Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. That way, we will hear from the Senator from Idaho, the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith, and the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg.

Mr. THOMAS. Absolutely.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, the other Senator from New Hampshire will be here shortly. I thank my friends for talking about the issue. I think it is one that is clearly important to many of us. It is constitutional. It is right. It is something we all support. It is something, however, we don't want to constantly have before us as each new issue comes up. This can be brought up as an amendment or as a way of stalling going on to other things. I appreciate very much the opportunity to do this. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS. Absolutely.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I believe all of us want to find a better solution to illegal gun use. We intend to do that. People in my State believe more laws are not the answer, that, indeed, the enforcement of gun laws is the answer. We are pleased to see that the administration has finally added increased funding for the enforcement of existing gun laws--something we have been talking about over the last 7 years. The dollars alone, however, will not do it. There has to be some oversight. We have to make sure there is an effective use of law enforcement. Mr. President, I yield time to my friend from Idaho.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, unfortunately, one of the issues that continues to show up and seems to have nine lives--or more than nine, is the matter of gun control. We have seen it every session a number of times. I am sure we will see it again. I think it is something about which we ought to talk. I believe most people have come to the conclusion that the passage of additional laws is not going to make a great deal of difference in the behavior of criminals. Sadly, law abiding citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights are the ones who will be impacted by additional gun control laws. But it would not affect those who do not intend to abide by the law. Therefore, the idea of additional laws certainly is questionable. In my mind, it is not the direction we ought to take. Fortunately, I think the majority of people in this country also believed the passage of new laws is not the solution. We need to enforce the numerous gun laws that are on the books. Thankfully for our country, the President has not been able to carry out his continuing agenda of wanting more and more gun laws. But, regrettably, he has not been able to make enforcement more effective. More laws are not going to keep those who are willing to break the law from doing things illegally. Stronger enforcement of existing laws is the answer. The administration, however, has not presented such a program. Certainly, we need to move in that direction. When tragedies occur, as they did in Colorado and a number of other places, of course all of us wonder what we can do to ensure that these tragedies do not happen again. The first impulse in a legislative body is to pass more laws. Unfortunately, that is often the most political thing to do. But the fact of the matter is, in almost every instance numerous gun laws were broken when these terrible acts were committed. One might say, what advantage is there in passing more? Indeed, what we ought to be doing is talking about enforcement. As many of you know, the administration has been busy developing new gun control initiatives and additional laws--everything from threatening gun manufacturers with Federal lawsuits to mandatory licensing of new handgun purchases. Currently, there are 26 municipalities that have filed lawsuits against the gun industry, and they are shown on this chart. These lawsuits seek to make gun manufacturers liable for the criminal misuse of firearms. Interestingly enough, three cases have been thrown out by judges in Cincinnati, OH, Bridgeport, CT, and Miami-Dade County, FL. These cases are interesting. For instance these judges noted: . . . the City's complaint is an improper attempt to have this Court substitute its judgment for that of the legislature[.] Only the legislature has the power to engage in the type of regulation. . . . The city of Cincinnati. The plaintiffs have no statutory of common law basis to recoup their expenditures. . . . The city of Bridgeport. . . . the Plaintiffs have not directed this Court to any statute or case that would allow a city or county to proceed against a group of manufacturers. . . . Miami-Dade County, FL. The courts have pointed out municipal lawsuits are not the answer. Interestingly enough, the President has announced the Justice Department will pursue a similar lawsuit against the gun manufacturers on behalf of HUD. Basically, the Federal Government is trying to pressure gun manufacturers into settling their current cases. Once again, the action highlights the President's failure to pass gun control legislation. Instead of bringing forth legislation, he is seeking to go through the judiciary to do what he has been unable to accomplish in Congress. This next graph shows the results of a poll taken recently by CNN and USA Today. It was conducted between December 9 and 12 of last year. Let me read it: As you may know, the U.S. Justice Department is considering filing a lawsuit against the gun manufacture industry seeking to recover the costs associated with gun-related crimes. The companies that manufacture guns in the U.S. have stated the charges have no merit. Which side do you agree with more in this dispute: the Justice Department (or) the gun manufacturers? The result was, those who agreed with the lawsuit by Justice were 28 percent, and those who agreed the lawsuit had little merit were 67 percent. I really believe this poll reflects how American's feel about a government lawsuit against the gun industry. In the President's State of the Union address he spoke about the idea of having individual states regulate the sale of handguns by requiring a photo ID and documentation of the successful completion of a safety course--just to purchase a handgun. This is clearly another attempt by the President to tighten gun laws on law-abiding citizens. Of course, criminals do not register their guns. Enforcement, however, is how we get guns out of the hands of the criminals. Republicans have continued to support law enforcement efforts. Project Exile, for example, which has been put into place around the country, has dropped the murder rate in Richmond, Virginia by 30 percent each year that it has been in place. Unfortunately, President Clinton cannot say the same for his gun control efforts. This is a graph of ATF gun referrals, prosecutions, and convictions in 1992 and 1998. Between 1992 and 1998 ATF referrals for prosecution went down by 5,500 or 44 percent; prosecutions have dropped 40 percent; and, finally, convictions have dropped 31 percent. This graph shows just how tough the administration has been since 1992 regarding the enforcement of existing federal gun laws. Last year, I asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct an audit of the National Instant Check System (NICS). The system was put in place in November 1998 as phase 2 of the Brady Act. I asked the GAO for an audit to see if, indeed, it is operating as Congress intended it to. I am confident when the report is released--and it has not yet been released but will be very soon--we will have results that show the NICS has not been as effective as we hoped it would be. Lastly, since last November, there have been numerous news articles from around the country that highlight the publics disfavor with attempts by the President to add more gun control laws. I want to take a minute to highlight a couple of these. One is titled, it is the ``Wrong Approach,'' by the Cheyenne Tribune Eagle, which suggests: Since the President has been unable to ban individuals from owning guns, Mr. Clinton has decided to do an end run around the Constitution. That is the point of view of that particular paper. Another is titled, ``Gun Deaths, Injuries on Decline.'' This article speaks about a government study which shows that gun deaths have declined since the late 1960's. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print these articles in the Record.

