Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, pursuant to paragraph 2 of Rule XXVI, Standing Rules of the Senate, I submit for printing in the Congressional Record the Rules of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs for the 106th Congress, as adopted by the Committee on March 1, 1999. The rules follow: Committee on Veterans' Affairs Rules of Procedure

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, between the time I made my statement in the closed Senate deliberations on February 11th and the time I cast my vote on February 12th, I consulted with the Parliamentarian and examined the Senate precedents and found that if I voted simply ``not proven,'' that I would be marked on the voting roles as ``present.'' I also found that a response of ``present,'' and inferentially the equivalent of ``present,'' could be challenged and that I could be forced to cast a vote of ``yea'' or ``nay.'' I noted the precedent on June 28, 1951, recorded on pages 7403 and 7404 of the Congressional Record, when Senator Benton of Connecticut and Senator Lehman of New York voted ``present'' during a roll call vote. Senator Hickenlooper of Iowa challenged these votes and argued that a senator must vote either ``yea'' or ``nay'' unless the Senate votes to excuse the senator from voting. Senator Hickenlooper's challenge was upheld, and the Senate voted against excusing these Senators from voting by a vote of 39 to 35 in the case of Senator Lehman and a vote of 41 to 34 in the case of Senator Benton. I also noted the precedent on August 3, 1954, on page 13086 of the Congressional Record, when Senator Mansfield of Montana voted ``present'' during a roll call vote. Senator Cordon of Oregon objected and asked that the Senate vote on whether Senator Mansfield should be excused from voting. By voice vote, the Senate voted against excusing Senator Mansfield from voting. In order to avoid the possibility that some Senator might challenge my vote, I decided to state on the Senate floor, ``not proven, therefore not guilty,'' when my name was called on the roll call votes on Article I and Article II of the Articles of Impeachment. That avoided the possibility of a challenge and also more accurately recorded my vote as ``not guilty'' since I did not wish to be recorded as merely ``present.''

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, on February 18, 1999, Pennsylvania lost one of its finest citizens, with the death of Lauren Albert. I had the pleasure to know Mrs. Albert. She was the mother of three wonderful children, Stuart, Elliot, and Emily and the husband of one of Pennsylvania's finest orthopedic surgeons, Todd J. Albert, M.D. For seventeen years, Lauren had served at the side of Richard I. Rothman at the Rothman Institute and Reconstructive Orthopedic Associates. She was a leader in our community. As fate would have it, Lauren and her husband Todd were traveling with eight other Pennsylvanians, including my son Shanin and his wife Tracey. Also on the trip were Barbara and Richard Barnhart, Leslie and Al Boris and Jaimie and David Field. Lauren was killed when the Land Rover in which she was a passenger was caused to tumble down a mountainside of the High Atlas Mountains. Her husband and the Barnharts were passengers in the same vehicle. I was notified of the accident as soon as the party had access to a telephone. Contemporaneously, the Department of State, our Ambassador in Rabat, Edward Gabriel and our Consul general in Morocco, Evan G. Reade, Casablanca, were notified. Consul Reade, accompanied by other Embassy officials, immediately flew to meet the Americans in nearby Ouerzazate. Although Consul Reade had been in Morocco for only 8 months, he immediately assumed control of the situation and worked to solve complex and pressing problems. First, there was a significant question of the medical stability of the three surviving passengers. Consul Reade and I worked in tandem with the Department of Defense, particularly Colonel Joe Reynes, Executive Secretary to the Secretary of Defense. Over the next several hours, well through the night, local time, Colonel Reynes worked diligently to place a military medical aircraft in Europe on alert to fly to Morocco. An enormous amount of work was undertaken with our military's European command, the State Department, Moroccan officials, Consul Reade in Ouerzazate and Ambassador Gabriel in Rabat. In the final analysis, a medical evacuation was not needed. Nonetheless, it was most reassuring to know that our military could be counted upon to assist. Second, Consul Reade, working in connection with others in the State Department, were instrumental in accomplishing the rapid evacuation of the three injured passengers as well as the remainder of the party from Morocco. This was accomplished through detailed coordination and airport assistance for four commercial flights enabling all to return home safely by 5:30 p.m. on the following day. Third, Consul Reade arranged for the return of the body of Lauren Albert to Pennsylvania. For numerous reasons, this process is highly complicated. Consul Reade arranged, with the assistance of the Morocco officials, to have Mrs. Albert's body returned to Pennsylvania on Sunday, February 21, 1999. This permitted a timely funeral and burial, which was very important to the Albert family. Finally, I wish to recognize the superb assistance of Lt. Colonel Driss Ferar, Commandant of the Morocco Police in the Ouerzazate region. Colonel Ferar was notified of the accident within minutes. He sped to the scene in the High Atlas Mountains, an hour and a half away from his headquarters. He immediately assumed control and effectuated the safe return of the party to Ouerzazate that night. Colonel Ferar made sure that the entire party was comfortable and led Dr. Albert, the tour director, and my son to his office which served as a center for all the operations that evening and well into the night. Colonel Ferar worked on the matter without interruption and without attending to any of his other important duties until 2:00 a.m. In addition to offering his valuable assistance in all aspects of this tragedy, Colonel Ferar was also unfailingly courteous and helpful. He had his family make dinner for all of the concerned, which was brought into the Police Headquarters. He offered his wisdom and counsel to Dr. Albert. Since the party has returned to the United States, Colonel Ferar has forwarded a gift to the Albert family. I am informed that Colonel Ferar has been of similar assistance to Americans who have suffered grievous injuries in this region of Morocco in the past. Colonel Ferar is to be highly commended for his commitment to duty and to the very personal human needs of all concerned. The tragic death of Lauren Albert leaves an indelible mark on the fabric of our community. Our prayers are with Dr. Albert and his family. We are grateful to the American and Moroccan officials, who accomplished everything possible to help with this tragedy and assure the safe and speedy return of our citizens.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am pleased to submit today a resolution along with 49 of my colleagues to designate March 25, 1999, as ``Greek Independence Day: A Celebration of Greek and American Democrary.'' One hundred and seventy-eight years ago, the Greek people bagan a revolution that would free them from the Ottoman Empire and return Greece to its democratic heritage. It was, of course, the ancient Greeks who developed the concept of democracy in which the supreme power to govern was vested in the people. Our founding Fathers drew heavily upon the political and philosophical experience of ancient Greece in forming our representative democracy. Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that, ``to the ancient Greeks we are all indebted for the light which led ourselves out of Gothic darkness.'' It is fitting, then, that we should recognize the anniversary of the beginning of their efforts to return to that democratic tradition. The democratic form of government is only one of the most obvious of the many benefits we have gained from the Greek people. The ancient Greeks contributed a great deal to the modern world, particularly to the United States of America, in the areas of art, philosphy, science, and law. Today, Greek-Americans continue to enrich our culture and make valuable contributions to American society, business, and government. It is my hope that strong support for this resolution in the Senate will serve as a clear goodwill gesture to the people of Greece with whom we have enjoyed such a close bond throughout history. Similar resolutions have been signed into law each of the past several years, with overwhelming support in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Accordingly, I urge my Senate colleagues to join me in supporting this important resolution.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I commend my distinguished colleague from West Virginia for this legislation. I support it enthusiastically. I also commend our colleague from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, for the work which he has done in this field, as referred to by the Senator from West Virginia. This amendment would constitute a win-win-win situation. We frequently hear about win-win, but not too often do we hear about win- win-win. It is a three-time winner: First, for the veteran who would have an opportunity to have care at the veterans hospital of his choice when reimbursement is made by the Medicare funds; it would be a win for the Veterans' Administration, which is very short of money; and it would be a win for Medicare, because Medicare would get a reduced payment of 95 percent. Senator Rockefeller is ranking member on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, which I chair. We are enormously concerned about the low level of funding which has been proposed. We have a $17.3 billion budget which is totally insufficient. That has led us to look to other sources of funds. For example, the insurance premium payments, where a veteran has insurance which we are trying to get paid to the Veterans' Administration and to the hospital where he is treated: Here you have the anomalous situation where veterans are entitled to Medicare but they are not getting it, and they cannot go to a veterans hospital without paying for at least a portion of the medical care themselves in many cases. This will give them the opportunity to go to the Veterans' Administration hospital of their choice, to be paid for by Medicare. On a personal note, my father was a veteran of World War I and received medical treatment at the veterans hospital in Wichita, KS. I remember as a youngster riding my bicycle to visit my father when I was 7 years old. One of the added attractions was that they had a pinball machine. It cost 5 cents in the drugstore, at a penny arcade in Wichita it was less expensive, but there was a free pinball machine at the veterans hospital. But I always went there to see my father. That was a long bicycle ride. Now Wichita has extended on the east end all the way to the veterans hospital. My father in World War II served in the Argonne Forest. He was an immigrant. He walked across Europe with barely a ruble in his pocket, from a small village in Ukraine. The family lived in a one-room dirt- floor house in a village called Batchkurina. My wife Joan and I visited it in 1982. He had a steerage ticket to the United States. He did not know that he had a round-trip ticket to France--not to Paris and the Folies Bergeres, but to the Argonne Forest. He was a doughboy. He rose to the rank of buck private. Next to his family, his greatest pride was serving in the U.S. Army. I have his plaque, which was the equivalent of the Purple Heart in World War I for wounded veterans. I thought it was the Statue of Liberty knighting my father, but I later learned it was a plaque given to the 100,000 veterans who were wounded. My father was in an accident in 1937 when he was riding in a brand new automobile and the spindle bolt broke. The car rolled over and rolled on to his arm. He was able to receive medical care at the veterans hospital. Had he not had that care, I don't know what would have happened to him because 1937 was a very tough year for Americans generally, but an especially tough year for my immigrant parents who had four young children to support. That experience at the veterans hospital in Wichita has stayed with me as sort of a hallmark of medical care for America's veterans. I think it is generally recognized that we do not do enough for our veterans. After recognizing it, we don't do very much about it. It is a constant budget struggle. Last year, billions of dollars were taken from the Veterans' Administration for the highway fund. Now we are looking at a very, very tight budget. I have the attention of the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee who may be coming to the Department of Defense for a small loan here for veterans. This Medicare subvention would give the Veterans' Administration more money. It makes a lot of sense. They now have it for the Department of Defense. Retirees can go to DOD hospitals and have it paid for by Medicare. I hope we do not get into a jurisdictional battle with the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee passed this measure in the 105th Congress. It was dropped in conference, for reasons which we think are now solved, with the House of Representatives. The DOD Medicare subvention passed and has become law. We need to get this matter done now on this bill which is, as we express it in the Senate, a vehicle which is moving. We need to have this funding so that when we plan our financing in the Veterans' Committee we know the kind of money we have and the kind of money we may expect for the future. It is my hope that this matter will move forward with alacrity. We will get it done, provide this funding for the Veterans' Administration which is sorely in need of funds, help out the veterans by giving them the choice of where they may get their care, and assist Medicare by having this 5 percent discount. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from 12 members of the Veterans' Committee, with the lead signators being Senator Rockefeller and myself, be printed in the Congressional Record.

Mr. SPECTER. If the distinguished Senator will yield for a moment, my father has prevailed to support his family and was in the junk business. Many call it the scrap iron business, but it was the junk business. Senator Rockefeller and I had our paths cross a bit a few months ago when we were in the Steel Caucus. A man from Texas came in from the scrap business--and they have been very badly hurt by imports of steel, which I will not go into at this moment. It gave me occasion to reflect for less than a minute on my experience cutting down derricks. The wind would blow through the oil fields in Kansas. We lived in Russell, a small town noted for being the home of Senator Dole. My brother-in-law Arthur Morgenstern and I would go out and cut down the derricks. We would sell the straight pieces of angled iron for two and three quarter cents a pound--price control--and the balance of the junk we loaded on the truck and we would take it over to the railroad and the boxcar and ship it. When I finished telling the tale of woe--it was a good incentive to become a lawyer--Senator Rockefeller chimed in and said, ``I have had a similar experience to Arlen Specter. My family also was in oil and railroads. We owned the oil companies and we owned the railroads.''

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I had intended to offer a joint resolution on the subject of the use of force in Kosovo for this bill, but events have overtaken this issue as the picture is now unfolding. I did want to put this joint resolution in the Record. I did want to talk about it for a few minutes. I discussed it with the distinguished chairman of the committee. The concern I have is on the repeated use of force that constitutes acts of war by the President of the United States without authorization by Congress, in violation of the constitutional provision that only the Congress of the United States has the authority to involve the United States in war. We have seen an erosion of the congressional authority in modern times on many, many occasions. Perhaps the strongest, sharpest example is the Korean war, a subject on which I have questioned nominees for the Supreme Court of the United States, trying to get a delineation on the power of the Commander in Chief under the Constitution, contrasted with the authority of Congress. But where we have had the air and missile strikes recently in Iraq, I raised the same question challenging or questioning the authority of the President. And as it has appeared in the past several days, there has been discussion of using force, air-strikes, perhaps missile strikes, in Kosovo, and it seems to me this is a matter that ought to be decided by the Congress. I do think there is a good bit to be said in support of the United States participating in the air-strikes in light of what has gone on there, and I shall not speak at any length. The issues are submitted in this joint resolution. I would like to engage my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, as to his sentiments on this subject.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, by way of a very brief supplemental comment, it is true that the President has authority as Commander in Chief. When he exercises his authority in the deployment of some 4,000 U.S. troops, it is another question. He has a stronger claim to do that under his power as Commander in Chief than he does to have air-strikes or missile strikes, in my opinion. Those air-strikes and missile strikes are acts of war. If he deploys U.S. troops, if they go into a hostile situation, that may trigger the War Powers Act, which is a little different consideration with the Constitutional provision which authorizes only the Congress to declare war. But I do think that we in the Congress do need to consider these issues, debate them, and make decisions about them. We have the authority by restraining spending in the Department of Defense to stop the deployment of troops. I am not saying we should do it, but I think there is too much of a tendency on the part of Congress to sit back and not to make these kind of tough decisions. If things go wrong, there is always the President to blame. If things go right, we haven't impeded Presidential action. But these raise very, very serious Constitutional issues. There is a continuing erosion. Before the President uses force, we have a chance to intervene. If it is an emergency situation, that is different; he has to act as Commander in Chief. But we have had ample opportunity to consider this Kosovo issue. And it is on the back burner now. But if it reappears, I will reactivate my resolution.

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia for those comments. It was 8 years ago in early January--I believe January 10--where we had a much publicized debate on this floor about the use of force in the gulf war. A number of the people who are on the floor today, the Senator from Michigan, the Senator from Virginia, and I, participated in that debate with our distinguished then-colleague, Senator Nunn. I do believe, as I have said, there is much to recommend of U.S. participation in Kosovo. But I do not like to see further erosion of the congressional authority. I think too often the Congress stepped aside. About a year ago this time there was a key issue about the use of force against Iraq. We discussed it on the floor to some extent. We had a winter recess. By the time we got back, the issue had not matured. But force was used in Iraq in December. It was not authorized by the Congress. I think that the Congress ought to take a stand one way or another before force is used in accordance with the Constitutional provisions. In the interest of brevity, Mr. President, I send this joint resolution to the desk and ask that it be printed since it makes a fuller statement on this subject.

