Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time do I have left?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the Department of Defense had its own internal study in 1995. I agree with my colleague from Michigan in his praise of our Secretary of Defense and his commitment. I don't think the Secretary of Defense would disapprove of this body taking yet another step forward in this area. We had an internal study in 1995 where the DOD essentially said, ``Look, we can only satisfy 52 percent of the need for child care of families in the armed services.'' I am looking at almost 50 percent of the families not able to get the care for their children that they need. As far as how we do this, we are very clear that this gets phased in over a period of time. As I said to my colleagues, we start next fiscal year with the $41 million, and then we gradually increase it, so that by the year 2003 it is $70 million. Overall it is $270 million, one-tenth of 1 percent of the overall budget. There have been plenty of studies that say we spend way more than that in administrative ways. I cannot believe that the Secretary of Defense, or certainly anybody who is involved with the Department of Defense child care program, would not say, ``Senators, if you are willing to take one-tenth of 1 percent across the board, and you will earmark that for expanding child care services so that we can meet the needs of 155,000 children and their families, we are for it.'' I again appeal to my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I appreciate both my colleagues' remarks. I ask unanimous consent that excerpts from a CRS study be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I introduce this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer. This amendment focuses on a real need in our Armed Forces. Really, we are talking about the children. We are talking about the need to have comprehensive child care for our families who serve in our Armed Forces who, after all, are involved in very important service for our Nation. Back in the 1980s this body began looking at the state of child care. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Kennedy, funding was appropriated to build child-care centers that provided new services to families of military personnel. Subsequently, the Department of Defense's child- care programs have been able to provide quality--by the way, this is a model for the Nation--quality service to thousands of children of military personnel. But, by 1995, we find out that there is really a tremendous need, and while there are some 299,000 children served, there are 155,000 children of families that are requesting child-care services. This amendment is an effort to bridge this gap. For the parents of these 144,000 children--really, close to 155,000 children--requesting this, this is a huge issue. It is difficult to do well when you are worried about whether or not your children have good care, and this amendment speaks to this problem. If you don't have peace of mind while you are serving our country, if you don't believe your child is receiving good care, what we are trying to do is provide the necessary family support services. There are a variety of different components that we are talking about. We are talking about, of course, early childhood development. That is to say, when both parents are working and you are trying to figure out what you are going to do with your child--and, look, for our military personnel, but also for all of our families--when both of you have to work, you know full well that the most important thing is to make sure that your child is receiving good child care. But for too many citizens in our country, and for too many military families, they are not able to fill that need. This amendment takes us a long way toward filling that need. In addition, there is the issue of afterschool care for younger children who are going home, but going home alone, again, when both parents have to work, trying to fill that very important need for military personnel; or there are occasions when there is a place to drop a child off from time to time when a parent or parents need to do so. Now, it is not free. What we have is a sliding fee scale basis of child care right now within the military, which is the way I think it should be done. Actually, the average fee is about $65 per child per week. It ranges from $35 to $88. The funding for the child development program of the Department of Defense is about $295 million. About 52 percent of the children have been served. What we are now trying to do is move toward serving the children for the vast majority of these families by, over a year period, increasing the appropriations by $270 million. The offset is as follows: We simply say, take one-tenth of 1 percent, one-tenth of 1 penny of every dollar, which now goes to the Pentagon budget, and just do an across-the-board cut. We have had studies that talk about administrative expenses that go way beyond this in terms of administrative waste. If you were just to make a cut in the waste and be more efficient, one-tenth of 1 percent--and I make this appeal to my colleagues--you could then appropriate this $270 million over a 5-year period. We would start with $41 million next fiscal year and, ultimately, we would build up, by the year 2003, to $270 million. What we are trying to do is to make sure that we meet a real need of our military personnel and their families. What we are trying to do is provide the service for as close to all of the children of military personnel as possible. What we are trying to do is build on the Department of Defense's child care program, which is a huge success. I have had an opportunity to talk with the people that run that program. I am very proud of what they do, but it seems to me that one of the best things we could do within the DOD budget is just simply say for a very small--one-tenth of 1 percent--cut across the board, you can take it out of waste easily and we could then have $270 million over a 5- year period, which would help--again, let me be crystal clear about this--somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 children. Just think of how many military families we could help through this amendment. I hope that there will be support for this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Deanna Caldwell, a fellow in our office, be allowed to be on the floor this morning.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Wellstone pertaining to the introduction of S. 2215 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') Privilege of the Floor

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague from South Carolina. Mr. President, I wonder whether I could ask my colleagues for 5 minutes to speak as in morning business to quickly introduce a bill before going to my 15 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, today I am introducing a piece of legislation, and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has introduced this on the House side. This legislation is called the Strategic Transitional Employment Program, STEP. This legislation is an outgrowth of some of my work as a senator in Minnesota and in other communities around the country. If I had to summarize my travel in our country in Delta, MS, or East Los Angeles, or Watts, or inner-city Baltimore, or inner-city Minneapolis, or rural Minnesota, or Appalachia, Letcher County, KY, or inner-city Chicago, over and over and over again, the one thing I heard from people was: Where are the jobs at decent wages that we can support our families on? More than anything in the world, Senator, we want to be able to earn a decent living and give our children the care they need and deserve. Congresswoman Norton and I had the opportunity to be at First Baptist Church here in D.C. Pastor Eldridge Spearman's church, in the Greenway community, working with the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization. There was a wonderful turnout of people from the community. They said this would be the best single thing we could talk about. Over the next 4 years, an effort to create 1.8 million jobs for people, transitional employment, moving toward living-wage jobs, opportunity for education, job training, so that we build up the human capital in our communities so that we then can attract the private capital. This is a major issue that is off the political debate screen but should be on the political debate screen and should be part of our agenda. There is a jobs gap in our Nation now, close to 5 million jobs, and even with the economy humming along at peak economic performance, there are many communities, as the eminent scholar, William Julius Wilson, points out, where there is no work, work is the most important thing we can focus on. When people work, they contribute to family, they contribute to community, they have dignity. But there are too many communities in our country where there are almost no jobs at all. This legislation speaks to that. I will be bringing to the floor of the Senate some sense-of-the-Senate amendments that talk about the need to have thorough study and investigation. I will work out amendments that come from this piece of legislation, build up support, and come to the floor over and over and over again to talk about this. This is a structural problem in our economy, and this is the key to economic opportunity. Children do better when their parents are doing better. There is no more important priority than to focus on jobs and to focus on job opportunities. That is what this legislation does. I thank Brian Ahlberg, on my staff, and Deanna Caldwell for doing such superior work, and I thank the Center for Community Change, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Peter Edelman and William Julius Wilson for their work, as well. The bill I introduce today, the Strategic Transitional Employment Program (STEP) Act of 1998 addresses what I consider to be one of the key moral issues facing our country. The issue is jobs. I often say that if you want to prevent crime, if you want to prevent drugs, broken homes, violence in our homes, violence in our schools and on the streets, then focus on providing all Americans with a good education, good health care and a good job. Too many Americans who want to work and are able to work cannot find a good job. During my recent and continuing travels, I have found that even as official unemployment figures and other leading indicators suggest that we should be celebrating our economic success, many American communities continue to struggle with the demoralization of joblessness. When I traveled last year to Mississippi, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Kentucky, urban and rural Minnesota, and when I travel to struggling communities, neighborhoods and barrios today, I heard and still hear the question: Senator, where are all the good jobs? We want to work. We are able to work. Where are the jobs? Most Americans are aware that the gap between rich and poor in America is widening. Between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s, incomes of the richest fifth of families increased on average by 30 percent, or about $27,000 after adjusting for inflation. In contrast, the real incomes of the poorest families declined on average 21 percent, about $2,500. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ``In the United States as a whole, the poorest 20 percent of families with children had an average income of $9,250 in the mid-1990s, while the average income of families with children in the top 20 percent of the income distribution was $117,500, or 13 times as large.'' In the United States today, poverty is becoming more and more concentrated, the poor are more and more isolated, and joblessness is more strongly associated with that poverty than ever before. Concentrated joblessness is increasing in urban neighborhoods and poor rural communities. Meanwhile, the joblessness is becoming more and more prolonged--a chronic condition--for residents of those areas. Last Friday I took part in an event at First Baptist Church in Southeast Washington, D.C. First Baptist is just across the Anacostia River on Minnesota Avenue. It serves the communities of Greenway, Marshall Heights and many others across our nation's capitol. District of Columbia Delegate Holmes-Norton and I announced that we would be introducing this bill, and I would just like to thank the church, including its pastor Eldridge Spearman, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Strayhorn and others of the church's staff for welcoming us there. Representatives of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization also were present and participated in what I believe was an important event. The problem of joblessness persists today in Washington, D.C. and in communities across the country, even at a time when our economy is at peak performance. Between 4 and 5 million Americans of working age lack the jobs they need to support themselves and their families. Many have been jobless for prolonged periods. They have lost their jobs, or they have never been able to find a job. They lack the skills and experience to get a job, or there are no jobs nearby where they live. Many are so discouraged they no longer are seeking work. They are not even counted as unemployed. We are not talking only about those who are already or soon will be losing welfare benefits. Those people, many of them women with children, will be required to find work. We also are talking about more than a million men--African-American men in our cities, men regardless of race or background in urban and rural areas. Many jobless men are fathers. They want to work. They are able to work. But they remain jobless. Why has concentrated joblessness