Robert Torricelli

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. I thank the Senator from Georgia for yielding. Mr. President, through the years there has been no more compelling voice on the floor of this Senate for the interests of children and families than Senator Dodd. Today is no exception. Senator Dodd has made a compelling case for the need for child care in America. I could not agree more strongly. I wish he had a chance on this day to have his amendment offered, and I would join in voting with him. The choice before the Senate today is not a choice between Senator Coverdell's proposal and Senator Dodd. Both have merit. I would support each. Senator Coverdell's proposal is fully paid for by offsetting the elimination of a corporate deduction. It has no negative impact on the budget. It is paid for, as Senator Dodd's amendment, indeed, can also be paid for. What the Senate has before it today is a chance to escape this continuing nonproductive dialog about whether or not we will engage in vouchers for private school or leave the plight to private school students unanswered. Senator Coverdell has offered an imaginative answer by expanding what is indeed a proposal that the Senate adopted earlier in the year for HOPE scholarships offered by President Clinton. By that same concept of allowing families to save their own money to make their own choices for the education of their families, Senator Coverdell's proposal would be expanded to high school and grade school. It is an economic sense and a compelling answer to a real national dilemma. First, that the education of a child and some of those decisions be retained by families, where families use their own resources--not just mothers and fathers but aunts, uncles, sister and brothers--who may not be able to put away $2,000 or $2,500 in a year with limited resources, but can on every birthday and every anniversary and every holiday put away $10, $20, and $100 so that during the course of a child's life those resources are available, families are involved, using their money. Second, it isn't just a question of whether this money would be available for private school students. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that 70 percent of the families who would avail themselves of these resources would be public school students because under the proposal that money is available to buy home computers or transportation for extracurricular activities, school uniforms or, most importantly in my mind, after-school tutors to help with the advancing math and science curriculum in our schools. Third, also a compelling aspect of this case is not only is it private money, not only would much of it go to public school students, but it will also stop potentially the hemorrhaging loss of private schools in this country. A parochial school in America closes every week. We are not opening up enough public schools to make up the difference. At a time when education is the Nation's principal challenge to our economic well-being, the number of classrooms and chairs for American students is declining. This is the use of private savings, private resources, to stop that hemorrhaging loss. Critics argue this is money that is going to help the wealthiest families in America when we should be doing more for working families. On the contrary. First, there is a cap in the legislation of $95,000 for single filing taxpayers. Overwhelmingly, three-quarters of this money is going to families that earn less than $70,000 a year. This is the answer to giving working families a chance to get involved in the education of their children. Mr. President, I make no case for the procedures involved in this. There are worthwhile additions to this bill I would like to support. Senator Landrieu and Senator Graham have a worthwhile proposal for prepaid tuitions. I believe in Senator Dodd's proposal for day care and child care. I would like to see the Senate address both. Indeed, in time, I hope and I trust that we will. But on this day we address the question of whether or not families will be able to use their own resources to become involved in their own planning for their children's public or private education. This Congress has been presented with a series of challenges by the President. One was to address new resources to education. We do it. Second, to get families back involved. We do it. Third, he has stated a great national goal to get every school in America online into the new century. We go beyond it. Sixty percent of American families and 85 percent of minority students have no access to a home computer. They are not going to school on an equal basis with all other American students. They don't have it for their homework, they don't have it for composition, they don't have it for research. The Internet and those computers are the principal tool for American students in the 21st century. Under the Coverdell-Torricelli proposal not only will America schools be online but so will American families at home because these students can use these A-plus accounts to buy that equipment for home. Mr. President, I join with Senator Coverdell on this day, asking that this be a genuinely bipartisan answer for a genuinely bipartisan problem. Education is the American issue of these last years of the 21st century. It is the question of whether or not America maintains our standard of living and is economically competitive. Education is an issue without par in this Congress and in this country. This may not be a total answer. It is certainly not the last of the answer but it is an important addition for the labyrinth of issues and questions we must walk through in answering the education question. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia for yielding the time.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. I thank the Senator from Georgia, Senator Coverdell, for yielding time to me. I am very proud to join with him in offering this proposal today. Mr. President, I think there is a growing awareness in our country that the status quo in education is no longer good enough, that there is a need for fundamental reform in the financing and the standards and our approach to educating our children in the grade school and high school levels. This legislation offers the promise of a new beginning in how we approach educational reform. In a time of limited budgets, as we seek to balance the Federal budget, we are marshaling private resources. At a time when families have been separated from the challenge of educating their own children, we are challenging families to get involved again. At a time when some are fighting between private education and public education, we seek to help both. Senator Coverdell and I do this in what I think is an imaginative approach, what really is no more than an extension of what President Clinton proposed to do and achieve with his HOPE scholarships for colleges, we do for high schools and grade schools. We do it in the following fashion: It is a challenge to all families of middle-income status--$95,000 and below. From the time of the birth of your child, you, uncles, aunts, grandparents, can put into a tax- free account, $10, $20, $100 a month, put money aside to prepare for the education of your child. In private school, parochial school, if you choose a yeshiva, or in public schools--indeed, the Joint Tax Committee has estimated 70 percent of this money will go for public school students--by allowing families to plan, recognizing that a public school education, is no longer a matter of 8:30 in the morning to 3 o'clock in the afternoon with just a teacher. The whole family has to get involved. Use this money to buy a home computer, pay for transportation after school so a student can get tutoring, extracurricular activities, or hire a public school teacher after school or on weekends to get involved in tutoring. It is the marshaling of family resources, family involvement, to help either complement that public education or allow for a private education. Now, the question becomes, is it wrong to even use these private resources to help with a private education? Unlike Senator Coverdell, I have, through the years, opposed the use of vouchers, because I thought it was a diversion of public resources at a time when the public schools cannot afford the loss of resources. I had constitutional reservations. On vouchers, we can all differ. This is not a voucher. There is not a constitutional issue because this is private money, not Government money. There is not an issue of compromising current resources for public education because this is private money, and it is new money. Not a single dollar is lost from the public schools by the use of these IRA's. But is it needed? For those who do not want to address the problem of private education, does it really help the 90 percent of American students who go to public schools? Absolutely. President Clinton has put a challenge down to the country: By the year 2000, every American school should be on line. But American students do their homework and research at home. Seventy percent of American students do not have a computer in the home. Eighty-five percent of black and Hispanic students do not have a computer at home. Under Mr. Coverdell's proposal, that would be allowed from these accounts. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding the time. I am very proud to join with him in offering the A-plus accounts. I yield the floor.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, within the next few days this Senate will vote upon a proposal that I have offered with Senator Coverdell, S. 1113--A-plus savings accounts. It is a proposal I know that many Members of the Senate are considering for the first time. I take the floor today to ask them to look carefully at its many provisions. Like many Members of my party, I have great reservation about the movement to vouchers in the various States and by the Federal Government. It has always been my concern that vouchers not only invite constitutional challenge, but inevitably results in a movement of resources from the public schools, where they are already too scarce, to private schools. The issue in my mind is not to move resources from public to private schools, but to increase resources for all schools. That is why, although I differ with Senator Coverdell and other Members of the Senate on vouchers, we have come together as Democrats and Republicans, provoucher and antivoucher Senators, on the issue of the A-plus savings accounts. Let us look at the facts about these savings accounts. First, there is not the use of public money. This is money that an individual or their employer or their labor union can put in a savings account for the education of a child in grade school or high school, therefore, there is not a constitutional issue and there is not a diversion issue of public educational resources to private schools. Second, where does this money go? And who does it help? The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that almost 75 percent of the money that will be placed in these accounts actually would go to public school students because although we are allowing the accounts to be used to support tuition at parochial schools or other private schools, it also would be available for ancillary activities of public school students. Since 90 percent of American students go to public schools, these funds--available for computers, tutoring, after-school transportation-- would, to a significant, indeed overwhelming extent, actually go to public school students. This is the right program at the right time, bringing the right resources to the students most in need. In many of our urban centers today, including in my own State of New Jersey--from Camden to Newark to Jersey City--if we lose our private schools, our parochial schools, we do not have the capacity in the public schools for those students. And many working-class, working-poor parents want this option. I do not know why we would deny it to them. Critics have said, ``Well, this is only available to the rich.'' But in fact for a single taxpayer, we have put a ceiling of $95,000. It is estimated that 70 percent of all of these resources would go to families that earn under $70,000 a year. An uncle can put $10 in an account every month for a favorite nephew or niece. A grandparent, at a birthday or Christmas, can put $100 or $200 in an account. A parent, from the time of birth, can put a few dollars away every month to ensure that their child is getting the high school or grade school education they want them to have. What can be wrong with that, getting the entire family involved in saving for a child's education? But if the option is public school-- which it is overwhelmingly in the United States; and understandably so--then these funds are available to give a quality public school education. Sixty percent of all students in public schools in America today do not have a computer at home. Eighty-five percent of all minority students in the public schools do not have a computer at home. An overwhelming majority of public school students cannot afford a tutor, even if they are having trouble with math or science. These accounts are available for that tutoring and for that equipment. It gives a new advantage to parents who want to get engaged in their child's education in the public schools. For all of those reasons, I am asking, particularly members of my own party, to look once again at the Coverdell-Torricelli proposal for A- plus savings accounts. This escapes the central conflict over vouchers and strengthens both public and private education. No Member of this body today, no matter how they feel about vouchers, can possibly argue--when the United States is now being ranked 15th out of 18 nations in the quality of math performance by our students; near last in science education--no one can defend the status quo. No Member can honestly believe that a chance to bring new resources, private resources, to middle-income families who want to get engaged in their own child's education is a bad idea. We will, Mr. President, have a chance to obviously debate this at length when the bill is brought before the Senate. But here today, in anticipation of that debate, I wanted to ask Members of the Senate to use the time between this discussion and that debate to familiarize themselves with this proposal and the hope that we can genuinely have a good and bipartisan level of support in sending this bill, which has already passed the House, on to the President. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I am introducing this bill today, along with my colleague from New Jersey Senator Lautenberg, on behalf of Rosemarie D'Alessandro, the mother of a young girl murdered some 24 years ago in New Jersey. Mrs. D'Alessandro's 7-year-old daughter Joan was delivering Girl Scout cookies down the street from her Hillsdale home one day when Joseph McGowan, a high school chemistry teacher, destroyed her life and changed the lives of her family members forever. McGowan raped Joan, killed her, and dumped her broken, battered body in a ravine some 15 miles away--she was not found for 3 full days. For Joan's mom, Rosemarie, that shattering event was only the beginning of what would become a literal lifetime of trauma, pain and distress. Although the man who murdered Joan was put away for life, he has already had two parole hearings and is scheduled for another in 2003. And Rosemarie D'Alessandro cannot rest while these hearings go on. To make sure this murderer remains behind bars, Rosemarie must fight each and every day against the system that might free him, and must sit through appeal after appeal when he is denied release. But rather than becoming consumed with the tragedy that stole her daughter from her, Rosemarie D'Alessandro has used her grief and her anger to accomplish an astonishing goal--Joan's Law is now in the books in New Jersey, and now any child molester who murders a child under 14 in my State must receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. Rosemarie D'Alessandro stood up and told the world ``enough is enough.'' No other family should have to bear the double tragedy of suffering the loss of a child and then being forced to relive it over and over again through parole hearings and appeals. And no other family in New Jersey will ever have to again. Well, we do not have parole in the Federal system, but we can make sure that anyone who molests or commits a serious, violent crime against a child 14 or under will serve the rest of his life behind bars if that child dies. My bill states that any person who is convicted of a Federal offense defined as a serious violent felony should be sentenced either to death or imprisonment for life when the victim of the crime is under 14 years of age and dies as a result of the offense. Mr. President, with this bill, we intend to send the strongest possible message to anyone who would dare molest or attack a vulnerable child--do so at your own risk, because we will find you and we will put you behind bars for the rest of your life if that child dies. I hope my colleagues will quickly join me and Senator Lautenberg in passing this legislation, so that the inevitable tragedies that happen to children throughout America every day will no longer be compounded upon the families of those victims. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I am introducing this bill today, along with my colleague from New Jersey Senator Lautenberg, on behalf of Rosemarie D'Alessandro, the mother of a young girl murdered some 24 years ago in New Jersey. Mrs. D'Alessandro's 7-year-old daughter Joan was delivering Girl Scout cookies down the street from her Hillsdale home one day when Joseph McGowan, a high school chemistry teacher, destroyed her life and changed the lives of her family members forever. McGowan raped Joan, killed her, and dumped her broken, battered body in a ravine some 15 miles away--she was not found for 3 full days. For Joan's mom, Rosemarie, that shattering event was only the beginning of what would become a literal lifetime of trauma, pain and distress. Although the man who murdered Joan was put away for life, he has already had two parole hearings and is scheduled for another in 2003. And Rosemarie D'Alessandro cannot rest while these hearings go on. To make sure this murderer remains behind bars, Rosemarie must fight each and every day against the system that might free him, and must sit through appeal after appeal when he is denied release. But rather than becoming consumed with the tragedy that stole her daughter from her, Rosemarie D'Alessandro has used her grief and her anger to accomplish an astonishing goal--Joan's Law is now in the books in New Jersey, and now any child molester who murders a child under 14 in my State must receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. Rosemarie D'Alessandro stood up and told the world ``enough is enough.'' No other family should have to bear the double tragedy of suffering the loss of a child and then being forced to relive it over and over again through parole hearings and appeals. And no other family in New Jersey will ever have to again. Well, we do not have parole in the Federal system, but we can make sure that anyone who molests or commits a serious, violent crime against a child 14 or under will serve the rest of his life behind bars if that child dies. My bill states that any person who is convicted of a Federal offense defined as a serious violent felony should be sentenced either to death or imprisonment for life when the victim of the crime is under 14 years of age and dies as a result of the offense. Mr. President, with this bill, we intend to send the strongest possible message to anyone who would dare molest or attack a vulnerable child--do so at your own risk, because we will find you and we will put you behind bars for the rest of your life if that child dies. I hope my colleagues will quickly join me and Senator Lautenberg in passing this legislation, so that the inevitable tragedies that happen to children throughout America every day will no longer be compounded upon the families of those victims. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. I thank very much the Senator from South Carolina for yielding the time. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join in recommending to the Senate William Kennard to be Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. By his record as general counsel, Mr. Kennard's tenure as Chairman of the Commission promises to be both able and insightful at a time of extraordinary technological change in the United States. Yesterday, at my request, this nomination was held until today so I would have an opportunity to meet with Mr. Kennard. What may be the best proof is former Speaker O'Neill's maxim that ``all politics is local.'' At a time when the Commission is dealing with great national and, indeed, global issues, in this moment of extraordinary change in the industry, I needed an opportunity to address with Mr. Kennard a continuing problem with the Commission in my own State of New Jersey. For 15 years my predecessor, Senator Bradley, brought to this body the continuing problem that the 8 million people of the State of New Jersey are largely without internal communication because of the dominance of Philadelphia and the city of New York in television and radio. Indeed, New Jersey alone, through most of this century, has been without a commercial television station until Senator Bradley led the effort to bring one of those licenses to the State of New Jersey. The State still, in its commercial, political and cultural development, is not properly served. That problem has now repeated itself with New Jersey's largest county, home to nearly a million people in Bergen County, NJ, which may be without FM radio service. I know in the great plethora of issues this does not seem like a significant question unless you live in the State of New Jersey. Bergen County, NJ, is host to more Fortune 500 corporations than all but a few counties in America. It is one of the highest income counties in the entire United States of America and, indeed, has more people than six States in the United States of America. But from everything from its internal political debate to news about emergencies within the county to the simple matter of school closings due to weather, people are unable to get basic information. Those licenses rest in the city of New York. Indeed, most of them should. But one, at least one of them, as, indeed, with one television station, should be in this area of suburban New Jersey. I spoke at length yesterday with Mr. Kennard. I am convinced that he is as sensitive to the problem that the Commissioners responded to for Senator Bradley on previous occasions and that under Mr. Kennard's leadership the Commission will respond as well in sensitivity to both the ongoing television problem but also this new dilemma of how to ensure a continued FM radio presence. Therefore, I was very pleased last night to have participated in asking that the nomination come to the floor today and am very pleased today to rise in support of Mr. Kennard's nomination. For years, the 840,000 residents of Bergen County have relied on local FM radio in order to receive valuable traffic, weather and news information, as well as popular music entertainment. Indeed, on multiple occasions, this service has served as a crucial link between the residents of Bergen County and critical emergency information. In 1996, when a water main break left over a half-million residents without water for nearly 3 days, a local FM station was the only source of live coverage from the scene of the break and the only source of continuous, round-the-clock reports throughout the emergency. Again during the recent explosion of the Napp Chemical plant in Lodi, NJ, a local FM station was the primary source of onsite news and information about the risks of possible toxic fumes which originated from the plant. Also, for years local FM service has provided extensive school closing reports during snowstorms, and notified the public of road conditions and other weather-related emergency information. However, the survival of FM service in Bergen County has recently been threatened by another Washington regulatory bureaucracy out of touch with the people it is supposed to serve: The Federal Communications Commission [FCC]. Mr. President, I am here today to ensure that the FCC does not succeed in ending FM service for Bergen County. This is a matter of principle, and it is the right thing to do for the residents of my State. Until the advent of local FM service, the residents of Bergen County had to rely upon radio stations in New York City to provide them with their news and information. Unfortunately, radio stations in New York City focus on the news and needs of the residents of that city, and oftentimes ignore those living in the New Jersey suburbs. Bergen County has more than 70 municipalities and school districts, six State legislative districts, two congressional districts, 231 square miles, and a population larger than the States of Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia. It is a county of tremendous size and importance, and it deserves an FM news and information source of its own. Yesterday, I met with William Kennard, the President's nominee to be Chairman of the FCC, and I am confident that the commissioners of the agency will work with my office to preserve FM service for Bergen County. If the FCC is to continue in its mission to ensure broadcast capability for the public interest, then the commissioners must end this instance of broadcast discrimination against the people of Bergen County, NJ. I yield my time to the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, today, Senators Graham, Mack, Sarbanes, Lautenberg, and I are introducing the National Estuary Conservation Act. I rise to draw this country's attention to our nationally significant estuaries that are threatened by pollution, development, or overuse. With 45 percent of the Nation's population residing in estuarine areas, there is a compelling need for us to promote comprehensive planning and management efforts to restore and protect them. Estuaries are significant habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife because they provide safe spawning grounds and nurseries. Seventy-five percent of the U.S. commercial fish catch depends on estuaries during some stage of their life. Commercial and recreational fisheries contribute $111 billion to the Nation's economy and support 1.5 million jobs. Estuaries are also important to our Nation's tourist economy for boating and outdoor recreation. Coastal tourism in