have participated in it.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I would like to take just a few minutes to discuss an amendment I am offering to this year's DOD authorization bill that will make a real difference in the lives of all members of the naval service--and eventually all members of our Armed Forces. It will eliminate many long lines and hours of frustration, it will substantially reduce recordkeeping errors and it will save the DOD and the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. And it represents the next phase of the effective utilization of smart card technology--a technology I have been encouraging and working on for many years. Mr. President, when a new recruit joins the service today, he or she faces a long and tedious registration process. A typical new recruit faces hours of waiting in line to fill out forms with his or her name, date of birth, rank, military I.D. number, and so forth, only to be sent over to another line to fill out another form with much of the same information again. Not only is this process aggravating for our new recruits--it is a waste of the Armed Service's time and personnel. It takes dozens of people countless hours to process in each new recruit through this inefficient system, costing the service valuable time and money, that it could be putting to better use elsewhere. Once registered, a new recruit is issued a handful of ID's and cards to carry. A typical service member today might be required to carry a general ID card, an immunization card, a meal card, an equipment card, a weapons card, a military driver's license, a vehicle registration, a card to pick up mail, a card to carry if staying as a guest at another base, and if lucky enough to be stationed near some good fishing, a fishing permit. With so much clutter, it is not uncommon for a service member to misplace one of their cards, which wastes even more of the military's time and resources replacing them. For years, I have been looking at ways that the military could streamline the methods it uses for its registration and recordkeeping, looking for a way to improve what I saw as an outdated and inefficient system of issuing multiple cards containing duplicate information. The Government and the private sector have been using cards for years as a means of information storage. Many of the earliest cards had just a name and number much like the Social Security card that is still in use today. As the need for increased security and efficiency in the transfer of information from a card grew however, we saw the introduction of cards that relied on new information storage systems like bar codes and magnetic stripes, much like the kind found on today's credit cards, ATM cards, telephone calling cards, and in dozens of other card-based applications. And as the technological capabilities of cards have increased, so has the number of cards that each of us carries every time we leave our residence. Mr. President, we now stand on the brink of a new explosion in card technology, one that promises to offer us even greater convenience and efficiency in everyday life, saving money and time while increasing our control over the information we provide to others. After years of research and development, I am pleased to report that a new user- friendly card technology will soon allow us to replace the handful of cards now used in the DOD with a single, multiapplication ``smart'' card. Mr. President, with the amendment that I am offering today, next year, under a pilot program that I have been working closely with the Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy to develop, a new recruit will not face the long and wasteful lines, the duplication of information or the cumbersome bundles of cards that many of us remember. Instead, upon arriving at boot camp, each new sailor and marine will be issued a single card: the MARC card. Short for Multitechnology Automated Reader Card this card will be used across the entire Navy and Marine Corps next year, and if it works as well as some of us believe it will, we will then extend it to all of the Armed Forces. The MARC card is a remarkable achievement. The MARC card can carry your security clearance. The MARC card can carry your meal information. The MARC card can hold your immunization records. The MARC card can serve as your room key. Mr. President, the long-term savings that will result from this program will be substantial; the improvements in the increased speed and quality of services will be enormous. With the MARC card, we can reduce support infrastructure, thereby improving our tooth-to-tail ratio while making our sailors' and marines' lives easier. The MARC card is one of the first widespread applications of the most exciting new card technology on the market today: the smart card. Smart cards, like the MARC card, rely on an integrated circuit chip--a microchip--to store more information and data than was ever before possible on a single card. Within each card is a small microprocessor along with a sizable memory capacity, which gives each smart card the capabilities of a small microcomputer. The capabilities of the smart card are so great that a single card can perform all of the functions that this entire stack of cards that I am holding up right here used to perform of still perform today, for that matter, and will perform dozens of new time-saving applications as well. Unlike older cards, the smart card is easily updatable, and has the capability to constantly take on new information. Yet the real strength of smart cards, like the MARC card lies not in the convenience of carrying so much information on a single card, but in the money that we can save as a result. By harnessing the strength and memory of a small computer inside of a portable plastic card, a multitude of new applications can be offered that will increase the efficiency of Government, cutting down expensive and unnecessary administrative costs while reducing waste, fraud, and abuse at all levels of government. Mr. President, I have seen this card in action, and the savings and increased efficiency it can offer the members of our Armed Forces are really impressive. In the past, when our sailors would dock at a naval base upon their return from sea they faced a long and tedious process of waiting in line after line to check in to their shore station. Often taking up to a week a sailor would need to fill out countless forms to register for quarters, for medical treatment, for security clearance, for his next assignment, for the mess hall et cetera. But today at the Smart Base in Pascagoula, MS, the first naval base to automate its operations using the MARC card, a sailor who arrives off of the U.S.S. Yorktown faces a check-in time of just a few minutes. By simply walking up to a kiosk, he can insert his MARC card into a reader not unlike an automatic teller machine, and within seconds be assigned his quarters and other necessary information, while personal data needed by the command is simultaneously zipped electronically around the rest of the base. His MARC card even serves as his room key. Not only does this process save sailors a lot of wasted time, but it reduces the number of administrative staff needed to check in an entire ship. To process every sailor from an arriving ship, a base need only have a handful of staff on hand and a few kiosks that interact with the MARC card. Mr. President, the MARC card can improve the efficiency of every operation across the military. Let me give you an example. Today, when a sailor or marine heads to a mess hall to eat, he has to show his ID card, as well as his meal card to one of the duty personnel, who tediously records the information from both cards by hand into a ledger. After each meal another officer must spend hours reconciling who ate what on that particular day, at a great expense both in the time involved and the money it costs. On average, it