Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Before commenting briefly on judges, I have a very brief personal note. Yesterday, I spoke about the appropriations bill on Labor, Health and Human Services. My 3-year-old granddaughter, Silvi, was watching the screen on C-SPAN 2, perhaps one of the few watching. She said to her father, my son, Shanin, ``Why doesn't he say hi?'' I told her I might speak this afternoon and alerted her, although the time is somewhat delayed. I do not think it is somewhat inappropriate to say hi to my granddaughter, Silvi. I know in the old days, they said you couldn't do that. But without objection, I say hi to her.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I want to say a word or two about judges. It is a very difficult matter getting judges confirmed in the Senate. I congratulate my distinguished colleague, Bruce Kauffman, a former Supreme Court Justice in Pennsylvania, for his confirmation yesterday. I understand the distinguished Pennsylvanian from Wilkes-Barre, A. Richard Caputo, Esquire, is subject to confirmation with no objection. I urge my colleagues to support the confirmation of Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson, for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, Federal court. Judge Massiah-Jackson has a very distinguished record on the State Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia County. Although some questions have arisen, a couple of intemperate remarks, I think, do not disqualify her. If intemperate remarks were disqualifiers, there wouldn't be any Federal judges, there wouldn't be any Senators or anybody in any other positions. Questions have arisen about her sentencing. Out of 4,000 cases, 95 appeals were taken and reversals in only 14 cases. I urge my colleagues to support Judge Frederica Massiah- Jackson so we can fill a vacancy on the Federal court. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I will begin on the question of fast track with a statement made by the distinguished Senator from West Virginia saying that it would be disingenuous to believe that trade agreements would not be rewritten in the U.S. Senate. I say to my colleagues that I consider it unlikely that trade agreements would be rewritten in this body, considering how hard it is to get 51 votes against a committee report or against an administration position or that we might have the structure on amendments made so that it would require passage of a bill then subject to veto by the President and then subject to a two-thirds override. But if, in fact, trade agreements would be rewritten on the floor of the U.S. Senate or on the floor of the House of Representatives, then it might be something which is desirable. I oppose fast track, although I am not opposed to free-trade agreements, because I do favor such agreements and supported NAFTA, the North American Free-Trade Agreement, and GATT, notwithstanding very considerable constituent opposition in my own State. Being elected in Pennsylvania, with 12 million constituents, it is my view that I ought to have standing as a Senator to offer amendments, and because we have had a certain amount of wisdom coming from Members of Congress on issues of trade, which are matters of very, very considerable importance. I will analogize the activity of the Senate regarding trade agreements to what we do on treaties in general, where a two-thirds vote is required. If amendments could be offered to trade agreements, it could be of some substantial value to the President, and the executive branch in negotiating agreements with foreign powers saying, ``Well, we understand your position, but you have to understand ours, and there are certain political realities in the U.S. Congress.'' We have a variety of protocols where you have executive agreements which look very much like treaties which are not subject to ratification by the Senate. A very complicated agreement was entered into with North Korea which involved very substantial issues on nuclear power. That was the subject of a letter from the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the chairman of the Interior Committee and myself, in my capacity last year as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, asking for Senate action. So there are precedents for having the Senate exercise its judgment and I think we have some substantial judgment in the field. I recall very well in 1984, when the International Trade Commission came down with a decision which was in favor of the American steel industry. At that time the issue arose as to whether President Reagan would overrule the decision of the International Trade Commission. Senator Heinz, my late departed colleague, a great Senator, and I went to talk to then Secretary of Commerce Mack Baldrige who thought that we were right, the American steel industry ought to have that favorable decision from the International Trade Commission. Bill Brock, the trade representative, agreed. We then talked to Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger who disagreed. The President overruled the International Trade Commission and made the decision which was based really on foreign policy and defense policy. The American steel industry paid a very high price which should have been paid out of the general revenues. Western Pennsylvania especially, but eastern Pennsylvania, too, with Bethlehem Steel, suffered very substantially. Right now, my distinguished colleague, Senator Santorum, and I are working very hard on trying to get Cigna fair access to the Japanese markets. Notwithstanding certain commitments by the executive branch and the trade representatives, we have not been able to accomplish that. So it seems to me that there is a very good reason on principle why matters which come to the Congress on trade issues ought to be subject to amendment. We have some understanding of the trade issues, and we have some understanding of our States' stakes. I think it would be entirely appropriate for us to be able to offer those amendments and not to have to simply vote yes or no, take it all or leave it.

Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. I have sought recognition to discuss briefly two matters: First, the pending fast-track issue and, second, the pendency of our judicial confirmations.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, might I ask unanimous consent--I have been waiting here for some time to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. No, at the present time. I have been here on the floor.

Mr. SPECTER. May I inquire of the Senator from California how long she will be speaking?

Mr. SPECTER. Then I ask unanimous consent that I might be recognized to speak up to 5 minutes at the conclusion of her remarks.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I want to thank the Senator from Texas for all her efforts to gain the support of the conference committee for this important project and for the work the Community Employment Alliance and the Enterprise Foundation are doing in welfare to work. I am pleased to inform the Senator that the statement of the managers accompanying the conference report includes a reference to the Community Employment Alliance and urges the Department of Labor to give careful consideration to a proposal for funding.

Mr. SPECTER. As the Senator from New Mexico has suggested, I would hope that IHS would invite the CDC to participate in developing meaningful prevention strategies at the Gallup research center with funds from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I would add that the resources of the National Institutes of Health [NIH] and the National Center for Genome Research would be other valuable resources for both the CDC and the IHS to incorporate into their efforts. I thank the Senator from new Mexico for his coordinated efforts to bring immediate assistance to American Indians, especially the Navajo and Zuni Indians in the Gallup area. I believe this diabetes prevention research effort in Gallup will benefit the Pueblo Indians, Apaches, and other Indian tribes nationwide. I fully support Senator Domenici's efforts to start and maintain funding for the national diabetes prevention research center in Gallup, NM, funded by both CDC and IHS resources as we have discussed.

Mr. SPECTER. I commend the Senator from New Mexico for his thoughtful and coordinated approach to the problems of diabetes for minorities, especially American Indians. I concur that CDC and IHS would be an invaluable combination at the Gallup prevention research center.

Mr. SPECTER. Yes, I would agree that the increase in funding for CDC for fiscal year 1998, includes sufficient funds for this purpose, and the House has concurred with the Senate's intention to do so. The conferees intend to increase both prevention and treatment activities among native Americans. The final bill also contains at least $2 million for CDC programs among native Americans. In addition to this general Indian funding, I believe the Senate report clarifies our intention to fund the Gallup prevention research center in the first year from fiscal year 1998 funds. This program would then continue as envisioned by Secretary Shalala on a multiyear basis.

Mr. SPECTER. I concur with the Senator's observations.

Mr. SPECTER. I certainly agree that prevention research is a very specialized field that must prove itself to be culturally relevant and attractive, or it will be meaningless. It is also my understanding that diabetes is rampant among American Indians and getting worse. The rate is almost three times as high among Indians as it is among all Americans. The national rates of diabetes among Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians are also among the highest in the Nation, and are about double the rate among Americans as a whole.

Mr. SPECTER. That is correct.

Mr. SPECTER. Yes, Senator Domenici, I recall your letter of June 26, 1997.

Mr. SPECTER. I would be happy to respond to the Senator from New Mexico about the intentions of my committee with regard to funding diabetes programs for American Indians through the CDC. I am also interested in his ideas about coordinating efforts between the CDC and the IHS.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Four minutes speaking on the bill, and then he may want to make an as-in-morning-business request to be sure it is subtracted from the time on the bill. The Parliamentarian nods in the affirmative.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield to my distinguished colleague from Iowa--how much time?

