[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 1, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16473-S16491]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS 
    APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996 MIDDLE EAST FACILITATION ACT OF 1995--
                           CONFERENCE REPORT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we have before the Senate this morning 
the conference report on the foreign operations bill. This measure 
passed the House yesterday at 351 to 71.
  I might just say before what I hope will be just a brief debate, I am 
not currently aware of any other Senators on this side of the aisle who 
wish to speak. Senator Leahy should be here momentarily and it is our 
hope that we could have fairly early on here a rollcall vote on the 
conference report itself.
  There is an amendment in disagreement related to the abortion issue 
which may take a little more debate and then a vote a little bit later. 
But it is our hope, and if there are no objections or problems with 
that, that we might be able to get to a vote on the conference report 
rather soon.
  Let me say, although we had very limited resources, I believe this 
bill legislates our national priorities--it provides both security and 
flexibility.
  The conferees produced legislation below our allocation, $1.5 billion 
below last year's levels and nearly $2.7 billion below what President 
Clinton requested. So clearly we have made a reduction in foreign 
assistance.
  In spite of these reductions, our security interests have been 
clearly served by earmarking funds for our Camp David partners and 
extending the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act.
  We also advance our national security priorities in the New 
Independent States by completing a shift in resources from Russia to 
Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, and the other States that used to be part of 
the Soviet Union.
  We have also linked aid to Russia to termination of the nuclear deal 
with Iran. In the interest of maximizing the administration's leverage, 
I suggested the restriction take effect 3 months after the date of 
enactment of this bill giving the Vice President the opportunity to 
negotiate a solution to this problem in his January meetings with 
Chernomydin.
  We have served U.S. interests while affording the administration a 
great deal of flexibility.
  There are three ways we have offered flexibility.
  First, we have provided transfer authority between accounts. For 
example, NIS resources can be used to fund the Warsaw Initiative and 
Partnership for Peace programs. Second, we have consolidated various 
development aid accounts into one account with limited conditions; and, 
third, there are very few earmarks.
  I think the House would have preferred to provide a blank check 
giving the administration the option to make all funding choices, but 
after 3 years of unfulfilled commitments, the conferees agreed upon the 
necessity to set funding levels for specific countries, which was, of 
course, the imprint of the Senate bill.
  For my colleagues who are concerned about earmarking resources for 
specific projects, let me assure them we have avoided such action. We 
have funded countries and categories of activities such as programs to 
strengthen democracy, rule of law and independent media, but have not 
dedicated any resources for any organization or project within these 
broad accounts.
  The conference report largely reflects the priorities identified by 
the Senate. The conferees agreed to the Senate's provisions on a range 
of issues from Pakistan to an amendment offered by Senator Helms to ban 
AID's move to the Federal triangle.
  One of the few items where the Senate position did not prevail 
concerns Mexico City and funding for abortion. We are reporting back an 
amendment in disagreement which I would like to take a moment to 
explain.
  The House passed language which banned assistance to any organization 
which fails to certify that they are not performing abortions. In 
addition, the House banned assistance to the UNFPA unless the President 
certified programs in China had been terminated.
  The Senate stripped out the language at the subcommittee level and 
substituted language requiring the same standards for determining 
eligibility for assistance be applied to both governments and to 
nongovernmental and multilateral organizations. The senate also 
required no funds be used to lobby on the question of abortion.
  Unfortunately the conferees were unable to reach any agreement on 
this matter.
  Fundamentally, let me just say that the Senate appears to be narrowly 
prochoice, as these terms generally describe positions Senators have 
taken. The House appears to be prolife. So we were unable to come 
together in the conference report.
  The House has sent over a substitute measure which restricts 
assistance to organizations which provide abortions but makes 
exceptions where the life of the mother, rape or incest are involved--a 
solution which tracks the so-called Hyde standards. The compromise also 
includes language which requires the President to certify that the 
UNFPA will terminate programs in China compared with the previous 
language requiring the President to certify that UNFPA already has 
terminated China programs. My understanding is this distinction was 
drawn because UNFPA plans to cease China programs at the end of this 
calendar year, thus it is a standard the administration could meet.
  I hope my colleagues will support the conference report as it is 
entirely consistent with the votes and views of the Senate expressed 
September 21. It is my intention to also support the compromise 
language proposed by the House in the amendment in disagreement since I 
believe it is consistent with language which the Congress has been able 
to support in the past. But, clearly, Mr. President, it is a statement 
of the obvious to say that is an issue upon which the Senate and the 
House are deeply divided.