just four States-- New Jersey, Florida, Texas, and California--totals $75 billion. Due to their popularity, the overall capacity of our Nation's estuaries to function as healthy productive ecosystems is declining. This is a result of the cumulative effects of increasing development and fast-growing year-round populations which increase dramatically in the summer. Land development, and associated activities that come with people's desire to live and play near these beautiful resources, cause runoff and stormwater discharges that contribute to siltation, increased nutrients, and other contamination. Bacterial contamination closes many popular beaches and shellfish harvesting areas in estuaries. Also, several estuaries are afflicted by problems that still require significant research. Examples include the outbreaks of the toxic microbe, Pfiesteria piscicida, in rivers draining to estuaries in Maryland and Virginia. Congress recognized the importance of preserving and enhancing coastal environments with the establishment of the National Estuary Program in the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1987. The program's purpose is to facilitate State and local governments preparation of comprehensive conservation and management plans for threatened estuaries of national significance. In support of this effort, section 320 of the Clean Water Act authorized the EPA to make grants to States to develop environmental management plans. To date, 28 estuaries across the country have been designated into the program. However, the law fails to provide assistance once plans are complete and ready for implementation. Already, 17 of the 28 plans are finished. As the majority of plans are now in the implementation stage, it is incumbent upon us to maintain the partnership the Federal Government initiated 10 years ago to insure that our nationally significant estuaries are protected. The legislation we are introducing will take the next step by giving EPA authority to make grants for plan implementation and authorize annual appropriations in the amount of $50 million. To insure the program is a true partnership and leverage scarce resources, there is a direct match requirement for grant recipients so funds will be available to upgrade sewage treatment plants, fix combined sewer overflows, control urban stormwater discharges, and reduce polluted runoff into estuarine areas. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, today, Senators Graham, Mack, Sarbanes, Lautenberg, and I are introducing the National Estuary Conservation Act. I rise to draw this country's attention to our nationally significant estuaries that are threatened by pollution, development, or overuse. With 45 percent of the Nation's population residing in estuarine areas, there is a compelling need for us to promote comprehensive planning and management efforts to restore and protect them. Estuaries are significant habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife because they provide safe spawning grounds and nurseries. Seventy-five percent of the U.S. commercial fish catch depends on estuaries during some stage of their life. Commercial and recreational fisheries contribute $111 billion to the Nation's economy and support 1.5 million jobs. Estuaries are also important to our Nation's tourist economy for boating and outdoor recreation. Coastal tourism in just four States-- New Jersey, Florida, Texas, and California--totals $75 billion. Due to their popularity, the overall capacity of our Nation's estuaries to function as healthy productive ecosystems is declining. This is a result of the cumulative effects of increasing development and fast-growing year-round populations which increase dramatically in the summer. Land development, and associated activities that come with people's desire to live and play near these beautiful resources, cause runoff and stormwater discharges that contribute to siltation, increased nutrients, and other contamination. Bacterial contamination closes many popular beaches and shellfish harvesting areas in estuaries. Also, several estuaries are afflicted by problems that still require significant research. Examples include the outbreaks of the toxic microbe, Pfiesteria piscicida, in rivers draining to estuaries in Maryland and Virginia. Congress recognized the importance of preserving and enhancing coastal environments with the establishment of the National Estuary Program in the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1987. The program's purpose is to facilitate State and local governments preparation of comprehensive conservation and management plans for threatened estuaries of national significance. In support of this effort, section 320 of the Clean Water Act authorized the EPA to make grants to States to develop environmental management plans. To date, 28 estuaries across the country have been designated into the program. However, the law fails to provide assistance once plans are complete and ready for implementation. Already, 17 of the 28 plans are finished. As the majority of plans are now in the implementation stage, it is incumbent upon us to maintain the partnership the Federal Government initiated 10 years ago to insure that our nationally significant estuaries are protected. The legislation we are introducing will take the next step by giving EPA authority to make grants for plan implementation and authorize annual appropriations in the amount of $50 million. To insure the program is a true partnership and leverage scarce resources, there is a direct match requirement for grant recipients so funds will be available to upgrade sewage treatment plants, fix combined sewer overflows, control urban stormwater discharges, and reduce polluted runoff into estuarine areas. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, since the founding of our Republic, we have faced a dilemma as old perhaps as the concept of democracy itself. That is how the Nation is governed: With an informed electorate, but at the same time we can protect the national security by containing information which might be used against ourselves. This debate has largely, though not exclusively, been settled by the judgment that we are best served by informing the people so they can make the proper judgments about choosing the leadership of our country. Indeed, this is the philosophy that gave rise to the first amendment to the Constitution, but perhaps more exactly also to article I, section 9, which reads, ``a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.'' There has, however, in spite of this general judgment of the need to govern the Nation based on the best possible information to the electorate, and in spite of this rather specific constitutional provision, been a notable and exceptional exception in the Nation's accounting. I speak obviously of the Central Intelligence Agency in its half- century determination to keep its accounting, its expenditures, private from the people of the United States. And, indeed, during both times of national conflict and in the broad period of the cold war it was a policy with a considerable rationale. The United States faced, in the Soviet Union, an adversary which if in possession of our expenditures of the intelligence community would learn a great deal about our national intentions and our capabilities. But now some 7 years after the end of the cold war, there is no longer a rationale for not sharing with the American people at least the aggregate amount of spending of the American intelligence community. I do not speak, obviously, of specific requirements for expenditures in individual programs or even broad categories of expenditures but whether or not the American people should be informed of the total aggregate spending since the United States no longer faces an adversary which, if in possession of that amount of expenditures, could make real use of it. Last Wednesday, George Tenet, the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, perhaps because of this changed situation, took a very important step. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Federation of American Scientists, Director Tenet ended 50 years of what may have been unconstitutional secrecy and finally disclosed the aggregate budget numbers of the U.S. intelligence community. I take the floor today, Mr. President, to applaud President Clinton and Director Tenet for taking this first step, but note with some considerable regret that this judgment was made in response to a lawsuit filed against the administration not with the support of this Congress and, indeed, in spite of a vote taken in response to an amendment that I offered on the floor of this Senate. While I applaud Director Tenet, I also speak with regret that while the budget numbers were offered this year, they specifically were not made as a change in permanent policy, therefore, raising the specter that the American people are being provided this information in 1997, with the possibility they may never be given this information again. That perhaps leads to the most cynical interpretation of all, that what is really feared by the intelligence community is not the sharing of this aggregate amount of spending with foreign adversaries, but if the American people have this number they would be able to gauge this year to next, to next, and into the future whether or not the intelligence budget of this country is rising or falling, whether it is too large or too small. What is feared is that the American people will be as engaged in this debate as they are about Social Security spending or health care or education spending or even defense spending, which routinely is a part of the American political debate. A 1-year number provides precious little information for public debate about the adequacy or the excessive nature of our spending. What, of course, is peculiar about this inability to inform the public is that defense spending, equally or arguably far more important to national security, is so routinely debated. Perhaps that is the reason why defense spending in the Nation today, excluding intelligence, is now 4 percent lower than defense spending in 1980, why in real dollar terms there has been in the last 7 years such a dramatic reduction in defense expenditures, while according to the Brown report, intelligence spending since 1980 in the United States has risen by 80 percent, an increase in spending almost without parallel. It is worth noting as well, Mr. President, that in the bipartisan Brown Commission report, the commission could find no systematic basis upon which the intelligence budget is even created. In the Commission's words, ``Most intelligence agencies seemed to lack a resource strategy apart from what is reflected in the President's 6-year budget projection. Indeed, until the intelligence community reforms its budget process, it is poorly positioned to implement these strategies.'' Mr. President, other countries in the democratic family of nations have long recognized the need to include defense and intelligence priorities in their national debate over budgetary matters. Indeed, Australia, Britain, and Canada long ago lifted this veil of secrecy. I think, indeed, even the State of Israel, which today faces potentially more serious adversaries at the very heart of their democracy with a daily terrorist threat, long ago decided that its democracy was better served by sharing this information then continuing with the veil of secrecy. So, Mr. President, in this notable year when for the first time the American people are given access to this information about intelligence spending, the burden now passes to this Congress whether or not we will allow this to be a single exception, or indeed we will now take the challenge and make this a permanent change in how we govern the national intelligence community. I close, therefore, Mr. President, with the words of Justice Douglas, who in 1974 wrote in making a judgment about whether or not the budget should be revealed, ``If taxpayers may not ask that rudimentary question, their sovereignty becomes an empty symbol and a secret bureaucracy is allowed to run our affairs.'' More than 20 years later, Mr. President, this Senate still faces the same judgment. Director Tenet has met his responsibilities. I am proud that President Clinton allowed him to proceed. Now the question rests with us. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. If the Senator would yield--and I am interested in hearing Senator Feingold on this issue--I think it is important that the American people now understand this is not a choice between a current campaign finance system in the country being governed under existing statutes or an alternative offered by Mr. McCain and Mr. Feingold. The simple fact is there is no governing law of American political campaigns today. The legal system, which for more than 20 years has governed the financing of our campaign system, has collapsed. Corporate money is flowing into this system. Independent organizations are beginning to dominate the system. Even the political parties risk becoming side voices in a larger chorus. The system in this country of governing our campaigns has ended. The only issue is whether this Senate is now going to allow the majority to govern by passing a new system which will install some new integrity into our system of government. That is, indeed, the issue.

