[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 45 (Friday, March 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3781-S3799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RESCISSIONS ACT OF 1995
The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Amendment No. 331
Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Kassebaum
striker replacement amendment. I strongly support the amendment offered
by the distinguished Senator from Kansas. The Executive order is one
more example of the President's bypassing the legislative process to
accomplish his own agenda just as he did with the Mexican bailout which
has been the subject of a Banking Committee hearing this morning and it
is proving to be a monetary Vietnam.
More importantly, this amendment is essential to overturn an
Executive order which would unilaterally resurrect archaic labor
policies that undermine our national effort to move our economy
successfully into the competitive international markets of the 21st
century.
The President's action places at risk the integrity of our entire
system of collective bargaining which is based on a delicate balance of
the rights of employees to withhold their labor and the right of
management to continue business operations during a strike. The
President suggests that the ban on permanent replacement workers by
businesses engaged in Federal contracts will lead to the more efficient
performance of such contracts. This is ridiculous and is totally wrong.
I am convinced that by upsetting the balance between labor and
management, the entire system of collective bargaining will break down
resulting in more strikes, business bankruptcies, and fewer jobs.
While this Executive order is limited to Federal contracts, the
intent of the President and the opponents of this amendment is clear.
They seek to return this country to labor policies which history has
rejected as proven failures over and over. This Executive order
embodies a labor policy completely at odds with current realities in
the international marketplace.
It is contrary to the interests of working Americans striving for
success in a global economy where free trade is the order of the day.
It panders to special union interests who seek to protect their own
privileged position at the expense of other working people. And it is a
cynical attempt to delay congressional consideration of the priorities
which voters last November clearly indicated they were most interested
in.
The Congress has on many occasions debated the merits of banning
permanent replacement workers. The most recent occasion was during the
last Congress when the administration's proposal to overturn a 60-year
interpretation of the National Labor Relations Act was defeated by a
Congress controlled by the President's own party.
Last week, the President actively fought against the balanced budget
amendment. This week he issues an Executive order on striker
replacement knowing that it will be used by supporters to halt
congressional consideration of legislation which the administration
opposes.
In November the voters spoke unmistakably about their expectations
for the 104th Congress. In my opinion during the first 100 days of this
Congress the electorate does not expect us to devote our time and
energies to long-settled issues which were recently revisited and
reaffirmed.
My colleague from Kansas has offered a reasonable proposal limited to
this fiscal year. I believe that at some point during this Congress we
should consider legislation which would permanently nullify the
President's Executive order. At a later date I will welcome a full
debate on striker replacement with those who support the President's
action, but not at this time.
I encourage opponents of this amendment to allow the Senate to
continue with our consideration of the defense supplemental
appropriations and then proceed with other important issues such as the
line-item veto, welfare reform, product liability reform, tort reform,
and a regulatory moratorium.
These are the issues that last November voters expected us to
consider at this time, I think, and it is time we get on with
considering them at a rapid rate.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity this afternoon
to address some of the issues in question that have been raised by the
Kassebaum amendment and hopefully resolve the questions that have been
raised so that we will be able to move beyond the Kassebaum amendment
to address the underlying issue which is the appropriations which are
necessary for our national defense and national security.
This particular proposal is not really appropriate on this particular
measure. But it has been the desire of a number of our Members to
continue the debate and discussion on the measure rather than consider
the urgency of the underlying proposal.
So I welcome the chance to respond to a number of the questions that
have been raised including the questions that have been raised by my
friend from North Carolina in his own comments.
The argument we hear over and over is the President is changing the
law, that Congress gave employers the rights to use permanent
replacements and the President is taking away that right. Let us look a
little closer at this argument.
In the first place, Congress never gave employers the right to use
permanent replacements. The National Labor Relations Act never uses the
term and it was not in the act of 1935, and it is not there today. What
Congress did say was very different. Section 13 states very plainly:
Nothing in this act, except as specifically provided
herein, shall be construed so as to either interfere with, or
impede, or in any way diminish the right to strike, or to
affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.
But nevertheless it is true that employers can use permanent
replacements. If they did not get that right from Congress, where did
it come from? The answer, of course, is the Supreme Court's decision in
the 1938 case of Mackay Radio where the Court interpreted the act to
allow the use of permanent replacements despite the statute's
proscription against diminishing the right to strike. But even Mackay
did not give employers the right to use permanent replacements. It
merely said the National Labor Relations Act does not prohibit their
use.
The Court said that the powers of the National Labor Relations Board
and the act's legal machinery could not be used to stop employers from
using permanent replacements. Has President Clinton changed that law or
attempted to change it? No, he has not. Any Senator who will take the
time to read the Executive order will see that he has not. It is still
legal under the National Labor Relations Act to use permanent
replacements.
There is no back pay remedy in the Executive order for workers whose
jobs
[[Page S3782]] are taken from them. There is no power granted to the
National Labor Relations Board to go to the court and get an order
blocking the employer's use of permanent replacements. Those are the
powers and remedies the Congress debated in the last Congress when we
considered S. 55, not the President's power to administer Federal
contracts. President Clinton has not given the National Labor Relations
Board any of the powers that Congress debated in S. 55 nor has he given
the Board any new powers at all.
So to say the Executive order is an end run around the Congress is
untrue. The Congress never debated whether the President should
exercise his procurement powers to prevent the kind of lengthy and
bitter strikes that occur when Federal contractors use permanent
replacements. We have never debated whether it makes sense, as I
believe it does, for the President to prevent situations from occurring
where unusually lengthy strikes led us to long periods where critical
products such as fighter jet engines or missile guidance systems are
produced entirely by any untrained workers brought in as permanent
replacements for 20- or 30-year skilled veterans. I believe it does not
make sense for the President to do that. It does make sense for the
President to do what he can to protect the Government's procurement
process from that sort of situation.
But no one should doubt that he has the power to do so. This power
may be inherent in the Executive. But in any case, Congress has given
the President this authority through the Federal Property and
Administrative Services Act.
(Mr. SMITH assumed the chair.)
Mr. KENNEDY. Now, Senator Kassebaum might want to take that power
away, but there is no end run here. Congress gave the power, gave the
President the authority to oversee contracting by the Federal agencies
and Executive Order 12954, is an exercise of that authority.
I hope, Mr. President, that over the period of the weekend our
Members will have a chance to review the Department of Justice's legal
memoranda supporting that authority.
I ask unanimous consent that that memorandum be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Washington, DC, March 9, 1995.
Memorandum for Janet Reno, Attorney General.
From: Walter Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General.
Re: Executive Order No. 12954, entitled ``Ensuring the
Economical and Efficient Administration and Completion of
Federal Government Contracts''.
On March 6, 1995, we issued a memorandum approving as to
form and legality a proposed executive order entitled,
``Ensuring the Economical and Efficient Administration of
Federal Government Contracts.'' On March 8, 1995 the
President signed the proposed directive, making it Executive
Order No. 12954. This memorandum records the basis for our
prior conclusion that the Federal Property and Administrative
Services Act vests the President with authority to issue
Executive Order No. 12954 in light of his finding that it
will promote economy and efficiency in government
procurement.
I
Executive Order No. 12954 establishes a mechanism designed
to ensure economy and efficiency in government procurement
involving contractors that permanently replace lawfully
striking workers. After a preamble that makes and discusses
various findings and ultimately concludes that Executive
Order No. 12954 will promote economy and efficiency in
government procurement, the order declares that ``[i]t is the
policy of the Executive branch in procuring goods and
services that, to ensure the economical and efficient
administration and completion of Federal Government
contracts, contracting agencies shall not contract with
employers that permanently replace lawfully striking
employees.'' Exec. Order No. 12954, Sec. 1. The order makes
the Secretary of Labor (``Secretary'') responsible for its
enforcement. Id. Sec. 6. Specifically, the Secretary is
authorized to investigate and hold hearings to determine
whether ``an organizational unit of a federal contractor''
has permanently replaced lawfully striking employees either
on the Secretary's own initiative or upon receiving
``complaints by employees'' that allege such permanent
replacement. Id. Sec. 2.
If the Secretary determines that a contractor has
permanently replaced lawfully striking employees, the
Secretary is directed to exercise either or both of two
options. First, the Secretary may make a finding that all
contracts between the government and that contractor should
be terminated for convenience. Id. Sec. 3. The Secretary's
decision whether to issue such a finding is to be exercised
to advance the government's economy and efficiency interests
as set forth in section 1. Id. Sec. 1 (``All discretion under
this Executive order shall be exercised consistent with this
policy.'') The Secretary is then to transmit the finding to
the heads of all departments and agencies that have contracts
with the contractor.\1\ Each such agency head is to terminate
any contracts that the Secretary has designated for
termination, unless the agency head formally and in writing
objects to the Secretary's finding. Id. Sec. 3. An agency
head's discretion to object is also limited to promoting the
purpose of economy and efficiency as set forth in the policy
articulated in section 1.
\1\Footnotes at end of article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Secretary's second option is debarment. If the
Secretary determines that a contractor has permanently
replaced lawfully striking employees, the Secretary is to
place the contractor on the debarment list until the labor
dispute has been resolved, unless the Secretary determines
that debarment would impede economy and efficiency in
procurement. The effect of this action is that no agency head
may enter into a contract with a contractor on the debarment
list unless the agency head finds compelling reasons for
doing so. Id. Sec. 4.
Executive Order No. 12954, taken as a whole, sets forth a
mechanism that closely ties its operative procedures--
termination and debarment--to the pursuit of economy and
efficiency. The President has made a finding that, as a
general matter, economy and efficiency in procurement are
advanced by contracting with employers that do not
permanently replace lawfully striking employees.
Additionally, the President has provided for a case-by-case
determination that his finding is justified on the peculiar
facts and circumstances of each specific case before any
action to effectuate the President's finding is undertaken.
ii
The Supreme Court has instructed that ``[t]he President's
power, if any, to issue [an] order must stem either from an
act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.'' Youngstown
Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 585 (1952). The
President's authority to issue Executive Order No. 12954 is
statutory; specifically, the Federal Property and
Administrative Services Act of 1949 (``FPASA''). That statute
was enacted ``to provide for the Government an economical and
efficient system for . . . procurement and supply.'' 40
U.S.C. Sec. 471. The FPASA expressly grants the President
authority to effectuate this purpose,
``The President may prescribe such policies and directives,
not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, as he
shall deem necessary to effectuate the provisions of said
Act, which policies and directives shall govern the
Administrator [of General Services] and executive agencies
in carrying out their respective functions hereunder.''
Id. Sec. 486(a). An executive order issued pursuant to
this authorization is valid if (a) ``the President acted
`to effectuate the provisions' of the FPASA,'' and (b) the
President's ``action was `not inconsistent with' any
specific provision of the Act.'' American Fed'n of Gov't
Employees v. Carmen, 669 F.2d 815, 820 (D.C. Cir. 1981)
(quoting 40 U.S.C. Sec. 486(a)). We are not aware of any
specific provision of the FPASA that is inconsistent with
Executive Order No. 12954. Therefore, we turn to the
question whether the President acted to effectuate the
purposes of the FPASA.
Every court to consider the question has concluded that
Sec. 486(a) grants the President a broad scope of authority.
In the leading case on the subject, the United States Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, sitting en
banc, addressed the question of the scope of the President's
authority under the FPASA, and Sec. 486(a) in particular. See
AFL-CIO v. Kahn, 618 F.2d 784 (D.C. Cir.) (en banc), cert.
denied, 443 U.S. 915 (1979). A plausible argument that the
FPASA granted the President only narrowly limited authority
was advanced and rejected. See id. at 799-800 (MacKinnon, J.,
dissenting). After an extensive review of the legislative
history of that provision, the court held that the FPASA,
through Sec. 486(a), was intended to give the President
``broad-ranging authority'' to issue orders designed to
promote ``economy'' and ``efficiency'' in government
procurement. Id. at 787-89. The court emphasized that
```[e]conomy' and `efficiency' are not narrow terms; they
encompass those factors like price, quality, suitability, and
availability of goods or services that are involved in all
acquisition decisions.'' Id. at 789; see also Peter E. Quint,
The Separation of Powers under Carter, 62 Tex. L. Rev. 786,
792-93 (1984) (although Sec. 486(a) ``easily could be read as
authorizing the President to do little more than issue
relatively modest housekeeping regulations relating to
procurement practice * * *. The Kahn court found
congressional authorization of sweeping presidential power *
* *.''); Peter Raven-Hansen, Making Agencies Follow Orders;
Judicial Review of Agency Violations of Executive Order
12,291, 1983 Duke L.J. 285, 333, n.266; Jody S. Fink, Notes
on Presidential Foreign Policy Powers (Part II), 11 Hofstra
L. Rev. 773, 790-91 n.132 (1983) (characterizing Kahn as
reading Sec. 486(a) to grant President ``virtually
unlimited'' authority).
The court then concluded that a presidential directive
issued pursuant to Sec. 486(a) is authorized as long as there
is a ``sufficiently close nexus'' between the order and the
criteria of economy and efficiency. Kahn, 618
[[Page S3783]] F.2d at 792. Although the opinion does not
include a definitive statement of what constitutes such a
nexus, the best reading is that a sufficiently close nexus
exists when the President's order is ``reasonably related''
to the ends of economy and efficiency. See id. at 793, n.49;
Harold H. Bruff, Judicial Review and the President's
Statutory Powers, 68 Va. L. Rev. 1, 51 (1982) (``in AFL-CIO
v. Kahn, the court stated an appropriate standard for
reviewing the basis of a presidential action--that it be
`reasonably related' to statutory policies'') (footnote
omitted).
As one commentator has asserted, under Kahn, the President
need not demonstrate that an order ``would infallibly promote
efficiency, merely that it [is] plausible to suppose this.''
Alan Hyde, Beyond Collective Bargaining: The Politicization
of Labor Relations under Government Contract, 1982 Wis. L.
Rev. 1, 26. In our view a more exacting standard would invade
the ``broad-ranging'' authority that the court held the
statute was intended to confer upon the President. See Kahn,
618 F.2d at 787-89. In addition, a stricter standard would
undermine the great deference that is due presidential
factual and policy determinations that Congress has vested in
the President. See, e.g., Henry P. Monaghan, Stare Decisis
and Constitutional Adjudication, 88 Colum. L. Rev. 723, 738
(1988).\2\
We have no doubt, for example, that Sec. 486(a) grants the
President authority to issue a directive that prohibits
executive agencies from entering into contracts with
contractors who use a particular machine that the President
has deemed less reliable than others that are available.
Contractors that use the less reliable machines are less
likely to deliver quality goods or to produce their goods in
a timely manner. We see no distinction between this
hypothetical order in which the President prohibits
procurement from contractors that use machines that he deems
unreliable and the one the President has actually issued,
which would bar procurement with contractors that use labor
relations techniques that the President deems to be generally
unreliable, especially when the Secretary of Labor and the
contracting agency head each confirm the validity of that
generalization in each specific case.
The preamble of Executive Order No. 12954 sets forth the
President's findings that the state of labor-management
relations affects the cost, quality, and timely availability
of goods and services. The order also announces his finding
that the government's procurement interests in cost, quality,
and timely availability are best secured by contracting with
those entities that have ``stable relationships with their
employees'' and that ``[a]n important aspect of a stable
collective bargaining relationship is the balance between
allowing businesses to operate during a strike and preserving
worker rights.'' The President has concluded that ``[t]his
balance is disrupted when permanent replacement employees are
hired.'' In establishing the policy ordinarily\3\ to contract
with contractors that do not hire permanent replacement
workers, the President has found that he will advance the
government's procurement interests in cost, quality, and
timely availability of goods and services by contracting with
those contractors that satisfy what he has found to be an
important condition for stable labor-management relations.