  With regard to the abortion issue, the vote, I would just report to 
my colleagues--I think I said earlier the vote on the full conference 
report in the House yesterday was 351 in favor, 71 against. On the 
abortion amendment in disagreement, in the House the vote was 231 in 
favor of the House position, which I have just outlined; 187 against.
  So, at some point during the day we will have a vote on the 
conference report and then a vote on the amendment in disagreement. It 
is my hope, as I indicated earlier, that we can have a vote on the 
conference report sometime very soon. I believe Senator Leahy is on his 
way and I did want to give notice to everyone there could well be a 
rollcall vote on the conference report sometime very soon.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am grateful that the conferees have 
included my amendment to require the U.S. Agency for International 
Development to contract out mapping and surveying work to qualified 
U.S. companies when such work can be accomplished by the private 
sector. This provision was based on my concern that while AID requires 
mapping and surveying in countries that receive development assistance, 
this mapping and 

[[Page S 16474]]

surveying work is most often contracted out by AID to other government 
agencies. In many instances Federal agencies are aggressively marketing 
their mapping capabilities to foreign governments, and through AID, in 
direct competition with qualified U.S. companies. Despite language in 
previous committee reports, the amount of U.S. private sector 
contracting for such services has not increased.
  The purpose of this amendment is to move the mapping and surveying 
requirements of AID to private U.S. firms. Under current Federal policy 
on such commercial activities, if an activity has not been justified by 
the provider agency--like the U.S. Geological Survey--for continued in-
house performance, AID shall obtain the required services directly from 
a commercial source. No agency has performed the requisite commercial 
activities study to justify in-house performance in mapping and 
surveying, so this provision is a clarification to enforce the existing 
policy of the Federal Government to rely on, and not compete with, the 
private sector pursuant to the Office of Management and Budget circular 
A-76.
  I would like to clarify one point with regard to the intent of this 
provision, and to ask my good friend from Kentucky and the Foreign 
Operations Subcommittee chairman, Senator McConnell, if this is his 
understanding of this AID mapping and surveying amendment language? 
Specifically, it is not the intent of this provision to change Federal 
procurement law or the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Although the 
language in the amendment uses the word ``bidding,'' contracts for 
mapping and surveying services should be awarded to qualified U.S. 
firms in accordance with the standard and accepted procedure for such 
services found in 40 U.S.C. 541 et seq. and section 36.601-4(a)(4) of 
the Federal Acquisition Regulations. This amendment provides for 
increased contracting out of mapping and surveying services by AID, 
using the normal qualifications based selection process. Does the 
Senator from Kentucky concur with this clarification?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Senator Stevens, thank you for defining this wording 
of the AID mapping and surveying amendment, and, yes, I concur in this 
clarification.
  Mr. STEVENS. I think the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we have before us, as the distinguished 
chairman of the subcommittee has said, the foreign operations 
conference report. It is not the conference report I would have liked 
to have written as a bill. I suspect it is probably not precisely the 
conference report that the Senator from Kentucky would have liked to 
have written. It is, however, the best that we could do in not only a 
very difficult budget climate but one in which there are probably more 
tugs and pulls, philosophical, ideological, and policy, on the 
Committee on Foreign Operations than I have seen in many a year.
  The bill, incidentally, is $130 million below the level that was 
passed overwhelmingly, by a 5-to-1 margin, in the Senate on September 
21. I wish in this case we could have maintained the Senate level 
because it is a very small price to pay for American leadership abroad. 
We find we can easily spend billions and billions of dollars going in 
either as peacekeeping forces or military forces when there are 
troubles abroad, but we cannot spend a tiny, tiny fraction of that to 
help avoid those troubles beginning in the first place.
  I do wish to commend Senator McConnell for his efforts to get this 
bill through the conference and to the President's desk. We had a very 
lengthy meeting. I think we went to about midnight or so on our 
committee of conference ironing out all but the one issue, the issue 
that is before this body in true disagreement, and in fact in this case 
that is on international family planning. I will have an amendment to 
reinstate the Senate position. I will do that for myself and for 
Senator Kassebaum and for others, and to go back to the Senate 
position. I will do that after we pass the conference report, which I 
fully expect will be passed.
  That amendment, which I will then offer, will simply reaffirm what 
the Senate is already on record doing. In fact, the President has made 
it very clear that he will veto this bill unless we fix this one 
provision, the item that is in disagreement.
  So in this case we did the best we could. I feel that we are not 
meeting many of our international commitments, and I would just close 
with this thought. We all take great joy at seeing the cold war ending. 
Every one of us, if we travel abroad, like saying we are Americans, 
without saying it here at home. The fact is we are the most powerful 
nation history has ever known. We are the largest economy history has 
ever known. But with that comes certain responsibilities. Frankly, we 
