Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be considered a part of morning business.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to discuss legislation that the Senate may soon consider. The number of this bill is S. 270; it is the Texas low-level radioactive waste disposal compact bill. As my colleagues know, the Congress is supposed to consent to all interstate compacts, which are contractual arrangements between States. In this case, we are asked to give our consent to the shipment of low- level nuclear waste from Maine and Vermont, and potentially other States, to Texas for disposal. I am opposed to this legislation as it is currently written. I want to make clear today what my intentions are. Mr. President, we will have further opportunity to debate this legislation in full, and I do not intend to engage the bill's supporters today. I certainly never intend for this to become an acrimonious or bitter debate. But I want to publicly explain my opposition to this legislation and also what I intend to do. I do not believe that it is the intention of the bill's sponsors, my good friends from Maine and Vermont, to do anything to harm the citizens of Sierra Blanca, TX, through this compact. My friends from New England are attempting to meet the concerns of their constituents. They just want to get rid of this nuclear waste and they want to figure out how to dispose of it. They want to get it out of their own States. I also understand that no one wants to have a nuclear waste dump in their neighborhood. Now, this compact legislation says little about where the waste should go in Texas, other than that the State of Texas has an obligation to find a site. The State legislature in Texas has decided that there indeed will be a site and it will be in a small town in Hudspeth County, TX. My friends from Maine and Vermont, with whom I agree on many issues, and whom I enjoy working with, have not said that their State's nuclear waste should go to Sierra Blanca. But the effect of this legislation is to create a low-level nuclear waste dump site in a dusty little town in Texas called Sierra Blanca near the border with Mexico, about 60 miles east of El Paso. Mr. President, I believe that there are many concerns that have been raised about the siting of this dump and the enactment of this legislation, including environmental issues, seismic problems, economic viability, current legal actions, and our relations with Mexico. But I want to talk about one issue and one issue only, and hold what may be the first debate we have ever had on the floor of the U.S. Senate that deals with environmental justice, which is a shorthand way of talking about the disproportionate exposure of ethnic minorities and poor people to environmental pollutants. That is to say, all too often, when it comes to where we site these nuclear waste dump sites or where we put an incinerator, we tend to locate them in communities where there is a disproportionate number of people of color or poor people because they don't have the political clout. Why do I raise the issue of environmental justice on a bill that professes to do no more than grant the Congress' consent to a compact between Maine, Vermont, and Texas for the disposal of nuclear waste? Because it is this bill which will enable Maine and Vermont to indeed ship nuclear waste to Texas--and I understand why they are trying to do it--but also because Texas has made it very clear where it intends to locate the dump site. That dump site, not surprisingly, is located in an area of west Texas that is populated disproportionately by poor Hispanics. This happens over and over and over again in our country. When we want to figure out where we are going to put the nuclear waste, we look to where the poor people live, to where communities of color without the economic clout live, and that is where we put it. Is the proposed location of the dump in a poor community simply a coincidence, I ask my colleagues? Was it chance that the dry, sparsely populated county in Texas tentatively chosen for the dump site is 66 percent Hispanic with 39 percent of the people living below the poverty level? There certainly were other scientifically acceptable sites for the dump, so why did the Texas Legislature choose this spot, the sixth poorest county in Texas, with a high minority population, a low median household income and a sludge dump? The answer to these questions is simple. We in this body understand the answer to this question all too well. It was politics. The community living near the site singled out by the Texas Legislature did not have the political clout to keep it out. While all the other candidate sites were able to deflect the dump, Sierra Blanca, in far western Texas, a poor community, a Hispanic community, did not pack the political punch of the communities near the other possible sites. Another question that has arisen is, why am I, as a Senator from Minnesota, involving myself in the decision of the Texas Legislature to select a particular Texas site for a nuclear waste dump? For this reason, colleagues: It doesn't just happen in Texas, it happens all over this country. Poor and minority communities, unable to protect themselves in the political arena, find the old plumber's maxim is as true as ever: ``Waste flows downhill,'' both figuratively and literally, and if you are at the bottom of the socioeconomic slope, the pollution lands on you. That is what this is all about. That is what this cry for environmental justice is all about. I predict that eventually environmental justice will become a huge issue in the Congress. To repeat, it is the old plumber's maxim that ``waste flows downhill, both figuratively and literally, and if you are at the bottom of the socioeconomic slope, the pollution lands on you.'' I am standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate today to say that enough is enough. Until more of us say enough and we face up to the environmental injustices that we may contribute to in the granting of our consent in legislation such as this, poor and minority communities will continue to suffer disproportionately from environmental degradation in our country. We are in desperate need in the United States of America of a meaningful dialog on environmental justice. I believe Americans understand the need for fairness, and I want Americans to understand that we have to address environmental justice whenever we think about how to deal with problems like waste disposal. All our actions have moral implications, and what we decide on legislation like this can ultimately harm our most vulnerable citizens. I intend, Mr. President, to have a full debate on environmental justice. I want Members to explain why we should overlook the environmental justice implications of our actions in this instance. I want to talk about how this situation is symptomatic of many situations that we face in our country today. I want the U.S. Senate, as a body, to reflect on the consequences of pollution on poor and minority citizens all across the United States of America. I also intend to offer an amendment which adds one additional condition to Congress' consent to the compact. That condition is essentially that Congress grants its consent as long as the compact is not implemented in a way that it discriminates on the basis of race, color, national origin, or income level. Specifically, it will be designed to allow people who don't have the chance to fight fairly in the political process to make their case in the courts. I want to give poor and minority people, communities of color, a chance to fight this out in the courts. That is the very point of environmental justice. When the political process fails, environmental justice means trying to level the playing field, sometimes forcing conflict into a more evenhanded forum in this country. In this particular case, that would be the courts. I am sure, Mr. President, that none of our colleagues would argue that it is acceptable to discriminate against people by locating a nuclear waste dump site in their community. That being the case, it is a simple matter to say that if the location of the compact dump discriminates against people on the basis of their race or economic status, Congress will not consent to this compact. That will be the amendment I will bring to the floor if this compact is brought to the floor. I think this will happen and we will have this debate, and I think it will not be an acrimonious debate, but it will be one of the first debates we have ever had in the Senate on environmental justice or environmental injustice. I would like to make one point crystal clear. I am not rising in opposition to compacts. My amendment does not pass judgment on the compact this bill attempts to create. Rather, it is designed to give the citizens of Sierra Blanca, a poor Hispanic community, another tool to have their voices heard above a political process that would just as soon ignore them. I hope my colleagues will recognize our obligation to the people of Sierra Blanca and to all our citizens in taking a stand for environmental justice. Mr. President, I look forward to this debate. I will bring to the floor documents and other information for discussion. I will raise important questions as a Senator. It will be a civil debate, but I feel very strongly about this. What has happened to the people of Sierra Blanca, or what might happen to them, is all too indicative of what happens all too often to those communities that are the poorest communities, communities of color that over and over and over again are asked to carry the disproportionate burden of environmental degradation. It is not fair to these citizens. It is not fair to their children. It is not fair to their families. It is not fair to their communities. I believe this is a fundamentally important question that we have to address as an institution, as the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor. For the moment, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I now be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Brian Symmes, a fellow, and Maggie Smith, an intern, be granted the privilege of the floor.