The order's preamble then proceeds to set forth reasonable
relation between the government's procurement interests in
economy and efficiency and the order itself. Specifically,
the order asserts the President's finding that ``strikes
involving permanent replacement workers are longer in
duration than other strikes. In addition, the use of
permanent replacements can change a limited dispute into a
broader, more contentious struggle, thereby exacerbating the
problems that initially led to the strike. By permanently
replacing its workers, an employer loses the accumulated
knowledge, experience, skill, and expertise of its incumbent
employees. These circumstances then adversely affect the
businesses and entities, such as the Federal Government,
which rely on that employer to provide high quality and
reliable goods or services.'' We believe that these findings
state the necessary reasonable relation between the
procedures instituted by the order and achievement of the
goal of economy and efficiency.
It may well be that the order will advance other
permissible goals in addition to economy and efficiency. Even
if the order were intended to achieve goals other than
economy and efficiency, however, the order would still be
authorized under the FPASA as long as one of the President's
goals is the promotion of economy and efficiency in
government procurement. ``We cannot agree that an exercise of
section 486(a) authority becomes illegitimate if, in design
and operation, the President's prescription, in addition to
promoting economy and efficiency, serves other, not
impermissible, ends as well.'' Carmen, 669 F.2d at 821; see
Rainbow Nav. Inc. v. Dep't of the Navy, 783 F.2d 1072 (D.C.
Cir. 1986); Kimberly A. Egerton, Note, Presidential Power
over Federal Contracts under the Federal Property and
Administrative Services Act: The Close Nexus Test of AFL-CIO
v. Kahn, 1980 Duke L.J. 205, 218-20.
Since the adoption of the FPASA, Presidents have
consistently regarded orders such as the one currently under
review as being within their authority under that Act. As the
court explained in Kahn, Presidents have relied on the FPASA
as authority to issue a wide range of orders. 618 F.2d at
789-92 (noting the history of such orders since 1941,
especially to institute ``buy American'' requirements and to
prohibit discrimination in employment by government
contractors). Not surprisingly this executive practice has
continued since Kahn. For instance, President Bush issued
Executive Order No. 12800, which required all government
contractors to post notices declaring that their employees
could not ``be required to join a union or maintain
membership in a union in order to regain their jobs.'' 57
Fed. Reg. 12985 (April 13, 1992). The order was supported
solely by the statement that it was issued ``in order to * *
* promote harmonious relations in the workplace for purposes
of ensuring the economic and efficient administration and
completion of Government contracts.'' Id.\4\ This long
history of executive practice provides additional support for
the President's exercise of authority in this case. See Kahn,
618 F.2d at 790.\5\ This is especially so where, as here, the
President sets forth the close nexus between the order and
the statutory goals of economy and efficiency.
It may be that in individual cases, a contractor that
maintains a policy of refusing to permanently replace
lawfully striking workers may nevertheless have an unstable
labor-management relationship while a particular contractor
that has permanently replaced lawfully striking workers may
have a more stable relationship. As to such situations,
however, the Secretary and the contracting agency heads
retain the discretion to continue to procure goods and
services from contractors that have permanently replaced
lawfully striking workers if that procurement will advance
the federal government's economy and efficiency interests as
articulated in section 1 of Executive Order No. 12954.\6\ We
recognize that, even with these safeguards, it could happen
that a specific decision to terminate a contract for
convenience or to debar a contractor pursuant to the order
might not promote economy or efficiency. The courts have held
that it remains well within the President's authority to
determine that such occurrences are more than offset by the
economy and efficiency gains associated with compliance with
an order generally. See Kahn, 618 F.2d at 793.\7\
Similarly, it would be unavailing to contend that Executive
Order No. 12954 will secure no immediate or near-term
advancement of the federal government's economy and
efficiency procurement interests. Section 486(a) authorizes
the President to employ ``a strategy of seeking the greatest
advantage to the Government, both short- and long-term,'' and
this is ``entirely consistent with the congressional policies
behind the FPASA.'' Id.
emphasis added); cf. Contractors Ass'n v. Secretary of
Labor, 442 F.2d 159, 170 (3d Cir.) (deciding on basis of
president's constitutional rather than statutory
authority), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 854 (1971).
The FPASA grants the President a direct and active
supervisory role in the administration of that Act and endows
him with broad discretion over how best ``to achieve a
flexible management system capable of making sophisticated
judgment in pursuit of economy and efficiency.'' Kahn, 618
F.2d at 788-89. As explained above, the President has set
forth a sufficiently close nexus between the program to be
established by the proposed order and the goals of economy
and efficiency in government procurement.\8\
Finally, we do not understand the action of Congress in
relation to legislation on the subject of replacement of
lawfully striking workers to bear on the President's
authority to issue Executive Order No. 12954. The question is
whether the FPASA authorizes the President to issue the
order. As set forth above, we believe that it does. Recent
Congresses have considered but failed to act on the issue of
whether to adopt a national, economy-wide proscription of the
practice applying to all employers under the National Labor
Relations Act (``NLRA'').\9\ This action may not be given the
effect of amending or repealing the President's statutory
authority, for the enactment of such legislation requires
passage by both houses of Congress and presentment to the
President. See Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority v.
Citizens for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, Inc., 501 U.S.
252 (1991); INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983). To contend
that Congress's inaction on legislation to prohibit all
employers from hiring replacement workers deprived the
President of authority he had possessed is to contend for the
validity of the legislative veto.
In Youngstown Sheet & Tube, it was considered relevant that
Congress had considered and rejected granting the President
the specific authority he had exercised. 343 U.S. 586. There,
however, the President did not claim to be acting pursuant to
any statutory power, but rather to inherent constitutional
power. In such a case, the scope of the President's power
depends upon congressional action in the field, including an
express decision to deny the President any statutory
authority. Id. Youngstown Sheet & Tube is inapposite here
because the President does not rely upon inherent
constitutional authority, but rather upon express statutory
authority--Sec. 486(a) of the FPASA. See Kahn, 618 F.2d at
787 & n. 13.
Moreover, we note that Congress's action was far from a
repudiation of the specific authority exercised in Executive
Order No. 12954. Even if a majority of either house of
Congress had voted to reject the blanket proscriptions on
hiring permanent replacements for lawfully striking workers,
contained in H.R. 5 and S. 55, this would denote no more than
a determination that such a broad, inflexible rule applied in
every labor dispute subject to the NLRA would not advance
the
[[Page S3784]] many interests that Congress may consider when
assessing legislation. The order, by contrast, does not apply
across the economy, but only in the area of government
procurement. Nor does the order establish an inflexible
application, rather it provides the Secretary of Labor an
opportunity to review each case to determine whether
debarring or terminating a contract with a particular
contractor will promote economy and efficiency in government
procurement and further permits any contracting agency head
to
override a decision to debar if he or she believes there are
compelling circumstances or to reject a recommendation to
terminate a contract if, in his or her independent
judgment, it will not promote economy and efficiency. In
sum, the congressional action alluded to above simply does
not implicate the narrow context of government procurement
or speak to the efficacy of a flexible case-by-case regime
such as the one set forth in the order.\10\
The Kahn opinion fully supports this view. There the
President promulgated voluntary wage and price guidelines
that were applicable to the entire economy. Contractors that
failed to certify compliance with the guidelines were
debarred from must government contracts. See Exec. Order No.
12092, 43 Fed. Reg. 51,375 (1978). The order was issued in
1978 against the following legislative backdrop: In 1971
Congress passed the Economic Stabilization Act, which
authorized the President to enforce economy-wide wage and
price controls. In 1974, a few months after the Economic
Stabilization Act expired, the Council on Wage and Price
Stability Act (``COWPSA'') was enacted. COWPSA expressly
provided that ``[n]othing in this Act * * * authorizes the
continuation, imposition, or reimposition of any mandatory
economic controls with respect to prices rents, wages,
salaries, corporate dividends, or any similar transfers.''
Pub. L. No. 93-387, Sec. 3(b), 88 Stat. 750 (1974).
The court concluded that ``the standards in Executive Order
12092, which cover only wages and prices, are not as
extensive as the list in Section 3(b). Consequently, we do
not think the procurement compliance program falls within the
coverage of Section 3(b), but rather is a halfway measure
outside the contemplation of Congress in that enactment.''
Kahn, 618 F.2d at 795. Similarly, Executive Order No. 12954
is a measure that operates in a manner (case-by-case
determination) and a realm (government procurement
exclusively) that was outside the contemplation of Congress
in its consideration of a broad and inflexible prohibition on
the permanent replacement of lawfully striking workers.
iii
Congress, in the FPASA, established that the President is
to play the role of managing and directing government
procurement. Congress designed this role to include ``broad-
ranging authority'' to issue orders intended to achieve an
economical and efficient procurement system. Executive Order
No. 12954, ``Ensuring the Economical and Efficient
Administration and Completion of Federal Government
Contracts,'' represents a valid exercise of this authority.
footnotes
\1\We will refer to this class of officials generically as
agency head(s).
\2\We do not mean to indicate a belief that Executive Order
No. 12954 could not withstand a stricter level of scrutiny.
We simply regard the employment of such a standard to be
contrary to the holding of Kahn, as well as the view of the
purposes of the FPASA and its legislative history upon which
that decision expressly rests.
\3\Again, the order does not categorically bar procurement
from contractors that have permanently replaced lawfully
striking workers. The sanctions that the order would
authorize would not go into effect if either the Secretary,
with respect to either the termination or the debarment
option, or the contracting agency head, with respect to the
termination option, finds that the option would impede
economy and efficiency in procurement.
\4\This order is also significant insofar as it
demonstrates that Executive Order No. 12954 is not the first
in which a president has found that more stable workplace
relations promote economy and efficiency in government
procurement.
\5\Of course, the President's view of his own authority
under a statute is not controlling, but when that view has
been acted upon over a substantial period of time without
eliciting congressional removal, it is `entitled to great
respect.' . . . [t]he `construction of a statute by those
charged with its execution should be followed unless there
are compelling indications that it is wrong.''' Kahn, 618
F.2d at 790 (quoting Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve Sys. v. First Lincolnwood Corp., 439 U.S. 234 (1978),
and Miller v. Youakim, 440 U.S. 125, 144 n.25 (1979)).
\6\The authority of an agency head is diminished somewhat,
though not eliminated entirely with respect to procuring from
a contractor that the Secretary has debarred. An agency head
may procure from a debarred contractor only for compelling
reasons. See Exec. Order No. 12954, Sec. 4. Nevertheless, the
Secretary has authority to refuse to place a contractor on
the debarment list in the first instance if the Secretary
believes that debarment would not advance economy and
efficiency.
\7\``[W]e find no basis for rejecting the President's
conclusion that any higher costs incurred in those
transactions will be more than offset by the advantages
gained in negotiated contracts and in those cases where the
lowest bidder is in compliance with the voluntary standards
and his bid is lower than it would have been in the absence
of standards.'' Kahn, 618 F.2d at 793.
\8\Moreover, we note that under the Supreme Court's recent
decision in Dalton v. Specter, 114 S. Ct. 1719 (1994), it is
unlikely that the President's judgment may be subject to
judicial review. It is clear that Sec. 486(a) gives the
President the power to issue orders designed to promote
economy and efficiency in Government procurement. See 40
U.S.C. Sec. 486(a); Carmen, 669 F.2d at 821; Kahn, 618 F.2d
at 788-89, 792-93. The Supreme Court has recently
``distinguished between claims of constitutional violations
and claims that an official has acted in excess of his
statutory authority.'' Dalton, 114 S. Ct. at 1726. The Court
held that where a claim ``concerns not a want of
[presidential] power, but a mere excess or abuse of
discretion in exerting a power given, it is clear that it
involves considerations which are beyond the reach of
judicial power. This must be since, as this court has often
pointed out, the judicial may not invade the legislative or
executive departments so as to correct alleged mistakes or
wrongs arising from asserted abuse of discretion.''
Id. at 1727 (quoting Dakota Central Telephone Co. v. South
Dakota, ex rel, Pevne, 250 U.S. 163, 184 (1919)); see also
Smith v. Reagan, 844 F.2d 195, 198 (4th Cir.), cert. denied,
488 U.S. 954 (1988); Colon v. Carter, 633 F.2d 964, 966 (1st
Cir. 1980); cf. Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985);
Chicago Southern Air Lines Inc. v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333
U.S. 103 (1948).
Judicial review is unavailable for claims that the
President had erred in his judgment that the program
established in the order is unlikely to promote economy and
efficiency. The FPASA entrusts this determination to the
President's discretion and, under Dalton, courts may not
second-guess his conclusion. The Court made it clear that the
President does not violate the Constitution simply by acting
ultra vires. See Dalton, 114 S. Ct. at 1726-27. Judicial
review is available only for contentions that the President's
decision not only is outside the scope of the discretion
Congress granted the President, but also that the President's
action violates some free-standing provision of the
Constitution.
\9\In the 102d Congress, The House of Representatives
passed a bill to amend the National Labor Relations Act to
make it an unfair labor practice for an employer to hire a
permanent replacement for a lawfully striking employee. See
H.R. 5, 102d Cong., 1st Sess. (1991). The House passed this
legislation on a vote of 247-182. See Cong. Rec. H5589 (daily
ed. July 17, 1991). The Senate considered legislation to the
same effect. See S. 55, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (1992). The
legislation was not brought to the floor for a vote because
supporters of the measure were only able to muster 57 votes
to invoke cloture. See Cong. Rec. S8237-38 (daily ed. June
16, 1992).
Likewise, legislation to categorize the hiring of permanent
replacement workers as an unfair labor practice was
considered in the 103d Congress. The House of Representatives
approved the legislation on a vote of 239-190. See Cong. Rec.
H3568 (daily ed. June 15, 1993). Again, the Senate did not
bring the bill to a vote, because its supporters were unable
to attract the supermajority required to invoke cloture. See
Cong. Rec. S8524 (daily ed. July 12, 1994) (fifty-three
senators voting to invoke cloture).
\10\We have found no indication in the legislative history
that those opposing the proposed amendments to the NLRA even
considered the specialized context of government procurement.
See, e.g., S. Rep. No. 110, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. at 33-49
(1993) (stating minority views); H.R. Rep. No. 116, 103d
Cong. 2d Sess., pt. 1, at 42-62 (1993) (minority views); H.R.
Rep. No. 116, 103d Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, at 16-17 (1993)
(minority views); H.R. Rep. No. 116, 103d Cong., 2d Sess.,
pt. 3, at 11-15 (1993) (minority views). Moreover, we note
that at least some of the opposition to the legislation was
based in part on concerns regarding the breadth of the
legislation, see H.R. Rep. No. 116, pt. 1, at 45 (minority
views) (emphasizing absence of ``a truly pressing societal
need'' (emphasis added)), as well as its inflexibility, see
id. at 62 (views of Rep. Roukema).
Mr. KENNEDY. I will highlight a couple of essential parts of the
memorandum.
