[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
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[Congressional Record: July 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a 
time of 40 minutes, equally divided, on the Lugar second-degree 
amendment, because the debate is essentially the same on Leahy-Lugar 
amendment; that at the expiration of that 40-minute period, there be a 
voice vote on the amendment of the Senator from Indiana, followed 
immediately by a rollcall vote on the amendment of the Senator from 
Vermont.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object. Because we have heard 
requests from a number of Senators who want to speak in opposition that 
amounts to more than 20 minutes, I suggest to the distinguished Senator 
that he enlarge the time for debate to 1 hour, equally divided, and if 
we do not use all the time, we can yield it back.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I so amend the request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous-consent 
request?
  Mr. LUGAR. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President. Let me ask 
the distinguished manager this: If a rollcall vote occurs without 
pause, does that rule out any further amendments? In other words, once 
the second-degree amendment has been agreed to by voice vote, do we 
move on immediately, or does the manager's request preclude any further 
action in terms of intervening amendments or intervening activity?
  Mr. BUMPERS. There is a second-degree amendment by Senator Lugar----
  Mr. LUGAR. Mine is a second-degree. I gather the manager now would 
not want to see that occur. With all due respect, I am suggesting 
perhaps the need for a rollcall vote on my second-degree amendment.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me amend the request then to 1 hour, 
equally divided, on the Lugar second-degree amendment; that at the 
expiration of 1 hour, there be a voice vote on the Lugar amendment; 
that immediately following that, with no intervening business and no 
second-degree amendments in order, we go immediately to a rollcall vote 
on the amendment of the Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 2307 to Amendment No. 2306

  Mr. COCHRAN. Parliamentary inquiry.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Is my understanding correct that there is 1 hour, 
equally divided between the proponents and the opponents?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. COCHRAN. With the Senator from Mississippi controlling the time 
in opposition to the amendment and the Senator from Arkansas the time 
in support of the amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the 30 minutes of my time as the floor manager 
to the distinguished Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time will be controlled, 30 minutes on each 
side, by the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment of the 
Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. It should be noted that the underlying amendment is the 
Leahy-Lugar amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is so noted.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Montana [Mr. Baucus].
  Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the amendment offered by 
the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee 
on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. I have a great deal of respect 
for the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Indiana, but I must 
say, in this instance, I very much disagree with their approach.
  The amendment, particularly the second-degree amendment, would 
reiterate the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture to close the 
facilities which the Department recommended for closure in the 
administration's budget for fiscal 1995. The amendment would directly 
contradict efforts taken by the House and by the Senate Appropriations 
Committee.
  Let me repeat that, Mr. President. The House of Representatives chose 
not to make these cuts. The Senate Agriculture Appropriations 
Subcommittee decided not to make these cuts. This is an amendment which 
would be contrary to the wishes of the House and contrary to the wishes 
of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.
  When the administration brought forth its budget for the 1995 fiscal 
year, the USDA recommended the closure of 19 facilities operated by the 
Agricultural Research Service, including the Northern Plains Soil and 
Water Research Center in Sidney, MT. While I am not well acquainted 
with the activities of all 19 stations recommended for closure, I am 
intimately aware of the valuable work conducted at the station in 
Sidney, MT. That work is a vital part of efforts to achieve USDA's goal 
of putting integrated pest management in place on three-quarters of the 
Nation's acreage by the turn of the century.
  The station at Sidney is a small station performing critical service 
to agriculture in Montana and the surrounding Great Plains States. The 
station operates on an annual budget of approximately $750,000. That is 
all. Their efforts on the biological control of leafy spurge are 
positively impacting 389 sites in North and South Dakota, and Montana. 
This work will ultimately lead to the improvement of 5 million acres in 
29 States, including acreage in Vermont. Their progress was prominently 
featured in the April 1994, ARS publication Agricultural Research.
  Mr. President, I have a copy of that periodical in my hand right now. 
This is a magazine put out by the Agriculture Research Service. And 
inside, I might say, at page 20, there is a lengthy article of work 
done to combat leafy spurge. This was research work done at Sidney 
Research Station, and also at the research station at Montana State 
University in Bozeman, MT.
  Let me just read a couple of portions from this publication. Again, 
this is an Agriculture Research Service publication, not something 
else, the Agriculture Research Service promoting the work of the 
research station in Sidney, MT.

       Leafy spurge is ranked as one of the worst weeds in the 
     northern Great Plains and Canada and it is getting worse 
     every year. It expands its infestation by 10 percent 
     annually, essentially doubling its original area over about 7 
     years. Spurge contains irritating chemicals; cattle and 
     horses generally won't graze on it, and they sometimes refuse 
     to eat nutritious forage growing nearby.

  It goes on and on about the problems of leafy spurge.
  Then the article goes on to promote the positive efforts in 
developing insects at this research station to fight leafy spurge.
  Mr. President, that is a critical point. Developing insects, 
developing nonchemical alternatives to fight weeds. This is being 
conducted at Sidney. It is being conducted at MSU and other places in 
the country. It is critically important, Mr. President, that we find 
other alternatives other than chemicals to fight pests--pests that 
ravage our crops. And leafy spurge is one such plant, I must say, that 
ravages the West and other parts of the country.
  I wish you could come out and see the problems leafy spurge causes. 
It is tremendous. And work done at Sidney, MT, helps combat it.
  I must say, in that article, Dr. Paul Quimby, Jr., described the 
vital economic need for biological control of leafy spurge, just one of 
the noxious weeds threatening our land resources. He is one of the 
people who is doing a lot of research at Sidney and MSU.
  Dr. Quimby stated that, ``Chemicals are too expensive, at $72 per 
acre, for temporary control on land that has value only for livestock 
grazing. Plus, chemicals kill desirable broad-leaf plants.'' I ask 
unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record, following 
my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, leafy spurge fails to recognize the 
boundaries between cropland and rangeland or between Montana and North 
Dakota, or between Montana and the 29 States where leafy spurge 
threatens both agriculture and wildlife. The only potential for 
controlling this weed pest is found in the work being conducted by the 
researchers in Sidney.
  One of the strengths of the ARS system is that centers are located in 
different geographical areas to conduct research which is specific to 
that region. The station in Sidney, in cooperation with State efforts 
in both Montana and North Dakota, serves a vast area. The work there is 
applicable to approximately 70 million acres in four States. Let me 
repeat that--70 million acres in four States. That is an area the size 
of the entire State of Nevada. And it is work that is not being done 
elsewhere.
  The effects of geographical differences on agricultural production 
practices are well documented. As my colleague from Vermont knows, we 
do not grow bananas in Montana. That fact points to the need for a 
geographical distribution of research operations.
  Field research conducted around Sidney, MT, cannot be duplicated here 
in Washington, DC. It cannot be duplicated in Beltsville, MD. And we 
sometimes seem to care more about foreign agriculture than we care 
about our lands or our farmers here at home.
  I believe the selection of these particular facilities for closure is 
flawed. If you review the locations of these doomed facilities, 
numerous questions arise. According to the ARS evaluation, upon which 
the original proposal was based, the closures do not line up with the 
numerical ratings made.
  Again, if you look at the list, if you look at the numerical ratings 
ARS gave to each of the various sites, the closures are not correlated 
with those recommended by the ratings. ARS took other factors into 
consideration. We do not know what they were. Therefore, it is wrong to 
just willy-nilly take the recommended closures by USDA without looking 
at the various criteria. I do not know what those other factors are, 
but before we close anything, I think it is important to know what they 
are.
  Mr. President, I would also like to know why we need to maintain a 
station in the Virgin Islands but not in Sidney, MT. I would like to 
know why we need a station in Argentina but not in Grand Forks, ND. And 
why do we need a station in Puerto Rico but not in El Reno, OK? I think 
we deserve some answers before we authorize these cuts.
  I would call your attention to the vast distances in the West. If you 
look at a map, you can see that Montana, indeed the northern Great 
Plains, has sparse representation in the ARS structure. I think 
fairness should be a part of the debate in the closure process. At this 
point that critical factor has been left out of the equation.
  Again, it makes no sense whatsoever to close facilities where there 
are virtually no other facilities for hundreds of miles around. I can 
see closing a few facilities in Maryland, a few facilities in the 
Washington, DC, area--and there are many--because one facility with a 
lot of people, although there is another facility nearby, can conduct 
adequate research on areas that cover both facilities. That is not the 
case in the sparsely populated West. It is not the case in the West 
where it does not rain nearly as much as it rains out here in the East.
  The Sidney station is also conducting worthwhile research into soil 
and water quality issues. As chairman of the Committee on the 
Environment and Public Works, I have a keen interest in water quality 
enhancement. Since the largest remaining water quality problem is 
runoff from nonpoint sources, agriculture must be part of an eventual 
solution.
  Recent agricultural and environmental legislation has attempted to 
address the situation with mandated management changes in production 
agriculture. It is irresponsible to demand that agricultural producers 
make the changes to reach our environmental goals without providing the 
technical resources to accomplish those goals.
  This amendment assures failure in the development and delivery of the 
technology which will bring Great Plains agricultural production into 
the 21st century.
  While the Sidney facility needs modernization, the researchers are 
top notch and are conducting research which is of top priority to the 
administration, according to USDA Deputy Secretary Richard Rominger. In 
a letter to Chairman Leahy, dated April 26, 1994, the Deputy Secretary 
described his work on two important initiatives for USDA research. He 
stated:

       The first is the development of a single, comprehensive, 
     and coordinated Departmentwide plan that will achieve the 
     administration's goal to implement integrated pest management 
     on 75 percent of the Nation's acreage by the turn of the 
     century.

  He continued, saying:

       Just as important, I have directed research and extension 
     leaders to devise a comprehensive program that will lead to 
     research, development, and adoption of new, environmentally 
     sound pest management alternatives.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this letter 
follow my remarks in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. BAUCUS. To cut this station would deal a harsh blow to the 
largest industry in a 4-State area in a single stroke which runs 
counter to the administration's stated goals. With noxious weeds 
costing over $100 million annually in the northern Plains region, the 
investment in the work at Sidney is quite small and should be 
increased, not eliminated.
  Agriculture Committee staff sought to allay my concerns over this 
action with an assurance that this action could free up these funds for 
other research activities in the region. While I might agree with that 
theory, the practice in Montana has been quite the opposite. As 
compared to the other States in the region, Montana already receives 
the lowest amount of ARS funds. Further, ARS has eliminated four 
scientist positions in Montana during the past 2 years.
  This amendment would continue the reduction of the ARS presence in a 
State which derives 40 percent of its economy from agriculture.
  Geographical location has always played a key role in the success of 
ARS efforts. Today, Montana operates seven State research stations to 
maximize the applicability of agricultural research. In Sidney, the 
State operation has joined in a cooperative effort with a Williston, 
ND, station and the USDA center in Sidney to create a model for other 
States to duplicate. Together, these three operations are maximizing 
scarce State and Federal resources and avoiding expensive duplication. 
To cut this station will jeopardize research efforts in a large area.
  Although this effort to streamline the USDA's research efforts is 
understandable, I vehemently disagree with the approach. Next year, we 
will debate a farm bill. That is the appropriate forum for reform of 
this kind. While I would still argue for an increase of the operation 
at Sidney, I do believe appropriate reductions could be recommended at 
that time and I look forward to working with the leadership of the 
Agriculture Committee on that endeavor.
  For today, however, I remain convinced that next year is the time for 
this debate. I strongly oppose this amendment and I urge my colleagues 
to join me in this effort. Let us resolve this issue where it belongs--
during the 1995 farm bill debate.
  If the station in Sidney, MT, is going to be cut then I want 
Secretary Espy and Budget Director Rivlin to come to Sidney, MT, and 
tell those farmers, face to face, why this is appropriate.
  All this effort to streamline USDA's research is understandable. I 
vehemently disagree with their approach. Next year we will debate a 
farm bill. That is the appropriate forum for reform of this kind--not 
here. Next year, when we take up the farm bill, we can deal with the 
various ARS offices.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to reject the amendment offered here.
  Again, let us take up this issue where it should come up, and that is 
in the farm bill next year.

