Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. It is my understanding that there are criminal trials pending. Could the Senator share with us the timetable with respect to these trials?

Mr. THOMAS. What about the October 2, 1995, letter Senator Sarbanes made reference to yesterday? Is it the special committee's intention to move forward without regard to the independent counsel's investigation?

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, let me say, first of all, that I enter into this debate and discussion from a little different point of view. I have not been a member of this committee, and I have not indeed followed it real closely. But I am very interested in it. I understand there is a purpose for this committee action. The purpose is to discover what the facts are. So I am a little surprised when they argue that we ought to stop, put a limit on it, when we have not completed what the purpose of it was, which was to find facts. I must tell you that I did have a little brush with it in the House last year. I was on the Banking Committee. Somebody talked about Mr. Gonzalez's report. He would not let us do anything last year. We were stonewalled. So I was excited when the Senate went forward with an opportunity to do something. I know a little about that because I was there. So I say I am surprised, and I am not sure I should be surprised. I know that the minority sort of acted like defense counsel here instead of asking questions. I do have a couple of points. Mr. President, if I might ask, I am curious about the work of the independent counsel and its effect on the committee's work specifically and if the criminal investigations into Whitewater have impeded the congressional efforts to get all the facts about Whitewater.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to speak in morning business.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to talk more specifically about this coming year, and, frankly, some about the past year, this coming year in terms of the agenda that is set for this country, the agenda that is set for this Congress, more specifically for the Senate, the agenda that is set for the American people and the things that need to be a priority for us as we move forward in this important, important year. Last year, we talked about a number of things. We talked about a number of issues, largely as a result of, I think, what the voters had said to us in 1994. They said the Federal Government is too large, it costs too much, and we are overregulated. Obviously, that is a simplistic analysis, but I think it is true. I just spent 2 weeks in my State of Wyoming, as you have, Mr. President, and I think that message continues to resonate. We are talking about doing things that are important for American families. We are talking about doing things that will help bring up the wages and the level of living of Americans, which has slowed. We are talking about balancing the budget, because balancing the budget is the moral and fiscal thing to do, it is the responsible thing to do, but it also has results. It lowers interest rates. It helps create jobs, so it has an impact on each of us. We are talking about reducing spending. Certainly, most everyone would agree that this Government has expanded far beyond what we ever thought it would. We celebrated Abraham Lincoln's birthday over the last several weeks. One of the things that President Lincoln said is that the Federal Government ought to do for the people those things they cannot better do for themselves in their own communities, and that is still true. We need to evaluate what we do and see if we have gotten away from that concept. We need to talk about regulatory reform. The Senator from North Dakota was talking about the difficulty of competing in the world. Part of that is because we have made doing business so very expensive. It is not that we want to do away with regulatory protection--we can do that--but we can do it much more efficiently and do it in less costly ways. We need to talk about welfare reform, partly because of the costs, partly because all of us want to help people who need help, but we want to help them help themselves and do it in the most efficient way that we can. So, Mr. President, I guess what I am saying is that those concepts still exist, and we need to continue to push to do that. We have not been able to bring to closure some of these things that we have tried to do over the past year, largely because most of them have been vetoed by the White House. Many of them have been opposed by our friends on the other side of the aisle. Balancing the budget: We came within one vote of getting a constitutional amendment to ensure that the budget would be balanced. We need to continue to do that. I think that is a critical item for our future, for our kids and for our grandkids. We have made some progress in reducing spending, but we need to tie that in to the future so that through the changing of entitlements that will continue. If we do not do it, it will be right back up. Regulatory reform passed this Senate. We have not been able to get it past the White House. So the results, Mr. President, have been that we have had slower growth. Unfortunately, we hear these reports in the State of the Union that this is the best economy in 30 years. Sorry, but when you examine it, it is not very good. We had 1.9 percent growth last year. In the last quarter, we had a .9 percent growth. If I had charts like the Senator from North Dakota, I could show you the earlier years, in the eighties and prior to that, growth was more commonly in the neighborhood of 3.5 to 4 percent. That reflects in the ability of families to earn a living, a living with which they can support their families. Mr. President, I hope that we can establish a priority, an agenda for this year, and I hope that we can spend our time on that; that we can move forward. I am not discouraged by the fact that we did not come to closure last year. On the contrary, I am encouraged with the fact that we are now talking about a balanced budget. Two years ago, we were talking about a budget that had a $200 billion deficit, as far out as you could see. We have not talked about regulatory reform before. We are now talking about that. So we have changed the discussion in this body, and I think we need to pursue that. I think we need to do it for economic growth. We need to do it so that people in this country and wage earners can enjoy the same kind of prosperity that we have had in years past. We do that, I think, by some tax relief, capital gains tax relief that encourages investment and encourages the economy to grow. We need to do it by regulatory relief so that businesses will have more money to pay. There will be more jobs and more competition, which causes wages to go up. We need to have a balanced budget so we are not only fiscally responsible but so we can bring and keep interest rates down so there will be encouragement for investment. After all, the real role of economics in this country is for the Federal Government to establish an environment in which the private sector can function. That should be our priority for this year. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs to express my grave concern at recent reports regarding the sale or transfer by the People's Republic of China of nuclear technology to third countries. It has been widely reported in the domestic press that the U.S. intelligence agencies have thoroughly credible evidence that these sales have occurred; I have seen some of this evidence myself, as have many of my colleagues, and find it to be overwhelming. In the past, we have seen evidence of missile sales to Pakistan, and the transfer of certain nuclear technology to Iran, in violation of United States law and international nuclear agreements. The most recent reports involved the sale of over 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan. These magnets are component parts of centrifuges used to enrich uranium to make it weapons-grade. The magnets are made of a highly advanced alloy, and according to experts will significantly enhance Pakistan's nuclear program by allowing its laboratory at Kahuta to upgrade its centrifuges at the rate of between 1,000 and 2,000 per year. The People's Republic of China has not denied that the sale took place. Somewhat inconsistently, Pakistan categorically denies these reports. Mr. President, Karachi's denials ring completely hollow. How many times did the Pakistani Government deny that it was pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, only to have the United States produce irrefutable evidence to the contrary? How many times did they assure us that they had no such intentions, only to be caught sneaking behind our backs doing the precise things they denied? Mr. President, one hates to use the word ``lie,'' but as the saying goes--if the shoe fits. Almost more troubling than the sales themselves, Mr. President, is what is shaping up to be the Clinton administration's completely inadequate response to the sales. Under U.S. law, we are required to impose a variety of sanctions on any nation selling nuclear weapons technology in