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Idaho be allowed to speak and then the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith, and then the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, in that order.

Mr. THOMAS. Will it be possible to let Senator Smith speak for a couple of minutes and then Senator Gregg can wind up our hour? Mr. President, will that be all right?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are pleased to have a little time to talk about some of the issues that will come up, some of the issues that are on the agenda and some that are not. I appreciate the comments of my friend from Minnesota. Certainly that is an issue we are all interested in, and I appreciate the effort he is making on that.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I believe this next hour is allocated to the majority party, is that correct?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, in this coming session--which is going to be relatively short, as it always is on election years, but particularly this year--we have to focus if we intend to accomplish things. I hope we do. As is often the case in election years, there are times when people are more interested in creating the issue than they are in resolving the issue. I think we will see a considerable amount of that, of course, going out towards the Presidential election and trying to find the issues the party will be for--which is all part of the system. But I am hopeful we can concentrate and focus on the issues that we think are most important. We have had some experience, unfortunately in the last several weeks, and certainly even last year, that quite often the minority chose to bring up issues they knew would not be resolved but brought them up continuously to diffuse the issues on which we have been working. In this body, that is easy. One person very readily can hold up things, unless we can get 60 votes to do something different. In any event, I am hopeful that will not be the case. We are going to focus on some things that we have decided upon. This will be more refined as time goes on, but certainly education will be one. The issue of education, of course, is not whether we try to improve it, but how we fund those improvements. I do not believe that we should have one- size-fits-all regulations that come from some bureaucracy in Washington. We should distribute our education funding in a manner that allows the States and local school boards to make those decisions. Certainly the needs in Pinedale, WY, are going to be different than in Philadelphia. That is as it should be. We need to allow for this type of flexibility. Another area that we will be focusing on is health care. We did some work last year on strengthening Medicare, doing something particularly in rural areas so outpatient care can be better financed. We intend to continue to do that, at the same time doing whatever is necessary to ensure Medicare continues to provide the benefits it is designed to provide. Certainly one of the issues that will be difficult and controversial, yet I think most people want to do something about, is providing the opportunity for everyone to have pharmaceuticals available if they cannot afford them; hopefully to protect the programs we have now, to encourage and in fact assist people who now get their own supplementals, but be able to help those people who are not able to do that. Social Security will continue to be an area of great concern. We have made some progress in not spending Social Security money in the operational budget. However, that is not all that is necessary. If the young people who will start making Social Security payments at their first job can expect some benefits 30, 40, 50 years from now, then things will have to be done differently. Obviously, we have alternatives. We can increase taxes--but not many people are for that. Social Security payments are one of the highest taxes many people pay in the United States. We could reduce benefits--again, there is not much support for that. Or we could, indeed, increase the return on the money that is in a trust. We think that is an excellent idea, to provide individual accounts so at least a portion of the money that is in the fund would belong to you and belong to me. I suspect people over 50 or so would not see any difference, but younger people would have an account that would be theirs and, indeed, could be invested in equities for a much better return. So, along with reducing the debt, those are some of the things, with which we will be involved.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, many of us have just returned from the National Prayer Breakfast, and I certainly commend Senator Mack and others who were responsible for putting it together. It is one of the outstanding events of our year. And thanks, too, to the Chaplain for his work.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, today the Senate will immediately proceed to the vote on the confirmation of the nomination of Alan Greenspan. The leader would like to announce that this will be the only vote of the day. Following the vote, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business for general floor statements and bill introductions. As previously announced, the Senate will not be in session tomorrow to accommodate the Democrat conference meeting. On Monday, it is expected the Senate will begin consideration of S. 1052, the Mariana Islands legislation. And on Tuesday the Senate should begin debate on the nuclear waste bill. I thank my colleagues for their attention.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will take a little time to talk a bit about our agenda and the things I think most of us hope we will accomplish during this coming legislature. There are some who believe we won't accomplish much. It seems to me that is not a good prognosis. The fact is, we should put some priorities on the many issues that are there and, indeed, make a special effort to accomplish a good deal. I think we can. Many of the issues have been talked about a great deal already. We know what the backgrounds are. I think now our commitment is to decide what the priorities are for this country, what the priorities are for this Congress, and to set out to accomplish them. We heard the President last Thursday make a very long speech, including a very long list of ideas and things he is suggesting we consider. I don't believe he is suggesting certainly that they all be done. He knows very well that will not be the case. I think it is up to us, particularly the majority party, to establish an agenda of those things we believe are most important. I read in the paper that some Democrats in the House are saying we aren't going to accomplish anything unless we set the agenda, and we will talk our way through that. I am very disappointed in that kind of an idea. Of course, it is possible to continue to raise all these issues that one knows are not going anywhere. I suspect that is not a new idea even in this body. But we need to have a set of priorities. The President had 100-plus ideas that, I suppose, were set forth to lay out a political agenda, maybe largely for