Alan Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Labor and Human Resources be authorized to meet in executive session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 1, 1996, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 1, 1996, at 10:00 a.m. to hold a hearing on ``Review of the National Drug Control Strategy.''

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services and the associated subcommittees be authorized to meet at the following time Wednesday May 1, 1996 for markup of the fiscal year 1997 Defense Authorization bill.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be allowed to meet during the Wednesday, May 1, 1996 session of the Senate for the purpose of conducting a hearing on Airport Revenue Diversion.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 1, 1996, for purposes of conducting a full committee business meeting which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. The purpose of this meeting is to consider pending calendar business.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate for two hearings on Wednesday, May 1, 1996, in room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building. The first is a hearing regarding ``President Clinton's Nomination of Ginger Ehn Lew to be Deputy Administrator of the United States Small Business Administration'' which will begin at 9:30 a.m., with the second hearing focusing on ``The United States Small Business Administration's Fiscal Year 1997 Budget'' to immediately follow.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the special committee to investigate Whitewater development and related matters be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 1, 1996 to conduct hearings pursuant to Senate Resolution 120.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 1, at 2:00 p.m. to hold hearing.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. It will come back.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, what is the status of things at the moment? I know that is unfair.

Mr. SIMPSON. The amendments have been consolidated en bloc; 3855, 3857, 3858, 3859, 3860, 3861, 3862 all relating to the birth certificate issue and driver's license portion--has my amendment on birth certificates and driver's licenses. Is that the regular order?

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me just briefly and in 1 minute tell you what we have done. In this amendment, we provide that the new counterfeit and tamper-resistant driver's license in the bill, whatever they are, whatever State, will be phased in over 6 years, and the new standards will apply only to new, renewed or replacement licenses--not something issued 10 or 20 years before. After this change, the bill will no longer be an unfunded mandate. CBO has an estimate after total State and local cost of driver's license and birth certificate improvements, finding it to be $10 to $20 million spread over 6 years. New minimum standards on birth certificates go into effect only after the Congress has had 2 years to review them, and cannot require all States to use a single form. I talked to the manager of the bill and will now urge the adoption of the en bloc amendment by voice vote. Mr. President, the amendment would phase in the bill's requirements for improved driver's licenses and State-issued I.D. documents over 6 years, beginning October 1, 2000--the year suggested by the National Governors' Association. Under my amendment, the improved format would be required only for new or renewed licenses or State-issued I.D. documents, with the exception of licenses or documents issued in one State where the validity period for licenses is twice as long--12 years--as that in the State with the next longest period. This one State would have 6 years to implement the improvements. Furthermore, the bill's provision that only the improved licenses and documents could be accepted for evidentiary purposes by government agencies in this country would--under the amendment I am now proposing--not be effective until 6 years after the effective date of this section, October 1, 2000. By this time 49 of the 50 States will have the new licenses and I.D. documents without any requirement for early replacement. In one State, some individuals wanting their license to be accepted by governments for evidentiary purposes would have to renew earlier than would be required without enactment of the bill, but would still have more time--6 years--than every other State except one, which would also have 6 years. Thus, the amendment would mean that 6 years after the general effective date for this subsection of the bill--October 1, 2000--the improved licenses would have completely replaced the old ones and would be required for evidentiary purposes in all government offices. Mr. President, I want to remind my colleagues that fraud-resistant I.D. documents will not only make possible an effective system for verifying citizenship or work-authorized immigration status--and thus greatly reduced illegal immigration. The improved documents will also make possible an effective system for verifying immigration status for purposes of welfare and other government benefits--resulting in major saving to the taxpayers. Additional benefits to law-abiding Americans would come from reduced use of fraudulent I.D. in the commission of various kinds of financial crimes, voting fraud, even terrorism. My amendment is a response to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the cost of the bill's current requirement that improvements in driver's licenses and I.D. documents be implemented October 1, 1997. If the amendment is adopted, the additional cost of replacing all licenses and I.D. documents by 1998, including those that would otherwise be valid for an additional number of years would be eliminated. Instead of costing $80 to $200 million initially, plus $2 million per year thereafter, CBO estimates that the total cost of all the birth certificate and driver's license improvements would be $10 to $20 million, incurred over 6 years. CBO has written a letter confirming that fact. Mr. President, with respect to birth certificates, the bill now requires that, as of October 1, 1997, no Federal agency--and no State agency that issues driver's licenses or I.D. documents--may accept for any official purpose a copy of a birth certificate unless (a) it is issued by a State or local government, rather than a hospital or other nongovernment entity, and (b) it conforms to Federal standards after consultation with State vital records officials. The standards will affect only the form of copies, not the original records kept in the State agencies. The new standards will provide for improvements that would make the copies more resistant to counterfeiting, tampering, and fraudulent copying. One important example: the use of ``safety paper,'' which is difficult to satisfactorily photocopy or alter. There is no requirement in the bill that all States issue birth certificate copies in the same form. But in response to concerns that some have expressed, the amendment I am now proposing explicitly requires that the implementing regs not mandate that all States use a single form for birth certificate copies, and requires that the regs accommodate differences between the States in how birth records are kept and how certified copies are produced from such birth records. The bill provides that the regulations are to be developed after consultation with State vital records officials. Therefore, the differences between the States in how birth records are kept and how copies are produced will be fully known and accommodated by the agency developing the regulations. Mr. President, my amendment also requires a report to Congress on the proposed regulations within 12 months of enactment. In addition, the amendment provides that the regulations will not go into effect until 2 years after the report. This will give Congress plenty of time to consider the report and take action, if necessary, to prevent implementation of the regulations. The amendment also provides for a number of other changes suggested by HHS in a written comment sent in March, during the Judiciary Committee markup process: First, the implementing regs will not necessarily be issued by HHS, but by an agency designated by the President--and the agency developing the regs must consult not only with State vital records offices, but with other Federal agencies designated by the President. Second, in the description of the standards to be established in the regs, the reference to ``use by imposters'' will be deleted and replaced by the phrase ``photocopying, or otherwise duplicating, for fraudulent purposes.'' This change makes clear that there is no longer any requirement in the bill for a fingerprint or other ``biometric information.'' Third, funding is authorized for the required HHS report on ways to reduce fraudulent use of the birth certificates. Fourth, the definition of ``birth certificate'' is modified to cover not only persons born in the United States, but also persons born abroad who are U.S. citizens at birth--because of citizenship of their parents--and whose birth is registered in the United States. Fifth and finally, the effective date for the provisions relating to the new grant program for matching birth and death records and the requirement that the fact of death--if known--be noted on birth certificate copies of deceased persons will be 2 years after enactment rather than October 1, 1997. These modifications represent most of the changes suggested by HHS. Mr. President, back to the subject of driver's licenses: There is a technical correction that needs to be made to the grandfathering provision in the driver's license section of the bill. This grandfathering provision is one that my colleague, Senator Ted Kennedy, and I agreed to at the Judiciary Committee markup. The agreement was that States would be exempted from the bill's requirement that State driver's licenses and I.D. documents contain a Social Security number, if--at the time of the bill's enactment--the State requires that applicants submit a Social Security number with their application and that a State agency verify the number with the Social Security Administration--but does not require that the number actually appear on the license or document. This agreement is not reflected in S. 1664 in its present form. The amendment I am proposing will correct that.