Mr. SPECTER. I think the Senator is correct. It does not appear that the United Nations, with the United States' participation, will engage in strikes.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, along with all the Members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of a bill, which my colleague and friend, Senator Jim Jeffords, is introducing today. Mr. President, this is a most welcome bill. When enacted, it would direct that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) enter into an agreement establishing ten geographically dispersed demonstration projects under which VA would provide health care services to certain Medicare-eligible veterans, who would not have otherwise received care in VA, in exchange for reimbursement from the Medicare trust fund. Thus, VA would be able to occupy the same basic position as other health care providers which furnish care to Medicare- eligible patients: VA would be reimbursed by Medicare for providing this care, just as other providers may be reimbursed. The Department of Defense health care system is already authorized to provide such care for reimbursement on a demonstration project basis, and this authority should be extended to the VA as well. Under the terms of this bill, VA is authorized to establish up to ten subvention sites or health plans, including a site near a closed military base and one that provides care predominately to rural veterans. These sites and plans would provide health care services to Medicare-eligible veterans. Medicare would reimburse VA for such services--similar to the way the Federal Health Care Financing Administration pays other providers in the private sector when they furnish health care services to Medicare-eligible persons--but subject to certain cost-saving conditions. First, while fees paid to VA would be based on those paid to other providers, they would be reduced, across the board, by 5%. Second, reimbursements to VA would be further reduced for subsidies paid by Medicare to private facilities to cover their capital expense and medical education costs, and costs incurred by such providers, if any, in serving a disproportionate number of low- income patients. Thus, Medicare would invariably save funds when care is provided to its patients by VA. In effect, VA would provide care to Medicare-eligible veterans at a discount to the Medicare trust fund. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would not, however, be required to refer Medicare-eligible patients to VA under this bill. Eligible veterans would continue to be free to select their own health care providers. It would be up to the VA ``demonstration program'' sites to entice Medicare-eligible patients to VA by offering services and care which are more attractive than those provided by community- care providers. One of the underlying purposes of this legislation is to test VA's contention that it can provide the kind of care which will attract veteran-patients who have other alternatives and, at the same time, provide care which is cost effective from the reimburser's, and VA's, viewpoints. Another purpose of the legislation will be to test the hypothesis that VA can meet the needs of its priority patients-- veterans with service-connected disabilities and veterans who are poor--while, simultaneously positioning itself to attract other veteran-patients who, due to Medicare eligibility, have the wherewithal to go elsewhere for care. Whether VA can succeed in providing cost-effective care which attracts patients without causing it to neglect its primary mission is the essence of the question that this bill is intended to answer. Indeed, time--and these demonstration projects--will tell whether providing such care to non-priority veterans for reimbursement will enhance VA's ability, due to an infusion of new Medicare funds, to provide better care to VA's mandated priority patients. Like the Department of Defense--which, as I have noted, already has authority from Congress to obtain reimbursement from Medicare--VA ought to have an opportunity to see if it can succeed in attracting and keeping patients by providing superior care. I can think of no better way to gauge VA quality than assessing the behavior of veterans who can ``vote with their feet.'' I hope that these VA ``demonstration project'' sites will show that VA can, in fact, fully serve its priority patients--veterans with service-connected disabilities and veterans who are poor--while also serving veteran-patients who are able to bring Medicare funding to the VA system. Budgetary constraints have required that VA operate under a ``flat-line'' medical care appropriation for the past three years even as personnel and other inflationary costs continue to rise from year to year. VA has attempted to increase its collections from private sector, third-party insurers in order to supplement its funding base, but these collections have not been sufficient. I and my colleagues on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs believe that VA ought to have parallel authority to collect reimbursement from Medicare when it provides non-service-connected care to these patients. I ask that my colleagues give the Department this authority by approving this legislation. Mr. President, I compliment my colleague and friend from Vermont for his leadership on establishing this innovative and crucial legislation that I believe will be an essential tool in the future for VA's care of veterans, and I urge my colleagues to give this bill high priority attention for early passage this year.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, along with all the Members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of a bill, which my colleague and friend, Senator Jim Jeffords, is introducing today. Mr. President, this is a most welcome bill. When enacted, it would direct that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) enter into an agreement establishing ten geographically dispersed demonstration projects under which VA would provide health care services to certain Medicare-eligible veterans, who would not have otherwise received care in VA, in exchange for reimbursement from the Medicare trust fund. Thus, VA would be able to occupy the same basic position as other health care providers which furnish care to Medicare- eligible patients: VA would be reimbursed by Medicare for providing this care, just as other providers may be reimbursed. The Department of Defense health care system is already authorized to provide such care for reimbursement on a demonstration project basis, and this authority should be extended to the VA as well. Under the terms of this bill, VA is authorized to establish up to ten subvention sites or health plans, including a site near a closed military base and one that provides care predominately to rural veterans. These sites and plans would provide health care services to Medicare-eligible veterans. Medicare would reimburse VA for such services--similar to the way the Federal Health Care Financing Administration pays other providers in the private sector when they furnish health care services to Medicare-eligible persons--but subject to certain cost-saving conditions. First, while fees paid to VA would be based on those paid to other providers, they would be reduced, across the board, by 5%. Second, reimbursements to VA would be further reduced for subsidies paid by Medicare to private facilities to cover their capital expense and medical education costs, and costs incurred by such providers, if any, in serving a disproportionate number of low- income patients. Thus, Medicare would invariably save funds when care is provided to its patients by VA. In effect, VA would provide care to Medicare-eligible veterans at a discount to the Medicare trust fund. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would not, however, be required to refer Medicare-eligible patients to VA under this bill. Eligible veterans would continue to be free to select their own health care providers. It would be up to the VA ``demonstration program'' sites to entice Medicare-eligible patients to VA by offering services and care which are more attractive than those provided by community- care providers. One of the underlying purposes of this legislation is to test VA's contention that it can provide the kind of care which will attract veteran-patients who have other alternatives and, at the same time, provide care which is cost effective from the reimburser's, and VA's, viewpoints. Another purpose of the legislation will be to test the hypothesis that VA can meet the needs of its priority patients-- veterans with service-connected disabilities and veterans who are poor--while, simultaneously positioning itself to attract other veteran-patients who, due to Medicare eligibility, have the wherewithal to go elsewhere for care. Whether VA can succeed in providing cost-effective care which attracts patients without causing it to neglect its primary mission is the essence of the question that this bill is intended to answer. Indeed, time--and these demonstration projects--will tell whether providing such care to non-priority veterans for reimbursement will enhance VA's ability, due to an infusion of new Medicare funds, to provide better care to VA's mandated priority patients. Like the Department of Defense--which, as I have noted, already has authority from Congress to obtain reimbursement from Medicare--VA ought to have an opportunity to see if it can succeed in attracting and keeping patients by providing superior care. I can think of no better way to gauge VA quality than assessing the behavior of veterans who can ``vote with their feet.'' I hope that these VA ``demonstration project'' sites will show that VA can, in fact, fully serve its priority patients--veterans with service-connected disabilities and veterans who are poor--while also serving veteran-patients who are able to bring Medicare funding to the VA system. Budgetary constraints have required that VA operate under a ``flat-line'' medical care appropriation for the past three years even as personnel and other inflationary costs continue to rise from year to year. VA has attempted to increase its collections from private sector, third-party insurers in order to supplement its funding base, but these collections have not been sufficient. I and my colleagues on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs believe that VA ought to have parallel authority to collect reimbursement from Medicare when it provides non-service-connected care to these patients. I ask that my colleagues give the Department this authority by approving this legislation. Mr. President, I compliment my colleague and friend from Vermont for his leadership on establishing this innovative and crucial legislation that I believe will be an essential tool in the future for VA's care of veterans, and I urge my colleagues to give this bill high priority attention for early passage this year.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, on rollcall votes No. 17 and No. 18, I am recorded as voting ``not guilty.'' I ask that the Record reflect that, in fact, when the roll was called, I stood and voted, ``not proven, therefore not guilty'' on both votes.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, colleagues, a great deal has been spoken in the Chamber about separation of powers and tomes have been written on it. And in reading the Constitution, article I, creating the Congress; and article II, the executive branch; and article III, the judiciary, we have seen the wisdom of limiting power. The one provision of the Constitution--the impeachment provision-- reaches across that divide. It is my thinking that before the Congress can exercise the power of removal, there has to be a very, very heavy burden of proof. I had occasion, fairly recently, to go very deeply into the issue of separation of powers when I argued the Base Closing Commission case regarding the Philadelphia Navy Yard case, which was unfairly closed--a subject that I will not amplify on--and I had an opportunity to appear before the Supreme Court. I will end on time, as I did on my other two speeches, but I will say that the Chief Justice is a good deal more tolerant here than in the Supreme Court. In the Supreme Court, I was cut off in midsyllable. I didn't know that was possible. But with the forcefulness of the Presiding Officer, I did not do well in that case. I had done better on my previous appearances in the Supreme Court when I was representing the district attorney's office on law and order. But that sojourn into that case brought me into 200 years of reflection and analysis on case law on separation of powers, something that is not often done by practicing lawyers, and certainly not Senators. It instilled in me a very, very deep appreciation of separation of power. So when I approached this case--and it has been the toughest case I have ever seen, and I think it has been a very, very intense drain on this body and all of us individually--the focus I had was, What is the burden that you ought to have to show if the Senate is going to remove a President? As I reviewed the evidence, I am not satisfied at all that that burden was met. The definition of perjury is a very tough one by the Supreme Court of the United States in the famous case called Bronston. Bronston was giving testimony in a bankruptcy proceeding in New York and was asked about bank accounts in Zurich, and said, ``My company had a bank account for about 6 months,'' leading to the implication that he did not have a personal bank account when in fact he did. He was convicted and upheld by the Second Circuit, but reversed by a unanimous Supreme Court because the interrogator, the prosecutor, has to go further. You have to ask the last questions. And the President was very artful, very careful, and full of guile as he wound his way through the grand jury proceedings. We heard the testimony again and again. The President said he told his aide. ``I told them things that were true.'' Well, he didn't comment about the things that he told them that were false. But nobody said, ``Did you tell them things that were false as well?'' to give him a chance to perjure himself on that. When asked about Monica Lewinsky--was he alone with her--well, on a series of rambling answers he wasn't alone with her in the hallway. But that is not the end of the question. He wasn't alone with her in the hallway. But nobody followed up, and said, ``Were you alone with her somewhere else?'' which he was not asked and, therefore, did not deny and, therefore, on this record did not commit perjury under the Bronston case. The testimony of Betty Currie we heard again and again and again. Here in late January 1998, Betty Currie testified that when the President gave her that series of questions, she thought the President was trying to lead her, to mold her testimony. Then she came back on in July, she said, Well, it was different on that occasion. She testified that the President gave her the option of either agreeing or disagreeing. Betty Currie was not a witness in this proceeding--didn't even have her deposition taken, and was not a witness; did not have her deposition taken because of very, very restrictive rules which the U.S. Senate said what the House managers could do. The House managers were on very, very sharp notice that if they asked for too many depositions they might get none at all. They made their selection of witnesses, and they left off Betty Currie. But had House managers been able to present their case in the normal course of events, I dare say the proceeding would have been even faster; that we heard some 12 days of speeches, 6 days of opening speeches; 3 and 3. We could have done that in 2 hours. We then spent 2 days propounding questions through the Chief Justice; learned very, very little. We heard arguments on the motion to dismiss, and on depositions, and arguments on what to do about the witnesses, on those videotapes. Again and again, we heard legal arguments, but we did not hear from witnesses. We are burdened by this record. It is my view that on this record, the burden of proof has not been met, the kind of a burden that would have to be sustained, in my judgment, for the Senate to remove an American President. One comment about mindset. The Senate really approached this matter as if it were a waste of time from the outset. There was an early effort to structure a vote to show that one-third plus would not be for conviction and, therefore, to end it. And then when we had the vote on the motion to dismiss, and 44 Senators voted to dismiss, it confirmed what we all knew; and that is that there would not be a two-thirds vote. I think that put a mindset in this body really not to conduct a trial. The Constitution calls for a trial. The proceeding we had does not measure up in any way, shape, or form to a trial. It is true that there are some few cases submitted on a record where judges are going to decide it. But a trial customarily requires witnesses. Had witnesses appeared on the floor of the U.S. Senate with examination and cross- examination, you would have gotten a feel for what happened here. If Betty Currie had appeared on the floor of the U.S. Senate, or even if her deposition had been taken, there could have been a clarification of inconsistencies in her two lines of questioning. A word for the future: It would be my hope that if, as, and when the Senate has to revisit impeachment that it would be done differently. Senator Lieberman made a suggestion on a December 20 television show that there ought not to be party caucuses, that there only ought to be joint caucuses. I have passed that recommendation on. I realized that given the history of the Senate and our party caucuses, that would be a very, very abrupt change. But I came out of some of our party caucuses and walked over and talked to my friends on the other side of the aisle, the people that I had agreed with on many, many, many issues. We were just irreconcilably opposed, just totally opposed. My only conclusion was that it was the kind of argument and the kind of discussion on what happened in the caucuses--really choosing sides and having teams--as opposed to trying to make an analytical, judicial decision as to what was involved here. So it is my hope that if we ever have to undertake this again we will do it differently. My position in the matter is that the case has not been proved. I have gone back to Scottish law where there are three verdicts: guilty, not guilty, and not proved. I am not prepared to say on this record that President Clinton is not guilty. But I am certainly not prepared to say that he is guilty. There are precedents for a Senator voting present. I hope that I will be accorded the opportunity to vote not proved in this case. We really end up, colleagues, very much, in my judgment, where at least I started on the matter. I had thought at the outset that this was not an appropriate case for impeachment because the requisite two- thirds would not be present, and had hoped that impeachment would be by-passed, but instead we would allow the President to finish his term of office, which I thought an inevitability, just as it has worked out that way, and that the criminal process would do whatever is appropriate; if indicted, if convicted, whatever a judge would have to say. I am still hopeful that the rule of law will be vindicated in that process. We obviously have learned much from this proceeding. It is my hope that we will leave a mark to guide future Senates if we ever have to repeat this very, very trying sort of an experience. Mr. Chief Justice, I ask unanimous consent that a full text and exhibits A, B, and C be included in the Record as if read on the Senate floor. The removal of an American president through impeachment carries a high burden of proof and persuasion. For conviction in the criminal courts on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, the proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt. An extra measure of certainty is necessary to persuade the Senate that the national interest mandates invoking the extraordinary remedy of removing the President. The Constitutional Standard for Removal The starting point is Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution: The President . . . shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. From that language, there is reason to interpret ``other High Crimes and Misdemeanors'' as relating back to specific categories of offenses earlier enumerated, such as ``Treason and Bribery''; but I think that is too limited. Nor do I agree with the simplistic definition that perjury and obstruction of justice, being felonies and therefore more serious than misdemeanors in the criminal law, are automatically impeachable offenses. The Framers did not foresee the circumstances before us. The omission of ``perjury'' and ``obstruction of justice'' from the enumerated offenses probably reflected the Framers' thought that it would be unlikely that