this election. That is fine. It is not a brand new idea. I am surprised the agenda pointed in a different direction than that with which the President has sought to characterize himself over the last several years. He talked about the leadership council and starting towards the center, saying, I think some time ago, that the era of big government is over. One would not have suspected that, as they listened last Thursday night to his view, that the era of big government is over. It was a very liberal agenda laid out, I am sure, for conduct of this session of Congress. I suggest that is not the direction we ought to take. Expenditures of some $400 billion in additional programs, $400 billion in spending, some $4 billion a minute during that process, with very little detail, of course, as to how it is done but, rather, here are the things we ought to do, sort of in a broad sense. We need to ensure that the description of what we are going to do does not interfere with us doing something. We have an agenda. Much of it I am hopeful the President will agree with and the Members on the other side of the aisle will agree with. Certainly I am not excited about the idea the minority party will set the agenda, just simply by the discussions that go on endlessly. When it comes to spending, of course, there are many of us in this body who were sent here by our constituents to see if we can't limit the growth of Government, and we have succeeded some in the last couple years. Even though it was a large one, the growth in last year's budget was something around 3 percent, which was about the inflation rate, which is considerably less than it has been over the last 10 years, where the rate has gone up much higher than that. Did we hold down spending enough? No, I don't believe so. To do that, we have to have a little different system this year. Hopefully, we will do that. I think we are already beginning to deal with the budget, with the appropriations, so that we don't end up at the end of the session with a huge bill that many people are not even familiar with all the content. So we need to do that. I am one who believes we ought to be setting about to hold down the size of the Federal Government rather than to expand it. I am one who believes there is a limit to the kinds of things the Federal Government is designed to do. I think that is very clear in the Constitution. We have exceeded that in many ways, but it is not too late to take a look at what we are doing and say, is that the appropriate thing for the Federal Government to do? Are these the things the Federal Government can do better than any other government? I don't think so. When we talk about States and the differences we have among States, certainly, I come from a State that is the eighth largest State in the Union, one of the smallest in population. Our needs and methods of delivery of health care, the management of public lands, all those things are quite different in Wyoming than they are in Rhode Island or Pennsylvania, and properly so, which seems to me to be a good indication that we should not be continuing to have the one-size-fits-all kind of Federal pronouncements from the Congress and from the bureaucracy in Washington. One of the things I hope we do over time is change our system to biennial budgeting, where we have a budget that lasts for 2 years. It seems to me it is very appropriate to do that. Most States do it that way. For one thing, the agencies then have a longer time to know what their spending restrictions are for a period of 2 years. Maybe more importantly, however, we have an opportunity to exercise the oversight which is the responsibility of Congress, which we don't do very well. Unfortunately, we spend so much of our time on appropriations and other things that the idea of ensuring that the laws which are passed are carried out consistent with the intent of the law is something we don't spend enough time doing. I want to come back to the floor next week and talk a little bit about that provision in, I think, a 1996 law which provides that regulations that are put together by the bureaucracies must come to the House and the Senate to be reviewed. Seldom does that ever happen. I think only one or two times has there been some kind of a motion to change those, and none have succeeded because the system is not workable. A great idea, and we have that in most legislatures where there is oversight of the legislature by the regulations that come out to augment the laws that have been passed. We don't do that here. So we ought to hold down spending. We ought to have smaller Government. We ought to seek to review the kinds of things the Federal Government has involved itself in and ensure that there are reasonable things that are best done here. That doesn't mean there isn't a role for government. Of course there is. But often that role can be best implemented at the State and local level. We need to talk about reducing the Federal debt in a real way. We have been doing some work on that for the first time in 40 years, I think. We have not spent Social Security. We balanced the budget for the first time in 25 years. We are using Social Security money to pay down the publicly held debt, which is a good idea. It reduces the cost of that debt. It takes the Social Security money out of the opportunity to be spent. That is good. Nevertheless, the key there is that it is reducing publicly held debt. We are replacing one debt with another kind of debt. When these young people are eligible for benefits from Social Security, those dollars that have been put into a trust fund to replace debt will have to be recovered from the taxpayers at that time. So we need to do something more than that. In my opinion, we ought to set about to figure out some kind of a process over a period of time that we commit ourselves to a payment each year to pay off the debt out of operating funds, that we do it much like a mortgage on your home. We can decide that we will pay off $15 billion, or whatever it is, each year, and do that over a period of time. That would be real debt reduction. That would be reduction that would help to keep the so-called surplus from being spent to increase the size of Government. So we can do that and reduce our debt in a real way. We also, hopefully, will pursue--when we have a surplus--what are considered to be the real needs of the Federal Government, and after we secure Social Security and pay down some of the debt, that money will then be returned to the taxpayers so it can be used to buoy the economy. Otherwise, frankly, the money left floating around is going to be spent. If you don't like the concept of increasingly large Government, when there is money beyond what there is a target for, then it ought to be sent back to the people who paid it in in the beginning. What are the priorities? They are pretty clear. They have been the same for several years and will continue to be. I think that is where we ought to focus. Certainly, most people would consider education to be the issue we are most concerned with--having an opportunity for all young people to have an education. Obviously, money is not the total answer. There has