Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. The International Olympic Committee is going to announce tomorrow which country will host the 2008 summer games. The competition is fierce. Toronto and Paris are serious contenders. Yet it seems likely that Beijing will get the prize. I will speak briefly about this decision because I think there should be some discussion on the Senate floor and the implications. I believe China's authoritarian and oppressive government should not be granted the privilege of hosting the 2008 games. The current Government in Beijing does not deserve the international legitimacy and the spotlight that this honor bestows. Its chronic failure to respect human rights violates the fundamental spirit of the Games, and I think it should disqualify Beijing. Many of my colleagues argue that human rights should never be a consideration in determining our trade relations with other countries. I don't agree. I do think a government's record on human rights should not be ignored with respect to choosing the site for the Olympics which confers enormous prestige on the host government and which is intended to celebrate human dignity and achievement. I have a sense-of-the-Senate amendment because the feeling was it would be inappropriate to do it on an appropriations bill. I do not believe doing it that way gets the support that it deserves. I know there are Senators who argue that to say the Olympics should not be in China is to politicize this question. If we are silent about this and Beijing hosts the Olympics, we are making a political statement. The political statement we are making is their violation of human rights does not matter. Either way, it is a political statement. I prefer to speak out for human rights. The Olympics are first and foremost about sports and the joy of athletic competition, but human rights and dignity are also central to the Olympic ideal. The Olympic charter makes clear ``respect for universal fundamental ethical principles'' are central to the Olympic ideal. Look at the State Department report. China's Government record has worsened as it committed ``numerous serious abuses" from raiding home churches, imprisoning Tibetan monks and nuns, locking up Internet entrepreneurs, silencing democracy activists, and cracking down on Falun Gong.'' The Chinese Government continues to hold a number of American scholars on suspicious charges of spying. Dr. Gao Zhan has not been allowed to contact her husband, her 5-year-old child, both American citizens, or her lawyer or the State Department. This doesn't matter? Moreover, hundreds of thousands of people languish in jails and prison camps merely because they dared to practice their Christian or Buddhist or Islamic faith. These are the facts. Respected international human rights organizations have documented hundreds of thousands of cases of arbitrary imprisonment, torture, house arrest, or death at the hands of the Government. That is a fact. What they have done, the brutal crackdown on the Falun Gong is unbelievable. This is a harmless Buddhist sect. According to international media reports, approximately 50,000 of these practitioners have been arrested and detained, more than 5,000 have been sentenced to labor camps without a trial, and hundreds have received prison sentences after sham trials, show trials. Detainees have often been tortured and scores of practitioners of this faith have died in Government custody. These are facts. This is the empirical evidence. Millions of others have been persecuted for so-called crimes such as, if you are ready, advocating for political pluralism and the ideals of democracy. Hundreds continue to languish in jail under a ``counterrevolutionary'' law which the Government repealed 3 years ago. Some of them are survivors of the Tiananmen Square massacre. While China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights--I remember the Clinton administration has made such a big deal of this--the Chinese Government has not ratified it. Instead, it stepped up its repression of individuals seeking to exercise the very rights the covenant is designed to protect. And we do not speak out about this. We make the argument, to grant this country the honor of hosting the Olympics, we should not raise questions about this because to raise questions would be to make a political statement about the Olympics. Isn't it also making a political statement about the Olympics not to raise questions, to legitimize and validate this repression? Chinese courts have sentenced members of the Chinese Democracy Party, an open opposition party, to terms of 11, 12, and 13 years for ``conspiring to subvert state power.'' This is a fact. Charges against these political activists--do you know what they are? They included this: They organized a party--wound up in prison. They received funds from abroad promoting independent trade unions--they wound up in prison. They used e-mails to distribute materials abroad-- they wound up in prison. And they gave interviews to foreign reporters--they wound up in prison. Here is where the Olympics is going to go. Without a word from our Government? Without a word from the Senate? Chinese officials have also ruthlessly suppressed dissent from ethnic minorities, including Xinjiang and Tibet. According to a report by Amnesty International, the Chinese Government has reportedly committed gross violations, including widespread use of torture to exact confessions, lengthy prison sentences, and numerous executions. Are we not going to speak up about a government that tortures its citizens and that executes its citizens for no other reason than they have had the courage to speak up for democracy or to try to practice their religion? In an apparent attempt to stop the flow of information overseas about this crackdown, Chinese