Mr. SIMPSON. I am not aware of that, Mr. President, but I will certainly inquire. Amendment No. 3816

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, may I interject here with a unanimous- consent request that we lock in the two amendments? I think this may have been circulated. I will wait so that we might do that. Mr. President, let me go forward briefly and conclude my remarks about the amendment. I spoke on that this morning. I want to readopt the language that I spoke this morning and would be appropriate here, and conclude with this. Let me stress for my colleagues that this section of the bill does not permit employers to refuse documents because of an unreasonable concern about their validity. Administrative law judges have already found such a practice constitutes intentional discrimination. The bill is not intended to overrule any of those cases of intentional discrimination. Employers should be able to ask an employee for additional documents only when they have reason to suspect that the new employee is an illegal alien. We are not interested in burdening employers. In fact, this bill is an extraordinary assistance to employers. No longer 29 documents to look at, but 6. Employers around the country have been supportive of this measure. But I must also state that some of the numerous examples which are given in support of the amendment simply do not apply, especially the one about the Puerto Rican woman. Let us go to that. One example cited by opponents of the provision in the committee bill is that a New York watch wholesaler refused to hire a Puerto Rican woman because she did not have a green card. The administrative law judge ruled that that action constituted a knowing and intentional discrimination. Think of that. Simply because the person refused to hire a Puerto Rican woman because she did not have a green card, that was knowing and intentional discrimination. Most importantly, the employer in that case was punished under section 274B(a)(1) of the Immigration Nationality Act, a provision which is unchanged by my bill, not changed, not section 274B(a)(6), which the committee bill amends. In fact, this case was decided before the Congress enacted the section 274B(a)(6) in late 1990 and decided that merely asking for different documents constituted discrimination-- merely asking. This section of the committee bill provides protection only for employers who do not intend to discriminate. That is what the Senator is trying to reach. An employer who has constructive knowledge that an alien is unauthorized to work is permitted to ask for other documents. That is all we are saying. The employer knows something is wrong with those documents. He knows that, or he or she knows that, an alien is unauthorized to work, and they are permitted under this legislation to ask for other documents. There is one other incorrect argument on behalf of this amendment. According to the propaganda sheet I have from certain in the Clinton administration, the lawyers of the Clinton administration, the bill would permit a Texas nursing home to fire an African American because he could not produce his birth certificate. That is wrong. That is false. The decision in that case held that when employers refused to accept certain documents because of an unreasonable concern about their validity, as opposed to a specific, justified concern, that action constitutes intentional discrimination. We are talking about the employer. The signals are up. The employer knows something is not right. We are saying, he asks for another document. That is not discrimination. If they are in there to discriminate, the signals are not up. They are doing their hideous racism. That is not what we are talking about. I believe we have to provide some protection from heavy penalties for employers who are attempting in good faith to follow the law. This amendment provides no relief, and in fact is no more than a detailed description of current law, the current law which squeezes the American businessman between the rock of employer sanctions and the hard place of intentional discrimination for even deigning to question an employee's documents. So I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. The employers should be able to ask employees, when they have knowledge that a new hire is not legally authorized to work, for additional documentation and inquire of that without the huge fines which the administration insists on levying against employers who have never ever before--ever before-- intentionally discriminated at all.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we continue for an additional 5 minutes in morning business, which will enable me to speak 4 minutes and conclude with either Senator Chafee or Senator Breaux.