to be accountability, training, and there have to be things that happen within the school system in addition to money. You can't do it without money, however; it is essential. Health care is one issue, obviously, about which everybody is concerned. We are trying to do some things about that. We need to continue to do that. I am proud of the health care system we have in this country, certainly in terms of quality. On the other hand, we have to start to be a little careful about what that quality costs-- affordability. But we can do some things about the health care. Social Security. There is no question but that we have to change Social Security if we are to have it for these young people who start to pay in the very moment they get a job, and most of whom now don't expect to have benefits in 30, 40, 50 years. We need to change it so that the benefits will be there. There are several alternatives that can be used to change that. Certainly there needs to be a continued reduction in taxes. In education, I am proud of what we have done so far. This GOP Congress provided more funding in the last year than the President requested. We did get into a hassle, of course, about how the money is spent. You may recall the President insisted it be spent on 100,000 teachers. I can tell you, there are schools where I live where additional teachers are not the issue; there are other things that need to be done. So we need to give the flexibility to the State and local school boards as to how they spend the money to strengthen education. We will insist on that being part of the system we produce this year. The elementary and secondary education bill this year, I hope, will be passed for safe schools and keeping the parents involved, and particularly making sure that all children have a chance for quality education. I am interested, of course, in access to education in rural communities. I am also particularly, for a number of reasons, and personally interested in special education for special kids. My wife has been a special education teacher for 25 years, and I am very proud of that. Education will be one issue we will continue to press on. Health care, of course, we will continue to have on our agenda, and it will be one of the most important things we pass. We passed a number of things last year. In my State, for example, in small towns, we have hospitals that won't be able to have a full series of services and up until now could not be certified and did not receive dollars from HCFA. We changed that so they can be something much like a clinic and have emergency care, so patients can be transferred on--sort of a wheel-and-hub concept. We did that last year. Certainly, we need to increase the funding for Medicare and hospitals and all kinds of service providers. A Patients' Bill of Rights, we will be working to try to do something on that. The controversy basically is how you have appeals. There have been changes, apparently, on the part of the health care providers, managed care providers, to provide more medical decisionmaking in the process, which is exactly what we need, rather than legal or nonmedical accounting kinds of decisions. So we need to pass that this year. I feel confident we will. It will be a priority. I also believe we will make some real progress--and it is time to make progress--with regard to pharmaceuticals. We can do that. Actually, health care is something of which we should be quite proud. We have the greatest health care in the world. We also have great problems with the rising costs of health care. There are problems with HMOs and access to some breakthrough drugs. We have too many uninsured. Despite that, we have great health care, and I think it is largely because we continue to keep it in the private sector. We need to ensure that our seniors can continue to have Medicare and that it covers their needs. We probably need to look at another change, some structural changes, so that there are choices there, where a Medicare recipient can stay where they are if they like or, indeed, set up a little like the Federal health program, where you have some choices. If you would like to add dollars to it, you can go to a different coverage than the basic one you had. I think we can do that. I mentioned the bill of rights. It looks as if we will be able to resolve that this time, the emphasis being on decisions being made by medical providers as opposed to the economic people in the managed care system. We will be doing more research, of course, on insured, which continues to be a problem we will be able to persist with, I believe; and I don't think we will solve that by just putting a ton of money out there without making some changes. I mentioned education, of course, and we will continue to work at that. I think our focus will continue to be funding with local decisions being made. Social Security. I think there are resolutions on Social Security. Whether we will get to it this year, I don't know. I hope so. I think we should. Almost everyone agrees that if we continue to do what we have been doing, we won't be able to pay the benefits at the end of this period. Much of it is simply the change in the structure of our society. I think when we started Social Security back in the thirties, there were 25 or 30 people working for every beneficiary. Now there are three. We are readily on the way to having two. So a change would be substantially in the nature of how we pay for Social Security. One of the opportunities of change, of course, would be to decrease benefits. Not many people are for that. Some would say we could increase taxes. The Social Security tax is the largest tax that most people pay these days. The third one is to increase the return we have on the money in the trust fund. It seems to me to be a very logical opportunity for us to take a portion of the money people pay in--I think the caveat is that probably for most people over 50 or 55 it would not change; they would continue to go on as they are, but for younger people who are starting to pay in, part of their Social Security payment would be put into an individual account that is owned by that person. It would be invested in their behalf by contractors and it would be invested in equities. It could be in equities. It could be in bonds. It could be a combination of that, such as the plan for Federal employees. You could raise substantially the return on that money. Over a period of a person's lifetime of paying in, it would make a great deal of difference and probably ensure that those benefits would be there at the end of a period of time. Significant change? Sure. Difficult to make? Of course. But it can be made. When you get to the options, then at least in my judgment that could become the option. Those are some of the things I think are most important to us. We find ourselves now faced with a great opportunity to put together a priority agenda for this year. The majority party will be doing that and has done that. It will include education. It will include health care. It will include Social Security. It will include paying down the debt. It will include some kind of tax relief on an equitable basis. It seems to me that those