have backed off on these responsibilities worldwide. Other countries 
have picked up on them.
  Japan spends not only as part of their budget but more in actual 
dollars in areas of foreign aid than we do. That is not all done out of 
altruism. They have found that as they have helped the economies of a 
number of developing countries, these developing countries then buy 
goods from Japan; their exports go up while our exports are going down. 
They create more jobs in Japan while we lose jobs in America. Why? 
Because they are willing to invest in the future economies of some of 
these countries. We do not want to invest the pennies in the future 
economies of some of these countries even though it creates dollars and 
dollars and dollars here in the United States. We do not want to spend 
the pennies to create some of the jobs and the economic benefits in 
some of these developing countries even though we will create far more 
jobs in the United States, even though all of us know that as exports 
go up it is one of the single greatest boons to our economy here in the 
United States.
  Instead, we let this export business go to other countries. We let 
these jobs go to other countries. We do not show that kind of 
leadership.
  We are not doing enough to stop wars and internal struggles worldwide 
even though we know that we will get sucked into them eventually and 
spend a heck of a lot more after the fact. It is kind of like 
preventive medicine. We do not want to spend the money on preventive 
medicine but, by gosh, we come in with troops to take care of the costs 
in the emergency room afterward. Well, there are going to be a lot of 
emergency rooms worldwide, and the most powerful nation on Earth is 
going to be called upon. Maybe we ought to start doing a little 
preventive medicine. It is going to cost us a lot less in the long run. 
It is going to be far more important to our national security, and it 
is going to improve our own economy.
  With that, Mr. President, I would ask for the regular order.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senate is now considering the 
conference report accompanying H.R. 1868, the foreign operations and 
export financing appropriations bill for fiscal year 1996.
  The final bill provides $12.1 billion in budget authority and $5.9 
billion in new outlays to finance the Nation's foreign assistance 
programs.
  When outlays from prior-year budget authority and other completed 
actions are taken into account, the bill totals $12.2 billion in budget 
authority and $13.9 billion in outlays for fiscal year 1996.
  The subcommittee is within its section 602(b) allocation for both 
budget authority and outlays. The bill is $84.4 million in budget 
authority under the subcommittee 602(b) allocation and at the outlay 
allocation.
  I commend the conferees for supporting the North American Development 
Bank in the final bill.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the 
budget 

[[Page S 16475]]

committee scoring of the final bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

   FOREIGN OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE SPENDING TOTALS--CONFERENCE REPORT   
               [Fiscal year 1996, in millions of dollars]               
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                   Budget               
                                                 authority     Outlays  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nondefense discretionary:                                               
  Outlays from prior-year BA and other actions                          
   completed..................................           68        7,950
  H.R. 1868, conference report................       12,060        5,892
  Scorekeeping adjustment.....................  ...........  ...........
                                               -------------------------
      Subtotal nondefense discretionary.......       12,128       13,842
                                               =========================
Mandatory:                                                              
  Outlays from prior-year BA and other actions                          
   completed..................................  ...........  ...........
  H.R. 1868, conference report................           44           44
  Adjustment to conform mandatory programs                              
   with Budget Resolution assumptions.........            0            0
                                               -------------------------
      Subtotal mandatory......................           44           44
                                               =========================
      Adjusted bill total.....................       12,172       13,886
Senate Subcommittee 602(b) allocation:                                  
  Defense discretionary.......................  ...........  ...........
  Nondefense discretionary....................       12,212       13,842
  Violent crime reduction trust fund..........  ...........  ...........
  Mandatory...................................           44           44
                                               -------------------------
      Total allocation........................       12,256       13,886
                                               =========================
Adjusted bill total compared to Senate                                  
 Subcommittee 602(b) allocation:                                        
  Defense discretionary.......................  ...........  ...........
  Nondefense discretionary....................          -84           -0
  Violent crime reduction trust fund..........  ...........  ...........
  Mandatory...................................  ...........  ...........
                                               -------------------------
      Total allocation........................          -84           -0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Details may not add to totals due to rounding. Totals adjusted   
  for consistency with current scorekeeping conventions.                