security officials continue to detain a prominent businesswoman, Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, in the Province of Xinjiang. Her husband is a U.S. resident who broadcasts on Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America, championing the cause of people. She was arrested by the Chinese security forces on her way to meet with members of a visiting Congressional staff delegation. For years, the same Ms. Kadeer has been praised by the Chinese Government for her efforts to promote economic development, including a project to help women own their own businesses. She has also been praised in the Wall Street Journal for her business savvy. She owned a department store in a provincial capital, as well as a profitable trading company. But now she has been put out of business, charged with--here is the charge, Mr. President--``illegally offering state secrets across the border,'' and sentenced to 8 years of hard labor. Her son and her secretary were also detained and sent to a labor camp. Given this horrendous record, I do not believe China should be rewarded for this sort of repression. I am not a cold war warrior. I am not trying to resurrect the cold war. My father was born in Odessa, Ukraine. Then, to stay ahead of Czarist Russia, he was a Jewish immigrant. They moved to Habarovsk in the Far East, Siberia, and then Harbin, and lived in Pakeen, lived in China, and he came to the United States of America at age 17, in 1914. I am an internationalist. I look forward to the day that Beijing hosts the Olympic games. The Chinese people are some of the most extraordinary, talented, and resourceful people on the planet. I do not for a moment want to bash or overgeneralize. I dream of a day when I can come to the Senate floor and I can celebrate the idea of China hosting the Olympic games. But not now. Not with the persecution, not with the torture, not with the murder of innocent citizens, not with the political oppression, not with the religious persecution, not with what they have done to the country of Tibet, the people of Tibet. I believe strongly China's authoritarian, repressive Government should not be granted the privilege of hosting the 2008 games. It does not deserve the international legitimacy and spotlight that this honor bestows. Instead, this Government's chronic failure to respect human rights, I believe, violates the fundamental spirit of the Olympic games and should disqualify Beijing. This is perhaps my morning for tilting at windmills because I believe the international committee will probably give China the Olympic Games, but sometimes it is important just to make that statement on the floor of the Senate. I believe others should speak out as well.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent that an intern, Archie Ingersoll, be allowed to be on the floor during the deliberations today.

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I was trying to accommodate Senators. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, has my colleague suggested the absence of a quorum?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 874.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Madam President, this amendment would increase funding for what is called the LIHEAP, the Low Income Energy Assistance Program. It would provide $150 million in emergency funding for this fiscal year for the LIHEAP program. The amendment would be offset directing the Secretary of Defense to rescind $150 million in fiscal year 2001 funds out of administrative costs. There have been many General Accounting Office Inspector General studies of the Pentagon budget that have talked about administrative waste going far beyond $150 million. Out of the whole budget, we are just saying take $150 million from all of the administrative waste-- talking about tens of billions of dollars--and transfer that to the Low Income Energy Assistance Program. This is a safety net program which provides essential heating and cooling assistance to almost 5 million low-income people, many of them senior citizens, many of them disabled, many of them working poor, many of them working poor families with children. Let me explain why I bring this amendment to the floor. Right now, national estimates show--and this is shameful--that only 13 percent of the households eligible for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program actually receive any assistance at all. That is because since 1985, accounting for inflation, the truth is, the funding has declined by 70 percent. For many low-income families, the energy costs are as much as 20 percent of the monthly budget. The Low Income Energy Assistance Program is a lifeline program that provides additional grants of money to people when they are in dire need of such assistance. When they don't get this help, if they are elderly, they don't buy the prescription drugs they need. They don't eat what they should be eating. They don't have enough money for food. I am not exaggerating. I am also talking about cooling assistance. While I come from a cold- weather State, we also have emergency cooling assistance, but for many States that is not unimportant. There are poor people, many of them elderly, who run into a lot of difficulty. We have had some summers when they died from exposure to the heat, struggling with asthma and whatnot and without any cooling assistance whatsoever. I recognize the hard work that has been done by the Senate Appropriations Committee. In his supplemental request to the Congress, President Bush requested only $150 million of additional money for LIHEAP emergency funding. I am sorry. I have to say it: This does not represent ``compassionate conservatism.'' It was inadequate. The President's request would not even have been enough to assist low-income families who are currently