Arlen Specter

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. If there is something which plaintiff does not know about, which the attorney does not know about, there would be an opportunity for discovery to ascertain facts which are not within the knowledge of the plaintiff before there could be a challenge that there was a violation of rule 11?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I would further inquire of my distinguished colleague from Colorado, whether the legislative intent here is to allow discovery as to matters that a plaintiff could not know about? So that when there is language here which says that, ``by presenting to the court * * * an attorney * * * is certifying * * * the allegations and other factual contentions have evidentiary support or are well-grounded in fact,'' if a plaintiff makes representations to the attorney which the attorney has reason to accept, that that would be a sufficient evidentiary basis for the allegations in the complaint?

Mr. SPECTER. Because a plaintiff would know on many matters what had happened, but if there were some technical matter, some defect in a mechanism, for example, in a product, that could not be within the knowledge of the plaintiff, it might require some discovery. But you have to state a sufficient claim to withstand a motion to dismiss, or perhaps just notice pleading. There would be an opportunity for an attorney to undertake discovery before there would be a basis for seeking sanctions under rule 11?

Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleague. Moving on to the one other provision I wanted to discuss, with respect to the knowledge of the attorney who prepares the pleadings. As I understand the amendment of Senator Brown, and I pose this question to my colleague from Colorado: does the amendment permit a good-faith interpretation as to what the attorney for the plaintiff knows; that it is to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, as the language says, formed after an inquiry, reasonable under the circumstances. So in essence, it is a good-faith representation by the attorney who signs the pleadings.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, this, I think, is something which is important to have clear, which we have now clarified. It is my sense that the adoption of the tightening provisions by Senator Brown achieves a purpose of further discouraging frivolous litigation. That is already discouraged to some extent, under the existing rule 11, but it further discourages frivolous litigation. There is legislation in one of the bills passed by the House which would impose the loser-pays rule, which is not in the House product liability legislation, but their companion bill and it might be applicable to all litigation so that it might apply to product liability cases. It is my sense, given the concern about whether there is frivolous litigation or the extent of frivolous litigation, that there is merit to try to reduce frivolous litigation to the extent that we can, and to discourage some more drastic, draconian measure, which I think would be presented by a loser-pays rule. The United States has had a tradition throughout the judicial experience we have had, that a loser-pays rule is not appropriate for our society. Without getting into the pros and cons and the extent of what may or may not be the rule in Great Britain, loser pays has not been our rule. My experience as a practicing attorney has demonstrated to me that we ought not to make that kind of a drastic rule which would, in effect, close the courts. What Senator Brown has done here in proposing a tightening of the rule against frivolous lawsuits, it seems to me, would tend to discourage any more drastic approach in this field. I wonder if my colleague from Colorado would agree with that generalization?

Mr. SPECTER. As I understand the interpretation of the old rule, it provided some reasonable flexibility with respect to the imposition of sanctions. My question to Senator Brown is, does his amendment leave it to the discretion of the court as to what sanctions would be imposed?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to have a brief colloquy or discussion with the proponent of this amendment, the distinguished Senator from Colorado, Senator Brown. I have already talked with him about the matter, and I think it is useful to make it a matter of record as to the meaning of this amendment, which I think is reasonably apparent from the language. There is always a consideration as to legislative intent as derived from these discussions, but I think that it is especially appropriate when we have an amendment to have the view of the author of the amendment. As I understand the amendment, it essentially restores the old rule 11 which was in existence prior to its amendment. In general terms, is that true?

Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleague from Colorado. It is my intention to support this amendment and I do so because I think the experience under the old rule--if I might ask the specifics of Senator Brown, when was the old rule in effect specifically?

Mr. SPECTER. And the amendment does not require that attorneys fees be paid or that the rule of loser pays be a consequence of a violation of the rule under the amendment that is being offered?

Mr. SPECTER. Although the language is mandatory that there has to be some sanction, the scope of the sanction is up to the judge? That is, it is discretionary with the court?

Mr. SPECTER. It would be appropriate?

Mr. SPECTER. So that there is no requirement that there be an imposition of attorney fees or a loser-pays rule for a violation of the rule arising from this amendment to rule 11?