  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I intend to vote for passage of the 
conference report to H.R. 1868, the foreign operations appropriations 
bill. I do so because there are a number of vitally important 
provisions in this legislation, chief among them being the extension of 
the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act. I share the concerns of many of 
my colleagues regarding Palestinian compliance with the peace accords, 
and will continue to follow this issue with great interest. With this 
bill, the American taxpayer once again is investing in what all hope to 
be a historic and lasting peace in the Middle East. It is up to us here 
in Congress to be sure that it is a wise investment, and that the 
conditions that brought about it are met.
  I must confess I will vote in favor of this bill with great 
reluctance. I am very disappointed that the House and Senate conferees 
agreed to keep in the bill Senate language that would repeal a portion 
of Federal law that prohibits United States aid to Pakistan as long as 
the President fails to certify that Pakistan is not in possession of a 
nuclear explosive device--a law otherwise known as the Pressler 
amendment. The provision in H.R. 1868 would allow nonmilitary aid to 
resume to Pakistan, and would authorize the President to transfer $370 
million in military equipment sought by Pakistan but not delivered 
because of the Pressler sanctions. By including this provision, this 
Congress has put the American taxpayer back in the business of 
subsidizing a nuclear program that this Nation does not recognize under 
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NNPT]. Even worse, today the U.S. 
Congress has sent a chilling message: Nuclear proliferation pays.
  This is a frustrating day, Mr. President. Ten years ago, the U.S. 
Congress passed the Pressler amendment. In so doing, we made it clear 
that the United States could not condone, through foreign aid, 
Pakistan's drive for the bomb. It was our hope that the leverage of 
foreign aid would deter Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons. If it 
did not, it was important from the standpoint of nonproliferation that 
the United States not subsidize Pakistan's nuclear program. That was 
the purpose behind the Pressler amendment.
  By and large, the Pressler amendment has worked. First, though never 
verified, Pakistan claims it has ceased developing weapons grade 
enriched uranium. Second, the threat of Pressler sanctions has deterred 
a number of states that pursued active nuclear weapons research 
programs in the 1980's, including Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, 
Taiwan, and South Africa. This successful track record now risks being 
reversed.
  I have expressed my strong concerns on this issue in this Chamber 
already in great detail. I will not repeat them here. The bottom line 
is clear: Our Nation's nonproliferation policy is in serious jeopardy, 
and it is not just with respect to the Pressler amendment. We have 
heard many reports that the communist Chinese have shipped M-11 related 
missile technology to both Pakistan and Iran in violation of the 
Missile Technology Control Regime. Under a law I drafted, the President 
has presumptive authority to impose sanctions against the responsible 
parties in China if he has reason to believe an MTCR violation has 
occurred. Yet, the President is unwilling to exercise that authority. 
Further, the current House and Senate versions of the intelligence 
authorization bill contain language that would give the President 
unprecedented discretion to waive U.S. nonproliferation laws.
  Mr. President, just last year, the President stated that no foreign 
policy issue was more important to the security of all people than 
nuclear nonproliferation. Yet, the current administration is 
engineering an unprecedented rollback in U.S. nonproliferation laws and 
policies. The administration's actions do not match its rhetoric. This 
demonstration of double- think would be very humorous if the issue was 
not so very serious.
  For those of us in Congress who have devoted many years on 
nonproliferation issues, these recent developments are very disturbing. 
As the world's sole remaining superpower, the signatories of the NNPT 
look to us to set the example and enforce the rules. Yet, today, we are 
changing the rules of the nuclear nonproliferation game to benefit one 
proliferator. This is the worst possible message we could send to those 
nations who have played by the rules.