Mr. TORRICELLI. I think the Senator from North Dakota makes an important point to the Senate, and that is that many of the American people are asking why, with all that we now know about campaign finance abuse and with the continued erosion of confidence in our electoral system, why a majority of this Senate is not prepared to vote for campaign finance reform. The simple truth is, a majority of the U.S. Senate would vote today for campaign finance reform, for the most meaningful change in how money is raised and spent and we govern our elections in a generation. But a majority of this Senate is being prohibited from casting votes for this fundamental change, first by the Republican leadership, which is so intent on preventing a vote of the McCain-Feingold bill that it will filibuster, and second, as the Senator from North Dakota has pointed out, by prohibiting procedurally the offering of any amendments to other legislation that will allow us to make campaign finance reform part of other legislation enacted on this Senate floor. It is cynical. It is a deliberate, partisan tactic to keep an advantage in the financing of campaigns in this country. The cost is enormous. The cost is enormous, not simply in delaying other legislation, in stopping the work of this Congress, but in continuing and even fueling the erosion of confidence in the American people in the ability of this Senate to solve a real and legitimate problem.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, at the outset for my participation in this debate I congratulate Senator Feingold and Senator McCain for their months of effort in constructing a comprehensive program to deal with the problem of campaign finance and for bringing the Nation and the Senate to this moment of debate, but also Senator Daschle, whose tireless efforts have also brought us to this moment of judgment, and Senator Lott for scheduling this debate. I, also, in listening to this morning's discussion, want to compliment Senator McConnell. For, while I do not share his ultimate judgments on the McCain-Feingold bill, he reminds us of an important principle in the debate. And that is, there may be problems in how we finance our campaigns, the problems of money in American politics, but Senator McConnell reminds us there are real constitutional limitations in how we approach this issue and that ultimately the Nation does not suffer from too much political discussion or too much debate among candidates but too little. So while I differ with his ultimate judgment, I think the Senate is well served by his limitations in how we approach this question. Mr. President, for my own part, I enter this debate with a reminder to all of my colleagues that there is nothing short of the credibility of our entire form of Government that is at issue. The world's oldest constitutional democracy, founded on the principle of majority rule, is now threatened by the fact that only a minority of Americans participate. It is therefore a question of our entire credibility of governance. The United States has experienced for more than a generation the continuing relentless decline in voter participation. In the last elections in 1996, 49 percent of the American people participated in choosing the leadership of the Federal Government. It is, Mr. President, a serious issue. For a long time the leaders of the U.S. Government have found reasons to excuse the fact that most Americans do not participate in this form of Government, that the United States alone among the great democracies may now be governed by the judgments of a minority of our people alone. I have heard all of these debates. First, we convinced ourselves that it was not convenient for most Americans to participate in our elections. So we enacted postcard registration to make it simpler. But still the American people did not come. Then we convinced ourselves it was because people were not aware of the timing of elections. So through public service announcements and then the hiring of campaign workers, we filled the airwaves, we called people on the phone, we visited their homes to remind them, and still they did not come. On more than a few occasions we appealed to people's patriotism to participate in the electoral system. And after all these efforts, most Americans are still not participating. Perhaps, Mr. President, there is another reason, painful to admit, but unmistakable: The majority of Americans who are not participating in Federal elections did not forget to vote, it wasn't inconvenient to vote; but by their failure to participate they were expressing themselves. Not participating in an American election is a means of expression. It is a vote of no confidence, not simply in the candidates or the political parties, but in the process itself. In truth, there are myriad reasons. The sterility of the debate, perhaps because people perceive no real choices, no relevancy of the political discussion to their own lives. Perhaps it is because the decline in the quality of journalism itself, where character assassinations become a substitute for discussion of real issues. Or perhaps most important, most insidious, it is how we are financing our campaigns. The sense of most Americans that voting is not a determinant of a decision, where money has become the principal determinant of the outcome of struggles for political power. There is perhaps no better witness for this argument than one Roger Tamraz, who appeared before the Governmental Affairs Committee only last week. By his own words he had come to the conclusion that though an American citizen, he did not vote in Federal elections because contributing $300,000 was a better and more effective means of participating than ever casting a vote for a candidate of his choice. Mr. President, I will admit that I rise on the floor of the Senate today as an advocate of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill by a circuitous route. Like many of my colleagues, I have feared campaign finance reform because of the threat of Government regulation of political speech. I have believed that free, fair and open competition among the political parties was the best means to assure that all parties were heard and that the American people ultimately ruled by majority will. I can no longer, after the expense of the 1996 election and my own involvement in the U.S. Senate campaign in my own State of New Jersey, remain with that conclusion. The campaign reform bills of 1974 and their revision in subsequent years are no longer working. There is no governing electoral authority in the Federal statutes. Through a series of decisions by the Federal courts, the practical expense of the political parties, the governing statutes are being evaded, violated, or are simply irrelevant. There is no governing authority in this country today for the financing of Federal campaigns. While this Congress has addressed the issue innumerable times, we have made no progress. In a decade, this Senator has voted on 113 occasions to reform campaign finance and come to no conclusions. The Senate has considered 321 pieces of financial reform legislation, heard 3,361 speeches, and filled 6,742 pages of the Congressional Record with debate. It cannot go on. We are at a genuine critical point in the political history of this country. Some would argue that there are some modifications that can be enacted without fundamental reform, and we will meet our responsibility to improve the process, declare success and simply move on to another Federal election in 1998. I am of a decidedly different view. I believe it would be worse to deal with this problem in the margins and declare that we have done much than to deal with this properly and fail and at least be honest with the American people that the problem exists. That is the choice because many, I will predict a majority, of the U.S. Senate, will decide that we can ban the use of soft money in the political process, do nothing about independent expenditures, express advocacy, the cost of television time, overall campaign spending, and still declare success. To me, Mr. President, that will be the worst outcome because this problem is not only serious, it is complex, and goes to every aspect of the campaign finance system. First is the problem of controlling express advocacy groups. There is a real threat that the national political system is evolving into a debate where special interest groups will argue over the heads of the American people in multimillion-dollar campaigns in which neither candidates nor political parties are able to participate. Single-issue advocacy groups with virtually unlimited funding, distorting the issues, steering the campaigns, with candidates who are unable or without the resources to even participate. An American political system with campaigns by surrogates. The McCain-Feingold bill, by at least attempting to limit the ability of these organizations to distort candidate's positions or enter into the debates as their surrogates, addresses this issue. But without this provision, the overall legislation would be meaningless, and indeed in my judgment, counterproductive. There is, of course, the issue of foreign money where not only must the law be clear, but the penalties high, where people who seek to participate in our system but do not share our nationality. There is the obvious problem of soft money, unregulated, undeclared, unknown participants in the financing of Federal campaigns who opened a door which has now become a monstrous window through which millions of dollars flow, distorting the very purpose of campaign finance disclosure or control. There is the effort at the prompt disclosure of campaign contributions so that every American makes their own judgment about who is contributing, how much, what they represent, and whether they can then identify with a candidate receiving those contributions. They are all a part of the McCain-Feingold legislation, each critical, but each an integral part that if eliminated from the legislation weakens the whole effort at reform. But then finally there is one aspect of the McCain-Feingold bill that has not survived to this debate on the floor of the Senate, but in my judgment must be added before genuine reform has been achieved and this Senate concludes this debate. It is the issue of reducing the cost of television advertising. Behind the spiral of rising campaign costs is the issue of the cost of television advertising. There is no increased cost in American campaigning without the cost of television advertising. They are one and the same--inescapable in the conclusion. The cost of campaigns have increased 72 percent in the last 6 years alone. That is overwhelmingly driven by network television. In my own campaign for the U.S. Senate last year, 84 percent of all the money raised went to television advertising. An amendment will be offered to this legislation, appropriately called the challengers' amendment, because largely incumbents will always raise the funds necessary to feed the television networks but challengers cannot. Unless and until we reduce the cost of television advertising, this becomes a process open to incumbents or multimillionaires only. The average American will never be able to participate in this process and will be excluded at the Senate door. But make no mistake, the vote for campaign finance reform is not a vote for the McCain-Feingold financial legislation. It is a vote for the challengers' amendment. Consider a process where as in the State of New Jersey the average cost of a television advertisement is $50,000. Some single 30-second ads can cost $100,000. What is it that is being purchased? The television networks control this time by a public license. The air time belongs to the American people. It is granted to the television networks by license, for free. They then return to candidates for public office who seek to debate public policy issues, to communicate with the American people who own this air time and charge millions upon millions of dollars. Now here I agree with the Senator from Kentucky. The answer is not to reduce the amount of time that candidates have on the air to discuss their issues. It is not to regulate what those candidates communicate to the American people. The Senator from Kentucky