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment preliminarily on the pending legislation, and it is my view that some reform would be useful--illustratively, the alternative dispute resolution or perhaps the collateral source rule which would limit a recovery where the plaintiff has already been compensated by insurance proceeds. It is true, as to the collateral source rule, that the plaintiffs contend they should not be foreclosed because they have paid for the insurance, but there are valid considerations I think in such a situation where having been compensated there should not be a double recovery. In looking at this legislation, it is my view that we must exercise care in what we do here and that we must proceed with a scalpel and not a meat ax, and that, as the Founding Fathers declared it, the Senate should function as the saucer to cool the tea which has come from the House of Representatives. As a practicing lawyer, I represented both plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury cases, represented both sides in security act cases. In my early days in the practice of the law with the Philadelphia firm Barnes, Dechert, Crassmeier and Rhoads, which later became Dechert, Price and Rhoads, I represented the Pennsylvania Railroad in the defense of personal injury cases. I represented a plaintiff in a widely noted product liability case. In the course of that activity in the practice of law and having been on the Judiciary Committee for the past 14 years-plus, it is my view that the Congress should proceed with caution in altering the decisions of the courts which have been built up over many years, many decades, really many centuries. As was pointed out in the treatise on the American Law of Torts by Stewart M. Speiser, Charles F. Krause, and Alfred W. Gans, tort law has been used to control behavior for over 2,000 years. As Prosser and Keeton on the law of torts point out, the tort rules, including product liability, are evolutionary accretions, and the decisions on which they are based have been handed down by the courts in a very methodical way with extraordinary analysis over long periods of time. The seminal case was the decision in England in Winterbottom versus Wright, where the broad language of Lord Amiger laid down the first rule that the original seller of goods was not liable for damages caused by their defects to anyone except his immediate buyer or one in privity with him. That rule stood for a very long period of time until the celebrated case of McPherson versus Buick Motor Co., where Judge Cardozo of the New York Court of Appeals, the highest appellate court in New York, later Justice Cardozo, ruled that a manufacturer was liable for negligence to the buyer of an automobile, a rule that now seems strange that it had to be a change in the law to say that the manufacturer would be liable to the person who ultimately bought the automobile as opposed to limiting the claim of the buyer of the automobile to a company which sold him the car and then leaving it up to that company to go back to the manufacturer. Early in my own legal career, I had an occasion to litigate in some depth a product liability case captioned Thompson versus Reidman and General Motors. That case achieved some note, having been reviewed in law review articles because it established a new rule which enabled a passenger in an automobile to sue the seller of the automobile, Reidman Chevrolet Co., and also the manufacturer, General Motors. It seems that such a decision back in 1961, when it was cited as one of the important cases in the law of the development of product liability in the law of torts by Prosser and Keeton that by the hindsight of the intervening years seems strange that there would be any question about the standing of a passenger in an automobile to sue the seller of the automobile, Reidman Motor Co., and the manufacturer. But it was. And it is an indication of the kind of accretion, or what I call encrustation, of the common law that I studied in great depth in the course of bringing that litigation as a plaintiff's lawyer. When I represented the passenger, a man named Pete J. Thompson, against the driver of the automobile, William Gray, who was a sergeant in the military, and did not learn until some 2 years and 9 months after the incident that the cause was a stuck accelerator pedal and then found that the statute of limitations, 2 years in the State of Pennsylvania, had expired. Then I took a look at the Uniform Commercial Code, which had a 4-year statute of limitations, and sought to sue on behalf of the passenger against Reidman, which sold the car, and General Motors, the manufacturer. I faced a motion to dismiss. And the prevailing law at that time was that a passenger could not collect because the passenger was not in privity. And that is the legal term where the individual did not have a contract with the seller of the automobile, Reidman Motor Co., as did the buyer, William Gray. And there was no privity that the passenger had with General Motors. I argued that the court ought to create an exception to the privity rule because it was an analogy to the guest in a household. The Uniform Commercial Code had established a standing of a guest in a household to sue the seller of a product, like a toaster or an oven, or the manufacture of the product. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decided in my favor. As I say, the case was noted in some of the law reviews. And then, a plaintiff in Allegheny County noted it and filed a lawsuit out of privity and the case went to the State supreme court which decided that privity was necessary as a matter of Pennsylvania Erie versus Tompkins, it is the State law which governs. Then General Motors and Reidman Chevrolet Motor Co. came back to the eastern district court and moved to dismiss and the judge reversed himself and my case was thrown out of court, as the expression goes. In the course of that litigation, it was quite an extensive research job that I undertook to give me some substantial appreciation of how we come to these rules of law. While not directly relevant from the point of view of product liability, I then found an exception to the statute of limitations under the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act of 1940, even though this was many years later, and was able to press the claim in tort and ultimately took the case to trial and after several days of trial received a settlement in the case. But I refer to the decision at some length because of the insights which I gained from that decision. And as I sit through the markups in the various committees--and the markup, for those who may be listening on C-SPAN and are not familiar with precisely what we do, is where we take a bill in a committee and decide how we ought to change the law or what law we ought to make as a matter of public policy. These markups, where we write the legislation which later comes to the floor, follow hearings where very frequently, although there are maybe 18 members of the committee, as, for example, on the Judiciary Committee, there are only one or two present. It has been my observation that our markups do not necessarily reflect the epitome of reason and experience as we do the best we can. So that, by contrast, to the way the encrustations occurred in the judicial decisions since 1842, when these issues were considered, through the 1916 case in Buick versus McPherson and the 1961 decision that I personally participated in in Thompson versus Reidman and General Motors, I approach the field of legislative changes in tort liability with some substantial concern. The issues which we are considering were considered, to a substantial extent, in a law review article which I think is worthy of some reference by Prof. Gary T. Schwartz from the UCLA law school, as published in the Georgia Law Review in the spring of 1992. And the point that Professor Schwartz makes, which I think is worth noting here, is the way that the courts have responded in a rational, case-by- case, stare decisis way to important public policy considerations. Professor Schwartz points out at page 697 of the Georgia Law Review, volume 26, as follows: Consider the New Jersey Supreme Court which had voted unanimously in favor of hindsight liability in failure to warn cases in Chadha and then voted again unanimously against hindsight liability in Feldman 2 years later. In explaining the turnabout in Feldman, the court acknowledged the heavy criticism that the Chadha case had provoked in the law reviews. Then Professor Schwartz goes on to point to other changes when he notes the evolution of the views of the distinguished supreme court justice of California's highest court, Justice Stanley Mosk. He says: As a member of the California court in the 1960's and 1970's, Justice Mosk was deeply involved in the fashioning of the strict products liability doctrine. In 1978, the court majority, in a somewhat conservative vein, ruled the principles of comparative negligence can reduce the plaintiff's recovery in a strict products liability action. Justice Mosk's dissenting opinion began with the complaint that ``this will be remembered as a dark day when this court, which heroically took the lead in originating the doctrine of products liability, beat a hasty retreat almost to square one. The pure concept of products liability so pridefully fashioned and nurtured by this court is reduced to a shambles. Professor Schwartz continues: Ten years later, however, Justice Mosk authored the California court's opinion in Brown versus Superior Court ruling that negligence principles, rather than hindsight strict liability, apply in a prescription drug case. Three years after Brown, however, Justice Mosk concurred in the court's ruling in Anderson versus Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. that a hindsight analysis should be rejected in all cases involving a failure to warn even when the product is asbestos. Indeed, Justice Mosk's concurring opinion suggests that the entire doctrine of failure to warn in products liability should probably be reclassified under the heading of negligence. In this concurrence, Justice Mosk quotes his own pure concept of products liability words from the Daily and then goes on, in essence, to eat his words. I do not expect the casual listener to be able to follow the details of this kind of commentary on this very complex, opaque, and difficult- to-understand products liability matter. But for those who are conversant in the field, it shows the evolution of a very learned and very thoughtful supreme court justice as he works through the rules. I would suggest that when the Congress of the United States seeks to make changes on this very carefully calibrated law, which is a matter of accretion, as Professors Prosser and Keeton articulated, or incrustation, as others have, that there ought to be very great care exercised by the Congress in the procedures we undertake. Especially in the context where we are functioning now in response to a