                               Exhibit 1

                Leafy Spurge Is Reunited With Old Enemy

                           (By Dennis Senft)

       An insect that loves to eat leafy spurge, a range weed now 
     infesting 2\1/2\ million acres on the Northern Plains, may 
     bring some relief to farmers and ranchers. The weed, 
     Euphorbia esula L., causes more than $100 million in losses 
     each year.
       ``Leafy spurge is ranked as one of the worst weeds in the 
     Northern Great Plains and Canada, and it's getting worse 
     every year,'' says ARS plant physiologist Paul C. Quimby, 
     Jr., who is in charge of the Range Weeds and Cereals Research 
     Unit in Bozeman, Montana.
       ``It expands its infestation by 10 percent annually, 
     essentially doubling its original area about every 7 years. 
     Spurge contains irritating chemicals; cattle and horses 
     generally won't graze on it, and they sometimes refuse to eat 
     nutritious forage growing nearby.''
       In recent years, ARS scientists have turned to biological 
     control insects to curb spurge's spread.
       ``About 500 Aphthona nigriscutis flea beetles released in 
     one spot multiplied and practically eliminated leafy spurge 
     from an area 18 by 20 yards by the end of the second year. By 
     the third year, the cleared area measured 53 by 59 yards. And 
     at the end of the fourth year, the beetles had cleaned the 
     weed from an area 88 by 100 yards,'' says entomologist Norman 
     E. Rees, who is also in the Bozeman unit.
       Aphthona flava, the copper leafy spurge flea beetle, is so 
     efficient at controlling the weed that it has reduced some 
     infestations from 57 percent of canopy cover to less than 1 
     percent in just 4 years. The tiny, one-eighth-inch beetle was 
     first spotted in Italy, where it had completely defoliated 
     leafy spurge in some areas.
       ``This demonstrates that insects are a biocontrol method 
     that works,'' says Quimby. ``We now need to find ways to get 
     these flea beetles, in combination with other insects, 
     distributed and established over a much larger area so we can 
     control leafy spurge.
       ``Chemicals are too expensive, at $72 per acre, for 
     temporary control on land that has value only for livestock 
     grazing. Plus, chemicals kill desirable broad-leaf plants. No 
     known approved herbicide has shown any promise in killing 3-
     year-old and older spurge plants. Some root buds have even 
     sprouted 7 years after the soil was sterilized.''
       Adds Quimby, ``Although A. flava and its close relatives 
     are the most successful insects in our arsenal, we need to 
     find many more to control leafy spurge. The adults of these 
     flea beetles eat leaves and flowers and the larvae feed in 
     the root hairs and yearling roots. We need other insects that 
     bore into stems or eat shoot tips, so as to attack spurge in 
     all possible ways.''
       Key to finding the right insects is to return to the 
     spurge's native areas. Early settlers in this country 
     probably brought the weed with them among seed stocks from 
     their native European and Asian lands. There, predatory 
     insects had evolved along with the plant, feeding on it and 
     keeping it at low levels.
       All insects that are candidates for introduction are 
     carefully tested to make sure they survive only on leafy 
     spurge and not on valuable crop plants or plant species 
     native to North America.
       ``In our area, A. flava likes southfacing slopes, 18 to 20 
     inches of moisture per year, and generally sunny locations. 
     It doesn't like clay or acidic soils or, possibly, shaded 
     areas. We need to study a whole series of Aphthona, as well 
     as other insect species, to find ones that adapt to the many 
     different climate zones where spurge now thrives. Some areas 
     are moist, others dry; some are hilly, others flat. And each 
     zone may be home to spurge plants that are different enough 
     that some species or subspecies of insect won't attack,'' 
     says Rees.
       More recent additions to the program include three Aphthona 
     species--abdominalis from Europe, plus chinchihi and seriata 
     from China. After their discovery, they underwent extensive 
     testing by Luca Fornisari at the ARS European Biological 
     Control Laboratory in Montpellier, France. Adult beetles 
     emerged only from leafy spurge and from none of the other 21 
     key plants that are used to see if the insects might be able 
     to live on plants not being targeted for control.
       Then, beginning in 1992, ARS entomologist Neal R. Spencer 
     established three spurge flea beetle species at 389 research 
     sites in eastern Montana and North Dakota, making the first 
     U.S. releases of A. abdominalis in 1993. ARS entomologist 
     Robert W. Pemberton and Rees made the first A. flava releases 
     in Montana in 1985, after thorough testing by Pemberton in 
     Albany, California.
       Now the black dot spurge flea beetle, a close relative 
     provided by Agriculture Canada in 1989, is being pilot-tested 
     at six sites in five states--Colorado, Idaho, Montana, 
     Nebraska, and North Dakota.
       The scientists arrange annual events at which weed control 
     officials can pick up Aphthona insects, learn about their 
     habitat needs, and later use them to populate new areas 
     throughout the Northern Plains. Rees estimates that more than 
     500,000 A. flava beetles, enough for 1,000 releases, have 
     been distributed from the Bozeman site in the last 3 years.
       Evaluation of how good the released insects are at 
     controlling weeds can be time consuming and expensive. 
     Scientists and technicians usually walk into release areas 
     and manually record the distance insects have spread after 
     the initial release and their impact on the plant population.
       State-of-the-art remote sensing may make such work easier, 
     faster, and cheaper. Spencer, along with ARS range scientist 
     James H. Everitt and ecologist Gerry L. Anderson, who are in 
     the Remote Sensing Research Unit in Weslaco, Texas, are 
     cooperating in a study near Dickinson, North Dakota.
       This past summer they used an airplane flying at 5,000 feet 
     to obtain aerial video and photographic imagery of areas 
     where insects were released to control spurge in the Theodore 
     Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and on Bureau of Land 
     Management (BLM) areas in Montana. Those photos will form the 
     benchmark measurement for subsequent photo comparison. The 
     researchers hope to remotely measure the decreased 
     infestation the insects cause. They will also integrate 
     remote-sensing data with geographic information systems 
     technology of monitor the spread or contraction of purge-
     infested areas.
       In Bozeman, ARS plant pathologist Anthony J. Caesar is 
     studying an area in the Lewis and Clark National Forest near 
     White Sulphur Springs, Montana. Leafy spurge infestations 
     there are disappearing without help from researchers.
       ``We have strong evidence that it is a coral fungus that 
     promotes the effects of other fungi, including Fusarium spp. 
     and Rhizoctonia solani, in the soil. Together, these fungi 
     create an underground environment that hurts the weed's 
     roots. We will continue the study, hoping to find a way to 
     spread the organisms to other weed-infested areas,'' says 
     Caesar.
       In the infested range, circular areas 15 to 20 feet in 
     diameter are expanding about 1 foot each year, producing land 
     that has only about one-third or less of the surrounding 
     spurge populations.
       In other ``germ warfare,'' ARS microbiologist Robert J. 
     Kremer in Columbia, Missouri has identified several bacteria 
     naturally present around the weed's roots that suppress 
     seedling growth. Greenhouse studies show the emergence of 
     weed seedlings was reduced by 50 percent after apply 
     Pseudomonas flourescens and Flavbacterium. Also, weed growth 
     was reduced, and the main taproot was half the normal length. 
     Kremer and colleagues plan to move studies to the field this 
     year.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

                                              The Deputy Secretary


                                               of Agriculture,

                                   Washington, DC, April 26, 1994.
     Senator Patrick J. Leahy,
     Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, 
         U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Although much of the public focus has 
     recently been on reforms to the nation's pesticide laws, 
     there is much that the Department of Agriculture can do to 
     ensure that producers have environmentally sound and 
     economically viable pest management alternatives even without 
     statutory guidance.
       I have met with leaders throughout USDA to establish two 
     important initiatives. The first is the development of a 
     single, comprehensive and coordinated Department wide plan 
     that will achieve the Administration's goal to implement 
     integrated pest management (IPM) on 75% of the nation's 
     acreage by the turn of the century. Just as important I have 
     directed research and extension leaders to devise a 
     comprehensive program that will lead to research, 
     development, and adoption of new, environmentally sound pest 
     management alternatives. Planning for both initiatives is to 
     be completed in time for inclusion in the Department's FY 
     1996 budget. In addition, we have entered into discussions 
     with EPA and other federal agencies that will lead to the 
     signing of a memorandum of agreement in July. The memorandum 
     will set in place a process that will provide for the 
     identification of research priorities and the expedited 
     registration of new alternatives and biologicals in 
     coordination with USDA's research and education efforts.
       These initiatives are a tangible commitment on the part of 
     USDA to meet producers' needs for the latest pest management 
     tools and to replace pesticides which pose unreasonable 
     risks. The Department's actions offer an opportunity to more 
     effectively serve the interests of its customers in 
     agriculture and its responsibilities to the public at large.
       Knowing your strong and consistent efforts in these areas, 
     I hope you will be as enthusiastic and hopeful as we are 
     about the course upon which we have embarked. I look forward 
     to your involvement and support in meeting our objectives.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Richard Rominger.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute.
  First, it is always easy to say next year, the year after and the 
year after, we will do something that will actually save the taxpayers' 
money. The fact of the matter is the Senate has already gone on record 
virtually unanimously with a rollcall vote to do the kind of USDA 
reorganization that is required. We are already on record.
  We talked about this in the last farm bill. We have to start 
consolidating. We do not need to wait.
  I should also mention, as the Senator from Montana referred to a 
station in St. Croix, VI, that it is a quarantine worksite for the 
Mayaguez, PR, germplasm program. There is no other place that would 
work.
  The senior Senator from Virginia is here. How much time does he 
require?
  Mr. WARNER. The 5 minutes exactly given under the unanimous-consent. 
It is my understanding this 5 minutes was obtained under the unanimous 
consent.
  Mr. LEAHY. I yield 5 minutes.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of an 
installation that has served my State, indeed the adjoining States of 
North Carolina and perhaps other jurisdictions, for a very long time. 
It is known as the USDA Peanut Production, Disease, and Harvesting 
Unit, in Suffolk, VA.
  Mr. President, I rise to defend this because it is on the list. You 
might say, ``Senator if it is on the list how can you speak in support 
of the Leahy-Lugar amendment?'' I do so for two reasons. Every Member 
of this Chamber--if it is not on this vote it will be on successive 
votes and in successive years--will suffer some cutback in his or her 
State as a consequence of the reorganization of the Department of 
Agriculture. It is a reorganization that is long overdue.
  The distinguished Senator from Vermont and the distinguished Senator 
from Indiana both have told me they are going to have to accept cuts in 
their States. So the easy vote, the political vote is to stand up here 
and rail against this amendment; go back home and say I did the best I 
could to save my particular entity. But I cannot do that in clear 
conscience, and then consistently try to vote for a reduction in the 
size of the Federal Government, reduction in deficit spending, and a 
series of other reductions which are deemed imperative, in my judgment, 
if this great Nation of ours is to get on a course once again of fiscal 
responsibility.
  Just the other day the Chairman of the Federal Reserve reminded us 
over and over again in his speech: Until we begin to address the 
question of entitlements there is no hope. Likewise, until we begin to 
have the courage to address the cuts that hit our individual States as 
they relate to agriculture, we have no hope of achieving fiscal 
responsibility in our great Nation.
  This is an interesting entity, small though it may be, nestled in 
Virginia. We are very proud of Virginia peanuts. And, for the nearly 16 
years I have been privileged to serve here, time and time again I have 
fought on behalf of the peanut growers of America--indeed, Virginia--
but of America. It is a valuable cash crop, it is a large export crop, 
and we have to support it.
  But we also have to respectively take our individual cuts. I am 
hopeful the Secretary of Agriculture, given the discretion, will 
recognize that perhaps this was an ill-advised addition to the 
President's enumerated series of cuts in the budget.
  I say that for an interesting reason. Virginia peanuts are quite 
unique. We are proud of ours as Georgia is proud of theirs, as Alabama 
is proud of theirs. But they are all different: Different soil, 
different flavor, different quantity of rain. Therefore this station 
specializes in analyzing the soil of the regions of Virginia and 
Carolina so we can continue to produce a very high quality peanut in 
comparatively small quantities. So, I am hopeful the Secretary will 
recognize the wisdom of this and I will urge him to do so.
  But I cannot take the safe vote. I cannot take the political vote and 
vote against all of them being shut down. Take back the discretion from 
a Cabinet officer? Unless we let the Cabinet officers have the 
discretion to make the cuts there is no hope.
  Vidalia onions--I confess, I have a small farm, whatever size you 
want to call it, large or small, relatively speaking. I tried to grow 
some Vidalia onions which are grown in Georgia: Utter failure. Vidalia 
onions are unique to Georgia. It is one of the most famous products in 
agriculture. Each of us, in a very short period of the year, enjoy that 
spectacular quality onion.
  The same with Virginia peanuts. They cannot be grown in identical 
size and flavor anywhere else in the United States or anywhere else in 
the world, for that matter. But we need the facility to watch the 
disease which afflicts this crop, to help advise us on the unique soil 
and moisture conditions. So I am hopeful, while I am supporting this 
amendment, the Secretary of Agriculture will see the wisdom that this 
small, relatively inconsequential facility, in terms of dollars--not 
the service it renders--will be spared from this list. I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Conrad].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the amendment offered by our two 
colleagues, Senators Lugar and Leahy, is an amendment that I believe 
should be defeated by our colleagues. Let me stress that I have the 
greatest respect for Senators Leahy and Lugar and I think their efforts 
are certainly well-intentioned here. The results, unfortunately, would 
be to close facilities that have enormous benefit to the entire 
country.
  Let me just say we have a situation in East Grand Forks, MN--this is 
not a plant that is in North Dakota, it is right across the border in 
Minnesota, but it serves our States as well as the rest of the potato 
industry--that creates research that is of enormous benefit to this 
country. This is a perfect example of what we preach in this body. We 
hear all the time that what we ought to have are private/public 
entities that cooperate, that use resources together in order to 
achieve a result. That is what we talk about.
  That is precisely what is happening with respect to this facility in 
East Grand Forks.
  It is supported by a budget that comes partly from USDA, but the 
significance of this facility and the value that it has to growers in 
the industry can be proven by the fact of the contributions that they 
make to the support of this facility. About half the budget comes from 
the National Potato Council, from the growers themselves, from 
extension services at the Universities of Minnesota and North Dakota.
  Buildings at the facility are actually built and paid for by the 
growers themselves. This is the only facility of its kind in the 
country.
  Mr. President, you do not have to take my word for the value of this 
facility. Listen to what the people around the United States say. This 
is from the University of Maine:

       Today, the Maine potato industry relies totally on the 
     facility at East Grand Forks for answers to problems in 
     potato chip manufacturing, storage, quality enhancement and 
     utilization.