said less than 1 percent of all the advertising last year in the most expensive political race in American history was political advertising. In the midst of deciding about the American future debating these important critical national questions, American people were still hearing more about the sneakers of choice, the best and worst toothpaste, or how it is they should feed their cats and dogs. There is not too much political discussion, but it is too expensive. It is wrong. In a proper process, the great corporations that own the television networks as a means of political responsibility should have come forward and offered this time for candidates to debate or reduce the cost of advertising to discuss their respective issues, but they have not. They were challenged and they failed. Now it is up to the Congress. Some would say it is unconstitutional. It is the taking of property of the television networks. But indeed we crossed that threshold a long time ago in reducing only marginally the cost of advertising for charities and political debates. The problem is we reduced it only marginally, leaving the cost far, far too high. There is no right of a corporation to own a license. It is a license for air time that belongs to the public. It is granted and it is responsible that costs should be reduced. Sometimes it is almost unbearable as a Member of the Senate to hear the television networks with their anchors on the evening news berating the political system, challenging the candidates for public office, the President and the Members of the Senate to do something about campaign finance reform, reduce its cost, reform the process. The problem is the cost being charged by the television networks themselves. What are all these fundraisers? What is it we are doing running around the country raising money endlessly, from interests where we should never be seeking money, spending time that should be spent with citizens debating issues? It is to feed the networks that are demanding this money. When the challengers amendment we will have a chance to do something about it, to reduce the costs. Mr. President, that comes to a final objective in McCain-Feingold and the whole system of reform. Every American knows that there is a problem of too much money. I have made clear my own belief that there is also a problem of too much cost in advertising. But there is one other element that drives this reform effort. If most of the problems of the American people were represented by those who had money, this reform legislation would be much less important because there is more than enough contact between candidates for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and people who are able to donate and attend fundraisers. We see thousands of Americans at hundreds of fundraisers. There is no lack of communication or discussion of public policy issues. The problem is that most of the American people who have the most serious problems in their own lives don't have the money to attend these events. And since they cannot attend these events, they are not being heard and their problems are not getting addressed. They are outside the process. What is driving the need for campaign finance reform, in my judgment, is to free the candidates to once again discuss issues, to campaign on the streets of America with people who have no money but do have real concerns. Mr. President, this is a debate that it would be difficult to overestimate in its importance. The McCain-Feingold legislation is about campaign finance reform, but it is also about something much more fundamental. We are debating the integrity of the U.S. Government, whether or not the American people, a majority of whom no longer participate in this electoral process, can once again identify with the national political debate and at some point in the future return to participating in this system of government. I do not know how long, if we fail to reform this process, levels of participation will continue to decline while the Nation maintains political stability and a belief in this system of government. But I know it cannot go on forever. We may or may not succeed with the McCain-Feingold legislation. Perhaps some will succeed in passing a lesser measure dealing in the margins of reform and leaving the larger problem unanswered. If they do so, they do a disservice to the Senate and to the country. Mr. President, before this debate has concluded in the coming days and weeks, I will return again. But I am grateful for this chance to share a few opening thoughts on what is a critical moment in the life of the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. TORRICELLI. In response to the Senator from Kentucky--though it is not the thrust of his question--I will return to the major inquiry. I will share publicly what I discussed with the Senator previously privately; that is, my concern that if he is correct that the Federal courts will not allow McCain-Feingold, as currently written, to deal with express advocacy or independent expenditures, then we face a fundamental problem in that express advocacy and independent expenditures would be unregulated while we would be reducing the ability of the political parties or candidates to express themselves. We would, therefore, be dealing with campaigns by surrogates over the heads of the political parties and the candidates. In my judgment, that does not constitute reform, and it raises the question, as I expressed to the Senator privately, whether there should be a severability clause at all in this legislation because, in my judgment, if you cannot constitutionally deal with express advocacy and independent expenditures, I, speaking only for myself, do not believe that we can regulate the candidates in the political parties as envisioned by this legislation. That issue remains before the Federal courts. Now, finally, dealing with the Senator's question, it is my own belief that the Constitution can be satisfied, and I hope we can gain the Federal Court's approval, by allowing express advocacy of issues by people who do not name candidates or a campaign in their express advocacy and, hopefully, channel people's interest and finances to the political parties and the candidates separately. Therefore, every citizen has two routes of involvement--the political parties and a candidate of their choice or express advocacy without advocating an individual candidate independently. But I will concede to the Senator from Kentucky, I believe it is an open constitutional question. There is an invitation here to the Federal courts. I simply hope we can get an affirmative reaction from the courts. But I do not disagree with the Senator from Kentucky; it is an open issue.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I thank Senator Bryan for yielding this time. I rise in support of the amendment of the Senator from Nevada. There is not a Member of the Senate who has not shared with our colleagues, or their constituents, the extraordinary need to end both waste in this Government and corporate welfare in particular. This is the moment for those Members to give meaning to all those speeches, all those comments, and all those interviews, because the Bryan amendment is to corporate welfare what welfare reform in the last Congress was to social welfare. This is the moment. The scale of corporate welfare in the Federal budget is extraordinary. The Cato Institute estimates some $86 billion in expenditures. The Progressive Policy Institute estimates the number at $265 billion. This new age of fiscal discipline in which we live, when the Federal budget is being balanced, requires some sacrifice from everybody. In the last Congress it was people and families on welfare. In this Congress, at long last, it is time to have corporate welfare make its own contribution. The Bryan amendment deals with one specific part of this network of corporate welfare, the construction of timber roads. The Green Scissors Coalition estimates that, over a 5-year period, the Federal Government will spend $36 billion, not only on these expensive and potentially wasteful construction projects, but projects which at the same time have an extraordinary cost in environmental terms. The simple truth is, even if we could afford this construction, which we cannot, the environmental costs are enormous. These roads through our Nation's forests remove ground cover, create a channel for water to flow through--a cause of major soil erosion. Hillsides are weakened, streams are fouled, destroying the foundation of our recreational fishing industry--extraordinary--and some of the most important vistas and recreational properties in our Nation. It is believed that many of the channels created by these roads and the runoff are a major nonpoint source of pollution. According to the National Forest Service, 922 different communities in our country rely for their drinking water directly on streams that are impacted by the runoff of these roads in our national forests. The Bryan amendment is a chance to end this corporate welfare, preserve the quality of the water, and end the damage to these forests. It is a subsidy that may be $100 million to individual corporations, but that underestimates the true scale of the problem. Over the last 15 years, direct Government expenditures for construction and reconstruction of forest roads may total $3.2 billion. It is estimated that for the national forest road system alone, over the years, this has resulted in the construction of 380,000 miles in forest roads. For any citizens of America who have marveled at our Interstate Highway System, they can only understand the scale of this construction by recognizing there is enough mileage through our national forests to circle the globe 15 times. Indeed, we have built 8 miles of road through pristine national forests for every 1 mile that has been constructed in the National Interstate Highway System. The result of all these years of construction is that now we face $440 million worth of backlog of road maintenance. So we are continuing in the construction of millions of dollars' worth of new highways through new forests while the old highways are not maintained. They fall into disrepair with further erosion, damaging more streams, more drinking water--erosion of more forest. For those who are serious about the deficit, corporate welfare, and environmental protection, in a single vote for the Bryan amendment you are given a chance to make a statement about each. This is not a question of ending the foresting of trees. It is not a question of not making our resources available. It is a question about industry, like every other American, paying their own way. If these roads make sense, then they make sense for corporations to pay for them themselves. If they are to be built, then they should be built properly and maintained by the companies who want access to the resources. If companies want access to the resources, and it makes economic sense, then it should be reflected in the product, not by the taxpayers. It is that simple. The logic and the economics is no different than when we face individual spending programs for citizens, students, or senior citizens. At some point these programs need to be evaluated on their own merits, on their own economics. That is what Senator Bryan challenges us to do today. I enthusiastically support his amendment on budgetary grounds, because of the economic logic of his argument and, finally, and in my own judgment most compellingly, on environmental grounds. We preserve these lands for a reason. We should open them up, provide access to them for their destruction, judiciously and carefully. We failed to do so in the past. Senator Bryan gives us a last chance to make a proper judgment once again. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Bryan.