are the things we ought to put in as priorities. It is great to list the whole thing. It is great to go into great debates and filibusters almost by offering everything on the floor that you know is not going to happen, but I am hopeful we do not find ourselves in the position of raising issues more for the political benefit they might have in the election year as opposed to finding resolutions to those issues. It seems to me that is the challenge that lies before us. I am very pleased to be joined during this hour by one of the leaders of our party, the chairman of our Policy Committee, the Senator from Idaho. I yield to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Idaho. Certainly, we share all those thoughts and ideas. I want to expand in the few minutes we have remaining in our allotment of time the public land issue the Senator mentioned. Public lands, of course, are very important to those of us in the West. As was pointed out, 1 out of every 4 acres in this country is owned by the public. My State of Wyoming is 50-percent owned by the Federal Government. Idaho is some 63-percent owned by the Federal Government. Nevada is 83-percent owned by the Federal Government. The management of these lands then, rightfully, is a public issue and one with which all of us need to be concerned. It would not be a surprise to know that some of the issues with regard to the management of those lands are seen differently by the people who live there and who have access to the lands as opposed to those who equally own them and live many miles away. The fact is it is a public issue and it deserves public input. There is a system that has been set up by the Congress and happens to be followed by everyone, except the administration, which allows for public input. It requires that all ideas be set forth so that they can be considered and there can be statements made on all these issues. Sometimes it takes an excruciatingly long time to do it, but nevertheless it is a vital concept. Now, of course, we have a different thing going on in the administration. They call it a land legacy, an effort by the President in these remaining months to leave a Teddy Roosevelt land legacy for himself and his administration. In so doing, he has done a number of things quite different from what we have seen done before and, quite frankly, has created a good deal of controversy, particularly in the West. There are different kinds of lands, of course, set out for different purposes. I happen to be chairman of the Parks Subcommittee, so I am very interested in that. I grew up right outside of Yellowstone National Park. As you know, Wyoming has several famous national parks. We are very proud of them. Those lands were set aside for a particular purpose. They were set aside because they were unique and they were different. They are used for a limited number of purposes. We have the forest reserve which, by its nature, was set aside, was reserved for special uses. Although there are many, part of them are wilderness areas set aside by the Congress in specific acts that limit the use, and properly so, in my view. Then there is the Bureau of Land Management, which has a very large section of lands. Those lands, rather than having been set aside for some particular purpose, were generally what was left after the Homestead Act was completed. They were sort of residual lands that were managed, first of all, by a different agency but now by the Bureau of Land Management--clearly multiple use lands. They are used for many things. These are the kinds of things we have. We have seen suddenly a rush for doing something in public lands. The system being used now by the administration completely ignores the Congress, which should have a say in these kinds of things, and as a matter of fact generally ignores people. One of them is the 40 million acres of roadless areas nationwide that were declared by the Forest Service. Frankly, I have no particular quarrel with the idea of taking a look at roadless areas in the forests, but each forest has a very extensive, very expensive, very important forest plan, a process that has been gone through that requires studies, that requires proposed regulation, that requires statements, that requires hearings. That is where those things ought to be done rather than having one EIS over the whole Nation, not for the Secretary of Agriculture to just come out and declare that there are going to be 40 million acres, and not even knowing exactly where they are. As a matter of fact, we had a hearing with the Secretary and with the Chief of the Forest Service in which they could tell us very little about it. Another is the $1 billion from offshore oil royalties that the administration has asked to be given to it to spend, without the approval of Congress, to acquire additional lands. As the Senator from Idaho said, in the Western States the acquisition of new lands is not the issue. The care of those lands, the investment in parks, the investment in forests is where we ought to be, in my view. The Antiquities Act, which is a legitimate act, has been on the books since 1905. Teddy Roosevelt put it there. As a matter of fact, Devils Tower, in my State, was put in by the Antiquities Act and was part of Teton National Park. But times have changed, and we understand now the President is going to have 18 different land areas changed in their designation without, really, any hearings--we had one last year in Utah that the Governor and the congressional delegation did not even know about until it was done. That is not the way to do these kinds of things. They have a proposal to change the way the Land and Water Conservation Fund is allocated. It was set up by Congress to go half and half--State and national. Now the administration wants to spend all that money for land acquisition. BLM now has a nationwide roadless plan in which there is very little, if any, input. They have the Clean Water Action Plan, which is something done by EPA, which has to do with the control of water, which is really a way of controlling land. Each of these things probably has some merit, but they ought to be examined. They ought to go through the system. They ought to be talked about. They ought to be agreed to, rather than imposed unilaterally by an administration. We can preserve public lands, and, indeed, we should: they are a legacy for us. We can have multiple use on those lands. We need them for the communities. We can have public involvement. That is the way it ought to be. We can have cooperating agency agreements in which the State and the local communities ought to have a real voice in doing this. I hope we do not politicize public lands simply because it is an election year, to the distraction of public use, to the distraction of the economies that surround them. The purpose of public lands is to preserve the resources and give a chance for the owners to enjoy it. The owners, of course, are the taxpayers. It is an issue on which I think we will have more and more input throughout the year. I hope we do. Mr. President, our time is nearly expired. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. What section are we in now, Mr. President?