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, it is with great pleasure for me personally that I address the Senate on the conference report on the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. It has been a long, tortuous road to come to this position where if the Senate acts favorably on this conference report, it may then be presented to the President with the expectation that it will be signed into law. There are 13 appropriations bills which run the U.S. Government, and the appropriations bill on these three departments is the largest one in the Federal Government, downsizing of some $277 billion, and it is now larger even than the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. This bill has had a very, very difficult process in coming through conference with a tremendous number of obstacles and difficulties confronting the legislative process at every step of the way. The process that this conference report has come to the floor with would perhaps constitute a textbook on legislative process except that it has been so extraordinary. That has been occasioned by the fact that there are so many so-called riders or legislative provisions on the appropriations bill which have enormously complicated the work of the conferees in trying to work out an enormous number of complicated problems. The most vexing of all of the issues--and it had a lot of competition--was the issue on so-called testing. There has been a generalized agreement that it would be desirable to test fourth graders on reading and eighth graders on mathematics but a great deal of disagreement as to how that testing ought to be carried out. There has been widespread sentiment expressed that the Federal Government ought not to be intrusive in the educational process. Then the problem arises as to just how this test would be worked out. When the bill came to the floor of the Senate, the excellent work was done by Senator Coats of Indiana, Senator Gregg of New Hampshire, with the assistance of former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett. In the hands of those three individuals, with the established record in the education field, great knowledge on testing, and all being very zealous to keep out Federal intrusion but to limit any testing approach to absolute necessity and to State control, it was the expectation of this body that when Senator Coats, Senator Gregg, and former Secretary Bennett agreed on a process, that it would satisfy even those most diligent in objecting to Federal testing. The Senate passed that amendment by a vote of 87 to 13, which is a very, very strong show of support in this body. The House of Representatives enacted a provision that there should be no funds on testing. When we came to the issue of conference a week ago Wednesday, a meeting occurred attended by the top leadership of the Republican Party of the House and the Senate, attended by the Speaker; by the House majority leader; by the No. 3 in rank in the House of Representatives, Mr. DeLay; the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. Livingston; and the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, my counterpart, Congressman John Porter. And on the Senate side, we had our own majority leader. We had the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. And I was present. We agreed on a number of items. One of the foremost of those items on which there was agreement was the issue of testing. There was one party present who disagreed. That was the chairman of the authorizing committee in the House, my colleague from Pennsylvania, Congressman Goodling. But aside from Congressman Goodling's dissent, there was agreement at that meeting. A week ago Thursday the conferees met and hammered out quite a number of other complicated issues and came to agreement on a conference report. That night the agreement was repudiated, and we were back to square one with respect to the testing issue, which held up this bill until further negotiations were undertaken by the President and by Congressman Goodling. The testing issue has finally been resolved. A key part of the agreement on testing is that the matter will be submitted to the House-Senate authorizers early next year. This is one illustration as to what ought to be done by the authorizing committees so that the matters are not put on appropriations bills and bog down the appropriators. There was plenty of time during 1997 to have this issue of testing taken up by the authorizers. It really is a matter for the authorizers to make the congressional determination about what testing ought to be instead of tacking it onto an appropriations bill where it really does not belong. It is grafted onto the appropriations bill with this language, ``No funds shall be expended for testing.'' That is the way many, many substantive matters were grafted onto the appropriations bill. ``No funds shall be expended for'' purpose A, B, or C. When it became apparent to me that this issue was going to be one in the appropriations process after this bill was on the floor for initial consideration by the Senate, I scheduled a hearing. At the hearing, we heard both sides of the issue. The Secretary of Education came forward to articulate the administration's position on why there should be testing. We invited Congressman Goodling to present his views about why there should be no testing. After having had the benefit of that information, we then were in the position to proceed as best we could on that limited record to make the judgment on testing. We had in the conference many other complex issues that we finally worked out. We had the amendment offered by the distinguished Senator from Washington, Senator Murray, on the issue of not restricting welfare benefits to women who had been victims of domestic violence. That is a substantive matter that would be better considered by the authorizers. But it passed in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 98 to 1. At least, in my judgment, and the judgment of 97 other Senators, it had a very important public policy purpose, to give special consideration on welfare benefits and other matters for women who had been victims of domestic violence. Senator Murray was gracious to not press her amendment in conference, on an arrangement where the House of Representatives authorizing subcommittee made a commitment to take up the issue early next year. I was delighted to join Senator Murray as a cosponsor on that matter. That is one illustration of how we moved ahead to focus on money matters without that kind of a substantive provision. Privilege of the Floor Mr. President, at this time I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Jim Sourwine and Ellen Murray, detailees to the committee, be granted floor privileges during the consideration of the conference report accompanying H.R. 2264.

Mr. SPECTER. The distinguished Senator from Minnesota, Senator Grams, wishes some time. Mr. President, how much time remains on this side?

Mr. SPECTER. I will be delighted to yield to my distinguished colleague, Senator Gorton.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. I ask for confirmation from the Chair that we are now on the conference report having begun at 1:05 with the 90-minute time limit so that we will vote no later than 2:35.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Arizona. I had sought a time determination because we have 90 minutes on the bill and are scheduled to vote at 2:30. The way our colleagues work, people will be ready to depart for trains and planes at 2:29. So if the clerk will report now, I know that there are other Senators who wish to speak and there will be time to speak during the 90-minute time. Then by unanimous consent we can go into morning business. But I request that we proceed at this time to the consideration of the conference report on Labor-HHS and Education.