  That is from the State of Maine.
  From Oregon:

       Located in one of the largest potato producing areas in the 
     United States, the Grand Forks lab has been a crucial 
     component of the Nation's potato research equation. This lab 
     has been important in work on high-quality, certified-seed 
     potatoes, increased potato production and involved in 
     continuous research projects to eliminate potato diseases.

  That is from Oregon.
  Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CONRAD. I prefer to complete my statement and then I will be 
happy to yield.
  From Wisconsin:

       We, the Wisconsin growing community, desperately need this 
     research arm available for economic development.

  From Idaho:

       We wish to make it crystal clear to the Federal Government 
     that we, as a major processor of value-added potato products 
     and our customers, such as McDonald's, Wendy's, Kentucky 
     Fried Chicken, who sell our products to millions upon 
     millions of consumers not only in this country but around the 
     world, have benefited enormously from the work that has been 
     done over the years at this facility.

  And they go into a long technical description of the research that is 
done at this facility that is of value to the industry.
  Mr. President, from Washington State University:

       The United States has the best quality and widest selection 
     of foods in the world and at the lowest cost to the consumer, 
     in terms of percentage of disposable income, of anywhere in 
     the world and at any time in history.

  (Mr. WELLSTONE assumed the chair.)
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, that is no accident. That is partly a 
result of the superb research that we do in this country. I know the 
occupant of the chair, who is unable to talk on this subject because he 
has the responsibility of chairing, agrees with the need to support 
this facility.
  The fact is, the Appropriations Committee reviewed this matter and 
made a determination based on evidence that this facility ought to 
remain open. I think the amendment being offered today is ill-advised.
  The fact is the growers put up money to support it, the industry puts 
up money to support it, research facilities around the country put up 
money to support it, growers from other potato growing regions, 
including Maine, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, 
Colorado, and Idaho, benefit from the work of the lab and have written 
us and urged us to keep the funding for this facility.
  The research is vital. It is critically important to keeping America 
competitive. This is a one-of-a-kind facility in the United States. In 
fact, it is a one-of-a-kind facility in the world. It ought to be kept.
  I yield time to my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, that is sufficient. The Senator from North 
Dakota, Senator Conrad, has said it well. This is exactly the kind of 
facility that works and works well. It combines resources of the 
Federal Government, the potato growers in our region, the university, 
and does vitally needed research.
  I believe we ought to cut spending and I believe there are civilian/
Government facilities that ought to be closed. I have supported 
programs that were unnecessary and will continue to do that. But let us 
do this in a thoughtful, not a thoughtless, way.
  This kind of facility is strongly supported by Senator Wellstone, by 
Senator Conrad, and myself precisely because it works and works well, 
and it is exactly what we ought to be doing: research, promoting the 
common good, and this kind of commodity in a way that combines our 
resources with the resources of the private sector.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as necessary.
  I am sorry the Senators were not able to yield time for a question. I 
will point out a few things I would have raised in those questions.
  One is that the facility was not chosen willy-nilly to be put on this 
list. Being put on the list does not mean automatic closing, but it was 
put there after a 2-year process evaluating all facilities.
  Second, the original mission of this facility, for potato post-
harvest handling and storage, has largely been completed. I point out 
that while it might be nice for everybody to have one of these 
facilities, everybody should have one in their back yard like the 
Chinese did with steel smelteries during the so-called great leap 
forward. It does not make any more sense than that did.
  The current research and development duplicates what is going on in 
Fargo, ND, already. The East Grand Forks work can be transported to 
Fargo, ND, where you at least have a critical mass of scientists. There 
are only three left in East Grand Forks.
  I point out that not only is it substantially similar to work already 
being done in North Dakota at taxpayers' expense, but North Dakota 
itself has made the decision that it does not need this facility in 
Minnesota. North Dakota, in the past, spent money to help support it. 
But now that it is already being done and basically duplicated in 
Fargo, they have not sent any money to Minnesota for the last 3 years. 
They do not see the need for it. Why should we argue to do it?
  The fact of the matter is, Mr. President, we are talking about making 
a dent, possibly, potentially in about 10 facilities. There are more 
than 250 agricultural research facilities in this country. There is an 
agricultural research facility in this country for every four people in 
my hometown. Here, we are talking about maybe taking 10.
  Can any one of us honestly stand up on the floor of the Senate and 
say we will ever cut the agricultural budget if we can only say yes to 
cutting in the abstract but no to cutting in the specific? We are never 
going to cut anything. All we are saying is at least let the Secretary 
have the authority.
  I applaud the Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner, who stood up and 
said that cuts will come in his State but that we are going to have to 
do it. The USDA reorganization package which Senator Lugar and I 
brought to this floor and this body voted for virtually unanimously 
will eventually mean cuts in the State of Indiana. It will eventually 
mean cuts in the State of Vermont and in the State of North Carolina. 
In fact, I can name every one of the 50 States that eventually will 
have cuts. We all voted for it.
  I went back to the State of Vermont and talked to the people there 
and said, ``Look, this is the right thing to do, but some of you are 
going to see the jobs cut, you are going to see the facilities cut.''
  I went to the places that are going to be cut. They said, ``We 
understand it.'' They said, ``We understand agriculture is changing. We 
understand, for example, in the agricultural research facilities, that 
we cannot afford all of them.''
  We have also supported construction of more than 100 agricultural 
research facilities through the Cooperative State Research Service in 
the past 10 years.
  In fiscal year 1993, there were 72 active facility construction 
projects administered by CSRS.
  They are not going to be cut at all by this. The land grant 
university system has 76 universities and colleges.
  At some point we have to say no. Now, the folks in North Dakota have 
decided during the past 3 years not to spend any money to fund this.
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield on this?
  Mr. LEAHY. In a moment, and I will yield on the Senator's time. 
Virtually everything here could be moved to Fargo, ND.
  I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.
  Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi is recognized.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Montana [Mr. Burns].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BURNS. I thank the ranking member, my friend from Mississippi.
  I wish to also advise my friend from Vermont that there may be 250 
facilities. I say cut none of them. This country eats awfully good. We 
spend less dollars, disposable income for our food in this country than 
any other country in the world. We produce it cheaper. There is a 
reason for it. It is because we have invested in research.
  Now, you can go around to the parties here in Washington, DC, and 
talk about many things. Weeds is not one of those front-page issues you 
want to get into. But the public land managers of this country have not 
done a good job in controlling noxious weeds, especially with 
chemicals. So you have to have a facility that is on the cutting edge 
in the biosciences, and do it naturally. No other facility is doing 
that--none other. It is being done at Sidney, MT, along with the 
cooperation of Montana State University.
  That is what we are talking about here. It is pretty easy to look at 
this budget and say you are going to save $18 million. But it is going 
to cost you $17 million to close them, with nothing coming out of those 
facilities that contributes to feeding this Nation. It is pretty easy 
to say, well, we eat pretty good.
  If you have a full mouth and a full stomach, we can cut out some of 
this stuff. We can do that. But, I say to the Senator, one of these 
days--you are not going to see it, and I am not going to see it, but I 
think my grandchildren will--we will be hungry in this Nation, and it 
will be because we have put research in agriculture on the back burner.
  I am on the Commerce Committee. I am ranking on Science and 
Technology, and NASA. We understand research and how important it is in 
all parts of our life, the investment we make in research and 
development, new ways of doing things.
  My friend from Montana brought it up very ably. We are going to 
consider the Clean Water Act. We are going to make some decisions based 
on science. He is exactly right. And this facility in Sidney has the 
biggest data bank as far as nonpoint source off irrigated agriculture. 
He made the point very ably, and it should not be overlooked. It is the 
only facility in the upper Midwest. We cannot test what we do on the 
high plains in Beltsville or even Minnesota, with all due respect. It 
has to be in a semiarid part of the world. It is a single facility that 
has a very definite mission, and they are very good at what they do.
  But, Mr. President, this saves no money. It puts money in the 
bureaucrats' pockets and does not point that money toward research and 
development. So to the Senator from Vermont, I say, no, we should not 
cut a one. In fact, we ought to be doing more investment in that 
respect because the first obligation of this body is to make sure this 
society can feed itself, because the second thing we do every morning 
is eat. I do not know what the first thing you do is, but I know the 
second thing is you eat. That is how important these facilities are to 
Americans.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.
  I yield the floor and I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Florida [Mr. Graham].
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the able Senator from Vermont described 
what we were doing here as willy-nilly going through and reversing 
rational decisions that have been made. The letter which was sent to 
each of us by Senator Leahy and Senator Lugar stated that USDA 
evaluated each agricultural research service facility using six basic 
criteria including cost of maintenance, repairs, productivity, impact 
of research, et cetera.
  I challenge the scientific basis upon which these judgments were 
made. I find them to be both ill-informed and arbitrary. Let me give 
some specific examples, Mr. President. First, when this review of 
facilities was examined, it was found that the Department did not 
include the cost of relocating staff and laboratory equipment in 
arriving at the economics of the recommended closures.
  The Department did not estimate the cost of disposing of these 
surplus facilities, including possible hazardous waste cleanups.
  There was no formalized ranking process among the Agricultural 
Research Service Centers to determine which were relatively high or low 
or medium in terms of their contributions and priority.
  Mr. President, there is one of these stations in which I have a 
personal, longstanding knowledge and interest, and that is Chapman 
Field, which has been a major center for many years for tropical and 
subtropical research. One of the reasons that was given for 
recommending the closure of Chapman Field was that it had been damaged 
extensively by Hurricane Andrew.
  That happens to be a true statement. But what was not included is 
that this Congress has appropriated $15 million to Chapman Field and a 
similar Agricultural Research Center in Hawaii, both of which were 
damaged by hurricanes in 1992. The Chapman Field repairs are now 95 
percent complete. We are about to close down a station upon which we 
have just spent millions of dollars bringing up to a high standard of 
current condition--not, in my judgment, a very rational recommendation, 
a clear indication that this process of decisionmaking was flawed 
because the people who made the decision did not even realize that the 
Federal Government had just spent millions of dollars repairing the 
hurricane damage.
  To speak further about Chapman Field, Mr. President, this is a major 
research center for the specialized agriculture in my State and other 
States and territories and Commonwealths of the United States which 
have a tropical or subtropical agriculture. The Chapman Field plant 
introduction station performs a unique service in terms of allowing our 
country to benefit by tropical and subtropical agriculture from around 
this world.
  This is not an outdated facility. No other lab in the United States 
provides the type of research on nonindigenous insects and diseases and 
on new plant varieties that Chapman Field provides.
  This facility does cutting-edge work on germ plasma. This is the 
extraction of DNA materials from plants and storage of it so that in 
the event there is destruction of crops, there will be the opportunity 
to regenerate them through germ plasma. The proposal is to move this 
research to Puerto Rico. The problem is, Mr. President, that is not an 
acceptable location; that there would have to be an extensive period of 
shutdown and startup, and possibly even a period of quarantine for 
products coming back into the United States.
  The practical effect of this would be to throw away years and 
hundreds of thousands of dollars in research that has been conducted on 
germ plasma, particularly for tropical and subtropical agriculture.
  Finally, Mr. President, we are not talking about an extraordinary or 
inordinate expense here. The budget impact is minimal. The 
administration proposal to close Chapman Field will save $330,000 per 
year, Mr. President, in order to get the benefits that this Nation has, 
is currently, and should in the future continue to receive, as a result 
of specialized commitment to agriculture that Chapman Field represents.
  So, Mr. President, I believe that the process of analysis was flawed 
in its application to Chapman Field, is not in the Nation's interest, 
and therefore I urge the defeat of this amendment.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Vermont is 
recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from 
Indiana may need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana is recognized.
  Mr. LUGAR. Will the Senator from Vermont yield to me?
  Mr. LEAHY. I yield 8 minutes to the Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, this debate today is a critical juncture in 
the debate on reform of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It 
represents the first substantial test of the will of the Senate, 
perhaps of the country, to do an important job. Many of our colleagues 
have asked, ``Why Agriculture? Why not the Department of Defense, or 
Transportation, or Commerce, or any other Department of the Federal 
Government?'' All are alleged to have expenditures that are too high, 
too many employees, too many facilities, and too many activities that 
have not been closely examined.
  In the Agriculture Committee, chaired so ably by the distinguished 
Senator from Vermont, we have been trying to make certain that 
agriculture in our country is not only well represented and well cared 
for, but that we are on the right track with regard to the people that 
we hold most dearly; that is, the farmers, the productive people of our 
country, as well as the consumers who are their customers.
  We believe that if we do not clean up the problems of the USDA, 
others are going to do so. Farmers in this country are a very 
substantial minority, sometimes suggested as only 2 percent of the 
population. People are counting on us to do the right thing.
  Long ago, 2 years ago February, I raised a question in a press 
conference one day using data supplied by the Federal Government that 
there were 50 USDA field offices that were spending more in payroll and 
overhead than the programs that they were supporting--substantially 
more. I asked the Secretary of Agriculture why they should not be 
considered for closing or merging or some reorganization. People came 
to the fore. And in the next press conference I held, I said there were 
150, as a matter of fact, where the administrative cost exceeding 
outgoing payments. I suggested to Secretary Madigan in 1992 that he use 
his authority, which he clearly had, to close those offices.
  Just for the Record, in my own home State, I suggested to the ASCS 
State committee that it examine the activities in Indiana of our 
offices. The Farmers Home Director, George Morton, noted that there 
were 39 offices in Indiana serving Farmers Home. In the course of the 
following year, he closed 9 of them; from 39 to 30 in that year, with 
the full cooperation of the agriculture community of Indiana.
  In the ASCS situation, the head of the State committee at that time 
with the unanimous consent of the State committee suggested that Ohio 
County be merged with Dearborn County.
  This came in a response to a challenge which I gave to my people in 
Indiana; that is, I said I wonder if it is conceivable if a single 
office might be closed anywhere in the United States of America. The 
answer coming at least from the head of the State committee and the 
Indiana ASCS committee was indeed there can be.
  I would be the first to admit that that closure caused a great 
commotion in USDA. The Secretary even questioned whether they had 
authority to close the office or to merge it. But indeed they did, and 
indeed the closure occurred, and the merger has worked well.
  Mr. President, on Christmas Eve, literally, this last Christmas, I 
received notice as a farmer in Marion County, IN, that the ASCS office 
that I use was to be closed. The operation moved to nearby Johnson 
County. I applauded that activity. I said perhaps now all over America 
USDA is moving forward with reform. But I was wrong. It was another 
unique example in Indiana; two out of all of these offices across the 
country.
  I make this point, Mr. President, because we come now to the moment 
of truth. The Agriculture Appropriations Committee knows the Secretary 
of Agriculture is taking a look at 120 Agricultural Research Service 
offices, and said 19 of these are offices that should be closed. He has 
that authority. But Senators put back into this bill the names of 10 
offices and suggested they should not be closed. They were slipped into 
the bill. That is what Senator Leahy and I challenge. We said let us 
get back to ground zero again. Let the Secretary of Agriculture have 
the authority to review these offices. The Senate voted 98 to 1 to give 
the Secretary that authority. In my judgment, he had already the 
authority.
  At some point, there has to be the courage to move ahead to close at 
least 1, 2, or 10 offices somewhere in America. And the criteria have 
been set by two Secretaries who have gone through the entire process of 
rating over 7,500 offices to find the 1,200 or 1,300 that seem to offer 
the least amount of service to the people of America, generally. There 
could be argument at the margins. But let me just say, Mr. President, 
the two offices closed in Indiana in Marion County and Ohio County were 
by no means the least efficient of the national list. They were well up 
in the batting order. That would be true of a great number of offices, 
if we were in fact to be very objective about what they do and what 
they offer.
  I will just add, Mr. President, the President of the United States 
has offered a budget which assumes the closure of all of these offices 
plus 1,300 field offices under the agency, plus the amalgamation of at 
least 20 branches of the USDA. All of this is assumed in the budget 
now. Vice President Al Gore assumed it last year in reinventing 
Government, that $2 billion would be saved by all of these operations. 
The money has been counted twice--by the Vice President, and now by the 
President. And here we are today, in the first nibble again, to see if 
it can be unraveled.
  Mr. President, our amendment is so important to establish the fact 
the Senate means business, that the country means business, that you 
cannot continue to keep everything open all over America in response to 
the heartfelt needs of constituents who may be close by, if we have any 
prayer of making a change in the deficit or in the credibility of the 
organization.
  I make the case of USDA. It has the dinosaur impulse, something to 
continue lumbering on with agencies, with offices, with persons long 
ago unnecessary. Even Secretary Espy's plan eliminates only 7,500 
people of the arguably 125,000 people now in the USDA as the 
agricultural population of the country declines substantially, and the 
number of counties that now have even 20 percent of their income from 
agriculture, less than 1 in 6. It will not sell, Mr. President.
  For those who are watching this debate, very clearly the answer they 
want us to give is that we are serious, not about decimating American 
agriculture, but cleaning up our act. That is what they want to see, 
and they want to see it now, and some evidence that we are not rolling 
back the clock in our arguments.
  I thank the Chair.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from North Dakota 
[Mr. Conrad], two minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I hope those who are watching the debate 
conclude that it is important for us to make additional cuts. We are 
making additional cuts. We have approved cut after cut for agriculture. 
Agriculture has taken the biggest cut proportionately of any part of 
the budget.
  Mr. President, I hope that this rush to cut is not some mindless 
exercise that does not look at the evidence. When my esteemed colleague 
from Vermont says North Dakota has written off this research facility, 
nonsense. Number one, this facility is not in North Dakota. It is in 
Minnesota. The State of Minnesota supports this agency. The National 
Potato Council pays for about a quarter of the budget.
  Mr. LEAHY. Will Senator yield on my time?
  Mr. CONRAD. I do not yield.
  The growers of North Dakota, Minnesota, and the surrounding region 
put in money to support the work of this agency. And why? Because it is 
important. J.R. Simplott, one of the major companies in this country in 
potatoes, says in a letter to me:

       Now that the trade barriers are being eliminated, no other 
     country in the world can compete with us in terms of quality 
     and costs. The Red River Valley Potato Research Lab is a key 
     element in our strategy to maintain and further strengthen 
     our world dominance.

  It is a key part of it. It is not a matter of duplicative research, 
of people deciding it does not have a value. The fact is that the 
growers themselves put their own money into this facility because of 
its value. I can tell you that growers do not put their own hard-earned 
money into a research facility unless they are absolutely persuaded 
that it has value. That is also true of the National Potato Council, 
the State of Minnesota, and all of the others who contribute.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield myself 30 seconds. Let there be no 
mistake about what I said. The State of North Dakota funded research at 
East Grand Forks in the past, but for the past 3 years, it has not 
contributed one cent.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield my remaining time to the 
distinguished Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Nickles].
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Mississippi for 
his leadership. Let me just say that looking at the amendment that is 
offered by my friends and colleagues, Senator Leahy and Senator Lugar, 
this amendment does not save any money. It has nothing to do with 
saving money. It just says that the Secretary can close these offices.
  I call to the attention of my colleagues that if you want to save 
money--I am looking at the committee report. I heard people say it will 
save $8 million, and I also heard $18 million. That is not what is in 
the report. It does not say anything about saving dollars, just closing 
offices.
  I just mention to my colleagues why some of our colleagues are trying 
to close the offices, some of which go back for decades. In the 
committee report on pages 26 and 27 it says the administration 
requested $25 million for new facilities, and the committee is funding 
$32.7 million for new facilities.
  So I applaud my colleagues for their interest in being fiscally 
responsible. While they are trying to close a few established 
facilities that are doing good work in some of the States, like a 
facility in El Reno, OK, we are creating a bunch of new facilities. I 
will not read the list, but they are there for my colleagues to see. 
There are $32 million worth, some of which I just estimate and guess 
are not nearly as needed as some of the ones doing research in existing 
areas.
  I compliment my colleague from Indiana. He has been active in trying 
to close down a lot of facilities. We are not closing facilities in 
Seoul, Korea, we are not closing facilities in the Virgin Islands, we 
are not closing facilities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Those are 
facilities that rank much lower on their criteria than some of the 
facilities that are slated to be closed. I compliment my colleague from 
Mississippi.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont has 9 minutes 36 
seconds.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I take issue with the Senator from Oklahoma 
saying this does not save any money. First, there will be some costs, 
just as with closing a base. After the first year, closing these 10 
facilities would save approximately $7.5 million per year, every year, 
forever, in direct costs. It will also avoid another expenditure of 
another $10 million in repair costs.
  He spoke to the ARS facility in El Reno, OK. This facility has five 
scientists, less than one-third of its full capacity, which would have 
been 17. Its facilities are old and badly in need of repair. In fact, 
they have 89 separate buildings at this site, which is about 18 
buildings per scientist. Well, just repairing and renovating them would 
cost around $8 million. That is five times the program funding level 
just to repair and renovate it. Eighteen buildings per scientist.
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LEAHY. I would love to, but I know the Senator from North Dakota 
has set the precedent of not yielding to anybody for a question, and it 
is a wonderful precedent.
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator expand the unanimous consent request so 
we can get more time?
  Mr. LEAHY. I will yield for a question, even though he does not like 
to yield. I will be delighted to, but in a moment. Similar research is 
being done in Nebraska and in Miles City, MT. It could be transferred 
to either place where you have facilities and scientific expertise.
  The point comes down to this. This is not pro- or anti-agriculture by 
any means. We are not about to stop agriculture. We may stop some 
construction and repair work of outdated, outmoded research facilities, 
but it is not pro- or anti-agriculture. The Senator from Indiana and I 
would not be supporting it if it were. You would still have 250 
agricultural research facilities.
  So it is not a question of pro- or anti-agriculture; it is a question 
of courage. Do you have the courage to cut the budget or not? If you 
cannot cut out 10 agriculture research facilities out of more than 250, 
how in Heaven's name are we going to cut a $200-billion deficit? This 
is not a matter of agriculture policy; it is a matter of having the 
guts to do something.
  I will yield 30 seconds to the Senator from North Dakota, without 
losing my right to the floor, for a question.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank my colleague. I would like to make the point and 
say this. When he measures the worth of these facilities by the number 
of scientists who are there, I recall a statement that former President 
Kennedy made at a ceremony at the White House in which Nobel Prize 
winners were in attendance. President Kennedy said, ``I think we have 
the greatest collection of wisdom in this room since Thomas Jefferson 
dined alone.''
  I just say to my colleague, I think when you start to measure the 
worth of facilities by the number of scientists there, you have missed 
the point. The question is, what is the value of the research being 
done there, not the number of scientists who are there. I hope my 
colleague from Vermont will agree with that assessment.
  Mr. LEAHY. I point out that the agriculture bill here has $68 billion 
in it. If you want to quote President Kennedy, the whole Federal budget 
during President Kennedy's time was barely that amount of money--the 
whole shooting match. So if you want to quote him, would you like to go 
back to what the agriculture budget was then? The cost of agriculture 
now is virtually what the whole Federal budget was back then. I mean, 
goodness gracious me, we have to start making some cuts. That is all 
this is.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes 38 seconds. The 
other side has 11 seconds remaining.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I ask unanimous consent that a statement including 
questions and answers from the hearing record, where I ask the ARS 
questions about the savings that would be realized by closing these 
facilities, be printed at this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Questions Submitted by Senator Thad Cochran--ARS/Research Facility 
                        Closeouts and Reductions

       Question. How much will it cost ARS to transfer and close 
     out the 19 research locations, as proposed in the fiscal year 
     1995 budget? How can you redirect existing resources to 
     higher priority program areas in fiscal year 1995 if you need 
     to offset closing and relocation costs.
       Answer: Based on a preliminary assessment of permanent 
     employees, we project that approximately 75 percent will 
     relocate. Based on this assessment, it is estimated that ARS 
     would incur approximately $17.4 million for expenses in FY 
     1995. These consist of relocation expenses for permanent 
     employees being transferred, severance and lump-sum payments 
     for permanent employees involuntarily separated, and 
     miscellaneous costs associated with the disposition of 
     existing facilities. There will be some continuing costs 
     associated with the security and maintenance of facilities 
     until final disposition.
       In FY 1995, a portion of the savings to be achieved through 
     the proposed closures will be available for reallocation to 
     higher priority research. However, in FY 1996 and beyond, all 
     of these savings will be available for reallocation.