takes a mess hall 4 to 6 hours a day to account for all the meals that are eaten. With the MARC card, however, sailors and marines will simply swipe their cards through a reader as they enter the mess hall and be automatically accounted for by a computer. Anyone who tries to sneak an extra meal without paying is caught in the act, which helps the Navy reduce fraud. After each meal, the officer in charge of the mess hall will only need to call up a file on their computer to account for the meals served. The total time involved is reduced from several hours to just a few minutes. Not only will this project save the Navy time and money--the food service savings alone will save over $2 million in the first year, a savings of 49 percent--it will also allow our Armed Forces to allocate more resources to the duties they most need to focus on. From security access to dining hall access, from checking out weapons to checking out library books, the MARC card can save the Armed Forces thousands of hours a year in wasted administrative costs. The $36 million I am asking for in this amendment does not authorize any new spending--it only redirects the use of $36 million within the Navy and Marines O&M account that has already been authorized by the committee. Because the MARC card program has been so effective in reducing the costs of general administration in the military, our investment of $36 million in an expansion of the MARC program will save the Navy and Marines O&M account many millions more in fiscal year 1998 and beyond. By investing $36 million, in the MARC program, the Navy's project manager, estimates that the savings to O&M from using the three MARC applications, already in place across the Navy and Marines will top $134 million in FY 98. Now that's just the savings from using the MARC card in three applications--Food Service, Security Access, and Clearance Verification. As other applications are deployed, the savings may top $200 million in just FY 98, and well over $500 million over the next 5 years. Mr. President, with the budget situation, that we face today we are compelled to look to all areas of the government to eliminate needless administrative services and streamline the many duties that our government performs. In this era of reinventing government, smart card technology has potential applications not just in the military but all across the government. By eliminating long waits in lines at government agencies, by eliminating the manual entry of data all across government agencies, by doing away with duplication of data across the government by eliminating fraud, smart cards can slash the administrative costs of government while improving the quality and speed with which many government services are delivered. Mr. President, the technology is here, in our hands, and the savings to be had are real, immediate, and substantial. I firmly believe that we should move forward with applying smart card technology, not only in the military, but all across the government. Mr. President, I realize that smart cards are still a new technology right now, and that they're unfamiliar to many potential users. I am aware that some people are uncomfortable with the idea of having a single card for everything they need. Placing so much information on a single card raises more than a few eyebrows over privacy and security concerns. And I know that a lot of people are concerned that by placing so much personal information on a single card an employer might have access to medical records, or a librarian might be able to find out what you ate for lunch that day. Let me say that I share these concerns. But in fact, Mr. President, while all this information may be carried on a single card, powerful encryption technology ensures that personal information is seen only by those who the individual wants to see it. The technology available today allows us to select what information is carried on our smart card and guarantees that we are the only ones who can grant access to that information. Even though we can store our financial and medical records on the same smart card the card's microchip is divided into separate compartments that make it impossible for our bank to see our medical records and our doctor to see our last bank deposit. And if we should lose our card, anybody who finds it will discover that it's useless to them. Because without the proper authorization code that only the individual knows--and with more sensitive applications, without biometric authentication like hand geometry scanners--the card won't work in the hands of anybody but its owner. Just as our ATM card is useless to a thief without the proper PIN number, a thief will find that, without authentication by its owner, a stolen smart card is a worthless piece of plastic. In an era where our personal information is becoming increasingly easier for others to access, where our very personal and private activities can be electronically tracked, smart cards are a way to return control over this information where it belongs: in the hands of the individual. And with modern-day encryption and other security measures built into the chip on a smart card, the information on this card is more secure from theft or fraud than any credit card or ATM card in use today. Mr. President, there is no doubt of the need for increased efficiency, security, and portability of information across all sectors of our Government. We have the technology, literally, in our hands to make it happen. Already, several other Government agencies have begun to implement this technology in a variety of applications across Government. Today, for example, smart cards are used as identification and security badges in Government buildings. In States like Wyoming, pilot programs are underway to use smart cards to electronically disburse WIC and food stamp benefits. In several western States, a smart card called the health passport is being used to increase the portability and accessibility of an individual's medical records while safeguarding their confidentiality. At colleges like the University of Michigan, a single smart card can call up a student's financial aid records, buy her books, and open the door of her dorm. On our subways, and our military bases, in our hospitals, and our schools, across the public and private sector, smart cards can cut down the time we spend on burdensome administrative work and save us valuable time and resources. But the reason I'm so enthusiastic about this new technology, Mr. President, is not just because smart cards can eliminate waste. I'm not here speaking today simply because smart cards can save us time and money. I'm strongly supportive of this new technology because smart cards can make our lives better and easier. Whether it's reducing the time we wait in line at a government office or providing a doctor the information needed to save a life smart cards can make our entire infrastructure more user-friendly and efficient; smart cards make technology work better for us. I am confident that pilot smart card programs, like the MARC program, will demonstrate the effectiveness of smart cards and the need for this technology across government, and will lead to increased use of this technology in our future. That's why I'm so excited about it, and that's why I'm so pleased the managers seem willing to include this provision in their manager's amendment. With that, Mr. President, I thank the chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ROBB. I thank the distinguished Senator from Michigan. I did not display my own MARC card here, but it is my hope that in the not-too- distant future not only will all members of the Armed Services, but all members who interact or interface with our Federal Government will have one of these and be able to use them in the same efficient way that the MARC card is being used today, and is being used in this particular experiment. I yield the floor.