a President would be testifying under oath or be a participant in a judicial proceeding. Yet, it is equally clear that perjury and obstruction of justice are serious crimes. For the President to commit either, he would be placing his own interest above his public duty and the people's interest in due process. In 1970, then-Congressman Gerald R. Ford offered this definition: . . . an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history . . . While that may state the raw power of Congress, it is too subjective to provide any real guidance. Instead, I look to the Framers at the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist papers, and the English and United States impeachment cases. Commenting on impeachment at the Constitutional Convention James Wilson said: . . . far from being above the laws, he (the President) is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment The President's attorneys have argued that the charges arise from private conduct unrelated to his official duties. The issue then arises whether his conduct is ``in his public character'' by virtue of his Constitutional duty: . . . he (the President) shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . .Article II, Section 3-- Such a public duty may be insufficient for impeachment under Alexander Hamilton's definition of impeachment in Federalist No. 65: . . . those offences (sic) which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. From Hamilton's statement, the conventional wisdom has evolved that impeachment is essentially a political question. The Framers, cases and commentaries have not articulated a handy definition of ``high crimes and misdemeanors.'' Whether to impeach and convict transcends the facts and law to what is in the national interest at a specific time in the nation's history on the totality of the circumstances. Consideration of the national interest may include whether there is a clear and present danger to the integrity or stability of the national government; or whether the conduct is so vile or reprehensible as to establish unfitness for office; or whether the electorate has lost confidence in the President to the extent that he cannot govern. The precedents and commentaries leave substantial latitude for Senators to establish their own standards. The ultimate definition may be analogous to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's struggle to define obscenity when he concluded: '' . . . perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.'' Partisanship In The House The extreme partisanship of the impeachment proceeding in the House prejudiced the matter before it came to the Senate. While it takes two to tango or be partisan, somehow the House Republicans bore the brunt of the public disdain on the partisan charge. It was more than the party line votes. The whole process was filled with rancor, acrimony and bitterness which contributed significantly to the public view that it was all politics without real substances. It has been widely noted that there must be significant bi-partisan support to remove a president. President Nixon's forced resignation occurred only when Republican elders like Senators Goldwater and Scott joined Democrats in urging his resignation. In an early Sunday TV talk show on December 20, 1998, the day after the House sent the Articles to the Senate, Senator Joseph Lieberman and I appeared together on ``Face the Nation'' where he urged that there be no party caucuses but only joint caucuses. I recommended that to Senator Lott in my memorandum of December 29 and urged that policy to colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Perhaps, it was too much to expect or even hope that would be done given the Senate's history and practice of party caucuses. As noted in this floor statement, the Senate struggled to achieve bi- partisanship, mostly without success, but we did avoid the rancor and bitterness which prevailed on the House side. The Improbability of Two-Thirds for Conviction Overshadowed the Process From the outset, the conventional wisdom was there would not be two- thirds of the Senate in favor of conviction. That pervasive view has cast a long shadow over the impeachment proceedings. When the Senate convened on January 6th, there was immediate informal consideration on taking a test vote to determine if there were 34 Senators opposed to conviction which would end the matter. There appeared to be even more than that number so opposed who based their judgments on news media accounts. That trial balloon was abandoned when many Senators objected on the ground that the Constitution called for a trial and the Senate owed the House the Constitutional deference to give the House Managers a chance to prove their case. In mid-November, I wrote in a New York Times ``op ed'' article that impeachment should be bypassed and the President should be held accountable through the criminal process after his term ended. When the House of Representatives returned Articles of Impeachment in mid-December, I felt at that stage the Senate had a constitutional duty to proceed to a trial. The Constitutional Requirement for a Trial The Constitution explicitly provides for a trial: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments (emphasis added). Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 The same clause refers to being convicted and the next clause refers to judgment, so the constitutional mandate for a trial is plain. Senate Impeachment Rules 6 and 17 deal with witnesses. The Senate was schizophrenic in wanting to avoid what many considered to be a pointless trial. Others considered it to be our Constitutional duty to hold a trial and give appropriate deference to the House's action on the Articles. In a series of halting half-steps, the Senate stumbled through a ``pseudo-trial'', a ``sham trial''--really no trial at all. In the end, it would have taken less time to let the House Managers put on their case with a full White House defense than the helter-skelter procedures adopted by the Senate. The Adverse Public Reaction From the time the Senate reconvened on January 6, 1999, the public pressure to conclude the trial promptly was palpable. The improbability of a two-thirds vote for conviction was only one factor although the totality of the other factors contributed to that improbability. The adverse public reaction was reflected in consistent polling data and the feel on the streets in our various states. Notwithstanding the serious charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, Democratic Senators argued and many people agreed that a private sexual liaison should not have caused a multi-year, multi-million dollar investigation. If the Independent Counsel, they argued, could establish no wrongdoing in Whitewater, Travelgate and Filegate, why elevate a charge based on sex to an impeachable offense? I think it is a significant distinction that President Clinton, unlike President Nixon, was not charged with covering up an underlying crime. President Clinton had the option of not answering deposition questions and/or simply not defending the Paula Jones lawsuit. At worst that would have resulted in a default judgment being entered against him with an assessment of damages. As it worked out, a non-defense might still have led to dismissal of the case as a matter of law and on the eventual settlement. In any event, the President would have avoided his present predicament by not responding. Once the President undertook his course of action, then he must answer to the serious charges of perjury and obstruction of justice even though he was not covering up criminal activity. Attorney General Reno made a major mistake in acting to expand Judge Kenneth Starr's jurisdiction to include the Lewinsky matter. In mid- January 1998, contemporaneously with the Attorney General's action, I commented that the public would suspect a vendetta on the part of Judge Starr because there had been so many apparently unproductive investigations going on for so long. This was not a criticism of Judge Starr, but an inevitable public reaction. The public's suspicion of Judge Starr carried over to impeachment. When I challenged Attorney General Reno in the Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on July 15, 1998 about why she acted to expand Judge Starr's authority, she refused to answer the question saying only: The application speaks for itself, Senator. The Witness War The failure of the House to call witnesses during their hearings injected a Trojan Horse into the Articles. The House had good reason not to call witnesses because of its concern to finish its work before the 106th Congress convened to take up the nation's important pending business. But, that set the stage for the witness issue to haunt the Senate from the outset. Early in January, there was a strenuous effort for bi-partisanship on witnesses and procedures. At a joint caucus on January 8th, by almost spontaneous combustion, agreement was reached 100-0 on preliminary procedures leaving depositions and witnesses until later. Immediately thereafter, bi-partisanship broke down. While this may seem self-serving from the Republican point of view, Republicans had more to gain from bi-partisanship than Democrats to avoid the rancor of the House proceedings and give legitimacy to impeachment. Many Democrats openly said the President would be helped by party line votes making the Senate look like the House. The Democrats then lined up solidly behind the President with a number of Republicans, sometimes more than six, teetering on joining the Democrats. There are obviously limits to what elected officials will do to vote a straight party line if it puts their seats in jeopardy. The Senate Democrats had the effective cover of a popular President and their party line votes followed while a significant number of Republicans faced constituents opposed to impeachment in their election cycles. The sequence of partisan maneuvering on witnesses is important to understanding how the House Managers were precluded from presenting their case in a fair way. Appendix A describes those events in some detail. The ultimate result was a sharply limited number of deposition witnesses, three, with videotaped depositions only and no live witness at trial. In my Senate tenure, I have not seen a more contentious issue than the calling of witnesses either live or videotaped. It goes beyond the public pressure to terminate or at least abbreviate the Senate proceeding. The argument that the well of the Senate should not be the stage for lewd and lascivious testimony was answered by the commitment of the House Managers to avoid such testimony. The argument that Monica Lewinsky should not appear on the Senate floor once occupied by Daniel Webster and John F. Kennedy has to give way to the Senate's duty to try this President. The Senate did not choose the President's consorts and potential witnesses, but the Senate is duty bound to ``try'' the case as mandated by the Constitution and do ``impartial justice'' as the Senators' oath specified. The Live Witnesses I was one of three Senator presiders/observers designated by Senator Lott, the Majority Leader, for the depositions of Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal. Observing these live witnesses confirmed my thinking that the full senate should have seen and heard their testimony in the tradition of trial practice. While a videotape is very informative, there is no substitute for the more precise evaluation of demeanor and its many nuances which comes across fully only through live testimony. When the videotapes were played in the Senate chamber, the contrast was stark with the same live testimony I saw and heard. On a number of occasions, the sound was inaudible and the tape could not be rewound. There was a far superior opportunity in person to observe the witnesses' facial responses, their reactions and their general demeanor. In addition, only a portion of their videos was played. Although senators had a chance for full private viewings, it is inevitable that many Senator-jurors did not utilize that opportunity to observe all the videos. Ms. Monica Lewinsky was a very impressive witness: poised, articulate, well-prepared. Seeing her testify in person, I understand why the President's counsel had fought so strenuously to keep her away from the well of the Senate. Had she told her whole story in the well of the Senate, a rapt national TV audience would have been watching and the dynamics of the proceeding might have been dramatically changed. Lawyers' Arguments Instead of Testimony Instead of hearing testimony from live witnesses, the Senate listened to twelve days of lawyer's arguments. Six days were consumed with opening statements which should have taken a few hours. For two days, Senators submitted questions through the Chief Justice for responses from attorneys which added little illumination to what was already on the record. Two more days were spent arguing the motion to dismiss and the resolution on depositions where the lawyers essentially repeated earlier arguments with an additional day for votes on those issues. Finally, limited evidence was presented with three videotaped depositions--Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal. Another day was consumed on votes rejecting live witnesses and permitting use of the videotapes. On the day designated for presentation of those depositions, only snippets were shown with most of the time consumed by lawyers' arguments. A final day for closing arguments was held with lawyers again presenting arguments which had been repeated on eleven prior days. So, in place of a traditional trial with live witnesses such as Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie, Vernon Jordan, Erskine Bowles, John Podesta, Sidney Blumenthal, possibly Kathleen Willey or whomever the House Managers chose to call, the Senate heard days of repetitious lawyers' argument from a grand jury record. The Perjury Article The President's version was limited to his deposition in the Paula Jones case on January 17, 1998 and his grand jury testimony on August 17, 1998. In their totality, those two cameo appearances raised more questions by far than they answered. As expected, the President was exceptionally well prepared on the law and exceptionally adroit and manipulative on the facts or, more accurately, on evading the facts. The law on perjury is set forth in the case of Bronston versus United States, 409 U.S. 342 (1973), where the Supreme Court of the United States established a rigorous standard for proving perjury. Bronston, under oath in a 1966 bankruptcy hearing, was asked whether he ever had bank accounts in Swiss banks and he replied: ``the company had an account there for about six months, in Zurich.'' His answer that the company had an account there for about six months was accurate. It was not accurate that was the only account the company had. The Supreme Court exonerated Bronston on the charge of perjury because the questioner did not press further to get a specific answer on whether the company had an account in addition to the one responded to by Bronston. Utilizing the holding in Bronston to the utmost, the President couched his answers with great care relying on the questioner not to pursue the unanswered issues. For example, the President did not deny lying to his aides, but rather evaded the question and there was no follow-up. John Podesta, President Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the time, testified that on January 23, 1998: He [President Clinton] said to me he had never had sex with her [Monica Lewinsky], and that--and that he never asked--you know, he repeated that denial, but he was extremely explicit in saying he never had sex with her--[H]e [President Clinton] said that he never had sex with her [Monica Lewinsky] in any way whatsoever--that they had not had oral sex. In a Senate deposition, Sidney Blumenthal, an assistant to the President, testified that the President lied to him. In testimony before the grand jury, Mr. Blumenthal testified that the President told him that he had ``rebuffed'' Ms. Lewinsky's advances. Mr. Blumenthal further testified that the President told him the following: She [Monica Lewinsky] threatened him. She said that she would tell people they'd had an affair, that she was known as the stalker among her peers, and that she hated it and if she had an affair or said she had an affair then she wouldn't be the stalker any more. He [President Clinton] told me that she [Monica Lewinsky] came on to him and that he had told her he couldn't have sexual relations with her and that she threatened him. That is what he told me. In his testimony before the grand jury, President Clinton stated, I told them [his aides] things that were true about this relationship. They [things the President said to his aides] may have been misleading, and if they were I have to take responsibility for it, and I'm sorry. Note that the President does not deny lying but only that: I told them things that were true about this relationship. The President did say some things which were true. The questioner did not then pursue the line of interrogation by asking if, in addition to saying some things which were true, the President told his aides other things which were lies. On that clever, ambiguous record, the President escapes the perjury net. Similarly, President Clinton dodged the perjury charges on his testimony on being alone with Monica Lewinsky. She testified they were alone when they had eleven sexual encounters either in the President's personal office or the adjacent hallway. In his January 17th deposition, the President was asked if he was ever alone with Monica Lewinsky in any room of the White House. The President responded, I have no specific recollection, but it seems to me that she was on duty on a couple of occasions working for the legislative affairs office and brought me some things to sign, something on the weekend. Further, when the President was asked if he was ever alone with Ms. Lewinsky in the hallway between the Oval Office and the kitchen area, the President responded, I don't believe so, unless we were walking back to the back dining room with the pizza. I just, I don't remember. I don't believe we were alone in the hallway, no. The President again gets away with vague, unresponsive replies. When the President says ``I don't believe we were alone in the hallway, no'', there is then no pursuit as to whether they were alone in other places. He succeeds in avoiding and misleading, but does not make the unequivocal false statement required by Bronston to constitute perjury. The President was treated differently than other witnesses before a grand jury when he was permitted to read from a prepared statement: I engaged in conduct that was wrong. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse. They did not constitute sexual relations as I understood that term to be defined at my January 17th, 1998 deposition. But they did involve inappropriate intimate contact. The President then declined to respond to Monica Lewinsky's specific charges and was not pressed for answers. He made a blanket denial of having sex with Monica Lewinsky relying on a tortured interpretation of Judge Wright's definition of sexual relations: I thought the definition included any activity by the person being deposed, where the person was the actor and came in contact with those parts of the bodies with the purpose or intent of gratification, and excluded any other activity. For example, kissing is not covered by that, I don't think. He further stated that: My understanding was, what I was giving to you, was that what was covered in those first two lines was any direct contact by the person being deposed with those body parts of another person's body, if the contact was done with an intent to arouse or gratify. That's what I believe it means today. The question was not pursued whether there was a sexual relationship where Ms. Lewinsky was the actor who made contact with the President's body with an intent to arouse or gratify. When asked specifically about oral sex, the President responded, . . . (Y)ou asked me did I believe that oral sex performed on the person being deposed was covered by that definition, and I said no. I don't believe it's covered by the definition. And there is the curious contention by the President on what the meaning of the word ``is'' is. A videotape of his deposition shows the President sitting quietly and listening to his attorney, Robert Bennett's arguments to Judge Wright based on Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit which the President knew to be perjurious. In his grand jury testimony, the President defended his silence during this statement: I was not paying a great deal of attention to this exchange. I was focusing on my own testimony. The President also told the grand jury that Mr. Bennett's statement that there ``is'' no sex of any kind was not necessarily false, but rather: It depends on what the meaning of the word ``is'' is. If the--if he--if ``is'' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. On this state of the record, the Senate should have pressed the President for responses to so many important unanswered questions. Since the President was, in effect, asking the Senate to leave him in office, why was the Senate not justified in, at least, insisting on answers to key questions. When Senators submitted interrogatories to the Chief Justice for responses from the attorneys, I submitted the following question: Would the President honor a request by the Senate to testify? If not, why not? If he declined to testify either on his own initiative or a Senate invitation, would the Senate be justified in drawing an adverse inference from his failure to testify? With so many other questions submitted, this one was not asked. During the trial, White House Counsel said the President would respond to written questions, but that offer was rescinded. On January 25th the President refused to answer ten written questions submitted by Republican Senators. On February 3rd, twenty-six Republican Senators sent the President a letter requesting a deposition. As expected, he declined. In a context where the Senate voted against live witnesses and permitted only three deposition witnesses, it was not surprising that there was no political will to press the President for his testimony. I believe that was a serious mistake. In the context where the Senate could not even consider exercising the political will to ask, let alone compel, the President to leave the Oval Office for a day or a few days to testify at his impeachment trial or even to give a deposition, how could the Senate be expected to exercise the much greater political will to remove the President from office? In her civil lawsuit, Paula Jones had been able to compel the President to give a deposition. In the grand jury proceeding, the Independent Counsel, in effect, compelled the President to testify. Why, then, shouldn't the Senate exercise the commensurate power in an impeachment proceeding to obtain the President's testimony when there were so many open questions. In my legal judgment, the Senate has the power to subpoena the President. (My memorandum to Senator Lott dated December 10, 1998, attached as Appendix B, discusses the Senate's legal authority to subpoena the President at pages 8 through 11. My memorandum to Senator Lott dated December 29, 1998, attached as Appendix C, discusses possible testimony by the President at pages 12 and 13.) Senate Impeachment Rule 6 gives the Senate the subpoena power. The Supreme Court of the United States held President Nixon was subject to subpoena to turn over the famous tapes under the established principle ``That the public * * * has a right to every man's evidence.'' President Nixon's case, although not dealing with impeachment, is further instructive in the Supreme Court's sweeping language on the need for all the facts even where the President is subject to subpoena: The need to develop all relevant facts in the adversary system is both fundamental and comprehensive. The ends of criminal justice would be defeated if judgments were to be founded on a partial or speculative presentation of the facts. The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts, within the framework of the rule of evidence. To ensure that justice is done, it is imperative to the function of the courts that compulsory process be available for the production of evidence needed either by the prosecution or the defense. the article on obstruction of justice Following President Clinton's deposition in the Paula Jones case on January 17, 1998, the President called his personal secretary, Betty Currie, at home and asked her to come into the office on the following day. On Sunday, January 18, President Clinton met with Ms. Currie and, according to Ms. Currie, made the following statements to her, one right after the other: You were always there when she was, right? We were never really alone. Monica came on to me, and I never touched her, right? You can see and hear everything, right? Ms. Currie testified at first (1/27/98) that, based on his demeanor and the way he made the statements, the President wanted her to agree with them. Six months later (7/22/98) when she testified for the second time, Ms. Currie said that although the President stated ``right?'' at the end of the statements, she understood that she could agree or disagree with them. I find the testimony of Betty Currie on January 27, 1998 most troubling. Why would the President ask a series of questions when he knew the answers unless he sought to influence her testimony? But then, Ms. Currie undercut her January 27th testimony when she testified on July 22, 1998 that she understood from the President that she could disagree with him on those questions. In order to make a finding on an important issue like this which could lead to the removal of the President, the Senate should have heard Ms. Currie in person to clarify her testimony. In the absence of such clarification on this state of the record, there is at least a reasonable doubt on this issue. Monica Lewinsky testified that she met with the President in the Oval Office on December 28, 1997 and that the President gave her several Christmas presents at this meeting. Ms. Lewinsky further testified that at some point in the conversation, she said to the President, ``Maybe I should put the gifts away outside my house somewhere or give them to someone, maybe Betty.'' Ms. Lewinsky recalled that the President responded either, ``I don't know'' or ``Let me think about that.'' The President testified that he has no distinct recollection of discussing the gifts with Ms. Lewinsky on December 28. He told the grand jury that: My memory is that on some day in December, and I'm sorry I don't remember when it was, she said, well, what if they ask me about the gifts you have given me. And I said, well, if you get a request to produce them, you have to give them whatever you have. In the afternoon of December 28, 1997, Betty Currie drove to Ms. Lewinsky's Watergate apartment and collected a box containing most of the President's gifts. Ms. Currie then drove home and placed this box under her bed. According to Ms. Lewinsky, the transfer originated in a phone call from Ms. Currie in which Ms. Currie stated, ``I understand you have something to give me,'' or, ``The President said you have something to give me.'' Betty Currie testified that it was Ms. Lewinsky who first raised the idea of the gift transfer, either in person or over the telephone. Ms. Currie testified that she did not remember the President ever telling her to call Ms. Lewinsky or to pick something up from Ms. Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky testified that Ms. Currie came over to pick up the gifts at ``around 2:00 pm or so''. Cellular phone records reveal that Ms. Currie phoned Monica Lewinsky's home at 3:32 on December 28th and had a conversation of one minute or less. The evidence against the President on the gifts issue is equivocal where the idea returning the gifts in the conversation between the President and Monica Lewinsky originates with Ms. Lewinsky; Ms. Currie says she does not remember the President telling her to call or pick up something from Ms. Lewinsky; the time of the call as shown on the cell phone records conflicts (3:32 pm) with Ms. Lewinsky's version of the sequence of events and the President gave Monica Lewinsky more gifts on December 28, 1997, the same day that efforts were made for the return of some of the gifts. In December, 1997 and January, 1998, the President's close friend, Washington attorney Vernon Jordan, helped find Monica Lewinsky a job in New York City. On Friday, December 5, 1997, the President's attorneys received a witness list for the Paula Jones case. Monica Lewinsky was included on this list. On December 11, 1997, Judge Susan Webber Wright issued an order which stated that Paula Jones was entitled to ``information regarding any individuals with whom the President had sexual relations or proposed or sought to have sexual relations and who were during the relevant time frame state or federal employees.'' This order made it clear that Ms. Jones would be able to subpoena Monica Lewinsky. On December 11, 1997 Mr. Jordan and Ms. Lewinsky met and Mr. Jordan took concrete actions to help Ms. Lewinsky find a job. Mr. Jordan placed calls on her behalf to three business contacts. Mr. Jordan also told her to send letters to three additional business contacts that he provided to her. This meeting and the phone calls took place prior to the issuance of Judge Wright's order of the same day. On January 7th, Ms. Lewinsky signed an affidavit denying a sexual relationship with the President. On January 8th, Ms. Lewinsky had an interview with McAndrews and Forbes in New York. Afterwards, she phoned Vernon Jordan to report that the interview had gone poorly. Vernon Jordan immediately phoned Mr. Ron Perelman, the CEO of McAndrews and Forbes, and asked for this help. The next day, Ms. Lewinsky was given another interview and was extended an offer to work for Revlon, a subsidiary of McAndrews and Forbes. Vernon Jordan defended his efforts to help Monica Lewinsky get a job as a payback for help he secured as a young lawyer in getting a job when he was a victim of racial discrimination. Jordan testified that he told no one at Revlon that Monica Lewinsky was a witness in a case involving the President and that Revlon offered Monica Lewinsky a job because she was qualified. If the Revlon job offer was part of a plan or conspiracy to obstruct justice, then Vernon Jordan would have had to be part of that. The House Managers raise no such contention. An important piece of evidence on this issue was the uncontradicted testimony of Monica Lewinsky that she intended to deny her relationship with the President from the outset before she was subpoenaed or the President coached her or Vernon Jordan helped her get a job. Limitations on the House Managers The signals to the House Managers from the Senate were unmistakable that the Senate was unlikely to approve depositions if the list was too long. Responding to that advance notice, the House Managers submitted only three names for depositions necessarily leaving off potentially important witnesses like Ms. Currie. Given the absence of live witnesses and limitations on depositions, the House Managers have been compelled to rely on transcripts from questioning by the Independent Counsel in grand jury proceedings. Those transcripts have left many key issues unresolved. tv and the trial The Senate proceeding posed a curious dichotomy with one hundred sitting silent Senators in the Chamber and non-stop Senators' interviews in the corridors and media galleries. The case was really not being tried in the Senate Chamber, but in a sense was being tried in the Senate corridors, on the evening TV interview shows and on the Sunday talk shows. I declined TV interviews after the day the trial began on the ground that my oath to do ``impartial justice'' was in jeopardy by interviews on the day's proceedings which might conflict with my juror's functions. Again, oddly, on the occasions when Senators were permitted to speak on the Senate floor on the motion to dismiss and the Resolution on depositions, the sessions were closed so that the public could not hear our debate. Efforts to open the Senate proceeding during final deliberations also failed to get the two-thirds vote to overturn the Senate rule closing the Chamber. I thought the public and posterity should know the reasons for our votes as a guide for today and the future. The informal, seat- of-the pants, corridor comments may be found in the CNN or MSNBC files, but there will be no Senate videotape to record what could be important Senators' views. conclusion Each Senator individually and the Senate collectively took an oath to do ``impartial justice''. The Senate has done only ``partial justice'', a double entendre, both (1) in the sense of not doing ``impartial justice'' to the House Managers by unduly restricting them in the presentation of their case; and, (2) ``partial justice'' in the sense of hearing only part of the evidence. When the Senate prohibited live witnesses and permitted only three videotaped depositions, the House Managers had one hand tied behind their back. There has been no ``trial'' but only a ``pseudo-trial'' or a ``sham trial''. The best the House Managers could do was to cut, paste and glue together transcripts from the Independent Counsel's grand jury proceedings. Ms. Lewinsky testified briefly on videotape and the President gave two vague, evasive depositions. The House Managers could not meet the heavy burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the only appropriate statement where the underlying charges are the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice. Had the House Managers sustained that burden under these Articles, there was a further burden of persuasion, as I see it, to establish that the national interest warranted removal from office. Perjury and obstruction of justice are serious offenses which must not be tolerated by anyone in our society. However, I remain unconvinced that impeachment is the best course to vindicate the rule of law on this offensive conduct. President Clinton may still be prosecuted in the Federal criminal courts when his term ends. His lawyers have, in effect, invited that prosecution by citing it as the preferable remedy to impeachment. A criminal trial for the President after his term ends may yet be the best vindicator for the rule of law. If the full weight of the evidence with live witnesses had been presented to the Senate instead of bits and pieces of cold transcript, it is possible that the Senate and the American people would have demanded the President's appearance in the well of the Senate. Under firm examination, the President might have displayed the egregious character described harshly by his defenders in their proposed censure petitions. That sequence might have led to his removal. But on this record, the proofs are not present. Juries in criminal cases under the laws of Scotland have three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty, not proven. Given the option in this trial, I suspect that many Senators would choose ``not proven'' instead of ``not guilty''. That is my verdict: not proven. The President has dodged perjury by calculated evasion and poor interrogation. Obstruction of justice fails by gaps in the proofs. Many Senators have sought to express their gross displeasure by findings of fact or censure. I reject both. The Constitution says judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend beyond removal and disqualification from future office. Under the crucial doctrine of separation of powers, the Congress is not and should not be in the business of censuring any President. We are properly in the business of examining our own conduct as Senators. On that score, on the record of this ``pseudo-trial'', it is my view that the Senate failed to fulfill the Constitutional mandate to ``try'' this case. I ask unanimous consent that Appendices A, B and C be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, on behalf of the leader, and in my capacity as a copresider for the Senate at the deposition of Mr. Sidney Blumenthal, I ask unanimous consent that the parties be allowed to take additional discovery, including testimony on oral deposition of Mr. Christopher Hitchens, Ms. Carol Blue, Mr. R. Scott Armstrong and Mr. Sidney Blumenthal with regard to possible fraud on the Senate by alleged perjury in the deposition testimony of Mr. Sidney Blumenthal with respect to allegations that he, Mr. Sidney Blumenthal, was involved with the dissemination beyond the White House of information detrimental to the credibility of Ms. Monica Lewinsky, and that pursuant to the authority of title II of Senate Resolution 30, the Chief Justice of the United States, through the Secretary of the Senate, shall issue subpoenas for the taking of such testimony at a time and place to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Democratic leader, and, further, that these depositions be conducted pursuant to the procedures set forth in title II of Senate Resolution 30, except that the last four sentences of section 204 shall not apply to these depositions, provided, further, however, that the final sentence of section 204 shall apply to the deposition of Mr. Sidney Blumenthal.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to introduce legislation to try to deal with a very serious surge of steel imports into the United States, which is threatening to decimate the steel industry and take thousands of jobs from American steelworkers in a way which is patently unfair and in violation of free trade practices. My bill is entitled the ``Trade Fairness Act of 1999'' because it would bring our laws in line with those established by the General Agreement on Tarriffs and provide relief to the flood of foreign steel imports dumped onto the American market. On Monday, November 30, 1998, Senator Rockefeller and I convened a hearing of the Senate Steel Caucus to look further into the continued dumping of foreign steel on the U.S. market and its affect on domestic producers. At that hearing, Hank Barnette, Chairman and CEO of Bethlehem Steel, and George Becker, President of the United Steelworkers of America, testified to the magnitude of the crisis, the continued loss of high-paying jobs and the alarming lack of capital investment by the industry over the last several months. They both expressed frustration at the lack of activity by the Clinton Administration to respond to illegal dumping of foreign steel. On October 7, 1998, Senator John D. Rockefeller, Congressman Ralph Regula and Congressman Jim Oberstar, and I met with representatives of the Clinton Administration, specifically Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Commerce Secretary William Daley, United States Trade Representative Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky and National Economic Council Advisor Gene Sperling, to discuss the steel import issue. At that meeting, representatives of the Clinton Administration assured us that they were looking into actions that the Administration could take to respond to the illegal dumping of foreign steel on the U.S. market but had yet to make a final decision on their response. The urgency of this crisis and the failure of the Administration to take action was evident from testimony presented on September 10, 1998, where, as Chairman of the Senate Steel Caucus, I joined House Chairman Regula in convening a joint meeting of the Senate and House Steel Caucuses to hear from members of the United Steelworkers of America and executives from a number of the nation's largest steel manufacturers about the current influx of imported steel into the United States. At that meeting, I expressed my profound concern regarding the impact on our steel companies and steelworkers of the current financial crises in Asia and Russia, which have generated surges in U.S. imports of Asian and Russian steel. The United States has become the dumping ground for foreign steel. Russia has become the world's number one steel exporting nation and China is now the world's number one steel-producing nation, while enormous subsidies to foreign steel producers have continued. In fact, the Commerce Department revealed that Russia, one of the world's least efficient producers, was selling steel plate in the United States at more than 50 percent, or $110 per ton, below the constructed cost to make steel plate. The dumping of this cheap steel on the American market ultimately costs our steel companies in lost sales and results in fewer jobs for American workers. Specifically, the October 1998 import level was the second highest monthly total ever, with 4.1 million net tons--an increase of 56 percent over October 1997 of 2.6 million net tons. Only August 1998 (4.4 million net tons) surpassed it. The October level, if annualized, would exceed 49 million net tons, or 48 percent of expected total U.S. domestic steel shipments for the entire year. Total imports in October were 35 percent of apparent consumption, up from 23 percent a year earlier. Imports of steel from various countries have dramatically increased when the first six months of 1997 are compared to the first six months of 1998. The percent increases from four countries are as follows: Japan, 141 percent; South Africa, 124 percent; South Korea, 96 percent; Russia, 29 percent. The following is an example of the layoffs and plant slowdowns since September, 1998: Geneva Steel has laid off 460 workers; U.S. Steel's Philadelphia operations have been reduced by 70 percent; LTV Steel's plant closure has cost 320 jobs; and, Weirton Steel has suffered 300 layoffs with 200 additional layoffs expected by January 1, 1999. The American Iron and Steel Institute estimates that 5,000 steelworkers, nationwide, have been