  Mr. SIMPSON. In April of this year, I contacted the Agricultural 
Research Service regarding the importance of leafy spurge research to 
my fine State of Wyoming and to the United States. Leafy spurge is a 
major weed which is causing Agricultural damage in 75 percent of the 
United States. In Wyoming, the northern tier of counties is inundated 
with this weed.
  ARS informed me that if the Sidney, MT research facility were to be 
closed, leafy spurge research would then be transferred to the USDA-ARS 
Bozeman, MT facility. Of course, appropriate funding levels for leafy 
spurge research would be maintained when the program was transferred.
  The administration's review of USDA research facilities and its 
recommendation for 19 Agricultural Research Service facilities 
continues the sorely needed reorganization of the Department of 
Agriculture. Consolidation of facilities does not mean the elimination 
of funding for important research programs.
  Is it your understanding that the leafy spurge research programs will 
be maintained at appropriate funding levels and transferred to the 
USDA-ARS Bozeman, MT facility if the USDA-ARS Sidney, MT facility were 
to be closed?
  Mr. LUGAR. Yes. It is my understanding that the leafy spurge research 
programs and other research programs will be transferred to the USDA-
ARS Bozeman, MT facility if the secretary were to direct the closure of 
the USDA-ARS Sidney, MT facility.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I thank my colleague for this important clarification.
  Mr. LEAHY. I am prepared to yield the remainder of my time, Mr. 
President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If all time is yielded back, the question is 
on agreeing to the amendment in the second degree.
  The amendment (No. 2307) was agreed to.


                 vote on amendment no. 2306, as amended

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the first-degree amendment, 
as amended.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 76, nays 23, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 209 Leg.]

                                YEAS--76

     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Bradley
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     D'Amato
     Danforth
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Ford
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hollings
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Metzenbaum
     Mikulski
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Reid
     Riegle
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thurmond
     Wallop
     Warner
     Wofford

                                NAYS--23

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Boren
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Burns
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Craig
     Dorgan
     Durenberger
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Hutchison
     Johnston
     Kempthorne
     Lautenberg
     Mack
     Mathews
     Nickles
     Robb
     Sasser
     Wellstone

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Inouye
       
  So the amendment (No. 2306), as amended, was agreed to.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I know there are Senators on this side 
who wish to offer amendments. Senator Helms has been waiting to offer 
an amendment and Senator Brown has. I do not know if there is any 
particular order, but I hope the Chair will recognize someone on this 
side to offer an amendment.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Heflin amendment is the pending question 
at this time.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Heflin 
amendment be temporarily laid aside for the purpose of the Senate 
considering another amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  MR. BRADLEY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, if I can get the attention of the floor manager of the 
bill, I have an amendment I will momentarily send to the desk. I say to 
the distinguished chairman of the committee that I am prepared to enter 
into a time agreement on that amendment of no longer than 30 minutes, 
equally divided. I do not think it will take that long.
  Mr. COCHRAN. If the Senator will yield, I can assure him it will take 
quite a bit longer than that, and there will be no agreement on time on 
this amendment.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I see the majority leader. Can I have the 
majority leader's attention for just a moment? A proposition has been 
offered on the Republican side to have a couple more amendments 
considered, or at least one more considered and a rollcall vote, and 
then try to develop an exclusive list of amendments to be debated this 
evening, with votes tomorrow.
  I do not really have a dog in the fight. I do not care. I am prepared 
to stay here all night, but I defer to the majority leader if he has 
any thoughts on that.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, it is unclear from the Senator's 
statement whether the list would be completed tonight and the votes 
that would occur tomorrow morning would include final passage of the 
bill.
  Mr. BUMPERS. The idea is that any amendment on the list which is 
apparently in the process of being developed on this side--we have not 
run a hot line on this side--but whatever that list was, those 
amendments would have to be offered this evening, and I think that is 
the only way we are going to finish this bill today or tomorrow.
  Mr. MITCHELL. So I take it the Senator's answer to my question is, 
yes, the votes that would occur tomorrow morning would include final 
passage of the bill?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Debate all the amendments tonight, finish the bill and 
the votes tomorrow morning, in lieu of staying in this evening and 
debating and voting on the measure; am I correct in my understanding on 
that?
  Mr. COCHRAN. My understanding is that on our side our leader would 
hope that we would not have any votes after 6 o'clock tonight.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I just say to my colleague, to accommodate our 
colleagues, we had no votes before 2:30 today. Now there is a request 
there be no votes after 6, following a day yesterday in which we had no 
votes at all.
  I want, of course, to be accommodative, but the time within which we 
are asked to vote is getting narrower and narrower each day. We are now 
looking for windows in which to have votes instead of a window in which 
not to have votes. I have no problem with that provided that--and as I 
understand the answer was in the affirmative--there would be completion 
of the amendments this evening and the votes would occur tomorrow 
morning and the last vote would be final passage of the bill.
  That is what I understand. Am I correct in that understanding, I will 
ask the Senator from Mississippi?
  Mr. COCHRAN. I am not certain at all that you could complete action 
on the amendments this evening. At this point we do not have a list of 
amendments that we know will be offered. We do not know the subject 
matter of any, all of those amendments and I think that is something 
that would be yet to be determined. We are unable to reach an agreement 
without knowing what the amendments are.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, in response to the majority leader's 
question, it had been my understanding that we would develop this list, 
and everybody on that list would have an opportunity to offer their 
amendments tonight and we would vote on them tomorrow.
  Now, let me say I am not prepared myself to accept that until I see 
the list. I have no interest in being here until 4 o'clock in the 
morning entertaining all these amendments. If the list is too long and 
we do not get time agreements on them, then I think this proposal is 
not going to work. On the other hand, if you had five amendments on 
this side and five amendments on that side and 30-minute time 
agreements on all of them, then that would suit me fine.
  Mr. MITCHELL. But Senators should understand that the proposal is 
offered as an alternative to doing what we should be doing, which is 
staying here and debating and voting on the amendments this evening.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Absolutely.
  Mr. MITCHELL. So what I do not want to happen is to say we will not 
stay and deal with the bill tonight but we will come back and deal with 
it tomorrow, because I guarantee you from experience tomorrow we will 
face the same situation and the day after.
  So what I am saying is either alternative is agreeable to me. I leave 
it to the managers. Either we stay this evening, debate and vote on 
amendments or we get an agreement in which the votes could occur 
tomorrow. But what I do not want is to have one part of each of those 
alternatives, the one part being we do not have any debate or votes 
tonight and we come back tomorrow and just start in and then I would 
face the same thing tomorrow. Someone will ask no votes before 10, no 
votes between 11 and 1, no votes between 2:30 and 4, no votes after 6, 
or the usual process.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, will the distinguished leader yield for a 
question?
  Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, certainly.
  Mr. COCHRAN. One question I have is that it seems inappropriate to me 
for the Senator to ask us to enter into an agreement when no Republican 
has offered an amendment yet to this bill. There has been a 
cosponsorship of an amendment, the Leahy-Lugar amendment that has just 
been disposed of. We have been debating a Heflin amendment. We adopted 
a Leahy amendment yesterday on wetlands reserve. We adopted a Daschle 
amendment yesterday. It seems in pointing out to the Chair, for 
example, if there were Republican Senators waiting to offer amendments 
and then when the Republican Senator sought recognition, the Chair 
recognized another Democrat for the purpose of offering an amendment--
--
  Mr. BUMPERS. If the Senator will yield----
  Mr. COCHRAN. It seems to me, if we are going to talk about blaming 
this side for not wanting to vote after 6 or having to stay in all 
night, this kind of consideration ought to be a part of the 
decisionmaking process. So that there can be parity, there can be 
fairness.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I was not blaming anyone. The requests I 
get for no votes here and there come from all Senators, Democrats and 
Republicans.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I heard it just the other way. I thought the Senator was 
saying----
  Mr. MITCHELL. I was not blaming anyone. Second, I will point out, the 
Senator says there have been no Republican votes. I am looking at the 
list of votes and at 3:12 this afternoon we voted on a McCain 
amendment.
  Mr. FORD. Two votes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Two votes.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I have just been handed the list.
  Mr. COCHRAN. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. MITCHELL. It is inaccurate to say there have been no votes on 
Republican amendments. I have no objection to Senators offering 
amendments. I do not know what the amendments are to this bill. If 
someone has them, why not offer them and debate and vote on them?
  That is what I was suggesting. I was asked--the Senator sought my 
attention--whether I would be agreeable to making up a list and putting 
votes off until tomorrow. I have no objection to that. But what I do 
not want is to say there will be no votes this evening and then we will 
just start on this tomorrow and get back in the same boat we are now 
in. If a Republican Senator wants to offer an amendment, by all means, 
stand up and offer it now. I am perfectly agreeable to that.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I think it must be premature to try to 
get an agreement at this point. Let me just suggest, if the majority 
leader has no objection to this, that we try to compile a list of the 
amendments, look at the amendments and then see where we are.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I think that is fine. And while you are doing that, why 
not have a Republican Senator offer an amendment.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Senator Bradley has just been recognized by the Chair to 
offer an amendment. Senator Helms wants to offer an amendment, with a 
30-minute time agreement, which the Senator from New Jersey is willing 
to do.
  How much time does the Senator from Colorado need?
  Mr. BROWN. I would be happy to enter into any time limit the majority 
leader might designate.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Thirty minutes?
  Mr. FORD. No. Mr. President, the Senator from Colorado has gone to 
meddling into Kentucky's business. And when you do that, I have to say 
that we are going to debate it a little while. I apologize to the 
leader because I do not want to, and I do not understand why we are 
having the amendment because it penalizes the farmer again; the U.S. 
farmer gets the shaft and the foreigners, the other countries, get the 
blessing of the cash.
  So under those circumstances, Mr. President, the Brown amendment is 
going to take a long time, and we may even see grazing fees before the 
night is over.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Well, Mr. President, might I suggest to the managers 
that Senator Bradley and Senator Helms have agreed to offer amendments 
under a 30-minute time limitation. If we can do those, that would give 
you an hour, plus the voting time, and by then, perhaps, you could put 
together a list and see where you stand. I think it is better to take 
small steps at first.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator from New Jersey be willing to stack the 
vote on his amendment, we get an agreement the Senator goes now, 
Senator Helms goes, then we vote on both of them?
  Does the Senator have any objection to that?
  Mr. BRADLEY. I have no objection.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent----
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, the Senator from North Carolina has a 
question.
  Mr. HELMS. My question I think has been answered. Do you intend to 
have both Senator Bradley's amendment voted on tonight and mine? Is 
that correct?
  Mr. BUMPERS. I understand the Senator wanted the yeas and nays on his 
amendment.
  Mr. HELMS. Yes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. What I was going to suggest is that we debate both of 
these amendments, Senator Bradley's 30 minutes, Senator Helms' 30 
minutes, after which we vote on those two amendments.
  Mr. HELMS. Very good.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent----
  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, if I could accommodate the distinguished 
chairman and also debate the amendment, I would have no objection if 
the distinguished Senator from North Carolina would like to go first in 
the debate so that we could say we have gone Democrat and Republican 
and I will go after that. I have no objection to that. However the 
chairman and the ranking member would like to structure the debate. The 
point is the distinguished Senator from North Carolina and I will have 
votes on our amendments in an hour.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, before entering into this agreement, I 
wonder if the Senator from North Carolina could give us some idea of 
what his amendment is.
  Mr. HELMS. It is about the use of taxpayers' money on various 
activities by the Department of Agriculture.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Does this deal with tobacco?
  Mr. HELMS. No.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
amendment of the Senator from New Jersey be 30 minutes to be equally 
divided, and that no second-degree amendments or motions to reconsider 
shall be considered; after which the amendment of the Senator from 
North Carolina be 30 minutes equally divided with no second-degree 
amendments or motions to recommit, after which we will vote on the 
Helms amendment. Let me say, on or in relation to both the Bradley 
amendment, so that the tabling motions will be in order, that after the 
vote on the Bradley amendment, we proceed immediately without 
intervening business to a vote on the amendment of the Senator from 
North Carolina.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and it is 
my hope that I will not be required to object, we are consulting with 
the Republican leader to get his reaction to the proposed unanimous 
consent agreement. I understand that he is temporarily unavailable. But 
I will be able to have an answer within a minute or 2, I hope.
  Mr. BRADLEY. Will the distinguished ranking manager yield?
  Mr. BUMPERS. While we are waiting, Mr. President, I ask unanimous 
consent that the Senator from New Jersey be allowed to proceed with his 
amendment for a period not to exceed 30 minutes to be equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I reserve 
the right to object. I am hoping that the Senator will withhold 
proposing any unanimous consent agreement until the Republican leader 
can convey his reaction to that to this Senator. So for that purpose, I 
reserve the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair wishes to clarify that on the 
previous unanimous consent request, the reference was to barring 
motions to recommit, not motions to reconsider. Is that the intent of 
the Senator from Arkansas?
  Mr. BUMPERS. I am sorry.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair wishes to clarify whether the 
unanimous consent request was to bar motions to recommit rather than 
motions to reconsider with regard to the unanimous consent agreement 
with regard to the----
  Mr. BUMPERS. I am sorry. I meant motion to recommit. But the 
agreement has been objected to at this point. So it is irrelevant.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I have an amendment, and I will send it 
to the desk. I would be amenable if the unanimous-consent request, I 
say to the ranking member, comes through. I would be prepared to count 
whatever time I use against the 30-minute time limit. Would that 
accommodate the distinguished Senator from Mississippi?
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I stated my 
reasons for not being able to enter into a unanimous consent agreement 
previously. They still apply.
  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I am looking for just a little guidance 
from the chairman of the subcommittee. I hope the chairman will give me 
his attention so he can give me some guidance. There has been a 
proposal for a 30-minute time agreement. We are waiting to see if that 
proposal is acceptable to the minority leader. I am saying I am 
prepared to go ahead now, instead of us standing here looking at each 
other, to actually discuss the amendment and have whatever time in that 
discussion be counted against my 15 minutes.
  I also have agreed to have a Republican amendment or a Democrat 
amendment. I do not know how much more I can do. The only alternative 
is to suggest the absence of a quorum, and all of us sit here and look 
at each other.
  Does the ranking member or the chairman of the subcommittee have an 
opinion on this?