in arrears from this past year's devastating winter. Chairman Byrd and Chairman Stevens, recognizing the inadequacy of the administration's request, doubled it. They deserve the credit for doing so. However, while the $150 million requested by the President was inadequate, the $300 million certainly does a better job, but it is far from adequate. It doesn't meet the needs of millions of working families and seniors who are facing unbelievable energy costs no matter where one goes in the United States. In addition, all of the LIHEAP funds appropriated for this year have been released, and nearly half the States have already exhausted or nearly exhausted their funding. It is clear that we are currently nearing a crisis situation. A study was just completed by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, and they found that 28 States and the District of Columbia were either out of funding or had very low balances; States reporting that they were out of funds: The District of Columbia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin; States reporting very low balances: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Utah. This survey also found that arrearages and threats of shutoffs increased to 4.3 million households. This past winter was a living hell for a lot of low-income people. Energy costs in the State of Minnesota went up 40 percent. We have this deadly combination of our not providing the funding that is needed over the years, so that only about 15 percent, 14 percent of the people who are eligible get the help, and in addition, with the dramatic increase in energy prices, it is an even far worse situation. Let me be specific. Alabama needs an additional $5 to $6 million for summer cooling, especially if the State experiences the severe summer that has been predicted. Colorado may have to discontinue its summer crisis intervention program and the summer fan distribution program for lack of funding. Georgia needs an additional $1 million for summer cooling and to provide assistance to the 20,000 households that owe approximately $80 million in natural gas bills alone. The Illinois program estimates it needs $15 to $20 million for a statewide summer program and $15 million for arrearage shutoff avoidance assistance. Kansas has had to resort to prorated benefits for winter heating assistance to compensate for the higher number of applicants and fuel costs. Kentucky needs $7 million to operate a cooling program. Minnesota needs an additional $13 million to cover the applications received this year and provide the same level of services as last year. New Hampshire has responded to the increased demand for assistance this winter season. It goes on and on. Madam President, many States need the help and, as I said before, it is the cooling assistance. It also provides the money right now over this critical period for the cold-weather States to purchase energy at a lower price than they would be able to do later. It also provides resources for States to help low-income people pay some of the bills they have not been able to pay so that they are not shut off, because right now they can be shut off by the utility companies. Again, many Senators come from States where home heating prices went up by 40 percent this past winter. I also want to make clear to my colleagues that this emergency funding will carry over to the next fiscal year. Advance appropriations were eliminated in last year's appropriations cycle. As of October 1, 2001, States will have totally exhausted their LIHEAP funds. The carryover of this amendment will ensure that many States will be able to pre-buy heating fuels for the next heating season, and summer purchases have greatly benefited low-income households, providing them with more fuel for their money. This amendment could be offset again by directing the Secretary of Defense to transfer $150 million from the whole Pentagon budget in administrative expenses for fiscal year 2001. I want to remind colleagues that the President has requested $343 billion for the defense budget in the next fiscal year, at a time when the Department can't even complete an internal audit. I am just saying transfer $150 million in administrative expenses. Now, again, let me be really clear. This is a successful program. It is a lifeline program. It is for the most vulnerable citizens in our country. We have not provided the funding and the assistance that is necessary, and it is the reason I bring this amendment to the floor-- recognizing the good work of the Appropriations Committee. As a Senator from Minnesota, I listed all sorts of other States that are in trouble right now either for cooling assistance or in trouble as they look to this next year. We ought to be providing the funding. This is just one vote that calls on us to try to get our priorities straight. The President's $150 million was hardly compassionate conservatism; doubling it was good work, but it doesn't come close to meeting the needs over the next 3- month period, doesn't come close for what is needed for cooling assistance, doesn't come close for what use States can make to provide assistance to people so they don't get cut off by utilities. It doesn't provide advance funding for States such as Minnesota that are going to wind up in a real financial crunch next year because the home heating costs are going to be high and we are not going to provide the necessary funding. At the very minimum, can't we take $150 million in administrative costs from the whole Department of Defense budget, which is well over $300 billion, and put it into emergency low-income energy assistance for poor people, working poor people, for children, for the elderly, and for the disabled? I say to my colleagues that we know right now this has been a successful program. We also know that the