On March 6, 1995, we issued a memorandum approving as to
form and legality a proposed executive order entitled,
``Ensuring the Economical and Efficient Administration of
Federal Government Contracts.'' On March 8, 1995 the
President signed the proposed directive, making it Executive
Order No. 12954. This memorandum records the basis for our
prior conclusion that the Federal Property and Administrative
Services Act vests the President with authority to issue
Executive Order No. 12954 in light of his finding that it
will promote economy and efficiency in Government
procurement.
I will come back to that issue because I think it is basic to both
the rationale for the Executive order and reaches the heart of the
whole debate on this issue.
Executive Order No. 12954 establishes a mechanism designed
to ensure economy and efficiency in Government procurement
involving contractors that permanently replace lawful
striking workers.
Executive Order No. 12954, taken as a whole, sets forth a
mechanism that closely
[[Page S3785]] ties its operative procedures--termination and
debarment--to the pursuit of economy and efficiency. The
President has made a finding that, as a general matter,
economy and efficiency in procurement are advanced by
contracting with employers that do not permanently replace
lawfully striking employees. Additionally, the President has
provided for a case-by-case determination that his finding is
justified on the peculiar facts and circumstances of each
specific case before any action to effectuate the President's
finding is undertaken.
The rest of the memorandum goes on with citations in support for this
President's authority in a very, I find, persuasive and convincing way.
What did the President base his Executive order on? He based it,
effectively, on the pursuit of economy and efficiency. Procurements are
advanced by contracting with employers that do not permanently replace
lawfully striking employees.
So it seems to be appropriate that we give some consideration to what
has been happening over the period of recent years with regard to
various disputes involving the permanent replacement of striking
workers per year.
This chart shows some, I think, very powerful and persuasive evidence
justifying the Executive order. What we see in this chart is the rather
dramatic increase in the numbers of strikes in which permanent
replacements have been used over the period from 1935 all the way to
1991. What you do see, particularly, is that in the last 2 or 3 years
the numbers have been going up dramatically.
Since we find out that they have been going up dramatically, we can
ask ourselves, what has been the result? This chart reflects the
average number of strikes involving permanent replacements per year by
decade. So it is the concern of the President in connection with
Government purchasing to take notice of the number of strikes that have
been taking place in which permanent replacement strikers have been
used. This is interesting in reflecting the increased numbers of
replacement workers.
We have to ask ourselves, why is that important? Why should we take
notice of this dramatic increase in permanent replacement strikes?
Well, it is interesting for this reason, Mr. President. With the
dramatic increase, we take note that strikes involving permanent
replacement workers are substantially longer in duration than other
strikes. One study done at the University of Notre Dame indicates that
strikes involving permanent replacements last seven times longer than
strikes that do not involve permanent replacements.
Other evidence suggests that the mere threat to use permanent
replacement workers is associated with the longer strikes. So we have
this phenomenon, increasing numbers of strikes, which are utilizing the
permanent replacements, increasing powerful evidence that the strikes
themselves last dramatically longer than other labor disputes.
Clearly, the President has an important responsibility, primarily in
the area of our national defense, to make sure that we are going to be
able to have our weapons systems and procurement be done in a way that
is going to meet his responsibilities, to make sure that we are going
to get good product, good quality, good performance, top-skilled people
that are going to be working on the various systems which are so
important to our fighting men.
Well, not only are the strikes longer involving permanent strikes,
but there is another phenomenon, and that is what has happened to
productivity in the areas of where the permanent replacements have
taken place. We now know that the number of strikes in which permanent
strikers are used has been increasing dramatically, and the strikes
themselves last longer. But we can also ask ourselves what has been
happening in terms of the productivity in those companies, where they
have made the judgment to select permanent replacements.
Mr. President, I will just quote part of the findings from research
by Prof. Julius Getman, professor of law at the University of Texas Law
School to be included in a forthcoming book,
The data that I have collected in my study of the Paper
Workers strike in Jay, Maine from 1987 to 1988 is strongly
supportive of the conclusion that hiring permanent
replacement workers is harmful to productivity. This is true
not only because the replacement workers are almost certain
to lack the experience and know-how of the workers they
replace, but because permanent replacement is totally
inconsistent with the goal of the labor-management
cooperation necessary for improving quality and productivity.
* * * In any large enterprise, because of the Laidlaw
doctrine, in the period after the strike terminates,
significant numbers of former strikers will return.
* * * The anger among the groups will inevitably effect
productivity. It will make employees suspicious of
cooperation and unwilling to take part in new approaches to
productivity.
* * * Managers, who are aware they will be required to
rehire a former striker whenever a replacement worker either
quits or is fired, will be loath to impose discipline on the
replacement workers or crossovers. If they treat the strikers
differently, they commit an unfair labor practice. At the
Androscoggin mill all sides agree that the lack of discipline
was harmful to productivity.
Then it continues in the study of the Androscoggin mill, pointing out
the difference in atmosphere, the difference in productivity that
existed prior to the time of the striker replacements. And drawing the
conclusion that, on the issue of productivity, there had been a very
significant diminution in the productivity of those companies that use
the striker replacements.
So, Mr. President, I make the point which is the obvious one that the
President has noted, that there are an increasing number of strikes,
increasing number of permanent replacement workers, that productivity
in those areas deteriorates. And, obviously, the President does have
the authority and the power to issue such an Executive order as has
been summarized in the Attornrey General's memorandum.
Mr. President, we have been asked earlier about the precedents. Is
this Executive order unprecedented? I have an interesting memorandum
here, Mr. President, that I have developed that reviews the recent
Executive orders that have been done under the Republican Presidents
and also this one to put it in some proportion. I think in any fair
evaluation you would find that there is far more excessive use of
executive authority, particularly by President Bush in his Executive
order basically on the prehire issue, which is basically in conflict
with the law itself prohibiting the prehiring agreements, even though
the National Labor Relations Act itself specifically permits the
prehiring agreements.
Several Senators from the other side of the aisle took to the Senate
floor yesterday to suggest that President Clinton's Executive order
prohibiting Federal contractors from permanently replacing lawfully
striking workers is completely unprecedented. They stated on this
floor, as though it were an undeniable fact, that there has never
before been an Executive order that has prohibited Federal contractors
from undertaking an otherwise legal act.
Mr. President, these Senators are simply and plainly wrong. And Mr.
President, we do not have to go back very far in our history to prove
that they are wrong.
In late October 1992 President Bush issued Executive Order No. 12818
prohibiting Federal contractors from entering into pre-hire agreements.
The agreements are also sometimes called project agreements. Project
agreements are collective-bargaining agreements commonly used in the
construction industry. They establish labor standards, the terms and
conditions of employment for workers on construction sites before any
of the workers are hired. President Bush's Executive order prohibited
any Federal contractor working on a construction project from entering
into a project agreement with a union.
President Bush justified this Executive order in many ways. He argued
that he wanted to open up the bidding process. He wanted to reduce
costs. Some of us took note that he made his announcement just a few
days before the Presidential election in 1992 and the fact that
immediately after he issued the Executive order he was endorsed by the
Associated Builders & Contractors, a well-known lobbying group for
nonunion and antiunion construction contractors.
Regardless of his reasons, President Bush and his allies in this body
never tried to suggest that it was unlawful for construction employers
and unions to enter into project agreements.
[[Page S3786]] There is good reason for that, Mr. President. The
National Labor Relations Act specifically and expressly permits
construction employer and construction unions to enter into project
agreements or pre-hire agreements. Permit me to read the relevant
section of the National Labor Relations Act, section 8(f).
(f) [Agreements covering employees in the building and
construction industry] It shall not be an unfair labor
practice under subsections (a) and (b) of this section for an
employer engaged primarily in the building and construction
industry to make an agreement covering employees engaged (or
who, upon their employment, will be engaged) in the building
and construction industry with a labor organization of which
building and construction employees are members (not
established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in
section 8(a) of this Act [subsection (a) of this section] as
an unfair labor practice) because (1) the majority status of
such labor organization has not been established under the
provisions of section 9 of this Act [section 159 of this
title] prior to the making of such agreement, or (2) such
agreement requires as a condition of employment, membership
in such labor organization after the seventh day following
the beginning of such employment or the effective date of the
agreement, whichever is later, or (3) such agreement requires
the employer to notify such labor organization of
opportunities for employment with such employer, or gives
such labor organization an opportunity to refer qualified
applicants for such employment, or (4) such agreement
specifies minimum training or experience qualifications for
employment or provides for priority in opportunities for
employment based upon length of service with such employer in
the industry or in the particular geographical area:
Provided, That nothing in this subsection shall set aside the
final proviso to section 8(a)(3) of this Act [subsection
(a)(3) of this section]: Provided further, That any agreement
which would be invalid, but for clause (1) of this
subsection, shall not be a bar to a petition filed pursuant
to section 9(c) or 9(e) [section 159(c) or 159(e) of this
title].
In sum, President Bush's Executive Order No. 12818 not only
prohibited an otherwise legal practice. It prohibited a practice
specifically and expressly protected by the National Labor Relations
Act.
Let us contrast that decision by President Bush with this decision by
President Clinton. This Executive order would prohibit Federal
contractors from permanently replacing lawfully striking employees.
Nowhere in the National Labor Relations Act is there any express
language that gives employers a right to permanently replace lawful
strikers.
Further, Congress has never spoken on this issue. My distinguished
colleague from Texas stated on the floor of this Body yesterday that
the Senate had rejected legislation that would have prohibited the use
of permanent replacements. Once again, the Senator is simply and
plainly wrong.
This body never got the chance to vote on the striker replacement
legislation. A majority of Senators were ready to enact a bill that
prohibited all employers from using permanent replacements. But a
handful of Senators from the other side of the aisle filibustered that
legislation. They never permitted it to come to a vote. Mr. President,
that happened not once, but twice.
So, Mr. President, the fact is that there is a precedent for this
Executive order. The fact is that this Executive order is well within
the President's authority--an authority that Congress has specifically
delegated to the President in our procurement laws. The fact is that
this amendment interferes with the President's ability to serve as our
Federal Government's Chief Executive Officer and in that role to assure
that the taxpayers get the quality goods and services they deserve in a
timely way from reliable Federal contractors.
So here we had an action by a former President trying to effectively
override the existing statute with an Executive order and we did not
hear really the complaint at that time about the use of the executive
powers compared to issuing of the Executive order at the present time
which takes into consideration the very substantial and I find
overwhelming evidence as to what is happening in contracting in our
country with the use of the permanent striker replacements and the real
danger that that presents to the administration or to the taxpayers in
terms of both the quality and the on-time delivery and the efficiency
of the various products.
I think, when you examine that, you will see the justification, the
legal justification and I think the commonsense justification, for the
issuing of that particular proposal.
Mr. President, we heard during the course of the debate yesterday
another point that was made, those points being made about why are we
doing this; why are we taking this action? Are we really not looking
out after some special interests when the President issues this
particular order?
I took the time to review some of the stories where the permanent
striker replacements have been actually used and put in place to try
and get some context for the issuing of this order and what it really
is all about in human terms.
What I have just put in the Record is the memorandum from the Justice
Department that details the legality of this action, looking at
statutes and legal precedents. I have also included memoranda and
studies that have been done in analyzing what has happened at a number
of companies that have used permanent striker replacements and I have
referred to other studies.
But I think it is appropriate, Mr. President, to really take a look
at who these people are that are being affected, whose lives are being
affected and families are being affected by the permanent striker
replacements.
I would like to just take a moment or two to discuss different
situations where permanent striker replacements have been used and
quote from some letters from some of those individuals so we get some
idea as to what we are talking about here this afternoon, who is really
being benefited, whose lives will be affected and whose will not by
this action.
Mr. President, there has been a bitter strike going on in California
that illustrates many of the points that we have been making about the
effects of an employer's decision to permanently replace its strikers.
The strike at Diamond Walnut pitted a small group of determined women,
many working at or near the minimum wage, struggling for dignity
against an employer that sought to cut their wages and eliminate their
jobs.
When these workers went out on strike, the company permanently
replaced them. The workers' lives were ruined in many cases, and their
families suffered without money, without health insurance, without the
certainty of knowing when they would next have a steady, reliable
source of income.
If this Executive order had been in effect, Mr. President, Diamond
Walnut would not have been able to make this ruthless decision to
discard workers--many of whom had worked for the company for 10 or 20
years--without itself suffering the threat of losing millions of
dollars in contracts with the Federal Government.
The Federal Government had contracts with this company in terms of
helping and assisting in the export of millions and millions of dollars
of its products overseas.
Here we have the American taxpayers' funds being used to help and
assist this company that has been exploiting its workers.
And that is really the issue. It is whether the Federal Government
will halt the additional kinds of benefits that it is going to give to
various companies that are committed toward the hiring of the permanent
striker replacements. If they are not--even the majority of the other
companies, they are not going to be affected or impacted--but we have
to ask ourselves if they are going to do that, whether we ought to be
benefiting them through various kinds of Federal contracts.
Permit me to tell some of the stories of the workers and their
families that have been devastated by Diamond Walnut's decision to
permanently replace these strikers. These are the people President
Clinton promised to stand up for.
Benny Pacheko was with Diamond for 5 years as a mechanic. Since the
strike, he has been going financially backward. He is terribly afraid
of losing everything, having to sell all of his assets because he
cannot afford insurance premiums.
He writes, ``The mental stress is horrendous. I feel I can't maintain
what I have. All I have worked and saved for is going down the drain.''
[[Page S3787]] Benny is on disability due to an industrial accident
while working for Diamond. He cannot get a job because of the effects
of the accident.
``Thanks,'' he writes, ``from the bottom of my heart for being
considerate and understanding of the situation.''
And he talks about how difficult it is to face life every single day.
Dorothy Granger was a lift driver for 13 years. This is not a
traditional job for women. It is not easy finding work when you are
over 30 and the work you do is usually done by men. Companies would
rather hire a man for the job. It is what they are used to. Of course,
they will not tell you that.
The strike is really affecting me financially. Bills are
piling up and there's no money to pay them. I need my job. My
husband and I are without medical insurance and I pray that
nothing goes wrong.
Here is Gladys White, 47 years old. She started at Diamond in 1973 as
a production worker. After 7 years, she begged to be moved to another
area. The solvents Diamond used had burned her lungs and had given her
headaches constantly. She got her transfer, although she was upbraided
for having an active imagination. The chemicals could not possibly have
caused her to fall ill, or so her supervisors and company nurses said.
But her health continued to deteriorate and in 1989 she was diagnosed
with sarcodosis, fibrosis, and tuberculosis. She went out on
disability.
The strike caused her to lose her health benefits. She has to be on
medication which costs $100 per month. She has been denied Social
Security disability.
My children try to help me, but it is a hardship for them.
I am living with them as I cannot afford to live alone.
And she wants to thank those that are interested in her case.
This is another worker named Rachael.
I was a production worker with Diamond Walnut for 13 years.
I have always worked hard and am self-supporting. I have
tried looking for another job, but my age is holding me back.
People don't want to hire those of us over 40.
Being on strike is so stressful. It takes a terrible toll
on a person, both mentally and physically. I do not know what
will happen from day to day. Without medical insurance I am
frightened all the time that I will get sick and have no way
to pay for medical treatment and end up losing everything to
the State.
Here is another fellow.
Raul, a single father who was with Diamond Walnut for 11 years. He
was counting on accrued time to turn into a nice retirement in another
8 to 10 years.
``I'm starting over,'' he says, ``and I'm too old to start over. I'm
an electrician and there are lots of openings for electricians out
there. But when they come up it is only for one or two positions, and
there are hundreds of applications. My age hasn't seemed to be a
problem, but then that isn't something they'd tell me to my face.''