violation of nonproliferation commitments. Only if the President states that requirement because of the national interest are the sanctions waived. Here, we have solid evidence that the People's Republic of China has violated its agreements in this regard. The failure to impose the sanctions required by our laws, I believe, is a mistake of the greatest magnitude. I can think of no worse signal to send the Chinese Government than for us to draw a line in the sand, have them cross it, and for us to shrug it off and say ``now don't do that again.'' The Chinese are quick to pick up on occasions when we fail to stick to our guns, and only see it as encouragement. This is why I have been so supportive of U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor. He has told the Chinese in the trade arena that if they do not abide by their agreements, there will be a price to pay. And, when necessary, he has moved steadfastly to impose that price in the form of sanctions. The Chinese, recognizing the strength of such a position, have subsequently backed down and honored their agreements. For us to back down from our principles in this matter is to completely call into question our determination in a host of other areas, the security of Taiwan comes immediately to mind, and as Senator Specter has noted ``make[s] our national policy a laughing stock and encourage[s] a proliferation of nuclear weapons.'' Yet the Clinton administration is showing every sign of being willing to shrug off the People's Republic of China actions, rap them on the nose, and ask them to please not do it again. During the 1992 presidential campaign, candidate Clinton took President Bush to task for ``coddling dictators''--especially the Chinese. Well Mr. President, like he has on so many other issues that were central to his campaign President Clinton has flip-flopped on this one, saying one thing but doing some thing completely different. I ask my colleagues, who is doing the coddling now? The White House appears close to waiving sanctions because it is worried about offending China and because it is kowtowing to United States business interests in an election year afraid of the effects on their bottom-line that sanctions might have. Can you imagine that, Mr. President? As the Washington Post pointed out this morning, ``The Chinese are the accused violators, and the Americans--as the complaining and injured party--are backing off.'' This administration is backing off in the shortsighted hope that Beijing has learned its lesson and won't do it again. It's like telling a child not to take a cookie, watching him take it, but not telling him he's a bad boy in the hopes that maybe he won't want to take another cookie. And this is not the only area in which the Clinton administration is coddling Beijing. USTR Kantor, who has on several occasions urged the White House to impose sanctions on the PRC because it is still in violation of several of the key provisions of the Sino- American intellectual property rights agreement, has been prevented by this administration from setting a deadline for Chinese compliance for fear of upsetting the violators of that agreement. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in both Houses in calling for the imposition of the sanctions required by U.S. law in this case. We need to say what me mean, and then do what we say. Any failure or hesitation to do so can only be interpreted in Beijing as a sign of weakness, and sets a very dangerous precedent that we will regret down the road.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, from time to time, in the mail we get a letter, an observation, or a communication from a constituent that we think is particularly on target. I would like to share that a little bit this morning. It has to do with consistency in leadership and with where we are going in this country. The President has talked in the last couple of days about the consistency of his administration. Of course, I think there is great question about that. If we are to move forward to make the changes that most of us want to make, that I think most Americans want to make, we have to have some consistency in policy. The President came to Washington based on a campaign of change, based on a promise of change, based on a promise of a new Democrat. He said more recently that the era of big government is over. The fact is that there has not been much consistency. The fact is that there was a great deal of talk about reforming of welfare which is certainly high on the agenda of most people. Most people want to continue to be able to help people who need help, but in a program that helps people back into a position to help themselves. Yet this Senate passed a bill on welfare, I think 85 positive votes, that was vetoed by the President who says he wanted to change welfare as we know it. The balanced budget--I suspect the prime issue of this entire congressional session--it took four budgets to come up with a balanced budget, despite the President saying he was for a balanced budget when he ran, and would do it in 5 years. It took four budgets to do it in 7 years, and then, frankly, not a real budget. Most everyone who studies the issue knows that if you are going to change the financial direction that this country has taken, if you want to be responsible for finances, that there has to be a significant change in the budget, that you cannot tinker around the edges. The President and his staff, and Mr. Panetta, whom I worked with in the House, and I always thought was responsible--almost as if you push a button, we protect Medicaid, protect the environment, have an investment in education. The fact is that over a period of several years you cannot do that; there is no money to do that unless you do something about entitlements. That is a fact. So to say we are going to balance the budget and we are going to protect Medicare, Medicaid, the environment, invest in education, it is impossible to do, unless, of course, you raise taxes considerably. Mr. President, these are the things raised about consistency. I want to read the letter from Linda Russell of Rawlins, WY. President Bill Clinton, White House, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. President: I sent you a wire to just get the budget balanced and quit ``posturing'' and playing politics. You wrote a very nice letter back--but I am very concerned that you don't understand what the people of this USA want and need. You say we must ``maintain our values--protecting Medicare, Medicaid, and the environment''. Certainly no one would disagree that these are excellent GOALS--but they are NOT our base VALUES. Our base values would be fiscal responsibility, keeping a military strength sufficient to protect us, and staying out of the faces of people who are perfectly capable of handling the GOALS you mention far better than the Washington DC political establishment. I attended the White House Conference on Small Business and heard you address the group on how you felt regulations should be reduced and the budget balanced and the tax burden lessened. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SUPPORT OF THOSE IDEAS since that meeting?? May I respectfully suggest that you let the power revert to the people by going with the block grants so that we can take care of our neighbors with our tax money and not waste 90% of it paying a huge bureaucracy in ``DC'' to tell us how to do it. TRUST US--we are neither stupid nor insensitive. If you have any wish at all to be reelected, it would be well to give us the respect we are due--and stop taking more and more money via taxes to support some liberal agenda. Mr. President--listen again to your own inaugural address to the nation, which I thought very impressive--and WALK YOUR

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to review trends in Federal land ownership. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, February 6 at 2 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Those wishing to testify or submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Kelly Johnson or Jo Meuse at (202) 224-6730.