program has continued to be underfunded, and we know firsthand that over half the States in the United States of America are out of money. I gave you a report on which States are almost out of money. We have a hot summer month coming up. I do not believe we should pass this opportunity to utilize the supplementary emergency vehicle, which is for emergency purposes, to bring additional relief to vulnerable citizens in this country. This amendment is a modest step in this direction, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Also, because I know that the chairman and the ranking minority member want to continue to move things forward, I believe I have made my case, but I also want to kind of put this into a broader context. I really worry about where we are heading. We pass these tax cuts, we pass this budget resolution, and every day you read editorials and articles and you are looking at the figures which Senator Conrad and Senator Byrd have laid out for us, and it is becoming crystal clear that what we have done is we have not been very intellectually rigorous. We are not going to have the funding on present course. We had these Robin-Hood-in-reverse tax cuts. It is really over $2 trillion over the next decade, and it is only going to get worse. And now, at the very time when I thought we were going to have additional resources to work with, we are being told that soon we are going to be dipping into Medicare trust funds, Social Security trust funds, and that we don't have any funding. We can't help, in the year 2001, people who need lifeline assistance, low-income people who need emergency assistance. And then I say to the ranking member, who has been such a leader on education, we were told during this debate about the ESEA that there would be the funding. Where is the funding going to come from? Where will we get the money to fully fund the IDEA program? Where is the money coming from for title I? Then there is the prescription drug benefit. Everybody who campaigned for office campaigned on this issue. Are we going to say we have actually so little money, that the copays are so high--I don't know about the State of Washington, but I bet it is the same. The income profile of senior citizens in Minnesota is not high at all. You have too high a copay and people--if you don't deal with the catastrophic expenses, you are not providing the help. Are we going to be told again we can't afford to do it? Are we going to be told we can't do anything on affordable housing? Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book called ``Nickle and Dimed.'' She is a fine writer. She went incognito and lived in different communities trying to find out what you do. She worked at Wal-Mart. She had a chapter about Minnesota, and there is a paucity of affordable housing, rental or home ownership. For many, it is just not there. But we can't do anything. We are in a straitjacket. So we have amendments proposed that will add to the Pentagon budget and take away from workforce development, take away from dislocated worker funds. On the Iron Range in Minnesota, LTV just shut down; 1,400 workers are out of work. I say to my colleague from West Virginia, take away from the steel loan fund. What kind of tradeoffs are we getting into? This is becoming a zero-sum game. We have a strong defense, but we don't help people who are out of work. We don't help rebuild industries that are so critical, as a matter of fact, to our national defense. We put more money into education, and we don't have money for prescription drugs or for job training. We passed the Patients' Bill of Rights. I am proud of this piece of legislation. The whole question of health security for all is still out there. Affordable child care: We all say we are for the children. Where is the funding for Head Start, and for affordable child care, and for affordable higher education? What about veterans? Who is going to make the commitment to a decent health care budget for veterans? Who is going to do anything about homeless veterans? I am just telling you that this is a small amendment, but this small amendment tells a larger story. I am not raiding Medicare or Social Security. I am not doing any of that. This is just a transfer. I am just saying, out of the whole Pentagon budget--the huge, over $300 billion budget--$150 million in administrative costs can be transferred to this program so that we can do a little bit better by way of helping vulnerable citizens in our country. That is the amendment. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will take 3 minutes, I say to my colleague. I want to respond to my good friend from Hawaii by saying three things. First, there is not a better person in the Senate. I hate disagreeing with him. I listened carefully, and I want him to know in the language of this amendment, we make it clear: In determining the accounts to specify, the Secretary of Defense shall take into consideration the need to promote efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and productivity within the Department of Defense, as well as to maintain readiness and troop quality of life. We do not talk about taking money out of any of the programs. We are not talking about cutting programs that are especially important for youth or especially important for Native American people. We are certainly not talking about anything that goes away from readiness and troop quality of life. The only thing we are talking about is administrative expenses. The Pentagon has not even been able to complete its internal audit. We all know there is way more than $150 million in administrative waste in an over $300 billion budget. I am saying do not take it out of programs, and I am certainly saying do not take it out of anything that deals with troop quality of life or readiness. I am simply saying