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I wanted to take some time, since we have a little on our hands this morning, to talk about an issue that continues to be very important for our part of the country, the West. The Presiding Officer comes from a State that is similar to Wyoming. The ownership of land by the Federal Government continues to be an issue, and I think it is more of an issue now than it has been in the past, largely because of some of the actions in recent times by the administration of not only obtaining more land for the Federal Government but also changing some of the management techniques. This issue, of course, has been one of controversy for a long time within the West. The West has large amounts of land that belongs to the Federal Government. So when you develop the economy of your State, management of the lands has a great deal to do with it. In Wyoming, for example, the three leading economic activities are agriculture, minerals, and tourism, all of which have a great deal to do with public resources, with lands. So it is one of the most important issues with which we deal. It is interesting to see the percentages of Federal land holdings by State. As shown on this chart, you can see that here in the East generally 1 to 5 percent of the lands are federally owned. When you get to the West, it becomes 35 to 65 percent and as high as 87 percent in some States. So when you talk about how you operate an economy in New Jersey or in North Carolina, it is quite different. When you talk about public lands, it is seen quite differently. The impact in States such as that is relatively minor, where the impact in the West is much greater. Look at Alaska, for example. It makes a great deal of difference. There are several kinds of lands, of course, and nobody argues with the idea that the purpose of dealing with these public lands is to preserve the resources. All of us want to do that. The second purpose, however, is to allow for its owners, the American people, who use them, to have access to these lands for hunting, fishing, grazing, timber-- all of the things that go with multiple use and healthy public lands. Really, that is where we are. No one argues about the concept of these resources, but there is great argument about the details of how you do it. One of the things that is happening now--and part of it is in the appropriations bills that will be before us tomorrow--relates to the purchase of lands and changing some of the management techniques so the lands become less accessible to the people who live there, less a part of the society of these States. It is difficult to see on this chart, but this is Wyoming, where over 50 percent of the land belongs to the Federal Government. The green colors are Forest Service lands which were set aside by action of the Congress, action of the Federal Government, for specific purposes, and we still fulfill those purposes. Some of the lands were set aside as wilderness. When the wilderness was set aside, others were proclaimed to be for multiple use. Before that changed from multiple use to wilderness, it said specifically in the Wyoming wilderness bill that Congress had to act on it. The red area is Federal lands, Indian reservations. Yellow is the BLM lands. The light green in the corners is national parks which were set aside for a very specific purpose. That purpose continues to be one that is very close to the hearts of the American People. I happen to be chairman of the parks subcommittee and work on those very much. The yellow--the majority of the public lands in our State, as is the case with most other Western States--is Bureau of Land Management lands. Interestingly enough, when the Homestead Act was in place and people were taking homesteads in the West, BLM lands were basically residual lands, not set aside for any particular purpose. They were simply there when the homestead expired, and they are there now to be managed for multiple use. Let me go back to the notion that this is what has created some of the current controversy--the fact that these lands change when they are used differently. Congress should have a role in this. This is not a monarchy, a government where the President can decide suddenly he is going to acquire more lands without the authority of the Congress. That is kind of where we are now. There are several of these programs that are threatening to the West, including the concept of the Federal Government's intrusion into the whole of society in States in the West. A number of things are happening. One is the so-called ``land legacy'' that the administration is pushing. It is an idea presented by the President--I think largely by Vice President Gore--that the Federal Government somehow should own a great deal more land than it owns now. Indeed, they have asked for a set-aside from the offshore royalties of a billion dollars a year to acquire more lands. In many cases, their idea is not to have any involvement of the Congress at all but simply to allow them to have this money set aside, without the appropriations process, so that they can purchase additional lands each year. A portion of that is in this year's Interior program, but the big one, of course, is still controversial in the Congress, and it was being dealt with in the House last week or the week before. So the question is, if there is to be more Federal land, where should it be? The other is, if there is to be more, what is the role of Congress to authorize it and appropriate funds for that as opposed to having a sort of monarchy set-aside to do that. The other, of course, in my view, has to do with the use of these dollars. We talked about the parks. That is one of the things. We have 378 parks, or units, managed by the Park Service in this country; they are very important to Americans. The infrastructure in many of them needs to be repaired and updated. I argue this money that might be available from these kinds of sources ought to be used for the infrastructure of these parks so that we can continue to support the maintenance and availability of enjoyable visits for the American people. I believe we need to do that. Another that has come along more recently is a pronouncement by the Forest Service that they would like to set aside 40 million acres in the forest as ``roadless.'' Nobody knows what ``roadless'' means. Is that a synonym for wilderness? We don't know. We had a hearing to try to get that answered by the Secretary of Agriculture and by the Chief of the Forest Service. We were unable to do so. Many people I know believe that would limit the access and would not allow people to hunt, for example, in places where they aren't able to walk because they are elderly, or whatever the reason, and that it will be most difficult to have a healthy forest, where you cannot remove some of the trees that are matured and, rather, let them die or let insects infect them. These are the kinds of things that are of great concern. There is also what is called an action plan, the conservation of water action plan, which seems to be put forth by EPA and other agencies more to control management of the land than clean water. The clean water action plan says you can do certain things and you cannot do certain things. The key is there needs to be participation by people who live there. There needs to be some participation in cooperating agencies, participation with the State, participation with the agencies there, so we can work together to preserve the resource but also preserve access to those resources and continue to allow them to be part of the recreational economy in our States. There are other programs that also put at risk the opportunity to use these lands, such as endangered species, about which there is a great controversy in terms of whether there is a scientific basis for the listing of endangered species, whether there are, in fact, ways to delist endangered species when it is proven there has been a recovery in terms of numbers. You can argue forever about that. These all go together to make public lands increasingly more difficult for owner