and poverty increased and intensified for some while the rest of the country is enjoying an abundance of work, when in fact in some areas there are labor shortages? There are a number of reasons, but two are fundamental: changes in the nature of work and in the location of work. Race is a third important factor. We have experienced profound economic restructuring that has transformed the nature of work and the skills demanded for work. Industrial and manufacturing jobs, once a foundation of our economy, have given way to work that is driven by new technological developments and a global marketplace. The demand for skilled workers, those with education and training, is high. Lower-skilled workers, who have always been the most vulnerable to economic shifts, have seen their work opportunities dwindle or vanish. The gap between average earnings of high school graduates and college graduates has become a gulf. In fact, ``the unemployment rates for low-skilled men and women are five times that among their college-educated counterparts,'' according to the prominent social scientist and Harvard University Professor William Julius Wilson. I am pleased that to say that I believe we are on the verge of completing conference work on the workforce legislation that will improve the country's job-training system. That is a crucial, bipartisan work-product of the Senate's Labor Subcommittee on Employment and Training, on which I am proud to serve as Ranking Minority Member. I am hopeful we can complete and enact that legislation in the coming weeks. The bill I introduce today is designed to fit closely with and complement that reform of the federal job- training system. It would utilize the streamlined and improved job- training infrastructure that the workforce bill is designed to bring about. The location of work also has changed. Business has moved to the suburbs. New jobs, even lower-skill jobs, are more likely to be found in suburban environments than central city or rural communities. In the 1980s, 87 percent of new jobs in the lower-paying and lower-skilled service and retail trade sectors were created in the suburbs, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). And all too often, jobs in the suburbs are inaccessible using public transportation. Race is a further determinant of concentrated poverty and joblessness. We cannot ignore or dismiss the impact of racial discrimination. It has created islands of poverty and joblessness. It is no coincidence that the residents of most central cities, of most poor rural counties, are more likely to be racial minorities. William Julius Wilson describes how many of our central cities have become essentially racially segregated and poor: In addition to changes in the economy and in the class, racial, and demographic composition of inner-city ghetto neighborhoods, certain government programs and policies contributed, over the last fifty years, to the evolution of jobless ghettos. Prominent among these are the early actions of the FHA in withholding mortgage capital from inner-city neighborhoods, the manipulation of market incentives that trapped blacks in the inner cities and lured middle-class whites to the suburbs, the construction of massive federal housing projects in inner-city neighborhoods, and, since 1980, the New Federalism, which, through its insistence on localized responses to social problems, resulted in drastic cuts in spending on basic urban programs. Just when the problems of social dislocation in jobless neighborhoods have escalated, the city has fewer resources with which to address them. HUD's State of the Cities report for 1997 observed that, ``In 1995, the poverty rate for whites (not of Hispanic origin) was 6.4 percent; for Asians and Pacific Islanders it was 12.4 percent; African Americans, 26.4 percent; and Hispanics 27.0 percent.'' The Eisenhower Foundation recently published a report that examines what has happened in the 30 years since the historic Kerner Commission report of 1968. Here is one finding from that report: ``Since the Kerner Commission, the U.S. has had the most rapid growth in wage inequality in the Western world, with racial minorities suffering disproportionately. . . [T]here cannot be meaningful progress in closing the racial divide without an economic corollary.'' The problem is not only urban. An American Indian in Minneapolis or a Mexican-American immigrant in Willmar, Minnesota might still not receive fair consideration from too many potential employers. With historic Civil Rights legislation through the years, we have largely transcended the most blatant policies of racial prejudice and segregation in our country. But to some degree we have replaced them with policies of inaction and neglect. Poor minorities have been made poorer, in some cases are more segregated, and many remain stereotyped. We pay for neglect, for the failure to act, in a myriad of ways. Neglect breeds destructive behavior that harms individuals, that harms those in close proximity, and that eventually harms those far removed. Criminal behavior is a child of neglect. We know that there are strong relationships between poverty, unemployment, and crime. Work deters the kind of crime that is found in communities of concentrated joblessness and poverty. It may not be all that is needed, but legitimate work opportunity is integral. Without it there is no hope. The STEP proposal would build a bridge to close the ``jobs gap''--the gap between those who are doing well in today's economy and those who are being left behind. The problem in this case is not the cyclical nature of our economy. It is chronic and structural joblessness. We cannot any longer disregard the substantial portion of our population that is being left out of the benefits of general prosperity. The Center for Community Change estimates a jobs gap of about 4.4 million. In other words, 4.4 million people are out of work or economically in need of additional employment due to a lack of jobs appropriate to their skills and abilities. The estimate includes about 2.1 million of the officially unemployed who have been without work for 15 weeks or longer. It also includes about 330,000 persons who are without work but have given up their employment search and are therefore no longer officially unemployed--also called the discouraged worker. And it includes about 2 million full-time equivalent positions, which represent the nearly 4 million ``economically underemployed,'' people who work part-time because they cannot find a full-time job and who are also not included in the count of the officially unemployed. The answer to the jobs gap is jobs, and our bill will create jobs-- 1.8 million of them over three years. The idea for this legislative proposal comes from people who have devoted much of their professional lives to attempting to solve this problem: the Center for Community Change, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Peter Edelman, William Julius Wilson and grassroots organizations around the country which serve low-income communities. Our bill will not create every permanent job that is needed. Massive job-creation programs have been proposed and even tried in the past. They usually were designed as counter-cyclical interventions in the economy to address recessions. We also acknowledge that there are other reasons for joblessness which our bill does not directly address. If there are no jobs nearby, part of the solution may be transportation. If a jobless person is a parent, part of the solution may be affordable, quality child care. Rather, the bill proposes for the first time a specific and limited policy tool to address a specific, crucial need. It is a realistic effort to provide for out-of-work individuals a transition between chronic joblessness and a non-subsidized job in the private or public sector. It is a serious, even if initial and partial, effort to close the jobs gap. What I propose today is a plan to provide nearly 2 million Americans with a significant step toward a full-time, living wage job. It will help these jobless individuals living in poverty with meaningful employment experience for one year, as well as with skills- training and education. It will provide hard-hit communities with needed economic development and services so they can attract more investment. It will prepare workers who, at the end of a year of skills- developing work, can qualify for many of the positions that private employers are telling us they cannot fill because they can't find able and experienced workers. That also will help attract investment. Finally, it will create a new demonstration program at the Small Business Administration to help target venture-capital investment to small enterprises that provide jobs in high-unemployment, high-poverty communities. The core of the bill is a 4-year, $20-billion program to create 1.8 million entry-level, 12-month, transitional jobs. These will be community employment jobs, filling needs in the affected communities. The program would be administered by the Department of Labor, largely through the existing federal employment and training infrastructure, which we are in the midst of reforming and improving in substantial ways. Money and decision-making power would be pushed down to the local level. Participation by key groups--employers, labor, elected officials and community-based organizations--would be assured. We are not simply providing make-work jobs leading to nowhere. State and local plans would have to specify how the jobs and the accompanying skills development would provide a transition to gainful employment after one year. Nor are we creating an exploited, low-wage workforce to displace current workers or undercut their wages, such as many allege is happening with Welfare-to-Work in some places. Strict anti- displacement language is included in the bill. Workers in the program would be paid slightly above minimum wage, plus benefits, and would receive full federal labor law protections. The program would be paid for from discretionary funds, so no budgetary offset would be required for its enactment. Nonetheless, offsets are included in the bill. It would be paid for by eliminating unnecessary current spending. The bill would revoke the current subsidy of excessive executive compensation among large American corporations--prohibiting the federal tax deduction for salaries paid to executives which are more than 25 times the compensation of another employee of the same company for the same year. And it would repeal the deferral of income tax owed on assets of U.S.-controlled foreign corporations. Here is how the bill would work. The STEP Act would provide transitional employment to place people firmly on the pathway to economic security. The STEP Act would provide funding over four years to create entry- level jobs, and provide benefits, for people who have been jobless 15 weeks or more, who have a family income at or below poverty, and who are living in a community of concentrated poverty and unemployment. The jobs would be transitional--meaning that eligible participants could stay in the program for a maximum of twelve months, although some exceptions would be allowed. Under the four-year STEP initiative, States and local communities would spend the first year carefully planning a job creation strategy to create, nationwide, 1.8 million jobs over three years. With an eye towards ensuring quality and the coordination of resources, the STEP Act incrementally builds the number of jobs created each year to reach the total of 1.8 million jobs. Funding is provided in the second (post- planning) year to create 200,000 jobs; in the third year to create 600,000 jobs; and in the fourth year to create 1 million jobs. The number one priority of STEP is creating jobs for people who need work--people living in communities of concentrated poverty and unemployment. STEP is not just a job that ends in 12 months. It is the propellant for landing sustaining employment--employment that pays a living wage, the kind of job that could provide meaningful responsibilities to help people develop work skills and get sound work experience under their belt. At the same time, STEP participants would have paid time--10 hours per week--to get secondary, vocational, or post-secondary education. Their annual earnings would be consistent with living wage principals. They would be hooked into services such as transportation and child care which will be critical to their ultimate success. Also, they would have job search and job placement assistance to help ensure their successful transition out of the STEP program. The second priority is to create jobs in communities where jobs are scarce--in communities of concentrated poverty--whenever possible. There is no lack of work to be done in poor neighborhoods. The STEP Act would authorize work, regardless of its location, for environmental conservation or restoration, to develop infrastructure or affordable housing, to provide human services or to support small businesses. Poor communities could use the wage subsidies that STEP would provide to help with the renovation of schools and community centers, to provide child care or community health care services, to provide elder care, to provide aides to school teachers, to provide after-school and summer recreational programs, to develop parks and playgrounds, to provide 911 phone service, to remove lead paint and asbestos, to build or renovate housing, and to provide community safety and crime prevention services. This is just some of the work that could be, and should be, done in communities with entrenched poverty. The jobs that would be created and the location of those jobs would be determined by the people most familiar with the needs of the community and with the needs of local