                           PAKISTAN PROVISION

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Foreign 
Operations Conference Report, but I do so with regret because of the 
provision in this bill relating to Pakistan.
  There is much in this conference report that I support, and which I 
believe the conferees have every right to be proud of.
  The bill maintains our assistance to Israel and Egypt, sending a 
message of the United States' firm support of our allies in the Middle 
East, and our encouragement of their efforts to achieve a comprehensive 
peace.
  The bill extends the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act by 18 months, 
allowing the President to continue to provide assistance to the 
Palestinians and conduct relations with the PLO, while requiring strict 
compliance by the PLO and the Palestinian Authority with all of their 
commitments. This is a further demonstration of U.S. support for the 
peace process.
  The bill provides assistance for Armenia, Ukraine, and other former 
Soviet republics to help ensure that democracy takes hold, and the 
assistance to Russia is appropriately conditioned on Russian 
cooperation with the United States in various areas.
  The bill significantly increases the budget for international 
narcotics programs, demonstrating that controlling the scourge of the 
international drug trade is among our Nation's highest international 
priorities.
  Unfortunately, included in the conference report with all these 
positive provisions is a provision that I think is extremely dangerous. 
The House conferees agreed to adopt the Senate language on Pakistan, 
which was added to the bill as a Brown amendment. Among other things, 
this provision allows the President to transfer to Pakistan some $368 
million worth of sophisticated military equipment at a time when 
Pakistan is still committed to pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
  I realize that we have debated this issue at length, but the 
objections to this provision bear repeating.
  Sanctions were invoked against Pakistan in 1990 because President 
Bush could not certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear 
explosive device. Nothing has changed since that time. To this day, 
neither President Bush nor President Clinton has been able to make such 
a certification.
  Pakistan's commitment to continuing its nuclear program makes it 
wholly inappropriate--even irresponsible--for the Congress to authorize 
the release to Pakistan of a significant package of sophisticated 
military equipment.
  I realize that this provision has the support of the administration, 
but I must say that in advocating this proposal, the administration is 
also acting irresponsibly. An administration that says that 
nonproliferation is one of its 

[[Page S 16476]]

highest international priorities should not be transferring weapons to 
Pakistan until Pakistan has made vast improvements on the 
nonproliferation front.
  There is a further concern about transferring these weapons. The 
package of equipment may not be significant enough to substantially 
alter the military balance in the region, but it is enough to 
exacerbate an unstable political situation. The political symbolism of 
the returning equipment will be handing a propaganda victory to the 
extremist Indian opposition heading in next spring's elections.
   The Indian Government is already coming under intense domestic 
pressure to respond to the transfer of these weapons. I very much fear 
that India will respond by deploying their Prithvi missile, which could 
launch a bona fide ballistic missile race in South Asia. Pakistan might 
well respond by deploying the M-11s many believe they have acquired 
from China.
  If this scenario plays itself out, the United States will be 
responsible for fueling an extremely dangerous arms race in one of the 
most unstable regions in the world.
  Having said all this, I want to make two additional points. First, I 
want to urge the government and people of India not to overreact to 
this turn of events.
  Indian politicians may exploit these weapons for their own gain and 
stoke the flames of paranoia in the pursuit of votes. But I want to 
urge the Government of India not to respond to this weapons transfer by 
significantly upgrading their military posture, and in particular, not 
to further escalate the arms race in South Asia.
  Second, if we must transfer these weapons to Pakistan, we are 
entitled to expect something in return. As I have said in the past, I 
favor resuming nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan in order to expand 
our ability to cooperate on anti-terrorism activities, anti-narcotics 
efforts, peacekeeping, environmental protection, and other areas. I 
consider those provisions of the Brown amendment to be helpful in 
enabling us to rebuild our troubled relationship with Pakistan.
  But we have every right to expect improved cooperation from Pakistan, 
not only in these areas, but in nonproliferation as well. Pakistan's 
unfortunate record of developing nuclear weapons and seeking to acquire 
ballistic missile technology has exacerbated tensions and contributed 
to instability in South Asia. As we have in the past, I would urge 
Pakistan to reverse course and contribute to building a new, more 
stable South Asia.
  Mr. President, I believe we have made a mistake with the passage of 
the entire Brown amendment. With the help of both India and Pakistan, 
we can help ensure that this mistake does not spawn other, even greater 
mistakes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the conference 
report? If not, the question is on agreeing to the conference report. 
The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Hatfield] and 
the Senator from Alaska [Mr. Stevens] are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Oregon [Mr. Hatfield] would vote ``yea.''
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] 
is absent because of illness in the family.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 90, nays 6, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 559 Leg.]