                           Amendment No. 2308

(Purpose: To reduce the appropriation for buildings and facilities for 
                    agricultural research programs)

  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2308.

  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 12, line 23, strike ``$38,718,000'' and insert 
     ``$25,700,000''.

  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, there is not a Member among us who has 
not decried the deficit and the need for spending cuts. Last year, I 
went to the floor numerous times to articulate, in the form of 
amendments to various appropriations bills, ways to reduce spending. I 
have consistently supported others in the attempts to shrink our 
deficit and instill fiscal discipline. And I will continue to do so.
  I rise today to propose another amendment, which I believe will 
reduce Federal spending and support a process of budget discipline.
  The Agricultural Research Service [ARS] is a Federal agency within 
the Department of Agriculture. The ARS has primary responsibility over 
basic, applied, and developmental research on the whole range of 
agricultural issues. Its facilities are scattered nationwide and its 
Federal appropriations total more than $700 million annually.
  The President's budget request for the construction of new Federal 
facilities for ARS is $25.7 million. When the House considered 
appropriations for this account, they actually cut the account slightly 
and provided $23.4 million. The Senate bill before us today provides 
almost $39 million. My amendment simply cuts the Senate total back to 
the sum that was requested by the President in the budget.
  I note that this amendment does not cut any particular project. This 
amendment only attempts to limit the overall construction level--to 
show restraint--to the level that the President and the USDA have 
identified as an appropriate target.
  I would make three points in support of my amendment. First, we all 
have challenged the President to produce more cuts on spending. The ARS 
is a Federal agency with a national mission. Its purpose and priorities 
cannot be determined whimsically or politically. If the executive 
branch believes that this construction line is sufficient to meet the 
needs of the USDA and our farmers, then we should defer to this 
request, absent a clear rationale to the contrary. Given the action of 
the House, it is hard to claim any such rationale exists.
  They cut the amount to $23 million, came under the President's 
request, and the Senate bill before us is at $39 million. So if we are 
going to cut spending, this a good place to cut spending without 
harming the national mission and purpose of the Agricultural Research 
Service.
  Second, the Senate language not only exceeds the requested amount, 
but it also almost completely disregards the needs identified in the 
budget submission. Only two of six items that are proposed for funding 
in the budget receive support in the Senate bill. This undercuts the 
process of establishing priorities and instilling needed budget 
discipline within the Federal bureaucracy. The message to ARS lab 
managers is simple: If you cannot get your project through the OMB, 
look to the politicians. Freelance. And this bill is full of that kind 
of freelancing.
  Last, this amendment concerns much more than $13 million. If these 
projects are all built, they will be staffed. These new facilities, 
with their larger payrolls and new priorities, will undercut the USDA 
financially and programmatically.
  Earlier today, the Senate considered an amendment by Senators Leahy 
and Lugar. As a matter of fact, it was the amendment immediately prior 
to this one, and their amendment was to eliminate ARS facilities 
recommended for closure by the administration. During that debate, the 
point was made repeatedly that we needed to defer to the USDA and their 
priorities and the need for a streamlined agency. I believe, obviously, 
that analogous arguments can be made for this amendment.
  The Leahy-Lugar amendment called for the closure of nine ARS 
facilities. These facilities, they argued, cost USDA about $50 million 
annually in operating costs. This underscores how these facilities, 
once built, keep costing the taxpayers. The Leahy amendment would cut 
nine facilities that the USDA does not want. The Senate language 
considered today--that would be cut by my amendment--spends millions to 
build or improve 11 research centers that the USDA also does not want. 
I do not think that you can argue on the one hand that it makes sense 
to cut 9 they do not want, but to keep in the 11 they do not want.
  I further note that there is one key difference between my amendment 
and the one offered by Senators Leahy and Lugar. Their amendment did 
not cut any particular account. Mine does. It cuts the construction 
account.
  So, in closing, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to follow up the 
rhetoric about fiscal discipline and cutting spending, and vote for the 
amendment that I have proposed. It is a very simple amendment, and it 
would reduce the spending level of the President's request from about 
$39 million for construction of new Agricultural Research Service 
facilities to $25-million-plus for that account.
  I hope that we can get an agreement and have a vote on this in the 
near term.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] be 
temporarily laid aside to permit the offering of an amendment by the 
Senator from North Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2309

  (Purpose: To stop the waste of taxpayer funds on activities by the 
 Department of Agriculture to encourage its employees or officials to 
       accept homosexuality as a legitimate or normal lifestyle)

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2309.

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, insert the following new section:

     SEC.  . ENDING THE USE OF TAXPAYER FUNDS TO ENCOURAGE 
                   EMPLOYEES TO ACCEPT HOMOSEXUALITY AS A 
                   LEGITIMATE OR NORMAL LIFESTYLE.

       None of the funds made available under this Act may be used 
     to fund, promote, or carry out any seminar or program for 
     employees of the United States Department of Agriculture, or 
     to fund any position in the Department of Agriculture, the 
     purpose of which is to compel, instruct, encourage, urge or 
     persuade departmental employees or officials to:
       (1) recruit, on the basis of sexual orientation, 
     homosexuals for employment with the Department; or
       (2) embrace, accept, condone, or celebrate homosexuality as 
     a legitimate or normal lifestyle.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the pending bill provides operating funds 
for the Department of Agriculture and its related agencies totaling 
$67.98 billion of the taxpayers' money. I am persuaded that only a 
relatively few Americans approve of any of this enormous sum being used 
to conduct seminars or to hire staff or for the purpose of making 
available Federal facilities and resources to persuade--indeed, to 
intimidate--Federal employees to accept homosexuality as a legitimate 
and normal lifestyle.
  So the purpose, Mr. President, of the pending amendment is to 
determine how Senators feel about it and to give them an opportunity to 
go on record one way or the other.
  The pending amendment is not complicated. For Senators who were not 
in the Chamber when the text of the amendment was read by the clerk, I 
shall read it again:
       None of the funds made available under this Act may be used 
     to fund, promote, or carry out any seminar or program for 
     employees of the United States Department of Agriculture, or 
     to fund any position in the Department of Agriculture, the 
     purpose of which is to compel, instruct, encourage, urge or 
     persuade Departmental employees or officials to:
       (1) recruit, on the basis of sexual orientation, 
     homosexuals for employment with the Department; or,
       (2) embrace, accept, condone, or celebrate homosexuality as 
     a legitimate or normal lifestyle.

  Mr. President, I wish this amendment were not necessary. But it is. 
You see, the Clinton administration has launched a concerted effort to 
extend special rights to homosexuals in the Federal workplace--rights 
not accorded to other groups and individuals.
  The Department of Agriculture is obviously at the forefront of this 
effort. An April 27, 1994, article in the Wall Street Journal was 
headed ``A Different Kind of Whistleblower.'' It described a meeting of 
the USDA's Equal Employment Opportunity manager on February 25, at 
which time the head of the organized ``USDA Homosexual Employees'' 
distributed an outline which included the following statement. I hope 
Senators are looking in by television at these proceedings, because I 
think they ought to consider what the head of the organized USDA 
Homosexual Employees Association said should be the policy of the USDA:

       Until our relationships are recognized and respected and 
     benefits are made available to our partners and families, we 
     are not full members of team USDA.

  The Wall Street Journal reported that in response:

       Top [USDA] executives pledged to hold ``sensitivity 
     training'' to spread this message among the ranks and to 
     punish those who don't toe the line.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal 
article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. HELMS. Now, Mr. President, a question: How many American 
taxpayers are willing for their tax money to be devoted to financing 
sensitivity training for Federal bureaucrats to recognize and respect 
homosexual relationships?
  Mr. President, there is more. According to the Federal EEO Update, 
which is a newsletter published by FPMI Communications, Inc., a ``Gay, 
Lesbian, and Bisexual Program Manager'' position has been created 
within the Department of Agriculture for the Foreign Agriculture 
Service. A bureaucrat active in the homosexual movement is on the job 
now and is being paid $1,000 a week, using the taxpayers money of 
course. His responsibilities include the following--and the cameraman 
may want to follow the chart here.
  Here is what the responsibilities of this $52,000-a-year bureaucrat 
and activist in the homosexual movement, who has been hired by the 
USDA, here is what his agenda is. ``Promoting''--get that word,

       Promoting the gay, lesbian, and bisexual Employment Program 
     and developing and disseminating information on employment 
     matters;
       Analyzing work force data and informing managers of the 
     status of gay, lesbian, and bisexual employment;
       Informing homosexual employees of training and promotional 
     opportunities; and,
       Assisting in the recruitment of gays, lesbians, and 
     bisexuals and keeping abreast of personnel-related matters 
     affecting them.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Federal EEO 
Update newsletter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair
  Now, then, Mr. President, as of the close of business yesterday, 
Monday, July 18, the total Federal debt stood at $4,624,283,138,985.72. 
Now with this draconian debt, which by the way, averages out to be 
$17,737.20 for every man, women, and child in America, the question is 
this: should the U.S. Senate sit idly by and allow the spending of the 
American taxpayers' money on a gay, lesbian, and bisexual program 
manager paid $52,000, a year?
  That is the expense for his salary. Think of all of his staff, all of 
his travel, all of his telephones and all the rest of his expenses, and 
you have an enormous waste--and I use the word advisedly--waste of the 
taxpayers' money.
  Mr. President, I believe that not many Senators have even heard of, 
let alone seen, a memorandum dated March 25 of this year from a man 
named Wardell C. Townsend, Jr. Mr. Townsend is Assistant Secretary for 
Administration at the USDA. This memorandum grants official status to 
the GLOBE organization. Now GLOBE stands for, guess what? Gay, Lesbian, 
and Bisexual Employee organization.
  The purpose of this GLOBE organization, according to the memorandum, 
is to: Promote understanding of issues affecting gay, lesbian, and 
bisexual employees in the USDA;
  Serve as a resource group to the Secretary of Agriculture on issues 
of concern to gays, lesbians, and bisexual employees, and;
  Work for the creation of a diverse work force that assures respect 
and civil rights for gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees.
  Now, this is in the memorandum.
  I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Townsend memorandum be 
printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 3.)
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, formal recognition of this homosexual group 
allows its members to use USDA office space for their meetings, to use 
interoffice and electronic mail, and to have input in policy 
discussions.
  Insofar as I have been able to determine, Mr. President, the USDA is 
the first Federal agency to recognize a GLOBE chapter as an officially-
chartered employee organization. And the Department of Agriculture 
boasts about it. According to an article in the Washington Times on 
July 4 of this year--just a few weeks ago--an official USDA memorandum, 
dated June 22, reads as follows:

       To All Employees, Cotton Division: I would like to inform 
     you of the creation of the USDA, Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual 
     Employees (GLOBE) organization * * * I am confident that all 
     Cotton Division employees will remain committed to a 
     workplace that exemplifies Secretary Espy's * * * EEO and 
     Civil Rights statements.