residents. Local community members, elected officials, labor unions, and representatives from for- profit business would collaborate to develop work proposals and identify worksite employers. When work could be physically located in or would benefit a community of concentrated poverty and unemployment, that work would receive funding before other proposals. We would allow jobs to be located outside a community of poverty for two reasons: (1) because we understand that the best skill-developing work opportunities may lie outside the boundaries of an impoverished community and our first priority is getting people to work; and (2) because we recognize that wages alone don't renovate schools or build houses. Other resources are necessary and may not be available to those communities. Participants, however, would have to be residents of a community of concentrated poverty and unemployment. Employers could be local public agencies, private nonprofits, or private employers. Work created in public agencies and in nonprofits would be funded first. The bill contains a number of measures to ensure that current employees would not be harmed or displaced. Labor organizations would play a significant role in selecting job proposals and in monitoring work conditions. It also contains provisions to ensure that workers would be provided health insurance benefits; would be covered by Federal, State, and local labor laws; would be covered by anti- discrimination statutes; and would be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. The cost of creating 1.8 million jobs over four years as I have outlined is $21 billion. That cost of providing jobs to those who need them is a bargain compares to the inescapable price that we pay, and that our children will pay, for doing nothing. The price of neglect is high--fiscally, emotionally and culturally. The bill also provides funding for community development venture capital--a critical need in most low-income communities. Equity capital is in short supply in low-income areas. Grassroots community development organizations have accomplished much through self-help economic development efforts, including microlending and technical assistance to businesses. However, few of these organizations have the financial or technical capacity to make equity investments to launch businesses or to help them expand. A field of community development venture capita (CDVC)l funds is emerging to fill the gap. These CDVC funds are targeting businesses that traditional institutional investors shy away from for a variety of reasons. These are businesses that may be located in economically distressed urban or rural areas, or businesses in need of equity investment in smaller amounts than what the traditional investor would consider. Also unlike the traditional investment firm, CDVCs target companies that will create good jobs that pay decent wages and opportunities for advancement. They seek to shape the culture of young companies with respect to sustainable community development and environmental impact. That means providing entrepreneurial solutions to social problems, creating jobs and generating wealth in economically disadvantaged areas, and yielding competitive long-term investment returns. There are about 30 community development venture capital funds currently operating around the country. Northeast Ventures Corporation in Duluth, Minnesota is an excellent example. Northeast Ventures invests primarily in a seven county area that is a restructured mining region. They invest in a wide range of industries, with ``typical'' initial investments ranging from $150,000 to $350,000. The STEP Act would provide funding of $20 million over four years for community development venture capital initiatives. The program would help to build the capacity of existing CDVC funds and encourage the development of emerging funds. The funds would be channeled through experienced, qualified, nonprofit intermediary organizations to provide venture capital financing (loans, grants, and equity investments) to venture capital funds that serve low-income people and their communities. The funding would also be used to provide training, education and operating support to develop the technical and administrative capacity of emerging community development venture capital organizations. Mr. President, the STEP Act would be an important effort towards bridging America's jobs gap. I hope my colleagues will support it. I ask unanimous consent that a list of groups supporting the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, before reserving the balance of our time, I want to just comment on one other matter, which I have tried to speak on every week. I ask unanimous consent that I may speak as in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, we are talking about a $1.7 billion initiative, and that is over a period of 5 years. The idea is that you can take $2,000 and you can put it in a special account, education account. Now, for those who are following this debate, I would ask this question: How many families are in a position to take $2,000 out and put it in a savings account for education? This just kind of misses the essence of the reality of the vast majority of families in this country. And that is why the Joint Tax Committee said that this $1.7 billion, over 5 years, which is touted as a major education program for our children, will amount to about $96 for wealthy parents for private schools, and this bill will give the rest of the parents about $7. So there is the question as to whether or not we want to take public taxpayer money and put it into private schools, but there is also the question, as my colleague from Massachusetts was focusing on, as to who exactly it is going to benefit. Mr. President, above and beyond the problem that the vast majority of families get no benefit from this, there is another problem. This is, again, a kind of tax policy; it is not an education program. I will get to that in a moment. And the tax benefits go, by and large, to the wealthiest citizens. I guess this is my Republican colleagues' definition of justice or fairness. But I do not think most of the people in the country agree with that. Where this proposal, however, I think is really most flawed has to do with what it does in education. I have tried to, to the best of my ability as a Senator from Minnesota, about every 2 weeks, to be in a school teaching somewhere. And I see nothing at all in what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle call an education proposal that deals with the real needs. Will there be any funding to rebuild crumbling schools? No. And, by the way, let me say this again on the floor of the Senate: I have seen too many schools in the South, in the East, in the North, and in the West, where the ceilings are crumbling, they are asbestos laden, with decrepit toilets, without adequate heating systems; and we are not putting any money to help rebuild these crumbling schools. I would say the pages who are here, the students--what kind of message do we communicate to students who go to those schools about whether we value them or not? There is not one penny in this legislation that does anything about these crumbling schools. That would really be a commitment to public education. Is there any funding in this amendment--which is, by the way, pitifully inadequate in the first place--that will do anything to reduce class size? Well, no. If you were to believe that students know a little bit about their own education--I haven't been to one school anywhere in Minnesota or in the country where when I asked students, What do you think would be some of the best things we could do to make education better for you, that students haven't talked about smaller class sizes. Is there anything in this pitifully inadequate proposal in the first place that deals with reducing class size? No. By the way, colleagues, I have been to too many high schools where students tell me that they are in classes with 45 students. I was in a Los Angeles meeting with some wonderful high school students. They said, ``Part of the problem is we are not even missed. Nobody even knows we are there.'' The school is so overcrowded, the class size is so large, how can any teacher do a good job with 45 students in a class? Is there anything here that reduces class size? No. Is there anything here that will help make schools safer? No. Is there anything in this legislation that will help train teachers to use new technologies? No. Is there anything in this piece of legislation that will invest in some funding for summer institutes where teachers can meet, compare notes, fire one another up, talk about new ways of teaching and learning? No. Is there anything in this education proposal, or what my colleagues call an education proposal that deals with the learning gap that tries to come to terms with students, by the time they come to kindergarten they are ready to learn; she knows how to spell her name; she knows the alphabet; he knows colors, shapes and sizes; he has been read to widely, and they have that readiness to learn? No. Is there anything in what is called this education legislation that makes a commitment to early childhood development? No. Is there anything in this legislation that helps working families--after all, as my colleague from Massachusetts said, it is their taxpayer money--is there anything in this legislation that speaks to the ordeal that so many young families go through? I thought we had made some progress. But we really haven't. When Sheila and I were first married, age 19 --I don't advise that, by the way, for everyone; we had our first child when we were barely 20, about a year and a half later, David. We had hardly any money. I do advise it--we have been married 35 years; it can work well. My point is--as I get myself in more trouble as I speak--we had our child David, and we hardly had any income. After, I think, six weeks, Sheila had to go back to work. Now we have family medical leave, but it is unpaid leave. If you don't have much money, you have to work. It was a wrenching experience, a wrenching experience to not be able to spend more time with your infant. She had to work, and I was a student and I was working. So then what happens? As it turns out, we look for what we can afford. There was a woman, a child-care giver, and she takes care of children, and we take him to her. We thought she would be good. But then after a couple of days of picking him up and he was just sort of limp, he had no expression in his face, and he had been so lively before, so we don't know what has happened. So I drop by this home in the middle of the day, and I see all these infants in playpens with pacifiers. They are not being picked up. They are not being touched. I felt so guilty I called my mom and dad and said I am going to quit school; I am going to work. I can't have him put in this situation. And we got some help from my parents. They were able to help us. I don't know how they did it on their income. Do you think that young parents who have the same experience today like the fact that they know they have no other choice but to drop their infant off in a child-care center? They know that maybe the people there aren't real well trained. People make precious little money that are involved in this area, but what choice do they have? They can't afford $12,000 a year if they have two small children. Is there anything in this piece of legislation or anything my Republican colleagues are doing in this session, in the Senate, that speaks to this question of how parents can do better by their children; how we can make sure that children come to kindergarten, ready to learn? That is a big education initiative. The answer is no. What do we have instead? $1.7 billion over 5 years, amounting to about $7 per family, and that is called a major education initiative? Is there anything in this piece of legislation that speaks to afterschool care? Let's have some sympathy with parents--single parents or both parents. Do you think parents like the fact that their 11-year- old--it is astounding, and I forget the percentage, how many 11 and 12- year-olds are home alone; it is a very high percentage. Do you think the parents like the fact they both have to work--they have no other choice--in order to have income. Some of them are working two jobs. They don't even have enough time to be with their children at home they are working so hard. Do you think a person likes the fact that his or her daughter age 11 or age 7, goes home alone and watches trash TV talk shows and eats junk food and there is nobody to take care of them? Do you think a parent likes the fact when we hear so many things that are not so good that happen between 3 o'clock in the afternoon and 6 p.m.