Meanwhile, he has cashed in his life insurance and his savings bonds.
His son was working but has been laid off. His daughter, still in high
school, is working as many hours as possible. Her dreams of going to
college are on the shelf now.
That is what hurts the most. I wanted so much to be able to
help her through school. Now, even if she goes to State-
funded community college, I can't afford to buy her books.
But we're doing okay. We take each day as it comes. We have
each other.
Ray Barbaza, a lift driver, worked his way up to that position over a
period of 12 years. Sole supporter of his family.
The loss of benefits hit us hard. One time this last year
we were all sick. I had to apply for MedCal. That was
embarrassing enough, but my son requires special medication
and I had to go through every department they could find and
get their ``seal of approval.'' They made me feel like trash.
Now I know how the homeless feel, having to throw dignity
away and picking up the food basket. People should be
productive and have pride in their ability, and take care of
their own, but when you need help you swallow your
humiliation and do what you have to do.
The stories go on, Mr. President. This was a plant where these
workers took reduction of their pay when the company was facing a
difficult circumstance. Profits then went up dramatically. They tried
to get some recovery in terms of their wages and were permanently
replaced. The Federal Government comes and helps to assist the
companies. They are making dramatic profits. What has happened
effectively is most of the workers have been replaced, and those that
had been working over a lifetime for those companies are now facing a
very grim future indeed.
Mr. President, I have some letters here that have been sent to our
Secretary of Labor, who has been so involved in this issue, as well as
in the minimum wage issues and other issues affecting working men and
women in this country. He will go down in history, I think, as one of
the really extraordinary Secretaries of Labor.
He has received a number of letters from men and women, because they
understand how committed he is to their well-being. Secretary Reich has
been kind enough to share three letters that tell the stories of three
families that have suffered because a Federal contractor has used the
taxpayers' money to permanently replace its striking workers.
This is on the Bridgestone/Firestone issue. Here is a letter to Mr.
Reich, from Steve Barber.
I wrote you a letter a few months ago when my URW local 713
went out on strike after negotiations with Bridgestone/
Firestone failed. Since then I have been permanently replaced
by replacement workers. I have a wife and four children; two
children are still at home, we support a daughter in her
first year away at college, and our oldest son is serving his
country in the U.S. Army.
At age 45, after almost 23 years at Bridgestone/Firestone,
everything I've worked for is gone. As I walked picket this
cold Superbowl night, I saw many young people leaving the
plant. They now have my job. My advice to them: Do not start
a family, do not get a 30-year mortgage on a home, do not
count on retirement or a long-range future with that company.
For someday, possibly sooner than in my case, for one reason
or another, you, too, will be used and discarded like a paper
plate, your youth spent entirely for nothing.
I was discarded because I believed I had a legal right to
strike in this land of the free and the home of the brave. I
was discarded because I belong to a labor union and don't
believe in giving up my hard won rights, and I won't cross
over into what is now a nonunion plant.
The past 7 months I have hoped and prayed this dispute
would be fairly resolved. I appreciate the support you,
President Clinton and the many other Senators and
Congresspeople have given us in trying to find a just
solution to this situation. All I ask in closing is that you
and President Clinton use any and all the powers at your
disposal to end this senseless disruption that has changed
and ruined the lives of my family, my fellow workers and my
community.
And here is a second letter:
Dear Mr. Reich: I am writing to you regarding the
Bridgestone/Firestone strike that has been ongoing for the
past 6 months. My father is employed by the company, and he
is a good father who has always been there for his children.
However, he is a very proud man who would find it difficult
to ask for help. I, on the other hand, am more than willing
to do so.
The recent development of Bridgestone/Firestone threatening
to fire all of the striking employees and permanently replace
them has hit our entire family extremely hard. Although I and
my brother and sister are grown and on our own, my father is
nearing retirement and greatly needs to know that he will be
financially secure in his golden years.
We are of the working class and do not have the luxury of
worrying about such things as capital gains tax cuts or
upper-class frills.
Needless to say how appropriate this letter is to read, today, after
what we saw the House Ways and Means Committee do yesterday in terms of
proposing the special consideration for capital gains, the benefits for
which will go to the wealthiest individuals in this country. It is
interesting we are debating this issue here that involves men and women
who are workers trying to make a go of it to bring up their children,
to pay their taxes, and to work, and here we are on the other side of
the building where we meet this afternoon, just 24 hours ago, seeing
proposed very substantial, effectively giveaways, to some of the more
fortunate wealthiest individuals in our country.
Now, I get back to the letter.
Needless to say, we will not receive tax credits for laptop
computers. My mother, my siblings, and myself are all
teachers with a strong work ethic.
This is what this whole issue is about. This is about teachers. It is
about workers, workers' families, about their children. It is about
people that want to be a part of the whole American system.
However, I now fear all that my father has worked for
during the largest portion of his life will be ripped away
from him.
[[Page S3788]] I know you are aware of this problem as I
heard you explain on television that the Government cannot
force Bridgestone/Firestone to settle with the union;
however, I do feel there is much that can be done. The
Government does not have to take a strictly hands off policy
as they did not do this with either the Chrysler or savings
and loan bailouts. In this case, economic pressures would
certainly be a good motivator. Neither our Government nor its
citizens should do business with a company who would
permanently replace its legally striking work force, nor
should they be legally allowed to do so.
There it is, Mr. President. This company wanted to go out and get the
permanent striker replacements, so be it. All that the Executive order
is saying is that they are not going to get additional business. We are
not going to use additional kinds of taxpayers' funds to help assist
this company. It has made that judgment. That is what this issue is all
about, in order that we will protect the outcomes of the products that
are being purchased by the Federal Government, and make sure that they
will be top of the line, good products, made by a well-trained and
well-disciplined work force.
The letter continues:
I am pleading with you to assist us in our fight which may
now seem hopeless in the wake of the November elections. On
the other hand, my father always says, ``You can't gain
anything worthwhile without a struggle--this country was born
in a struggle!'' I urge you to aid us in our struggle until a
resolution to this strike is reached and until a law is
passed that will protect all striking workers in the future
from being replaced.
After all, union members should not be persecuted for
standing up for what they believe in and going out on a
legal strike. Striking is one of the few acts of leverage
that union members have to be heard.
That is from Marilana Hurst.
Here is just one other item to the Secretary, a short letter:
The American factory worker desperately needs help.
I need your help.
After 26-plus years, I have been permanently replaced by
Bridgestone/Firestone at the Decatur, Illinois facility, for
no apparent reason.
I have a factory-related permanent injury but it in no way
affected my position as mold change/cleaner setup person.
Since Bridgestone bought our plant we have given scores of
concessions, including * * *.
And he mentions some of the health plan givebacks.
Our total efforts as union members at 3 of the Bridgestone/
Firestone plants have made them some of Bridgestone's most
profitable plants, with Decatur, Illinois, Firestone Tire the
most profitable tire plant Bridgestone had in the world in
1993 according to their own books.
These are companies that have had enormous success, incredible
profits. This is what we are talking about, the extraordinary
phenomenon that has taken place in this country over the period of
these last several years where we have had record profits from so many
of the companies, for the companies and for individuals. Yet, the
people who have not participated in that kind of enhancement of our
economy are the men and women who are out there working on the
frontline.
They are the ones who, in many instances, have given their lives to
companies and plants and factories and then are being discarded. There
are two kind of employers, as we all understand. There are those who
believe that the workers are an asset, that they should be trained,
respected, and be a part of an enterprise with the idea that they are
going to commit themselves to that enterprise and that enterprise is
going to grow and expand.
This morning at a forum we held on increasing the minimum wage, we
heard the extraordinary story of Mr. Curry, who owns three hardware
stores on the south shore of Massachusetts, and is able to compete with
the biggest operations in the country. He starts his people off at $10
an hour for a minimum wage with decent benefits. He does not have the
turnover; he does not have to expend the money to train more people. He
has good workers. He does not have absenteeism. He does not have the
sick days that other companies have, and he provides a savings
incentive also.
A number of those people who have worked there 5 and 6 years now have
savings of $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, which they never imagined in the
past. They are good workers. He has virtually no turnover, and had a
38-percent increase in sales last year, is able to do a job, and
respects every one of the workers. He is not discarding them, throwing
them out after a lifetime of dedication and commitment and work.
All we are saying is, if you are going to do that, Mr. Corporation,
if you are going to do that, Mr. Executive, if you are going to treat
your people like that, we do not want to support that with American
taxpayers' money. We do not want to do it, not just because we do not
want to, but because what we see when we do is more disruption, poor
quality, poor productivity, and poor turnout on many of these items.
That is what is unacceptable.
I welcome the fact that the President is looking out after the issues
of quality and productivity and output, particularly with regard to the
areas of greatest need, and that is in the area of national security
and defense.
As I mentioned yesterday, we produce in my own State of Massachusetts
at General Electric the engines for the F-15's, F-16's, F-18's, the
advance fighter, and many of the best helicopter engines, as well. We
want to make sure that the servicemen and women who are flying those
planes are going to have the best in terms of the skills of workers who
know how to build those engines, not permanent replacements for a few
bucks cheaper an hour. I want to make sure that those men and women who
are going to be flying in those planes and using weapons to defend
their lives are going to have the very best. I am not prepared to take
chances on it. That is what this is all about.
The letter I read was from Glen Buckner of Decatur, IL.
Mr. President, I will have other letters as well, but the point, I
think, has been made, and that is that what we are basically talking
about are the interests of working families. We hear so easily bantered
around, ``Well, this is special-interest legislation for special-
interest groups.'' You have heard who these people are. They are the
men and women who are on Main Street, USA, who are the backbone of this
country, and have built this Nation and made it the industrial power
that it is. They are the ones committed and dedicated and loyal to
their companies and to their corporations and who are trying, after
they have tightened their belts and worked with company officials in
order that the companies survive, to be able to participate in the
expansion of the market--oh, no; oh, no; that is not possible.
That has been the record across this country. That has been the
record across this country over the period of the last 12 or 15 years.
That is something that has been a new phenomenon, and that is why it is
important as well that we have this particular action.
Finally, Mr. President, having addressed both the legality of the
President's position and the rationale for the issuance of this
Executive order, I reviewed briefly today, along with my colleagues,
Senator Simon, Senator Harkin yesterday, Senator Moseley-Braun, and
many others who have talked, the citizens who are really affected by
it. We now hopefully know who are the ones being impacted, and they are
the families across this country, hard-working men and women. These are
workers. They are the ones who are prepared to work the 40 hours a
week, the 52 weeks of the year. These are the ones who are trying to
educate their kids, trying to make sure their parents are going to live
in some peace, some respect, and some dignity, and are facing the
various pressures from all sides, particularly in these past weeks, I
might add, that are threatening their lives or their families' lives.
That is why I think it is really extraordinary, as I mentioned
yesterday, why it is that after we in this Congress spent a number of
weeks debating the unfunded mandates issue, which we should and we did,
and reached a conclusion on that, and then debated for a series of
weeks the whole issue on the balanced budget and the changes in the
Constitution and we have debated that and we reached some judgment and
decisions, extremely important measures that we have been focusing on
and addressing. There may be Members who agree and differ, but
nonetheless the level and the nature of that debate and discussion was
clearly motivated by individuals who were pursuing a national interest.
The next measure--the next measure--that we are debating on the floor
of the U.S. Senate is not how we are going to enhance the quality of
life of
[[Page S3789]] working families in this country; not what we are going
to do about the children in this Nation, the increased numbers living
in poverty; not what we are going to do about those young teenagers,
not about how we are going to enhance their possibilities in schools
and education; not about the children of working families trying to
work their way through college; we are not even talking this afternoon
about the security in the communities of these working families; we are
not talking about the air they breathe; we are not talking about the
water they drink; we are not talking about the quality of life of their
parents. No, what we are talking about this afternoon is how we are
going to diminish their economic power in being able to fight for a
decent wage to provide for their families.
That is what we are debating here. We debated it yesterday, and we
are debating it today. We are going to be debating it on Monday. We are
going to have a cloture vote on that to see how we can jam, how we can
squeeze, how we can pressure down the economic rights of working men
and women. That is what we are debating here.
As I mentioned the other day, at the end of the debate today, who
among us is going to go on back to their house and say, ``Look, I did
something in the U.S. Senate today that is going to give a little more
hope to children, to a mother in terms of a day-care program.
We are not going to be able to do all the things we want, but we are
going to do a little something. It is going to be better tomorrow or
the next day.'' Or, ``I am going to do something to strengthen the
quality of education.'' Who is going to leave here tonight believing
that? Or, ``I am going to do something that is going to mean greater
economic good for the workers of the country.'' Who is going to do it?
No one is going to do it.
What we are going to do, some of us, is go back and say that we tried
to work for working men and women against an overwhelming onslaught
that somehow believes we are out of skew in terms of the power of the
working people.
I am on the Human Resources Committee. What have we been facing over
the period of the last week? Repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act. Let us go
ahead and repeal that act. Who benefits from the Davis-Bacon Act? The
average income for working families is $27,000 a year for some of the
toughest work in this country, working in construction--$27,000 a year.
What in the world have we got against working families that are
making $27,000 a year? Is that what is ringing across this country, we
have to undermine their ability to make that amount of money? Is that
what people are crying about? Not in my State of Massachusetts.
We are trying to diminish their ability by the changing of just the
prevailing wages. Maybe there are suggestions and ideas of how to make
it more efficient. Maybe it has to be adjusted to eliminate paperwork.
That is fine. We have had hours of hearings on that.
We have had hours of hearings about what they call the 8(a)(2)
provisions of Taft-Hartley. What effectively that means is let us
eliminate the real essence of the Taft-Hartley Act so we can eliminate
company unions. Why? Because of the power, the power that is out there
in the trade union movement?
I have difficulty, in reading my mail, seeing that that is something
of a burning, passionate interest to the people of our State. What they
want is decent jobs with good benefits and a good future and doing
something about violence in the community and strengthening education.
But, oh, no, here we are trying to do something to undermine workers
under Davis-Bacon. We are trying to do something about changing Taft-
Hartley laws, about the power, the power of workers, trying to
represent economic interests of working people.
What are we saying? It is all out there. That is part of the things
we have been doing in January and February. And then in the meantime
what are we doing about the children of these working families? Well, I
will tell you what we are doing. We are cutting back on giving any kind
of day care support to families. We are cutting right back on that. The
families that are trying to make it, both parents trying to work,
needing a little day care, we are cutting back on that program.
And then we have a son or daughter that we would like to be able to
help, because we live in a major city, to make sure that kid over the
course of the summer, for those parents who are working hard to keep
them in school, make sure you try to keep them out of trouble. Oh, no,
we are cutting all the summer jobs programs, not only for this summer
but the summer beyond that. We cannot wait to do that. Cut that out,
too. Cut that out, too.
So now we have done that. And just by the way, if you happen to have
a child, because you are out there working, who happens to get into a
good community college or State college, you have, as in my State, the
highest public college tuition in the country under my Governor. We had
an excellent university system. In those budget cuts, we are sticking
it in Massachusetts to college students with higher fees and higher
tuition. So we are No. 3 in the country in terms of the costs going up.
But we are not satisfied at what has happened up there. We are going
to say that anyone who borrows the money is going to have to also pay
the interest for that borrowing while they are in school. And in the
meantime, you might have the idea you want to work while you are in
school in a work-study program. Who qualifies for work-study programs?
