Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, when we talk about citizens becoming frustrated and sometimes angry, either two things are going on. First of all, you can find people to talk to everywhere, especially senior citizens who are paying 30, 40, or 50 percent of their monthly budget just for these costs. They cut the pill in half and take only half of what they need, or they cut down on food. It is drugs versus food, or versus something else. They should not be faced with those choices. But what adds insult to injury is to then know that the same drug manufactured quite often in the same place with the same FDA approval purchased in Canada costs half the price. We are simply saying let our pharmacists and let our distributors in our country be able to purchase those prescription drugs in Canada and bring them back and sell them at a discount to our consumers. That is what this legislation says. If you want to talk about a piece of legislation that speaks to the interests and circumstances of people's lives, I think this legislation will make an enormous difference. I am prepared to fight very hard to make sure that we pass this legislation.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me first of all say to my colleague from North Dakota that I am really pleased to join him in this effort, along with Senator Snowe and Senator Johnson. The International Prescription Drug Parity Act makes prescription drugs more affordable for millions of Americans by applying the principles of free trade and competition. I want to give special thanks to a wonderful grassroots citizen organization from Minnesota called the Minnesota Senior Federation. If we had organizations such as this all around the country, we would have such effective citizen politics, and I guarantee we would be passing legislation that would make an enormous positive difference in the lives of the people in our country. This legislation provides relief from price gouging of American consumers by our own pharmaceutical industry. Those who really pay the price are those who are chronically ill. Many of those who are clinically ill are the elderly. It is not uncommon anywhere in our country to run across an elderly couple or single individual who is paying up to 30, 40, or 50 percent of their monthly budget just for prescription drug costs. In my State of Minnesota, only 35 percent of senior citizens have any prescription drug cost coverage at all. This legislation is very simple. I say to Senator Dorgan that what I liked the best about this legislation, and the reason I think it will command widespread support, is its eloquent simplicity. We are just saying that if you have drugs which are FDA approved and manufactured in our country, and now they are in Canada, for example, and cost half of what they cost senior citizens to pay for that drug in our own country, it shouldn't just be the pharmaceutical companies that can bring those drugs back in. You ought to enable pharmacists or distributors to go to Canada and purchase these drugs which have been FDA approved, and then bring them back to our country and sell these drugs at a discount rate for our citizens in our country. This is the best of competition. This is the best of what we mean by free trade. I want to be clear. This legislation will amend the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The FDA Commissioner was in Minnesota 2 weeks ago and senior citizens were pressing her on this question. She was cautious. But what she was saying was that we would need some legislation; we would need some change to be able to do what Senator Dorgan is talking about. We would amend this piece of legislation to allow American pharmacists and distributors to import prescription drugs into the United States as long as these drugs meet strict FDA standards. That is it. The FDA isn't directly involved, but the FDA is critically involved in the sense that these drugs have to meet all the FDA standards. This piece of legislation is simple. It is straightforward. It is very proconsumer, very pro-senior citizen, very procompetition, very pro-free trade. As I think about the gatherings that I go to in my State--I bet this applies to New Jersey, I see Senator Torricelli here, and Senator Reed of Rhode Island--anywhere in the country. You can't go to a community meeting, and you can't go in into a cafe and meet with people without having people talk about the price of prescription drugs. It is just prohibitively expensive. This piece of legislation will make an enormous difference. It could be that there is some opposition to this piece of legislation. I can see some vested economic interests who may figure out reasons to be opposed to it, but I will say that this piece of legislation would go a long way in dealing with the problem of price gouging right now and making sure that these prescription drugs that can be so important to the health of senior citizens, the people in the disabilities community and other citizens as well that they will be able to purchase these drugs, and they will be able to afford these drugs, which can make an enormous difference in improving the quality of their health. I introduce this legislation, along with Senator Dorgan, and we are joined by Senator Johnson and Senator Snowe. I believe we will have strong bipartisan support for this bill. Mr. President, how much time do we have left?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, when we talk about citizens becoming frustrated and sometimes angry, either two things are going on. First of all, you can find people to talk to everywhere, especially senior citizens who are paying 30, 40, or 50 percent of their monthly budget just for these costs. They cut the pill in half and take only half of what they need, or they cut down on food. It is drugs versus food, or versus something else. They should not be faced with those choices. But what adds insult to injury is to then know that the same drug manufactured quite often in the same place with the same FDA approval purchased in Canada costs half the price. We are simply saying let our pharmacists and let our distributors in our country be able to purchase those prescription drugs in Canada and bring them back and sell them at a discount to our consumers. That is what this legislation says. If you want to talk about a piece of legislation that speaks to the interests and circumstances of people's lives, I think this legislation will make an enormous difference. I am prepared to fight very hard to make sure that we pass this legislation.