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today as the chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs to express my concern at recent reports in the domestic and foreign media that the Government of the People's Republic of China has formulated plans for a military invasion or blockade of Taiwan. These reports surfaced first a month or two ago in Hong Kong papers known to be sympathetic to Beijing--known, in fact, to be instruments of the Chinese Government--such as Ta Kung Pao. It was further reported in the colony's more mainstream papers, including a series of reports in the Eastern Express. Clearly, the initial discovery of this information was not the result of investigative reporting on the part of these papers. Rather, it shows all the signs of having been an organized leak on the part of the Beijing Government. The same information has been relayed to us through high-level channels in the People's Republic of China Government and military. The purpose of the leak appears to me to be three-fold. First, it must be viewed in light of the present political situation in the People's Republic of China. As my colleagues know, while President Jiang Zemin is substantially in control of the Government as the successor to Deng Xiaoping, the succession is far from being settled with absolute finality. As a result, the leadership has been careful to court the conservative elements of the power structure: the People's Liberation Army [PLA]. The PLA, like armies everywhere, tends to be very nationalistic, and the reacquisition of Taiwan is at the top of its wish-list. Consequently, the People's Republic of China leadership has taken a more hardline approach to the Taiwan question than might usually be expected. Second, many observers--and the Taiwanese officials with whom I have spoken--believe that the leaked information is designed to intimidate the Taiwanese people and their elected officials. The People's Republic of China believes that over the last year the Government of Taiwan, led by President Lee Teng-hui, has been increasing its attempts to raise Taiwan's status in the international arena. They cite increased diplomatic initiatives in Central America and Africa, the visits of President Lee and other high-level officials to countries such as the United States, Canada, and the Czech Republic last summer, and moves to join the U.N. and other international organizations. The People's Republic of China apparently regards these efforts as an affront to their one-China policy, and a move by Taipei to create two Chinas or one China, one Taiwan. In an effort to stem this rising tide, Beijing has resorted to a number of reactions. The People's Republic of China conducted a series of provocative air-to-air missile tests from July 21 to 26 in an area only 60 kilometers north of Taiwan's Pengchiayu Island. The missiles fired consisted mainly of Dongfeng-31 ICBM's and M-class short-range tactical missiles. At the same time, the PLA mobilized forces in coastal Fujian Province and moved a number of Jian-8 aircraft to the coast. Following those tests, the PLA conducted a second round of similar maneuvers between August 15 and 25. In conjunction with these tests, Taiwan intelligence reported the movement of a number of F-7 and F-8 long-range bombers and aircraft to bases within 250 nautical miles of Taiwan. There have also been reports that the People's Liberation Army-Air Force has stepped up practicing precision bombing and missile targeting. It was no accident that the tests were so close to Taiwanese territory, or that they coincided with Taiwan's regional elections. The message to Taiwan was clear: ``continue down this road, continue to move forward toward a complete democracy, and we are more than capable of reacquiring you forcibly.'' This message is similarly timed; it comes very close to Taiwan's first fully democratic elections, scheduled to be held in March. Third, it appears that the information was intended to send a signal to us in Congress, as well as the administration, that we should rein in our support for Taiwan and its elected leaders, and reconsider any thought of supplying Taiwan with defensive weapons or similar support. It will not surprise anyone here that Congress has been supportive of Taiwan and its people. Since 1949, the citizens of Taiwan have made amazing strides in developing their country both economically and politically. Taiwan has become the world's ninth largest economy; moreover, it has moved from a military authoritarian government to oligarchy to full participatory democracy. That move will be capped in March by the first democratic election of the country's President. Given this progress, I know that many Members of Congress, and the American people, cannot help but feel a bond with the people of that island. It is that bond that worries the People's Republic of China, and which it seeks to stem. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, through two of its spokesmen, Shen Guofang and Chen Jian, issued a somewhat vague denial of the reports. I would like to take that denial at face value, and indeed the reaction in the military and intelligence circles here has been that the entire issue may be somewhat overblown. I would stress that there is no concrete proof of the allegations but for the news reports. However, as we have seen in the past, sometimes the denials of the Ministry do not match the Government's actions. Just in the unlikely event that this is the case, I'd like to make my position as the chairman of the subcommittee of jurisdiction clear. I will agree, to a point, with Beijing's assertions that any eventual reunification of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan is an internal affair for the Chinese people in which other countries should not interfere. But I cannot stress strongly enough my feeling that it is not the People's Republic of China's internal affair alone; it is one for Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits to decide. There are 27 million people in Taiwan who have made clear their desire to live in a free and democratic society. It is consequently not for the People's Republic of China, under the guise of reuniting the motherland to unilaterally dictate the terms, timing, or conditions of that reunification. The People's Republic of China should make no mistake; I strongly believe that any attempt to establish a military or economic blockade of Taiwan, or other such military threat, will be met with by the most resolute condemnation and reaction on the part of the United States, and indeed the rest of the community of nations. It is my view that actions such as the missile tests and threat of military force will have the exact opposite of their desired outcome. As we have seen, the people of Taiwan did not let themselves be intimidated at the polls by the launching of Dongfeng missiles. I believe that such threats can only serve to make them more resolute in their goals. Similarly, it is my opinion that such actions can only backfire in regards to their intended effect on the United States. The People's Republic of China would do well to remember the provisions of the joint United States-People's Republic of China communiques, and more importantly of the Taiwan Relations Act. We have stated repeatedly that we expect the future of Taiwan to be settled by peaceful means, and that we consider any move to settle it by other than peaceful means to ``be a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.'' The Taiwan Relations Act, and the communiques, safeguard our right to sell Taiwan weapons to enable it to protect itself from aggression. If the People's Republic of China continues to threaten Taiwan and its security, then it is not out of the realm of possibility that in reaction the amount and frequency of those arms sales might increase. In closing Mr. President, while I believe that the reports-- especially that in the New York Times--have tended toward the alarmist, I feel it is very important that the People's Republic of China know exactly where I stand on this issue. That is why I have come to the floor today. And similarly, toward that end I call upon the administration to relay our position to Beijing in the clearest and most unequivocal terms.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I was glad the leader spoke about optimism and the opportunity to do things. I want to talk just a little bit, if I may, in morning business about this past year and the successes of this past year. It seems to me that we have worked very hard. We have worked very long. We had to do a number of things to respond to the voters in 1994 who said the Federal Government is too big and it costs too much. Anyone who thinks that making that change from where we have been is easy is a bit naive. So I think the Republican majority in this Congress has had great success. We restructured the debate in this country and have a whole new approach changing the direction of Congress and, frankly, changing the direction of the President. After 30 years of basically dealing with the Great Society and what this group has done time after time, which is talk about how much more we can spend, there has been no balanced budget for that whole time, but simply a rush to spend more and increase taxation. We have turned that around this year. We changed the debate from where it has been for a very long time. As to the continuing resolution, the President is probably going to sign it. They say this President is responsible. The Congress is responsible for spending, and it is our responsibility. We are the trustees that have that to do. I am, frankly, very proud of what we have done this year. For the first time, we presented a balanced budget to the President. Unfortunately, he vetoed it. I do not think the President wanted a balanced budget at that time. But now we are talking about how you reduce spending, how you reduce the size of Government rather than how much it could grow. For the first time, we will make today a downpayment on a balanced budget. We will have a budget at the end of this year that will be in keeping with our 7-year effort to do that. That is progress. That is, I think, a significant victory that should be claimed. It is