Mr. ROBB. I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee and the senior Senator from South Carolina.

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

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today in support of comprehensive, responsible reform of our regulatory process. It has been a long and tortuous journey. Many thought it could not be done. But I'm pleased that it has been done, and I'm pleased to join Senators Levin and Thompson as an original sponsor of the Regulatory Improvements Act of 1997. Efforts to reform the regulatory process began long before this Congress, and the legislation we're introducing today is a testament to the tenacity of Senator Levin, who has worked untiringly for responsible changes in the regulatory process for a long time. Senator Bumpers, as well as our former colleagues Senators Johnston, Nunn and Heflin, toiled in these vineyards for many years. The reason for this continued effort is clear. Regulations produce enormous benefits for society, protecting workers, conserving our environment, and promoting public health. But regulations also impose a tremendous cost on society. The purpose of regulatory reform is to make sure the benefits of the regulations warrant the costs. According to the GAO, expenditures relating to pollution abatement alone exceeded $110 billion in 1992. While this represents only a portion of the costs of regulation, it provides some guidance regarding the magnitude of regulation. If we can maintain the level of pollution abatement, but increase the efficiency in how we attain it, consumers will ultimately reap the benefits. And of course every dollar that a business spends beyond what is necessary to protect us and our resources is one less dollar that could otherwise be used to hire an employee, or fund a pay raise, or pay for a plant expansion. Not only will consumers benefit, but so will the economy. Regulating in a cost-effective fashion simply makes sense. If we can achieve the same environmental benefit for less money, or even better, achieve more environmental benefit for the same money, then it makes sense to do so. While the debate over regulatory reform has in the past been presented as a choice between the economy and the environment, there is a responsible middle ground. If done wrong, regulatory reform could harm the environment, but if done right, both the economy and the environment benefit. As noted by Vice President Gore in November 1995, in announcing one of the administration's regulatory reform initiatives: For decades, the American political system pitted the economy against the environment in a false conflict. America's business leaders were pitted against America's environmentalists. It seemed that too often for one side to get its way, the other side had to lose ground, and you had to decide which side you were on, business or the environment. Most people didn't like that choice, because most people, in their hearts, really are on both sides and don't see them as being in conflict. I share the Vice President's view that we can protect both the environment and the economy. The benefits of regulatory reform will come primarily from relieving consumers from unnecessary costs and strengthening people's respect for government. In addition, by developing a responsible approach to regulatory reform, we will be able to prove what most of us having been saying for years--that we can be true to our principles to protect people and preserve our natural resources without being antibusiness and antigrowth. At the same event in 1995, President Clinton reiterated that growing the economy and preserving our health and environment are compatible goals. The President stated that ``protecting the health and safety of our citizens doesn't have to come at the expense of the bottom line,'' and that ``strengthening the economy doesn't have to come at the expense of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink.'' During the last Congress, we witnessed a massive effort to pass an extremely broad regulatory reform bill, offered by former Senator Dole. Whether intentional or not, that bill could have lowered the standards regulating our health, our safety and our national resources. In addition, that bill was too reliant on litigation to challenge the enforcement process. For example, the process for reviewing existing rules was driven largely by individual petitions each of which were subject to review by a court. That bill also raised the specter that agency rules could be overturned in court for minor procedural errors that were unlikely to have affected the outcome of the decisionmaking process. The amount of litigation which would have been created by the original bill, coupled with excessive paperwork requirements, would have led to agency overload. Rather than focusing on producing and enforcing regulations to benefit society, the agencies would have been tied up in court or processing paper. And this problem would only have been exacerbated by deep cuts proposed for many of the affected agencies. After the original bill failed cloture for the third time, former Senator Johnston, Senator Levin and I and our staffs spent a great deal of time and energy trying to find common ground. Many Senators from both sides of the aisle were committed to reforming the regulatory process, and we tried to use the synergy of the expertise of Senators Levin and Johnston to develop an acceptable package. Ideas and drafts were frankly exchanged during the many hours of meetings we held. In between meetings, we talked to interested parties, including labor groups, environmental groups, business groups and the administration. The purpose of this excercise of listening and drafting was to determine whether we could craft a responsible middle ground on regulatory reform. The three of us came very close to settling on a middle ground, but eventually the Presidential campaign made it impossible to complete action. But what evolved from that process last year laid the groundwork for the efforts which began this Congress. With Presidential politics safely behind us, and with a substantially lowered decibel level, Senators Thompson and Levin were able to focus on the critical elements and develop responsible reform. The scope of the legislation has been narrowed to address only those issues which are essential to improving our regulatory process. By focusing on the essential requirements of reform, we've avoided many of the pitfalls found in the Dole bill. By narrowing the scope, we've also been able to concentrate our attention on those elements which belong in a regulatory reform bill but which were not resolved satisfactorily in the earlier bill. For example, we improved the ``look-back process'' which provides for the review of existing rules. The Dole bill allowed rules to be placed on the schedule for review either through agency action or a petitioning process reviewable by the courts. The