Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there is no way to control the floor unless a Senator addresses the Chair.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments--the Senator from Missouri will offer two budget amendments based on budget requests--once introduced, be immediately set aside to be in the line for regular order following the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin. What is the order now?

Mr. STEVENS. I wish the Bond amendments to be offered after Senator Feingold in the regular order. The first regular order would be, as I understand it, Senator Faircloth, and then Senator Feingold, and then the Bond amendments would be after that, if my unanimous consent request is agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. The one of the Senator from Massachusetts is the pending business. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, it is my understanding that his is pending business. I want to get to the budget amendments. There will be some amendments to those. So they would come after Senator Feingold, if my unanimous consent request is granted.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this has been cleared on both sides. It is a managers' amendment.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Senator from Minnesota wishes to offer some amendments and have them sort of get in line. I yield for that purpose.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that they be in order behind the two amendments offered by the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Leader, I am not certain we can finish by noon. We have probably three to four votes that we believe we will have to have on amendments that are coming, and we still have the problem of the IMF amendment, which is the last amendment to be cleared. But we are now down to a point where we think we have cleared most of the controversial amendments, with the exception of three to four, and I am still working on one of those.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, I think we will be able to get time agreements on all amendments other than the IMF amendment. On the IMF amendment, the time has already expired. The question is how to dispose of that.

Mr. STEVENS. If the leader will yield, the Senator from Texas, Senator Hutchison, will raise the issue of Bosnia here this morning in a minute. That will take some time this morning. We have, as I said, three other amendments, one dealing with the CDBG issue, one with the FEMA issue that I am told we may have questions about. So I would say in all probability we will not get around to really dealing with the IMF until right after lunch.

Mr. STEVENS. I do thank the leader for raising the issue and urging us to move forward. I urge Senators to come forward and discuss with me and Senator Byrd and our staffs any amendments they may wish to raise. We will insist on a time agreement on amendments that are going to need a vote. Let me state at the outset, however, the real difficulty with this bill now is the IMF amendment. I think the Senate should realize what the situation is. We had a time agreement on the IMF amendment. That time has been exhausted. At my request, it was set aside to consider other amendments. I have been notified by Members on both sides of the aisle that they will not allow this bill to come to final vote without a vote on that IMF amendment, and that there is some indication of a desire to have that amendment wait for a time when the House passes a separate bill dealing with IMF and other subjects. I want to state to the Senate that I am normally neutral on most of these subjects but I am not neutral on this subject. The Senator from Hawaii and I have traveled to the Pacific for many years together, and only in February I traveled through the Pacific with several other Members of the Senate. We heard, from New Zealand to Australia and into Hawaii, comments about the Asian flu, what was taking place in Asia. Just recently when I went home, I was exposed to headlines which said, ``Market Sales for Salmon Falling Off.'' I talked to people involved in the coal industry, and they are worried about their markets in Asia. I talked to the people handling the great flow of freight through my State onto the Asian rim, people who handle freight that is on these wide-bodied airplanes. As my friend from Hawaii, Mr. Inouye, says, most people don't realize that four out of five wide-bodied airplanes that take cargo out of this country go west, not east. Everyone I have talked to is apprehensive of what is going on. We see our markets declining. We see our customers questioning whether they are going to buy in the future. The other side of the coin is that I had noticed we have already seen signs in Alaska of dumping of goods that are coming in from the Far East, where their markets are declining for consumer goods. They are bringing them to our country. It might be a good thing temporarily, but it is something that is very worrisome to those of us who live on the Pacific rim. Then I talk to my friends from the great grain belt of the country, and they tell me about the problem of the farmers who found a way to independence by opening up the global markets to our farm products, and the primary place where those farm products were sold, the increased production of our farms has been sold, in the Pacific rim. The Asian flu is the El Nino of economics. Unless we understand that, unless we understand the fear that is coming in our country, we are liable to make a great mistake. I do not want to see games played with the IMF. The IMF is serious to us, those of us who already have felt the touch of this wind that is coming to us from the Pacific rim. Unless we respond, and respond forcefully, and create the image of being willing to assist these people to come through this economic disaster, we will pay a high price. We will pay a price in not only our markets but in our prestige in the world. These people are expanding a private enterprise economy in a place where 15 years ago there really was not a private enterprise economy. They have had banks that have failed. So did we, 10 and 15 years ago. We should remember the savings and loan crisis and the other crises in banks we faced. The IMF reforms that Senator Hagel, Senator Roberts, and others have worked on--Senator Gramm--are good reforms, and they will bring transparency to the banks and the banking transactions. They will protect consumers in the area affected by the Asian flu. But they will also protect our people who want to sell to those markets and give them greater stability. The IMF money, to me, is money that creates the image of the United States being aware of what is going on and being willing to help, help in the sense of saying we will be there provided you reform. Crony capitalism cannot be allowed to spread throughout the world. The way we can stop that now is to act, and act forcibly, on IMF. I am one who is going to vote for IMF. It may be that others want to delay it, others want to handle it in different ways. I want to make sure that the first bill that goes to the President has IMF on it, and I hope the rest of the Senate will agree with me. We will have some discussions when we get to the House, but I want the House to know I am going to be arguing for IMF on the first bill that goes to the President. It should be something we act quickly on, for the benefit of this country. I am happy to yield the floor. The Senator from Texas has an amendment she wishes to call up, Mr. President.