Middle-income working families. We are going to eliminate that as well.
You are going to have to pay more, and we are going to deny you the
opportunity to work while you are going to school.
Mr. President, you have to ask yourself what has happened out there,
what has happened across our society, that we are declaring war? That
is what this is. We will have seen battlegrounds in countries that have
been at war that will be not as adversely impacted as what we are doing
to working families, to their children, the very small.
I have not even mentioned cutting back on the WIC programs. I have
not even mentioned cutting back on the school lunch programs, cutting
back in terms of special education for economically disadvantaged,
cutting back on their teachers. We have not even talked about that out
here.
So not only are we diminishing the power of those who are attempting
to work and want to work--two members of that family--we are after
their children, the very small, the most vulnerable, those in their
early teens who may need that opportunity to begin working when they
are 13, 14, and 15 in programs that bring together the public and
private sectors in extraordinarily cooperative ways as they have done
in Boston, MA, the great, great cooperation in the public and private
sector, as they have in education with the Boston compact that
basically says to any kid that is able to gain entrance into college,
they are prepared to raise the funds to augment and supplement that
program so that kid can go on into school and college, the public and
private sector working together. We are drawing that right on back. We
are unraveling it, pulling the threads on those kinds of agreements and
contracts.
On a Friday afternoon, with the American public as concerned as they
are about the state of our economy, with more hopeful news today as we
have seen unemployment go down across our Nation with some 350,000 new
jobs which have been created, we are out here now talking about how we
are going to undermine the working families.
Mr. President, I have not even mentioned the suggestions that have
been made, as I look over and see my friend and colleague from West
Virginia, who has been such an advocate on the health care issue, I
have not even mentioned the kind of concern that must be out there for
all of our senior citizens when they read the articles in the newspaper
by our friend and colleague, the chairman of the Finance Committee,
talking about the hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts that
they are going to pursue in the period of this Congress that are going
to impact our senior citizens.
And the other side of that, Mr. President, is to do what with them?
Give tax advantages to the wealthiest companies and corporations and
individuals. Now, that is the view that many working men and women must
look at in
[[Page S3790]] terms of where we are in the Congress. It is not a
hopeful picture.
Mr. President, I am sure they are asking why, what did they ever do,
trying to provide for their families, what did they ever do to deserve
that kind of a threat? It is difficult enough, difficult enough, if you
are looking at the real incomes of working families, the working poor,
the lower--the four-fifths effectively, most dramatically in the three-
fifths of our various tax filings, but almost four-fifths that have
been constantly going down, constantly falling further behind.
Here we are out on the floor of the Senate with a proposal which says
that if the company is going to have permanent strike replacements, we
are not going to give them additional kinds of Federal largesse. And we
have those who are so antiworker they are prepared to hold up the
defense appropriations bill and to have us spending days here, which I
welcome the opportunity to do, to speak for the working families. But
we take up the time of the Senate to do it.
Mr. President, it just is unwise to attempt to tamper with the
justification, legality, or public policy purpose for the President's
Executive order. I will look forward to having more to say about it
later in the debate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Santorum). The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I just listened, as I always do, very
closely to my friend, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, and not
only identify myself with what he says but the compassion with which he
says it, and the persistence. He never quits. There is no Senator in
this body or in the recent history of this body who ever fought so hard
for so many things so constantly, whatever the hour, the day or the
night, than the senior Senator from Massachusetts.
He has been talking a lot because not enough of us have come down to
the floor to help him. You can hear the hoarseness in his voice. I have
heard cracks in his voice, and they have been when he has spoken at the
funerals of, most recently, his mother, and to mourn the death of his
two brothers, Robert and John. I heard cracks in his voice then. He did
his best to prevent that, and then, at the end, could not quite avoid
it. And I think we all sort of wanted that to happen so we could share
in his grief.
But if you hear cracks in his voice now it is because he is fighting
just for what they would fight for. But he is tired. His voice is
tired, but his spirit is not. I respect him.
There is a fellow sitting next to him by the name of Nick Littlefield
who ought to be a Senator in this body from somewhere. He is Senator
Kennedy's chief of staff and he is everywhere where he needs to be. His
optimism and his fighting spirit is matched, obviously, by the man with
whom he works. But there is not any good cause or battle that Nick
Littlefield will stay away from. So with the two of them on this floor
all by themselves except for the junior Senator from West Virginia, I
am proud to be down here this afternoon.
That is not to say I do not have a great deal of respect for the
Presiding Officer who, I expect if he wanted to mix it up, would do
pretty well, too. Although I suspect we might be on different sides on
this particular issue.
Mr. President, everything he said is true, I might say to the senior
Senator from Massachusetts. I hope that come next Sunday he will see
1,000 children bused in from all over this country, being fed by
Members of the Congress--dinner, lunch--and then joining hands with
Members of Congress, literally surrounding the Capitol. Literally hands
around the Capitol--little children and children not so young--but all
children who are about to have their hot lunches taken away or their
breakfasts taken away or something else taken away from them by the
zeal that exists around here to cut back on what is necessary for some
people in our country to survive and to live while finding ways to
increase the wealth of some of us who, frankly, do not need a whole lot
more.
It is all very perplexing to me. I grew up in one party, the
Republican Party. I became a Democrat at the time that President John
F. Kennedy was President because I worked in the Peace Corps. Then I
worked for the State Department, then VISTA. But over these past couple
of months, this period of time alone has made me understand--not that I
had to--why I did what I did and became a Democrat.
Because we are talking about lives at stake in the matter of this
Kassebaum amendment. We are talking about situations where I myself
have seen families torn apart.
Probably one of the most famous examples of strikers being replaced--
at least in the recent years, and maybe not the most famous, but the
most famous to me--took place in West Virginia, at a place called
Ravenswood Aluminum. It lasted a year and a half. It was terribly
bitter. It was terribly dangerous. It was so dangerous that people
wanted to stay away from the area.
The Ravenswood story is about people of West Virginia who are not
necessarily born with a silver spoon when they are born. They have to
work. So when Ravenswood locked out its own workers, and replaced them
with something called permanent replacements, we literally saw
situations in families with a striker-replacer brother and a striking
brother; or brother/sister, in the same household. Husband/wife;
brother/sister; uncle/nephew. Those scars still exist, and the anger
and what it did to that community have not yet fully healed.
I gave a speech there not long ago. That community has not yet
recovered. That is what they still talk about and the crisis was
several years ago.
So I associate myself with what my friend from Massachusetts has
said. I also want to note the irony, which I think he perhaps raised
before but I did not hear it, and that is the irony that the Kassebaum
amendment is holding up a package before us to reduce the deficit and
supplement the Defense Department.
Let me start by emphasizing that this question posed by Senator
Kassebaum's amendment is clearly stalling the passage of a bill which
has enormously broad support for very obvious reasons. The Kassebaum
amendment has slowed down a bill that would cut the Federal deficit by
$1.5 billion as soon as it is signed into law. I do not know how long
it takes to print up a bill and send it over to the White House, but I
expect it could be by Monday or Tuesday. The President would sign it
and the deficit would go down $1.5 billion as a result.
We have been here for the last several weeks and month or more
debating deficit reduction. How to do it, by an amendment to the U.S.
Constitution? Or by human endeavor?
The Kassebaum amendment has slowed down a bill that will make our
military forces more capable of dealing with national security
emergencies or dangers, which is something not only folks on this side
of the aisle talk about, but almost to a person the folks on that side
talk about constantly. This will not happen for as long as this
amendment prevents it from happening.
So let us be very sure that the American people understand what is in
fact going on, on this floor. A week and 1 day ago, 28 Senators put
together this bill, to both replenish critical parts of the budget for
the Defense Department and cut Government spending in order to reduce
the deficit. We could have passed that bill yesterday. Everybody was
here. It is hard to do that today because very few people are here. We
could have appointed Senate negotiators to work out the final details
with the House. They could have met over the weekend. I expect they
would have met over the weekend. They would have been meeting today.
They probably could have reached an agreement today--and seen the
Federal deficit come down as a result, after the President's pen struck
the bill and signed his name.
But instead we have an effort to strengthen our military forces and
to cut Government spending being held up by this amendment that has
absolutely nothing to do with either of these critical objectives.
I find that ironic, I have to say. I just find that ironic. It is
incredible to me to see this impasse over a deficit reduction bill
after every single Senator on the other side of the aisle, except for
one lone voice, who some want to drive from his party, spent more than
a
[[Page S3791]] month demanding the passage of a constitutional
amendment because they felt so clearly that there could be no other way
to reduce the deficit.
The fervor on the other side of the aisle over the balanced budget
debate was remarkable. There was an awesome display of unity and
singlemindedness. Once again, we are seeing proof that the balanced
budget amendment is a very different matter than actually cutting
Government waste. It is one thing to talk about it. It is another thing
to do it--it's another thing to actually take tangible, real steps to
cut that budget deficit. We are ready to do it. So if my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle are so determined to really deal with the
deficit, then why are they throwing up roadblocks to this amendment,
which is an Executive order of substantial simplicity, which I will get
into in a moment?
The Senate, although I suspect we could convince very few Americans
of it, particularly when we do things like this, is not a political
convention. It is supposed to be the place where we use our powers, our
brains, our judgment, our convictions to get important work done.
I thought we had agreed on the need for this bill before us. In fact,
28 Senators last week, by a unanimous vote in the Appropriations
Committee, did agree on that. That is where I understand 28 Senators to
be--Republicans and Democrats--unanimous in their support for this
bill. All the Senators who voted for this bill agreed that military
readiness and deficit reduction should take priority over everything
else that could take place during the course of this week. Nothing
transcended that in importance, a proper judgment by both political
parties.
But I guess that is not the case with some of our colleagues. I guess
I am wrong. Instead, we have to burn up time talking about an amendment
that tries to stop the President from doing something that is quite
simple, that deserves support from both business and working families.
The President's Executive order, which this amendment attacks and
seeks to defeat, is an effort to impose a basic condition on Federal
contracts that by definition are financed by American taxpayers. We are
not even talking about totally private arrangements. The condition in
the Executive order says that businesses that want Federal contracts--
and there is no law saying that a business has to seek Federal
contracts--should not be ones that deal with valid, legal labor
disputes by hiring workers to permanently replace their own employees.
The President's Executive order does not take away a business'
ability to hire temporary replacements when dealing with a dispute. I
repeat: If there is a labor dispute or a strike, a business can hire
temporary workers for the duration of the dispute or the strike. And,
therefore, this order does not expect a business to stop production.
This order does not expect to close one iota of anybody's operations
down or do anything to lose one dime of business. It simply upholds the
principle that when the law--that is, the Federal law--gives workers a
right to collectively bargain, or the right to protest conditions or
practices, then employers do not have the right to punish those workers
by eliminating their jobs for good.
That is not very complicated. I do not think that is particularly
difficult to swallow. In fact, it was something that was fairly broadly
accepted in the business community until all of a sudden it suddenly
became an issue because some people wanted to make it one, and it has
been one ever since.
So we have these votes more or less on an annual basis. We have a
Federal law that gives workers the right to collectively bargain. That
is established fact in this country. Some people like that. Some people
do not like that. But that is the law. And it is available to anyone
who collectively bargains.
They have the right to protest conditions. Well, I work in a State,
and so do the rest of us, where conditions are not what they ought to
be in a few places. Since all of us here in the collective body politic
tend to get around our States a great deal, visiting plants and
facilities, we see situations like this unless we close our eyes. We
see situations like this. It is not very often, but we do see them and
we do know that in our hearts. We know that.
So if workers lawfully and legitimately protest unsafe conditions or
practices, then employers do not have the right to punish those workers
by permanently eliminating their jobs. Replace the workers while the
dispute is going on, that is permissible. Operations do not cease.
Profits do not cease.
If you come to West Virginia and you have 100 job offers--at a Rite-
Aid Drugstore or somewhere else--you will get 1,000 to 1,500
applicants, Mr. President. I suspect in some parts of the State of the
Presiding Officer, that is true, too. It is uplifting in one way. It is
just incredibly sad in another. People are so hungry to work that 1,500
people turn out for 50 jobs, jobs that often do not offer any health
benefits. But they are jobs and they are better than not having jobs,
and people want to work in both the State of Pennsylvania and the State
of West Virginia. So people turn up.
This Executive order does not and cannot prohibit permanent
replacements in all labor disputes. It simply says to businesses that,
if you want to benefit from Federal contracts paid for by the
taxpayers, you need to uphold certain standards, standards long
established, long followed, long not disputed, accepted until all of a
sudden they became an issue. The American people are constantly telling
us they want Congress to get their money's worth when taxes are spent
on Government programs and contracts and benefits.
Mr. President, I would argue that the Executive order is designed to
do exactly that. Look at the research. It is a fact. Strikes involving
permanent replacements last seven times longer than strikes that do not
involve permanent replacements. So that is seven times more grief and
economic and personal and family and community agony that need not be.
Those are the facts.
If there are permanent replacements, the strikes, the worker
disputes, the worker-management disputes will go on seven times longer.
Strikes involving permanent replacement workers tend to be much more
hostile, much more painful for both sides, and often turn what could be
a fairly brief period of disagreement and negotiation into a much
longer and often, I am sorry to say, violent impasse: gunshots, attacks
on the roads, baseball bats, intimidation from both sides.
Permanently replacing striking employees can mean trading in
experienced, skilled workers for inexperienced men and women. It does
not have to mean that. It does not always mean that. But it can mean
that. That is not to the advantage of anyone either, particularly if
the business wants to continue to make a profit, to do well, and to
compete on an international basis.
Mr. President, asking businesses that want Federal contracts to
resist dealing with labor-management disputes in ways that are more
costly, in ways that are more contentious and contrary to the principle
of collective bargaining and cooperation, is not something that should
be holding up a deficit reduction and military readiness bill, in this
Senator's opinion.
I suggest to all of my colleagues that it is not in anybody's
interest to struggle over the issue of replacement workers with so much
blustering conflict amongst ourselves. Congress should be encouraging
cooperation and doing everything we can. That is what all of the study
groups on competitiveness tell us to do. We should encourage
cooperation between both management and labor and between business and
workers. We should treat the idea of collective bargaining as a
friendly and, frankly, a very American concept.
There is nothing wrong, Mr. President, with collective bargaining. It
is the way that people improve their conditions. It has a stark
pattern. I remember going to South Korea 10 years ago. They did not
really have any labor unions in South Korea 10 years ago. As of about 2
or 3 years ago, they had over 3,000. What has happened? Yes, there have
been some incidents, some strikes, and that is natural as a labor union
and a company try to come to terms with each other. Wages have started
to increase, conditions have started to improve. The national wealth of
South Korea is now growing enormously. Japan went through this. I spent
3 years as a university student in Japan, at a time when labor was not
[[Page S3792]] strong, and then it became strong and now Japan has a
higher industrial wage than the United States. The average worker makes
more money there than they do here. And Japan is not particularly known
as a country that is hard to do business with, if you get along with
the Japanese. If you are an American company it could be harder, but
amongst themselves, they do well.
So we should not treat the idea of collective bargaining as some kind
of bizarre concept. It is inherent to the roots of this country and,
quite frankly, I do not know where we would be without it. If half of
this body really wants to encourage employers to resist problem solving
and dispute resolution by hiring permanent replacements, then that is
encouraging more conflict in the workplace and in our communities.