petition process was for those who could show that a rule would fail to meet the decisional criteria. Each petition denied would have been separately reviewed by a court. The bill we're introducing today eliminates the courts from the agency review process altogether. The question of which rules should be reviewed will not be the subject of litigation. In my view, this is one of the major improvements in this new version. Rather than having courts decide, through an adversary process, which rules should be reviewed, the bill takes a more rational approach. Under the new bill, an advisory committee made up of a cross-section of public and private interests affected by an agency's regulations will recommend to the agency which rules to review. Agencies are required to give deference to the committee's list, and undertake a review of the rules selected. This will allow agencies to spend more of their time reviewing rules and less of their time in court. The most important aspect of a regulatory reform bill is how it will change agency behavior prospectively. We want to encourage agencies to choose the most cost-effective method for achieving the regulatory goal and to select a rule where the benefits justify its costs whenever possible. Under current law, agencies are not directed to take those factors into account. In fact, agencies are given broad discretion under current law when developing rules to implement statutes. The only guide an agency must use to develop rules is the language of the statute upon which the rule is based. That is the standard against which an agency's action will be judged if challenged in court. The agency must be able to demonstrate that the rule satisfies the statutory requirement. This legislation requires agencies to consider additional criteria in developing major rules. The rule would not only have to meet the standard contained in the statute upon which the rule is based, as required under current law, but would also have to consider whether the rule is the most cost-effective approach and meets a cost-benefit test. If the agency adopts a rule which is not the most cost-effective, or where the benefits do not justify the costs, the agency must explain why it chose that approach. We think consumers, taxpayers, and those subject to regulation have a right to know what benefits a proposed rule is likely to provide, and what the costs will be to achieve those benefits. We also think people have a right to know why an agency would select a rule other than the most cost-effective for meeting the objective of the statute. The bill broadly defines ``benefits'' and ``costs,'' which provides agencies with vast discretion. ``Benefits'' are defined as ``the reasonably identifiable significant favorable effects, quantifiable and nonquantifiable, including social, health, environmental, economic and distributional effects, that are expected to result directly or indirectly from implementation of, or compliance with, a rule.'' The term ``costs'' is similarly defined. As I stated at the beginning of my comments, this has been a long, evolutionary process. But I think this legislation we are introducing today represents a responsible approach to improving the regulatory process. And I think it demonstrates what we can accomplish when we set aside partisan wrangling and rely on reason rather than rhetoric to solve complex problems such as this. Once again, I've been pleased to be involved in this process, and I commend both Senators Levin and Thompson for their determination to see this through to conclusion. I look forward to working with my colleagues to improving the product and moving this legislation through the process.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the tax bill before the Senate. Although I supported the budget resolution which allowed for this bill to proceed, I did so to advance the spending cuts that I voted for and the Senate passed earlier this week. I have consistently stood for the proposition that we shouldn't be reducing revenues until we balance the budget, and I will keep that commitment today. While I have supported a number of amendments that I felt would make this bill a better package, even if all those amendments had passed, I'd still be opposed to cutting taxes while we still have a budget deficit. Nonetheless, I understand that it is difficult for elected legislators to resist the temptation of tax cuts, and I do not discount the popular appeal of a number of the measures before us, nor do I quarrel with the public demand for them. However, sound fiscal policy compels me to oppose even the tax changes I might otherwise support until such time as the Federal budget actually reaches balance. By passing and enacting this tax bill, or any other, we singlehandedly undo the hard work we did in 1993 to finally bring annual budget deficits under control. We've made dramatic progress, bringing down annual deficits from $290 billion in 1992 to an expected $60 billion this year. Now, on the precipice of balancing the budget, we are going to pass a tax cut bill which takes us in precisely the opposite direction. While I understand that these tax cuts are provided for in the context of a balanced budget plan, no one can argue that they will increase the deficit and the debt between now and the year we expect to get to a balanced budget, if we get there at all. Not only will this bill increase the current deficit and the long- term debt, the out-year costs will come due at a time when the costs of our entitlement programs begin to swell due to the retirement of the baby boom generation. From now until 2030, the number of individuals who will qualify for these programs will double, going from 35 million to 70 million. Even if we didn't enact this tax cut, all revenues we collect would be needed just to fund entitlement programs and interest on the debt by 2012, leaving only borrowing to cover defense and discretionary investments in human and physical capital. Enacting a tax cut which doubles in cost every 5 years hardly seems an appropriate course to follow given the demographic challenges we confront early in the next century. This tax cut would not have been as damaging in the future were we likely to make some of the long-term structural changes in our entitlement programs that would have sufficiently restrained the growth of these expenditures in the future. By abandoning a legislative change for a more accurate measure of the cost-of-living adjustments and the likely elimination of any eligibility changes in Medicare by the time the spending measure becomes law, we compound our long-term fiscal problems with this tax cut. Mr. President, the truth is that even if we were in budget balance today and for the forseeable future, I couldn't support this particular tax bill. The fact of the matter is that the tax bill before us does little or nothing to simplify the tax code, fails to adequately encourage new savings and