laid off since September, 1998. An additional 10,000 U.S. steelworkers' jobs are at risk of imminent layoffs. I believe that the growing coalition of steel manufacturers, steelworkers, and Congress must work together to remedy this import crisis before it is too late and the U.S. steel industry is forced to endure an excruciatingly painful economic downturn. The United States has many of the tools at its disposal to protect our steel industry from unfair and illegally dumped steel; therefore, I introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 121 on September 29, 1998, to call on the President to take all necessary measures to respond to the surge of steel imports resulting from the Asian and Russian financial crises. I am pleased to state that the resolution passed both houses of Congress on October 19, 1998. Unfortunately, the President's report to Congress failed to take the immediate action needed to stop the importation of foreign steel. While this resolution was an appropriate way for Congress to express our concerns and request immediate actions by the Administration to respond to the steel import crisis, I think it is also important to give the Administration all the necessary tools to fight the surges of foreign steel. After reviewing the U.S. trade laws, I discovered that our trade laws place the United States at a disadvantage in the international trade arena. Our laws are more strict than those agreements made during the Uruguay Round negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). That agreement, which the Senate considered and passed on December 1, 1994, established the World Trade Organization (WTO) to administer these trade agreements. The GATT established rules for the application of safeguard measures. The agreement provides that a member of the WTO may apply a safeguard measure to a product if the member has determined that such product is being imported into its territory in such increased quantities, absolute or relative to domestic production, and under such conditions as to cause or threaten to cause serious injury to the domestic industry that produces like or directly competitive products. The comparable U.S. statute, referred to as safeguard actions, or Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act, provide a procedure whereby the President has the discretion to grant temporary import relief to a domestic industry injured by increased imports. Our statute goes further than GATT by requiring that foreign imports are the substantial cause of the injury. It just does not make sense to hinder the Administration by placing this additional burden on it in evaluating a claim of injury due to surges of imports. We need to level the playing field so that all countries are playing by the same rules. This oversight is one example of the technical corrections that must be made to U.S. trade laws to bring them in line with WTO's rules. For these reasons and to provide relief to the domestic steel industry injured by these overly strict laws, I am introducing the Trade Fairness Act of 1999, which seeks to: lower the threshold for establishing injury in safeguard actions under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act; and, establish an import monitoring program to monitor the influx of foreign steel on the U.S. market. During the last days of the 105th Congress, I introduced the Trade Fairness Act of 1998 which sought to amend the Trade Act of 1974 by making technical corrections to our strict laws; the first section of the legislation I am introducing today is based on that bill. First, regarding safeguard actions, this legislation removes the requirement that imports must be a ``substantial'' cause of the serious injury by deleting the word ``substantial.'' The WTO's Safeguards Agreement does not require that increased imports by a ``substantial'' cause of serious injury. This change will lower the threshold to prove that the influx of imports were the cause of injury to the affected industry and will make U.S. law consistent with the WTO rules. Second, the legislation clarifies that the International Trade Commission (ITC) shall not attribute to imports injury caused by other factors in making a determination that imports are a cause of serious injury. This provision clarifies that there only needs to be a causal link between the imports and the injury in order to gain relief. This clarification is a more faithful implementation of the GATT Agreement and will prevent circumstances such as a recession from blocking invocation of Section 201 by the Administration. Finally, this legislation brings the definition of ``serious injury'' in line with the definition codified in the GATT Agreement. The bill strikes the definition of serious injury and replaces it with the WTO's language regarding evaluation of whether increased imports have caused serious injury to a domestic industry. Specifically, it states ``with respect to serious injury'', the ITC should consider ``the rate and amount of the increase in imports of the product concerned in absolute and relative terms; the share of the domestic market taken by increased imports; changes in the levels of sales; production; productivity; capacity utilization; profits and losses; and, employment.'' These factors are important guidance to the ITC in evaluating a petition of serious injury. Again, I think it is appropriate to be consistent with the WTO language as America increasingly interacts on a global scale. Next, my legislation establishes a comprehensive steel import permit and monitoring program, which is modeled on similar systems currently in use in Canada and Mexico. The program created by this legislation requires importers to provide information regarding country of origin, quantity, value and Harmonized Tariff Schedule number. The program also requires the Administration to release the data collected to the public in aggregate form on an expedited basis. The information provided by the licensing program will allow the Commerce Department and the steel industry to monitor the influx of steel imports into the United States. Currently, unfairly traded imports can cause significant damage to the U.S. market long before the data is available for even preliminary analysis. This program will allow the U.S. government to receive and analyze critical data in a more timely manner and, as a result, allow the industry to determine more quickly whether unfairly traded imports are disrupting the market. Specifically, the bill directs the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Treasury to implement a steel import monitoring program that requires importers of all products classified within Chapters 72 and 73 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) to obtain an import permit prior to entering such products in the United States. In order to obtain an import permit, the importer is required to submit an import permit application containing specific information. An import permit is issued automatically upon receipt of the application and is valid for a period of thirty days. This legislation will enhance U.S. law to better respond to surges of foreign imports that injure U.S. industries. It is important to note that, with the exception of the steel import licensing provisions, this legislation applies to all industries and is not limited to the steel industry. As such, other U.S. industries that are faced with an import crisis such as the steel industry is currently confronting would also benefit from these improvements to the U.S. trade laws. The U.S. steel industry has become a world class industry with a very high-quality product. This has been achieved at a great cost: $50 billion in new investment to restructure and modernize; 40 million tons of capacity taken out of the industry; and a work force dramatically downsized from 500,000 to 170,000. With these technical changes, the Administration will be armed with ammunition to bring a self-initiated Section 201 action on behalf of the steel industry that has been harmed not only by the onslaught of cheap imports on a daily basis but by U.S. law that has prevented swift and immediate action by the U.S. government. This legislation is essential to allow the President to respond promptly to the current steel import crisis. It will allow steel companies to compete in a more fair trade environment, preventing bankruptcies that would cause the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs in the steel industry. Too many steelworkers have lost their jobs due to unfair cheap imports. I intend to stand up for the steel industry and prevent the loss of any more jobs. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting adoption of legislation to bring fairness to our trade laws and needed relief to the steel industry.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, during the winter recess, I had the opportunity to travel from Dec. 12 through Dec. 31, 1998, to 13 countries in Europe, the Mideast and the Gulf. I flew over with President Clinton on Air Force One, spent the first several days in Israel essentially working with the President's schedule, and then pursued my own agenda when he returned to Washington. I believe it is worthwhile to share with my colleagues some of my impressions from that trip, which I am placing in the Congressional Record on Jan. 19, 1999, the first day for statements in the 106th Congress.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to introduce legislation to try to deal with a very serious surge of steel imports into the United States, which is threatening to decimate the steel industry and take thousands of jobs from American steelworkers in a way which is patently unfair and in violation of free trade practices. My bill is entitled the ``Trade Fairness Act of 1999'' because it would bring our laws in line with those established by the General Agreement on Tarriffs and provide relief to the flood of foreign steel imports dumped onto the American market. On Monday, November 30, 1998, Senator Rockefeller and I convened a hearing of the Senate Steel Caucus to look further into the continued dumping of foreign steel on the U.S. market and its affect on domestic producers. At that hearing, Hank Barnette, Chairman and CEO of Bethlehem Steel, and George Becker, President of the United Steelworkers of America, testified to the magnitude of the crisis, the continued loss of high-paying jobs and the alarming lack of capital investment by the industry over the last several months. They both expressed frustration at the lack of activity by the Clinton Administration to respond to illegal dumping of foreign steel. On October 7, 1998, Senator John D. Rockefeller, Congressman Ralph Regula and Congressman Jim Oberstar, and I met with representatives of the Clinton Administration, specifically Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Commerce Secretary William Daley, United States Trade Representative Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky and National Economic Council Advisor Gene Sperling, to discuss the steel import issue. At that meeting, representatives of the Clinton Administration assured us that they were looking into actions that the Administration could take to respond to the illegal dumping of foreign steel on the U.S. market but had yet to make a final decision on their response. The urgency of this crisis and the failure of the Administration to take action was evident from testimony presented on September 10, 1998, where, as Chairman of the Senate Steel Caucus, I joined House Chairman Regula in convening a joint meeting of the Senate and House Steel Caucuses to hear from members of the United Steelworkers of America and executives from a number of the nation's largest steel manufacturers about the current influx of imported steel into the United States. At that meeting, I expressed my profound concern regarding the impact on our steel companies and steelworkers of the current financial crises in Asia and Russia, which have generated surges in U.S. imports of Asian and Russian steel. The United States has become the dumping ground for foreign steel. Russia has become the world's number one steel exporting nation and China is now the world's number one steel-producing nation, while enormous subsidies to foreign steel producers have continued. In fact, the Commerce Department revealed that Russia, one of the world's least efficient producers, was selling steel plate in the United States at more than 50 percent, or $110 per ton, below the constructed cost to make steel plate. The dumping of this cheap steel on the American market ultimately costs our steel companies in lost sales and results in fewer jobs for American workers. Specifically, the October 1998 import level was the second highest monthly total ever, with 4.1 million net tons--an increase of 56 percent over October 1997 of 2.6 million net tons. Only August 1998 (4.4 million net tons) surpassed it. The October level, if annualized, would exceed 49 million net tons, or 48 percent of expected total U.S. domestic steel shipments for the entire year. Total imports in October were 35 percent of apparent consumption, up from 23 percent a year earlier. Imports of steel from various countries have dramatically increased when the first six months of 1997 are compared to the first six months of 1998. The percent increases from four countries are as follows: Japan, 141 percent; South Africa, 124 percent; South Korea, 96 percent; Russia, 29 percent. The following is an example of the layoffs and plant slowdowns since September, 1998: Geneva Steel has laid off 460 workers; U.S. Steel's Philadelphia operations have been reduced by 70 percent; LTV Steel's plant closure has cost 320 jobs; and, Weirton Steel has suffered 300 layoffs with 200 additional layoffs expected by January 1, 1999. The American Iron and Steel Institute estimates that 5,000 steelworkers, nationwide, have been laid off since September, 1998. An additional 10,000 U.S. steelworkers' jobs are at risk of imminent layoffs. I believe that the growing coalition of steel manufacturers, steelworkers, and Congress must work together to remedy this import crisis before it is too late and the U.S. steel industry is forced to endure an excruciatingly painful economic downturn. The United States has many of the tools at its disposal to protect our steel industry from unfair and illegally dumped steel; therefore, I introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 121 on September 29, 1998, to call on the President to take all necessary measures to respond to the surge of steel imports resulting from the Asian and Russian financial crises. I am pleased to state that the resolution passed both houses of Congress on October 19, 1998. Unfortunately, the President's report to Congress failed to take the immediate action needed to stop the importation of foreign steel. While this resolution was an appropriate way for Congress to express our concerns and request immediate actions by the Administration to respond to the steel import crisis, I think it is also important to give the Administration all the necessary tools to fight the surges of foreign steel. After reviewing the U.S. trade laws, I discovered that our trade laws place the United States at a disadvantage in the international trade arena. Our laws are more strict than those agreements made during the Uruguay Round negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). That agreement, which the Senate considered and passed on December 1, 1994, established the World Trade Organization (WTO) to administer these trade agreements. The GATT established rules for the application of safeguard measures. The agreement provides that a member of the WTO may apply a safeguard measure to a product if the member has determined that such product is being imported into its territory in such increased quantities, absolute or relative to domestic production, and under such conditions as to cause or threaten to cause serious injury to the domestic industry that produces like or directly competitive products. The comparable U.S. statute, referred to as safeguard actions, or Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act, provide a procedure whereby the President has the discretion to grant temporary import relief to a domestic industry injured by increased imports. Our statute goes further than GATT by requiring that foreign imports are the substantial cause of the injury. It just does not make sense to hinder the Administration by placing this additional burden on it in evaluating a claim of injury due to surges of imports. We need to level the playing field so that all countries are playing by the same rules. This oversight is one example of the technical corrections that must be made to U.S. trade laws to bring them in line with WTO's rules. For these reasons and to provide relief to the domestic steel industry injured by these overly strict laws, I am introducing the Trade Fairness Act of 1999, which seeks to: lower the threshold for establishing injury in safeguard actions under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act; and, establish an import monitoring program to monitor the influx of foreign steel on the U.S. market. During the last days of the 105th Congress, I introduced the Trade Fairness Act of 1998 which sought to amend the Trade Act of 1974 by making technical corrections to our strict laws; the first section of the legislation I am introducing today is based on that bill. First, regarding safeguard actions, this legislation removes the requirement that imports must be a ``substantial'' cause of the serious injury by deleting the word ``substantial.'' The WTO's Safeguards Agreement does not require that increased imports by a ``substantial'' cause of serious injury. This change will lower the threshold to prove that the influx of imports were the cause of injury to the affected industry and will make U.S. law consistent with the WTO rules. Second, the legislation clarifies that the International Trade Commission (ITC) shall not attribute to imports injury caused by other factors in making a determination that imports are a cause of serious injury. This provision clarifies that there only needs to be a causal link between the imports and the injury in order to gain relief. This clarification is a more faithful implementation of the GATT Agreement and will prevent circumstances such as a recession from blocking invocation of Section 201 by the Administration. Finally, this legislation brings the definition of ``serious injury'' in line with the definition codified in the GATT Agreement. The bill strikes the definition of serious injury and replaces it with the WTO's language regarding evaluation of whether increased imports have caused serious injury to a domestic industry. Specifically, it states ``with respect to serious injury'', the ITC should consider ``the rate and amount of the increase in imports of the product concerned in absolute and relative terms; the share of the domestic market taken by increased imports; changes in the levels of sales; production; productivity; capacity utilization; profits and losses; and, employment.'' These factors are important guidance to the ITC in evaluating a petition of serious injury. Again, I think it is appropriate to be consistent with the WTO language as America increasingly interacts on a global scale. Next, my legislation establishes a comprehensive steel import permit and monitoring program, which is modeled on similar systems currently in use in Canada and Mexico. The program created by this legislation requires importers to provide information regarding country of origin, quantity, value and Harmonized Tariff Schedule number. The program also requires the Administration to release the data collected to the public in aggregate form on an expedited basis. The information provided by the licensing program will allow the Commerce Department and the steel industry to monitor the influx of steel imports into the United States. Currently, unfairly traded imports can cause significant damage to the U.S. market long before the data is available for even preliminary analysis. This program will allow the U.S. government to receive and analyze critical data in a more timely manner and, as a result, allow the industry to determine more quickly whether unfairly traded imports are disrupting the market. Specifically, the bill directs the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Treasury to implement a steel import monitoring program that requires importers of all products classified within Chapters 72 and 73 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) to obtain an import permit prior to entering such products in the United States. In order to obtain an import permit, the importer is required to submit an import permit application containing specific information. An import permit is issued automatically upon receipt of the application and is valid for a period of thirty days. This legislation will enhance U.S. law to better respond to surges of foreign imports that injure U.S. industries. It is important to note that, with the exception of the steel import licensing provisions, this legislation applies to all industries and is not limited to the steel industry. As such, other U.S. industries that are faced with an import crisis such as the steel industry is currently confronting would also benefit from these improvements to the U.S. trade laws. The U.S. steel industry has become a world class industry with a very high-quality product. This has been achieved at a great cost: $50 billion in new investment to restructure and modernize; 40 million tons of capacity taken out of the industry; and a work force dramatically downsized from 500,000 to 170,000. With these technical changes, the Administration will be armed with ammunition to bring a self-initiated Section 201 action on behalf of the steel industry that has been harmed not only by the onslaught of cheap imports on a daily basis but by U.S. law that has prevented swift and immediate action by the U.S. government. This legislation is essential to allow the President to respond promptly to the current steel import crisis. It will allow steel companies to compete in a more fair trade environment, preventing bankruptcies that would cause the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs in the steel industry. Too many steelworkers have lost their jobs due to unfair cheap imports. I intend to stand up for the steel industry and prevent the loss of any more jobs. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting adoption of legislation to bring fairness to our trade laws and needed relief to the steel industry.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition today for the purpose of submitting a resolution calling for the Budget Committee to add $2 billion in the health account for the National Institutes of Health in fiscal year 2000. I am convinced that National Institutes of Health are the crown jewel of the Federal Government and they have made tremendous progress in conducting research into the causes and cures for disease. My vision for America in the 21st Century is to find the cure for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's, for the severe mental illnesses, for diabetes, for osteoporosis, and for heart cardiovascular disease. All of this is within our reach if we make the proper allocation of our resources. As Chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, I am firmly committed to prioritizing our resources in order to provide maximum funding for biomedical research. Funding for the National Institutes of Health has been increased steadily during my tenure in the Senate, regardless of who was chairing the subcommittee. Although the budgets were always tight and frequently had cuts called for by the administration, when the chairman was Senator Weicker, when the chairman was Lawton Chiles, when the chairman was Tom Harkin, or more recently under my chairmanship, we have increased the funding tremendously. And the National Institutes of Health has responded with extraordinary advances in research. Now the work has to be pushed forward to see exactly what can be accomplished in the next century. On May 21, 1997, the Senate passed a Sense of the Senate resolution submitted by our distinguished colleague, Senator Mack, which stated that funding for the National Institutes of Health should be doubled over five years. Regrettably, even though that resolution was passed by an overwhelming vote of 98 to nothing, when the budget resolution was returned, the appropriate health account had a reduction of $100 million. That led to the introduction of an amendment to the budget resolution by Senator Harkin and myself, Senator Harkin being my distinguished colleague and ranking member of the subcommittee which I chair. We sought to add in $1.1 billion to carry out the expressed sense of the Senate. Our amendment, however, was defeated 63-37. While the Senate had expressed its druthers on a resolution, when it came to the dollars they simply were not there. During debate on the fiscal year 1999 Budget Resolution, Senator Harkin and I again introduced an amendment which called for a funding increase for the National Institutes of Health of $2 billion and provided sufficient resources in the budget to accomplish this. While we gained more support on this vote than in the previous year, unfortunately our amendment was again defeated, this time by a vote of 57-41. In order to provide the necessary resources for biomedical research, Senator Harkin have worked closely together to find these vital funds. In the past few years, Senator Harkin and I have consolidated and eliminated 135 programs to enable us to save $1.5 billion. It's pretty hard to eliminate a program in Washington, DC but we have been able to do that. We used the $1.5 billion to provide to the National Institutes of Health, guaranteed student loans, and many other important programs. Last year, Senator Harkin and I again went to work with our subcommittee and we were able, by making economies and establishing priorities, to add an additional $2 billion to the NIH account, the largest increase in history. We, however, still have a long way to go if we are to meet our goal of doubling the funding over five years. Our investment has resulted in tremendous advances in medical research. A new generation of AIDS drugs are reducing the presence of the AIDS virus in HIV affected persons to nearly undetectable levels. Death rates from cancer have begun a steady decline. Human genome research has yielded dramatic developments in uncovering genes associated with a host of diseases, such as breast and prostate cancer, Alzheimer's disease, cystic fibrosis, and schizophrenia. I personally have been the beneficiary of the tremendous advances of the National Institutes of Health. Two decades ago, there was no such thing as an MRI. That device detected a problem for me. And other advances led to good results for me. I know millions of people have benefited from the research and the investment which we have made in the National Institutes of Health. But that takes money, and that is why this resolution is being offered--to call upon the Budget Committee to add in $2 billion so we can carry forward the important work of the National Institutes of Health.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition this morning to comment briefly on the President's State of the Union speech and to introduce legislation, since this is the first day of the 106th Congress when legislation may be introduced. I applaud President Clinton for proceeding with the State of the Union tonight. Some say that Capitol Hill is schizophrenic with impeachment proceedings in the Senate Chamber, and across the Rotunda we will hear the President's State of the Union speech in the House Chamber. But I believe that it is very important that we take care of the Nation's business. I think that can be accomplished at the same time that we move forward with the Senate being constituted as a Court of Impeachment to decide that issue. I have noted the advance text of the President's statement commenting on education and his desire to set up incentives to be a condition for Federal funding. I chair the Appropriations' Subcommittee on Education and we will proceed very promptly with hearings on that subject to make a determination, legislatively, as to whether, at least in the view of our subcommittee, those kinds of standards and those kinds of conceptions are appropriate or whether they may constitute too much Federal interference with education which traditionally has been left to the State and local levels. But we are prepared to move right ahead with that legislation, with that consideration. Noted also from the President's advance text about an intention to deal with the issue of local preparation for responding if--God forbid--there should be weapons of mass destruction unleashed on the American people--again, that is a matter which would come within our Subcommittee on Health. At the same time, there is a commission working on weapons of mass destruction, on legislation which I authored 2 years ago as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. John Deutch, former CIA Director, chairs the commission and I serve as vice chairman of the committee. We are prepared to move ahead with what the President has offered and what the President has to say. I compliment him for moving ahead with that State of the Union speech to take care of the Nation's business. I believe the Congress will cooperate by moving ahead on two tracks--we can have the Court of Impeachment in the Senate Chamber and the State of the Union speech in the House Chamber, and the Rotunda will not be schizophrenic and we can function.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am introducing three legislative matters, including legislation on health care, which has been a focal point of my attention and my tenure in the Senate, and again for my chairmanship of the Appropriations' Subcommittee on Health. I believe that we can move ahead to cover the 43 million Americans who are now not covered within the existing expenditures of $1.100 trillion a year. There are ways to economize. There can be an extension of health care by making it easier for small businesses to pool their resources and buy health insurance, by accelerating the date when there will be full deductibility for health care, and there could be very, very substantial savings possible on matters which are specified in the course of this legislation.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to introduce legislation that will deal with the plight of our nation's cities and Washington's increasing neglect of them. With 80% of the U.S. population living in metropolitan areas, there is an urgent need to improve our urban economies and the quality of life for the millions of Americans who live and work in cities. By simply making our cities an appealing place to live, work, recreate, and visit, urban areas can rebound to the vibrant economic centers they once were. There is a common perception that urban areas are abandoned and stripped of their resources, burdened with poverty and crime. However, cities have a wealth of resources available to not only the urban dweller but to the world--cultural centers, business hubs, and some of the finest educational and medical institutions. The real problem is that we do not draw upon these riches or strive to better coordinate them to serve people, most especially those in need. My proposal, the ``New Urban Agenda Act of 1999'' is based on legislation which I have endeavored to make law since the 103rd Congress. I am pleased to be introducing it today, in this first Congress of the new millennium, with my distinguished colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, who also recognizes the potential of both small cities and large metropolitan areas. The bill constitutes an effort to give our cities some much-needed attention, but reflects the federal budgetary constraints which govern all that we in Congress do these days. This bill, based in significant part on suggestions by Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell and the League of Cities, offers aid to the cities while containing federal expenditures and by re-instituting important cost-effective tax breaks which have been discontinued. If we are to really address many of the very serious social issues that we face--unemployment, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and other pressing issues--we cannot give up on our cities. There must be new strategies for dealing with the problems of urban America. The days of creating ``Great Society'' federal aid programs are clearly past, but that is no excuse for the national government to turn a blind eye to the problems of the cities. Urban areas remain integral to America's greatness as centers of commerce, industry, education, health care, and culture. Yet urban areas, particularly the inner cities which tend to have a disproportionate share of our nation's poor, also have special needs which must be recognized. We must develop ways of aiding our cities that do not require either new taxes or more government bureaucracy. As a Philadelphia resident, I have first-hand knowledge of the growing problems that plague our cities. The most recent U.S. Census data collected showed that Philadelphia has over 300,000 individuals in poverty and when federal welfare reform took effect in October 1996, 113,000 adults were receiving some form of cash assistance. Reflecting on my experience as a Philadelphian, I have long supported a variety of programs to assist our cities, such as increased funding for Community Development Block Grants and legislation to establish enterprise and empowerment zones. To encourage similar efforts, in April, 1994, I hosted my Senate Republican colleagues on a visit to explore urban problems in my hometown. We talked with people who wanted to obtain work, but had found few opportunities. We saw a crumbling infrastructure and its impact on residents and businesses. We were reminded of the devastating effect that the loss of inner city businesses and jobs has had on our neighborhoods in America's cities. What my Republican colleagues saw then in Philadelphia is the urban rule across our country and not the exception. There are many who do not know of city life, who are far removed from the cities and would not be expected to have any key interest in what goes on in the big cities of America. I cite my own boyhood experience illustratively: Born in Wichita, Kansas, raised in Russell, a small town of 5,000 people on the plains of Kansas, where there is not much detailed knowledge of what goes on in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or other big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Detroit or Chicago. Those big cities are alien to people in much of America. But there is a growing understanding that the problems of big cities contribute significantly to the general problems affecting our nation and have an economic impact, at the very least, on our small towns. For rural America to prosper, we need to make sure that urban America prospers and vice-versa. For example, if cities had more economic growth, taxes could be reduced on all Americans at the federal and state level because revenues would increase and social welfare spending would be reduced. There is indeed a domino effect from our cities to rural communities of the country. Lately, we have been witnessing this in the violent behavior of adolescents. School violence and juvenile crime are no longer endemic to urban living. Take the Bloods and the Crips gangs from Los Angeles, California, and similar gangs; that are all over America. They are in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Des Moines, Iowa; Portland, Oregon; Jackson, Mississippi; Racine, Wisconsin; and Martinsburg, West Virginia. They are literally everywhere, big city and small city alike. In the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's 1998 report on the ``State of the Cities,'' findings show that large urban schools still deal with a higher concentration of violence, and the data only represents crimes which were serious enough to report to the police. The School District of Philadelphia's most recent report on school violence shows that in the 1994-1995 academic year, students, teachers and administrators were the victims of 2,147 reported criminal incidents, up by almost 100% from the previous year. These included assault, robbery, rape, and students being stabbed or even shot. The school district also reported troubling news about abysmal attendance rates. On any given day, more than one in every four students are absent. Understandably so, city residents are afraid to continue leading an urban lifestyle. Each day, small business owners question whether they should remain in the city because they fear for the safety of their children, their employees, and ultimately, their businesses. I have personally met and spoken with shop owners in the University City section of Philadelphia who tell me that they look desperately for reasons to stay, but it gets harder and harder. Joblessness and a less skilled work force are additional problems. To facilitate economic development and job creation in the United States, I supported the Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which contained such provisions as the Job Training Partnership Act and the Targeted Job Tax Credit. As Congress put the final touches on that legislation, I circulated a joint letter from several Senators to then-Majority Leader Dole and Speaker Gingrich recommending spurring job creation and economic growth in our cities through several urban initiatives such as: a targeted capital gains exclusion, commercial revitalization tax credit, historic rehabilitation tax credit, and child care credit. Last year, I introduced the ``Job Preparation and Retention Training Act of 1998,'' which was included in the recently enacted Workforce Development Act of 1998. My legislation authorized funding for States to enroll long-term welfare dependents into a training program which would provide the necessary skills to locate and maintain gainful and unsubsidized employment. The last census taken in 1990, reported that New York City led the way, with 1.3 million individuals in poverty. My home of Philadelphia had 313,374 individuals in poverty at that time. And in HUD's 1998 ``State of the Cities'' report, by 1996, one in every five urban families lived in poverty, compared with fewer than one in ten suburban families. These facts emphasize the need for more efforts to be focused on strengthening our inner city businesses which, in turn, will boost local economies and serve to provide more jobs, reduce poverty and, hopefully, reduce crime. I have long supported efforts to encourage the growth of small business. During the 105th Congress, I once again introduced legislation to provide targeted tax incentives for investing in small minority- or women-owned businesses. Small businesses provide the bulk of the jobs in this country. Many minority entrepreneurs, for instance, have told me that they are dedicated to staying in the cities to employ people there, but continue to confront capital access issues. My legislation, the ``Minority and Women Capital Formation Act'' would help to remove the capital access barriers, thereby enabling these entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and payrolls. Municipal leaders are stressing many of the same concerns that business people are voicing. In a July, 1994 National League of Cities report dealing with poverty and economic development, municipal leaders ranked inadequate skills and education of workers as one of the top three reasons, in addition to shortage of jobs and below-poverty wages, for poverty and joblessness in their cities. They said, according to the survey, that more jobs must be created through local economic development initiatives. This ``skills deficit'' is highlighted in an urban revitalization plan prepared in 1991 by the National Urban League called ``Playing to Win: A Marshall Plan for America's Cities.'' The report cites a statistic by the Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills which showed that 60 percent of all 21-25 year-olds lack the basic reading and writing skills needed for the modern workplace, and only 10 percent of those in that age group have enough mathematical competence for today's jobs. The economic problems our cities are facing are not easy to deal with or answer. In a report by the National League of Cities entitled ``City Fiscal Conditions in 1996,'' municipal officials from 381 cities answered questions on the economic state of their cities. In response to state budgetary problems, 21.7 percent of responding cities reduced municipal employment and 18.5 percent had frozen municipal employment. Nearly six out of ten cities raised or imposed new taxes or user fees during the past twelve months. These numbers are of concern to me and I believe they highlight the need for federal legislation to enhance the ability of cities to achieve competitive economic status. An added concern is that city managers are forced to balance cuts in services or enact higher taxes. Neither choice is easy and it often counteracts municipal efforts to retain residents or businesses. One issue, in particular, that is hurting many cities is the erosion of their tax bases, evidenced particularly by middle-class flight to the suburbs. Mr. Ronald Walters, professor of Political Science at Howard University, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in April 1993, stated that in 1950, 23 percent of the American population lived outside central cities; by 1988, that number was up to 46 percent. The District of Columbia's population loss is among the worst in the nation, with a quarter of its population relocating since the 1970s. This trend of