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, though I see on the floor Mr. Inouye and Mr. Stevens, two Senators for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, I rise to speak in opposition to the proposed increases in military spending contained in this defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2000. I have, I believe, been a strong supporter of our women and men in uniform, especially our veterans. I think we should provide the best possible training, equipment and preparations for our military forces. I understand and know full well that our forces have been asked in recent years to carry out a number of peacekeeping, humantarian and other missions. I voted to support the airstrikes in Kosovo. I have raised questions throughout this conflict. I hope there will be a diplomatic solution, and I hope the Kosovars will be able to go back home. I think we are at the beginning of a huge challenge. In particular, I want us to remember the Kosovars and continue especially with humanitarian assistance. So I think we need to adequately support these activities, and I also supported the supplemental budget for the cost of the campaign in Kosovo. But I am troubled--and I think I am probably one of only a few in the Senate, but I have the opportunity and the honor of being able to speak as a Senator from Minnesota, and so I will--by what I see as a stampede in this Congress toward even greater increases in Pentagon spending. I think the increase in spending in this legislation goes way beyond what we need to spend in the conflict in Kosovo and way beyond what I think a post-cold war defense budget should reflect. This appropriations bill totals $264 billion, and we also appropriated a considerable amount more in the supplemental bill, the emergency bill. If you look at the cost of Kosovo, it will be a relatively small percentage of this overall budget. In terms of manpower or womanpower, even if we participate--and I believe we will-- in the KFOR peace enforcement process, we will be contributing about 7,000 troops. The total armed force of the United States is roughly 1.5 million. So this is not a question of whether or not we go on and live up to our commitment in Kosovo. I think we can support that mission without this Pentagon budget at the level called for. I fear that using Kosovo and also some vaguely defined set of ``threats'' will end up--and I want to talk about some of the doctrines that undergird this budget--giving a blank check to the Pentagon this year and in the years ahead. This budget accounts for a little over half of the discretionary spending in the annual budget. That is what troubles me. If you look at the peak of the cold war, currently we are spending, roughly speaking, just thinking about real dollar terms, close to 90 percent--about 86--of the cold war budget, and that is during the height of the cold war. Now, most of the funds in this budget go to maintaining a force structure that is shaped by the requirement to fight two simultaneous, major conflicts and to counter what defense analysts refer to as ``uncertainty scenarios.'' I recognize that the United States faces a number of threats around the world and that those threats have changed during the cold war period--in particular, the threat of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. If we look carefully at those threats, we can see that in this budget too much of the spending is not directly related to meeting those threats but, rather, continues with what I define as cold war priorities. We continue to pour billions of dollars into unnecessary cold war era weapons programs. We continue to maintain a nuclear arsenal that is completely disproportionate to the arsenals maintained by our potential adversaries--an arsenal that could be substantially cut, resulting in dramatic savings, still providing for as strong a defense as we could ever need. Congress has also skewed spending priorities by refusing to close military bases that the Pentagon acknowledges are unneeded and obsolete and which the Pentagon itself has pressed to close. What is especially troubling about the spending in this budget is the Strategic Concepts--the two major regional conflicts concept and other uncertain scenarios--that are, I think, implausible and unlikely. I want to draw here on some excellent work done by analyst Carl Conetta and Charles Knight of the Project on Defense Alternatives in Cambridge, MA. Beginning in the 1980s, the focus of defense planners moved away from ``clear and present danger'' of the Soviet power to the intractable problem of ``uncertainty.'' Along with the shift has come a new kind of Pentagon partisan--the ``uncertainty hawk.'' The uncertainty hawks are engaged in worst-case thinking. Among the sort of nonstandard scenarios, worst-case scenarios that are, for example, talked about with this kind of doctrine are defending the Ukraine or the Baltics against Russia, civil wars in Russia and Algeria, a variety of wars in China, contention with Germany, and wars aligning Iraq and Syria against Turkey, and Iraq and Iran against Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, QDR, uses unnamed ``wild card'' scenarios to help define these requirements. Now, although both the 1993 and 1997 Defense Reviews link the two-war requirements to the Korean and Persian Gulf scenarios, these were also described merely as examples of possible wars. Officially, the two-war requirement--that we have to be able to fight two wars simultaneously-- is generic. It is not tied directly to Korea or the gulf. As the Quadrennial Defense Review puts it, ``We can never know with certainty when or where the next major theater war will occur'' or ``who our next adversary will be.'' It is important to recognize, as opposed to appropriating moneys based upon this kind of strategic doctrine, that since 1945 