take it out of the administrative waste and put it into the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The vote is about whether or not we want to take some money out of administrative expenses from over a $300 billion budget and put it into this program. My colleague talked about this program being fully funded, but the fact is, we have only 14 percent of the families who are eligible who are able to benefit because it has been so underfunded over the years. We just went through a 40-percent increase in heating costs this past winter which has thrown everything helter-skelter with States not having the money, with not enough cooling assistance, people in arrears, people faced with utility shutoffs, with States worrying about next year. I don't think anybody from any of these States can make a point that we don't need more funding for this program. If I thought we already had the funding we need, I would not bring this amendment to the floor. I believe it is quite to the contrary. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I wonder if I might yield myself 10 minutes to speak in opposition to the McCain amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. In opposition to the McCain amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, I think we would be making a mistake to gut some important domestic programs that I think are critical to our being competitive in the global economy. I think it is critical that we make sure we also live up to the national security of our own country, which is the security of local communities where people really have the opportunity for dislocated workers to rebuild their lives, where we are able to make investments in industries that are critical to the economic life of our communities and our country. I don't doubt the judgment of the Senator from Arizona on some of the new spending that he believes is critical for defense. I argue that I believe we should be able to find this money within DOD's budget. I want to go over inspector general reports, which point to a very bloated, wasteful Pentagon budget, where there is more than enough money to meet my colleague's challenge. I think the amendment turns our priorities on their head, and I think it is a mistake. The Senator's amendment would rescind $141.5 million, and that is on top of the $217 million that we have already rescinded for job training programs under the Workforce Investment Act. My colleague from Arizona said the workforce investment decision was designed to bring the Senate rescission to what the House did but, in fact, the House did not rescind any funds. So I think my colleague is in error on that point. More important, I think it is a mistake in these times. I am speaking as a Senator from Minnesota, but as I said earlier, on the Iron Range-- which is a second home for me and my wife Sheila in terms of how strongly we feel about the people up there--we saw LTV Company pull the plug, and 1,300 steelworkers are out of work. These are taconite workers. These were $60,000-a-year jobs, including health care. These families are trying to recover. These workers are now dislocated. They are looking for other work. In farm country and in rural parts of the State, many people have been left behind. I think it is simply the wrong priority to make additional cuts to additional rescissions in assistance for dislocated workers. It is just not right. It is not right. Moreover, in the Workforce Investment Act, which I wrote with Senator DeWine in a bipartisan effort, we did things to make sense by way of streamlining and having a good public-private partnership, and by way of being consistent in terms of what our national priorities are, which I think is all about, again, the importance of human capital, the importance of education, the importance of people having the skills training and the people finding employment so they can support themselves and their families. I do not think it makes sense to make additional cuts in this priority program. My colleague also would rescind nearly $127 million from the Steel Loan Guarantee Program. I do not know, but there are a lot of Senators, and I know there are Republicans as well, who come from a part of the country where the industrial sector is really important, where we have had an import surge, where many workers, hard-working people--you cannot find any more hard-working people--are now losing their jobs, and we are talking about how to make an investment in this industry. By the way, the steel industry is one of those industries that is critical to our national security, in the critical role the steel industry has always played by way of contributing to defense, much less the infrastructure of highways and bridges within our own country. Again, I find myself in major disagreement with this amendment. Finally, if we are going to look for resources for the new needs identified by Senator McCain, I think we can find it right out of this bloated Pentagon budget. I have no doubt there is at least $1 billion of waste that the Secretary of Defense can identify. Let me talk about what the Pentagon inspector general found by way of bookkeeping entries that could not be tracked or justified: We identified deficiencies in internal controls and account systems related to General Property, Plant and Equipment; Inventory; Environmental Liabilities; Military Retirement Health Benefits Liability; and material lines within the Statement of Budgetary Resources. We identified $1.1 trillion in departmental-level accounting entries to financial data used to prepare DOD component financial statements that were not supported by adequate audit trials or by sufficient evidence to determine their validity. This is not a new problem. In fiscal year 1999, the inspector general reported there were $2.3 trillion in entries