                                YEAS--90

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Snowe
     Specter
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner
     Wellstone

                                NAYS--6

     Byrd
     Craig
     Faircloth
     Hollings
     Kempthorne
     Smith

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Bradley
     Hatfield
     Stevens
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question before the Senate is the 
amendment in disagreement, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Resolved, That the House recede from its disagreement to 
     the amendment of the Senate numbered 115 to the aforesaid 
     bill, and concur therein with an amendment as follows:
       In lieu of the matter proposed by said amendment, insert:
     : Provided, That none of the funds available under this Act 
     may be used to lobby for or against abortion.


                  prohibition on funding for abortion

       Sec. 518A. (a) In General.--(1) Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of this Act or other law, none of the funds 
     appropriated by this Act for population assistance activities 
     may be made available for any foreign private, 
     nongovernmental, or multilateral organization until the 
     organization certifies that it will not during the period for 
     which the funds are made available, perform abortions in any 
     foreign country, except where the life of the mother would 
     be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in 
     cases of forcible rape or incest.
       (2) Paragraph (1) may not be construed to apply to the 
     treatment of injuries or illnesses caused by legal or illegal 
     abortions or to assistance provided directly to the 
     government of a country.
       (b) Lobbying Activities.--(1) Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of this Act or other law, none of the funds 
     appropriated by this Act for population assistance activities 
     may be made available for any foreign private, 
     nongovernmental, or multilateral organization until the 
     organization certifies that it will not during the period for 
     which the funds are made available, violate the laws of any 
     foreign country concerning the circumstances under which 
     abortion is permitted, regulated, or prohibited.
       (2) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, 
     paragraph (1) shall not apply to activities in opposition to 
     coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.
       (c) Subsections (a) and (b) apply to funds made available 
     for a foreign organization either directly or as a 
     subcontractor or sub-grantee, and the required certifications 
     apply to activities in which the organization engages either 
     directly or through a subcontractor or sub-grantee.
       (d) Coercive Population Control Methods.--Notwithstanding 
     any other provision of this Act or other law, none of the 
     funds appropriated by this Act may be made available for the 
     United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), unless the President 
     certifies to the appropriate congressional committees that 
     (1) the United Nations Population Fund will terminate all 
     family planning activities in the People's Republic of China 
     no later than March 1, 1996; or (2) during the 12 months 
     preceding such certification, there have been no abortions as 
     the result of coercion associated with the family planning 
     policies of the national government or other governmental 
     entities within the People's Republic of China. As used in 
     this section the term ``coercion'' includes physical duress 
     or abuse, destruction or confiscation of property, loss of 
     means of livelihood, or severe psychological pressure.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 3041

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment 
with an amendment that I send to the desk on behalf of myself and the 
Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy], for himself and Mrs. 
     Kassebaum, proposes an amendment numbered 3041 to the 
     amendment of the House to the amendment of the Senate No. 
     115.

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

       In lieu of the matter proposed, insert the following: ``: 
     Provided, That in determining eligibility for assistance from 
     funds appropriated to carry out section 104 of the Foreign 
     Assistance Act of 1961, nongovernmental and multilateral 
     organizations shall not be subjected to requirements more 
     restrictive than the requirements applicable to 

[[Page S 16477]]

     foreign governments for such assistance: Provided further, 
     That none of the funds made available under this Act may be 
     used to lobby for or against abortion.''

  Mr. LEAHY. I will yield to the Senator from Arizona in a moment. Just 
so that colleagues will understand what is happening here, the 
amendment that the Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] and I have sent 
to the desk is an amendment on the one amendment in disagreement. We 
resolved 192 out of the 193 amendments in the committee of conference. 
This is the one so-called Mexico City policy of the 1980's, one in 
disagreement.
  After having been reported, it is open to second-degree amendment, 
which I understand the Senator from Arizona is going to make on an 
entirely different issue. But for those who have been asking me about 
the Mexico City policy, my understanding is what we would then do is 
debate the amendment of the Senator from Arizona, there would be a vote 
on that, and then we would begin the debate on the Mexico City 
amendment.


