[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5118-S5119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see other Members here who wanted to 
speak.
  I just finish with this thought about the Star Schools Program. In 
many different parts of the country, we do not have the highly 
qualified, highly skilled teachers, high school teachers, for example, 
in physics, in mathematics, in a number of the languages, with the 
change of demography and the cutting back pressures on local schools.
  What we have seen, I know in my own State and generally throughout 
New England, is when there are pressures on the school districts there 
may be a handful of very talented students in a particular class who 
want to take the advanced math but there is so much difficulty in 
getting that teacher, and so few students--in many instances brilliant 
students who want to take it--that the school does not provide that 
kind of education opportunity. And that is true in pocket after pocket, 
particularly in many of the rural areas of Massachusetts, and 
throughout New England.
  This program provides the best math, science, physics, chemistry, 
biology teachers, who instruct those few students that go to these 
learning centers so those individuals will be able to take their 
courses at the appropriate level. So they will continue their interest 
in these areas, which are enormously important in terms of our national 
interests, for our scientific base and for our research and 
development.
  It has been an enormously successful program. It has had the very 
strong support of Senator Cochran, and others have spoken very 
eloquently about it. I have had the chance to visit centers in his 
State of Mississippi to see what it has done in terms of a number of 
the rural communities in the South.
  It is something that is enormously valuable. We are talking here of 
several millions of dollars. But those several millions of dollars have 
enormous importance and consequence in one of the aspects of education, 
and that is technology and technology training. One of the important 
parts of the Daschle amendment restores that funding. That is the part 
of that Daschle amendment which I think is enormously important. We 
will have an opportunity, when we reach the Daschle amendment, 
regardless of that outcome--I am hopeful it will be accepted, but if 
not--to come back and revisit that at another time.
  I will come back to this when some of my colleagues have finished 
their remarks.
  I yield the floor.
                          little dell lake, ut

  Mr. BENNETT. I wish to bring to the attention of the chairman a small 
matter that is of importance to me and the people of my State. It 
involves a correction in cost allocation of the recently completed 
Little Dell Lake project in Utah. The Army Corps of Engineers 
acknowledged that an adjustment in cost allocation is warranted and is 
in the process of designing recreation facilities and redoing the cost 
allocation between the Federal and local participants of this project.
  We expect the correction to be finalized in a revised agreement 
between the Department of the Army and the non-Federal sponsors toward 
the end of fiscal year 1995. This is a matter of equity. The non-
Federal sponsors of the project paid for 100 percent of the costs 
allocated to water supply and 25 percent of the costs allocated to 
flood control. However, because the local sponsors were inappropriately 
asked to cost share the joint costs of recreation, the costs for 
recreation quadrupled and were unaffordable. This raised the costs for 
water supply and flood control by several million dollars. This error 
was only recently discovered and the Assistant Secretary of the Army 
has expressed a willingness to correct the matter.
  Is it the understanding of the chairman that the inclusion of 
recreation facilities, the reallocation of costs, and the adjustment in 
the Federal and non-Federal cost sharing can be accomplished with funds 
heretofore appropriated?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Given the facts in this matter, it would be appropriate 
to include recreation and adjust the Federal and non-Federal shares of 
the total project cost. The project is essentially complete and, as I 
understand it, has already provided significant flood control and water 
supply benefits since the dam was constructed.
  Mr. BENNETT. I thank the chairman and would urge that the revised 
local cooperation agreement be consummated in fiscal year 1995 and that 
the funds be reprogrammed in the current fiscal year as well.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I agree with the Senator from Utah that the revised 
local cooperation agreement and reprogramming should be accomplished 
this year with funds currently available to the corps.
  Mr. BENNETT. I thank the chairman.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I will be very brief.
  I would like to respond to some comments made by the distinguished 
Senator from South Dakota, Senator Pressler, a few minutes ago on his 
conversation with the Vice President of the United States earlier 
today. I checked with Vice President Gore, and I am told that he did 
not tell Senator Pressler that the President would veto the 
telecommunications bill.
  The Vice President told the distinguished Senator from South Dakota 
that he would like to see changes in certain provisions of the bill 
before he could recommend it to the President for his signature. I 
mention this because only the President issues veto threats, as the 
Vice President pointed out.
  But the Vice President is not the only person who is concerned about 
certain provisions of this telecommunications bill.
  The telecommunications bill that the Commerce Committee has reported 
will have an enormous impact on multi-billion-dollar cable, phone, and 
broadcast industries, and the economy of this Nation.
  It was introduced just 3 days ago, and the report explaining what the 
Commerce Committee had in mind with this complex bill was filed late 
Thursday night.
  This bill is a far different bill from S. 1822, which was reported 
last year.
  First, this bill allows RBOC entry into long-distance phone service 
without a formal Department of Justice role in analyzing the 
competitive impact.
  Second, I have questions about taking the lid off cable rates, and 
whether sufficient attention has been paid to the special problems of 
small, rural cable companies.
  In fact, I suspect virtually every person that is on cable in this 
country would have some concern about just taking the lid off the cable 
rate, because I have not met many cable users who feel they are not 
paying too much.
  Further, I have questions about some provisions in the bill that 
preempt State laws on judicial review of State 
[[Page S5119]] regulatory commission decisions, and on dialing parity 
for intra-LATA calls.
  Finally, I am concerned that some provisions in this bill undercut 
privacy protections for online communications and law enforcement's 
ability to conduct necessary court-authorized wiretapping to fight 
crime.
  As ranking member on the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Judiciary 
Committee, these are questions on which we should have a hearing. There 
has been no hearings on the final version of S. 652 that was just 
introduced. These are issues that the people of Vermont deserve time to 
look at and consider, before the Senate rushes into consideration.
  I have no interest in delaying telecommunications reform, and hope 
that we pass much-needed legislation in this session of Congress. But I 
do want time to make sure that any legislation we pass is the best we 
can make it. We owe this to the American people and the industries 
involved.
  I think there are issues that should be answered.