that could not be corroborated. Six years ago, the General Accounting Office put the Pentagon's financial management on its list of agencies that are at high risk for waste, fraud, and abuse. The inspector general also has uncovered many other examples of gross overcharges in the Pentagon's accounting system. A March 13, 2001, report listed the following gross abuses: The Pentagon paid $2.10 for a body screw that cost the vendor 48 cents, a 335-percent markup. The Pentagon paid 25 cents for a dust protection plug that cost the vendor 3 cents, a 699-percent markup. The Pentagon paid $409.15 for a washroom sink that cost the vendor $39.17, a 945-percent markup. The source: Office of Inspector General, Department of Defense report. This was March 13, 2001. If we want to find the money, let's look at some of the administrative waste within the Pentagon. We can surely find that money. We can surely make that transfer instead of going after priority programs that are also all about our national defense. I argue, again, part of the definition of national defense is the security of local communities where dislocated workers have the opportunity to rebuild their lives, to develop their skills, to find gainful employment where we have industries that have the capital that can generate the jobs on which people can support their families. Why in the world would we want to make cuts in these programs? I believe this amendment reflects the wrong priorities, and I hope my colleagues will vote no.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my amendment takes $150 million and adds it to LIHEAP. This is a lifeline program for low-income families, many of them with disabilities, many elderly, many working poor with children. Unfortunately, right now, only about 13 percent of households are able to benefit because this program is so severely underfunded. The money comes from administrative expenses in the whole Pentagon budget. It does not come from any programs. It does not come from readiness or quality of life for our armed services. It comes out of administrative inefficiencies, and believe me, from inspector general to the General Accounting Office, there is way more than $150 million when it comes to administrative inefficiency. A study by the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association says that 28 States and the District of Columbia are out of money or about to run out of money. These are our States that are telling us: We do not have the money for cooling assistance this summer; we do not have the money to help for those in arrears and could be faced with utility shutoff; we do not have the money as we approach this winter. Last year, energy prices went up 40 percent. The very least we can do is to give this program, which is so important to the most vulnerable citizens in this country, an additional $150 million to help us over the next 3 months. It is not taken out of any significant program. I am going to vote for this bill, but I certainly think, in the overall Pentagon budget of over $300 billion, we can find the $150 million in administrative inefficiencies. I thank my colleagues.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to enter into a colloquy with my good friend from Iowa, the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and my friend from Pennsylvania, the ranking member of that subcommittee. I wonder if they will respond to a few questions regarding job training programs under the legislative jurisdiction of a subcommittee that I chair, the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I know my friend agrees with me that the supplemental appropriations bill before us presents a difficult situation affecting programs funded by his Subcommittee. We both are very strong supporters of the $300 million in low-income energy assistance funding and the $161 million in title I education spending in the bill. That spending is urgently needed. The problem is that we must try to pay for that supplemental spending from a pot of money that is simply too small. The bill as reported by the Appropriations Committee thus would offset a portion of that important new spending by making a rescission from unspent funds in a job training program for dislocated workers. I know my friend is also a supporter of that important program, and I appreciate that the full Committee reiterated its support for the program in the committee report.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator. As I understand it, one of the factors that the committee observed was a variation among the States in the rate at which each State was drawing down their dislocated worker funding allocations. My State of Minnesota, for example, has obligated virtually all of its dislocated worker funding for this program year and will have expended nearly 85 percent of its funding. Other States-- for a number of understandable reasons--are predicted to have significant unexpended balances by the end of the fiscal year. To avoid undue hardships for States, such as Minnesota, that have been expending funds at the expected pace, my understanding is that the bill contains a ``hold harmless'' provision. That is, it provides a mechanism for excess unspent funds to be re-alloted to States that have reached their limits up to the levels these States would have received but for the rescission. Is this correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania. Now I want to clarify how it is we find ourselves in this situation of having to make such difficult choices. Am I correct that at least part of the reason we are faced with a pot of resources that is so small is because of decisions made during the budgeting process to cap supplemental discretionary spending at $6.5 billion, to avoid triggering a governmentwide sequester during fiscal year 2001?