the first step on the road to success. What about the change in the President's behavior? I think that is significant as well. Three years ago the President talked about more spending, and about investment. He talked about stimulating the economy through spending. And we had the largest tax increase in the history of the world. Two years ago we were talking about placing one-seventh of the entire economy under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government in health care. This year the President is talking about the era of big government being over. Now, if that is not a change. I am delighted for that. A year ago the President presented a budget none of which balanced. The President is under pressure, I think, from the Congress to present a balanced budget, and that is a movement forward. So I think this is a great victory for the American people and for future generations. Have we completed our victory? Of course not. Is it good enough? No. Is it a good start? Yes. We probably succeeded in three-quarters of what we set out to do. Did the President make the needed changes in entitlements? No. But he did make some accommodation. He talked about some choices in Medicare. He talked about some caps on Medicaid. He talked about a commitment to welfare. Those are changes. And until we make those, of course, there is no real budgeting. But that is where we have come. We are talking now about the end of big government. The debate is not about growth, but how we reduce the size of government. These are the things the President talked about before the election. But now we are back to that. I think that is great. I am excited by the opportunity to do that. Thomas Jefferson said that we do divide naturally in this country, regardless of what the party is called, between those who think there ought to be an elite governing and we take the money from the folks and provide the programs and those who believe people ought to take care of themselves and the Government's role is to create an environment in which the private sector can work. We are still divided that way. That debate, of course, will go on. So, Mr. President, I think today we ought to say we have had a very successful 1995. We have changed the debate. We are structured differently. We are talking about the possibilities of reduction instead of the certainty of increases. We are talking about a balanced budget, and we have begun and made a downpayment on that. There is a great deal to do, of course, but I believe we ought to recognize that we have made a victory, that we have made some real progress, and that we ought to move forward. There are other things we need to do. We need to deal with welfare. We need to deal with regulatory reform. We have some health reform that we ought to do. We have to empower the States to be able to do more of those things so there is flexibility and fit. We have to accept, probably most of all, the responsibility for paying for the benefits that we are now providing instead of putting it on the credit cards for our kids and our grandkids. So, Mr. President, I hear a lot of grumbling and wondering and confusion. It seems to me that we have had a good year. We have done a very difficult thing, and that is make a fundamental change in the direction that this Government is taking, one that I think is good for America, it is good for all of us as citizens and taxpayers and, maybe most of all, it is good for our kids and our grandchildren. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. DeWINE addressed the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise to follow my friend, the Senator from Minnesota, in noting what I thought was useful, and that was the tour of freshman Senators throughout the country, actually, starting here in Washington, on through the Midwest, and ending up in Cheyenne, WY. It seemed to me to be a very useful kind of an activity. Our theme was ``Promises Made, Promises Kept.'' I think it was appropriate that 9 of the 11 new freshmen in this body participated. We made 10 stops in 9 States to talk about this kind of commitment to the things that had brought us to the Senate in 1994. I think we all agreed in general that there was a message in 1994, and that message basically was the Federal Government is too big and costs too much and we need to change the regulatory restrictions on the opportunities in this country. That has been the effort of this freshman class, and to a large extent this body during that year. We have felt some kinship in that we have come here together, we did share this commitment, and we were committed to change. We had just come from an election where, I think, that message perhaps permeates a bit more than those who have been here before, perhaps. There has been a great deal of success, I think, in that message. We have not accomplished specifically all the things that we would like to but the major change has been the turn of the debate. I think most anyone who has watched the Congress over the last 25 years would have to say that the conversation has basically been centered around those programs that have been in place for 25 years. They largely came in the Lyndon Johnson Great Society time, and each year most of the time has been spent saying, ``How much more money do we put into the program? If it has not worked as well as it should, we will put more money in.'' Now that debate has changed somewhat. The debate has change markedly. We are talking for the first time in 25 years about a balanced budget. We are talking for the first time in 25 years about how you spend less rather than more. That is a significant change in the framing of the debate in this country, a significant change in the direction that this Congress would take, and hopefully that this country would take. We have talked about things like reducing spending as opposed to continuing to add more to the deficit, to add more to a $5 trillion debt. We talked about a balanced budget. We have not had a balanced budget in almost 30 years. This is the first time that a balanced budget has been presented to the President of the United States. Unfortunately, he saw fit to veto it. We have talked about entitlement changes. Most anybody who looks at our financial situation fairly has to see that we have to do something about entitlements. You cannot change the direction of spending by simply talking about those things that are discretionary. Two-thirds of the spending is in entitlements. You have to change that. Of course it is difficult. But we have set about to do that. We have talked about welfare reform, to make welfare the kind of program that most everyone believes it ought to be, where you help people who need help, but help them get back into the system, back into the workplace. Middle-income tax reform--instead of the largest tax increase in the history, which is what we had 2 years ago, we are talking about middle- income tax relief. Also line-item veto, term limits, regulatory reform. That is what has happened. We are very pleased about that and we took that message to the country. In addition to that message, I think we took some facts. We sort of evolved into politics by posturing and to a situation of policy by perception rather than facts. It is ironic. We have the ability to present facts to the whole world in a second. Fifty years ago it was months after something was done here before people even knew about it. Now we have this great opportunity, but unfortunately we are doing governing by advertising, doing governing by spinning. We talk about gutting Medicare. Nobody in this place is interested in gutting Medicare. In fact, when you look of course at the numbers, why, obviously, it is not. That is what we talked about. We talked about fundamental change. We heard a great deal of positive response to that. People who are aware of the benefits that come from balancing the budget, the fact that we can lower interest rates, reduce the cost of mortgages, and reduce the cost of loans to send your kids to school, and we can talk about being responsible for going into a new century without continuing to add costs to the debt for our kids to pay. I want to say that I think this trip was very useful and I am pleased that my colleagues were willing to take their time to go. I am particularly pleased they went to Cheyenne, WY. We had the largest town meeting we have ever had there. Not everyone is in agreement how to do it, but the preponderance of people say we need to be responsible. We need to look to the future. One little guy in the audience had a computer. We talked about $5 trillion debt, he divided it by the number of people and announced we each owe $17,000, and we were dazzled a little by the technology, but the answer is right, we do. Mr. President, what we need here is leadership. We need to provide for the direction of this country. We do not need obstructionism. We do not need insistence on the status quo. This is a great country with a great future. We have the best opportunity that we have ever had to strengthen that future and make it a land of responsibility and the land of opportunity.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 minutes.