shrinking urban populations gives no sign of ceasing. Middle-class families continue to leave for the suburbs where there are typically better public services. These losses are devastating, not only to the financial stability of the city, but to the social fabric as well. On the financial side, statistics show that those people fleeing cities were earning an average of $30,000 to $75,000 a year. On the social side, roughly half of these are African-American Middle-class families. By losing this critical demographic group, the city loses much of what makes it strong. As America's cities struggle with the exodus of residents, businesses and industry, city residents who remain are faced with problems ranging from increased tax burdens and lesser services to dwindling economic opportunities, leading to welfare dependence and unemployment assistance. In the face of all this, what do we do? The federal government has attempted to revitalize our ailing urban infrastructure by providing federal funding for transit and sewer systems, roads and bridges. I have supported this. For example, as a member of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee and as co- chair of an informal Senate Transit Coalition, I have been a strong supporter of public transit which provides critically needed transportation services in urban areas. Transit helps cities meet clean air standards, reduce traffic congestion, and allows disadvantaged persons access to jobs. Federal assistance for urban areas, however, has become increasingly scarce as we grapple with the nation's deficit and debt. Therefore, we must find alternatives to reinvigorate our nation's cities so they can once again be economically productive areas providing promising opportunities for residents and neighboring areas. To address the need for reliable transportation systems in our nation's cities and to provide access to jobs for city residents, I introduced reverse commute and jobs access legislation, which was successfully included in last year's highway and transit reauthorization bill. The bill authorizes $400 million over the next five years in access-to-jobs transit grants targeted at low-income individuals. Up to $10 million per year can be used for reverse commute projects to move individuals from cities to suburban job centers. In addition to support for infrastructure, I believe there are ways Congress can assist the cities. In 1994, Mayor Rendell came up with a legislative package which contains many good ideas. I have taken many of these suggestions and have since added and revised provisions to take into account new developments at the federal, state and local levels to create the ``New Urban Agenda Act of 1999.'' First, recognizing that the federal government is the nation's largest purchaser of goods and services, this legislation would require that no less than 15 percent of federal government purchases are made from businesses and industries within designated urban Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. Similarly, my bill would require that not less than 15 percent of foreign aid funds be redeemed through purchases of products manufactured in urban Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. The General Services Administration will be required to submit to Congress its assessment of the extent to which federal agencies are committed to this policy and in general, economic revitalization in distressed urban areas. The second major provision of this bill would commit the federal government to play an active role in restoring the economic health of our cities by encouraging the location, or relocation, of federal facilities in urban areas. To accomplish this, all federal agencies would be required to prepare and submit to the President an Urban Impact Statement detailing the impact that relocation or downsizing decisions would have on the affected city. Presidential approval would be required to place a federal facility outside an urban area, or to downsize a city-based agency. The third critical component of this bill would revive and expand federal tax incentives that were eliminated or restricted in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Until there is passage of legislation on the flat tax, which would provide benefits superior to all targeted tax breaks, I believe America's cities should have the advantages of such tax benefits. These provisions offer meaningful incentives to business to invest in our cities. I am calling for the restoration of the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit which supports inner city revitalization projects. According to information provided by Mayor Rendell, there were 8,640 construction jobs involved in 356 projects in Philadelphia from 1978 to 1985 stimulated by the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit. In Chicago, 302 projects prior to 1985 generated $524 million in investment and created 20,695 jobs. In St. Louis, 849 projects generated $653 million in investment and created 27,735 jobs. Nationally, according to National Park Service estimates for the 16 years before the 1986 Act, the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit stimulated $16 billion in private investment for the rehabilitation of 24,656 buildings and the creation of 125,306 homes which included 23,377 low and moderate income housing units. The 1986 Tax Act dramatically reduced the pool of private investment capital available for rehabilitation projects. In Philadelphia, projects dropped from 356 to 11 by 1988 from 1985 levels. During the same period, investments dropped 46 percent in Illinois and 92 percent in St. Louis. Another tool is to expand the authorization of commercial industrial development bonds. Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, authorization for commercial industrial bonds was permitted to expire. Consequently, private investment in cities declined. For instance, according to Mayor Rendell, from 1986--the last year commercial development bonds were permitted--to 1987, the total number of city--supported projects in Philadelphia was reduced by more than half. Industrial development or private activity bonds encourage private investment by allowing, under certain circumstances, tax-exempt status for projects where more than 10 percent of the bond proceeds are used for private business purposes. The availability of tax-exempt commercial industrial development bonds will encourage private investment in cities, particularly the construction of sports, convention and trade show facilities; free standing parking facilities owned and operated by the private sector; air and water pollution facilities owned and operated by the private sector; and, industrial parks. The bill I am introducing would allow this. It would also increase the small issue exemption, which means a way to help finance private activity in the building of manufacturing facilities from $10 million to $50 million to allow increased private investment in our cities. A minor change in the federal tax code related to arbitrage rebates on municipal bond interest earnings could also free additional capital for infrastructure and economic development by cities. Currently, municipalities are required to rebate to the federal government any arbitrage--a financial term meaning interest earned in excess of interest paid on the debt--earned from the issuance of tax-free municipal bonds. I am informed that compliance, or the cost for consultants to perform the complicated rebate calculations, is actually costing municipalities more than the actual rebate owed to the government. This bill would allow cities to keep the arbitrage earned so that they can use it to fund city projects and for other necessary purposes. My legislation also provides important incentives for businesses to invest and locate in our nation's cities. Specifically, the bill includes a provision which I have advocated to provide a 50 percent exclusion for capital gains tax purposes for any gain resulting from targeted investments in small businesses located in urban empowerment zones, enterprise communities, or enterprise zones. I also want to note that the exclusion would extend to any venture funds that invest in those small businesses, which is critical because venture funds are often the lifeblood of a small business. This is one of the incentives I recommended to Senator Dole in December 1995 for inclusion in the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 which was later vetoed by President Clinton. A targeted capital gains exclusion will serve as a catalyst for job creation and economic growth in our cities by encouraging additional private investment in our urban areas. A fourth provision of this legislation provides needed reforms to regulations and the financial challenges to obtaining affordable housing. This legislation provides language to study streamlining federal housing program assistance to urban areas into a block grant form so that municipal agencies can better serve local residents. Safe, clean, and affordable housing is not widely available to most low income families. According to the National Housing Law Project, in 1996, only one in four families was eligible to receive HUD assistance, with waits of up to five years. In HUD's most recent annual report, just as many families are still struggling with the lack of affordable housing as they were when a record 5.3 million low-income renters were paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent between 1993 and 1995. This provision of the bill steers the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to take a hard look at these conditions and determine what works and what does not work in federally-subsidized housing and to consider alternatives that will provide suitable homes for America's families. I believe that we as a nation should work toward providing individuals and their families with more opportunities for homeownership which stabilizes a community and would especially restore our cities. Urban homeownership including middle-income homeownership lags behind the suburbs. According to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, city residents of all income levels are less likely to own a home than suburban residents with similar incomes. I hear time and time again from families starting out that they move out to the suburbs for better schools, because central cities lack the property tax base to provide for quality schools. Homeownership is key to saving our cities, both socially and economically. A 1998 Fannie Mae national housing survey indicated that even though homeownership rates continue to increase in the late 1990s, six in every ten renters said that buying a home is a very important priority, if not their number- one priority in life. Yet for so many families financial barriers make that dream unattainable. That is why my bill includes a tax credit to restore the American dream of homeownership. A tax credit could be used by income-eligible individuals and families to purchase homes in distressed areas. In the 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act, Congress approved such a tax credit for homebuyers in the District of Columbia. While single family home sales can be attributed to a multitude of factors, such as historically low interest rates and a strong economy, let me just share with you some amazing statistics related to homeownership since enactment of the tax credit in the District of Columbia. The Home Purchase Assistance Program through the District of Columbia's Office of Housing and Community Development helped 410 families purchase homes. Further, a group called the ``Washington Partners for Homeownership,'' a collaboration of realtors, banks, community and faith-based organizations, set a goal last year to create 1,000 new homeowners in the District of Columbia for each of the next three years. Remarkably, the Washington Partners have already reached that goal before the end of the first year. I believe that this country will reap extraordinary benefits if we expand such a credit on a national basis, as I propose in the ``New Urban Agenda Act of 1999.'' I believe that the revitalization of cities will require social and economic facets, but it is also imperative that our cities are safe and clean. This last component of my bill helps urban areas to address their unique environmental challenges and reforms Superfund law. First, the legislation authorizes a federal brownfields program to help clean up idle or underused industrial and commercial facilities and waives federal liability for persons who fully comply with a state cleanup plan to clean sites in urban areas pursuant to state law, provided that the site is not listed or proposed to be listed on the National Priorities List. The Environmental Protection Agency currently operates this pilot program under general authority provided by the Superfund law. My legislation would make this a permanent program and substantially increase the funding levels to a $50 million authorized level for Fiscal Year 2000. The EPA could expend funds to identify and examine potential idle or underused Brownfield sites and to provide grants to States and local governments of up to $200,000 per site to put them back to productive use. One such grant has been used to great success by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, and I hope this provision will generate additional success stories of redeveloping urban brownfields. The Brownfields Program allows sites with minor levels of toxic waste to be cleaned up by State and local governments with federal and other funding sources. Companies and individuals who are interested in developing land into industrial, commercial, recreational, or residential use are often reluctant to purchase property with any level of toxic waste because of a fear of being saddled with cleanup liability under the Superfund law. Through expanded Brownfields grants, cleanup at such sites will be expedited and will encourage redevelopment of otherwise unusable urban property. My bill would also waive federal liability for persons who fully comply with a state cleanup plan to clean sites in urban areas pursuant to state law, providing that the site is not listed or proposed to be listed on the National Priorities List. Many states, including Pennsylvania, have developed their own toxic waste cleanup programs and have done good work to clean up many of these sites. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge has developed an extensive plan, where contaminated sites are made safe based on sound science by returning the site to productive use through the development of uniform cleanup standards, by creating a set of standardized review procedures, by releasing owners and developers from liability who fully comply with the state cleanup standards and procedures, and by providing financial assistance. However, the efforts of states like Pennsylvania are often stifled because the federal government has not been willing to work with the States to release owners and developers from liability, even when they fully comply with the state plans. This section of my bill only applies to sites that are not on the National Priorities List. These are sites that the state has identified for which the state has created a comprehensive cleanup plan. If the federal government has concerns with the cleanup procedure or the safety of the site, then the government has full authority to place that site on the National Priority List. The plans, like that developed by Governor Ridge, deal with sites not controlled by the Superfund law. By not allowing the individual states to take the initiative to clean up these sites, and by not providing a waiver for federal liability to those who fully comply with the procedures and standards of the state cleanup, the federal government impedes the efforts of the states to work to clean up their own sites. This provision takes a significant step toward encouraging states to take the responsibility for their toxic waste sites and to encourage the effective cleanup of these sites in our nation's urban areas. The final environmental provision calls for the reauthorization of an existing federal program, which has served cities across the nation very well, but has not been authorized since 1995 and has also been unable to meet the demand for an ``urban greening effort.'' The Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides financial and technical assistance to urban areas to help establish and maintain community parkland and forests in our nation's 45,000 towns and cities. The number of requests for federal assistance and grants exceeds the capacity of the existing Urban and Community Forestry program by eight times. The number of communities assisted through the Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Program has grown from 7,548 in Fiscal Year 1992 to 11,675 in Fiscal Year 1997, a 56% increase in five years. An enhanced Urban and Community Forestry Program will enable cities to put vacant areas and abandoned structures back into use. There are more than 15,000 vacant lots in Pennsylvania, which as we know, pose serious health and safety risks, detract commercial investments, reduce property values, and cost municipalities hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance and lost revenue. The Urban and Community Forestry Program has been very successful due to its flexible design and emphasis on local creativity. In fact, the program has allowed for benefits that go beyond revenue and other economic gains. Many of the formerly broken down concrete lots are now green and welcoming to the community have provided children and their parents with a safe haven for recreation outside the home. Some city public schools have even begun to use these areas as their ``science parks'' for after-school and weekend educational activities. Mr. President, I realize that this is an initial step to reinvesting in our cities. Nevertheless, it is time to take a comprehensive approach to reversing urban decay, which is what I believe my bill can accomplish. It may well be that America has given up on its cities. That is a stark statement, but it is one which I believe may be true-- that America has given up on its cities. But this Senator has not done so. And I believe there are others in this body on both sides of the aisle who have not done so and I invite the input and assistance of my colleagues in order to fashion a strong plan of action to help cities to face their pressing problems. As one of a handful of United States Senators who lives in a big city, I understand both the problems and the promise of urban America. This legislation for our cities is good public policy. The plight of our cities must be of extreme concern to America. We can ill-afford for them to wither and die. I am committed to a new urban agenda that relies on market forces, and not a welfare state, for urban revitalization. I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as the 106th Congress commences, those of us in the Senate and the House have a new opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of the American people. It is a chance for us to learn from the past, determine how best to respond to the challenges that are before us, and forge important alliances which will enable us to pass legislation that is important to this nation. I believe it is clear that one of our first priorities must be additional incremental reforms of our health care system. Mr. President, there is no time to waste. Many of our nation's health care problems are getting worse, not better. In its December 1998 report, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) analyzed the March 1998 Current Population Survey, a document generated yearly by the U.S. Census Bureau. EBRI's analysis tells us that in 1997, about 193 million working-age Americans derived their health insurance coverage as follows: approximately 64.2 percent from employer plans; 13.0 percent from Medicare and Medicaid within a total of 14.8 percent from public sources of coverage; and 6.7 percent from other private insurance. This survey also details another troubling statistic: 43.1 million Americans, or 18.3 percent of Americans aged 18-64, were uninsured. This reflects an increase of 7 percent, or 2.8 million uninsured working-age people, since 1995. Among the elderly, the outlook is a bit brighter, with only 1 percent uninsured, and 96.4 percent deriving coverage from public sources. As I have said many times, we can fix the problems felt by this growing number of uninsured Americans without resorting to big government and without completely overhauling our current system, one that works well for most Americans--serving 81.7 percent of our non- elderly citizens. We must enact reforms that improve upon our current market-based health care system, as it is clearly the best health care system in the world. Accordingly, today I am introducing the Health Care Assurance Act of 1999, which, if enacted, will take us further