mandate from last November, that we ought to in this body exercise the Senate's traditional prerogative of the saucer which cools the tea which comes from the House of Representatives. Without going on at much greater length than what Professor Schwartz had to say, I will quote his comments at page 702 of the Georgia Law Review to this effect, citing how there are modifications in the judicial decisions: The last decade has witnessed a number of judicial rulings. Thus, New Jersey has reversed itself on manufacturer's liability on unknowable hazards, Illinois has engaged in an interesting effort to abrogate the traditional tort of attorneys' malpractice, the fifth circuit has essentially overruled its presumption of causation for inherent risk- warning cases, Tennessee has eliminated joint and several liability, and Maryland has overturned precedents in reducing the availability of punitive damages. Still, for the most part in recent years, we have seen the marking by courts' unwillingness to extend precedent and by their resolution of open legal questions in a liability-restraining way. When you take a look at some of the provisions of the current legislation where we exonerate the seller from responsibility but leave the purchaser to the manufacturer, how problemsome may that be in cases where the manufacturer may turn out to be insolvent. That determination may not be made until long after the statute of limitations has expired as to the seller or provisions under the workmen's compensation sections where the employer may be entitled to greater compensation than he has actually paid out. It may be that useful attention may be directed to the question of service or process of foreign manufacturers who come to the United States to sell, but inordinately complex rules limit the ability of buyers in the United States to bring in those foreign sellers or changes in the rule where the issue arises as to the collection from foreign sellers. The issue of joint and several liability is a very complex one, and it may be that there is some intermediate ground which will not subject someone liable for a tiny fraction, a percent or two, which is decided for the entire award where all others are judgment-proof. That is something which I think has to be very carefully considered as we work through the amendments on the pending legislation. Also, the issue of damages as to what will occur where you have a case like the one involving the tragic death of our late colleague Senator John Heinz where there were tragic deaths and injury on the ground when the plane in which Senator Heinz was flying had a landing gear which apparently was not going down and a helicopter from Sun Oil came to try to help out. There was a collision, and the plane fell to the ground in a school yard in suburban Philadelphia--tragic deaths, tragic burning injuries which would not have been compensated as this bill would limit joint liability, a liability which has been eliminated in some States but something which I think we have to very, very carefully consider. There are a series of cases which have illustrated the very dastardly conduct--searching for a right word not to be overly condemnatory-- where you have the Ford Pinto case where there would be a classic case for the imposition of punitive damages if ever one existed. It was brought to light in litigation where the defendant had the matter brought to light in a letter which was sent by Ford's chief safety officer to was noted in that case that Ford had sought to avoid liability or responsibility to make changes in its fuel system which was located too close to the rear bumper and lacked critical safeguards where minor collisions caused the car to burst into flames upon impact. This letter, which contained a remarkable cost analysis saying that there ought not to be a change in the fuel system because the savings from 180 burn deaths and 180 serious burn injuries and 2,100 burn vehicles would cost $49.5 million, evaluating the deaths at $200,000 per death and the injuries at $67,000 per injury, and the vehicles at $700 per vehicle, contrasted with the cost of what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wanted done to change 11 million cars and a million and a half light trucks at $11 million per car and trucks which would cost $137 million. When this effort was brought to light, it showed in as clear a way as you can conceive the necessity for a liability which would exceed the kind which is talked about here under punitive damages. Or if you deal with the Dalkon shield IUD case or the asbestos cases, where in the face of known damage the manufacturing was done again and again and again; or in the Playtex case of tampons causing toxic shock syndrome, or the flammable pajamas case, or the Dalkon shield. These instances have to be very carefully considered when this body is undertaking a review of the punitive damage issue. There are several relatively recent decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States in this field, including one captioned TXO Production Corp. versus Alliance Resources Corp., decided by the Supreme Court in 1993, and another case is captioned Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co. versus Haislip. Both of these decisions have opinions written by Justice Scalia, who is noted for his conservatism. While these cases involve the constitutional issues regarding punitive damages, they have some bearing on a public policy analysis which, as we know, when the Supreme Court of the United