--do you think the parents like that? Wouldn't they like to have some really good school programs, some community programs, where their kids could be doing positive things and wouldn't be home alone, and the only reason they are home alone is because both parents have to work? No, they don't like it. So why don't we help these parents with a real education initiative. There is not a thing in this piece of legislation that deals with that at all. Mr. President, I have to say that this proposal, which is supposed to be the major education initiative of the Republican Party, provides help in inverse relationship to need, does zero for public education, does practically zero for working families, doesn't represent a step forward, but represents a great leap backward. The President is right to veto this piece of legislation. We must start all over again. I will just say to my colleagues that I think you are playing with fire. You are playing with fire with a piece of legislation that you tout as a major education reform bill that does next to nothing to make sure that we expand educational opportunity for all of our children in our country. I thought that children were 100 percent of our future. So I want to know, colleagues, where is our commitment to making sure that there is really good care for children before they even get to kindergarten? Where is our commitment to making sure if we are to follow the advice of all these studies that are coming out, all of this medical evidence about the development of the brain, to make sure that children have really good developmental child care? The answer is there is no commitment here. My colleagues in the majority of the Republican Party have no initiative at all. Where is the commitment to rebuild the crumbling schools and to have the teacher training and to have smaller class size and to make sure that the Internet and all this new technology means that all the schools are wired and teachers know how to work with it and children and young people become literate in this area? The answer is there is no commitment whatsoever. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to speak against this piece of legislation. I hope my colleagues will vote against it. I hope the President will veto it. Then we must come back to education again. Colleagues, it is not enough to be giving speeches about this. I apply that to myself, as well. It is not enough to have photo opportunities with small children. We all love to have our pictures taken with children. It is not enough to be in the schools once in a while. And it is not enough to say that young people are our future. If we don't make the commitment, backed by solid legislation, with resources to get to communities so we can do well for all the children in our country, then from my point of view, we will not have been honest. We will not have done all that we should do. By the way, when I say ``honest,'' I don't mean as in personally honest. Senator Coverdell, the author of this bill, is a friend and I respect him. But I think in terms of the effect of this, it doesn't honestly reach children in our country; it doesn't honestly contribute to public education; it doesn't honestly contribute to the education of the vast majority of young people in the United States of America. Therefore, colleagues ought to vote against it. Mr. President, how much time do we have left?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, in the spirit of debate, let me just say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that I just do not think this passes the credibility test as an education program for our country.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, it has been--I am trying to remember now--almost a year since James Hormel was voted out of Foreign Relations Committee by a 16-2 vote. I have said this a number of times on the floor of the Senate, and I want to keep saying it. James Hormel, I think, is eminently qualified to be Ambassador to Luxembourg. He has a very, very, very distinguished record as an educator, as a businessman, as a philanthropist, and as somebody who has given to many, many communities in our country. I see no reason whatsoever why we do not have an up-or-down vote on this on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Mr. President, I have said it to colleagues directly. I don't say it indirectly. I want to make terribly sure that the reason Mr. James Hormel's nomination has not been brought to the floor is not because of discrimination against him because of his sexual orientation. I hope that is not the case, but I do believe that we need to have an honest discussion about this nomination. We need to have a full-scale debate, and we need to have an up-or-down vote. I think we should judge people by the content of their character. I think we should judge people by their vision and by their leadership ability. It is my fervent hope that the majority leader will bring this nomination to the floor. I have said that I am looking for a vehicle-- we have things kind of snarled up here right now--on which to bring an amendment out that in one way or another will put an even sharper focus on this question. I do intend to speak out and I intend to use whatever leverage I have as a Senator to continue to push on this question. If Senators have reasons for objecting to Mr. Hormel's nomination, let them come out here and speak. Let us have an honest debate. If, God forbid, there are objections to him based upon his sexual orientation, then I think the U.S. Senate needs to look at itself in the mirror, because I think we can do better than that. I yield the floor and reserve the balance of our time. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge the excellent work of two musicians from Minnesota. On June 4, Heather MacLaughlin and Alan Johnston performed at the Kennedy Center. These two are not only excellent musicians, but they are teachers and leaders as well. Ms. MacLaughlin is one of the Twin Cities' leading collaborative pianists. She has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and her performances have been aired on both Minnesota and National Public Radio. She is a recipient of the prestigious McKnight Artist Fellowship award with violinist Leslie Shank. This award will allow the two performers to record the Bartok Sonatas for violin and piano and showcase their talents to a national audience. Mr. Johnston is the founder of the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet (MGC) which is nationally recognized for its excellence. The MGC has performed throughout the United States and on the nationally syndicated radio program St. Paul Sunday Morning. In addition, they have also represented the United States abroad, performing in South America and Spain. On June 4, these two outstanding performers were invited to showcase their talents here in our nation's capital at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Through this performance the people of Washington benefitted from the talent that we in Minnesota have already been exposed to. MacLaughlin and Johnston carry on the tradition of great performers who share their knowledge with others so that they, too, may realize their potential. Both are teachers at the MacPhail Center for the Arts in Minneapolis. The MacPhail Center was founded by Minneapolis Symphony member William S. MacPhail in 1907. It has grown out of its humble beginnings of four teachers and 82 students into the second largest community music school in the country. Its 125 instructors teach in over 40 instrument areas, and the school has exceptional programs in Early Childhood Arts and in Suzuki Talent Education. We in Minnesota are proud of our strong arts community and of the tradition that the Twin Cities area is developing as a center for artistic and cultural expression. The MacPhail Center has made an enormous contribution to the study and enjoyment of music in our community. I am pleased to congratulate the MacPhail Center as well as Heather MacLaughlin and Alan Johnston.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, before I give up my time on the floor, I just want to take 1 minute also to mention another matter that has something to do with fairness. I am going to do this with a tremendous amount of sensitivity, but I just want to take a minute to mention this. There were a number of newspaper articles today which report on the majority leader's comments about homosexuality. I ask unanimous consent they be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the majority leader, when asked whether or not homosexuality is a sin, stated, ``Yes, it is.'' He added that ``in America right now there's an element that wants to make that alternative lifestyle acceptable.'' Then he went on to say, ``Others have a sex addiction or are kleptomaniacs. There are all kinds of problems and addictions and difficulties and experiences of this kind that are wrong. But you should try to work with that person to learn to control that problem.'' He also said--to be fair to the majority leader--``You still love that person and you should not try to mistreat them or treat them as outcasts. You should try to show them a way to deal with that.'' That was the beginning of the quote. I do not want to take anything out of context. Mr. President, I am concerned about calling homosexuality a sin, comparing it to the problems of alcoholism or other diseases. I am concerned because of the medical evidence. I am concerned because I think that in many ways this statement takes us back quite a ways from where we are. We do not bash each other here; and there is civility here. That is what I like best. So let me just simply say, the majority leader is entitled to his view and he is entitled to his vote. But I am concerned. I have been on the floor of the Senate week after week talking about the nomination of James Hormel. I really believe that, given this statement by the majority leader, and given other statements that have been made, the U.S. Senate would be better off if we bring this nomination to the floor. It was literally back in November of last year, November 4, 1997, that Mr. Hormel was voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a 16-2 vote. There have been holds on the nomination. We ought to bring it to the floor so that we can have an honest discussion. The majority leader is entitled to his opinion and he is entitled to his vote, but the rest of us are also entitled to our opinions and we are entitled to our votes. I think it is extremely important that this nomination be brought to the floor; that we have an honest discussion. No acrimony whatsoever, but please let us deal with this issue, and let us give Mr. Hormel the fairness that he deserves. I will not talk more about him right now. I will not talk about his very distinguished career. But I must say, given the majority leader's statements, it makes me stronger in my belief that we need to bring this nomination to the floor, and we need to have a discussion about this question. It will be a civil discussion. It will be an honest discussion. I think the vast majority of Senators are ready to vote for Mr. Hormel. I will have an amendment that I will put on a bill that will deal with this question, probably the first bill after the tobacco bill. But where I want to get to is to bring this nomination to the floor. Otherwise I worry about a climate that is going to become increasingly polarized, increasingly poisonous, and we do not want that to happen. We do not want that to happen. So I am hopeful that the U.S. Senate, in a spirit of civility and honesty with one another, and honesty with Mr. James Hormel, will bring this to the floor. I thank my colleagues for letting me also mention this matter. I yield the floor. Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, last night, I spoke about the Texas/ Maine/Vermont Compact bill, H.R. 629, that is now going to conference committee. It has to do with low-level radioactive waste being dumped in the community of Sierra Blanca, TX. It is a compact between Maine and Vermont that affects the people of Sierra Blanca. Last night, we sent instructions to conferees to insist on two amendments that had been agreed upon by the Senate. One amendment says that if the people of Sierra Blanca, disproportionately poor and Latino, are able to prove disparate impact--that they are disproportionately affected, that they have been targeted because of low income, because they are a poor community, because of the color of their skin--then they have every right to challenge the dump. I don't know why we don't at least give people that chance. That amendment has now been approved by the Senate. It is terribly important, because all too often when it comes to the location of these sites, we dump them-- no pun intended--right on the heads of poor people and communities of color. The second amendment--and I had a chance to speak about this last night--I call a protection clause. It is very similar to the amendment offered by Congressman Doggett which passed in the House. Basically, it says that if the compact waste is only supposed to come from Maine and Vermont, then let's affirm this with an amendment which makes it clear that the waste will only come from Maine and Vermont. Otherwise, there is a very good chance that the people of Hudspeth County and Sierra Blanca will become a national depository for nuclear waste from all over the country. That is the last thing I think the people in Texas want. That is certainly the last thing that the people in the community of Sierra Blanca want. The reason I mention both of these amendments is that we now have instructions to our conferees to insist on these amendments in conference committee. This is a battle that has been going on for over a year in the Senate. I raised questions about this starting a year ago. What I said was that, as a Senator from Minnesota, I am concerned about this issue of environmental injustice and, if we have to approve this compact, let us make sure there is some fairness to this and some justice to it. My colleagues in the Senate have gone on record in favor of both of these amendments. The House of Representatives has gone on record as being in favor of the Doggett amendment, which is also a Wellstone amendment, that says, indeed, the waste will only come from Maine and Vermont. As we go to conference, I want to emphasize one point to my colleagues, and that is, don't strip these amendments from this bill in conference committee. That is what the nuclear utilities would like conferees to do, but it will make a mockery of the House and Senate. It will, in fact, give people not only in Texas but from around the country reason to think this is another example of a back-room deal, another example of the legislative process at its worst, another example of big utility companies riding roughshod over poor communities and, for that matter, regular citizens in this country. I want to make it clear to colleagues that it is extremely important that the conferees live up to our instructions and that these amendments become part of this bill. If they do not, it will be a striking example of unequal access to political power, which is, I think, the reason we have too much environmental discrimination all across the country in the first place. I make this plea to my colleagues, to the conferees: We have voted to keep these amendments in this bill. The Senate is on record unanimously as saying that these amendments should be part of this compact and therefore it is extremely important that these amendments not be stripped out. The issue of environmental justice deserves better than that, the people of Sierra Blanca deserve better than that, and people in our country have a right to expect a higher standard of conduct from their elected representatives than to try to knock this out in the dark of night. I say to colleagues, I have tried to work with my colleagues, even those who are in disagreement with me. But if these amendments are taken out of the conference committee--and I hope that they will not be, I pray that they will not be--but if they are, I will take advantage of every procedural means at my disposal to make sure that this does not happen, and to make sure that there is some environmental justice when it comes to this compact which all of us are going to have to vote on as Members of the U.S. Senate. I thank my colleague from Washington for letting me have an opportunity to speak from the floor to give colleagues a sense of where we are on this compact. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Washington for his graciousness.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, with the indulgence of my colleagues, that I be allowed to speak for 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, my colleague from North Dakota has spoken to the arbitration provision in the legislation. I shall not do so. I just want to present a Minnesota perspective for just a moment. I come from a State where we just went through a very important trial. The lawyers in my State, working with the attorney general, were able to unearth 33 million pages of documents--33 million pages of documents. This was during a discovery process that went from August 1994 to the end of 1997. Many of those documents have had an enormous impact, not just on the settlement in Minnesota, which was a very important settlement, but also directly on the debate in the U.S. Congress. Thirty-nine thousand pages of those documents were ordered produced by the Minnesota judge and were ultimately subpoenaed by the House of Representatives and made public on the Internet. What I want to do is speak to the part of this amendment that concerns me the most. I have had some discussion with my colleague from Alabama, and I have said to him, ``Why don't you, in fact, not make this retroactive,'' when he had his similar amendments on the floor, because I don't think we should be taking action here that reaches back to the Minnesota settlement, which has already been entered into and has been declared final by the court. We already have an arrangement between the State and the Attorney General and the lawyers who represented our State. Congress should not disturb that. I think the amendment of my colleague from the State of Washington has a different weakness and that is its lack of evenhandedness. What I want to see at a bare minimum is to have the same kind of caps or limits put on those attorneys representing the tobacco companies. I say to colleagues, when you vote on this amendment, the thing you ought to fasten your attention on is that we don't have the same kind of ceiling, the same kind of caps put on fees that go to lawyers representing the tobacco companies. I see nothing here that does that, in which case I would argue that we are hardly talking about a level playing field. I think the problem with the amendment is that it just simply lacks balance. I cannot support an amendment that puts caps on the fees of plaintiffs' attorneys representing consumers and representing the attorney general from a State, but at the same time puts no cap at all on the fees of attorneys hired by tobacco companies or other big corporations with their corporate lawyers working with these companies, but there is no cap on the fees. That just simply makes no sense to me from a kind of elementary standard of fairness, and that is why I think the amendment is fatally flawed.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield if I can have the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, there is also an obvious concern about the unsuitability of Sierra Blanca's geology--the exclusionary criterion from the 1985 Dames & Moore report. Sierra Blanca is situated right in the middle of the state's only earthquake zone. Its 1993 license application stated that this is ``the most tectonically active area within the state of Texas.'' In April 1995 there was a 5.6 earthquake 100 miles away, in Alpine, Texas. And there have been two tremors in the area in the last four years. Radioactive Waste Management Associates (RWMA) of New York has conducted an independent investigation of the dump site and found its geology unsuitable for disposal of radioactive waste. RWMA notes that research by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority has found that [there is] a fault in the bedrock buried beneath the Sierra Blanca site. Groups of earth fissures up to seven feet deep occur nearby. RWMA concludes that some important natural features of the site--its seismic hazard, its buried fault, and nearby earth fissures--are not suited to radioactive waste isolation. In our professional opinion, these are fatal flaws which mean that the proposed Sierra Blanca site cannot provide a high degree of assurance of waste containment. I ask unanimous consent to enter the letter from RWMA into the Record. The concern about the environmental impact of this dump extends well beyond the border. The Mexican equivalent of the EPA announced its opposition on March 5 on grounds that the Sierra Blanca dump poses an environmental risk to the border region. On February 11, the Mexican Congress, represented by its Permanent Commission, declared that the project in Sierra Blanca in Texas, and all such dumping projects along the border with Mexico, constitute an aggression against national dignity. Moreover, the project apparently violates the 1983 La Paz Agreement between Mexico and the US, which commits both countries to prevent pollution affecting the border area. I ask unanimous consent to enter these statements by Mexican authorities into the Record. The environmental justice amendments I proposed have been endorsed by several newspapers and civic organizations. The Fort Worth Star- Telegram of May 1, 1998 reads, The amendment to the Texas/Maine/Vermont Compact by Minnesotan Sen. Paul Wellstone is a good one. Too often in our country's industrialized history, poor, politically powerless minority communities have been targeted for unwanted hazardous waste dumps. . . . The Wellstone amendment needs to stay in the final version of the bill. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights wrote to likely conferees on May 14, 1998, The Senate-passed bill contains two amendments sponsored by Sen. Paul Wellstone that we urge the conferees to include in any final conference report. The Leadership Conference states that a matter of increasing concern to the civil rights community [is] the disparate treatment of poor and minority communities regarding environmental siting issues, also known as environmental justice. In recent years, our nation has gained a better understanding of the national pattern of discrimination in the placement of waste and pollution sites in disproportionately poor and minority communities. By the end of their letter, the Leadership Conference ``strongly urge the inclusion of the Wellstone/Doggett amendments in any final bill approved by Congress.'' The Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society wrote on April 30, 1998, ``We applaud and support these [Wellstone] amendments. They are a small victory for the victims of environmental racism.'' The Sierra Club wrote on June 4, 1998, ``Sen. Paul Wellstone has introduced two amendments that would improve the bill,'' though the Sierra Club believes the bill remains deeply flawed. I ask unanimous consent that all these statements be placed in the Record. Not everyone has been so supportive, of course. I think it would be appropriate for me to respond to some of the arguments that have been raised against my amendments. First, it's been suggested that passage of my amendments would require states to reratify the Compact. Second, a recurring theme echoed by Compact supporters is that Congress has never before attached these kinds of conditions to a state compact. Third, Senators from Compact states have suggested that no environmental discrimination could possibly have occurred in this case because residents of Sierra Blanca actually support the dump. Finally, it has also been claimed that the Compact is a state or local matter, in which people from other states have no business interfering. As a preliminary matter, I question the relevance of these arguments--at least with respect to the Wellstone/Doggett amendment. This question has already been settled. Both the House and Senate have agreed to limit waste to the three Compact states. There really is very little for the conference committee to decide. I do not understand why we are even having this discussion at this stage in the process. Nevertheless, I do want to respond to some of these arguments individually. First: the reratification argument. I believe there may be some confusion as to what my amendments actually do. As the House parliamentarian found with respect to the Doggett amendment, these amendments do not actually alter the Compact itself. Instead, they impose conditions on the consent of Congress. The Compact, for constitutional reasons, cannot go into effect without that consent. And Congress has already conditioned its consent on certain other requirements. My two amendments simply add to that list of congressional conditions. With regard to the Wellstone/Doggett limitation, there's no reason why this amendment should require reratification. When the Compact made its way through the legislative process the first time, everybody understood that waste would be limited to the three states. My amendment only reaffirms the common understanding of everyone involved. Why should states be required to reaffirm a principle to which they have already given their consent? I'm not sure this conclusion is really so controversial--even within the Compact states themselves. I have in my hands an internal memorandum from Roger Mulder of the State Energy Conservation Office of the Texas General Services Commission. Mr. Mulder was an environmental aide to Gov. Richards and handled Compact issues in the Richards Administration. His memo is addressed to John Howard, an environmental adviser to Governor Bush. It is dated October 10, 1997, just days after passage of the Doggett amendment in the House. The first line of the memo reads, ``There appears to be a unanimous agreement that the Doggett amendment does not require the Texas Compact to be returned to the state legislatures.'' ``Unanimous agreement.'' That's not just the view of Mr. Mulder. According to his memo, that view is universally held. The Mulder memo goes on to note that ``Maine appears to be leading the charge in the effort to drop the Doggett amendment.'' The reason? ``There is speculation that Maine believes it can send its decommissioned waste to Barnwell, South Carolina,'' get credit for the waste it otherwise would have sent to Texas, and ``then sell that credit at a substantial profit for Maine.'' That's what Mr. Mulder's memo says, at least. Nevertheless, I have been willing--and remain willing--to allay any legitimate concerns Compact supporters may have about the need for reratification. I offered to instruct conferees to put Congress on record--in the statement of managers--that no reratification is required. My offer was rejected. The second argument advanced by Compact supporters is that no previous Compact has received such shabby treatment at the hands of Congress. Even if Congress had never before attached these kinds of conditions, that would say nothing about how Congress should treat THIS Compact. Why should we be bound by what prior Congresses have done? And besides, this Compact is different from previous ones. We know in advance where the Texas dump will be located. And this particular site selection raises important questions of environmental justice. Third, Compact supporters go so far as to claim that local residents actually support the Compact, and therefore no discrimination could have been involved in the site selection. Even if it were true that the dump enjoyed local support, I don't see what this has to do with site selection. But more importantly, my argument that local residents should have a chance to challenge the dump site does not depend--one way or the other--on whether the proposed Compact dump is popular in Hudspeth County. I am simply saying that there should be some forum to resolve the claims of environmental discrimination that have been raised. I cannot say for certain what the outcome of such a challenge would be. But local residents should at least have a chance to make their case. In any event, the argument that local residents