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. This is less in the spirit of a question, but I want to make it clear to my colleague, because I appreciate what he said, I have no objection to increases for other programs for children in the Government, and I understand full well some of the important programs in this piece of legislation. That is not my quarrel. My quarrel is the proposition that we did not eliminate the pay increase for ourselves. And I think we should have included increases for the other programs I spoke about.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank both my colleagues, Senator Kohl from Wisconsin and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell from Colorado, for their fine work. Let me, first of all, say, Mr. President, I understand this is a conference committee report, we will have a vote on it and there are many, many good things in this bill. I understand the good work of all Senators. I also want to express my personal gratitude to Representative Bernie Sanders in the House and Senator Harkin for a provision, with the support of my colleagues, that they now have in this bill which really puts our country on the side of taking some action against coerced child labor in other countries. I think it is a terribly important provision, and I am very pleased to see this provision in this conference report, Mr. President. So it is with a little bit of regret that I speak against this bill. I intend to vote against it, though, again, I want to make it clear why because there are a lot of good things in the bill. When we had this bill before us in the Senate, I had sent a letter out to colleagues saying that I thought it was not appropriate for us to take a pay increase, cost-of-living increase, salary increase, whatever you want to call it, which I would raise our salaries to about $136,000. I sent a letter to all my colleagues, and then we in the Senate voice voted for the proposition that we would delete that pay increase. So the Senate took a position when we voice voted that we are not going to have a recorded vote because there is unanimity, there is a consensus in the Senate, that this cost-of-living adjustment for Members is not the right thing to do. I regret to say that in the conference committee we did not keep this pay increase out of this legislation. So now we are here today with the pay increase. Now, a filibuster is beside the point. There is much in this bill that is very good. It is going to pass. I understand that. But I want to go on record as a Senator from Minnesota about this pay increase, not to talk about the process, though I must say I think my colleagues have done a pretty good job of not being recorded for or against this pay increase. To me, there is something more important. That is why I speak in the Senate this morning and why I am going to vote against this conference report. I hope other Senators will as well. I put the cost-of-living increase or pay increase for Senators and Representatives in the context of the debate that we have had on the floor of the Senate over the last several years. I have traveled in the country and spent a lot of time in poor communities, and I cannot even begin to tell you the number of Head Start teachers who tell me how important early Head Start is, how it would make so much difference if they could have a chance to work with kids when they are 1 and 2 years of age to give them a head start. We have a pittance of funding for that. We say we do not have any more money for it, and yet we give ourselves a salary increase. I cannot begin to describe the conversations that I have had with people all across the country about child care, affordable child care, which by the way is not just a problem for low-income people, but is a problem for middle-income and moderate-income families as well. Again, we have made precious little investment in children for child care but we give ourselves this salary increase. I was at the University of Iowa on Monday and there I found a focus on Pell grants. I can't tell you how many people in the higher education communities say, ``Look, by doing so little by way of expanding Pell grants--yes, you did the tax deductions and tax credits--you are still not dealing with the students most in need.'' Expansion of the Pell grant is by far the most effective way to do this. We say we cannot do it, but we give ourselves a salary increase. Mr. President, most poignantly of all, or at least most poignant to me, we voted not long ago for some $50 billion in deficit reduction, and the two major programs that we targeted were, first, the Food Stamp Program, which is the major safety net program in this country when it comes to nutrition for children; and second, benefits for legal immigrants. Now, we have restored some of the benefits, though, again, we still have eliminated food and nutrition assistance for legal immigrants, and by the year 2002 there will be a 20 percent cut in food assistance for children. Over 50 percent of the cuts we have made come from the Food Stamp Program, which is the major food nutrition program in this country and is our major safety net program. This is the program that has led to a significant reduction in malnutrition and hunger among children, and yet we said that in the name of sacrifice and in the name of deficit reduction and in the name of tightening our belt that we would cut the major nutrition programs for children in America, and at the same time we are now about to vote for a conference report that gives ourselves a salary increase, putting our salaries over $136,000 a year. I don't think a salary increase is appropriate, Mr. President. I just don't think it is appropriate. That is my own view. I have had a chance to come to the floor of the Senate and express that view honestly, openly and directly. I expressed that view in the letter I sent to my colleagues before this ever came out of the Senate. I sent another letter to conferees saying, please stick to the Senate position. We had a unanimous vote in the Senate to stop this pay increase and yet we still now have the increase in this piece of legislation. I just don't see the justice of it, colleagues. I don't see how we can cut basic benefits to the most needy and vulnerable citizens in this country--food and nutrition benefits for children in the name of belt tightening, sacrifice and deficit reduction--and at the same time give ourselves a salary increase, putting our salary over $136,000 a year. I don't think it is appropriate. I don't think it is the right thing to do. As good a job as both colleagues have done on this piece of legislation, I will vote against this bill and I hope other colleagues will as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to pick up on some comments made by the Senator from California. First of all, I express my disappointment that we are really not debating this campaign finance reform bill. There are a lot of games that are being played right now. What we have--my colleague from California was saying there is no reason to talk about filling up the tree and poison pill provisions-- but what we have going on here is an amendment introduced by the majority leader that has an Orwellian title called the Paycheck Protection Act. It is really kind of a union label working people gag act. In any case, it is a killer amendment and has no business being on this bill. Senator Daschle, the minority leader, has said if the majority leader wants to have a debate on this division provision, we will deal with it separately. We will agree to a debate on it. We will have amendments and we will deal with it. But what is going on right now is that this amendment and this effort to fill up the tree means that there is no way in which other Senators can introduce amendments. For that matter, I don't see us having much of a debate. I am hopeful we will get back to this debate. I want to be clear with people in the country that the fact that you have a campaign finance reform bill hanging out there on the Senate calendar, I guess starting at the end of last week and yesterday, Monday, doesn't necessarily mean we have really a high-quality debate. I am not even going to speak that long because I want to wait for colleagues to come out here on the other side and have a full-scale debate on this piece of legislation. Mr. President, we are very close to passing a reform bill. In many ways I am pessimistic because I think this amendment that the majority leader has introduced is an amendment which may very well destroy our chances for passing reform legislation if it passes. On the other hand, I think people in the country are pretty smart about this. I think they see it