States takes up constitutional issues, they very frequently move over into being a super legislature. Some of those matters, I think, are worthy of our analysis. So, Mr. President, I make these preliminary observations as we move to open debate on this product liability legislation, saying as I did at the outset that some reform would be appropriate, but urging my colleagues to subject this legislation to very, very careful analysis, because we are looking at tort law developed over some 2,000 years to influence human conduct and a stream of product liability cases originating in Great Britain in 1842, subject to very, very intensive litigation in the United States; product liability, which is not made by the plaintiff's bar or the defense bar but made by the courts of the United States, and issues on punitive damages which have reached the Supreme Court of the United States, which have been upheld in the constitutional context by justices like Justice Scalia. I think the debate will prove useful. There are many issues to be considered. And as has been said earlier, I look forward to the debate and to an opportunity to participate extensively as we move through consideration of this important legislation. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the CIA, the Senate Intelligence Committee and our country lost a loyal servant on March 27 when Jack Blake passed away after a long illness. Jack was an OSS veteran who became one of the CIA's premier managers, serving as its director of logistics, Deputy Director for Administration and acting Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. He also served as president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. In 1981, when Senator Barry Goldwater became the first Republican to chair the Select Committee on Intelligence, he chose Jack Blake to be staff director of the committee. Together, Senator Goldwater and Jack Blake established the principle that the transfer from a Democratic to a Republican majority would not mean an end to the Senate's bipartisan oversight of sensitive national security matters. They also made the point that the intelligence community's best friends were capable of examining its activities with a critical eye, for the sake of improving this vital function and safeguarding the liberties of our citizens. Jack Blake went on to become a professor at the Defense Intelligence College and frequently brought his classes back to the Hill to meet with congressional overseers and see for themselves that we were not monsters, but people of good will. His tremendous good humor and perseverance served him and his country well. We will miss Jack Blake, but we will also continue to profit from his life of good works. The Senate was fortunate to have known him.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, our Nation lost a valuable member of its national security team recently, when Richard E. Curl died at the age of 77. Dick Curl was Director of the Office of Intelligence Resources in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He was not the former Director, not the retiring Director, but very much the active Director of that office, even at the age of 77. Dick Curl devoted his life to intelligence. He served as a naval intelligence officer in both World War II and the Korean war, and with the State Department between those wars. And Dick began his work for INR in 1952. Overall, he gave his country over half a century of service. Mr. Curl's obituary states that his work ``involved contact with various foreign intelligence services as well as U.S. intelligence agencies.'' Suffice it to say that his role was often that of a mediator between the two different cultures, explaining the uses of intelligence to policymakers and Foreign Service officers while also ensuring that the risks and benefits of intelligence operations were weighed in light of broader U.S. policy interests that might be affected if something went wrong. Much of Dick Curl's career was spent teaching the policy and intelligence communities to listen to each other. The staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence knew Mr. Curl since at least the early 1980's. They found him a valuable source of information and good counsel. Dick Curl will be missed by both the committee and his country.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, last night we completed action on H.R. 1158, the supplemental appropriations and rescissions for fiscal year 1995. I wanted to briefly discuss one provision included in the leadership amendment adopted last evening to restore funding for impact aid. As my colleagues know, the Impact Aid Program is designed to provide aid to assist communities which have significant Federal presence in meeting education objectives. Specifically, this funding is important to Hatboro-Horsham school district in eastern Pennsylvania. My colleague, Senator Santorum, and I have heard from the local school district regarding this funding. I am aware of the importance of this funding to other areas of the country. In particular, I want to note the efforts of my friend and colleague from South Dakota, Senator Pressler, to preserve the impact aid funding. He personally told me of the adverse effect of the proposed rescission would have on a number of South Dakota schools, including the Pollock school district in northern South Dakota. I commend Senator Pressler for his leadership and for looking out for the educational interests of South Dakota schools, students, and families.