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I have been in the chair listening for some time, and I wanted to make a couple of observations. First of all, I agree thoroughly with Senator Dole and the Members of this body in seeking to have a resolution which would put the Government back in place. It seems to me that that is what we should do. We ought to have a limited CR in which there is time to proceed with what I hope are useful negotiations that are going on. We need to put this thing behind us and get on with resolving the problems. There are, however, I think, a couple of other things that we also ought to be able to expect. One is that the White House and the President should deliver what they said they would. We did this on November 19, I believe. We had an agreement that we would have a CR, that during that time there would be a balanced budget based on CBO numbers, over 7 years. It did not happen. That did not happen. Then we had an opportunity--the White House did--to pass appropriations bills, to put almost all those back to work who are now furloughed. They did not do that. He vetoed it. Mr. President, there is another difficulty that we have had in Wyoming. It has to do with Yellowstone Park. There was an article in the paper this morning about it. Our Governor sought to negotiate with the Secretary of the Interior so that the State would take responsibility for part of Yellowstone Park. There was no real effort on the part of the Secretary to do that. Promise to return calls, promise to do something to consider a proposition by the State, did not do that. So not only are the employees of the National Park Service in this case not working, but neither are the concessionaires, neither are those who had contracted to do work, because the Department of Interior did not, frankly, make the real effort to do anything about that. So there has to be some responsibility assigned there in terms of doing what we said we would do. Second, Mr. President, it seems to me that those who are doing the negotiating, if they really wanted to find a solution, if there was a real, honest-to-goodness effort on the part of the parties to find a solution, they could do that. It is time to do that. Frankly, I suggest that the three principles sit down, the President, the majority leader, and the Speaker of the House--eliminate all the observers, eliminate the staff--and come to some agreement, come to the snubbing post on what we ought to do. There is a lot of leeway within this outline, and we can do that. Mr. President, that is our job. Our job is to find solutions. That is what we are here for. That is why we are the trustees for the American people. Our job is to keep the Government functioning in as effective way as we know how. Our job is to make decisions and to move forward. We have great opportunities to do that, great opportunities in this place to do that. There are opportunities in the White House. There is not much point in assigning blame, but there is plenty to go around. We ought to come to the snubbing post and make some decisions. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise to reflect a little bit on the past year but, more importantly, to reflect on it as it pertains to what we do in the coming year. I am sorry this year has ended in the conflict over the balanced budget. That has been one of the principal items of this entire year. We have worked on it almost all year. We worked on it in terms of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. It failed by one vote. We worked on it then through the appropriations process into a reconciliation balanced budget bill, which changed a great many things. A balanced budget is much more than, of course, simply arithmetic or numbers. It is a fundamental change in the direction this Government takes. So I am sorry that we ended up with this conflict, and I am sorry that Federal employees have become sort of trapped in it. I hope that that changes soon. I hope more than anything that we are able to complete the work that we started on the balanced budget. I have been in this body now just for 1 year, and I came, as I think most of us came, in 1994, with a message from home that the Federal Government is too big, it costs too much, and the Federal Government is generally too intrusive in our lives. I believe that, and I think most people believe that. One of the measurements of good government is the responsiveness, I think, to the voters, and to what people at home have suggested. So this year, then, in terms of those kinds of things, it has been a little frustrating. It has been frustrating in that we have come up to a balanced budget amendment, which I thought was necessary, but we could not quite get there. We have done a great deal on welfare reform. We passed it in this body with a good vote, and now there has been some change in terms of accepting that reform. Then there is regulatory reform. Almost everybody recognizes that the regulatory system results in overregulation and results in regulation that is not efficient, and that the cost benefits often need to be measured there. On the other hand, it has been a very fulfilling year, it seems to me. I came to Congress in 1989 when Dick Cheney went over to Defense, and I spent 5 years in the House. During that time, it seems to me, there was very little real consideration of change, little discussion of fundamental change in the way this Government behaves and operates. Instead, we sort of dealt with the policies that had been there for a very long time. There was a good deal--and continues to be--of protection of the Great Society kind of programs, the little tinkering around the edges when they came up for renewal. If they did not work right, if the results were not what we hoped they would be, whenever there was measurement of results--which, frankly, is not often enough --then the chances are that we put more money into the program. We continued to increase spending over this period of time, and the effort was basically to see how much increase there was going to be. If we did not like the product, we would put more money in it. Welfare is one of the best examples. Of course, more people are in poverty now than when the welfare program started over 30 years ago. The program needs to be changed. I understand resistance to change. Change is much more difficult than maintaining the status quo. I think that is part of what is happening here. Some are simply concerned about the uncertainty of change. Nobody knows exactly what will happen. Others, of course, have real philosophical differences. There are people in this body and in this country who believe more Government is better, who believe that the answer to questions that exist with respect to jobs and the economy and services is more Federal Government. I do not happen to share that view. Frankly, the majority does not believe that. But this has been, I think, a very encouraging year, a very exciting year, because we have reformed and reframed the debate. Instead of extending all the programs and talking about tinkering around the edges, we have begun to look at the merits of the programs and ask, ``Is this a program that needs to be carried out by the Federal Government, or is it one that could be better carried out by the State government? Is it accomplishing the purpose for which it was established?'' We are beginning to measure some results, which is kind of an unusual process in the Federal Government. So we have changed the way we look at things. I think that is very helpful. The debate now has been about holding down spending, not about how much you are going to raise it, but whether we can hold down the rate of spending some. That is a difficult thing to talk about because what do you hear on the floor and in the media? ``They are going to cut Medicare. There will be no more benefits out of Medicare.'' We know that is not true. We know that Medicare, under the proposal, continues to grow at 7.2 percent annually, as opposed to 10 percent, and the spending per beneficiary goes from $4,700 to over $7,000. But we hear it is going to be cut, that we are going to ruin it, exterminate it, because that is the easier conversation. But we have talked about that and we changed that conversation. Instead of talking about more and more intrusion into State and local government, we are talking about block grants, about the 10th amendment, which says clearly that those things not set forth in the Constitution to be done by the Federal Government should be left to the States and the people. It is pretty clear and simple. I happen to come from a small State. Some of our needs are quite different than they are in New York. Greybull's welfare problems are different than they are in Pittsburgh. We need to be able to manage it. Instead of talking about how that should grow on the Federal level, we are talking about block grants. We have changed the discussion, and that is healthy. We are talking about balancing the budget. We have not seriously done that for 30 years. Sure, somebody mentions it occasionally. The President has agreed to it. I will have to admit there have not been results from that yet, but I think that perhaps there will be. To balance the budget in 7 years with CBO numbers is a promise that we have. That is a change. So, Mr. President, we have not accomplished all that we would like, I am certain. On the other hand, I have to tell you that I am encouraged that we have changed the direction of this body and I think we have changed the framing of the discussion; the purposes have changed. We are going in a different direction. We have not accomplished as much as we would have liked, but we will. In this coming year, it is very important to continue what has begun. Mr. President, I wish you and my colleagues well as we enter into a new year, representing the people of America. We are, after all, the board of directors, the trustees here. We are responsible to respond to our people. We are responsible to respond to what the voters said. We are responsible to make some decisions, by the way, instead of negotiating for 2 months. I am pretty exasperated with that process, as I know everybody is. In any event, it is a new year, a good year, and I look forward to some fundamental changes in this country, as I think most people do.