down the path of the incremental reforms started by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (Kassebaum-Kennedy) and various health care provisions enacted during the 105th Congress. I would note that the final version of Kassebaum-Kennedy contained many elements which were in S. 18, the incremental health care reform bill I introduced when the 104th Congress began on January 4, 1995. I would note that the bill I am introducing today is distinct from my recent efforts regarding managed care reform. During the 105th Congress, I joined a bipartisan group of Senators to introduce the Promoting Responsible Managed Care Act of 1998, a balanced proposal which would ensure that patients receive the benefits and services to which they are entitled, without compromising the savings and coordination of care that can be achieved through managed care. I look forward to working again with my colleagues to enact responsible managed care legislation. The Health Care Assurance Act of 1999 is intended to initiate and stimulate new discussion, so we may move the health care reform debate forward. I welcome any suggestions my colleagues may have concerning how this bill can be improved, as long as such suggestions are consistent with the incremental approach to reform that has proven to be the only way to achieve successful health care reform. Given the importance of enacting this type of legislation, it is worth reviewing recent history which has taught us that bipartisanship is crucial in accomplishing these goals for the American people. In particular, the debate over President Clinton's Health Security Act during the 103rd Congress is replete with lessons concerning the pitfalls and obstacles that inevitably lead to legislative failure. Several times during the 103rd Congress, I spoke on the Senate floor to address what seemed to be the wisest course--to pass incremental health care reforms with which we could all agree. Unfortunately, what seemed obvious to me, based on comments and suggestions by a majority of Senators who favored a moderate approach, was not obvious at the time to the Senate's Democratic leadership. This failure to understand the merits of an incremental approach was demonstrated during April 1993 during my attempts to offer a health care reform amendment based on the text of S. 631, an incremental reform bill I had introduced earlier in the session. This bill incorporated moderate, consensus principles in a reasonable reform package. First, I attempted to offer the bill as an amendment to legislation dealing with debt ceilings. Subsequently, I was informed that the consideration of this bill would be structured in a way that precluded my offering an amendment. Therefore, I prepared to offer my health care bill as an amendment to the fiscal year 1993 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. To my dismay, Senator Mitchell, then Majority Leader, and Senator Byrd, then Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, worked together to ensure that I could not offer my amendment by keeping the Senate in a quorum call, a parliamentary tactic used to delay and obstruct. I was unable to obtain unanimous consent to end the quorum call, and thus could not proceed with my amendment. Three years later, well after the behemoth Clinton health care reform bill was derailed, the Senate once again endured a lengthy political battle concerning the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which I was pleased to cosponsor. We achieved a breakthrough in August 1996, when enough Senators sensed the growing frustration of the American people to finally pass Kassebaum-Kennedy and its vital health insurance market reforms, such as increased portability of health insurance coverage. There is no question that Kassebaum-Kennedy made significant steps forward in addressing troubling issues in health care, although I recognize that there is much more to be done. The bill's incremental approach to health care reform is what allowed it to generate bipartisan, consensus support in the Senate. We knew that it did not address every single problem in the health care delivery system, but it would make life better for millions of American men, women, and children. In retrospect, I urge my colleagues to note a most important fact-- the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill was enacted only after Democrats abandoned their hopes for passing a nationalized, big government health care scheme, and Republicans abandoned their position that access to health care is not really a major problem in the United States which demands Federal action. Perhaps the greatest recent example of the power of bipartisanship took place during the 105th Congress, with the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. This historic bipartisan agreement between Congress and the White House to balance the budget by 2002 extended the life of the vital Medicare hospital trust fund by ten years, while expanding needed benefits for seniors. The new law created a National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare to address the implications of the retirement of the Baby Boom generation, and marked the first balanced Federal budget in thirty years. This landmark accomplishment clearly would not have occurred without all members of Congress and the Administration crossing party lines, compromising, and doing what was right for the American people regardless of political affiliations. We must realize that if we are to continue to be successful in meeting the nation's health care needs, the solutions to the system's problems must come from the political center, not from the extremes. I have advocated health care reform in one form or another throughout my 18 years in the Senate. My strong interest in health care dates back to my first term, when I sponsored S. 811, the Health Care for Displaced Workers Act of 1983, and S. 2051, the Health Care Cost Containment Act of 1983, which would have granted a limited antitrust exemption to health insurers, permitting them to engage in certain joint activities such as acquiring or processing information, and collecting and distributing insurance claims for health care services aimed at curtailing then escalating health care costs. In 1985, I introduced the Community Based Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Projects Act of 1985, S. 1873, directed at reducing the human tragedy of low birth weight babies and infant mortality. Since 1983, I have introduced and cosponsored numerous other bills concerning health care in our country. A complete list of the 26 health care bills that I have sponsored since 1983 is included for the Record. During the 102nd Congress, I pressed the Senate to take action on this issue. On July 29, 1992, I offered a health care amendment to legislation then pending on the Senate floor. This amendment included provisions from legislation introduced by Senator Chafee, which I cosponsored and which was previously proposed by Senators Bentsen and Durenberger. The amendment included a change from 25 percent to 100 percent deductibility for health insurance purchased by self-employed persons, and small business insurance market reforms to make health coverage more affordable for small businesses. When then-Majority Leader George Mitchell argued that the health care amendment I was proposing did not belong on that bill, I offered to withdraw the amendment if he would set a date certain to take up health care, just as product liability legislation had been placed on the calendar for September 8, 1992. The Majority Leader rejected that suggestion and the Senate did not consider comprehensive health care legislation during the balance of the 102nd Congress. My July 29, 1992 amendment was defeated on a procedural motion by a vote of 35 to 60, along party lines. The substance of that amendment, however, was adopted later by the Senate on September 23, 1992 when it was included in an amendment to broader tax legislation (H.R. 11), offered by Senators Bentsen and Durenberger and which I cosponsored. This amendment, which included essentially the same self-employed tax deductibility and small group reforms that I had proposed on July 29th of that year, passed the Senate by voice vote. Unfortunately, these provisions were later dropped from H.R. 11 in the House-Senate conference. On August 12, 1992, I introduced legislation entitled the Health Care Affordability and Quality Improvement Act of 1992, S. 3176, that would have enhanced informed individual choice regarding health care services by providing certain information to health care recipients, would have lowered the cost of health care through use of the most appropriate provider, and would have improved the quality of health care. On January 21, 1993, the first day of the 103rd Congress, I introduced the Comprehensive Health Care Act of 1993, S. 18. This legislation was comprised of reforms that our health care system could have adopted immediately. These initiatives would have both improved access and affordability of insurance coverage and would have implemented systemic changes to lower the escalating cost of care in this country. S. 18 is the principal basis of the legislation I introduced in the 104th (S. 18) and 105th Congresses (S. 24), and the Health Care Assurance Act of 1999, which I am introducing today. On March 23, 1993, I introduced the Comprehensive Access and Affordability Health Care Act of 1993, S. 631, which was a composite of health care legislation introduced by Senators Cohen, Kassebaum, Bond, and McCain, and included pieces of my bill, S. 18. I introduced this legislation in an attempt to move ahead on the consideration of health care legislation and provide a starting point for debate. As I noted earlier, I was precluded by Majority Leader Mitchell from obtaining Senate consideration of my legislation as a floor amendment on several occasions. Finally, on April 28, 1993, I offered the text of S. 631 as an amendment to the pending Department of Environment Act (S. 171) in an attempt to urge the Senate to act on health care reform. My amendment was defeated 65 to 33 on a procedural motion, but the Senate had finally been forced to contemplate action on health care reform. On the first day of the 104th Congress, January 4, 1995, I introduced a slightly modified version of S. 18, the Health Care Assurance Act of 1995 (also S. 18), which contained provisions similar to those ultimately enacted in the Kassebaum-Kennedy legislation, including insurance market reforms, an extension of the tax deductibility of health insurance for the self employed, and deductibility of long term care insurance for employers. I continued these efforts in the 105th Congress, with the introduction of Health Care Assurance Act of 1997 (S. 24), which included market reforms similar to my previous proposals with the addition of a new Title I, an innovative program to provide vouchers to States to cover children who lack health insurance coverage. I also introduced Title I of this legislation as a stand-alone bill, the Healthy Children's Pilot Program of 1997 (S. 435) on March 13, 1997. This proposal targeted the approximately 4.2 million children of the working poor who lacked health insurance. These are children whose parents earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid, but do not earn enough to afford private health care coverage for their families. This legislation would have established a $10 billion/5 year discretionary pilot program to cover these uninsured children by providing grants to States. Modeled after Pennsylvania's extraordinarily successful Caring and BlueCHIP programs, this legislation was the first Republican- sponsored child health insurance bill during the 105th Congress. I was encouraged that the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, signed into law on August 5, 1997, included a combination of the best provisions from many of child health insurance proposals throughout this Congress. The new legislation allocated $24 billion for the next five years to establish State Child Health Insurance Programs, funded in part by a slight increase in the cigarette tax. The bill I am introducing today, the Health Care Assurance Act of 1999, would further augment this new State Child Health Insurance Program and would enable States to cover even more children, and includes new provisions to assist individuals with disabilities to maintain quality health care coverage. My commitment to the issue of health care reform across all populations has been consistently evident during my tenure in the Senate, as I have taken to this floor and offered health care reform bills and amendments on countless occasions. I will continue to urge the Senate to address this vital issue and to stress the importance of the Federal government's investment in and attention to the system's future. As my colleagues are aware, I can personally report on the miracles of modern medicine. Five years ago, an MRI detected a benign tumor (meningioma) at the outer edge of my brain. It was removed by conventional surgery, with five days of hospitalization and five more weeks of recuperation. When a small regrowth was detected by a follow-up MRI in June 1996, it was treated with high powered radiation from the ``Gamma Knife.'' I entered the hospital in the morning of October 11, 1996, and left the same afternoon, ready to resume my regular schedule. Like the MRI, the Gamma Knife is a recent invention, coming into widespread use in the past decade. In July 1998, I was pleased to return to the Senate after a relatively brief period of convalescence following heart bypass surgery. This experience again led me to marvel at our health care system and made me more determined than ever to support Federal funding for biomedical research and to support legislation which will incrementally make health care available to all Americans. My concern about health care has long pre-dated my own personal benefits from the MRI and other diagnostic and curative procedures. As I have previously discussed, my concern about health care began many years ago and been intensified by my service on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, which I now have the honor to chair. My own experience as a patient has given me deeper insights into the American health care system beyond my perspective from the U.S. Senate. I have learned: (1) our health care system, the best in the world, is worth every cent we pay for it; (2) patients sometimes have to press their own cases beyond the doctors' standard advice; (3) greater flexibility must be provided on testing and treatment; (4) our system has the resources to treat the 43.1 million Americans currently uninsured, but we must find the way to pay for it; and (5) all Americans deserve the access to health care from which I and others with coverage have benefitted. I have long been convinced that our Federal budget of $1,700,000,000,000, could provide sufficient funding for America's needs if we establish our real priorities. The real question has been whether we have enough doctors, hospitals, medical personnel, etc. to take care of Americans in need of medical attention. I am convinced that we do. The part which has yet to be accomplished is to work out the financing for the delivery of such health care. As specified in the legislation which I have introduced, I am convinced that sufficient savings are possible within the current system to provide health care for all Americans within the current expenditures. I share the American people's frustration with government and their desire to have their problems addressed. Over the past six years, I believe we have learned a great deal about our health care system and what the American people are willing to accept from the Federal government. The message we heard loudest was that Americans did not want a massive overhaul of the health care system. Instead, our constituents want Congress to proceed more slowly and to target what isn't working in the health care system while leaving in place what is working. As I have said both publicly and privately, I am willing to cooperate with the Administration in solving the health care problems facing our country. However, in the past I have found many important areas where I differed with President Clinton's approach to solutions and I did so because I believed that the proposals would have been deleterious to my fellow Pennsylvanians, to the American people, and to our health care system. Most important, I did not support creating a large new government bureaucracy because I believe that savings should go to health care services and not bureaucracies. On this latter issue, I first became concerned about the potential growth in bureaucracy in September 1993 after reading the President's 239-page preliminary health care reform proposal. I was surprised by the number of new boards, agencies, and commissions, so I asked my legislative assistant, Sharon Helfant, to make me a list of all of them. Instead, she decided to make a chart. The initial chart depicted 77 new entities and 54 existing entities with new or additional responsibilities. When the President's 1,342-page Health Security Act was transmitted to Congress on October 27, 1993, my staff reviewed it and found an increase to 105 new agencies, boards, and commissions and 47 existing departments, programs and agencies with new or expanded jobs. This chart received national attention after being used by Senator Bob Dole in his response to the President's State of the Union address on January 24, 1994. The response to the chart was tremendous, with more than 12,000 people from across the country contacting my office for a copy; I still receive requests for the chart. Groups and associations, such as United We Stand America, the American Small Business Association, the National Federation of Republican Women, and the Christian Coalition, reprinted the chart in their publications--amounting to hundreds of thousands more in distribution. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post later stated that he thought the chart was the single biggest factor contributing to the demise of the Clinton health care plan. And, as recently as the November 1996 election, my chart was used by Senator Dole in his presidential campaign to illustrate the need for incremental health care reform as opposed to a big government solution. With the history of the health care reform debate in mind, I have drafted an incremental bill which would provide quality health care without adversely affecting the many positive aspects of our health care system, which works for 81.7 percent of working-age Americans. It is more prudent to implement targeted reforms and then act later to improve upon what we have done. I call this trial and modification. We must be careful not to damage the positive aspects of our health care system upon which more than 193 million Americans justifiably rely. The legislation I am introducing today has three objectives: (1) to provide affordable health insurance for the 43.1 million working-age Americans now not covered; (2) to reduce health care costs for all Americans; and (3) to improve coverage for underinsured individuals, families, and children. This legislation is comprised of initiatives that our health care system can readily adopt in order to meet these objectives, and it does not create an enormous new bureaucracy to meet them. This bill includes provisions to encourage the formation of small group purchasing arrangements, to expand access to health insurance for children, to improve health coverage for individuals with disabilities, to strengthen preventive health benefits under the Medicare program, to increase access to prenatal care and outreach for the prevention of low birth weight babies, to facilitate the implementation of patients' rights regarding medical care at the end of life, to improve health education, to place greater emphasis on and to expand access to primary and preventive health services, to utilize non-physician providers, to reform the COBRA law to extend the time period for employees who leave their jobs to maintain their health benefits until alternative coverage becomes available, to increase the availability and use of consumer information and outcomes research, and to establish a national fund for health research within the Department of Treasury. Taken together, I believe the reforms proposed in the Health Care Assurance Act of 1999 will both improve the quality of health care delivery and will bring down the escalating costs of health care in this country. These initiatives represent a blueprint which can be modified, improved and expanded. In total, I believe this bill can significantly reduce the number of uninsured Americans, improve the affordability of care, ensure the portability and security of coverage between jobs, and yield cost savings of billions of dollars to the Federal Government, which can be used to cover the remaining uninsured and underinsured Americans.