Mr. STEVENS

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the situation is now that we have nine amendments in order and probably at least three more that I know of that are coming. So we have 12 amendments to deal with before we can get down to the managers' package on this bill. At the request of the Senator from Massachusetts, I am going to ask that this amendment be set aside and that it be regular order on the list that we have, to come before the Senate again after action on the Bond amendments.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, that would mean that at this time, as I understand it, if I ask for the regular order, the amendment before the Senate will be the amendment by Senator Faircloth. Is that correct?

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for the regular order.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I once again ask Senators to come forward and tell us if they are going to offer amendments to the supplemental bill. As I have indicated, we now have at least 12 that are on our screen and we would like to start working out some sort of time agreement to dispose of this bill. I might state to the Senate that as soon as the Senator from North Carolina has presented his amendment, I intend to make a point of order against it. That will take place as soon as he has finished his statement. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. STEVENS. For information of all Senators, it is my understanding the Senator from North Carolina will take but a short time, and following his statement, as I indicated, I will make a point of order against his amendment. He has indicated to me he will ask to waive that point of order, so that would mean there would be a vote before the Senate at approximately 10 minutes of 1. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, after discussing the statement I made previously, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the waiver of my point of order on the amendment that is going to be offered by Senator Faircloth--Senator Faircloth will make a motion to waive my point of order--I ask that the vote take place at 1:30.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my understanding, if the Senator will yield, before he can do that, I have to make a point of order, which I have not made.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, in view of the information I have just received that several Senators want to speak on this amendment, I ask unanimous consent that my previous unanimous consent request be vitiated.

Mr. STEVENS. That means there will not be a vote at 1:30, Mr. President.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there are a few times when a chairman faces dilemmas of this magnitude. I support the concept of more funds going to schools and to the Disabilities Act. If I make a point of order, and the Senator makes a motion to waive the point of order, I think that will carry. I think the Senate will vote to waive. I know that my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle would vote to make that money available and, obviously, I think Members on this side of the aisle think this is a way to somehow or another deal with the budget in a different way using the stabilization fund. The net result of the Senator's amendment, if the budget is waived, is that there will be $5 billion spent from the stabilization fund and that, in effect, would require our committee to go back and take $5 billion out of the nondefense side of the budget and rescind it. If we did not do that, our whole bill is subject to a point of order and the disaster money and the defense money that we so vitally need will not be available. I can tell the Senate, it would take me a week to find $5 billion in nondefense money that we could rescind for 1998. The Senator is aware, I am sure, that his amendment makes the money available in 1998. It says that in 1998 the administration is directed to spend $5 billion from the stabilization fund. At the time of the Mexico crisis, I did a study of the stabilization fund. It was created at the time the United States went off the gold standard, and someone in the Treasury decided that since we are off the gold standard, we ought to figure out what the gold in Fort Knox is worth, and they did. As the price of gold went up, the stabilization fund went up. It does not represent any capital in the sense of income that is saved; it represents the value of the gold in Fort Knox. Literally, in order to pay for the expenditures that the Senator's amendment would authorize, otherwise pressed, the Treasury would have to sell the gold in Fort Knox. Unfortunately, the value of that has gone down, and the stabilization fund may really not be worth as much as people think it is. In any event, this amendment has some strange quirks to it, as far as this bill is concerned. I do not want the Senate to waive the Budget Act, because if we waive the Budget Act, as I said, the whole bill is subject to a point of order. If we adopt the amendment, the bill is subject to a point of order similarly, in my opinion, unless we go back and take out the $5 billion that it would spend in 1998. I may be misinformed on that regard, but I know the effect of spending that kind of money would require us to go back and take the money out of existing accounts on the nondefense side. I think the Senate ought to have some time to think about this. I think the Senator ought to think about it, because it is not going to achieve the result the Senator seeks. It is not going to embarrass anybody on the Democratic side. They are going to vote for his amendment. It is not going to embarrass anyone on our side of the aisle; they are going to vote for the amendment. And it is not going to embarrass the administration; they want to spend that kind of money, $5 billion more money. As my grandmother said, it is money made of whole cloth. It is not there. It wasn't in the budget to start with and somehow that money will have to be accounted for in the budget process this year. I understand what the Senator from North Carolina is trying to do, but it is not going to achieve the result that he seeks. I can tell him I am informed the Democratic Members will vote for his amendment, as Democratic Members will vote to waive, as he seeks to make. The net result is the Senator will increase spending by $5 billion, unless we go back, as I said, and take $5 billion out of the nondefense side of the budget that is left to be taken out in the last 6 months of this year. I can tell the Senator, in order to do that, you have to take out about $15 billion, because we are talking about outlays, and it is just not possible this time of the year to get that kind of money without doing severe damage to a lot of programs, whether they be agriculture programs--they would be on the nondefense side. We cannot touch defense on this amendment. It is a nightmare, really. But it comes about because I understand Senators do not want to vote against the Senator's amendment, as he might have anticipated. They will not vote against this amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set the Senator's amendment aside to a time certain at 5 o'clock, and we will find some time to deal with it between now and then.