investment, and is structured in a way that masks its long-term costs. Instead, it is largely driven more by political payoffs to special interest groups and polling data, rather than rational tax policy. The child tax credit has been roundly denounced by economists as doing little more than encouraging additional consumption, something we clearly ought not to be encouraging at this point given our robust economy. At least the Senate retained the provision that required that the tax savings be saved for education expenses for those with children between 13 and 16, and I commend my colleagues, including Senators Breaux, Kerrey, and Lieberman, who have fought so hard to ensure that the child tax credit provides some economic value by requiring that it goes to savings and investment. Many have claimed that both the capital gains provisions and new individual retirement accounts will encourage additional savings and investment, and I would like to believe that is the case. However, the capital gains benefits fail to differentiate between those gains from long-term investment and those from stock speculation, and the new backloaded IRA's will likely result in simply a shift of existing savings to a tax deferred vehicle, resulting in compounding revenue losses over time. Compounding revenue loss will also result from the structure of the estate tax relief provisions in this bill. I understand the burden these taxes cause for some families, particularly those with family owned farms and businesses, but the slow phase-in of increases in the current $600,000 exemption amount guarantee that the true cost of the tax change won't show up until after 2007. Mr. President, the most difficult part of opposing this tax bill for me has to do with the education incentives included in this bill. From my days as governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I've made education my top priority, pumping over $1 billion of new funds into education during my tenure as governor without a tax increase. I simply believe that the education of our children is the most important function of government at any level. Because of this commitment, I applaud the President's effort to increase access to education. I am not opposed to commiting additional resources to education, but my concern about these tax provisions is that they are not likely to encourage students to get a higher education. For the most part, they would simply subsidize those who would have attended anyway. In addition, most education experts believe these tax provisions could result in an increase in tuition costs as institutions use the tax savings to increase their costs, potentially making education expenses even higher for students who can't qualify for these new tax benefits. It also seems to me that those who benefit from these education incentives ought to have some obligation of community service, a cause I have long championed. In summary, Mr. President, I voted earlier this week for the spending cuts in the first Reconciliation bill because I believe that deficit reduction should be our No. 1 priority. It is for this same reason that I oppose this legislation on principle and for the substantive policy reasons I have outlined. I understand that it is politically difficult in our day and age to resist the siren song of tax cuts. But I hope that those who intend to support this tax package will be prepared to answer for their vote when the revenue losses begin to mount and prevent our budget from staying in balance over the long term. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today in support of comprehensive, responsible reform of our regulatory process. It has been a long and tortuous journey. Many thought it could not be done. But I'm pleased that it has been done, and I'm pleased to join Senators Levin and Thompson as an original sponsor of the Regulatory Improvements Act of 1997. Efforts to reform the regulatory process began long before this Congress, and the legislation we're introducing today is a testament to the tenacity of Senator Levin, who has worked untiringly for responsible changes in the regulatory process for a long time. Senator Bumpers, as well as our former colleagues Senators Johnston, Nunn and Heflin, toiled in these vineyards for many years. The reason for this continued effort is clear. Regulations produce enormous benefits for society, protecting workers, conserving our environment, and promoting public health. But regulations also impose a tremendous cost on society. The purpose of regulatory reform is to make sure the benefits of the regulations warrant the costs. According to the GAO, expenditures relating to pollution abatement alone exceeded $110 billion in 1992. While this represents only a portion of the costs of regulation, it provides some guidance regarding the magnitude of regulation. If we can maintain the level of pollution abatement, but increase the efficiency in how we attain it, consumers will ultimately reap the benefits. And of course every dollar that a business spends beyond what is necessary to protect us and our resources is one less dollar that could otherwise be used to hire an employee, or fund a pay raise, or pay for a plant expansion. Not only will consumers benefit, but so will the economy. Regulating in a cost-effective fashion simply makes sense. If we can achieve the same environmental benefit for less money, or even better, achieve more environmental benefit for the same money, then it makes sense to do so. While the debate over regulatory reform has in the past been presented as a choice between the economy and the environment, there is a responsible middle ground. If done wrong, regulatory reform could harm the environment, but if done right, both the economy and the environment benefit. As noted by Vice President Gore in November 1995, in announcing one of the administration's regulatory reform initiatives: For decades, the American political system pitted the economy against the environment in a false conflict. America's business leaders were pitted against America's environmentalists. It seemed that too often for one side to get its way, the other side had to lose ground, and you had to decide which side you were on, business or the environment. Most people didn't like that choice, because most people, in their hearts, really are on both sides and don't see them as being in conflict. I share the Vice President's view that we can protect both the environment and the economy. The benefits of regulatory reform will come primarily from relieving consumers from unnecessary costs and strengthening people's respect for government. In addition, by developing a responsible approach to regulatory reform, we will be able to prove what most of us having been saying for years--that we can be true to our principles to protect people and preserve our natural resources without being antibusiness and antigrowth. At the same event in 1995, President Clinton reiterated