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. How much time was there originally?

Mr. SPECTER. How much time remains for the opponents of the amendment?

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. SPECTER. I would want to reserve time until I hear from Senator Harkin and reply, if I may.

Mr. SPECTER. I yield the floor and will reply to whatever additional arguments remain.

Mr. SPECTER. I yield the Senator 2 minutes.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes. When the argument is made by the Senator from Arkansas that there is an assault on public broadcasting, I would remind him that the major assault is on the deficit, and as chairman of the subcommittee we looked at $5.9 billion of rescissions by the House, and we reduced that to $3.05 billion, and asked public broadcasting to take a fair share, leaving them with the same amount they had last year. And that has received the comments of gratitude that they are able to function without the larger cuts recommended by the House. The amendment is an attractive one, obviously, when they move into community service with older Americans, but that account already has $410 million. So the $14 additional million, while making this amendment look attractive, really is not very significant in the overall picture. The distinguished Senator from Delaware has spoken about Radio Free Europe, but I think the point has not been made that the $229 million is being reduced next year to $75 million, and $7 million has been added this year for consolidation and wind-down purposes. My colleague from Iowa, who was chairman and is now ranking member, worked with me over these sheets, and I can understand his interest in wanting more money for public broadcasting. And I understand the Senator from Illinois, who has done outstanding work to try to combat violence on television. But this is a fair allocation, and if we are going to reach a balanced budget----

Mr. SPECTER

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if my distinguished colleague from Hawaii would yield, I believe we will work that amendment through in the final package, so it would not be in order to offer it at this time. But I understand the distinguished Senator from Hawaii would like to speak about it, which I think would be entirely appropriate to outline what we will accomplish. But structurally and procedurally, we will include that in the final managers' amendment, which will accommodate what the Senator from Hawaii wants to achieve. Mr. President, while I have the floor, I had asked the distinguished assistant leader if Senator Santorum and I--and I cleared this with the Senator from South Carolina--might have 10 minutes for a brief presentation on a memorial to Jimmy Stewart in Indiana, PA, which will be coming up after the Senator from Hawaii finishes his remarks.

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment briefly on the pending legislation. There appears to be some reason for optimism that we are in the final stages and will be completing action on this bill yet this evening. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education, our subcommittee faced a very major rescission package, as sent over by the House of Representatives, amounting to some $5.9 billion. While the full appropriations package addressed the rescissions of the House--with somewhat different calculations because FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was deferred. The committee was able to shift priorities, so that the rescissions in our Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education was reduced to $3.05 billion. We restored some $1 billion in cuts on education because it was our sense that the education funding should remain at as high a level as possible. It is my own view, Mr. President, that education, as a national priority, is second to none. I come by that view from the experience with my own parents, both of whom were immigrants, who had very little education and therefore valued it very highly in our household. My father, Harry Specter, had no formal education. My mother, Lillie Specter, went only to the eighth grade when she quit school to help support her family on the tragic death of her father from a heart attack in his mid to late forties. But my brother, my two sisters and I have been the beneficiaries of the opportunity to share in the American dream with good educations. And that has been a point for which I have always worked hard to try to maintain the funding, supported by Senator Harkin the ranking member of the subcommittee. Senator Harkin agreed with restoring these funds to education, and included in that was the restoration of funding of $371 million for drug-free schools. Mr. President, the drug problem in the school system is the intersection of education and violence. Funding for the program is supported by our subcommittee, supported by the full committee and supported, it appears, by the Senate. Perhaps even more money will be added back on drug-free schools which is a very, very high priority. for OSHA, where the funds had been cut. It is very, very important to have safety on the job. Another key item was low-income home energy assistance for the elderly and poor. Principally, this vital program provides assistance for many Americans who earned less than $8,000 a year. For these low income or elderly without this important program it comes down to a choice, as the expression goes, between heating or eating. The program also is very, very important, as a matter of safety. In a 3-month period in the city of Philadelphia, 11 people were killed, many of them children, in families which were using kerosene heaters because they did not have enough money for the regular fuel allotment. The committee has reinstated the program from the House cuts. I think it is very important, Mr. President, to meet the target of balancing the budget by the year 2002, but I think it has to be done with a scalpel and not a meat ax. Traditionally, as the Founding Fathers articulated, the Senate is the saucer that cools the tea from the House of Representatives. The strength in our system is a bicameral legislature--that is a House of Representatives and a Senate--the models of most of the States in the United States, and it takes both of the Houses to work it out. So I think we will come up in the Senate with a very sound bill. There have been negotiations, as has been announced on the floor, and it appears at this point that there will be add-backs on a number of the programs, which could, apparently, lead to less of a cut from the $3.05 billion. But it appears that we will have had an appropriate allocation of resources and assessment of priorities and that we will take a good bill into conference. Hopefully, we can eliminate unnecessary expenses but, at the same time, retain the programs which are very important for America's safety net. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.