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I thank Senator Jeffords for giving me the opportunity to join with him in this amendment and offer not only my support by my appeal to our colleagues to not only support us in this effort tonight but in future years to keep the commitment to respond to the threat to battlefield sites and other aspects of American history, to give our true measure to protecting the history of this country. In his Pulitzer prizewinning book, ``Battle Cry of Freedom,'' James McPherson once wrote of the Civil War that: Most of the things that we consider important in this era of American history--the fate of slavery, the structure of both the North and South, the direction of the American economy . . . the definition of freedom, the very survival of the United States--rested on the shoulders of those weary men in blue and grey * * *. Most of those men, Mr. President, were simple volunteers, laborers, farmers. They were paid little and endured horrific conditions. Throughout the duration of the war, 620,000 Americans, black and white, North and South, soldiers and sailors, paid an extraordinary price to preserve this Nation or to define it as they would have had its future. Mr. President, I rise today with Senator Jeffords in memory of those brave men because the lands where they fought, the places where they sacrificed, face a new threat. The battlefields of America, which define this country, where they gave their lives, may be lost to history. Future generations who might have been instructed by their sacrifices or discovered America by understanding what occurred on these lands will be denied the opportunity. We rise, Mr. President, on an auspicious occasion in offering this amendment because it was 135 years ago today, only miles north of this Senate Chamber, when more than 125,000 Americans, Union and Confederate, gathered on the rolling fields near Sharpsburg, MD, for what we know as the Battle of Antietam. It is therefore a fitting evening as we gather tonight to consider saving the lands where they died, to remember that only 12 hours after they gathered, in what would be remembered tomorrow, 23,000 men lay dead in what was the bloodiest day in American history, a day in which three times as many Americans fell as died on D-Day. I remember this anniversary, Mr. President, because I come to this effort helping Senator Jeffords here tonight because, with friends, I visited the Antietam Battlefield only months ago. I stood in the Sunken Road where 5,000 men fell as a part of that battle. And as I stood in the Sunken Road, where so many men gave their lives, looking from the Confederate positions to where the Union assault would have come, I recognized something peculiar that did not belong, strange to a great Nation, a ``For Sale'' sign stuck into this sacred ground rested where brave men led an assault to save or define or to change the United States. Mr. President, when Abraham Lincoln dedicated the national cemetery at Gettysburg, he said: We cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. I recall these words in this Chamber today because it is now for us to decide whether Lincoln was right or was wrong, because a ``For Sale'' sign is on lands where so many Americans fell, where generations will seek to visit to learn of their sacrifice and understand the rich and proud history of America. It is no place for commercial development, the sale and destruction of lands. It is, Mr. President, a desecration. The battlefield of Antietam is not alone. Today, hundreds of battlefields, where thousands of others died, face the similar threat of ``For Sale'' signs, a future as shopping malls, strip development, or suburban housing tracts. The battlefields of Antietam, where Senator Sessions and Senator Murray tell me that their own great-grandfathers lost their lives, will soon be housing tracts or the same commercial development that I fear. North of Antietam, in Gettysburg, home to Pickett's charge, Senator Lott tells me his own great-grandfather fell, on the left flank of what was the bloodiest battle where 55,000 Americans died in 3 days, more than in all the battles in the war of 14 years in Vietnam. South of here, in the lands around Fredericksburg, best captured by the photograph to my right--home to the battles of Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House--important Civil War landmarks have already been destroyed by housing tracts and shopping centers. Places where schoolchildren would have visited to remember their own relatives, learn about their sacrifices, understand how America came to be as we know it today will never have the experience. But it isn't just Gettysburg, it isn't only Antietam, it isn't simply experienced by Fredericksburg. It's Vicksburg, MS; Petersburg, VA; Mobile, AL; Fort Donelson, TN; Perryville, KY; Bentonville, NC; Chickamunga, GA. Indeed, two-thirds of the most important Civil War battlefield sites in our Nation in the next 6 years could be irrevocably lost to history. We are not, Mr. President, the first Senate to recognize this threat. In November 1990, under the leadership of Senator Bumpers and in the House of Representatives under the leadership of Congressman Mrazek of New York, with the signature of President Bush, we established the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission to advise the Congress on how to preserve these lands. This 15-member panel identified 384 critical Civil War battles or engagement sites that, in their judgment, should be preserved. Even 7 years ago, however, they recognized that 20 percent were already lost to history through commercial development. But they recognized that there are still 260 that could be saved. They warned then that time was short. Now, it is even shorter. Our amendment, through a sense of the Senate, will ask that the conferees use their best efforts to use funding available in the Land and Conservation Fund to immediately make available, within Park Service boundaries, funding to save those lands still available. It will use less than 10 percent of the funding available to the Congress this year out of the conservation funds. We offer this as a sense of the Senate because we have Senator Lott's commitment, and I believe his sincere pledge, to defend the interests of this Senate in preserving these lands, but mostly because Senator Gorton has given his own commitment. Because of his own sincere belief in this effort, he will lead us in this important cause. Mr. President, I am standing here tonight as a representative of a young country. We are challenged, I think, by the notion that if we stood not in the U.S. Congress but in the French National Assembly, the British Parliament, or any other great assembly in Europe, it would be unthinkable that the lands of Verdun or Stalingrad or Waterloo would ever be destroyed through commercial development. Perhaps our Nation is not as old, but its history is just as important. Our own children will look for instruction from what occurred in these important lands just as much as those of France, Russia or Britain. So, Mr. President, I offer this amendment with Senator Jeffords, giving my thanks to our colleagues who join with us and, indeed, to Professor McPherson, who has inspired yet another generation with his writing and battle cry of freedom and for writing to Members of the Senate today in support of this important amendment. Senator Jeffords, thank you for your leadership, and, Senator Gorton, thank you for your help in representing the Senate in the conference in preserving the sense of the Senate and dedicating these funds to this important effort. I yield the floor.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of the mayor of my hometown, Englewood, NJ. Mayor Donald Aronson's dedication to the Englewood community and the State of New Jersey make it an honor to be able to recognize him. After being elected mayor of Englewood three times he has decided not to stand for reelection. As his term comes to an end, I would like to convey my good wishes to a friend and valued colleague. Donald has made innumerable contributions to the residents of Englewood and to the State of New Jersey as a whole through numerous community service positions. He has served as commissioner and secretary of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, president of the Bergen County League of Municipalities, and he has sat on the board of trustees for the American Red Cross. In addition, he has been a member of the Englewood Board of Adjustment, Englewood Chamber of Commerce, and Englewood Economic Development Corp. The list of his community activities is endless. The extent of his service to State and local organizations is evidence of his lifelong commitment to public service. Now, Donald is preparing for a new position as the president of the Englewood Chamber of Commerce. I ask that you join me in recognizing Mayor Donald Aronson for all of his hard work and his service to the State of New Jersey.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, the balanced budget agreement passed by the Senate today was an extraordinary and historical accomplishment. The American people can be proud that Congress took bipartisan action to provide not only the first balanced budget in a generation but also tax relief to working families, health care for uninsured children, financial relief for those seeking a college education and the promise of long-term solvency for Medicare. In another historic yet less worthy act, the conferees quietly included in the bill a provision to, for the first time, relax the cross-ownership rules that prevent television stations or newspapers from owning a television station within the same city. The FCC has rightly enacted and enforced cross-ownership prohibitions for 50 years to ensure diversity of opinion and views on our local airwaves. But the provision in the reconciliation bill would allow newspaper owners and broadcasters to bid on licenses within the same market during the 2002 auction of analog broadcast signals in markets with populations greater than 400,000. These signals will be made available as the current analog stations convert to digital transmission. This action could have a seriously detrimental effect on the diversity of the current mosaic of broadcast entities. Broadcast television remains the most prolific form of local broadcast news and it is critical that this diversity is continued. Indeed, I am deeply concerned by the effect that this provision could have on the FCC's current review of cross-ownership rules. Congress directed the FCC to review cross-ownership rules in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the results of this review are pending. While I believe Congress should revisit the reconciliation relaxation provision on its own merits and free from the rush toward passage of the agreement, it is also critical that the FCC, during its own review of cross-ownership, does not interpret passage of this provision as unobjected Congressional support for repeal or relaxation of cross-ownership rules. Indeed, it is important to note that this provision is intended to provide cross-ownership only when there is a doubling of broadcast outlets within a particular market and only in markets of populations greater than 400,000. If Congress had wanted to take further action, it would have done so and therefore, the FCC should not. Our broadcast spectrum is one of our Nation's most valuable assets and one of the most powerful yet limited resource for the dissemination of ideas and free expression. It is critical that Congress work to protect rather than dilute this resource and I will fight for the integrity of our airwaves as Congress continues to address these issues.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleague, Senator Brownback, in submitting a Sense of Senate Resolution on the Current and Future Status of Taiwan. This legislation expresses the sense of the Senate that the recent transfer of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China does not alter the current or future status of Taiwan. The reversion of Hong Kong to China on July 1 has created the impression among some that the situations of Hong Kong and Taiwan are similar. Our resolution makes clear that there are deep differences between these two situations. Hong Kong reverted to China after the expiration of a treaty signed by China and the United Kingdom in 1898 granting a 99 year lease. No treaties exist which determine the future status of Taiwan, and Taiwan has maintained a de facto independence since 1949. The formula of ``one country, two systems'' applied to Hong Kong has no relevance to Taiwan. China continues to renounce the use of force against Taiwan and as recently as 1996 held military exercises in the Taiwan Strait in an attempt to intimidate the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act makes it the policy of the United States to ``consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.'' Based on these differences, our resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that-- First, the transfer of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China does not alter the current and future status of Taiwan; Second, the future of Taiwan should be determined by peaceful means through a democratic process in accordance with the principle of self- determination, as outlined in the Charter of the United Nations; and Third, the United States should assist in the defense of Taiwan in case of threats or military attack by the People's Republic of China against Taiwan.