for what it is. My hope is that there will be a few more Republicans that will join Senator McCain and Senator Collins and Senator Thompson and Senator Specter and we will have the ability to defeat this amendment and then go on to the McCain-Feingold bill. I am willing to admit people have different views about how to solve this problem. I am convinced this is the core problem. I don't think there is a more important issue. I think people in the country know it. The problem is that people hate this system and they know it, and I think they believe that Government too often responds to the interests of the wealthy and powerful and not them. I think they are probably right. Even though I think individuals here in the Senate and the House have a highly developed sense of public service, people can agree to disagree, but systematically you have a huge imbalance of power because this whole political process has become too dependent on the heavy hitters and the investors and the givers and the people who have a whole lot of money. That tilts the system in a very dangerous direction toward the very top of the population, and it leaves the vast majority of people out. It also means we have a very, if you will, distorted debate on issues. I don't think it is any accident that ultimately when it came down to how we did deficit reduction, a good part of many of the areas we made reductions in affected vulnerable people, low- and moderate-income people who are not the big givers. I don't think it is any accident we left most of the tax loopholes and tax deductions alone, because then we would have had to take on the big givers. I don't think it is any accident that there are a whole lot of questions that deal with concentration of power. I will take the telecommunications industry, since I think we made a big mistake when we passed that piece of legislation. I think the flow of information in a democracy is the most precious thing we have, but in a way this whole issue of concentration of power gets taken off the table. I don't think it is any accident when we were debating universal health care coverage very fine Senators would say to me, ``There is no way we can take on the insurance industry given the power of the insurance industry.'' This is very corrupting in a very systematic way--not in an individual way, but in a very systematic way. I just say I think if we don't get the job done or if we don't at least get half the job done or if we at least don't get a quarter of the job done, I think people will be disillusioned and they will have a right to be. We will have given them every justification, every reason for being disillusioned with us. Now, Senator McCain and Senator Feingold are both close colleagues and good friends. Senator Feingold is my colleague from the State of Wisconsin. We have all worked together on these reform issues. I was proud to be one of the original cosponsors of the bill with Senator Thompson. What we had was an original--it's a little like hot sauce; we have the McCain-Feingold original formula, and we have the McCain- Feingold extra mild, which is the new formulation. The extra mild is meant to get us past the filibuster and any diversion from the majority side, and I hope it does. But I have to say that I don't even think the extra mild has enough zing in it. I know this is a good-faith effort to move us forward. Let me talk in very concrete terms about what all this means for people in the country. I will get back to this in a more extensive way when we have the debate. What has already been dropped out, I think, is a shame. I think Senators Feingold and McCain are disappointed, but they are trying to move forward on some reform. What has been dropped out of this is the agreed-upon spending limits, reducing the amount of money that is spent in exchange for discount broadcast advertising time and direct mailing expenses. In other words, the very part of the legislation that actually would have reduced the amount of money spent in our races, Senate and House races, has been taken out. Actually, the one provision of this bill that I think would have led to a more level playing field has been taken out already. I think that is a shame. The reason that I got so involved in this whole debate about reform from the word go was because I just think an obscene amount of money is spent. The reason I got involved was, back in 1989 and part of 1990, it was so disillusioning to me to have just about everybody I talked to tell me I didn't have a chance to win because I didn't have access to the money. That is all people would talk about. Actually, the provision of this legislation that directly deals with our raising money and our spending money in our campaigns and the connection to how we vote--even though I think all of us hope there is no connection, it certainly looks that way to people--has already been taken out. What is in this piece of legislation that I think is important--there is one provision I disagree with. In the aggregate we have now raised the amount of money individuals can contribute from $25,000 to $30,000 a year. I would not raise individual contributions at all. I think that just intensifies the problem of those people who have the big bucks being able to contribute more. Most people in North Carolina or Kansas or Minnesota cannot afford to contribute $100 a year much less collectively $30,000 a year. But we are now down to, as I said, an extra mild version. It doesn't have enough zing in it, from my point of view. But I understand it would represent a step forward if we keep it intact. Part of that deals with the unregulated money, the soft money, that goes to parties. I think it is terribly important to prohibit that because obscene amounts of money have been spent. We really saw that in the Presidential election. It essentially has become such a loophole that it has made people utterly disgusted with the system. A lot of what people have read about and heard about on TV has to do with soft money. There's a second part which my colleague was talking about, independent expenditures. It's the issue advocacy ads, which are terribly important to talk about because this is a huge loophole. If this gets stripped out of this piece of legislation, we will be making a huge mistake. I don't need to tell the people in Minnesota who followed the last election because there was about a million dollars spent on issue ads. They essentially run these ads on television and they bash you if you are a Democrat or a Republican--it depends who is doing it. They just don't say vote against you. There is no spending limits at all. So a huge problem, again, is with the unregulated money, which can be the soft money, which means that people can be contributing huge amounts of money to this, obscene amounts, which is used to buy elections. What this piece of legislation says is you can't do those ads. It becomes express advocacy if you do it in a 60-day period prior to the election and you use the name of the candidate. This is the bright-line test, which makes a whole lot of sense. You can't have perfection here. But if you drop that provision--and I know a lot of colleagues want to drop that provision--then what you will do is stop the soft money to the parties; it is just like Jello, you push in and it will all shift over to these issue advocacy ads. You will have all sorts of groups and organizations, and some you might like and some the Chair might like, some the Senator from North Carolina might like, some I would not like, but that is beside the point. You are going to have the same unregulated, obscene amount of money, no accountability, being spent in these elections, adding to the disillusionment of the people and used, by the way, for these attack ads, where they have been raising millions of dollars figuring out how to rip their opponent to shreds or how to prevent themselves from being ripped up into shreds. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent like this, and it does not add one bit of information for one citizen in the United States. No wonder people hate this system. We ought to really try to build a little bit more accountability into this. Well, Mr. President, these are important provisions that we are talking about here. I think that this represents a huge step forward. Mr. President, what I would worry about--and I will sort of finish up this way--is these three scenarios, and when we get into the debate, I can go into all of them in more specifics. One scenario is that we have the majority leader's amendment. It really is, as my colleague said, extraneous to this legislation. We can have a separate debate on it later on. It is really essentially a union gag, worker gag amendment. It is harsh. It should not be on this bill. If it passes--and I think we can have the votes to defeat it--then we reach a huge impasse. I suppose that people can think we have a clever strategy here. But most people in the country know this is nothing more than an effort to waylay the whole reform effort. It won't work. We are only a vote or two away from defeating it. I think we can have Republicans and Democrats join together to do that. The second scenario I worry about as well, which is an already stripped-down version of McCain-Feingold, you will have the 60-day accountability on the issue ads taken out. You will raise campaign contributions and you will wind up with a piece of legislation that will