the United States has fought only three major regional conflicts--one every 15 or 20 years. The regional great powers and peer competitors that currently enthrall planners are only hypothetical constructs, and the world changes all of the time. I will give an example of a little bit more of this doctrine. The prime candidates, in addition to these uncertainty scenarios, worst- case scenarios, for future peer rival status, given current doctrine, are Russia and China. A dozen years of dedicated investment might resuscitate a significant portion of the Russian Armed Forces, but that certainly is not what we are looking at right now--a major military competitor, Russia. The Chinese ``threat,'' even given all of the developments we have been talking about over the last several weeks, is even more iffy. If China's economy holds out, in 30 years it might be able to mount a ``Soviet-style'' challenge. Surveying the prospects worldwide, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst concludes that ``no military or technical peer competitor to the United States is on the horizon for at least a couple of decades.'' As I have said, I believe we should maintain a strong defense. We face a number of credible threats in the world, including terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But let's make sure we carefully identify the threats we face and tailor our defense spending to meet them. Let's not continue to maintain military spending based on hypothetical threats that may not arise for decades--if at all. I will argue as we look at this budget, which again makes up about one-half of our discretionary spending, that we ought to consider this vote in the context of where we are heading with these budget caps. I say yes to a strong defense but no to some of the unnecessary spending that is in this budget; no to some of the scenarios that are laid out in this budget and some of the doctrines that undergird the spending in this budget, especially when we are talking about over 50 percent of discretionary spending going into this area. Whatever happened to the discussions we once had about national security at home? If we are going to spend 50 percent of our discretionary budget on the Pentagon--and we are not going to do anything about these budget caps, and we will have to, in my view, take these caps off; there is no question about it. But on current course within this context of the budget we now have before us, we are going to spend over 50 percent of discretionary spending on the Pentagon. And, as a result, what are we not doing? We are not looking at the other part of our national defense. I argue that part of our real national security is the security of our local communities. Whatever happened to the idea that we were going to focus on early childhood development? Whatever happened to the priority that we were talking about as being so important to our country that we had to invest in the health, skills, intellect, and character of our children? Whatever happened to the importance of affordable child care? Whatever happened to the importance of decent health care coverage for people? In my State of Minnesota, 35 percent of senior citizens--that is it, 35 percent of senior citizens--have some prescription drug coverage. The other 65 percent have no coverage at all. Many of them are spending up to 40 percent of their budget just on these costs. Where is the funding going to be for that? Where is the funding going to be for the 44 million people who have no health insurance at all? Yesterday, we had a White House conference dealing with mental health. I would add substance abuse. I have been doing work with Senator Domenici--and proud to do so--on trying to deal with some discrimination and making sure that people get decent mental health coverage. How are we going to move forward to make sure there is decent health care coverage for people? How are we going to make sure there is affordable child care? What about affordable housing? How are we going to take the steps in our communities to reduce the violence and to be able to get to the kids--I think of the juvenile justice bill that we passed not more than a couple of weeks ago--before they get into trouble in the first place? How are we going to make sure that higher education is affordable? How are we going to make sure we have the best education for every child? I just simply want to say I am going to vote against this bill, and I am going to vote against this bill for two reasons, neither of which has anything to do with the two very distinguished Senators who are managing this bill. First of all, as I said, I think much of it goes beyond Kosovo. Much of it goes beyond our real national defense. I think too much of it is still based upon a cold war doctrine. I believe we can make cuts in the Pentagon budget and still have a strong defense. I have tried to lay out that case. Second of all, I am going to vote against this bill--I don't think too many Senators are--because I view the vote on this appropriations bill in the context of the overall budget and where these appropriations bills are going. I view some of the dollars spent on the Pentagon as being dollars that we are not going to spend for affordable child care, that we are not going to spend to make sure there is decent education for our children, that we are not going to spend to make sure there is affordable housing. I argue that somewhere in the debate in the Senate we have to also look at real national security as not just being a strong defense as defined in this budget, which I am for, although I think a strong defense doesn't necessitate all of the money we are spending, but, in addition, we have to think about real national security as the security of our local communities where --one more time, and I will finish on this--there is affordable child care--when are we going to get to that?