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, only hours ago, in a market in Jerusalem, the plague of terrorism once again struck the people of the Middle East. Simple people shopping for their goods and wares were struck down by a terrorist bomb. People who do not have the courage to stand on the battlefield or the wisdom to sit across a conference table with diplomats have, once again, sought to impose their own will on the people of Israel. I rise on the floor of the Senate to express all of our sympathies for the families of the victims, the people of Israel, and to Prime Minister Netanyahu. I know in all of us, there is not only a prayerful sorrow, but also a great anger. The sacrifices and the works and the hopes of so many might be dashed by these few who would impose their will. The best message may not simply be our prayers or our condolences. Perhaps, Mr. President, as Americans, we are best to respond to this tragedy as Americans have always responded to those who act in violence and with such irresponsible actions. Our best message may be our uncompromising determination to pursue peace. It is, after all, the interruption of the peace process that terrorists desire the most. If they had a coherent argument that had intellectual weight, they would have sought an entry into the peace process to make their arguments to diplomats. If they could make a coherent case to either the electorate in Israel or the people of the Palestinian Authority, they would have taken their case through a democratic process to those peoples. Their terrorist actions are the best evidence that they have no such arguments. They can make no such case. They, indeed, do not have confidence themselves in the strength of their own positions. In responding to this terrorist action, President Clinton made clear that the United States will not be dissuaded, that we are not led away or apart from our current policy of seeking a peaceful resolution to events in the Middle East. I believe that President Clinton, when he speaks these words, represents all of us. It is, therefore, only right and proper that, when the mourning ends and the dead are buried, our diplomats return to the Middle East with all dispatch. If it was the intention of the administration that they were to return in several days, the best message to the terrorists is that they return sooner. If it was their intention to remain a month, it is the best message to the terrorists that they should remain 2 months. If it was the intention of this Congress to continue American assistance to Israel for several years, the best message to these terrorists is, it shall continue for more years. There are those through the years who do not understand the United States. They think that because we are a patient and a reasonable people, inclined towards peace and willing to talk, that we lack strength or resolve. Those who know our history, watched our actions, or understand us and our culture the best know that, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. We are a people of enormous resolve. That resolve will best be demonstrated in the coming days when this administration sends our diplomats back to the negotiating table, this Congress continues with our commitments to Israel, and we make clear we will not be separated from our ambition of a strong and free Israel, with a Middle East with a lasting peace. To the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Yasser Arafat, we are all grateful that Mr. Arafat has expressed to Prime Minister Netanyahu and to the families of the victims his condolences. It is, however, on this occasion, not enough. The best expression of condolence to the victims and to the people of Israel is for Mr. Arafat to renew his commitment to the peace process without condition. It is not enough simply to express regret at the suffering of those who are victims or for Mr. Arafat to express his commitment to find those responsible and to cooperate with the Israeli authorities. It is also not enough to cooperate because of the deeds of this day, but to assure that tomorrow, and in all days that follow, the Palestinian Authority security forces will cooperate with Israeli law enforcement to share intelligence information, to open her borders and her files to ensure that this deed that has been suffered upon the people of Israel is not repeated. Mr. President, the people of Israel have suffered on many such days. Terrorism has not become the exception, but sometimes it seems the rule of the politics of the Middle East. In Israel, like in America, we are misunderstood. This much should be clear: There is no terrorist action so great, no number of victims so large, that the people of Israel will be convinced to compromise on the needs of their basic security, their determination that they and their children will live in an undivided Jerusalem. At times we seem so close to peace and yet more victims, more sacrifice is asked. Wherever these terrorists might be hiding tonight, whatever cave may conceal their cowardice, let this much be clear: Israel will remain free, Jerusalem will remain Israeli, the future will be secured. And if the sacrifice of the people of Israel through all these years has not convinced these terrorists, or those who would follow them, of that fact, then add this to the equation: The U.S. Congress, this Senate in representation of all the people of the United States, are determined to make it so as well. Mr. President, our prayers, our heartfelt sorrow go to the families of the victims of all the people of Israel. May the future at long last be different than the past. I yield the floor.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for yielding. And I want to offer my thanks to Senator Hollings and Senator Gregg for agreeing to this amendment. Mr. President, this is not the first time that I have joined with Senator Wellstone in legislation to help women who are the victims of domestic violence. In the last Congress we successfully led an effort to deny access to handguns to people who have convictions of domestic violence. We return here today because the plague of domestic violence has not abated. It is believed that there are 3 to 4 million women every year in America who are subjected to domestic violence. Every 18 seconds another victim is struck. Indeed, during the course of a lifetime, half of the women in this country will be abused by a husband or a boyfriend or someone with whom they live. One of the tragic ironies of this terrible situation is that in the moment when women need the help of the law the most they are denied. The Legal Services Corporation last year handled a quarter of a million cases of domestic violence and yet those women who may have needed the help the most could not get Legal Services assistance because the income of their husbands, the very people who might be striking them, the person from whom they are seeking a restraining order or a divorce, made them ineligible. The amendment we offer today would eliminate this tragic contradiction. I believe it is a good statement by this Senate, a realistic recognition of a terrible national problem and the ending of this real dilemma for American women, that in the future it can be said any woman, regardless of her husband's income, will be able to get legal assistance because of her own vulnerability, based on her own lack of resources. So she gets the protection she needs. I am very pleased to be offering this amendment with Senator Wellstone today and once again offer my thanks to Senator Gregg and Senator Hollings for their support. I yield the floor.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleagues, Senators Mack, Helms, and Graham, in introducing the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] Accountability and Safety Act of 1997. This legislation will withhold from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] a proportional share of United States assistance for programs or projects of that Agency in Cuba. It seeks to discourage the IAEA from technical assistance programs or projects that would contribute to the maintenance or completion of the Juragua Nuclear Power Plant near Cienfuegos, Cuba and/or to nuclear research or experiments at the Pedro Pi Nuclear Research Center. Our legislation makes clear to Cuba and to the international community that the United States considers the existence of nuclear facilities under the control of a government on the list of terrorist countries that has not ratified the fundamental agreements on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons a threat to the national security of the United States. As such, the United States seeks to discourage all other governments and international agencies from assisting the efforts of the Cuban Government to maintain or complete the Juragua Plant or to advance nuclear research at the Pedro Pi facility. United States funds would be made available to the IAEA to discontinue, dismantle, or conduct safety inspections of nuclear facilities and related materials in Cuba, or to inspect or undertake similar activities designed to prevent the development of nuclear weapons by Cuba. The withholding of funds from the IAEA would be obviated if: Cuba ratifies the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (Tlatelolco); negotiates full-scope safeguards of the IAEA within two years of ratifying; and adopts internationally accepted nuclear safety standards. The legislation also requests reports on the activities of the IAEA in Cuba.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleagues, Senators Mack, Helms, and Graham, in introducing the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] Accountability and Safety Act of 1997. This legislation will withhold from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] a proportional share of United States assistance for programs or projects of that Agency in Cuba. It seeks to discourage the IAEA from technical assistance programs or projects that would contribute to the maintenance or completion of the Juragua Nuclear Power Plant near Cienfuegos, Cuba and/or to nuclear research or experiments at the Pedro Pi Nuclear Research Center. Our legislation makes clear to Cuba and to the international community that the United States considers the existence of nuclear facilities under the control of a government on the list of terrorist countries that has not ratified the fundamental agreements on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons a threat to the national security of the United States. As such, the United States seeks to discourage all other governments and international agencies from assisting the efforts of the Cuban Government to maintain or complete the Juragua Plant or to advance nuclear research at the Pedro Pi facility. United States funds would be made available to the IAEA to discontinue, dismantle, or conduct safety inspections of nuclear facilities and related materials in Cuba, or to inspect or undertake similar activities designed to prevent the development of nuclear weapons by Cuba. The withholding of funds from the IAEA would be obviated if: Cuba ratifies the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (Tlatelolco); negotiates full-scope safeguards of the IAEA within two years of ratifying; and adopts internationally accepted nuclear safety standards. The legislation also requests reports on the activities of the IAEA in Cuba.