  Let me say, Mr. President, that I do not know what Secretary Espy has 
to say about all of this. I wrote to him sometime back. I do not have a 
copy of my letter here today. It was a friendly letter, suggesting that 
he take a look at what was being done in his name. Now, he may be doing 
it himself.
  But, do you know something? I have not even had the courtesy of a 
response from Secretary Espy. And I am a former chairman of the Senate 
Agriculture Committee, and I have been on the committee nearly as long 
as anybody else. I think Bob Dole outranks me in tenure, but nobody 
else does.
  But the Secretary of Agriculture is just too busy when somebody asks 
him a question about what he is doing about a bunch of perverts at the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
  Somewhat earlier, Mr. President, I mentioned a news article reporting 
that ``Top [USDA] executives pledged to hold `sensitivity training' * * 
* and punish those who don't toe the line.''
  Now what have we gotten to in this country, in this Government?
  Anyone doubting that the USDA intends to punish those who fail to 
``toe the line'' with respect to the Department's embrace of the 
homosexual agenda should talk with, as I have, Dr. Karl Mertz, who, 
until March 28 of this year, was an Equal Employment Opportunity 
manager for the 10-State Southeastern Region of the Agriculture 
Research Services, headquartered in Athens, GA.
  While on annual leave earlier in March, Dr. Mertz was asked by a 
television station, WLOX-TV in Biloxi, MS, about a proposal being 
floated within the Agriculture Department to provide same-sex partners 
of homosexual employees within the USDA with the same taxpayer-paid 
benefits provided the spouses of legally married heterosexual 
employees.
  After making it very clear that he was expressing his personal views 
as a Christian--and not those of the Department's--Dr. Mertz made this 
comment:

       We need to be moving toward Camelot, not Sodom and 
     Gomorrah, and I'm afraid that's where our leadership is 
     trying to take us.

  He was asked the question by a reporter for the Biloxi, MS, 
television station, and he answered it honestly. He was on leave at the 
time he appeared on television. He did not volunteer to go to the 
television station, rather he was interviewed by a television reporter.
  What do you think happened?
  Later that evening, after flying back to Atlanta, Dr. Mertz received 
a call at home from a USDA bureaucrat in Washington, DC, who told him 
that the Department had already been informed--by homosexual 
activists--about Dr. Mertz' comments. Dr. Mertz heard nothing further 
until March 28, when he was summoned by Mary Carter, Director of the 
Southeastern Region of the Agriculture Research Service.
  Without asking for Dr. Mertz' side of the story, Mary Carter handed 
him a memorandum informing him of his transfer from his job--a job 
which the Department admits he had performed commendably for 7 years.
  Any Senator with questions about Dr. Mertz' exemplary performance 
should review the USDA performance appraisals signed by the very 
supervisor who put him on rollers, Korona Prince, a copy of which I ask 
unanimous consent to be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 4.)
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, it was this same Korona Prince who signed 
the memorandum informing Dr. Mertz of his reassignment to another 
position. While the memo claimed Dr. Mertz had a right as a private 
citizen to express his opinions, the Department's actions proved 
otherwise. Here is what she wrote:

       You have made it difficult for employees and managers of 
     the agency to accept that you actively support these same 
     policies in your official assignment.

  However, and this ought to be drilled into the consciousness of every 
U.S. Senator, the acceptance and promotion of the homosexual's agenda 
is not written in law, nor has the USDA policy favoring homosexuals 
been approved by the Senate.
  I understand, and I hope it is correct, that Dr. Mertz has not yet 
had a salary cut. But, he was stripped of his title, stripped of his 
staff, and given a job outside the area of expertise he has developed 
throughout his professional career. And the USDA, time and time again, 
had commended him for his great work. And his big sin, his cardinal 
sin, was to answer a question honestly and say something to the effect 
that instead of heading for Sodom and Gomorrah, we ought to reach for 
Camelot.
  I ask unanimous consent that a memorandum from Korona Prince to Karl 
Mertz dated March 25, 1994, be printed in the Record at the conclusion 
of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 5.)
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, it is increasingly apparent that the 
Department of Agriculture has unilaterally adopted a policy to treat 
homosexuals as a class protected under title VII of the Civil Rights 
Act of 1964--which of course, they are not. In his EEO and Civil Rights 
Policy statement dated April 15, 1993, Secretary Mike Espy wrote:

       Our actions will be directed towards positive 
     accomplishments in the Department's efforts to attain a 
     diverse workforce, ensure equal opportunity, respect civil 
     rights, and create a work environment free of discrimination 
     and harassment based on gender or sexual orientation.

  It's ironic that Secretary Espy also stated in his Civil Rights 
Policy statement that ``there is no room for management by 
discrimination, reprisal, or fear in the new USDA and such activities 
will not be tolerated.'' Obviously, as Dr. Mertz' case proves, this 
policy is a one-way street and does not apply to those who dare to 
question USDA's newly created protected class, namely the homosexuals 
and the lesbians. Whatever, one wonders, happened to the first 
amendment down at the U.S. Department of Agriculture?
  Mr. President, the question before the Senate in all of this is: Is 
not the primary mandate of the Department of Agriculture--as outlined 
in the U.S. Government Manual--to improve and maintain farm income, to 
develop and expand markets abroad for agricultural products, and help 
curb and cure poverty, hunger, and malnutrition? Are these not the 
purposes for which the $67.98 billion in this appropriations bill 
should go--and not for promoting the homosexual agenda, not for holding 
sensitivity training sessions for bureaucrats, not for funding 
homosexual program managers, and not for establishing official 
homosexual employee organizations.
  I shall insist on a rollcall vote because every American is entitled 
to know where his or her Senators stand at the crossroad of twisted 
values. Either Senators will waste the taxpayers' money and bow down to 
the wishes of the homosexual lobby or Senators will stand up and be 
counted for decency and morality in the Federal Government by telling 
the Secretary of Agriculture to back up, and take a look at what he has 
already done.

                               Exhibit 1

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Apr. 27, 1994]

                   A Different Kind of Whistle-Blower

                             (By Max Boot)

       Karl Mertz is a whistle-blower. But unlike most members of 
     that species, he's not exposing sexual harassment on the job 
     or military contractors who overbill the government. He's 
     blowing the whistle on a less publicized kind of fraud: the 
     promise that affirmative action policies will result in a 
     more ``just'' society.
       Mr. Mertz has seen how such policies operate from the 
     inside. Since 1987, he's been a senior Equal Employment 
     Opportunity manager at the Agriculture Department in Atlanta, 
     a commissar in the battle against racism, sexism and other 
     ``isms.'' Before that, he performed similar jobs for the 
     Labor Department and the Army. It's a calling for which he 
     has impeccable credentials: After getting a Vanderbilt 
     doctorate, he went to work as a Methodist pastor in 
     Mississippi and promptly got in trouble with the locals for 
     preaching racial tolerance.
       Like most Americans, Mr. Mertz is dedicated to ``equal 
     opportunity'' for all, no matter what race, creed or sex. But 
     he quickly found that those rules don't apply to white males 
     like himself. When he's applied for numerous EEO jobs at 
     other federal agencies since 1984, he's been turned down 
     cold. At the Internal Revenue Service, he got top scores on 
     his exam but didn't even land a job interview; all eight 
     finalists were black females. Mr. Mertz tried pursuing a job-
     discrimination claim against the government, but when that 
     proved fruitless he decided to express his frustration on 
     CNN.
       On the program, aired Feb. 20, Mr. Mertz declared: ``People 
     in the `60s set up a big policy machine and said we're going 
     to try and open up doors for people who have been wrongly 
     excluded from society, and then they put the machine in gear, 
     and kind of turned their backs on it. Now it's rumbling 
     across the landscape doing pretty much what it wants.''
       Mr. Mertz tells some hair-raising stories about what the 
     machine is doing. Agriculture Department managers hire 
     ``twofers'' (say, a black female) or ``threefers'' (say, a 
     disabled Hispanic female) in order to get a bonus for meeting 
     affirmative action quotas. Postdoctoral fellowships are 
     funded for one year if the recipient is a white male, two 
     years if he (or, more likely, she) is a minority. And--get 
     this--a new training program at the department, designed to 
     build self-esteem, is open only to senior African-American 
     male managers. ``These people are already in senior 
     positions!'' Mr. Mertz exclaims. ``Why spend taxpayers' money 
     to boost their self-esteem?''
       Mr. Mertz has had to live with such programs for a while. 
     What he wasn't prepared for was Agriculture Secretary Mike 
     Espy's gay-rights agenda, part of the Clintonites' kowtowing 
     to a key group.
       At a Washington meeting of the department's affirmative-
     action administrators on Feb. 25, Mr. Mertz listened to a 
     report by the head of the department's gay employees group. 
     An outline distributed by the gay activist during her 
     presentation states: ``Until our relationships are recognized 
     and respected and benefits are available to our partners and 
     families, we are not full members of Team USDA.'' Top 
     executives pledged to hold ``sensitivity training'' to spread 
     this message among the ranks, and to punish those who don't 
     toe the line.
       In other words, homosexual employees aren't just asking to 
     be left alone--Mr. Mertz is in favor of that. They want other 
     employees to actively approve of their lifestyle. And Mr. 
     Espy is backing the gay-rights agenda with taxpayer-funded 
     indoctrination courses for the department's workers. ``I was 
     pushed as far as I could go,'' Mr. Mertz says.
       A week later, on March 4, Mr. Mertz attended a departmental 
     conference in Biloxi, Miss. Afterward, a local TV reporter 
     asked him to comment on the gay-rights policy. After making 
     clear that he was voicing his own views, not the 
     department's, the Christian expressed his disapproval of 
     homosexuality and said that the Agriculture Department should 
     be headed ``toward Camelot, not Sodom and Gomorrah.''
       When he got home to Atlanta later that night, Mr. Mertz 
     received a phone call from a Washington-based Agriculture 
     Department bureaucrat who said he had heard about the TV 
     interview from gay activists. Then silence--until March 28, 
     when Mr. Mertz was summoned into the office of Mary Carter, 
     South Atlantic area director of the department's Agriculture 
     Research Service.
       Without waiting to hear his side of the story, Ms. Carter 
     handed him a memorandum announcing that his TV interview 
     ``reflect[s] a disagreement with Departmental Civil Rights 
     Policy, which could seriously undermine your ability to 
     perform your responsibilities.'' Then without hint of due 
     process, he was transferred, effective immediately, to a 
     newly created job dealing with something called ``work force 
     forecasting.''
       Ms. Carter insists that the reassignment ``isn't 
     punishment,'' but try telling that to Mr. Mertz. ``I've been 
     stripped of a title, stripped of support staff, stripped of 
     working in the field of my expertise,'' he complains.
       The truly noxious part of this is that Mr. Mertz is being 
     punished for exercising his First Amendment rights, not--as 
     the memo claims--failing to do his job, in a telephone 
     interview, Ms. Carter couldn't name a single instance when 
     Mr. Mertz had failed to enforce department policy for 
     homosexuals or anyone else. In fact, Mr. Mertz's evaluation 
     forms gave him high marks in every category, including 
     ``support EEO and Civil Rights Programs.''
       Given what's happened, it's a bitter irony that Mr. Espy's 
     statement on civil rights policy says: ``I am especially 
     concerned about allegations of a `culture of reprisal' at 
     USDA.'' The secretary was writing about reprisals for filing 
     affirmative action complaints, but that concern is equally 
     pertinent here.
       Mr. Mertz is appealing for help from those who 
     traditionally champion the cause of whistle-blowers, ranging 
     from the federal Office of Special Counsel to ``60 Minutes'' 
     to various government-watchdog groups. It will be 
     interesting--and highly telling--to see what support he gets.

                               Exhibit 2

                [From the Federal EEO Update, June 1994]

                    USDA GLOBE Officially Chartered

       The USDA has taken strides to ensure the equal treatment of 
     all groups. First by recognizing GLOBE (Gay, Lesbian, or 
     Bisexual Employees), then by amending EEO complaint process, 
     and issuing an EEO policy statement.
       USDA GLOBE, on March 25, 1994, became the first chapter of 
     GLOBE to become an officially chartered employee 
     organization. With this approval, USDA GLOBE can exercise all 
     of the rights and responsibilities of other officially 
     sanctioned employee organizations.
       The Formal EEO Complaint System now covers ``individual 
     complaints of discrimination based on race, color, religion, 
     sex, national origin, age, if over 40, physical, or mental 
     disability, marital status, sexual orientation, and reprisal 
     for EEO related activity.''
       The EEO and Civil Rights Policy Statement issued by USDA 
     Secretary Mike Epsy includes in the statement that the 
     Department will act to ``create a work environment free of 
     discrimination and harassment based on gender or sexual 
     orientation.''
       To complement these formal assertions of equal treatment 
     for all, the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service created a 
     new Special Emphasis Program Manager position--Gay, Lesbian, 
     and Bisexual Program Manager, held by Jim Patterson.
       Some of the responsibilities include:
       Promoting the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual (hereafter GLB) 
     Employment Program and developing and disseminating 
     information on employment matters
       Analyzing workforce data and informing managers of the 
     status of GLB's employment
       Informing employees of training and promotional 
     opportunities
       Assisting in the recruitment of GLBs and keeping abreast of 
     personnel related matters affecting them
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 3


                                    Department of Agriculture,

                                   Washington, DC, March 25, 1994.
     Subject: Establishment of USDA GLOBE
     To: Pat Browne, Spokesperson, USDA GLOBE
       In keeping with the Secretary's April 15, 1993, EEO and 
     Civil Rights Policy Statement, I am pleased to officially 
     sanction the creation of USDA GLOBE by approving the attached 
     bylaws. With this approval, USDA GLOBE will exercise all of 
     the rights and responsibilities of other officially 
     sanctioned organizations.
                                          Wardell C. Townsend, Jr.
                           Assistant Secretary for Administration.
       Attachment.