                         the daschle amendment

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, the bill we are debating today is not 
about future cuts in programs to reduce our deficit.
  What this bill does is cut funding that States, schools, parents, 
youth and children were assured of last September.
  And these cuts are not going to reduce the deficit, but will go to 
pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.
  In the middle of the year, Congress is taking away funds that States 
are using to implement major reforms to improve our children's 
education.
  Taking away funds from towns that have already set their school 
budgets for the year.
  Taking away funds from programs that bring local police to work in 
schools to prevent drug use.
  Taking away from parents that are counting on child care so that they 
can go to work.
  Taking away from AmeriCorps participants and the communities that 
they work in around the country.
  This bill has brought our communities to a screeching halt. I 
question the logic of cutting these programs now; 6 months after the 
fact.
  I support efforts to restore funding to important education programs 
for disadvantaged children, programs which are designed to prevent drug 
use and create a safe school environment, education reform, Head Start, 
child care, AmeriCorps, and other programs that educate and invest in 
America's children and families.
  Decisions to cut these programs are based solely on shortsighted 
politics.
  The sad thing is that the House has made it clear that cuts in these 
programs are not going to deficit reduction.
  Instead, the cuts we are making today in programs that give children 
the skills to compete in the next century are going to pay for tax cuts 
for the walthy. In fact, the wealthiest 12 percent of Americans would 
receive over half of the benefits under the House proposed tax cuts.
  I hope that we will be able to restore logic and common sense to the 
cuts we are making in this bill.
  Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, on the same subject which the Senator from 
Vermont discussed, the Senator from South Dakota, the chairman of the 
Commerce Committee, earlier came to the floor and indicated that S. 
652, the Telecommunications Act of 1995, would not be able to be 
considered on the floor before the Easter recess as a consequence of 
the administration, namely the Vice President, as someone who had 
indicated that the bill was going to be vetoed.
  Mr. President, to be clear, while I did not put a hold on this bill, 
I agreed to allow the debate to proceed. I was tempted to put a hold on 
the bill and not allow it to proceed. I will not, and would not allow 
the debate to proceed and at the same time give unanimous consent to 
limit the debate. That made it difficult to consider this piece of 
legislation and enact it, pass it by the Senate, before the Easter 
recess.
  So if the chairman of the Commerce Committee is looking for the 
person to identify as the individual who made it impossible to move 
this before Easter, he has no further to look than the junior Senator 
from the State just to his south.
  This is a very important piece of legislation. I am by no means 
hostile to the idea that we should reform the 1934 Communications Act. 
I am not hostile to that idea. I believe that reform can be of enormous 
benefit to our people. It can create new jobs. It can improve the 
quality of our education and make it more likely that our citizens can 
become informed.
  But, Mr. President, this is a piece of legislation that is unique in 
many ways. Indeed, the distinguished Senator from South Dakota, the 
chairman of the committee, said on this floor earlier that it has broad 
national support, or something to that effect. Yesterday, he said much 
more accurately that this is not really on the people's minds at the 
moment.
  That is a more accurate statement, Mr. President. I have maybe 2 
million household lines in the State, a million households total, so 
there is probably a million times two residential lines in the State.
  I just finished a campaign for reelection where very few people came 
to me and said: Gee, I am going to vote for you, but I need to know 
your position on the deregulation of telecommunications. I need to know 
where you stand on this, Senator, because I am unhappy with my service. 
I do not like my long distance service or I do not like my local 
telephone service or I do not like my cable service or I do not like 
what is going on.
  They may have some concern at the margin, but no call for a radical 
restructuring of the regulatory environment which this piece of 
legislation represents.
  Again to be clear, I think it is appropriate for us to consider some 
rather dramatic changes in the law to permit in particular much more 
competition at the local level. I would love to see an environment 
where the entrepreneur, that small business person that starts off in 
business, can come knocking on my door or call me up or write and say I 
want to sell you information services; I want to sell you voice; I wish 
to sell you video; I am going to sell you text. I would love for them 
to be able to sell them in an unrestricted environment.
  This legislation, in my opinion, does not permit that. It pretends to 
but in my judgment it does not permit it. In many ways, it combines the 
worst of both worlds, a regulatory environment without the kind of 
competition that I think is needed.
  So I thank the chairman of the committee, who has been very generous 
in allowing one of my staff people, though I am not on the the Commerce 
Committee, to participate in the deliberation of the determination of 
what this bill is going to look like along with the ranking member, 
Senator Hollings of South Carolina.
  I hope they do not view me as being hostile to this piece of 
legislation, but I object to the identification of the administration 
being the problem. As far as this piece of legislation not moving prior 
to recess, I am, I suspect, as responsible as anybody around here 
because I want this to have a full and open debate. I want us to 
evaluate title I, title II, title III, title IV. I want us to think 
about what we are doing and make sure the public is informed. We are 
about to give them, I think, substantial change. I think they can, if 
it is done right, be pleased with the results. But just as great a 
risk, Mr. President, is that we could get in a hurry around here and 
pass something, think that we are deregulating, think that we are 
creating competition but, in fact, we accomplish neither of those two 
rather worthy objectives.
  So I look forward to the debate. I hope that when we come back after 
the recess there is an opportunity for S. 652 to be brought to the 
floor, and I look forward to the opportunity of bringing up amendments 
and getting a full and open debate on this very important piece of 
legislation.
  Mr. DeWINE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this bus 
sensor on the floor with me during my speech.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


  

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