that growing the economy and preserving our health and environment are compatible goals. The President stated that ``protecting the health and safety of our citizens doesn't have to come at the expense of the bottom line,'' and that ``strengthening the economy doesn't have to come at the expense of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink.'' During the last Congress, we witnessed a massive effort to pass an extremely broad regulatory reform bill, offered by former Senator Dole. Whether intentional or not, that bill could have lowered the standards regulating our health, our safety and our national resources. In addition, that bill was too reliant on litigation to challenge the enforcement process. For example, the process for reviewing existing rules was driven largely by individual petitions each of which were subject to review by a court. That bill also raised the specter that agency rules could be overturned in court for minor procedural errors that were unlikely to have affected the outcome of the decisionmaking process. The amount of litigation which would have been created by the original bill, coupled with excessive paperwork requirements, would have led to agency overload. Rather than focusing on producing and enforcing regulations to benefit society, the agencies would have been tied up in court or processing paper. And this problem would only have been exacerbated by deep cuts proposed for many of the affected agencies. After the original bill failed cloture for the third time, former Senator Johnston, Senator Levin and I and our staffs spent a great deal of time and energy trying to find common ground. Many Senators from both sides of the aisle were committed to reforming the regulatory process, and we tried to use the synergy of the expertise of Senators Levin and Johnston to develop an acceptable package. Ideas and drafts were frankly exchanged during the many hours of meetings we held. In between meetings, we talked to interested parties, including labor groups, environmental groups, business groups and the administration. The purpose of this excercise of listening and drafting was to determine whether we could craft a responsible middle ground on regulatory reform. The three of us came very close to settling on a middle ground, but eventually the Presidential campaign made it impossible to complete action. But what evolved from that process last year laid the groundwork for the efforts which began this Congress. With Presidential politics safely behind us, and with a substantially lowered decibel level, Senators Thompson and Levin were able to focus on the critical elements and develop responsible reform. The scope of the legislation has been narrowed to address only those issues which are essential to improving our regulatory process. By focusing on the essential requirements of reform, we've avoided many of the pitfalls found in the Dole bill. By narrowing the scope, we've also been able to concentrate our attention on those elements which belong in a regulatory reform bill but which were not resolved satisfactorily in the earlier bill. For example, we improved the ``look-back process'' which provides for the review of existing rules. The Dole bill allowed rules to be placed on the schedule for review either through agency action or a petitioning process reviewable by the courts. The petition process was for those who could show that a rule would fail to meet the decisional criteria. Each petition denied would have been separately reviewed by a court. The bill we're introducing today eliminates the courts from the agency review process altogether. The question of which rules should be reviewed will not be the subject of litigation. In my view, this is one of the major improvements in this new version. Rather than having courts decide, through an adversary process, which rules should be reviewed, the bill takes a more rational approach. Under the new bill, an advisory committee made up of a cross-section of public and private interests affected by an agency's regulations will recommend to the agency which rules to review. Agencies are required to give deference to the committee's list, and undertake a review of the rules selected. This will allow agencies to spend more of their time reviewing rules and less of their time in court. The most important aspect of a regulatory reform bill is how it will change agency behavior prospectively. We want to encourage agencies to choose the most cost-effective method for achieving the regulatory goal and to select a rule where the benefits justify its costs whenever possible. Under current law, agencies are not directed to take those factors into account. In fact, agencies are given broad discretion under current law when developing rules to implement statutes. The only guide an agency must use to develop rules is the language of the statute upon which the rule is based. That is the standard against which an agency's action will be judged if challenged in court. The agency must be able to demonstrate that the rule satisfies the statutory requirement. This legislation requires agencies to consider additional criteria in developing major rules. The rule would not only have to meet the standard contained in the statute upon which the rule is based, as required under current law, but would also have to consider whether the rule is the most cost-effective approach and meets a cost-benefit test. If the agency adopts a rule which is not the most cost-effective, or where the benefits do not justify the costs, the agency must explain why it chose that approach. We think consumers, taxpayers, and those subject to regulation have a right to know what benefits a proposed rule is likely to provide, and what the costs will be to achieve those benefits. We also think people have a right to know why an agency would select a rule other than the most cost-effective for meeting the objective of the statute. The bill broadly defines ``benefits'' and ``costs,'' which provides agencies with vast discretion. ``Benefits'' are defined as ``the reasonably identifiable significant favorable effects, quantifiable and nonquantifiable, including social, health, environmental, economic and distributional effects, that are expected to result directly or indirectly from implementation of, or compliance with, a rule.'' The term ``costs'' is similarly defined. As I stated at the beginning of my comments, this has been a long, evolutionary process. But I think this legislation we are introducing today represents a responsible approach to improving the regulatory process. And I think it demonstrates what we can accomplish when we set aside partisan wrangling and rely on reason rather than rhetoric to solve complex problems such as this. Once again, I've been pleased to be involved in this process, and I commend both Senators Levin and Thompson for their determination to see this through to conclusion. I look forward to working with my colleagues to improving the product and moving this legislation through the process.