have a fine-sounding acronym, that made-for-Congress look, but as a matter of fact, it will just shift the amount of money, spent in a different way. It will be an obscene amount of money. It will still undercut democracy. You will still have all of this money spent, and when people in the country find out that not much really has changed, they will be furious, discouraged, disengaged, and none of us benefit. I hope that doesn't happen. The third thing that could happen is that the McCain-Feingold, what I called extra mild, the new formulation, will pass. Again, there is not enough zing in it, from my point of view, but I think it would represent a step forward. I mean, the provisions in the McCain-Feingold extra mild would be a step forward. It would be a reform effort. It would build some more accountability into the system. It would lessen some of the money that was spent, and I think it would give people some confidence that we are serious in this Congress about trying to change this system, this mix of money and politics, which so severely undercuts democracy. Now, a final point, if I have 2 minutes left. There is a whole lot of energy around the country at the State level. I mean, Vermont just passed a clean money election option. Maine passed it. I know that Massachusetts is going to deal with this question. This is an effort that I love. I have introduced a bill with Senators Kerry, Biden, and Glenn which basically says we are going to get all of the private money out, the big dollars out, and I think ultimately this is the direction we have to go in. I will tell you something. People around the country at the State level are saying yes to that. So, colleagues, people are serious about reform. This is one of those moments in time. As the Senator from Minnesota, I am very discouraged that we are not out here debating this. Let's finish this appropriations bill that my colleagues from North Carolina and California are managing, the D.C. appropriations bill, and let's have the debate on campaign finance reform. Let's not have amendments out here that are nothing less than an effort to destroy this reform effort. Let's debate the stripped-down McCain-Feingold measure and get on and pass the reform bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. While we are waiting for amendments, I ask if I could have up to 15 minutes to speak as in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent that Michael Smith, who is an intern in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor during debate today.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, may I make a unanimous-consent request for 10 seconds?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. The relocation provisions contained in section 115 state that residents shall be relocated to areas that are generally not less desirable than the location of the displaced person's dwelling. Is it your understanding that a comparably desirable area would be one that is not subject to unreasonable adverse environment conditions, and one which offers similar access to public utilities, facilities, services, and the displaced person's place of employment?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. That will be fine. Mr. President, I first of all want to start out with some praise for my colleague, Senator Coats, from Indiana and for that matter, Senator Lieberman. I think they speak with a great deal of conviction and eloquence on this matter. I think both of them are very committed to the idea of equal opportunity for every child in America. There is no question about that in my mind. Mr. President, I too think that there has to be a way that we reinvigorate or renew our national vow of equal opportunity for every child. And I think that education is key to that. But, Mr. President, let me just say at the beginning that there are a whole lot of things that we can and should be doing that we are not doing if we are serious about it. And that is sort of the context that I look at this proposal for the District of Columbia, which I will get to in a few minutes. But let me start out, if you will, with a kind of nationwide focus. First of all, Mr. President, I have been traveling the country and I have been spending time in communities where people are struggling economically. I spent time with quite a few poor people around our country. I am struck by the fact--and I have said this on the floor of the Senate before--that in all too many cases you walk into schools and the ceilings are caving in and the toilets do not work, the buildings are dilapidated, the lab facilities are not up to par, there are not enough textbooks. And with all due respect, quite frankly, until we make the investment in this area, just in infrastructure so schools are inviting places for children, we are not doing that much for kids. A voucher plan, be it a demonstration project in the District of Columbia for $7 million or anything else is just a great leap sideways or backward. Mr. President, Senators and Representatives have had the opportunity to put some investment in rebuilding crumbling schools in America, and we voted against it. If we are serious about equal opportunity for every child--my colleague from Connecticut spoke about this with a great deal of eloquence--then we ought to just follow the direction of all of the studies that are coming out about early childhood development. It is not surprising that kids are not doing well in these different tests, in the way in which we measure how children are doing in our schools. I try to be in a school every 2 weeks in Minnesota. There are so many children that come to schools that have never been read to. There are so many children that come to school that don't know the alphabet, don't know how to spell their name, don't know colors, shapes, and sizes, and we are doing precious little by way of investing in early childhood development. Now, I don't know how in the world my colleagues believe that the children we say we care a great deal about, and they do, are going to do well unless we make a commitment here. The answer to the problem is not a voucher plan. The answer is to make the commitment to early childhood development. Deborah Meyer, a great urban educator from New York, said, ``We can have a debate about tests, we can have a debate about standards, we can have a debate about how we measure this, but there is no debate about the need for you all to get busy investing in the dilapidated schools.'' We tell children we care next to nothing about them when the schools look the way they are. The judge's court order in Washington, DC, which dealt with getting the asbestos out of our schools, there could be judges issuing these orders in just about every major city in the United States of America, and we haven't invested the resources in this, and we are now saying that the answer is vouchers? Mr. President, if we are going to talk about equal opportunity for every child, maybe we ought to take a look at what happens to children before they go to school and what happens to them when they go home. Some of the cuts we have made in nutrition programs--and we have made rather deep cuts in nutrition programs; we are going to cut the major food safety program, the major safety net, which is the Food Stamp Program, by 20 percent by the year 2002 all in the name of welfare reform. Or, Mr. President, the cuts we have made in affordable housing. Has anybody looked at some of the homes, some of the apartments, some of the housing that these young children live in? And we are cutting funding for affordable housing. We have a lot of kids that are living in shacks. We have a lot of kids that are living in rat-infested apartments. We have a lot of children that go cold during the winter. My colleagues are trying to make the argument that the voucher plan is the way we are going to make sure that these children do well. We do hardly anything to change the concerns and circumstances of their lives outside of the schools. We do hardly anything by way of early childhood development. We do next to nothing when it comes to rebuilding these crumbling schools. And then we turn around and say what we want to do is have a voucher plan. Mr. President, my colleague from Connecticut said that he had been in some schools. I have been in some of the schools. I know Senator Coats has. I don't know anybody that has done more travel around the country than Jonathan Kozol who wrote ``Savage Inequalities: Children in America's schools.'' I read from page 83: ``In a country where there is no distinction of class,'' written of the United States 130 years ago, ``a child is not born to the station of his parents but with an infinite claim to all of the prizes that could be won by thought and labor. It is in conformity with the theory of equality as near as possible to give to every youth an equal state of life. Americans are unwilling that any be deprived in childhood the means of competition.'' It is hard to read these words today without a sense of irony and sadness, denial. Means of competition is perhaps the single most consistent outcome of the education offered to poor children in the schools of our large cities, and nowhere is this pattern of denial more explicit or more absolute than public schools in New York City. Average expenditures per pupil in the city of New York were under $5,500, and in the suburbs you have funding levels that are above $11,000 a