Mr. SIMPSON. I am pleased to join with Senators Chafee and Breaux, and the others of the centrist coalition, in announcing this plan. This is very comprehensive. I hope our colleagues will take a very clear look at it. But I just so admire Senators Chafee and Breaux--tireless, able, caring, sensible people, trying to do a sensible thing. We cannot continue this raucous partisanship about who is doing what to who. Medicare cannot be touched and now, of course, it is going to go broke a year, maybe 2 years, earlier than we thought 6 months ago. Here we rock along and, finally, we are addressing it in this proposal. I am particularly pleased that we are looking at the Consumer Price Index, and that we propose to reduce that CPI by one-half of a percentage point in 1997 and 1998, and by three-tenths of a percentage point after that, for the purposes of computing the COLA's, the cost of living allowances. And, of course, the AARP will shriek like a gut-shot panther and leap off their pinnacle down there at their temple, for which they pay $17 million a year rent. Please go see it. I hope everybody goes there. Get your shoes cleaned off before you go in, or you will hurt the marble floors. It is quite a place. They will go crazy on this. They will wail about tearing the back door down and the terrible effort to get Social Security benefits. And we are not cutting Social Security benefits. That is not what is driving this issue. What we are striving to do is have a more accurate CPI that reflects the true level of inflation. This is the issue that is most important to the senior citizens of this country--inflation. This certainly does drive seniors into doubt and concern. That is what we must do. It is inflation that eats away the seniors' lifetime savings. So we have had the testimony from Alan Greenspan, and others, who believe the CPI is off the mark. We think this is a very valid step-- $110 billion in savings over 7 years. That may not be a popular proposal, but it is critically important. If we were to do that for 10 years on a 1 percent, which we are not dealing with, but that would be $680 billion over 10 years. The figures are huge and, exponentially, they go on out. So it is a total package. Some are not going to like things here, but it is a very good first step. We achieve some really significant reversal of what is happening to us as a country. I served on the Entitlements Commission, and we all know where we are headed. I like the one about making Medicare eligibility link up with the Social Security retirement age by gradually increasing that eligibility age. That acknowledges that life expectancy is higher now. We are going to affluence test Medicare part B. I would have done more of that. We say those who have annual incomes exceeding $50,000 and couples who have incomes exceeding $75,000 will be affluence tested. I certainly think we could do that at a lower income sometime, but we do not have the votes to do it at this time. We limit Medicaid. I would have liked to have seen more flexibility, but I am not going to let that deter me from supporting this. Everything here will have an objection from somebody, but the totality of it overwhelmingly outweighs the concerns I have about these other things. So in many other areas--taxes--I had my concerns. Here is a tax package. I did not think we should just give away $250 for every child under the age of 17, but in the spirit of cooperation and consensus, we were able to address some of my concerns. There was not a single thing I addressed that was not met with the finest courtesy and genuine regard of what we were trying to do. So I urge all my colleagues to consider the plan. Those who automatically reject the notion of a bipartisan budget will have no trouble at all finding one or two items to oppose it, but I am convinced anyone who approaches the plan with an open mind and a recognition that all true bipartisanship requires a great degree of compromise--compromising an issue without compromising ourselves--will conclude this as an impressive plan. No tricks, no gimmickry, none of the usual stuff. It makes the tough, politically unpopular decisions Republicans and Democrats alike have been putting off for far too long. I again thank sincerely Senator Chafee and Senator Breaux. They are statesmen. Thank you. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I think we are nearly ready to perhaps close the debate and stack the votes on these two issues. I see no one further coming to speak on the issue. I will advise my colleagues--yes.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, that would be perfectly appropriate to me.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint resolution be considered read for a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the resolution appear at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I believe under the previous order we now go to the next amendment with a 1 minute explanation on each side. Is that correct?

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a resolution I now send to the desk on behalf of Senator D'Amato relative to the extradition of the murderer of Leon Klinghoffer. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that there be 10 minutes for debate to be equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. SIMPSON. I further ask that the vote occur on adoption of the resolution immediately following the use or yielding back of time and that no amendments or motions be in order.