Mr. WELLSTONE. And, of course, it is also true that a huge portion of the supplemental appropriations is going to support defense spending; am I not correct? So, another part of the reason that we are faced with these difficult choices on where to find the resources to support urgently needed programs that provide a safety net for American families is because of the priority being given to defense spending; is that correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Is it fair to say this is just the tip of the iceberg? That the truly perverse choices we are being asked to make today between educating our children, heating our homes, and training dislocated workers are ominous harbingers of things to come as the full impact of the $1.3 trillion tax cut is felt? Is that fair to say?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my good friend. This is not a happy day, and I agree with the Senator's predictions that it will only get worse. I think we need to look for some solutions to this larger problem. It seems to me inevitable that we must re-visit the unfortunate fiscal and budgetary priorities that have been set. Crisis in Army Aviation

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I object.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague for his graciousness. Mr. President, I understand the need to compromise, and I think we are moving forward in a very positive way. I do want to point out for the record that what we are now saying is that a State need only be ``substantially compliant'' with Federal protections as opposed to ``substantially equivalent to.'' My big worry is that if you look at this amendment, we are also saying we need to give deference to the State's interpretation of its own law and its compliance with Federal protections. I say two things to colleagues. No. 1, I think, in the best of all worlds, consumers would also have a right to appeal if they believe the State is in error. To be fair, we want to give deference to what States are doing, as long as we have strong consumer protections for everyone regardless of where they live. I also believe if we are going to do that, we have to make sure not only that the States are given their proper due but so are consumers. This amendment weakens the bill somewhat. I have said that to Senator Breaux. Frankly, more than anything, it would be helpful to have an ombudsman office or something such as that in every State, where people would know where to make a phone call, know what their rights are. There are ways we can strengthen this. I do not believe this amendment takes us in a strong consumer direction. It is a good compromise in terms of where we are. I wanted to speak out and express my concerns.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my good friend Senator Harkin as an original cosponsor of the Workplace Fairness Act of 2001. This measure, along with the ``Right to Organize Act of 2001,'' which I introduced yesterday, are two of the most important pieces of legislation that will come before the Senate this year. Together, these measures strengthen workers' rights to organize, to join a union, and to advocate for fair collective bargaining and fair agreements. Together, these measures produce the basic platform for healthy economies, healthy communities, and healthy families. Specifically, the Striker Replacement Act is designed to combat an unfair labor practice which strikes at the very heart of the collective bargaining process in this country: the permanent replacement of striking workers. The goal of this Act is to restore the labor- management balance in today's workplace by preventing the fundamental right to strike from being transformed into a right to be fired. The record shows that permanent replacement of striking workers has been used increasingly over the years. Private sector employers, emboldened by the Reagan Administration's permanent replacement of striking Federal employees in the early 1980's, began to use the permanent replacement of striking workers as a means of abrogating collective bargaining agreements and bringing in new hires often screened for their anti-union biases. The process is fairly simple: require major and unreasonable concessions of a union; force them to strike; permanently replace them with workers unsympathetic to the union; and move to decertify the union. This should be called what it is: outright union busting. And it should not be tolerated. The purpose of the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act was to respond to the persistent--and sometimes violent--denial by certain employers of the right to organize and bargain collectively. The resulting strikes and other forms of industrial unrest in the 1930's were held by the courts to have severely burdened free and open commerce across the country. As a result, the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act were passed, guided by two fundamental principles: 1. Employees have a right to pursue their interests collectively without fear of employer reprisals, and 2. Questions about representation must be separated from substantive issues in dispute. Government-supervised procedure should be established to ensure fair representation; while collective bargaining should be the forum for settling the remaining substantive disputes. This system and these principles are sound. Workers have a right to organize without being retaliated against for exercising that right. And they have a right to negotiate wages, benefits, and other items through collective bargaining. But these principles only work if the right to strike, in the words of the National Labor Relations Act, is not ``interfered with or impeded or diminished in any way.'' In 1938, the Supreme Court in the Mackay Radio case cut a huge swath through these guiding principles by creating the striker replacement doctrine. Under this doctrine, affirmed in subsequent decisions, such as Belknap v. Hale (1983) and TWA v. IFFA (1989), even though it is unlawful to fire a striking worker, it is not unlawful to permanently replace him or her. The distinction between firing and permanent replacement, is ludicrous--and it is untenable. The central practical reality--as any man or woman who has exercised his or her right to strike and has paid the consequences can tell you--in either case, whether it is called a firing or a permanent replacement--the employee loses their job because he or she has exercised the right to strike. That's the reality. That's the harsh reality. The measure we are introducing today is a simple one. It does two things: 1. It amends the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act to prohibit employers from hiring permanent replacement workers during a strike, or giving employment preference to cross over employees, and 2. It makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to allow a striking worker to return to work if that worker has unconditionally offered to return to work. It's that simple. These are fundamental protections. These are protections that are part of the basic compact with the American worker created by the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act. It is long past time that workers seeking to better their lives, their families, and their communities are given access to a collective bargaining process that is fair and even-handed. It is long past time that workers be allowed to advocate for reasonable terms and conditions of their employment without fear of devastating retribution. Finally, this measure not only meets the needs of workers, their families, and their communities, it also serves the interest of our nation in a global economy. As others have pointed out, if we are to remain strong and competitive as a nation, we must develop a highly motivated and skilled workforce and we must create stable worker- employer relationships that are based on mutual respect and a mutual commitment to a joint economic enterprise. This will only happen if we level the playing field and support a just, sound, and effective collective bargaining process. This measure, the Workplace Fairness Act, is one key to achieving these goals. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.