support the dump is simply not true. I am surprised to hear it being made. Local congressmen of both parties seem to agree on this point. The Republican congressman who represents Hudspeth County, Henry Bonilla, wrote to the Senate on March 13, 1998: ``My constituents adamantly oppose this legislation.'' In a letter to senators dated February 2, Democratic Congressmen Doggett, Reyes, and Rodriguez wrote, The [House] bill passed despite overwhelming opposition by the residents in Hudspeth County, Presidio County, Jeff Davis County, Culberson County, Val Verde County, Reeves County, Webb County, Brewster County, the cities of Sierra Blanca, Del Rio, Brackettville, Marfa, Van Horn, and Alpine, and the governor of the neighboring state of Chihuahua. In fact, 22 of the surrounding counties have passed resolutions opposing the dump, as have 11 nearby cities. No city or county, to my knowledge, has passed a resolution in favor. Jeff Davis County did pass a resolution of support while under the impression that the Compact would keep waste out of Texas. When informed that the Compact would do no such thing, they reversed their vote almost immediately. Compact lobbyists nevertheless continue to cite the first resolution. The only poll ever taken in Hudspeth County showed massive opposition to the dump. In 1992 the Texas Waste Authority commissioned K Associates of El Paso to conduct a telephone poll. That poll found 64 percent of Hudspeth and Culberson County residents opposed the dump. Opposition was surely even stronger than that, since poor residents without telephones were greatly underrepresented in the survey. Only 33 percent of respondents to this poll were Hispanic, while Hispanics account for 66 percent of the local population. As a general proposition, I understand that the dump is much more unpopular with the Latino majority than with the white minority. I don't know anyone who has ever attended a local meeting over the dump could have any doubts about how local residents feel. Over 700 county residents showed up at a public hearing on April 21, 1992. While 90 people spoke, only two supported the dump. At another public hearing in August 1996, over 80 percent of those attending spoke out against the dump. Local opponents of the dump have collected an overwhelming number of signatures in opposition. Over 800 local residents, all of them adults, have signed petitions opposing the dump. These include two out of four commissioners on the County Commissioner's Court--Wayne West and Curtis Carr. (A third commissioner--Jim Kiehne--has publicly stated his opposition). My understanding is that dump supporters have only managed to collect around 30 to 40 names. Many who signed the petitions in support of the dump later said they were confused; the petition claimed to be protecting Sierra Blanca from outside waste. Some of them have also signed petitions opposing the dump. I think the most reliable testimony about local opposition to the dump comes from Father Ralph Solis, the Catholic parish priest for Sierra Blanca and Hudspeth County. He visited Washington in February to let Senators know how much his parishioners oppose their dump: Before leaving for Washington D.C., the people of the parish said to me, ``Please, father, make them understand that we do not want radioactive nuclear waste.'' All of us in far west Texas implore the Senate to take a good look at us and realize that we are real people in danger and without any real voice. . . . We beg the Senate to stand with us as like our sisters and brothers from other faiths and Christian denominations from across the country. I am here with this group from West Texas, a few small voices trying to speak for so many. Please, we beg you, do not abandon us. Citizens across the state seem to feel the same way. In a state wide poll conducted in October 1994, 82 percent of Texans opposed ``the proposal to store out-of-state radioactive materials in Texas near Sierra Blanca.'' Only 13 percent favored the proposal. Senators from Compact states have touted the views of two local figures as proof of Sierra Blanca's support for the dump. One of these individuals is a banker who heads the local economic development commission, which is funded by the Texas Waste Authority. My understanding is that he is a resident of Santa Teresita, not of Sierra Blanca. He developed a connection to Sierra Blanca in 1994 when he became president of the local bank. The other local figure is Judge James Peace, the County Judge who presides over the County Commissioners' Court. Both Judge Peace and other Compact supporters have claimed his reelection in March of this year, with 54 percent of the vote, is proof that local voters support the Compact. But can anyone honestly claim that the dump was an issue in his reelection campaign, or that local residents were aware of his position on the dump? An editorial in the Hudspeth County Herald of April 17, 1998, addresses Judge Peace's claims. It says that the March elections were not a referendum on the dump, and that many other issues were involved. ``In no way, Judge Peace, was the dump implied in the last election.'' More importantly, it says, ``Your letter states that you have always been a vocal supporter of the dump . . . which is not true. Do you remember your first campaign? You told the folks when you sat in their living rooms that you were opposed to the dump.'' Judge Peace recently traveled to Washington and met with me in my office. He is a very nice man, and I very much enjoyed our meeting. Indeed, Judge Peace told me directly to my face that he supports the Wellstone/Doggett amendment. He later wrote me a letter reversing his position. I can see why local residents might be a little confused about where he stands. Finally, it is argued that the Compact is a matter for the three states to decide, that selection of the dump site is Texas' business, and that outsiders should mind their own business. More specifically, I have been asked why, as a senator from Minnesota, I should have such a deep and abiding interest in this matter. The simple answer is that, if this were only a matter for the three states to decide, H.R. 629 would not be before the Senate. The Compact cannot go into effect without the consent of Congress. And the dump will not go forward without the Compact. The decision whether to build this dump depends on how we decide to proceed on this bill. That's what it boils down to. It is quite obvious to me that we cannot avoid responsibility for our votes and our actions in this matter. My driving concern has always been very simple. I cannot stand by and watch while a poor, politically powerless, Latino community is targeted to become the premier repository of low-level nuclear waste for the entire country. Much less give it my blessing. Not when I have the power to do something about it. As a very basic proposition, I think we can all agree that it's wrong for poor, politically powerless, minority communities to be singled out for the siting of unwanted hazardous waste dumps. It's wrong when that happens in Sierra Blanca, and it's wrong when it happens in hundreds of other poor minority communities all across this country. I want to do whatever I can to stop it, and I don't see why every one of us should not want to do the same. I don't understand why it should be considered unusual for a senator to care about these things. On the contrary, I think it should be unusual for a senator not to care about these things. The broader point is that environmental justice is not just a local issue, but a national one. There are some issues of fundamental justice that rise to a level of national importance, and this is surely one of them. I think it's high time for the Senate to just say ``no.'' Not just to the Sierra Blanca dump, but to a national pattern of discrimination in the location of waste and pollution. We have to face up to these urgent issues of environmental justice--sooner rather than later. The primary reason I came to the floor today was to draw my colleagues' attention to the pressing issue of environmental justice. But I had another motive as well. I wanted to explain the history of the debate over this bill. I wanted to make sure there is no confusion over what agreements have been made, how the Senate amendments would work, what the mandate of the conference committee is, and what we can expect if the conference violates that mandate. Let us step back for a moment and review how we got to where we are today. Over the past year I expressed vehement opposition to any Compact legislation that did not address the issue of environmental justice. I offered my two amendments in an effort to do just that. The resulting standoff prevented this bill from coming to floor for almost a year. Finally, about three months ago, senators from Compact states agreed to include my two amendments. On April 1 of this year, the Senate unanimously approved them both. Unfortunately, however, after agreeing to my amendments, senators from Compact states suggested publicly that the amendments should be stripped in conference committee. So as a condition of going to conference, I insisted that conferees be instructed to keep the amendments in any bill reported back to the Senate. Let me, since I will have time to talk more about this and I want to accommodate my colleague, talk about one other amendment that we have also attached to this piece of legislation. This amendment, Mr. President, essentially says, if colleagues are going to say that there should only be radioactive waste from Maine and Vermont, if that is what the Texas legislature intended, then we should make it clear when we pass this compact that that will be the case. This was the Doggett amendment in the House of Representatives which passed the House, and this was also a part of an amendment that has passed the Senate as well. Let me just kind of be clear about what this unanimous consent says. We are now instructing the conference committee that they are to support these two amendments, which the Senate has now gone on record supporting. All of my colleagues are on record, because the Senate has voted to support these two amendments, that the people at least should have a chance to go to court. And, if they can prove discrimination, they ought to be able to make their case. They ought to at least be able to make that appeal. And secondly, if we are saying that this waste is only going to come from Maine and Vermont because the people in Sierra Blanca and people of Texas are worried this will become a national repository site for nuclear waste, then we make it clear in the amendments that, indeed, will be the case. Now, Mr. President, in conclusion, although I will have more to say all week about this, Senators from the compact States were first reluctant to give those instructions. Their objections have delayed the conference for the last month. Then last week--and I am glad they did so--they withdrew their objections and agreed to insist on the Wellstone amendments. It was this agreement that will allow H.R. 629 to go to conference. In other words, I will keep my word all the way through. I said I was just trying to get these amendments onto the bill because I think these amendments would lead to much more fairness and much more justice for the people in Sierra Blanca. Well, now we are about to go to conference and I only want to emphasize one point. The Senate has now agreed unanimously, including Senators from the compact States, to instruct conferees on the Wellstone amendments. Conferees should not report back to the Senate any bill that has been stripped, where the amendments have been taken out. Without those environmental justice amendments, there should be no bill. If there is a compact which is approved without the people in Sierra Blanca having the right to challenge this in court, if they can show discrimination, and without the assurance that this waste will only come from Vermont and Maine, then this will be an injustice and the Senate should not let that happen. Any attempt to strip these amendments from the bill, which is what the nuclear utilities would like conferees to do, would make a mockery of the House and Senate votes to include the Wellstone and the Doggett language. It would make a mockery of Senate instructions and would make a mockery of our professed concern for environmental justice. When the House and Senate have both decided to include these amendments, the conference committee really has no business trying to strip them out. I think that would be the kind of backroom deal that makes Americans disgusted with politics. That would be the legislative process at its worst--serving the interests of the nuclear utilities over interests of people who lack comparable access to the levers of political power. If that happens, Mr. President, not only would Congress be denying a remedy for environmental discrimination, not only would Congress be giving a green light to the Sierra Blanca dump, not only would Congress be giving a seal of approval to the targeting of a poor majority-Latino community for disposal of radioactive waste, if the conference committee proceeded to drop these amendments, they would provide a striking example of unequal access to political power here in Washington that produces environmental discrimination in the first place. The issue of environmental justice deserves better than that. The people of Sierra Blanca deserve better than that. And the American people have a right to expect a higher level of conduct from their elected representatives. I will take advantage of every procedural means at my disposal to make sure that does not happen. Mr. President, to accommodate my colleague's schedule, the Presiding Officer, I conclude my remarks and yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know some of my colleagues don't believe issues of environmental justice are implicated here. Or they may think this is not a question for the Senate to decide. I believe this amendment meets those concerns. All my amendment does is give local residents the right to make their case in court. There is no guarantee they will win. After all, it is extremely difficult to prove environmental discrimination. I don't see how anyone would want to deny these people a chance to make their case. Short of defeating the bill outright, I believe passing this amendment is the only way for us to do right by the people of Sierra Blanca. Yet, as amazing as it sounds, Compact proponents also claim to have the best interests of Sierra Blanca at heart. They claim the Compact will protect local residents because it keeps out waste from states other than Maine and Vermont. They have used this argument again and again, in Sierra Blanca, in the Texas legislature, in the House of Representatives, and they're using it again in the United States Senate. Supporters of the Compact are trying to have it both ways. When challenged about the environmental justice of targeting Sierra Blanca, they respond that no site has been selected, and environmental justice can only be addressed if and when that ever happens. Then in the same breath they insist that the dump in Sierra Blanca is definitely going forward and the Compact is therefore necessary to protect local residents from outside waste. So which is it? Either the Sierra Blanca dump is a done deal or it's not. The truth is, the most likely scenario is that the dump will be built in Sierra Blanca if Congress approves this Compact, subject to any legal challenges, but the project will not go forward if Congress rejects the Compact. The claim that the Compact will protect Sierra Blanca makes no sense on its face. The dump is unlikely to be built without congressional consent to this Compact; it does not need to be built; and the Compact would not protect Sierra Blanca in any event. The simple fact of the matter is that the dump will most likely not be if the Compact fails. Governor Bush has made it very clear that the dump will not be built if Congress rejects the Compact. So the argument that Sierra Blanca needs the Compact for protection against outside waste is nonsensical. If Texas does not build a dump in Sierra Blanca, local citizens do not need to be protected from anything. Far from protecting Sierra Blanca, the Compact only ensures that a dump will be built in their community. An article from the Texas Observer of last March explains why the Compact is necessary for the dump to go forward. ``Texas generates nowhere near enough waste on its own to fill a three million cubic feet dump, and by its own projections [the Texas Waste Authority] could not survive without Maine and Vermont's waste.'' Moreover, the Texas legislature has indicated it will not appropriate funding to build the dump if Congress rejects this Compact. Texas lawmakers refused the Waste Authority's request for $37 million for construction money in FY 1998 and FY 1999. In fact, the Texas House initially zeroed out all funding for the Authority, but funding for licensing was later restored in conference committee. My understanding is that construction funding was made contingent on passage of the Compact, whereupon Maine and Vermont will each be required to pay Texas over $25 million. In fact, the Sierra Blanca dump does not really need to be built. You might have seen the headline in the New York Times on December 7 of last year: ``Warning of Excess Capacity in Nation's Nuclear Dumps--New Technology and Recycling Sharply Reduce the Volume of Nuclear Waste.'' The article discusses a study by Dr. Gregory Hayden, the Nebraska Commissioner for the Central Interstate Compact Commission. Dr. Hayden found that ``there is currently an excess capacity for low-level radioactive waste disposal in the United States without any change to current law or practice.'' He went on to explain, ``These disposal sites have had low utilization due to falling volumes since 1980. Thus, a high capacity remains for the future, without any change to the current configuration of which states may ship to which disposal site.'' Let me repeat the essential point: there is no compelling need for any new low-level radioactive waste dumps in this country. And if no new dump is built, nobody can argue that the Compact is needed to protect Sierra Blanca. The most popular argument for building another dump involves disposal of medical waste. I'm sure all of you have heard it. It's claimed that waste from medical facilities and research labs is getting backed up-- that it has to go somewhere. But let me emphasize one central and indisputable fact: over the last few years, over 99 percent of the waste from Maine and Vermont has come from nuclear reactors. Less than one percent has been from hospitals and universities. And from all three states, 94 percent of the low- level waste between 1991 and 1994 came from reactors. This dump is being built--first and foremost--to dispose of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors, not from hospitals. So why are the nuclear utilities hiding behind hospitals and universities? It's not very hard to figure out. In 1984 the Texas Waste Authority hired a public relations firm to increase the popularity of nuclear waste. The PR firm recommended, ``A more positive view of safe disposal technologies should be engendered by the use of medical doctors and university faculty scientists as public spokesmen for the [Texas Waste] Authority.'' ``Whenever possible,'' the report said, ``the Authority should speak through these parties.'' Well, that advice has been followed to the letter. We all have sympathies for hospital work and university research. I know I do. But that's beside the point. This controversy is really about waste from nuclear reactors. If a dump is built nevertheless, the Compact offers little protection for local residents. The Compact Commission would be able to accept low-level radioactive waste from any person, state, regional body, or group of states. All it would take is a majority vote of the Commissioners, who are appointed by the Compact state governors. Why should the people of Sierra Blanca expect unelected commissioners to keep waste out of their community? Is there anything in their recent experience that would justify such faith? The fact is, the state will have every economic incentive to bring in more waste. The November 1997 report by Dr. Hayden concluded that ``the small volume of waste available for any new site would not allow the facility to take advantage of economies of scale. Thus, it would not even be able to operate at the low-cost portion of its own cost functions.'' The new dump will need high volume to stay profitable. The Texas Observer reports, ``A 1994 analysis by the Houston Business Journal suggests that the Authority would open the facility to other states to keep it viable.'' We have here the potential for establishing a new national repository for low-level nuclear waste. Not only will Texas have an incentive to bring in as much waste as possible, but the same will be true of nuclear utilities. The more waste goes to Sierra Blanca, the less they will be charged for disposal. Rick Jacobi, General Manager of the Texas Waste Authority, told the Houston Business Journal: ``The site is designed for 100,000 cubic feet per year, which would be about $160 per cubic foot. But if only 60,000 cubic feet per year of waste arrives, the price would be $250 per cubic foot.'' That's a big difference. As Molly Ivins says, ``That sure would drive up costs for Houston Lighting and Power and Texas Utilities.'' And the going rate at one existing dump is a whopping $450 per cubic foot. In the end, it will be in the economic interest of everyone--from the nuclear utilities to the Waste Authority--to ship as much waste to Sierra Blanca as they can. My second amendment addresses this problem. Throughout the process of approving the Compact, supporters claimed the waste would be limited to three states. I want to hold them to that promise. My amendment puts that promise in writing. I doubt anyone would disagree that this understanding was shared by everyone who participated in the Compact debate. If Compact supporters truly plan to limit waste to three states, which has been everyone's understanding all along, they can have no objection to my amendment. It's nothing but a protection clause. A nearly identical amendment-- called the Doggett Amendment--was attached to the bill passed by the House. There are other issues I was not able to address with amendments. I think there is a fundamental concern about whether this kind of disposal is safe at all. The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) warns that, despite the hazards involved, waste will be buried in soil trenches destined to leak, as have nuclear dumps in Kentucky, Illinois; and Nevada. LCV did score the House vote on final passage, and has announced that it may score Senate votes as well. I ask unanimous consent to place the LCV letter in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would like to speak out this evening about an enormously important issue that has seldom, if ever, been addressed on the floor of the United States Senate. I understand my colleague needs to leave at 7, and I am going to try to figure out a way to accommodate him if at all possible. My understanding is, I will also have a chance to speak more about this in morning business. This issue I want to address tonight has variously been called ``environmental discrimination,'' ``environmental equity,'' ``environmental justice,'' or ``environmental racism.'' These terms are used interchangeably to describe the well-documented tendency for pollution and waste dumps to be sited in poor and minority communities who lack the political power to keep them out. Environmental justice has been at the center of the debate over H.R. 629, legislation granting congressional consent to the so-called Texas Compact. If passed unamended by this Congress, the Texas Compact would result in the dumping of low-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors in Texas, Maine, and Vermont--and potentially from nuclear reactors all over the country--in the poor and majority-Latino town of Sierra Blanca in West Texas. Environmental justice is an issue that demands the full attention of the Senate. If we pass this legislation unamended, we can no loner pretend to be innocent bystanders as one poor, minority community after another is victimized by political powerlessness--and, in some cases, by overt racism. We can no longer pretend that a remedy for this basic violation of civil rights is beyond our reach. That is the ultimate significance of this legislation--and of this debate. The moral responsibility of the Senate is unavoidable and undeniable. If we approve H.R. 629 without conditions, the Compact dump will be built within a few miles of Sierra Blanca. There's really very little doubt about that. And if that happens, this poor Hispanic community could become the premier national repository for so-called ``low- level'' radioactive waste. If we reject this Compact, on the other hand, the Sierra Blanca dump will not be built at all. The Texas Governor has said so publicly--more than once. It's as simple as that. The fate of Sierra Blanca rests in our hands. Compact supporters would prefer that we consider the Compact without any reference to the actual location of the dump. But that simply cannot be done. It's true that H.R. 629 says nothing about Sierra Blanca. But we know very well where this waste will be dumped. In that respect, the Texas Compact is different from other compacts the Senate has considered. The Texas legislature in 1991 already identified the area where the dump will be located. The Texas Waste Authority designated the site near Sierra Blanca in 1992. A draft license was issued in 1996. License proceedings are now in their final stages and should be completed by summer. Nobody doubts that the Texas authorities will soon issue that license. There's only one reason why this dump might not get built--and that's if Congress rejects the Texas Compact. In an April 1998 interview, Texas Gov. George Bush said, ``If that does not happen,'' meaning congressional passage of the Compact, ``then all bets are off.'' In the El Paso Times of May 28, Gov. Bush said, ``If there's not a Compact in place, we will not move forward.'' For these reasons, we cannot fairly consider H.R. 629 without also considering the dump site that Texas has selected. Sierra Blanca is a small town in one of poorest parts of Texas, an area with one of the highest percentages of Latino residents. The average income of people who live there is less than $8,000. Thirty-nine percent live below the poverty line. Over 66 percent are Latino, and many of them speak only Spanish. It is a town that has already been saddled with one of the largest sewage sludge projects in the world. Every week Sierra Blanca receives 250 tons of partially treated sewage sludge from across the country. Depending on what action Congress decides to take, this small town with minimal political clout may also become the national repository for low-level radioactive waste. And I understand plans for building even more dump sites are also in the works. Supporters of the Compact would have us believe that the designation of Sierra Blanca had nothing to do with the income or ethnic characteristics of its residents. That it had nothing to do with the high percentage of Latinos in Sierra Blanca and the surrounding Hudspeth County--at least 2.6 times higher than the State average. That the