year, and some cases up to $15,000 a year. All across the country, too much of the education the children get by way of teacher recruitment and teacher salaries, by way of facilities, by way of teacher training, by way of support services, is dependent on the property tax--huge inequalities--and we think that the voucher plan is the way to deal with this problem? My good friend Jonathan Kozol wrote another book called ``Amazing Grace,'' poor children and the conscience of America. It is a difficult book to read. It is devastating. It is about children in New York City in the Bronx. Mr. President, the thesis of the book is that no country that really loved children would ever let any group of children grow up under these conditions. Looking at the housing in the neighborhoods, the rat-infested housing, looking at the pollution, looking at the number of children suffering from asthma, looking at the lead content still in the paints in the apartments, looking at families without jobs, without jobs that pay a decent wage, looking at children that are malnourished, looking at a school that doesn't get its fair shake of resources, why don't we make those commitments if we want to make sure that every child has the same chance? The voucher plan nationally and this voucher plan in the District of Columbia is not the answer. It is not a step forward. It is a great leap backward from the kind of commitment we ought to make to children in our country. Mr. President, I said to my colleague from Indiana and I meant it sincerely, we don't need to be starting to put public money into private schools. We have some of the best public schools in the world. We have some of the best public schools in the world. Go out to some of our suburbs and look at those schools. They are great schools with great teachers with great facilities. What we should be doing is making all the public schools that good. That is the commitment we ought to make. One-third of America's schools, serving 14 million of America's 52 million students, are considered deteriorating, according to the Department of Education. Ten million students don't have access to computers; 50 percent of the teachers have no experience with technology in the classroom; 50,000 teachers enter school annually on emergency basis, without a proper teaching license; and within the next decade, thanks to a retirement in the baby boom, we will need 2 million new teachers, and we are now on the floor of the Senate discussing an amendment that would provide resources to private schools. Mr. President, Horace Mann said it best in 1830, 170 years ago: Choice is not a new idea . . . the newness is who pays for it. As a nation, we are rightly absorbed with improving education. We cannot do it by isolating its problems, and pretending to leave those problems behind to be dealt with by those least able to solve them. The problems of our public schools lie deep in the American experience--poverty, racism, decades of public apathy, drugs, and growing inability of the family, the church, and the neighborhood to nurture many of our children. These problems--and not the attractively sounding solution of private school choice--need to be addressed. Mr. President, that is exactly the argument that I just made. Horace Mann just happens to be someone of quite a bit more stature. He was right in 1830 and the same argument applies today, nearly 170 years later. You can't take public funds, you can't take public funds, and my colleague Eleanor Holmes Norton informs me that indeed this $7 million comes out of the D.C. budget, you can't take public funds, precious funds, and funnel them to private schools. You have fewer dollars helping kids in math and science, you have fewer dollars in terms of raising the standards of achievement, you have fewer dollars for teacher training, and you have less prevention of drugs and violence in the schools. This is not the time to be making such a decision. Mr. President, I want to also point out that there is a Senator from the District of Columbia, a shadow Senator, Paul Strauss, and it is a shame that he doesn't get a chance to be more directly involved in this debate. He has been by my office a lot. He cares about this. I think this has some problem to do with the whole question of lack of representation. I think we ought to remember that people in D.C, and my colleague from Connecticut said it was 1981, but by a ratio of 8 to 1 vote against the voucher initiative. If you want to argue that was a long time ago, take a look at the D.C. Board of Education which unanimously opposes the provision. ``Private school vouchers is not where the voters of this city want to put their money,'' D.C. School Board member Karen Shook reminds us. ``To have Congress impose this on us after we soundly voted against it runs counter to democracy.'' These are elected members to the school board. They voted unanimously one way, and we come to the floor of the Senate and impose a whole different other view. I thought we were interested in local initiative. I thought we wanted local communities to have more decisionmaking power over their children's lives and what happened in their communities. Mr. President, I think that if we are going to be talking about improving education, the answer is right before us. We have great schools in our suburbs. We have some great schools in some of our cities. Make all the public schools that way. Make sure that we have a system of financing of schools so that not one school in America, not one school in America, is dilapidated, not one school in America has a roof that is caving in, not one school in America is ladened with asbestos, not one school in America has teachers that have to take money out of their pockets and buy textbooks for their students because there isn't enough resource to do so, not one school in America is a school without heat or without air-conditioning during the hot summers. Let's make that commitment. Let's make the commitment to early childhood development. Let's make the commitment to support services for students. Those are the kind of commitments we make, and then we can have all of the public schools being great schools. The voucher doesn't do that. Karen Shook, the vice president of the D.C. Board of Education and former Chair of the D.C. Finance Committee said, ``Students in the District of Columbia go to school in 100-year-old buildings that have never been renovated.'' Why don't we renovate the buildings? The city has a $600 million need to repair schools, yet it has no capital budget. As for social services for troubled youth, ``only one counselor is available for every 400 students'' in the D.C. public schools. As D.C. parent and PTA leader Alieze Stallworth points out: ``The majority of children are going to remain in the public school system. What happens to them?'' Mr. President, I could go on and on. There are other colleagues who want to speak. But let me be clear about this, take the $7 million, and for $7 million we could establish ``Success for All,'' a proven research-based reading program for disadvantaged students, for every elementary school in the District of Columbia. Put the $7 million into that. We could link 116 public schools in the District of Columbia to improve reform efforts such as New American Schools. Put the $7 million in that. We could put in place 140 after-school programs based in public schools to help 14,000 children otherwise home alone after schooldays, after school ends each day. Put the $7 million into that. We could provide brandnew textbooks for every elementary and secondary school student in every single the District of Columbia school. Put the $7 million into that. We could buy 66,000 new hardcover books for the District of Columbia's public libraries, or we could buy 368 new boilers for D.C. schools and protect all the students who go cold during the winter. Put the $7 million into that. I am going to be very clear about it. I will try to end on another note. I think that my colleagues are onto something important. I think this amendment is a huge mistake. I think it actually represents a retreat from living up to our national vow of equal opportunity for every child. I think the focus ought to be on all of our schools and all of our children. We ought to make sure that every school in this country, including the schools in the District of Columbia and a lot of other cities in the country, and rural areas as well, are as good as the very best school in some of our wealthy suburbs that have all the resources and teachers that they can hire and all the teachers they can retain and all of the support services and all of the rest. That is the direction we ought to be going in. The voucher plan represents a retreat from that. But I want to say to my colleagues on the floor of the Senate, these Senators, with this amendment, are operating in good faith. They are not operating in bad faith. I probably should not end this way because I am so strongly opposed to the amendment. But I really do want to sort of talk about two points that I think they are making that are important. One of them is that, although, again, the per pupil expenditure in the District of Columbia, as I look at these figures, which has been declining now, is now down to $5,923 for fiscal year 1998, that is not nearly as much as the surrounding suburbs. So I don't think we should go overboard on these figures, given the concerns and circumstances