--there is affordable housing, there is decent education, there is decent health care, where we don't have one out of every four children under the age of 3 growing up poor in our country, where we don't have one out of every two children of color under the age of 3 growing up poor in our country, and make sure that every child, no matter color of skin, or income, or rural, or urban, or boy or girl, can grow up dreaming to be President of the United States of America. I think that has to be part of the definition of our real national security. I think we have to make more decisive investments in these areas of public life in our Nation. I believe this appropriations bill, in the context of the budget, where these appropriations bills are going to, subtracts from that very important agenda as well. Let me finish one more time by being one of the Members of the Senate--I don't know whether others will say--I think others will say this eventually--who says that right now we are in a fiscal straitjacket. We will not be able to live with these caps. We will be making a huge mistake if we don't make some of the decisive investments I am talking about on the floor today. This will be a very shortsighted vision. We need to do much better as a nation going into the next century. And it can't be just Pentagon spending; it always has to be to make sure that there is a peaceful opportunity for every child in our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for a few minutes in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I think I can do this in 5 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the other matter I wanted to bring up is the amendment to the DOD authorization bill which lost on a 50-49 vote. I don't know whether I will do an amendment on this bill or whether I will wait for the bankruptcy bill, but my amendment had to do with the compelling need for all of us as responsible policymakers to do some systematic and systemic evaluation of what is going on with welfare reform. I want to know about those mothers and those children. I have come to the floor and I have said it is fine that we have reduced the caseload by a third, or thereabouts, but the question is; has the reduction in welfare led to a reduction in poverty? Where are the women and children? What kind of jobs do they have? What kind of wages do they earn? Is there decent child care? I bring to the attention of my colleagues the General Accounting Office report of May 27, 1999, and I point out a quote on page 2 at the beginning of this report: Because there are no Federal requirements for States to report on the status of former welfare recipients, the only systematic data currently available on families who have left welfare come from research efforts initiated by States to meet their own information needs. Then they go on to point out that only States currently provide adequate data. So I will be coming to the floor again and taking up a considerable amount of time. I will be drawing from a lot of reports about some pretty brutal conditions, because I am determined to win this vote. I really do believe that it is not too much to ask that the Senate--for that matter, the House of Representatives--go on record calling on the Secretary of Health and Human Services to call on States to provide the data as to what is happening to these families. Yes, they are poor families, and I understand that sometimes to be poor and to be on welfare is to be despised in America, but I think we ought to know what is going on with these women and children. That is what we are talking about--women and children. So I thought, since I had a moment, I would announce that maybe on this bill, or maybe on the next bill, I am going to come back with this amendment, and I will bring out some of the important reports by the Conference of Mayors, the Catholic Church's Network Organization, which has done some wonderful work, and what the Conference of State Legislatures is saying, and the reports on the rise of homelessness with a special emphasis on the population of women and children. Then, after going through all of that, and also talking about some of my own observations as a Senator who has done a lot of work with low- and moderate-income people, one more time, I will call on the Senate to vote for this very reasonable amendment. We ought to know what is going on in the country. It is irresponsible for us not to have the information to see whether or not this legislation is really working. I say that because pretty soon, over the next couple of years, we are going to reach a drop-dead date where, in all of the States--5 years being the maximum period of time from when we pass this bill--everybody is going to be driven off the rolls. There is going to be no assistance any longer. Of course, we are talking about a lot of women who have been battered, who have struggled with substance abuse, and who have struggled with mental illness. It is not clear whether they are going to be able to work or what will happen to them and their children. It is not at all clear what is happening right now to some women and children in this country. Have we made it possible for them to move to economic self-sufficiency, to live more independent lives? I say to the Chair, who cares an awful lot about children, are these children better off? We need to know. I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues that I want to come back with this amendment, and I am hoping that a couple of Senators, this time around, will be willing to vote for it on a different piece of legislation. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes to speak as in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I call the Senate's attention to the fact that yesterday, June 6, marked the 31st anniversary of the death of a former Member of this body, Senator Robert F. Kennedy. I can think of no more fitting way to remember Robert Kennedy's legacy than to recall some of the words he delivered to students at the annual Day of Reaffirmation of Academic and Human Freedom at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Ironically, this speech was delivered June 6, 1966, just 2 years before Robert Kennedy's death. I will read portions of the speech: Our answer is . . . to rely on youth. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those . . . who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease . . . . These [people] moved the world, and so can we all. I am reading portions of the speech. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. This is perhaps my favorite quote from what anyone has ever said. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Robert Kennedy's brother, our colleague, Senator Ted Kennedy, has said that his brother ``need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.'' I do not presume to improve upon either Robert Kennedy's own words or upon his brother's tribute. I recall the words today only to mark June 6 1968, as a tragic and sad day in the history of our country. As Ted has said, to pray that what Robert Kennedy ``was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.'' I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I listened to my colleague, Senator Inouye, in his opening remarks. He reminded me of an issue that I think is extremely important. Over this Memorial Day recess, the DAV, Disabled American Veterans, organized a big forum in Minnesota. I think they had 130 forums over the recess period. The veterans wanted to focus attention on our commitment--hopefully, our commitment--to veterans. They were saying there is a whole set of issues that are really important to their lives. Some of them have to do with the ever-aging veteran's population and how we will deal with these needs. Some of them have to do with veterans, a third of the homeless population being veterans, which I think is just a national disgrace. Many of those veterans are struggling with substance abuse problems and they were saying: Where is the treatment for these veterans? But some of what they were saying was, even if you put aside some of these challenges and the flatline budget proposed by the President--and then they were looking at our budget resolution and what we have come up with--it doesn't even keep up with medical inflation. The point was: We are worried about access to services. We are worried about much longer waits. We are worried about a lot of the staffs at medical centers having to work double shifts. We are worried about some of the facilities having to close. We are worried about not being able to get the care that we so desperately need and, I argue, so clearly deserve. I just wanted to say, since I heard my colleague from Hawaii speak-- as he knows, I am critical of the Pentagon budget. I admire the Senator from Hawaii, and I absolutely mean that, but I don't usually agree with these budgets. I usually disagree with some portions. As long as we are talking about our Armed Forces, I hope when we get to the veterans appropriations bill, we will get this right, and I hope we will make the investment we should make. There is a considerable amount of indignation on the part of veterans. And they are right; I wish they were wrong, but I have had a chance to see some of this firsthand. They just feel a sense of betrayal. I hope we are going to rectify what I think is a real injustice to veterans.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Virginia for his graciousness, together with both of my colleagues, Senator Kennedy and Senator Feingold. Kosovo

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, to have printed in the Record a very eloquent, powerful and important piece written by President Jimmy Carter, entitled, ``Have We Forgotten the Path to Peace?'' from the New York Times.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will read the relevant section: Our general purposes are admirable: to enhance peace, freedom, democracy, human rights and economic progress. But this flawed approach is now causing unwarranted suffering and strengthening unsavory regimes in several countries, including Sudan, Cuba, Iraq and--the most troubling example-- Serbia. There, the international community has admirable goals of protecting the rights of Kosovars and ending the brutal policies of Slobodan Milosevic. But the decision to attack the entire nation has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal. There is little indication of success and more than 25,000 sorties and 14,000 missiles and bombs, 4,000 of which were not precision guided. The expected few days of aerial attacks have now lengthened into months, while more than a million Kosovars have been forced from their homes, many never to return even under the best of circumstances. As the American-led force has expanded targets to inhabited areas and resorted to the use of anti- personnel cluster bombs, the result has been damage to hospitals, offices and residences of a half-dozen ambassadors, and the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians and an untold number of conscripted troops. Instead of focusing on Serbian military forces, missiles and bombs are now concentrating on the destruction of bridges, railways, roads, electric power, and fuel and fresh water supplies. Serbian citizens report that they are living like cavemen, and their torment increases daily. Realizing that we must save face but cannot change what has already been done, NATO leaders now have three basic choices: to continue bombing ever more targets until Yugoslavia (including Kosovo and Montenegro) is almost totally destroyed, to rely on Russia to resolve our dilemma through indirect diplomacy, or to accept American