Again, strikes are seven times longer where permanent replacements
become the issue.
As I indicated before, I have great, painful knowledge about what
happens in these situations. If you go to the community of Ravenswood,
WV, a beautiful community in Jackson County, right by the Ohio river,
employers were deciding whether to lock out their own workers, 1,700 of
them--that is an enormous work force in that part of West Virginia--
with permanent replacements. They made that decision. Everybody in West
Virginia, including this Senator, watched the hurt that this labor
dispute caused; it was genuine hurt--this is not a political speech. It
was a genuine hurt within families. Families were just torn apart
because, on the one hand, the need to work, and on the other hand, the
need to play fair. This tore families asunder, and it was real.
Families still do not speak to each other because of this issue. We
watched this for over a year and a half in West Virginia, a State that
can ill afford to have 1,700 people not working because an employer had
the ability to punish its workers this way, and this employer tried
very hard to punish his workers that way. It was violent and it was
scary, and it hurt the image of West Virginia badly. We will never know
how many families might have been saved from financial ruin, if the
employer would have simply dealt with the labor dispute and gotten it
resolved quickly.
Mr. President, I truly do not believe Republicans in the Senate need
to take up the cause of businesses that want the power to punish
workers with something called permanent replacements. We are talking
about a relatively few number of businesses--the relatively few who, in
a strike, will decide to punish in this extreme manner. Sometimes an
employer will take this action during the course of the dispute and
sometimes that will be the purpose of the dispute from the very
beginning--to break the union, or something else. But it is the few. It
is not many. But when it happens, it is awful. So we are not talking
about a typical situation; we are talking about a very untypical
situation. That excessive power simply is not necessary. The Executive
order under attack by the Kassebaum amendment would still retain any
business' lawful ability to bring in temporary workers, while a labor
dispute or strike is getting resolved. But the point is that we should
encourage cooperation, we should encourage resolutions to conflicts.
The Presiding Officer and I both come from States where there is a
lot of coal mining. I can remember the days when, in my State, there
were constant things called ``temporary restraining orders'' going
before judges. Every time there was a dispute at the face of a mine
between a worker and management over some little issue, or some big
issue, the first thing they did--and the parallel is in the tort reform
bill, where I expect the Presiding Officer and I will be on the same
side--the first thing they did was call a lawyer and go to court. Then,
of course, everybody got hostile and anxious, and the dispute went on
forever, and no coal got mined and people did not make money and people
could not put food on the table. The temporary restraining order--
whatever happened in court--would be appealed.
Finally, management and workers decided in the coal industry in our
State to simply say this is ridiculous, we are both losing. They sat
down and worked out a way of working out their disagreements, which was
to say that when a dispute occurred over a working condition or some
rule or something at the face of a mine, which is underground where the
wall of coal is, that the worker and the foreman at that area simply
talked and worked it out right there. They agreed, workers and
management, that this would be the system. I may have to fault my
memory on this, but I think for 8 or 10 years, we had no temporary
restraining orders whatsoever. Mining employers and workers simply
decided that they were going to improve labor-management relations and
they wanted it to work better. They wanted to be able to export coal
which meant Japan, South Korea, and Canada had to depend upon the coal
coming. Therefore, there had to be dependability and consistency that
was in the interest of both workers and management. So they settled
their disputes. I am talking about nothing different here.
But even if there is a situation where there is a labor dispute,
still a company can bring in replacement workers until the dispute is
resolved. The point is, we should encourage the cooperation and
resolutions to conflicts. We should try to prevent painful, costly,
divisive situations that break out--in Ravenswood and the other
communities that have been discussed on the floor over the past day or
so.
Again, I cannot understand why the President of the United States
should not be allowed to condition Federal contracts on practices that
would make us more sure that taxpayers' money would be spent
efficiently. The logic of that, again, is where you do not have
permanent replacements you have much shorter labor disputes by a factor
of 7 and, therefore, money is saved for the taxpayers.
There is a lot of talk on this floor about playing by the rules. This
Senator does some of it and a lot of Senators do some of it. Should not
the President of the United States be able to suggest that businesses
that want Federal contracts play by the rules as well? I mean, is that
not reasonable? It is very obvious from statistics that workers and
their families do not want to resort to strikes. When has there been a
strike that has not been destructive of workers' interests, and
especially in the short term?
People, generally, in this country want to work hard and make a good
income and support their families. People have no choice but to work
hard. But when the rare dispute breaks out, they should not have to
fear the elimination of their jobs just because of a disagreement over
wages or health benefits or safety standards. And I believe that
deeply.
The Kassebaum amendment should be defeated on many grounds. It is a
disruption to the first time this year that this body has finally been
able to do something real about the Federal deficit and Government
spending. The amendment is an effort to take the President's ability
away to set some practical standards on how Federal contracts are given
out. And this amendment will only encourage more labor-management
conflict and strife, and everybody here knows that. If this amendment
prevails there will be more of it which is not in anyone's interest.
I urge my colleagues to put aside the divisive tactics over issues
that have to do with workplace and with relations between business and
workers. Ask the families in Ravenswood, WV, what happened when an
employer is allowed to respond to a labor dispute with permanent
replacements. The answer is pain. The answer is suffering. And it is
all totally unnecessary.
Everyone in the Senate should take a fresh, objective look at this
issue, which is very hard for people to do. The lines are so set on it.
Too many people here stopped actually thinking about this issue long
ago and took positions. And in this case, I think that those who oppose
this would do well to take a fresh look and not think about who is on
the side of business and who is on the side of organized labor and what
kind of points can we build up. That is irrelevant. All 100 of us
should be on the side of cooperation. All 100 of us should be working
to uphold the law that grants workers the right to collectively
bargain. All 100 of us should insist that we get on with the job that
the bill before us is about, which is called reducing the Federal
deficit and increasing our national security.
I feel a special sense of obligation, I say to the Presiding Officer,
because I
[[Page S3793]] voted against the balanced budget amendment. I feel a
special sense of obligation to get about the business of deficit
reduction. I mean, there will be some areas where I will disagree with
the majority, but there will be many areas where I will agree. I feel
an obligation. Reducing the deficit helps the people of my State, too,
in terms of future generations. Just as I think it was wise not to
include, hopefully not to include, Social Security in any budget
balancing effort, because people have a right to retire with dignity
and confidence.
So I hope this amendment will be defeated. I think that is important.
This issue comes up every year and I know it is treated sort of
automatically by both sides. But it is not an automatic issue. It is an
extremely real and personal one. It has to do with the fundamental
rights of people. It is not something which happens that often. We
create more havoc in taking up this fight every year than if we let the
President simply go out and do what Presidents ought to be able to do
in the interest of business and working people.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the
Kassebaum amendment.
I must admit, Mr. President, that in listening to some of the debate
today, I have felt like I am in a time warp. Congress has had this
debate last year, the year before last. We have been here before. And,
in earlier debates on legislation that would have prevented employers
from using permanent replacements during an economic strike, that
legislation did not pass.
Notwithstanding Congress' failure to pass this legislation, it's
back. The President has gone ahead on his own and by Executive order
unilaterally imposed a major overhaul of labor law on Federal
contractors.
I know there has been discussion on the floor on Executive orders
issued by Republican administrations, but there cannot be any doubt
that the current effort is unprecedented: This Executive order does not
uphold existing law--it voids it.
I would urge my colleagues on both sides of labor issues to think
twice about the type of precedent that this creates. This Executive
order relies on the fact that use of replacements purportedly lengthens
labor disputes. Does that mean that our next President can come along
and by Executive order outlaw the right to strike by employees of
Federal contractors?
The Executive order issued this week does not uphold rights
guaranteed under law; it abrogates them. And the President's striker
replacement policy is not merely an exercise of procurement
prerogative, it regulates private labor relations and restricts private
rights guaranteed under law.
I urge all of my colleagues to support Senator Kassebaum's amendment
to withhold funds for this Executive order's implementation and
enforcement.
Mr. DASCHLE. The practice of permanently replacing workers who are
exercising their right to strike, as guaranteed by longstanding Federal
labor law, is wrong. It is wrong to punish striking workers for
exercising their rights, and it is wrong to use replacement workers to
disrupt the collective bargaining process.
Since 1935, the National Labor Relations Act has expressly protected
the right of workers to strike over economic conditions. Moreover, the
act promises workers that they cannot be discharged by their employer
for exercising this right.
Under current interpretations of the law, employers are not violating
the National Labor Relations Act when they hire replacement workers
during a strike and promise to make those positions permanent. Rather,
these employers are taking advantage of a true anomaly in Federal labor
law, one which sets out a dubious distinction between firing a striking
worker and permanently replacing that worker.
To the worker, however, it is of little comfort to know that he or
she has been permanently replaced rather than fired. The result in both
cases is the same, and the right to strike becomes a right to lose your
job.
I believe strongly that the Congress must pass legislation to get rid
of this anomaly in Federal labor law. Unfortunately, a minority of the
Senate was able to block passage of such a bill last year.
Having said that, however, I must emphasize that the President is not
attempting to do by Executive order what Congress was prevented from
doing last year.
There can be no disagreement that our Founding Fathers entrusted
Congress with the power to adopt the laws of the land. To the executive
branch, they assigned the duty of implementing those laws.
If the Executive order issued by President Clinton upset this balance
of power, I would strongly oppose it. But it does not.
Rather than usurping the policymaking role of the Congress, this
Executive order sets out the terms under which the executive branch
will fulfill its own constitutional role.
Implementing the laws passed by Congress involves the procurement of
goods and services by the Federal Government. To do this, the Federal
Government enters into contracts with suppliers, as any business would
do.
In these dealings, the Government wants the same things that
businesses want: a quality product, a reasonable price, dependable
service. And like any business, the Federal Government selects the
suppliers it believes are best able to meet these objectives.
Indeed, with precious taxpayer dollars at stake, I'm sure most
Americans want the Government to do business with only the most stable
and reliable companies.
Are companies that replace their workers during a lawful labor
dispute the most stable and reliable suppliers for the executive
branch? The President--the CEO of the executive branch--has determined
that they are not.
The use or threatened use of permanent replacement workers makes
strained labor-management relations even more contentious. In fact,
disputes involving replacement workers last seven times longer than
disputes that do not.
A company that replaces its workers during an ongoing dispute is
trading in its experienced employees for inexperienced ones. This
necessarily raises questions about the timeliness of delivery and
quality of product these replacement workers will produce.
Should the Federal Government take a gamble on products that might
not be up to snuff? The President has determined that it should not.
let's not forget that NASA and the Defense Department spend a large
percentage of the Federal Government's total procurement dollars. When
it comes to space and defense programs, it is critical that these
dollars go to contractors of the highest caliber.
On the other hand, it must be noted that this Executive order will
not prevent the Defense Department or any other Federal agency from
contracting with the supplier that best fits its needs.
In fact, the order specifically guarantees the flexibility of an
agency to enter into contracts with companies that have been debarred
by the Secretary of Labor if a compelling reason can be shown.
My Republican colleagues are suggesting that President Clinton has
taken an extraordinary step by issuing this Executive order. On the
contrary, Executive orders have been used throughout the years by
Democratic and Republican Presidents alike to set forth important
policies of the Federal Government.
And addressing the issue of labor-management relations in an
Executive order is not new, either. President Reagan did it in 1981
when he permanently banned the striking PATCO members from returning to
their jobs as air traffic controllers.
And President Bush did it twice in 1992 when he issued Executive
orders to prohibit the use of prehire agreements on Federal
construction contracts and to require Federal contractors to post
notices with regard to union membership.
What it comes down to, then, is this: President Clinton has revised
the executive branch's procurement policy--nothing more. And he has
done it in a way that will help ensure that the Federal Government
obtains the best goods and services it possibly can from its suppliers.
[[Page S3794]] If the chairwoman of the Senate Labor Committee
disagrees with this policy, she should introduce legislation to
overturn it.
That bill should be the subject of hearings by her committee and
considered through the normal legislative process, not tacked on to a
supplemental appropriations bill.
The chairwoman is attempting her own end run around the legislative
process. I urge my colleagues to reject this effort and to get down to
business with what is a very important measure to our national defense.
impact of rescission on doe cleanup program
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong concerns
about the impact this rescission will have on DOE's nuclear weapons
cleanup effort. The bill we have on the floor today reduces current
year money for the cleanup program by $100 million. Other amendments
being discussed may add to this cut. And we see where the House energy
and water appropriations bill will reduce this year's funds for the
program by an additional $45 million.
Quite simply, if this trend continues one outcome can be guaranteed.
The cost to the taxpayer to complete the DOE cleanup--over the life of
the program--will increase dramatically. By dragging our heels and
refusing to adequately fund this program, we stretch out the time it
will take and will increase the overall cost--not to mention the
increased risks to workers and the public who may be exposed to
radiation as a result of these delays.
Mr. President, I think it is important to discuss up front what the
DOE cleanup budget is and is not. The majority of DOE's cleanup budget
is dedicated to simply maintaining millions of tons of radioactive
waste and scrap and thousands of contaminated facilities in a
temporarily safe and secure condition while we try to figure out what
to do with this material over the long haul.
Let me repeat that. The majority of the DOE cleanup budget doesn't
actually pay for anything to be cleaned up. The majority of DOE's
cleanup budget pays for things like waste management and nuclear
materials and facilities stabilization. While there are most certainly
ways to reduce these so-called landlord costs--and DOE, under Secretary
O'Leary and Assistant Secretary Grumbly are actively seeking ways to do
just that--these costs simply cannot be wished away, nor reduced
entirely. Only about one-quarter of the cleanup budget pays for
environmental restoration, or actual cleanup.
Mr. President, some of my colleagues may be interested in learning
what the fastest growing part of DOE's environmental budget actually
is. I can tell them what it is not. It is not environmental
restoration. In fact the fastest growing portion of DOE's cleanup
budget is the category of nuclear materials and facilities
stabilization. This category represents costs to maintain closed
nuclear weapons production facilities in a stable mode until their
final decontamination. These costs are often referred to as landlord
costs. They represent administrative costs, utility costs, and unique
safety related costs that are absolutely necessary to maintain whether
the facility is
operating or shutdown. These costs only go off the books when the
facility is finally decommissioned.
Over the last several years, as policy decisions have been made to
shut down these production facilities, these landlord costs have been
transferred to the Environmental Management Program from the Defense
Program within DOE. DOE's fiscal year 1996 budget request illustrates
this process issue vividly. The fiscal year 1996 budget request for the
Environmental Management program includes $843 million to manage former
defense facilities at Savannah River, Mound, and Pinellas which no
longer have a production mission. Prior to this year's budget, these
costs were born by DOE's Defense programs office. Budget cutters should
keep this fact in mind when examining the Environmental Management
budget. The scope of work--the number of facilities, people, and
inventory which must be managed--within the EM program has expanded
dramatically over the past several years.
Mr. President, as many of my colleague may know, my legislative and
oversight work in environment, safety and health issues grew out of my
concern about the condition of our country's nuclear weapon production
complex. Ohio happens to be the location of 3 of the 17 major
facilities in the United States which, over the past 45 years, produced
the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. These 17 facilities are the ones we
usually hear about when we talk about the DOE cleanup program--places
like Fernald, Hanford, Savannah River, Rocky Flats, Los Alamos.