Mr. TORRICELLI

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, with the first phase of the hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee into the abuses of the electoral process through campaign fundraising having just concluded, and the second phase about to begin, it is perhaps an appropriate time to reflect on those things that we have learned in these first few weeks and those questions that remain. It is, I think, important to note that despite some incentive for partisanship, a tendency by the media to sometimes reach conclusions before the facts, and a persistent failure of some witnesses to cooperate, the committee has begun its work, I think, in the best traditions of the Senate. Democrats and Republicans are working together. We do have a common objective, and I think we are doing service to the institution. These things, however, have already been learned. First, it is a result of insufficient management and poor decisionmaking and the continuing upward spiral of pressure to raise campaign funds, the Democratic National Committee made a series of bad decisions during the last election that clearly resulted in some violations of Federal law and were a disservice both to the President and the Democratic Party. Among these were the inadequacy of any process of checking the names or backgrounds of contributors or the sources of their funds. The good work of some members of the Democratic National Committee and its staff was compromised, unfortunately, by the addition of some inexperienced people who were not properly supervised or trained for their positions. John Huang was clearly among them, and it is now clear from testimony before the committee that there is a substantial chance that the result was a violation of Federal law. Second, it is also becoming clear that the Chinese Government, the People's Republic of China, as a result or in reaction to the visit of President Li of Taiwan to the United States, planned and potentially embarked upon a plan to influence the 1996 Federal election. It is clear from the evidence provided to date that this plan targeted neither political party in particular, but probably both in general. It seems to have been primarily designed to influence the U.S. Congress. It is unclear to date the extent of those designs on the Presidential election. It is also clear that that plan involved both legal and potentially illegal means to accomplish its goal. The extent of its success, to what extent it was achieved, is not at this point known. The fact that it existed and there were any intentions implemented is disturbing enough to warrant the committee's investigation. Third, it is established, I believe, at this point, to at least some degree of satisfaction, that the illegal activities that may have been embarked upon by John Huang or others to seek and receive foreign contributions or otherwise violate Federal Election Commission regulations and the laws of the United States with regard to fundraising were not either known or encouraged by senior personnel at the Democratic National Committee. Richard Sullivan, who was the direct superior of Mr. Huang, denied under oath that there was any plan by the Democratic National Committee to solicit Chinese or other foreign contributions. It is, however, clear Mr. Huang's activities were not sufficiently monitored or known as should have been the case in an organization of the importance of the Democratic National Committee. Fourth, John Huang's own activities raise substantial suspicion. It is not enough for the committee to conclude that it was not properly supervised or to take any comfort in the fact that his superiors or other people in either the White House or Democratic National Committee did not have knowledge of his efforts to raise foreign contributions. Nor is it enough to simply dismiss his activities as a poor judgment to hire him because he was inexperienced or unqualified to be vice chairman of finance of the Democratic National Committee. His activities while at the Commerce Department in operating out of the Stevens Corp., where he both received and made telephone calls, received and sent faxes and perhaps, most suspiciously, received packages, raised continued questions. In the coming weeks, the committee will want to explore as to the nature of his activities, not simply while at the Democratic National Committee, but in the months preceding it while a Federal employee. The committee is also left with the unanswered question as to why he continued to receive briefings by the intelligence community and of what use he made of that information. The committee is also left with questions regarding the alleged Chinese plan. While it is comforting that there is no evidence to date that policy was impacted, it is also not enough for us to rest in a comfort that it was bipartisan and not apparently solicited by either political party, based on information known to date. The question remains of whether policy was ever changed as a result of these contributions, whether the plan was actually fully implemented, and whether or not it continues. This naturally is a first priority of the committee and remains of overwhelming importance. And questions, finally, remain with regard to John Huang. Of what use did he make of this information for corporate purposes of the Lippo Group or any other foreign interest? Were these questions both continuing before the committee and some of these preliminary issues answered? The committee next turns its work to the National Policy Forum, its relationship with the Republican National Committee and its chairman, Haley Barbour. The committee in the coming days will receive testimony, I believe, that will indicate that Mr. Barbour, while chairman of the Republican National Committee, designed a plan, which was implemented with his participation, to solicit and eventually did receive foreign contributions in excess of $2 million, which helped, through a series of transactions, to fund the 1994 Republican campaign to take control of the U.S. Congress. Evidence will be presented that this was an active plan, fully implemented. After a week of testimony, therefore, we will know the extent of involvement of the Democratic and Republican National Committees in these efforts to receive foreign contributions and their impact on the 1994 and 1996 elections. With those two phases of the committee's work completed, what we will not have done is get any closer to the question of genuine and complete campaign finance reform. Several weeks have now passed since President Clinton's deadline was passed for the July 4, 1996, consideration of campaign finance reform. No campaign finance reform bill has been considered or released by any subcommittee of this Senate. No date has been set for the Senate to even begin discussion of any such genuine reform. Indeed, there are some who would argue that the Governmental Affairs Committee deliberations are an excuse to wait until next year to even begin consideration of any campaign finance reform legislation. Using the deadline of the end of 1996 to begin consideration will assure that the 1998 Federal elections are conducted under the same campaign finance laws that bred the very problems now being discussed by the Governmental Affairs Committee. And it begs the question that, for all the important things that this Senate can learn from these hearings, all the unfortunate revelations the Senate is now experiencing, the tragic lessons the American people are now learning about this system, which Senator does not already know enough that we are raising too much money, spending too much money, and inviting both these abuses and violations of the law every day that we do not reform this system? I know that there is a perception in our country that this failure to initiate campaign finance reform is a genuinely bipartisan problem. The American people can be forgiven for believing this because both parties have abused the system, and our hearings are resulting in learning that both the Democratic and Republican National Committees have not only violated the vested policy but clearly violated the law in this downward spiral of campaign fundraising. It is, however, becoming less and less of a bipartisan issue when it comes to the question of reaching solutions. Last weekend, Jim Nicholson, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, announced his opposition to banning soft money, his opposition to any limit on campaign expenditures, his opposition to controlling the costs of television. In essence, the Republican chairman of their national committee announced his opposition to any campaign finance reform. Indeed, that mirrors our experience in the House and in the Senate. The overwhelming majority of the caucus of the Democratic Party in this Senate is prepared to vote for campaign finance reform now. It has been endorsed by our leadership. President Clinton has indicated that he would sign such legislation. Yet, only three members of the Republican caucus are prepared to even vote for campaign finance reform, and no committee chairman has been willing to bring it to consideration. Mr. President, as our committee continues its work, we will continue to be saddened by revelations that both political parties have not challenged the best within us in raising funds for conducting these campaigns. Our only comfort is that the political leadership of this institution will at some point see the need to wait no longer and begin initiating real change. There is no room in this debate for anyone to take comfort in their actions to date. Not only have the political committees of both parties not conducted themselves in our best traditions, not only have both possibly violated the laws, but other institutions have equal fault. While the media each day reminds us of the problems of campaign financing, the cost of television advertising continues to spiral upward. The overwhelming costs of these campaigns is a result of the rising cost of television. While every night the media rails against the system, complains against the abuses, their lobbyists roam the Halls of Congress fighting efforts to control the cost of television advertising. So, in neither party, nor in the private institutions of the media, nor in the institutions of the political parties is there any reason for pride. Only this, that there are still people in this institution in both parties who continue the investigations, Members of the Senate who are prepared to vote to change the system, people not simply who have not succeeded in the system, but Members who have succeeded, who have raised the funds, conducted successful campaigns, but still recognize that even though individuals can succeed, it does not serve the national interests. Mr. President, the first phase of our investigation by the Governmental Affairs Committee has now concluded. We begin two more important weeks of our work. I believe we are conducting ourselves, pursuing our objective as this Senate has commanded us to do. Much has been learned. There remains much to be done. I hope every Senator will continue to follow our work, but, mostly, join us in the commitment to change this system, find those who have abused it in the past, ensure that the law is enforced, and then give the American people a political system financed by means in which they can take real pride. Mr. President, I yield the floor.