  U.S. Department of Agriculture Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Employee 
                       Organization (USDA GLOBE)


                                 bylaws

     Mission Statement.
       The mission of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Gay, 
     Lesbian, and Bisexual Employee Organization is to create a 
     work environment free of discrimination and harassment based 
     on sexual orientation.
       I. (name of the organization)
       II. Purpose.
       The purpose of USDA GLOBE is to:
       A. Promote understanding of issues affecting gay, lesbian 
     and bisexual employees in USDA.
       B. Support the USDA policy of nondiscrimination based on 
     sexual orientation.
       C. Provide outreach to the gay, lesbian and bisexual 
     employees in the Department.
       D. Serve as a resource group to the Secretary on issues of 
     concern to gay, lesbian and bisexual employees.
       E. Work for the creation of [a] diverse work force that 
     assures respect and civil rights for gay, lesbian and 
     bisexual employees.
       F. Create a forum for the concerns of the gay, lesbian and 
     bisexual community in the Department.
       (Followed by sections on meetings, dues, government, 
     officers & election process, duties of the officers, filling 
     vacant positions, voting, forming committees, forming 
     chapters in field locations, and amendments. The bylaws are 
     also signed by Wardell C. Townsend, Jr.)

                               Exhibit 4

     Supervisory Appraisal of Demonstrated Performance or Potential

       Position: Equal Employment Manager, GM-260-14.
       Name of applicant: Dr. Karl Mertz.


        section 1--demonstrated performance or potential rating

       1. Managerial and technical EEO knowledge (and skills 
     sufficient to plan, organize, direct, staff and evaluate an 
     equal employment opportunity program): Exceptional.
       2. Ability to communicate in writing: Exceptional.
       3. Ability to communicate orally: Exceptional.
       4. Skill in fact finding, analysis and problem resolution: 
     Exceptional.
       5. Knowledge of statistical and reporting techniques (in 
     order to develop profiles, prepares reports, analyze needs, 
     determine effectiveness): Above averages.


                    section ii--narrative statement

       1. Graduate school and extensive government training in 
     EEO/AA and management have been evident in the regulatorily 
     correct and innovative programs designed and administered by 
     the incumbent.
       2. Written work is timely, exacting and thorough, probably 
     due to training as a college newspaper editor, and previous 
     government experience writing EEO audit reports and proposed 
     disposition of complaints.
       3. A forceful and thought provoking speaker, with related 
     ``A'' work in college and grad school, who has won several 
     professional association elections, and made numerous 
     regional and national speeches.
       4. A.E.P.P.s and Accomplishment Reports/ Updates have been 
     through and well received by E.E.O.C. and internal reports 
     have been accurate, thorough and well reasoned.
       5. Incumbent has gone beyond report requirements, producing 
     same on potential adverse impact, participation rates in 
     awards, etc., and representation levels in special programs.
       Appraiser's signature: K. Prince.
       Employees signatures: Karl Mertz.

                  Performance Appraisal of K.C. Mertz


                              instructions

       Blocks 1 through 10, completed by NFC, should be reviewed 
     and, if necessary, corrected.
       Block 11. Enter funding unit number.
       Block 14. Enter brief description of performance elements.
       Block 15A. Check performance elements identified as 
     critical.
       Blocks 15B. 15C, 15D. Rate actual performance by entering 2 
     for critical elements and 1 for non-critical elements in 
     appropriate column.
       Blocks 15E, 15F, 15G. Enter total of each column.
       Block 15H. Enter total from 15E, 15F and 15G.
       Block 16A. Check off the correct summary rating described 
     in decision table (16B)
       Blocks 17 through 22. Self-explanatory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                        15A--Critical    15B--Exceeds fully     15C--Meets fully     15D--Does not meet 
                      14--Performance elements                             element           successful            successful         fully successful  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Affirmative Employment Program Management........................  X                                    2  ....................  ....................
2. Special Emphasis Program Management..............................  ................                     1  ....................  ....................
3. Research Apprenticeship & Summer Intern Prog. Mgmt...............  ................  ....................                     1  ....................
4. Technical Advice & Assistance....................................  X                                    2  ....................  ....................
5. Reporting Requirements/Special Projects..........................  ................                     1  ....................  ....................
6. Supervision & Human Resource Management..........................  ................                     1  ....................  ....................
7. Supports EEO & Civil Rights Programs.............................  X                                    2  ....................  ....................
                                                                     -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Total.........................................................  ................                     9                     1  ....................
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

       Summary Rating: Superior.
       Supervisor's Signature: Korona I. Prince.

                               Exhibit 5

                                      Office of the Administrator,


                               U.S. Department of Agriculture,

                                   Washington, DC, March 25, 1994.
     Subject: Reassignment from the EEO Staff.
     To: Karl C. Mertz, EEO Manager, South Atlantic Area.
     From: Korona I. Prince, Director, EEO Staff.

       As you are no doubt aware, some of your recent activities 
     have caused quite a bit of concern at the Department of 
     Agriculture. Your statements in the interview that occurred 
     on March 4 reflect a disagreement with Departmental Civil 
     Rights Policy, which could seriously undermine your ability 
     to perform your responsibilities for the agency in your 
     current assignment. As a private citizen you have every right 
     to express your opinions freely, and we have no intention of 
     doing anything to compromise your rights or the rights of any 
     other employee. However, you must recognize the fact that in 
     publicly disagreeing with an admittedly controversial 
     position of the Departmental leadership, you have made it 
     difficult for employees and managers of the agency to accept 
     that you actively support these same policies in your 
     official assignment. It is, therefore, necessary that you be 
     reassigned to another position.
       One of the areas identified by the ARS Human Resources 
     Management Task Group for action was the development of a 
     work force forecasting system. This is critical for the 
     strategic management of human resources, which, in turn, is 
     critical to our continued success. Dr. Mary Carter has long 
     been an active proponent of this initiative. Consequently, 
     the agency has identified a position to be located on the 
     staff of the Director of the South Atlantic Area to develop 
     and implement an Agency wide work force forecasting system. 
     You are assigned to this position effective March 28, 1994. 
     There will be no impact on your grade or pay. This also 
     provides an opportunity for you to use your expertise to 
     provide an important service for the Agency's long term 
     success.
       Dr. Carter and Dr. James Hilton, who will be your immediate 
     supervisor will work with you in developing the details of 
     your new assignment.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. MURRAY). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Amendment No. 2309, As Modified

  Mr. HELMS. Madam President, the distinguished manager of the bill, 
Mr. Bumpers, has suggested that there may be some ambiguity in the mind 
of some Senator reading this amendment who may arrive at the mistaken 
understanding that this amendment outlaws funds for any seminar on any 
program.
  I must say, I believe the amendment, as written, fairly states the 
proposition it does not preclude the use of funds to promote or carry 
out various seminars or programs, rather, only those relating to 
homosexuals. But just to remove any ambiguity that might be in some 
Senator's mind before voting, I have a modification which Senator 
Bumpers and I have agreed upon.
  I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified, and I send 
the modification to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has a right to modify his 
amendment. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is so 
modified.
  The amendment, with its modification, is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, insert the following new section:

     SEC.   . ENDING THE USE OF TAXPAYER FUNDS TO ENCOURAGE 
                   EMPLOYEES TO ACCEPT HOMOSEXUALITY AS A 
                   LEGITIMATE OR NORMAL LIFESTYLE.

       None of the funds made available under this Act may be used 
     to fund, promote, or carry out any seminar or program for 
     employees of the United States Department of Agriculture, or 
     to fund any position in the Department of Agriculture, the 
     purpose, either of which is to compel, instruct, encourage, 
     urge or persuade departmental employees or officials to--
       (1) recruit, on the basis of sexual orientation, 
     homosexuals for employment with the Department; or
       (2) embrace, accept, condone, or celebrate homosexuality as 
     a legitimate or normal lifestyle.

  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I just want to make an additional 
comment to clarify the purpose of the modification. I want to thank the 
Senator very much for accommodating my concern on this.
  The amendment read as follows:

       None of the funds made available under this act may be used 
     to fund, promote, or carry out any seminar or program for 
     employees of the United States Department of Agriculture . . 
     .

  If you just read that, it would look as though the Senator was trying 
to stop any seminar for any purpose, whether the purpose is improving 
people's job skills or anything else. Obviously that was not his 
intention.
  The next word is:

       . . . or to fund any position in the Department of 
     Agriculture, the purpose of which is to compel, instruct, 
     encourage, urge or persuade departmental employees or 
     officials to:
       (1) recruit, on the basis of sexual orientation, 
     homosexuals for employment with the department;

  And the Senator told me his sole purpose with this amendment was to 
say none of the funds herein may be used to hold seminars or programs, 
the purpose of which is to compel, instruct or urge departmental 
employees to recruit people on the basis of sexual orientation.
  With that, I think that makes the purpose of his amendment crystal 
clear. I am prepared to vote on it.
  Mr. HELMS. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.
  Mr. HELMS. Madam President, if I may, let me ask the clerk if the 
modification reads as follows:

       None of the funds made available under this act may be used 
     to fund, promote, or carry out any seminar or program for 
     employees of the United States Department of Agriculture, or 
     to fund any position in the Department of Agriculture, the 
     purpose, either of which is to compel * * *

  And so forth. Is that the way the modification reads?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Now, Madam President, unless there are Senators who wish 
to speak on either the Bradley amendment or the Helms amendment, I see 
no reason why we cannot have back-to-back votes on those two. And 
before I ask unanimous consent, let me suggest that the second vote be 
for 10 minutes. Does the Senator have any objection to that?
  Mr. HELMS. None.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that pursuant 
to a motion to table, by myself and the Senator from Mississippi, the 
Bradley amendment, that upon the completion of that vote, we proceed 
immediately to a vote without any intervening business on the amendment 
of the Senator from North Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I move to table the Bradley amendment, 
and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 50, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 210 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durenberger
     Faircloth
     Ford
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kerrey
     Lott
     Mack
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Stevens
     Thurmond

                                NAYS--50

     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Boren
     Bradley
     Brown
     Bryan
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Danforth
     Dodd
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Gregg
     Jeffords
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Mathews
     McCain
     Metzenbaum
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pell
     Reid
     Riegle
     Robb
     Roth
     Sasser
     Simon
     Smith
     Specter
     Wallop
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wofford
  So the motion to table the amendment (No. 2308) was rejected.


                       vote on amendment no. 2308

  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
rollcall vote on this amendment be 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from New 
Jersey.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 54, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 211 Leg.]

                                YEAS--46

     Bingaman
     Bradley
     Brown
     Bryan
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cohen
     Danforth
     Dodd
     Exon
     Feingold
     Glenn
     Gregg
     Helms
     Jeffords
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Mathews
     McCain
     Metzenbaum
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pell
     Reid
     Riegle
     Robb
     Roth
     Sasser
     Simon
     Smith
     Specter
     Wallop
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wofford

                                NAYS--54

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bond
     Boren
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durenberger
     Faircloth
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Lott
     Mack
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Stevens
     Thurmond
  So the amendment (S. 2308) was rejected.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was rejected.
  Mr. BYRD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                    amendment no. 2309, as modified

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to the 
Helms amendment, as modified. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The 
clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bryan). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 92, nays 8, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 212 Leg.]

                                YEAS--92

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boren
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Danforth
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durenberger
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     Mathews
     McCain
     McConnell
     Metzenbaum
     Mikulski
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Reid
     Riegle
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Sasser
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thurmond
     Wallop
     Warner
     Wofford

                                NAYS--8

     Boxer
     Feingold
     Kennedy
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Packwood
     Pell
     Wellstone
  So the amendment (No. 2309), as modified, was agreed to.

                          ____________________