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise also to talk about the dilemma that we are in. I agree with the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Maryland that we ought not to be where we are. I believe it is time that we come to an agreement on the balanced budget. If you really want to come to a solution, you could have come to a solution by now--all of us. If you want to find a solution, you can find a solution. You cannot just continue to talk and say we have had useful conversations and walk away, having made no decisions. That is not a way. I have a little different view, however, of some of the reasons that we are here than the Senator from Maryland. The President could have signed the appropriations bills. He could have had those people back to work. He chose not to do that. We started on November 14, I believe, with an agreement to find a balanced budget in 7 years, using CBO numbers. And that was not done. On the part of the administration, nor indeed the other side of the aisle, a process to do that was not forthcoming. So, I think we should not be where we are. I have been here since Thursday, hoping the leadership would come forward and say, ``Here is a way to put people back to work.'' I have been here each of those days to do that. We have had objections from the other side of the aisle not to do that. ``We do not want to do that.'' So that is where we are, and we ought to change that. Let me talk a little bit about what we are really doing here, that is, trying to balance the budget. In 45 days we have not done that. The administration promised to bring that forward. There were four budgets, none of them balanced. Instead of that, there has generally been posturing at the polls, saying what an exaggerated effect would happen if we reduced the rate of growth in the budget. That is what we talked about, when everyone in this place knows you have to reduce the rate of growth in the budget. Not a soul in here would deny that has to be done. Still, we cannot do it. Everyone rises up and says, ``I want to balance the budget. We have to balance the budget.'' But can we go forward? We hear all of the reasons why we cannot do that. We have not done it for 30 years. We have not balanced the budget one time. Then I guess we wonder why it is that when you say ``then we will talk about balancing the budget,'' we say, ``That is what you said when we tried to get an amendment to balance the budget.'' We are going to gut Social Security, so we cannot do that. It did not have anything to do with Social Security. So here we are. I agree entirely we ought not to be here. Not only Federal employees in my State, as in your State, many people, Yellowstone Park concessionaires, for example, are out of work because the President did not sign the Interior bill, among other things. So Yellowstone Park is closed. What are we talking about? We are talking about some fundamental changes. You know, not going around the edges and trying to do a little something. We are talking about a balanced budget, one that has to do with financial and fiscal responsibility, one that has to do with not continuing to put it on the debt so our kids have to pay it. Our credit card is maxed out. We know that. We cannot come to any kind of agreement. We are going to talk some more today, I guess, and talk some more tomorrow. We probably will not be able to come to an agreement. There is lots of room to come to an agreement. The parameters are pretty large--a balanced budget in 7 years, CBO numbers. Aside from that, you can bargain in there. That is a pretty broad parameter. We could do that. We could do that. Mr. President, we ought to do that. We ought to get folks back to work. This is a ridiculous arrangement. We have to make some decisions. The people who are doing the negotiating need to make some decisions. That is our job. We are trustees for the American people and our job is to do something. Our job is to make decisions. Our job is to move forward. Mr. President, we ought to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise in support of the resolution. It seems to me it is a very important restatement of where we have been. I appreciated the enumeration of the Senator from Kentucky of what has happened here. One of the difficulties is that the Vice President came on TV and said there is no agreement, and that caused people to have some concern. I take my 3 minutes to get away a little bit from the numbers and put myself back in Cody, WY, where I grew up, and say, what is the responsibility here to do something about balancing the budget as a citizen? It seems to me there are several that are very meaningful. No. 1, it is personal, it is parochial, it is selfish, I suppose. I think if we can balance the budget, it means that every family that has loans on their home, every family that has loans on their car, every family that has educational loans will find, because of lower interest, there is a benefit of $2,500 or $3,000 to many families. I think, second, it has something to do with responsibility. If we are going to enjoy some benefits, those of us who are enjoying them, we should pay for them. This idea of enjoying the benefits and putting it on the credit card for someone else does not fly. This is a democracy. This is freedom that we protect. With that goes some responsibility to do some things. Concern about our kids--we have to be concerned about the future, when interest becomes the largest single line item in the budget, interest on the debt, and we simply pass that along, along with $5 trillion in debt. I think we have to have some consideration for change in the direction of Government. I really believe most people say the Federal Government is too big and it costs too much and we need to change that. That is a fundamental change we are seeking to do here. Balancing the budget and doing something about containing the growth of entitlements is a fundamental issue. It is not arithmetic. That is what is going on here. I think it is terribly important. Credibility--I think there is a certain function of credibility in this body. We have said we are going to balance the budget. We have said, in a resolution some 30 days ago, we are going to balance the budget in 7 years, using CBO numbers. We ought to do that. Many of us came here--we have not been here as long as some others--and we said one of the things we want to do is we want to be responsible in spending and balancing the budget. There is a credibility question here for all of us. So, Mr. President, I certainly think we have a great opportunity to move forward, not only this morning but in this total matter of balancing the budget. We can do it. We have an opportunity, the first opportunity in nearly 30 years. It would be a shame not to take advantage of it. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I had hoped to be in Wyoming, as a matter of fact, this weekend, but I had hoped--sincerely hoped--that we would be working at solving the problems we have, and we do have some problems. But I do want to comment a little. On the way in, I heard the President speak this morning. Frankly, I was surprised that his tone was that he had been offended, as a matter of fact. He indicated that the Republicans had shut down the Government. I have to tell you, I do not believe that is the case at all. Although it does not matter who it is, the fact is he promised 25 days ago to bring a budget to be balanced in 7 years based on CBO numbers and has not done that, and that is the problem. Mr. President, it is much more difficult to look into the future and seek to give the leadership that is necessary to mold the Government into a form that will be useful for generations to come. It is much easier to defend the status quo. It seems to me that is the real issue. The real issue is the growing Government, the growing debt, the growing interest, and the first opportunity that we have had in 25 years to change that. Frankly, the President has been the obstacle of causing that to happen, and I am sorry for that. Mr. President, there is a great deal more to a balanced budget than arithmetic, even though that is what is talked about, of course. But it seems to me it is the most important issue that we have had before this country in a very long time. Not only because of the arithmetic, not only because we have a $5 