of children's lives and, in many ways, a bigger challenge to educate some of the children in the D.C. school system. Nevertheless, I think it is quite appropriate to say, when are we going to cut through this bureaucracy and when are we going to make sure that these dollars that are out there really connect to the education of children? I think what my colleagues are trying to say is that they have grown very impatient, they are getting tired of waiting. I share that impatience. I just would do it a whole different way. I would put a lot more investment than I think they want to in what happens to kids in the early years, investment in good programs for kids when they get out of school in the middle of the day when not such good things happen. I would put a whole lot more investment in teacher training and a whole lot more investment in making sure that the best facilities and resources and the schools are inviting places. That is where I would go. I would figure out ways--and I think the District of Columbia is starting to do it--of really making this bureaucracy accountable. I would not be condemning the public school teachers--and they are not doing that. I get angry because I think some of the harshest critics of the public school teachers could not last 1 hour in the classrooms they condemn. I spoke the other night at Howard University. In the audience was a public school teacher, and she said it is really hard to go on. They feel so beaten down from all of the bashing. I think these public school teachers do a marvelous job. I understand my colleagues' impatience. Second, I think it is true that some of the private schools, and some of the Catholic schools in particular, in some of our innercity communities are schools where, when children come to school every day, they know they are loved and some very important things are happening. They are doing some things in their schools that we are not doing nearly as well as we should do in some of our public schools. It can't be said that children in our public schools, or in near enough public schools, feel as if every day they are loved and they are supported. There are some important things going on in the Catholic schools. There are important things going on in some of these other schools that I think make a huge difference. But, Mr. President, this voucher plan, in the context of what is happening nationally, and even in the context of what is happening in the District of Columbia, however well-intentioned it is, I think does not represent a step forward. I think it represents a great leap backward from equity. It represents a great leap backward from the idea of truly equal opportunity for every child, and it represents the beginning of a great leap backward from a commitment to public schools, where all of the schools and all of the children represent the best of America, which is opportunity, which is good education, education that fires up young people, that gives them hope that they can do well in their lives. That is the direction we ought to go. This voucher proposal, in the District of Columbia or anywhere else, doesn't take us in that direction. I yield the floor. Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the last item, which has already been approved, apparently has not been checked by staff. What was the last unanimous consent, if you would not mind? You already have gotten it approved, but out of courtesy. Apparently, the Democrats have not had a chance to look at it.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I take this opportunity to thank my colleagues for all of the hard work that they have done on S. 830, the FDA Modernization and Improvement Act of 1997. Senator Jeffords has provided his leadership in bringing this legislation forward, and my other colleagues have worked to negotiate agreement on provisions where there was concern. I would like to thank Senator Coats, who was true to his word that he would work with us to come to an agreement on third party issues, and Senator Gregg, who worked to reach a compromise on the national uniformity provision. It is my belief that we can provide medical products to consumers in a more timely manner through many of the provisions in this bill, while retaining significant consumer protections. Many of the provisions in S. 830 will take a significant step toward addressing Americans' concerns with the FDA. The legislation would improve the predictability, timeliness and focus of the regulatory process for medical products. The legislation would also improve communication and collaboration between the FDA and the regulated industries. I strongly endorse the view that these objectives can be met and unnecessary regulatory burdens can be minimized without compromising the quality of the reviews. My colleagues and I have worked very hard on bringing forward needed reform proposals with respect to the review and approval of medical devices. We have negotiated many of the original provisions in the bill to the point that we have reached agreement on them, and can join together in supporting them. We have taken into consideration the comments and concerns of consumers and industry in order to present a bill that will improve the review and approval processes. As you know, I have always been and will continue to be a strong consumer advocate. I think that S. 830 provides many things for consumers and will help to bring them medical therapies that are safe and effective in a more timely fashion. This is especially true with respect to devices. This is the part of the bill on which I have focused the bulk of my attention, and I do think that a large number of concerns that I and some of my colleagues, in particular Senator Kennedy, had have been addressed. There has been a great deal of discussion and debate about section 404 of the bill, which deals with labeling for intended use of devices. This issue is highly technical, but it is clear that all of us have the same goals in mind: First, to provide a degree of consistency in the way devices are reviewed by individual reviewers, so that reviewers do not try to second guess an honest manufacturer with respect to the intended use of a device, and second, to prevent the very few companies who might try to avoid presenting the FDA with adequate data about safety and effectiveness from having their devices classified and brought to market under the 510(k) process. I do not believe that the provision in this bill prohibits the FDA from exercising its authority to not find a device substantially equivalent to its predicate device when there are technological differences that raise new issues of safety and effectiveness. But obviously, there are differences of opinion with respect to this provision. Since we all agree on the goals that we are trying to achieve, I think that there must be a way of clarifying the authority of the FDA in a way that is satisfactory to everyone. The Reed-Kennedy amendment offered one option, but this option is not the appropriate one. Several other suggestions for language to clarify this have been offered, but none capture what we are all trying to do. Rather than reiterate all of the arguments that were stated in the debate over the past several days, I will ask that my colleagues who are appointed as conferees work together to ensure that this provision is worded to make clear that it will penalize anyone who tries to get around the law, but will not penalize those who are complying with the intent of Congress and the law. Madam President, as I have said before, I think this is an important piece of legislation. It is clearly important that we reauthorize and improve PDUFA, and that we work to bring safe and effective medical therapies to the public in a timely manner. Again, I would like to thank my colleagues, especially Senator Jeffords and Senator Kennedy and their staff members for all of their efforts on this bill. I would also like to thank the consumer groups for their input, and the administration for its assistance in the negotiations process. I trust that the conferees will keep the importance of this bill in mind as they negotiate to bring the final legislation to the floor for passage.