However, many of my colleagues will be interested to find out that
there are literally scores of sites around the country that fall under
DOE's cleanup program. Most of these are associated in some way with
the nuclear weapons program; however, some are associated with the
nuclear navy program and others with energy research activities.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of the Department
of Energy's cleanup sites--some 137 sites located in 34 states--be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
DOE EM SITES
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ST # Location Installation/Site *
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AK-1........................ Amchitka Island.................. Amchitka Island Test Site............ ........
AK-2........................ Cape Thompson.................... Project Chariot...................... C
AZ-1........................ Tuba City........................ Tuba City............................ U/C
AZ-2........................ Monument Valley.................. Monument Valley...................... U
CA-1........................ Berkeley......................... Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory......... ........
CA-2........................ Berkeley......................... University of California............. F/C
CA-3........................ Livermore........................ Lawrence Livermore National ........
Laboratory.
CA-3........................ Livermore........................ Sandia National Laboratories-- ........
Livermore.
CA-5........................ Vallecitos....................... G E Vallecitos Nuclear Center........ ........
CA-6........................ Canoga Park (L.A.)............... Atomics International................ ........
CA-7........................ San Diego........................ General Atomics...................... ........
CA-8........................ Palo Alto........................ Stanford Linear Accelerator Center... ........
CA-9........................ Oxnard........................... Oxnard............................... ........
CA-9........................ Santa Susana..................... Santa Susana Field Laboratory........ ........
CA-9........................ Santa Susana..................... Energy Technology Engineering Center. ........
CA-10....................... Davis............................ Laboratory for Energy-Related Health ........
Research at U.C. Davis.
CA-11....................... Imperial County.................. Salton Sea Test Base................. ........
CO-1........................ Grand Valley..................... Project Rulison Site................. ........
CO-1........................ Rifle............................ Old Rifle............................ U
CO-1........................ Rifle............................ New Rifle............................ U
CO-1........................ Rifle............................ Project Rio Blanco Site.............. ........
CO-2........................ Gunnison......................... Gunnison............................. U
CO-3........................ Jefferson County................. Rocky Flats.......................... ........
CO-4........................ Durango.......................... Durango.............................. U/C
CO-5........................ Grand Junction................... Grand Junction Projects Office Site.. ........
CO-5........................ Grand Junction................... Climax Mill Site..................... U/C
CO-6........................ Maybell.......................... Maybell.............................. U
CO-7........................ Naturita......................... Naturita............................. U
CO-8........................ Slick Rock....................... Union Carbide........................ U
CO-8........................ Slick Rock....................... Old North Continent.................. U
CT-1........................ Seymour.......................... Seymour Specialty Wire............... F/C
CT-2........................ Windsor.......................... Combustion Engineering Site.......... F
FL-1........................ St. Petersburg................... Pinellas Plant....................... ........
FL-1........................ St. Petersburg................... 4.5 Acre Site........................ ........
FL-1........................ Largo............................ Peak Oil Petroleum Refining Plant.... ........
HI-1........................ Kauai............................ Kauai Test Facility.................. ........
IA-1........................ Ames............................. Ames Laboratory...................... ........
ID-1........................ Lowman........................... Lowman............................... U/C
[[Page S3795]]
DOE EM SITES--Continued
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ST # Location Installation/Site *
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ID-2........................ Idaho Falls...................... Idaho National Engineering Laboratory ........
ID-2........................ Idaho Falls...................... Argonne National Laboratory--West.... ........
IL-1........................ Chicago.......................... University of Chicago................ F/C
IL-1........................ Chicago.......................... National Guard Armory................ F/C
IL-2........................ Cook County...................... Site A/Plot M, Palos Forest Preserve. ........
IL-2........................ Batavia.......................... Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ........
IL-2........................ Lemont........................... Argonne National Laboratory--East.... ........
IL-3........................ Granite City..................... Granite City Steel................... F/C
IL-4........................ Madison.......................... Madison.............................. F
KY-1........................ Hillsboro........................ Maxey Flats Disposal Site............ ........
KY-2........................ Paducah.......................... Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant...... ........
MA-1........................ Norton........................... Shpack Landfill...................... F
MA-2........................ Beverly.......................... Ventron.............................. F
MA-3........................ Indian Orchard................... Chapman Valve........................ F
MD-1........................ Curtis Bay....................... W.R. Grace & Co...................... F
MI-1........................ Adrian........................... General Motors....................... F
MO-1........................ Kansas City...................... Kansas City Plant.................... ........
MO-2........................ Hazelwood........................ Latty Avenue Properties.............. F
MO-2........................ St. Charles County............... Weldon Spring Site................... ........
MO-2........................ St. Louis County................. St. Louis Airport Vicinity Properties F
MO-2........................ St. Louis County................. St. Louis Airport Storage Site....... F
MO-2........................ St. Louis........................ St. Louis Downtown Site.............. F
MS-1........................ Hattiesburg...................... Salmon Test Site..................... ........
MT-1........................ Butte............................ Western Environmental Technology ........
Office (WETO).
ND-1........................ Bowman........................... Bowman............................... U
ND-2........................ Belfield......................... Belfield............................. U
NE-1........................ Lincoln.......................... Hallam Nuclear Power Facility........ C
NJ-1........................ Jersey City...................... Kellex/Pierpont...................... F/C
NJ-2........................ Maywood.......................... Maywood Chemical Works............... F
NJ-3........................ Princeton........................ Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.. ........
NJ-4........................ Middlesex........................ Middlesex Municipal Landfill......... F/C
NJ-5........................ Middlesex........................ Middlesex Sampling Plant............. F
NJ-5........................ New Brunswick.................... New Brunswick Laboratory............. F
NJ-6........................ Wayne............................ Wayne................................ F
NJ-7........................ Deepwater........................ Du Pont & Company.................... F
NM-1........................ Albuquerque...................... South Valley Site.................... ........
NM-1........................ Albuquerque...................... Sandia National Laboratories-- ........
Albuquerque.
NM-1........................ Albuquerque...................... Inhalation Toxicology Research ........
Institute.
NM-1........................ Albuquerque...................... Holloman Air Force Base.............. ........
NM-1........................ Los Lunas........................ Pagano Salvage Yard.................. ........
NM-2........................ White Sands MR................... Chupadera Mesa....................... F/C
NM-3........................ Carlsbad......................... Project Gnome-Coach Site............. ........
NM-3........................ Carlsbad......................... Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.......... ........
NM-4........................ Ambrosia Lake.................... Ambrosia Lake........................ U
NM-5........................ Farmington....................... Project Gasbuggy Site................ ........
NM-6........................ Shiprock......................... Shiprock............................. U/C
NM-7........................ Los Alamos....................... Los Alamos National Laboratory....... ........
NM-8........................ Los Alamos....................... Bayo Canyon.......................... F/C
NM-8........................ Los Alamos....................... Acid/Pueblo Canyon................... F/C
NV-1........................ Fallon........................... Project Shoal Site................... ........
NV-2........................ Tonopah.......................... Central Nevada Test Area............. ........
NV-2........................ Nellis AFB....................... Tonopah Test Range................... ........
NV-2........................ Mercury.......................... Nevada Test Site..................... ........
NY-1........................ Buffalo.......................... B&L Steel............................ F
NY-2........................ West Valley...................... West Valley Demonstration Project.... ........
NY-3........................ Tonawanda........................ Seaway Industrial Park............... F
NY-3........................ Tonawanda........................ Ashland Oil #1....................... F
NY-3........................ Tonawanda........................ Ashland Oil #2....................... F
NY-3........................ Tonawanda........................ Linde Air Products................... F
NY-4........................ Lewiston......................... Niagara Falls Storage Site Vicinity F/C
Property.
NY-5........................ Niagara Falls.................... Niagara Falls Storage Site........... F/C
NY-6........................ Colonie.......................... Colonie.............................. F
NY-6........................ Schenectady...................... Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory....... ........
NY-7........................ Manhattan........................ Baker & Williams Warehouse........... F/C
NY-8........................ Upton, LI........................ Brookhaven National Laboratory....... ........
OH-1........................ Columbus......................... Battelle Columbus Laboratories....... ........
OH-1........................ Columbus......................... B&T Metals........................... F
OH-2........................ Fernald.......................... Fernald Environmental Management ........
Project.
OH-3........................ Ashtabula........................ Reactive Metals Inc./Fields Brook ........
Site.
OH-4........................ Oxford........................... Alba Craft........................... F
OH-4........................ Fairfield........................ Associated Aircraft Tool & F
Manufacturing.
OH-4........................ Hamilton......................... HHM Safe Site........................ F
OH-5........................ Painesville...................... Painesville.......................... F
OH-6........................ Piqua............................ Piqua Nuclear Power Facility......... C
OH-7........................ Miamisburg....................... Mound Plant.......................... ........
OH-8........................ Portsmouth....................... Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant... ........
OH-9........................ Luckey........................... Luckey............................... F
OH-9........................ Toledo........................... Baker Brothers....................... F
OR-1........................ Lakeview......................... Lakeview............................. U/C
OR-2........................ Albany........................... Albany Metallurgical Research Center. F/C
PA-1........................ Aliquippa........................ Aliquippa Forge...................... F/C
PA-2........................ Canonsburg....................... Canonsburg........................... U/C
PA-3........................ Shippingport..................... Shippingport Atomic Power Station.... C
PA-4........................ Springdale....................... C.H. Schnoor......................... F/C
PA-4........................ West Mifflin..................... Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory....... ........
PR-1........................ Mayaguez......................... Center for Energy & Environmental ........
Research.
SC-1........................ Aiken............................ Savannah River Site.................. ........
SD-1........................ Edgemont......................... Edgemont Vicinity Properties......... C
TN-1........................ Oak Ridge........................ Elza Gate............................ F/C
TN-2........................ Oak Ridge........................ Y-12 Plant........................... ........
TN-2........................ Oak Ridge........................ Oak Ridge K-25 Site.................. ........
TN-2........................ Oak Ridge........................ Oak Ridge National Laboratory........ ........
TX-1........................ Falls City....................... Falls City........................... U/C
TX-2........................ Amarillo......................... Pantex Plant......................... ........
UT-1........................ Green River...................... Green River.......................... U/C
UT-2........................ Salt Lake City................... Salt Lake City....................... U/C
UT-3........................ Mexican Hat...................... Mexican Hat.......................... U
UT-3........................ Monticello....................... Monticello Millsite and Vicinity ........
Properties.
WA-1........................ Richland......................... Hanford Site......................... ........
WY-1........................ Spook............................ Spook................................ U/C
WY-2........................ Riverton......................... Riverton............................. U/C
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*U=UMTRA; F=FUSRAP; C=COMPLETED
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, in the early 1980's I chaired hearings
which revealed serious worker safety and health problems at DOE's
uranium Enrichment facility in Portsmouth, OH, as well at the Fernald
uranium foundry outside of Cincinnati. These hearings were among the
first public examinations of the nuclear weapon complex. Due in part to
decades of secrecy and
[[Page S3796]] the cold war urgency to produce nuclear weapons at any
cost, little attention was historically given to worker safety or the
environment. After becoming chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee
in 1986, I significantly increased the number of oversight hearings of
this heretofore neglected program.
As problems were uncovered at Ohio's facilities, I began asking
whether similar problems existed at DOE's other sites around the
country, including Savannah River, Hanford, Rocky Flats, and our
national labs. Often utilizing the auditors and investigators of the
General Accounting Office, the answer which all-too-often came back
was, ``Yes, in spades.'' One example shows how massive the nuclear
weapons cleanup has become. In 1985, I asked GAO to estimate the cost
of cleaning up DOE's facilities. Their answer was $8-12 billion, a
significant sum. By 1988, that figure had risen to $100 billion. Now,
in 1995 GAO's best guess is over $300 billion, with the caveat that
much of the technology does not yet exist to do the job. Over the past
several years, the fastest growing program within DOE has been the
cleanup program. We are currently spending over $6 billion every year
to address the very real environmental problems at these sites.
However like any other government program which grows exponentially
in a short time, the growth of DOE's cleanup program has resulted in
waste and inefficiency. My investigations into the DOE weapon complex
have focused on exposing the serious environment safety and health
problems which exist there, but also on the Department's ability to
address and manage these problems efficiently. One particular problem
has been DOE's contract management practices, which were all-too-often
inadequate and failed to properly account for or track literally
billions of dollars of taxpayer funds. Governmental Affairs Committee
investigations into DOE's contracting practices have resulted in
taxpayer savings in a variety of ways, from reducing the cost of
drilling wells at
Hanford, to controlling affiliate contracting relationships at
Savannah River to implementing improved planning and management tools
for estimating and tracking program costs at all sites.
I am pleased to say that the Department, under Secretary O'Leary's
leadership has made a number of very real efforts to get waste and
mismanagement problems under control. First and foremost Secretary
O'Leary has agreed to reduce the DOE budget by $10.6 billion over the
next 5 years. Within this reduction, the cleanup program has agreed to
reduce its spending by $4.4 billion over the same timeframe. The DOE
contract reform initiative and reorganization efforts also will
strengthen the Department's ability to do more with less.
As the magnitude of the nuclear weapon cleanup becomes clearer, many
people are beginning to suggest that we back away from our obligation
to remediate these sites, saying that it is simply too expensive.
``After all,'' these critics say, ``these sites are remote and few
people live there. Aren't there more cost-effective ways we can spend
taxpayer dollars?'' I simply do not agree with the premise that we can
back off of this cleanup effort. While it is true that many of the most
contaminated sites--like Hanford and Savannah River--are remote, they
are unfortunately situated near major drinking water supplies. If
little is done now, it is likely that our children or grandchildren--
even those living far from these sites--will have to contend with
severely contaminated water. And for every site that is remotely
located, the Department has sites like Rocky Flats, outside of Denver,
or Fernald, outside of Cincinnati, which are located near major
population centers.
I am convinced that the answer to cleaning up these facilities will
not be found by putting off to future generations the responsibility of
dealing with these problems. I intend to continue to exercise broad and
vigorous oversight in this area during the 104th Congress.
Mr. President, I will have more to say about this program as we
proceed through this year's budgeting process. I would close by
encouraging my colleagues to review information which describes the
Department's fiscal year 1996 cleanup budget in greater detail. I ask
unanimous consent that this material be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
What Have We Done?--Environmental Management Accomplishments, 1989-1994
Cleanup of 16 former nuclear weapons and industrial sites
(FUSRAP).
Cleanup of 14 Uranium Mills Tailings Remedial Action
(UMTRA) sites.
Remediation of 5,000 public and private properties
contaminated with uranium tailings.
Completed 119 Remedial Actions.
100 Facilities have been decommissioned.
9 Site-Specific Advisory Boards have been established.
30.4 million square meters of soil and uranium tailings
removed.
16 million pounds of scrap metal recycled.
2.4 billion gallons of ground water and 1.8 billion gallons
of surface water treated.
500 tanks removed or replaced.
55,000 pounds of shrapnel and ordnance removed.
2,200 acres of land stabilized.
488,000 drum equivalent of stored waste shipped offsite.
Disposed of 50,000 m\3\ of low-level waste.