utilization. I guess one of the reasons that is difficult--and people who work with these problems are basically in the minority--is that the Western States are the ones that have almost all Federal ownership. With respect to some of the things we might do with regard to the land legacy and the idea of putting money aside for public land purchase, we are prepared to try to put in this bill some sort of protection and say we ought not, in States that have more than 25 percent of their surface owned by the Federal Government, to have any net gain--that there may be things the Federal Government ought to acquire because they have a unique aspect to them, but they can also dispose of some so that there is no net increase. I think that is a reasonable thing to do and one we ought to pursue. In terms of endangered species, it is very difficult to do anything with a law that has been in place for 20 years. We have 20 years of experience as to how to better manage it. Everyone wants to preserve these species. But they shouldn't have to set aside private and public lands to do that. We believe if we would require more science in terms of nomination and listing--and indeed, when a species is listed, to have a recovery plan at the same time--that would be very important. One of the other activities is the Natural Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, a program in which there are studies designed to allow people to participate in decisions. Is that a good idea? Studies could absolutely go on forever. We are faced currently, for example, with the problem in grazing. Obviously, you have a renewable resource, grass. It is reasonable to have grazing. You have that on BLM forest lands. Now we find in this case that, under BLM, you can get through the NEPA process to renew a contract, and they say: Too bad; your contract is dead, unless we can get to it, and we can't. We are trying to change that. It is an unreasonable thing to do. If there is all of this difficulty with the agency, we ought to change that. Indeed, there is language in this year's appropriations bill to do something about it. I think we are faced with trying to find the best way to deal in the future with public lands. In States where there is 50 percent or more of land in Federal ownership, there is no reason we can't continue to protect those resources; that we can't continue to utilize those lands in a reasonable way; that we can't involve people locally in the States in making these decisions and making shared judgments. We can do that. Unfortunately, we find this administration moving in the other direction--moving further way from working with NEPA. We hear about all of these kinds of partnerships. A partnership means there is some equality in working together. That is not the kind of partnership we hear a lot about from the Federal agency. I am hopeful that there can be. We are very proud of these resources: Yellowstone Park, Devil's Tower--all kinds of great resources in Wyoming. Here is where I grew up, near the Shoshone Forest. I am delighted there is a forest there. It should be, and it should continue to be there. But we need to have a cooperative management process to do that. I am committed. I am also committed to working toward that in the coming session. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, today I join Senator Enzi in introducing legislation that will give small businesses more flexibility in how they choose to operate. One of the most important decisions for the founder of a business is ``choice of entity,'' whether to operate the business through a corporation, partnership, limited liability company or other form of business. This choice is plainly important for reaching business goals, and may be critical to the survival of the business. For the family business, the choice also is inseparable from the owner's preferences as to how the owner wants to relate to family co-owners. Choice of entity is therefore potentially one of the most important decisions for an owner. The law concerning choice of entity has changed enormously in the last decade, particularly with the widespread adoption of laws authorizing the limited liability company (LLC). As a result, business owners have more flexibility in this area than ever before. Even so, older family businesses operated as S corporations may be ``locked'' into the corporate form, simply because of the tax cost of changing to another form. These businesses are thus unable to take advantages of the recent advancements in choice of entity. In order to help these older businesses remain competitive with their younger rivals, the bill Senator Enzi and I introduce today will allow a one-time election for an S corporation to change to another form of business without incurring the normal tax cost of doing so. Thousands of corporations have elected subchapter S status since President Eisenhower signed into law the Technical Amendments Act of 1958, which added subchapter S to the code. The legislative history makes clear that the purpose of subchapter S was to offer simplified tax rules for the small and family-owned business operating in the corporate form. Until the rise of the LLC in the mid 1990's, the S corporation remained, for all practical purposes, the sole means for a small or family business to obtain the benefits of limited liability without the complex corporate tax. For many years, a change to another form of business was relatively easy. But by the time an alternative to the S corporation became widely available, this avenue had been foreclosed by changes to the tax code. Thus thousands of S corporations are saddled with the cumbersome and inflexible rules of the corporate form. The Internal Revenue Code itself reflects a policy of respecting economic reality over form in the conduct of a trade or business. For example, Section 1031, which existed even in 1939, allows nonrecognition of gain or loss in the exchange of property used in a trade or business, or for investment, on the theory that the taxpayer has not cashed out his investment. Code Sections 351 and 721 allow nonrecognition on the contribution of property to a corporation or a partnership, on the rationale that the taxpayer is only changing the form of his investment. The S election itself was a giant stride in removing tax considerations in choice of entity. More recently, the Internal Revenue Service has done much to remove tax considerations from the choice of business form through the check the box regulations. The Service should be commended for taking this step. The next step in the process is allowing those S corporations that can more efficiently function as an LLC the one-time chance to make the conversion, without tax cost being the controlling factor. Until these conversions can be accomplished, the task of reducing the role of taxes in choosing a business form will remain unfinished. I look forward to working with Senator Roth and the other members of the Senate Finance Committee so we may take action on this measure as soon as possible.