casualties by sending military forces into Kosovo. The reason I read from this piece today is to build on what I said last night in the debate. Today there is a report in the Washington Post that we are going to be going after telephone systems, communications, in Yugoslavia, as well as bombing electrical grids. This ends up targeting the people there. Slobodan Milosevic has been indicted as a war criminal. He has committed brutal crimes against the Kosovars. But the citizens of Yugoslavia have not been the ones who have committed these crimes. I come to the floor to say to all of my colleagues, I hope you have time to read President Carter's piece. I believe we are severely undercutting our own moral authority by targeting the civilian infrastructure. I think we are making a terrible mistake by doing so. I come to the floor of the Senate to speak out against this and to make it clear that this goes far beyond what we said was our original goal of these airstrikes and our military action--which was to degrade the military capacity of Milosevic. Now this infrastructure is being targeted. Too many civilians are being targeted. As a Senator, I call into question these airstrikes. I think Jimmy Carter has done a real service for the country by writing this piece, putting the emphasis on diplomacy, putting the emphasis on a diplomatic solution to this conflict. Veterans Accountability Day

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to inform my colleagues about a nationwide event which is going to be taking place the Memorial Day weekend. This is going to be an accountability day. It is organized by the Disabled American Veterans. It is an extremely important gathering. I ask unanimous consent to have the list of the locations and the dates of these events printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Let me urge colleagues during this recess to attend these sessions with the veterans community. This is an important voice. They have many important concerns to raise with us. I hope the Democrat and Republican Senators will make sure they meet with veterans as we move forward in this whole budget debate and appropriations. Right now the message is that the veterans should not expect timely care, the veterans can do with less health care, the veterans are not a top priority. We have to change that. The veterans are organizing and the veterans are going to put the pressure on us and I hope we will respond. I thank my colleagues for their graciousness and yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I wanted to ask my colleagues whether or not they are ready to go to an amendment right this second, or whether I could have 3 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague that I think I can do everything in 5 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. No.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have the floor, but I know we want to move forward. Mr. President, while I have the floor, we are going to go forward with the Kennedy amendment. Is that correct? Can I ask unanimous consent that after we dispense with the Kennedy amendment I have 5 minutes?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, my framework is a little different. Murder is never legitimate, and we have tried to do the right thing to stop the slaughter of people, albeit we have not been anywhere close to 100 percent successful. I have deep concerns about the conduct of this war and where it is heading. On May 3, I called for a temporary pause in the bombing for a focus on diplomacy. I wished we had done that. I wished we had not seen the bombing of the Chinese Embassy. I think we had momentum for a diplomatic solution consistent with our objectives: That the Kosovars go back home, that there be a force there to give them protection, that they be able to rebuild their lives. I say to colleagues tonight that I do have serious reservations about part of the direction in which we are heading. The airstrikes have gone beyond degrading the military, which was to be our objective, and I really worry that we begin to undercut our own moral claim when we begin to affect innocent people with our airstrikes, when we begin to kill innocent people, albeit that is not the intention. I focus on diplomacy. I still believe we need to have a pause in the bombing. We have to have a diplomatic solution. That is the only option that I see available to bring this conflict to an end and to enable the Kosovars to go back home, which is our objective. Once again, I worry about these airstrikes when we go after power grids and it affects hospitals and it affects innocent civilians. That goes beyond just degrading the military. I sharply call that into question. I say to my colleague from New Hampshire, I believe this amendment is profoundly mistaken. It takes Milosevic completely off the hook. This amendment takes us in the opposite direction of where we need to go toward a diplomatic solution to end this conflict. This is the wrong amendment. This is the wrong statement. This is at the wrong time. Therefore, I rise to speak against it. But I will continue to speak out and raise questions. I will continue to talk about the need to move away from the bombing and to focus more seriously, and in a more concentrated and focused way, on a diplomatic solution and an end to this conflict on honorable terms. I hope my colleagues tonight, however, will vote against this amendment. I hope it will be a strong vote against this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, besides the environmental assessment amendment, the second amendment we are taking deals with atomic vets-- is that correct--compensation for atomic vets? I am pleased to do so, and I thank both my colleagues for their help and comments.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I urge the adoption of the two amendments.