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss S. 947, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I'm pleased that we've come together in a bipartisan way--both sides of the aisle, both sides of the Capitol, and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue--to craft a plan that brings us a step closer to fiscal sanity. The good news, Mr. President, is that the bill before us realizes roughly $137 billion in savings over the next 5 years. And that's good news for our country and for our children and our grandchildren. S. 947 provides additional years of solvency to the Medicare hospital trust fund, reforms payment methodologies for skilled nursing facilities, home health, and outpatient entities, and includes greater choice--and expanded preventive benefits--for millions of Medicare beneficiaries. As a cosponsor of the original Chafee-Rockefeller child health bill, I'm delighted that this bill contains $16 billion to expand access to health care for America's children, most of whom live in the home of an American worker. Someday, our children will be grateful for the $16 billion we invested in their health care, Mr. President. And they will be grateful that we succeeded today in saving $137 billion in future debt--debt we will not ask them to pay. But our children will not be grateful if we don't take this opportunity in this budget to tackle long-term entitlement reform in a systemic way. We all know the statistics. While entitlements and interest on the national debt represented just 30 percent of our budget in l963, they will absorb 70 percent by the year 2002. And even more alarmingly, if we don't make changes in the way we do business around here, entitlements and interest on the debt will absorb the entire Federal revenue base by the year 2012. How then can we responsibly invest in our children? How can we sustain the transportation infrastructure needed to support a thriving economy in the next century? How do we pay our soldiers, repair our subs and carriers, and invest in the technology we need to remain the last great superpower on Earth? Mr. President, despite the fact that the vast majority of economists have told us that we need to adjust the consumer price index to accurately reflect inflation, we have no legislative CPI adjustment in this package. Opponents say that since we don't need a legislative CPI adjustment to balance the budget in 5 years, it's not in this plan. But what about when the baby boom generation retires, Mr. President, when just three workers--and then two--will support each Social Security beneficiary? The Finance Committee had the courage to include a provision in this bill to gradually increase the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 today to 67 by the year 2027. This provision has been under assault-- and will continue to be--from many sides. Some who oppose it argue that this is not the time. And while I'm committed to identifying methods to provide access for those who may encounter a lapse in coverage--and this bill creates a bi-partisan commission that will look at the feasibility of a Medicare buy-in program--when will the time be right? We had a good vote in support of this eligibility increase in the Senate and we have to fight to retain it in conference. Finally, the home health copay and the affluence testing for wealthy seniors which were included in the committee mark and which were supported by the majority of the Senate during two rollcall votes held yesterday will likely not survive conference as well, Mr. President. These provisions are in danger even though we all know we have to find responsible ways to reduce the Federal cost of Medicare. While affluence testing of part B premiums is a political lightning rod, it is good public policy. It is simply indefensible to require lower income families, many who cannot afford health insurance for their own children today, to continue to help subsidize 75 percent of the Medicare premiums of wealthy seniors. We have much to do, Mr. President, to fulfill our obligation to leave our children a strong economic future and a quality of life equal to the one we inherited from our own parents. The first step is to balance our budget--and I hope the bill before us accomplishes that goal. The next step--and it is an essential one--is to tackle long term, systemic entitlement reform that will protect both the solvency of Medicare and Social Security and the economic security of the generations that follow us. I hope the conferees will not make those goals even harder to achieve in the future. With that plea Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. ROBB. Thank you, Mr. President. The defense authorization bill before us today does a pretty responsible job of providing adequate funding for personnel readiness, quality of life and modernization. It also makes a concerted effort to accommodate many of the recommendations of the Quadrennial Defense Review. I remain concerned, however, as do many colleagues on the Armed Services Committee, that we will face a serious funding shortfall in just a very few years as we try to replace and modernize aging vehicles, ships, and aircraft that will be exiting the inventory in droves just after the turn of the century. By accelerating some of the funding for major procurement items in this authorization, we help head off this funding crisis at least to a small degree. As a ranking member of the Readiness Subcommittee, I compliment the chairman, Senator Inhofe, for his diligence in supporting U.S. military readiness. I am pleased the bill funds many of the high-priority readiness increases requested by the service chiefs in the operations and maintenance accounts, as well as the ammunition accounts. Military construction is well funded, but all adds were subjected to the strict criteria established in the Senate years ago to ensure we only fund projects truly needed by the military. The bill does not go far enough, however, in my judgment, in taking on the issue of excess infrastructure. One of the best ways we can pay for future modernization is through reducing the Department of Defense's large ``tail'' of infrastructure and support, which is taking away critical funding for the ``teeth''--our warfighting troops and equipment that will fight the next war. The best place to reduce tail is to cut more bases. An effort to authorize a new base closure round failed in a tie vote in committee, but in spite of its political unpopularity, I hope the full Senate will, for the good of the Nation's defense, support a new BRAC round. We have reduced force structure by over 30 percent since 1989, but four rounds of base closures have yielded an infrastructure reduction of only 21 percent. Reductions enacted so far will yield, in the long term, over $5 billion a year. To gain additional, badly needed savings, the only responsible