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, today I join Senator Enzi in introducing legislation that will give small businesses more flexibility in how they choose to operate. One of the most important decisions for the founder of a business is ``choice of entity,'' whether to operate the business through a corporation, partnership, limited liability company or other form of business. This choice is plainly important for reaching business goals, and may be critical to the survival of the business. For the family business, the choice also is inseparable from the owner's preferences as to how the owner wants to relate to family co-owners. Choice of entity is therefore potentially one of the most important decisions for an owner. The law concerning choice of entity has changed enormously in the last decade, particularly with the widespread adoption of laws authorizing the limited liability company (LLC). As a result, business owners have more flexibility in this area than ever before. Even so, older family businesses operated as S corporations may be ``locked'' into the corporate form, simply because of the tax cost of changing to another form. These businesses are thus unable to take advantages of the recent advancements in choice of entity. In order to help these older businesses remain competitive with their younger rivals, the bill Senator Enzi and I introduce today will allow a one-time election for an S corporation to change to another form of business without incurring the normal tax cost of doing so. Thousands of corporations have elected subchapter S status since President Eisenhower signed into law the Technical Amendments Act of 1958, which added subchapter S to the code. The legislative history makes clear that the purpose of subchapter S was to offer simplified tax rules for the small and family-owned business operating in the corporate form. Until the rise of the LLC in the mid 1990's, the S corporation remained, for all practical purposes, the sole means for a small or family business to obtain the benefits of limited liability without the complex corporate tax. For many years, a change to another form of business was relatively easy. But by the time an alternative to the S corporation became widely available, this avenue had been foreclosed by changes to the tax code. Thus thousands of S corporations are saddled with the cumbersome and inflexible rules of the corporate form. The Internal Revenue Code itself reflects a policy of respecting economic reality over form in the conduct of a trade or business. For example, Section 1031, which existed even in 1939, allows nonrecognition of gain or loss in the exchange of property used in a trade or business, or for investment, on the theory that the taxpayer has not cashed out his investment. Code Sections 351 and 721 allow nonrecognition on the contribution of property to a corporation or a partnership, on the rationale that the taxpayer is only changing the form of his investment. The S election itself was a giant stride in removing tax considerations in choice of entity. More recently, the Internal Revenue Service has done much to remove tax considerations from the choice of business form through the check the box regulations. The Service should be commended for taking this step. The next step in the process is allowing those S corporations that can more efficiently function as an LLC the one-time chance to make the conversion, without tax cost being the controlling factor. Until these conversions can be accomplished, the task of reducing the role of taxes in choosing a business form will remain unfinished. I look forward to working with Senator Roth and the other members of the Senate Finance Committee so we may take action on this measure as soon as possible.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. That is correct. I was one of 23 signatories of a letter dated April 16, 1999, that provides several reasons why unilateral tariff reductions should be avoided. First, wool fabric similar to the foreign imported product, subject to tariffs, is already available from domestic producers. Second, this is not the appropriate time to address accelerated tariff reductions as wool fabric tariffs are currently being reduced at the multilateral level. U.S. producers and textile companies have made investments and based business decisions on trade negotiations that were reached under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). If we are to consider additional tariff reductions, those discussions should occur during trade negotiations, instead of being legislated on the floor of the U.S. Senate. U.S. manufacturers are the only customers domestic wool growers have; virtually no wool is exported. Wyoming is the second largest wool producing state and because of already depressed wool prices, our growers can not break even, let alone turn a profit. Accelerating wool fabric tariff cuts, at this time, will only further decrease fiber prices and sales, consequently putting U.S. wool growers and textile workers at risk. I thank my colleague, Senator Lieberman, for his work on this crucial issue.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce a bill today to provide for the conveyance of economic development land for Park County, WY. The management of our public lands and natural resources is often complicated and requires the coordination of many individuals to accomplish desired objectives. When western folks discuss Federal land issues, we do not often have an opportunity to identify proposals that capture and enjoy the support from a wide array of interests; however, the bill Senator Enzi and I are introducing today offers just such a unique prospect. Project coordinators and involved parties have spent a great deal of time incorporating the concerns of various individuals by presenting their plans to agency and congressional representatives. This parcel of land was identified by the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation as an unsuitable area for public domain and the agencies have recommended that it be disposed of by the Federal Government. The Park County Commissioners subsequently approached the Wyoming Congressional Delegation about allowing the county to pursue economic development efforts that would be beneficial to the local town and surrounding communities. Specifically, this legislation is needed to allow the Federal Government to sell approximately 190 acres of land to Park County, WY for the appraised value of $240,000. The county commissioners intend to work with an economic development group to attract new businesses to the area and allow other companies to expand at an industrial park adjacent to the conveyance land. Mr. President, this bill enjoys the support of many different groups including county government officials as well as the local community. This proposal will provide for the creation of a number of private sector jobs in a county that has 82 percent Federal land ownership. It is my hope that the Senate will seize this opportunity to allow a local community to improve their livelihoods and economic prospects. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce a bill today to provide for the conveyance of economic development land for Park County, WY. The management of our public lands and natural resources is often complicated and requires the coordination of many individuals to accomplish desired objectives. When western folks discuss Federal land issues, we do not often have an opportunity to identify proposals that capture and enjoy the support from a wide array of interests; however, the bill Senator Enzi and I are introducing today offers just such a unique prospect. Project coordinators and involved parties have spent a great deal of time incorporating the concerns of various individuals by presenting their plans to agency and congressional representatives. This parcel of land was identified by the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation as an unsuitable area for public domain and the agencies have recommended that it be disposed of by the Federal Government. The Park County Commissioners subsequently approached the Wyoming Congressional Delegation about allowing the county to pursue economic development efforts that would be beneficial to the local town and surrounding communities. Specifically, this legislation is needed to allow the Federal Government to sell approximately 190 acres of land to Park County, WY for the appraised value of $240,000. The county commissioners intend to work with an economic development group to attract new businesses to the area and allow other companies to expand at an industrial park adjacent to the conveyance land. Mr. President, this bill enjoys the support of many different groups including county government officials as well as the local community. This proposal will provide for the creation of a number of private sector jobs in a county that has 82 percent Federal land ownership. It is my hope that the Senate will seize this opportunity to allow a local community to improve their livelihoods and economic prospects. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.