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I really am in strong opposition to the amendment of my friend--and he is a friend--from Arkansas. I find it hard to understand why we would be creating additional hurdles, as this amendment does, for communities to work together to restore and protect rivers and riverfronts. I think that is what this debate is all about. We have a President who has initiated a program that will help local communities restore and protect rivers without any additional regulation, and Mr. President, for the life of me, I don't know why we would want to support an amendment that would delay the start of this program, and which I think really would have no obvious benefit for our country. Mr. President, while the Congress does have an oversight role--and I acknowledge that--this amendment, I believe, is a misplaced effort to involve all property owners in the designation process, that would really create a whole new cumbersome process and give some form of veto power to a single property owner who might decide to object, for whatever reason. So I think the amendment, however good-intentioned, is mistaken. Mr. President, it seems to me that this amendment is about stopping the American Heritage Rivers Program, not protecting property owners from some imagined Federal takeover of their property. The Senate is supposed to be a voice of reason. I think by perpetuating the myth that the Federal Government is somehow engaged in a land grab or a power grab through this program is a dangerous game, and I think it is one we should be very cautious about entering into. Let me speak, in the last couple of minutes, about Minnesota. We have some fine rivers in the State of Minnesota and many communities who want to see this program go forward. One of those rivers, I think most of my colleagues are acquainted with, is called the Mississippi River. It flows right past the State of my friend. I don't need to tell my colleagues how important this river is to the Nation, how important it is to our Nation's culture, our history, and our economy. I will tell you that in Minnesota we have mayors from communities such as Bemidji, at the headwaters of the Mississippi and from Minneapolis, St. Paul, South St. Paul, St. Cloud, Anoka, Wabasha, Winona, and others, working with mayors in other States along the Mississippi to develop their nomination for this program. So we have a lot of communities seeking designation of the Upper Mississippi River to improve access to Federal riverfront revitalization programs, and who are fully respectful of property rights, like other local governments across America who want to compete in this program. I think that if this amendment was passed, it would place an insurmountable roadblock in front of the aspirations of local communities in the State of Minnesota and across America who are trying to make improvements and make the most of their river resources. Let me repeat that. I think if the amendment passed, the biggest problem is that it will create an insurmountable roadblock for a lot of our local communities who are doing their level best to make improvements and make the most of their river resources. That is the problem. I applaud the President's work. I applaud this initiative, this program, and I hope my colleagues will vote against the Hutchinson amendment. I will certainly strongly support the Dodd-D'Amato motion to table. I yield the floor. Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senators DeWine, Jeffords, and Kennedy, in introducing the Workforce Investment Partnership Act of 1997. This bipartisan bill is a major accomplishment for Americans who need Federal assistance to acquire skills to qualify for good jobs. The bill also is a major accomplishment for my colleague from Ohio, Senator DeWine, Chairman of the Labor Committee's Employment and Training Subcommitee, whom I commend for bringing us to this point through numerous valuable hearings and a rigorous, cooperative drafting process. A number of Minnesotans testified at our hearings. Groups from Minnesota and from around the country have been consulted and listened to. I thank both Senator DeWine and Senator Jeffords for the openness of the process. As always, I would also like to acknowledge the leadership of Senator Kennedy. His deep experience and commitment have helped make this an excellent bill. As leaders for our respective parties on the Subcommittee and on the full Labor Committee, the four of us may not always agree on issues facing America's working families. But we agree on this bill. It will fundamentally improve our Federal system of job training, adult and vocational education, and vocational rehabilitation programs. The bill will help coordinate, streamline and decentralize our Federal job training system. It will make that system more accountable to real performance measures. It gives private sector employers--the people who have jobs to offer and who need workers with the right skills--a greater role in directing policy at the State and local level, which is where most decision-making power resides in this bill. And it moves the whole country to where Minnesota has already moved decisively: to a system of one-stop service centers where people can get all the information they need in one location. At these one stops, people then will have the ability to make their own choices, based on the best information, about which profession they want and ought to pursue, about the skills and training they'll need, and about the best place to get those skills and that training. I have visited one-stop centers in Minnesota. They work. In addition, and this is very important, our bill achieves the things I have mentioned above without neglecting the need to target resources from the Federal level to those who need them most: to disadvantaged adults and youth, and to dislocated workers. That is crucial. This bill does not overreach. It does not block- grant all Federal job training, adult education and vocational education progams to governors. It retains crucial federal priorities, then allows State and local authorities to decide how best to address their needs. That is why I believe this Congress will succeed where we did not during the last Congress. We'll pass this bill, reach an acceptable conference agreement with the House, and send major, important legislation to the President for his signature.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senators DeWine, Jeffords, and Kennedy, in introducing the Workforce Investment Partnership Act of 1997. This bipartisan bill is a major accomplishment for Americans who need Federal assistance to acquire skills to qualify for good jobs. The bill also is a major accomplishment for my colleague from Ohio, Senator DeWine, Chairman of the Labor Committee's Employment and Training Subcommitee, whom I commend for bringing us to this point through numerous valuable hearings and a rigorous, cooperative drafting process. A number of Minnesotans testified at our hearings. Groups from Minnesota and from around the country have been consulted and listened to. I thank both Senator DeWine and Senator Jeffords for the openness of the process. As always, I would also like to acknowledge the leadership of Senator Kennedy. His deep experience and commitment have helped make this an excellent bill. As leaders for our respective parties on the Subcommittee and on the full Labor Committee, the four of us may not always agree on issues facing America's working families. But we agree on this bill. It will fundamentally improve our Federal system of job training, adult and vocational education, and vocational rehabilitation programs. The bill will help coordinate, streamline and decentralize our Federal job training system. It will make that system more accountable to real performance measures. It gives private sector employers--the people who have jobs to offer and who need workers with the right skills--a greater role in directing policy at the State and local level, which is where most decision-making power resides in this bill. And it moves the whole country to where Minnesota has already moved decisively: to a system of one-stop service centers where people can get all the information they need in one location. At these one stops, people then will have the ability to make their own choices, based on the best information, about which profession they want and ought to pursue, about the skills and training they'll need, and about the best place to get those skills and that training. I have visited one-stop centers in Minnesota. They work. In addition, and this is very important, our bill achieves the things I have mentioned above without neglecting the need to target resources from the Federal level to those who need them most: to disadvantaged adults and youth, and to dislocated workers. That is crucial. This bill does not overreach. It does not block- grant all Federal job training, adult education and vocational education progams to governors. It retains crucial federal priorities, then allows State and local authorities to decide how best to address their needs. That is why I believe this Congress will succeed where we did not during the last Congress. We'll pass this bill, reach an acceptable conference agreement with the House, and send major, important legislation to the President for his signature.