course of action, in my judgment, is to begin reducing additional excess right away. Although I certainly understand the reservations of those Members who are concerned about the integrity of the BRAC process, in light of the attempts to privatize in place the work at Kelly and McClellan Air Force depots, I hope once those issues are resolved, those Members will support a new BRAC round as well. The depot issue remains a difficult one, to say the least. My view is that we must significantly reduce the excess capacity at the air logistic centers, that the spirit of the BRAC was to reduce roughly two ALC's worth of capacity, and that the BRAC did allow for some level of privatization of work at Kelly and McClellan. But in no way did the BRAC intend to privatize in place excess capacity. Preserving that excess capacity will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and we simply cannot afford this kind of waste anymore. I applaud my counterpart on the Readiness Subcommittee, Senator Inhofe, for his willingness to strike the controversial depot maintenance sections of the original bill that threatened to prevent us from proceeding to consider this bill. Mr. President, there are other ways to save money so that we can properly fund modernization. One is to invest in new technologies that promise to deliver more lethality for less cost. This bill aggressively funds the Army's efforts to ensure battlefield dominance through better intelligence, communications and smart weapons. It adds significant funds for the Navy's impressive information Technology 21 initiative, which will enable the warfighter to exchange all types of information on a single desktop computer, shorten decision time lines and better utilize information for combat. I will be addressing another technology, smart card technology, that promises to save millions in an amendment later on in our consideration of this bill. The bill also sensibly allows a new approach for funding the next carrier, the CVN-77. By letting the contractor maintain a steady supplier and workforce base through early funding in fiscal year 1998 for construction in 2002, the taxpayers stand to save over $600 million on this program alone. By authorizing an innovative teaming arrangement for the new attack submarine, we achieve additional savings over a noncompeted, sole-source procurement while preserving two nuclear-capable shipyards. Let me offer one other area the bill addresses that could lead to billions in savings without undue risks to military capability. We generally assume that any money for force modernization must come from force structure cuts, end-strength cuts or infrastructure cuts.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, we generally assume that there are no prospects for savings in readiness. The reality is that we maintain most of our active force units at very high levels of readiness at considerable expense, when, in fact, we could relax readiness levels for certain units, especially those not slated to go into combat early. Senator McCain included language in this and last year's bill requiring an evaluation of a concept he refers to as ``tiered readiness'' where four tiers of readiness are established for our units based on their likely time of deployment to battle. I have included language in this bill asking for an estimate of savings from a related concept I refer to as ``cyclical readiness.'' It would involve alternating a high state of readiness between units, where the units at the high state of readiness would be slated for a first major theater war, and the other lower readiness units would be available for a second theater. The services tell us that their operational and personnel tempos are too high to relax the readiness of any units. I have come to the conclusion that much of that problem is self-inflicted through excessive training and contingency requirements. I have included another provision in this bill that requires a look at how much of the demands on our troops are, in fact, self-inflicted. The reality is that come October, our largest overseas contingency commitment will be about a third of an Army division in Bosnia. In my judgment, we don't need to maintain all ten active Army divisions at a high state of readiness, and I believe we need to take a hard look at this matter. With that, Mr. President, I look forward to our continued consideration of this bill and yield the floor. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I thank my senior colleague. amendment no. 419

Mr. ROBB

Mr. ROBB. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the distinguished Senator from North Carolina. Mr. President, it's hard to argue with the spirit of Senator Lugar's amendment. And indeed I don't argue with its spirit. We owe the United Nations hundreds of millions of dollars. Our deadbeat status is an embarrassment for the country and undermines our standing and the vital work of this international organization. That said, the political reality of the situation we find ourselves in is that a majority of this body is prepared only to pay our debts conditioned on comprehensive reforms being implemented at the United Nations. And I certainly don't disagree with reforming the United Nations, and making it more efficient and effective. Still, we are holding hostage money already owed to changes being invoked that suit our unilateral demands. But the will of the majority is clear. While I may disagree with my friend the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee on the unilateral means which he has chosen to affect reform at the United Nations, the negotiated package providing $819 million over 3 years I believe is the best we can hope for. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. And that is the alternative. This is a classic example of a situation where the perfect can become the enemy of the good. Mr. President, I would favor an approach that pays our arrearages in full, not in the 2 years proposed by the distinguished Senator from Indiana or the 3 years sought by our distinguished chairman while conditioning future payments on reform. But that strategy fails the political litmus test laid down by the majority. I understand that reality, and I want an authorization bill that can become law. Hence, the circumstances persuade me that the only approach that can accomplish that objective, even though I may substantively disagree with part of it--is the one negotiated between and offered by Senator Helms and Senator Biden. It represents a compromise in good faith on both sides to achieve an objective that we have not achieved in this body in some period of time. And for that reason, I support the bill and I oppose with regret the amendment that is offered by my distinguished friend, the Senator from Indiana. With that, Mr. President, I yield back any time remaining. Again, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for yielding me an additional minute.