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
[Fiscal year 1996 Congressional Budget Request]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year--
------------------------ Change
1995 1996
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waste Management.................... 2,916.1 2,707.7 -208.4
Environmental Restorations.......... 1,768.5 1,993.7 +225.2
Nuclear Mat. & Facilities
Stabilization...................... 838.9 1,679.7 +840.8
Technology Development.............. 417.4 390.5 -26.9
Uranium Enrichment D&D.............. 301.3 288.8 -12.5
Analysis, Education & Risk Mgt...... 84.9 157.0 +72.1
Corrective Activities............... 27.2 8.8 -18.4
Transportation Management........... 20.7 16.2 -4.5
Compliance & Program Coord.......... 0.0 81.3 +81.3
-----------------------------------
Subtotls........................ 6,374.0 7,323.7 +948.7
Use of Prior Year Balances.......... (257.5) (300.0) (+42.5)
SR Pension Funds.................... (0.0) (37.0) (+37.0)
D&D Fund Deposit Offsets............ (133.7) (350.0) (+216.3)
D&D Fund Foreign Fee................ (0.0) (45.0) (+45.0)
-----------------------------------
Totals.......................... 5,983.8 6,591.7 +608
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over 2,400 facilities will be transferred to EM from other
DOE programs in 1995, adding an additional $843 million in
site management responsibilities to the FY 1996 EM budget.
In December 1995 the Savannah River Site will begin
removing High-Level Waste from storage tanks and
``vitrifying'' it into a safer glass form at the Defense
Waste Processing Facility.
A minimum of 24 new or improved technologies will be made
available for transfer to private industry for implementation
and 50 technologies will be pilot-, bench-, or full-scale
demonstrated in FY 1996.
Remedial action has been completed on 17 of 45 Formerly
Utilized Sites Remedial Action Project (FUSRAP) and on 13 of
24 Uranium Mills Tailing Remedial Action sites.
16 Remedial Actions, 78 Assessments and 12 Decontamination
and Decommissioning projects will be completed in FY 1995.
FISCAL YEAR 1996 CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET--OUTYEAR PROFILES
[Dollars in millions]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Total
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(5) Budget authority
Base............................................... $6,592 $6,973 7,042 $7,115 $7,181 $34,903
Savings............................................ ........ (700) (1,510) (1,597) (1,665) (5,472)
------------------------------------------------------------
Budget authority............................... 6,592 6,273 5,532 5,518 5,516 29,431
============================================================
(5) Outlays
Base............................................... $6,144 $6,686 $6,966 $7,070 $7,145 $34,011
Savings............................................ ........ (350) (1,000) (1,432) (1,618) (4,400)
------------------------------------------------------------
Outlays........................................ 6,144 6,336 5,966 5,638 5,527 29,611
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Page S3797]] Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
Mr. SMITH. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Smith and Mr. Chafee pertaining to the
introduction of S. 534 are located in today's Record under ``Statements
on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we had a good debate and discussion on
the Kassebaum amendment earlier with a number of our colleagues. I
would just like to make some concluding comments about where I think we
are in this debate and discussion.
Earlier in the course of the afternoon, I talked in some detail about
the legitimacy of the Executive order. I included in the Record the
legal justification for the order and then summarized the policy
considerations for the Executive order and responded to some of the
questions that have been raised over the period of the last couple of
days about whether the President exceeded his authority and
responsibility in terms of issuing it.
Hopefully, for those Members who are interested, they will at least
have an opportunity to read through the Attorney General's memorandum
and some of the other material which I think spell out very clearly the
responsibility that the President had for undertaking the Executive
order, the legal justification for that order.
Just a few moments ago, I tried to put this proposal in the context
of the discussions that we are having in the Senate of the United
States and in the House of Representatives under the general rubric of
the Contract With America. I think, quite frankly, Mr. President, it is
appropriate to make these comments at this time because the amendment
of the Senator from Kansas, in trying to undermine the President's
authority and power, particularly the policy reasons for it, I think
really helps put into sharper relief exactly what some of the public
policy matters are that have been raised during the period of these
past weeks and what I think the American people, particularly working
families, should be very much aware of and I should think very much
concerned about. I would like to take a few moments of the Senate's
time this afternoon to address that broader issue.
The pending Republican amendment on permanent striker replacements is
a skirmish in a much larger battle that is now unfolding in Congress in
full view of the American people. Each day's developments under the new
Republican majority in the Senate and House of Representatives raises
increasing concern. The Republican's so-called Contract With America is
being unmasked for what it is. It is not a Contract With America at all
but a declaration of war on working families throughout America.
There is a fundamental hypocrisy behind many Republican positions in
the current national debate. They do not mind Government stepping in
with a generous helping hand for business; they think tax cuts for the
rich and corporate welfare in the form of lavish Government subsidies
for businesses are fine, but our Republican friends get upset when
Government steps in to offer a helping hand to working families, to the
elderly, to children and to those in need.
Democrats are proud to be the defenders of Social Security and
Medicare for senior citizens, a fair minimum wage for workers, aid for
college education, hot lunches for children in their schools. Democrats
are proud to be on the side of all these individuals and families
across America struggling to make ends meet, and we are proud to oppose
any Contract With America that endangers all of these worthwhile
programs.
President Clinton had it right when he said the Nation wants
Government to be lean not mean. But wherever we turn in Congress today,
we see mean-spirited assaults on programs that help people, and I would
like to discuss a few of these basic priorities today issue by issue.
We know that education is a key building block of the American dream.
While college costs rise to over $8,000 a year at many State
universities and over $20,000 a year at many private colleges, a
college education is too often an impossible dream for working
families. We know that students and their families are struggling hard
to find the finances needed to pursue the education and the training
they need.
Yet, Republicans are proposing the largest cuts in student aid in the
Nation's history. The proposals in the Contract With America would
slash $20 billion from student aid over the next 5 years; an additional
$20 billion that students and working families would have to come up
with from their own pockets.
The contract proposes to eliminate the interest on student loans the
Government now pays while students are in school. Under current law,
interest does not build up on student loans until students graduate and
can start paying back their loans. Slashing this interest subsidy will
save the Federal Government $12 billion over 5 years, but at what
price? By deeper indebtedness for students, as much as 20 to 50 percent
deeper.
For a student who borrows the maximum amount to pay for 4 years in
college, the Republicans' cut would add $3,000 in extra interest
payments. Instead of $17,000 in loans to pay off college, the student
would owe $20,000. And that is not all. Republicans are also calling
for the elimination of the campus-based grant and loan programs that
help students pay their way through college. That is another $7 billion
in cuts that will hurt the Nation's students.
Republicans extol the virtue of work, yet they propose to eliminate
the highly successful work-study program that enables students to work
at jobs on campus and in their communities to earn part of their
financial aid. And the only ones that are eligible for those are,
again, working families, the sons and daughters of working families.
There is a sliding scale and it gets up to maybe $62,000, $64,000 for
three members of a family in school.
You are talking about a program that is targeted, again, to provide
working families' students to be able to gain additional resources as a
result of working at jobs on campuses and in the communities as part of
a financial aid package.
It is not as if the States will pick up the slack. In Massachusetts,
State financial aid for students has been cut by almost a third since
1988. Tuitions and fees charged to students at the State university
have doubled. If the Republican cuts go through, Massachusetts students
will lose $70 million in Federal student aid a year, more than the
total amount the State spends on student aid.
Republicans claim they want to balance the budget so as not to bury
the next generation in debt, but they are more than willing to bury the
Nation's students in debt. In fact, Republicans are proposing at the
same time to add to the deficit in order to protect the banks at the
expense of students. And I want the attention of the Members on this
particular issue affecting students in their own States.
Last Friday, Senator Kassebaum introduced a bill to cap the new
Federal direct lending program for college students. That program began
in 1993 under the leadership of President Clinton and Democrats in
Congress but also with the support of Senator Durenberger, Senator
Jeffords, and other Republicans. That particular program has cut
college student loan fees in half and lowered interest rates on their
loans. It has eliminated the huge and confusing bureaucracy that makes
it difficult for students to receive their loans on time and even
harder for them to pay back their loans.
Under the direct lending and current law, students will save $2.2
billion over 5 years and taxpayers will save $4.3 billion. But banks do
not like the new program because it reduces the profits they were
making at students' expense. The Republicans want to stop the direct
lending in its tracks, even though stopping it will add to the deficit
in the long run.
The Republican priorities are clear. The Democrats put students and
education first; Republicans put the banks first, even ahead of
reducing the deficit.
The economy, the Treasury and the families across America will suffer
if the next generation of students have to start their working lives
under a
[[Page S3798]] mountain of debt and cannot afford the education and
training they need to be productive workers. Slamming the door of
college in the face of the Nation's students is not a Contract With
America, it is an insult to America.
The next issue is health care. Few things are more important to the
security of working families than affordable quality health care. Few
things are more important to senior citizens than Medicare. But for the
new Republican majority, the tax cuts for the wealthy and the
protection of corporate profits are more important than the health care
of American workers and their families and Medicare for our senior
citizens.
Today, no working family is guaranteed affordable health care. Thirty
million members of working families have no health insurance at all.
The breadwinners in these families work hard--40 hours a week, 52 weeks
a year. But all their hard work does not free them from concern about
their health security. They cannot afford to buy health insurance on
their own and their employers will not contribute to the cost.
Even families that have health insurance are not secure. No family
can be sure that the insurance that protects them today will be there
for them tomorrow when serious illness strikes. Lose your job and you
can lose your coverage. Change jobs and you can lose your coverage.
Your employer can decide your coverage is too expensive and drop it
altogether. And your insurance company can decide you are a bad risk
and cancel your current policy. More than 2 million Americans lose
their health insurance every month.
The skyrocketing cost of health care is depriving workers of the wage
increases they deserve. It is keeping real income stagnant, even as the
economy grows and strengthens.
Last year, the Republicans drew a line in the sand against the simple
and sensible idea that every employer should be expected to contribute
to the costs of health insurance for their employees, even though most
employers do so voluntarily today.
Last year, as their alternative the Republicans proposed reforms in
the insurance market, to try to make health insurance more available.
They offered subsidies to workers whose employers did not provide
health insurance. But this year, this year the Republicans have backed
away from even this minimalist approach. Health care is not even in the
Republican contract. It is not in the agenda for the first 100 days.
And the two Republican bills introduced to date provide not a single
dollar to help working families afford health insurance.
The problem has not gone away. Despite the economic recovery, the
number of uninsured rose by more than a million last year. Workers who
still have their insurance are less secure than they were a year ago.
Health care costs continue to rise at twice the rate of general
inflation. But for the Republicans, now that there is no threat of new
responsibilities on business, they feel no responsibility to address
the needs of workers.
Families need a reliable system of health security for their
retirement years as well. Older Americans are the most vulnerable to
costly illnesses. The cost of health care in retirement threatens not
only the security of retired workers but the security of their children
and grandchildren as well, who will contribute everything they have to
keep their parents from destitution.
For three decades, Medicare has provided health security for senior
citizens. But today, the security of Medicare is in danger, and the
Republican program threatens to destroy it. The Republican Speaker of
the House of Representatives has said that Medicare should be rethought
from top to bottom and that every decision on it must be made in the
light of a balanced budget. The Republican chairman of the Finance
Committee has projected $300 billion in Medicare cuts over the next 7
years. Independent estimates of the cost of the Republican contract
project cuts in Medicare of an almost unthinkable 31 percent of
projected program costs.
Because of current program gaps and out-of-control health care costs,
the protection that Medicare provides is already inadequate. Last year,
senior citizens spent an average of $2,800 out of their pockets for
health care--four times what nonelderly Americans spent.
Just 8 years ago, in 1987, senior citizens spent 15 percent of their
income for medical care--and that was too much. Today, that number has
soared to 23 percent--almost $1 in every $4 taken from limited incomes
that are already stretched to pay for food, housing, heat, clothing,
and other essential expenses of daily living. If the medical costs of
senior citizens in nursing homes and other institutions are included,
the percentages would be even higher. I say senior citizens should be
paying less for medical care, not more.
The damage done by reductions of scale contemplated in the Republican
contract go beyond the increase of out-of-pocket costs. They would turn
senior citizens into second-class citizens in health care. They would
significantly boost the already excessive insurance premiums paid by
working families. They would damage key health care institutions. They
would be achieved by forcing senior citizens into managed care programs
and denying them the opportunity to go to the doctor and the hospital
they choose.
President Clinton has taken a strong stance on this issue--no
Medicare cuts unless they are part of overall health care reform that
protects senior citizens, working families, and health care
institutions.
Democrats support these principles, but our Republican friends take a
different view. Billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy, paid
for by billions of dollars in Medicare cuts for senior citizens.
Other important aspects of health security are protection from unsafe
and ineffective prescription drugs, reasonable access to the physicians
and other health professionals, especially for those who live in rural
and underserved urban areas, and safe workplaces and a safe
environment.
What is the Republican program? Hamstring the FDA so that drug
companies can have higher profits, even though the American people will
have worse protection. Cut the National Health Service Corps, so that
people who live in rural communities and inner cities will have to go
without care when they need to see a doctor. Roll back the rules that
require businesses to provide a safe workplace for employees. Undermine
the environmental protections that bring clean air and clean water.
In each of these areas, the Republican prescription for health care
is a healthier bottom line for special interests and the wealthy, and
greater risk of illness for American families. That is the kind of
cost-benefit analysis we are getting these days. It is the wrong
analysis, because it looks at the wrong costs and the wrong benefits.
Yesterday, the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means
Committee outlined a 5-year tax cut proposal as part of the Republican
contract. It is a lavish tax break for the rich, that will inevitably
be paid for out of the pockets of working families. It is an
antifamily, antiwork, antichildren tax cut, and it does not deserve to
pass.
It will cost the Treasury $700 billion over the next decade. It will
drive up the deficit to levels unheard of even during the Reagan and
Bush administrations.
Is it just coincidence that the total amount of the nutrition cuts
recently proposed by the House Republicans--in WIC, school breakfasts,
school lunches--will provide just enough to pay for the capital gains
tax cut for families earning over $100,000? This is an affront to
working American families, because it takes the most from those who
have the least.
The current capital gains tax cut will be cut in half; 75 percent of
the tax benefit from this cut will go to those making more than
$100,000 a year--the top 9 percent of income; 50 percent of the benefit
will go to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.
The tax cut proposal also calls for accelerated depreciation
deductions for business. A similar tax break was included in the Reagan
tax cut in 1981. It was rightfully curtailed in the 1986 Tax Reform Act
and it should not be expanded now.
The poor and the middle class have no resources for these types of
investments. They would get no benefit from this provision. But it
would provide $90 billion in tax breaks for the wealthiest corporations
in America.
[[Page S3799]] The Republican tax cut would also repeal the
alternative minimum tax which now keeps major corporations from
avoiding taxes altogether. If it is repealed, it will put $60 billion
into the pockets of wealthy corporations and let many of them go
entirely tax free.
In the unkindest cut of all, the Republican proposal would deny any
tax relief to the lowest income families.
The original Contract With America made the $500 tax credit for
children refundable, which means the tax relief would have been
available to all families including those at the lowest income levels
who need help the most. By deleting the refundable features of this tax
cut the Republican plan will deny $13 billion in tax relief for these
families.
Millionaires will get their tax cut in full, but to save money our
Republican friends now offer no relief at all to the millions of
families at the other end of the income scale. The plan makes a mockery
of any sense of tax fairness and tax justice, and it must not be
permitted to stand.
I can cite many other ways in which the so-called Contract With
America declares war on working families and average citizens across
the country. In the weeks to come we will have an opportunity in the
Senate to debate all of these issues in full and I am confident that
when we do, a fairer contract will be written. The real casualties of
this war will be the worst provisions of the contract, not the people
of America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Jeffords). The Senator from Utah.
____________________