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I think these amendments represent a different kind of attack. We had amendments to just eliminate the NEA. We may have one of those amendments on the floor now, maybe, to eliminate NEA. We have had amendments in the past to severely undercut the funding for NEA. I just don't know what will satisfy colleagues. Jane Alexander made a commitment to us that she would be very tough in her management, she would do the necessary reorganization work, she would take all of her creativity and use that creativity to make the NEA an agency that clearly was rooted in communities all across our country. And for Minnesota, for rural America, the east coast, west coast, North and South--that is exactly what has been done. So I hope we will defeat these amendments and we can as a Senate vote for a commitment which is a national community commitment that we care about the arts, that we are committed to enriching the lives of children, all children in this country, and we are committed to making sure the arts reaches out and touches all of our citizens no matter their income, no matter their race, no matter disability, no matter age. That, I think, is what its mission is all about, and I think the NEA under Ms. Alexander's leadership deserves the strong support of the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I can only add a little bit to what the Senator from Arkansas has just said. I wish he would not be leaving the Senate. I have told him that a hundred times, but I will say it one more time. Mr. President, as a Senator from Minnesota, I rise in support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am troubled we are out here on the floor, again defending the Federal role in really supporting the arts in communities all across our country. Some of my colleagues are arguing that, with their block grant proposals to States, they really support the NEA. This will just get the money to States in a more efficient manner, a more timely manner. But these amendments do nothing more--and I think everybody should be aware of this before they cast their votes--than cut off the lifeblood of the National Endowment for the Arts. That is exactly what these amendments do. I think that is the purpose of these amendments. There is a bitter irony to the timing of these amendments, because Jane Alexander has done such an excellent job of reorganizing the endowment. I come to the floor to recognize her fine work and to support the NEA. When Ms. Alexander was confirmed as Chairwoman of the NEA, she made a commitment that she was going to work closely with the Congress, that she would take necessary steps to reorganize the Endowment, and she has done that and, as a matter of fact, I think her effort has been nothing short of heroic. She has, through her leadership, helped form and lead a NEA that touches the lives of all citizens, regardless of their age, their race, their disability, their economic status or, I might add, their geographic location. Jane Alexander has been blessed with a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment and she has blessed our country with that creativity. She has done a marvelous job of bringing the arts into our classrooms and into every corner of our Nation. Now, again we are out here having to defend the NEA. The budget is pathetically low. We could do much more to fire the imaginations of children all across the country. Yet we have another attack on the NEA, out here on the floor today. In my State of Minnesota, the NEA has given support to the American Composers Forum, the Minnesota Alliance for Arts and Education, Gray Wolf Press, the Duluth Superior Symphony, the Rochester Civic Music Guild, as well as the nationally renowned Dale Warren Singers, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Guthery Theater. In addition, because of support from NEA, national theater and dance groups have visited many rural communities all across the State of Minnesota. The NEA has supported some wonderful partnerships in Minnesota, including a partnership between the Minnesota Orchestra Association and the science museum, which has created an interactive work between actors, the full orchestra, and fifth and sixth graders. That is what this is all about. One grant we are especially proud of that really goes to Minnesota, but goes to the whole Nation--and one of the most important things about these grants is the way in which a grant can go, in this particular case to the Minneapolis Children's Theater Company--and what they have done is this grant has supported the development and production of a new work which is called the Mark Twain Storybook, which has toured 35 communities in 9 States, from Fergus Falls, MN, to Mabel, MN, to Skokie, IL, offering a total of 73 performances and 5 workshops. Sometimes when my colleagues look at funding that goes to particular States, they forget that one of the things the NEA has done under Ms. Alexander's leadership is taking a chance, this particular case on the Minneapolis Children's Theater Company, which is marvelous, and they then take that on the road and reach out to 9 States, 73 performances, 5 workshops. This is enriching work. I just would like to make the point that the block grant amendments are not friendly amendments. As I say, they undercut the very heart of what NEA is about, which is national leadership of the arts in our country. We as a national community make a commitment to the arts. We understand how important the arts are to enriching the lives of all of our citizens. We make it one of our priorities--not much of a priority, because we have had attacks on the NEA over the past few years and it is so severely underfunded--but, nevertheless, we as a national community understand that we make a commitment to leverage the funding and to get it to organizations to, in turn, get it to communities all across the country. The block grant proposal takes us in the exact opposite direction. I really do believe that the timing of these amendments is just way off. One more time, I just want to repeat for colleagues that regardless of the words that are uttered and regardless of the intentions of colleagues, I think the effect of these block grant amendments is to just cut off the very mission, the very lifeblood, the very richness, the very importance of what the NEA is all about. We are only talking about $100 million. It is an agency that has been severely undercut because of attacks of past Congresses. But I will tell you something, people in the country have rallied behind the NEA, I think in large part because of Ms. Alexander's leadership. We have an agency that is bringing the arts into classrooms and bringing arts into the communities all across our country. We have an agency which has done a marvelous job of being in partnership with local communities and States, doing a really superb job. Mr. President, I also want to have printed in the Record a letter from James Dusso, who is assistant director of the Minnesota State Arts Board. He writes in behalf of Robert Booker, who is the Minnesota State Art Board executive director, who is currently away at a conference, making it very clear that the Minnesota State Arts Board is opposed to the block grant amendments, making it very clear that Minnesota, and I think many, many people in the arts community, appreciate the work of NEA, and making it very clear that these amendments, rather than improving NEA's work, would severely undercut what this agency has been about.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, we had an extensive discussion on the Nickles amendment last time. I just want to speak for a very brief period of time about it this morning. Pending before a Federal court in New York, scheduled to be considered next Friday, is a motion by the election officer of the 1996 Teamsters election. A judge will make a decision then. And the problem with this amendment, Mr. President, is that it essentially tells the judge what to do. I would like to say this morning that in many ways this reminds me of yesterday. This is an overreach. I think we are getting a little bit carried away with our power here. My colleague from Oklahoma is a fine Senator. But he is not a judge. It is Senator Nickles. It is not ``Judge Nickles.'' We don't really have the right to tell a judge what kind of decision he should make regarding the 1989 consent decree. That is for the judge to decide next week. Mr. President, it is true that we had an election, and it is true that it was not satisfactory. And, indeed, the investment that we made to make sure it was a clean and fair election lead to a report, and the election officer essentially saying there has to be a rerun; that this has to be done again. That is the way it is supposed to be. An election which is not a fair election means that you have to have another election. That is where we are heading. Mr. President, my colleague from Oklahoma has said that the consent decree was neutral as to whether there would be any more money spent on the election--silent on that matter. If so, on the Kennedy amendment, what my colleague from Massachusetts has talked about is right on the mark; that we make a commitment that we will not do anything here that will overturn, or essentially contradict, that consent decree. The judge makes the decision in New York next week. What are we as a U.S. Senate doing trying to tell that judge how he should decide? That is an overreach. That is not our business. I think it raises constitutional questions. But I also think it raises another set of questions. I said this last time. I will repeat it in the last minute or two that I have. Whatever the intentions of my colleague--and I know they are good intentions--the fact of the matter is that there is a whole lot of people in the country who find the timing of the Nickles amendment to be suspect. I mean it comes in a relatively short period of time after a very successful justice struggle by UPS workers and by the Teamsters. It just looks like payback time. That is, I am sure, not his intention. But the point of it is the timing is off. It doesn't look good for the U.S. Senate to be coming out on the floor of the Senate with an amendment like this short on the heels of this great victory for working people. And, in addition, it is an overreach. I mean we should not be telling the judge what kind of decision a Federal district judge in New York makes next week. I don't think it is constitutionally the right thing to do. I think it is probably unconstitutional. I don't think it is appropriate, and I hope that there will be a very strong vote against the Nickles amendment. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy. Amendment No. 1081, as amended