percentage of people living in poverty--at least 2.1 times higher than the State average--was completely irrelevant. They would have us believe that Sierra Blanca was simply the unfortunate finalist in a rigorous and deliberate screening process that fairly considered potential sites from all over the State. That the outcome was based on science and objective criteria. I don't believe any of this is true. I am not saying science played no role whatsoever in the process. It did. Indeed, based on the initial criteria coupled with the scientific findings, Sierra Blanca was disqualified as a potential dump site. It wasn't until politics entered the picture that Sierra Blanca was even considered. I think it is worth taking a moment to review how we got to where we are today. The selection criteria for the dump were established in 1981, and the Texas Waste Authority hired engineering consultants to screen the entire state for suitable sites. In March 1985, consultants Dames & Moore delivered their report to the Authority. Using ``exclusionary'' criteria established by the Authority, Dames & Moore ruled out Sierra Blanca and the surrounding area, due primarily to its complex geology. Let me quote from that report. Features ``applied as exclusionary as related to the Authority's Siting Criteria'' included ``the clearly exclusionary features of: complex geology; tectonic fault zones,'' et cetera. ``The application of exclusionary geological criteria has had a substantial impact'' in screening potential sites, the report observed. In its final composite, the report explained, ``Complex geology and mountainous areas in West, West-Central, and the Panhandle of Texas were excluded,'' including the Sierra Blanca dump site. The report also fund, ``Many tectonic faults occur in West Texas within massive blocks of mountain ranges. This area includes El Paso [and] Hudspeth'' counties ``and has undergone several phases or episodes of tectonic disturbance.'' Finally, it went on to observe that, ``Although not excluded, the remainder of Hudspeth Country does not appear to offer good siting potential.'' So much for the science. Repeatedly since the early 1980s, the Waste Authority has come back again and again to this politically powerless area. It has designated four potential sites in all, and--with one revealing exception--all of them were in Hudspeth County. There are only three communities in the entire County, all of them poor and heavily Latino, and all of them targeted by the Authority. A 1984 public opinion survey commissioned by the Texas Waste Authority provides some useful context for the Authority's site selection process. The report, called ``An Analysis of Public Opinion on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal in Selected Areas,'' noted the benefits of keeping Latinos uninformed. The report states, ``One population that may benefit from [a public information] campaign is Hispanics, particularly those with little formal education and low-incomes. The Authority should be aware, however, that increasing the level of knowledge of Hispanics may simply increase opposition to the [radioactive dump] site, inasmuch as we have discovered a strong relationship in the total sample between increased perceived knowledge and increased opposition.'' The first site to be targeted was Dell City in Hudspeth County. The El Paso Herald-Post of March 6, 1984 recounts the controversy over that site selection. ``The [Texas Waste] Authority has set up certain criteria as guidelines for choosing a disposal site. It appears to be ignoring its own rules.'' ``The Authority, instead of abiding by its written criteria, has set up an unspoken, alternate rule for locating the site. That is, `The site shall be located where there are the fewest possible number of registered voters to protest.''' A disproportionately high number of Latinos in Hudspeth County are not registered to vote. The Herald-Post goes on to describe some of the political maneuvering behind the initial selection of Hudspeth County. ``The plot thickens. The University of Texas system owns 500,000 acres of land around Dell City. Mrs. Dolph Briscoe, wife of the former governor, sits on the system's Board of Regents. Briscoe has extensive land holdings close to the other proposed site. So at a public meeting on October 25, 1983, in Dimmit County, Briscoe said he was encouraging the Authority to locate the site `on state lands in Hudspeth County.' '' The editorialists at the Herald-Post conclude, ``We haven't exactly got any heavyweights defending our interests in this matter.'' The one exception to the Authority's pattern of targeting the poor Latino communities in Hudspeth County was in 1985, after completion of the engineering consultants' report. Dames & Moore concluded that the ``best'' sites were in McMullen and Dimmit Counties, and the Waste Authority settled on a site in McMullen County. But this decision met with fierce opposition from politically powerful individuals. So the Authority decided once again to move the dump back to Hudspeth County. At this point all pretense of objectivity was abandoned. The selection criteria were changed in 1985 so as to rule out the two ``best'' sites identified by Dames & Moore. The new criteria gave preference to sites located on state-owned land. This change had the effect of virtually guaranteeing selection of a site somewhere in Hudspeth County, large portions of which are owned by the state of Texas. So the Waste Authority proceeded to designate, based on an informal and cursory process, five sites in Hudspeth County. Its clear choice, however, was Fort Hancock, one of the County's three poor Latino communities. Unfortunately for the Authority, the more politically powerful city of El Paso next door decided to fight back. Together with Hudspeth County, El Paso filed suit against the site selection. They argued that the Hancock site was located in an area of complex geology--much like Sierra Blanca, incidentally--and lay on a 100-year flood plain. The amazing thing is that they won. In 1991 U.S. District Court Judge Moody ruled in their favor and ordered no dump could be built in Fort Hancock, Hudspeth County. But the county's court victory was short-lived. The Waste Authority was clearly not about to give up. The Authority went back to the state legislature to get around Judge Moody's decision by once again changing the rules. A legislator from Houston, far to the East where the big utilities are based, proposed a bill that ignored all previous selection criteria and designated Fort Hancock once and for all. Interestingly enough, this maneuver aroused a great deal of public indignation, precisely because of the Authority's perceived discriminatory practice of dumping on Latino communities. There was an impressive show of force against discrimination, but the outcome was not exactly what Hudspeth County had in mind. After Judge Moody's remarkable decision, lawyers for El Paso and the Waste Authority worked out a compromise. Fort Hancock would be saved, but a 400 square mile area further north in Hudspeth County would take its place. This oblong rectangle imposed on the map--an area that included Sierra Blanca--was subsequently dubbed ``The Box.'' The Texas legislature passed the so-called ``Box Law'' by voice vote only days before the end of session in May 1991. Once again, the previous site selection procedures were stripped away. The Box Law repealed the requirement that the dump had to be on public land, the very requirement that has pointed the Authority towards Hudspeth County in the first place. This was necessary because, at that time, the Sierra Blanca site was not public land at all. Most importantly, to prevent another troublesome lawsuit like the Fort Hancock debacle, the Box Law essentially stripped local citizens of the right to sue. It denied them all judicial relief other than an injunction by the Texas Supreme Court itself, and for this unlikely prospect citizens would be required to drive 500 miles to Austin. This story is depressingly familiar. A similar scenario unfolds over and over again in different parts of the country, with different names and faces in every situation. Sometimes there is no intention by anyone to discriminate. But pervasive inequalities of race, income, and access to the levers of political power exercise a controlling influence over the siting of undesirable waste dumps. The people who make these decisions sometimes are only following the path of least resistance, but in far too many instances the result is a targeting of poor, politically marginalized minority communities who lack the political muscle to do anything about it. The remarkable thing about this story is that some people in Hudspeth County did fight back. Dell City fought back and won in the early 1980s. Fort Hancock fought back and won their court case in 1991. And make no mistake, the people of Sierra Blanca are fighting back, too. Many of them have been here on the Hill. Father Ralph Solis, the parish priest for Sierra Blanca and Hudspeth County, was here in February, and visited many Senate offices. These people know that the odds are stacked against them, but they are persevering just the same. One of the amendments I included in this bill is intended to give them a fighting chance. It gives them their day in court--the right to challenge this site selection on grounds of environmental justice. It says that the Compact cannot be implemented in any way--and that would include the siting process, the licensing process, or the shipment of waste to that site--that discriminates against communities because of their race, national origin, or income level. If local residents can prove discrimination in court, then they can stop the Compact Commission from operating the dump. They don't have to prove intent, by the way, although that certainly would be sufficient. All they have to show is disparate treatment or disparate impact. I believe very strongly that the Compact raises important and troubling issues of ``environmental justice.'' And a diverse array of civic organizations agree with me about this. The Leadership Council on Civil Rights, the Texas NAACP, the Sierra Club, the League of United Latin American Citizens (or ``LULAC''), Greenpeace, the Bishop and the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, the House Hispanic Caucus, the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, and the National Audubon Society, to name just a few, agree with me. I ask unanimous consent that a letter signed by these and other organizations be printed in the Record at the end of my statement.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my understanding is that we may have a vote soon on the amendment, so I will take a couple of minutes. My colleague from Massachusetts is here and others are here on the floor. Let me just say that I am honored to be a part of this effort and to join with Senators Kerry and Bond. And I appreciate the words spoken by my colleague from South Dakota. Mr. President, I will try to be succinct. The focus of this legislation is children. The focus of this legislation is, of course, to go after the addiction of children to tobacco, to focus on cessation programs, to focus on the goal of making sure that we don't have children addicted to this very lethal drug any longer, and to make sure that we, in fact, focus on the overall health of children in our country, and that we focus on ways in which children cannot only be healthy, but have hope and can do well in school and do well in their lives. In that respect, I think this amendment is right on point, right on target. We are talking about at least trying to make sure that about $6 billion-plus over the next 5 years would go to early childhood development, both for children before they go to kindergarten and also for afterschool care. I will just raise two questions in 2 minutes. No. 1, to tell you the truth--that is an interesting expression; it is not like everything else I have said has not been the truth--but to tell you the truth, I don't even know why it is that for some reason, somebody decided the only way we are going to have funding for child care in this country is out of a tobacco bill. I think if we really care about this, we are going to make the investment. But I also believe this is a very appropriate vehicle on which to have this focus. As my colleague from South Dakota said--and I know my colleague from Massachusetts will focus on this--we have all this research, and the Federal evidence is irrefutable, irreducible. We have to make sure that children by the age of 3 are ready for school and ready for life. If they are not, they may never do well in school; they may never do well in their lives. What more important investment, what more important feature of this legislation could we support than to make sure we invest in the health, skills, intellect, and character of our children? That is what this is about. It is related to how they feel about themselves, their confidence--both early childhood development before kindergarten and afterschool care. That is also related to the question of whether or not they care enough about themselves and feel good enough about themselves that they don't get addicted to tobacco and that they think about a positive life, about a healthy life, and about what they are going to do in their lives. This is an extremely important amendment which goes to the heart of what this legislation is supposed to be all about--public health, focusing on the improvement and the betterment of our children's lives, and all of these children are God's children. This amendment should pass. It is a bipartisan effort. I am very pleased to be on the floor supporting it. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.