trillion debt, not only because we pay $260 billion a year in interests, and growing, and because it is the largest line item in the budget, that is not the only reason. One of the reasons is responsibility. We are coming into a new century soon, and I think all of us have some responsibility to give some thought to how we want to make the transfer of this Government and this country to new generations with debt that will cost a newborn $187,000 during their lifetime on interest alone. Is that the kind of a country we want to bring forward, the kind of country where we have enjoyed the benefits of high spending but have not been willing to pay for it, just put it on the credit card of somebody else? The credit card is maxed out. It also has to do with the concept and the size of the Federal Government, how intrusive and how large and how much spending is involved. I happen to be one of those who believe the Federal Government should be smaller, that we should, indeed, consider those things that could be done better by the States, some that do not need to be done at all by Government, that should be done in the private sector. I think we ought to spend a little more time with oversight, taking a look at those programs, many of which have been in place for 30 years, the Great Society programs, welfare particularly, and evaluate how effective it has been in terms of its purpose. We have more poverty today than we did when it began. Everyone wants to help people who need help and help them back into the workplace, and that has not been what has happened. So we ought to take a look at making some change, and there is great resistance to change, and the President is leading that resistance, I think because he has to support the liberal wing of his party, but he is absolutely refusing to take a look at evaluating programs and see if, indeed, there are some ways we can do this job better. So here we are. The administration has produced four budgets, none of which has balanced, and has produced a great deal of demagoguery. Even the press, the national TV, the most notable one was ``Nightline'' that was on Tuesday night, showed clips of where we were, one including the First Lady 2 years ago saying what we need to do is reduce the growth in Medicare to somewhere between 6 and 7 percent annually. We have to do that. The Republican plan is more than 7 percent, and yet the White House says we are going to gut the program, do away with it. The fact is, the trustees said if we do not do something, it will be broke. We know that. Someone the other day, some 40-year-old said, ``I'm very concerned about Medicare for my mother and Social Security.'' He better be worried about himself. His mother is OK in that program, but you cannot continue the program as it is. So we have a great deal of demagoguery going on. I happened to serve in the House with Leon Panetta. He was chairman of the Budget Committee, and he came in 4 years ago saying you have to do these things, you have to slow down this entitlement growth. He was the one who was saying that. Now he says the Republicans are uncaring, have no compassion for wanting to do the same thing. Give me a break. If we are going to have a country where we can come together with public policy, where we can make some decisions based on facts--there have to be some facts--I certainly understand and encourage differences in philosophy and I have a considerable amount of difference in philosophy with some of my friends on the other side. Bernie Sanders and I are good friends. Bernie Sanders is from Vermont. He is an Independent, but he is a Socialist. That is his political philosophy. We did not agree on anything, and I understand that, because his idea is the more government you have, the better it is; the more money you can take out of the private sector and spend publicly the better. I do not agree with that. And the majority in this Congress does not agree with that, but it is a philosophy, and that is OK. But you ought to balance that philosophy when we make decisions with facts--facts. The President said that we are shutting down because the Republicans would not negotiate. The fact is that the Republicans now have had about three different programs that do balance the budget. Their proposal yesterday would have added to Medicare, to Medicaid, to the earned income tax credit for the working poor, 75 billion dollars' worth, and $25 billion more in Medicare. That was the proposal at this time. Republicans came to that so there would be legitimate bargaining. This comes from the Washington Post--it is not Republican propaganda, I do not think. They featured a number of novel ways to balance the budget. They are talking about the administration yesterday, who came to negotiate. I quote from the paper: The White House proposal featured a number of novel ways to balance spending and some traditional ones, such as selling Government assets. This major new savings of $54 billion, however, comes from the use of the more optimistic economic assumptions of OMB. The President signed the law 25 days ago to say these negotiations, this balanced budget, will be on CBO numbers, Congressional Budget Office numbers. I can imagine how tired people are of hearing CBO, OMB, and all that. The fact is, though, that as the President said in his State of the Union Message 2 years ago, we all need to use the same numbers. He chose CBO. He now refuses to use them because they can cook the books with the numbers they use at the White House. It is pretty simple to balance the budget if you have your own projections of what growth is going to be, that there will be no turndown in the economy. Of course. Then, furthermore, they said if that does not work, we will get more revenue by reducing the tax reduction. There are lots of ways to balance the budget, and that, of course, is what some of my friends on the other side say. But they say, ``We want to do it the right way.'' And they think the right way is to raise taxes so you can continue to spend, and that is the way you do it. So, Mr. President, we are engaged in a difficult thing here, a difficult negotiation. I do not think anyone is happy about the Government coming to the brink of another furlough. No one wants to do that. But I can tell you that people are pretty dedicated on this side of the aisle to the fundamental proposition of balancing the budget and making some changes for the first time in 25 years--changes that will affect all of us for a very long time. So there are some issues--and debt is one--that we continue to go on. It was $5 trillion and it is higher now. Even under this balanced budget in 7 years, that debt will go up $2 trillion more in 7 years. You all are going to pay for that. All of us. The younger you are, the more you are going to pay. That is too bad. Responsibility? We are responsible to do better than that, all of us. Whether you are here or in Cody, WY, whether you are a cowboy, a railroader, we are responsible citizens, and a democracy goes with the freedom of responsibility. One of those responsibilities is that, if we want things collectively, you have to pay for them. This idea that somehow we sure enjoy the programs, but we do not want to pay for them does not work. Change. We are responsible to bring about change. It is easier to stick with the status quo and to use Lyndon Johnson's pen and veto the bill and say, by golly, we are going to stay with the old Great Society. It does not work, but we are going to stay right there. The other is all talk and no action. The White House has the bully pulpit and cannot do it. The real issue, of course, is an honest balancing of the budget, so we reduce spending from the level it is-- and it will still continue to go up at more than 3 percent--but to be able to pay for what we say, and do it by real numbers. Some of the folks say, ``You guys are in a adolescent food fight back there.'' I am sure it looks more petty than pretty, but the fact is that it is a real debate, a real culmination of a year's work, now to decide whether we are successful in balancing the budget or whether we go on as we have in the past, and that we do it in 7 years. Everyone in this place, since I have been here this year, the first thing they do is stand up and say, ``I am for balancing the budget,'' and they go on to find 100 reasons why they cannot do it. But they want to do it in the right way and that is to raise revenues so we can keep spending at this level. So, Mr. President, there are lots of problems here, but I think we need to really come to the snubbing post and say to ourselves we are willing to make changes and bring the changes forward that are based on real numbers and then vote. If you do not want to balance the budget, fine, say so. But let us get some figures out here that legitimately say this will balance. Let us not have smoke and mirrors and say we have balanced it, but gosh, we have just done it with projections. They do not have to do that. We have a set of numbers. They may not be right. No one knows whether they will be right. But they are the same numbers and we are dealing from the same deck. That is what we need to do. So, Mr. President, I feel very strongly, as I know many, many do. I am offended, frankly, by the opponents of balancing the budget saying we just do not have any compassion. We are going to throw kids out in the street or not have schools or not have Medicare. That is poppycock. That is not true. I am offended at the idea that somehow they have more compassion than I do. I do not believe the Federal Government has any more compassion than my State of Wyoming. We are as concerned about our kids as anyone. In fact, we are more concerned about our kids than they are about our kids, of course. So that is not the issue. If we want to really talk about compassion, we ought to talk about what is going to happen in 15 years when you do not have any money except for a handful of entitlements--and that is where we are. Everybody knows that. We do not have the leadership or the gumption to come up to it to make the decision. Mr. President, I hope that happens, and I hope that we will give our country a strong future by saying we are willing to make the tough decisions and balance the budget and to look out for the future, and we are willing to pass on a country that will be better than the one we have been involved in. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, let me bring up a subject that is very close to my heart, to my State of Wyoming, and to the West. This is an issue that I hope we will be dealing with in the next week or so, and it has to do with regulations on grazing on public land. That is not a topic that is of great interest to everyone, but it is one that is of great interest to that region of the country. You have to sort of get a little feel for what that means to public land States before you go into the details. The State of Wyoming is 100,000 square miles, half of which is owned and controlled by the Federal Government. In that, of course, are parks, forests, wilderness, and a substantial amount of Bureau of Land Management [BLM] lands which are the lands that were residual lands that were never taken up in homesteading but remained in Federal ownership--never withdrawn for any particular purpose, as was the case with the forests or the parks or the wilderness areas--but, all in all, more than half of Wyoming. And it is much higher in other places. Nevada, as I recall, is 87 percent federally owned. So the management and the economic decisions that are made with respect to these lands are very important to these multiple-use lands. Some of the land, such as Yellowstone Park, Teton Park, and Devil's Tower, of course, are set aside for a very specific and peculiar purpose because they are unique lands. We are talking about those that are for multiple purposes managed by the BLM or managed by the Forest Service. One of those purposes is grazing. There are many others, of course, such as hunting, fishing, recreation, mining, oil and gas, and coal. Much of the coal in Wyoming, which is the largest producer of coal in this country, is on public lands. Of course, those activities produce royalty fees that are paid both to the Federal and State Governments. The reason for our bill is something of a response to the problems that have been created, I believe, by the efforts of the Secretary of the Interior over the last 3 years to reform rangeland regulations, which is basically, we believe, to bring more and more of the decisions to Washington, while our purpose is to bring more of the decisions closer to the people who are governed. For the first 2 years that this administration was in place, particularly this Secretary of the Interior, there was a great deal of controversy going on. The ``war on the West,'' which most of us believe is a genuine war on the West, has been staged. There were many visits there by the Secretary and people related to the Interior Department in an effort to talk and to come to some conclusion. And, quite frankly, none was ever agreed to. The longer the talks went on, the more controversy there was. So in the Congress we have sought to put together a grazing bill, and have passed one. The purpose of it is to react to these regulations put forth by the Secretary which were generally unsatisfactory to the West. Let me talk just a moment about some of the things that are involved. One is public participation. This is public land. We understand it is public land. The decisions that are made there should provide opportunities for people to participate, not only those who will be involved in the activity, whether it be grazing, or whether it be oil, or whether it be fishing, but anyone who has an affected interest. This bill provides for that. This bill was passed last summer, and there was a good deal of discussion about it in the country. We went back again several weeks ago and did it again in the committee and, hopefully, will have it on the floor. Public participation was broadened and ensured. There was a notion, when the bill came forth, that it made grazing the dominant use over other uses in multiple use. Not true, nor was it intended to. However, as we came back we specifically put language into the bill that says there is no dominant use. Grazing is not a dominant use. It is a multiple use, and these uses should have a full opportunity. Environmental protection. The environmental protection under this will continue to be there as it has been before. Laws like endangered species, NEPA, and others will apply, of course, as the decisions are made by the Department. Standards and guidelines--which does not mean a lot to most of us-- has been the core of much of the problem. Standards and guidelines means the rules that will be laid down in Washington for the conduct of this whole issue. We believe, those of us in the West, that the main thrust of the Babbitt operation was to bring these standards and guidelines more to Washington and that we would have a one-size-fits- all kind of a thing that was sent out from Washington to all of the Western States. Our bill provides that local universities, local State agriculture departments, would be involved in the establishment of standards and guidelines. We think that is important. Fees. The secretary does not deal with fees. We have set up a fee for the grazing program that is based on the value of cattle in the marketplace at a particular time and raise the fees over what have been paid by about 30 percent. So, Mr. President, we hope that this bill will come before Congress. We think it is a reasonable bill that, again, provides for multiple use and provides for the economic future of the West. It has always been curious to me that States who came into the Union on an equal basis, according to the Constitution that there should be equity among the States, but that a Cabinet Member in Washington can have more impact on the economic future of Wyoming than anybody in Wyoming, to make rules for 50 percent of the State, a State that is very oriented to minerals, very oriented to agriculture, and agriculture is based on cattle and sheep. So we think this is a reasonable, bipartisan effort which will be brought before the Senate, hopefully before the end of the year, and will give some stability to a way of life. It is also important--and I hope later when I come back, and I know you are anxious to hear more--that we will have a map. It is important to see the way ownership patterns exist in the West. For example, one of the things that happened in the development of the railroads is that 20 miles on either side of the Union Pacific Railroad, which was encouraged to develop the West, every other section was given to the railroad to do this, and the other sections remain public. They are still that way. It is called the checkerboard. These are lands--this is not Yellowstone Park--that are arid, high plains, not particularly productive. So there are no fences, of course. Indeed, you really cannot afford to fence it because it takes anywhere from 50 to 60 acres for an animal unit, and it is shared with antelope, deer, and with elk in some places. So what I am saying is that these lands are not independently able to function. The same is pretty much true with the whole State in terms of ranches. When the lands were settled under the various settlement acts, the homesteaders, of course, took up the riverbeds, streams, water, the trees, and took up the best of the land, obviously. That which was left is now in Federal ownership. It is very difficult to separate those two things both from the standpoint of livestock and from the standpoint of wildlife. Livestock needs to have the winter feed, the water, and the cover, but in the summertime needs the grass to be able to graze on public lands. The other side of that, of course, is that the wildlife, which basically lives on the public lands, needs in the winter to have the water and the water developed by the ranchers in their private land. Mr. President, we look forward to finding a way in which these public lands can be managed to the benefit of the public, to the benefit of this country, and to the benefit of those users in Wyoming. I thank you very much. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Labor and Human Resources be authorized to meet for hearing on the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Minimum Wage, during the session of the Senate on Friday, December 15, 1995, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development and Related Matters be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, December 15, 1995 to conduct a hearing pursuant to Senate Resolution 120.