                Amendment No. 3042 to Amendment No. 3041

(Purpose: To permit the continued provision of assistance to Burma only 
                  if certain conditions are satisfied)

  Mr. McCAIN. I have a second degree perfecting amendment, which I send 
to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], for himself and Mr. 
     Kerry, proposes an amendment numbered 3042 to amendment No. 
     3041.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:
       At the end of the pending amendment add the following:
       Sec.   . Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, 
     funds made available in this Act may be used for 
     international narcotics control assistance under chapter 8 of 
     part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, or crop 
     substitution assistance, directly for the Government of Burma 
     if the Secretary of State certifies to the appropriate 
     congressional committees that any such programs are fully 
     consistent with United States human rights concerns in Burma 
     and serve a vital United States national interest. The 
     President shall include in each annual International 
     Narcotics Control Strategy Report submitted under section 
     489(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 
     2291h(a)) a description of the programs funded under this 
     section.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I have discussed this amendment with the 
distinguished Senator from Kentucky, the manager of the bill, and with 
the Senator from Vermont. I do not believe this should take very much 
time.
  I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this amendment would modify the provision 
in the conference report that prohibits funding for international 
narcotics control assistance in Burma. The amendment would modify that 
prohibition by permitting such assistance only if the Secretary of 
State certifies to Congress that such programs are fully consistent 
with the United States human rights concerns in Burma, and that they 
serve a vital United States national interest.
  I emphasize that the secretary must certify that a program such as 
this serves a vital U.S. national security interest.
  That vital national interest is obvious, Mr. President. Sixty percent 
of the heroin that comes to this country originates in Burma--60 
percent. We have a compelling, urgent responsibility to do whatever we 
can to eliminate or at least reduce Burma's export of that dangerous 
narcotic. Without a strategy that addresses the heroin trade in Burma, 
we have no effective antinarcotic program at all.
  I can well understand the Senate's desire to influence the Burmese 
regime's treatment of the Burmese people. That treatment has been 
abominable and well deserves our severe reproach. I visited Burma last 
March and was exposed to a pretty representative sampling of how 
abominable that treatment has been and continues to be.
  Daw Aung San Kyi's release was a very welcome development. But in and 
of itself it does not represent evidence of political reform or even an 
indication of progress toward an objective standard of human rights in 
Burma. Burma has a very long way to go.
  I feel very strongly that the United States must actively support the 
cause of human freedom in Burma, and make it unmistakably clear to 
Burma's State Law and Order Restoration Council, the SLORC, that the 
United States, indeed, all of the civilized world expect them to begin 
respecting the will and the rights of the Burmese people.
  But what I have difficulty understanding is why we must refrain from 
acting in our own national interest while we attempt to act in the 
interest of the Burmese people. I could understand the objective of 
this provision if it stated that no funds for drug control could be 
made available directly to the SLORC. I would not support this 
assistance either if the State Department were proposing to simply 
provide money to the SLORC with the promise that the SLORC would use it 
to eradicate poppy fields. It is quite probable that such funds would 
be used by the SLORC to further oppress ethnic minorities in Burma, 
like the Wa.
  But, Mr. President, that is not what the administration proposes to 
do with this assistance. First, it is a relatively small amount of 
money that we are talking about, with most of it going to the efforts 
of the United Nations Drug Control Program [UNDCP] in Burma. Two 
million dollars would be provided to the U.N. to work with ethnic 
minorities on crop substitution and other programs intended to begin 
making some, although admittedly small, progress in reducing poppy 
cultivation. None of that assistance would be funneled through the 
SLORC.
  A limited--a very limited amount of assistance, $50,000, I believe--
would be provided to train Burmese customs officials. But I fail to see 
the harm in that, given that the amount is so small, and the need for 
better Burmese control of drug smuggling at the borders so obvious.
  Mr. President, $2 million isn't going to solve America's heroin 
problem. But I do not see how we begin to get any control over that 
problem absent some kind of program in Burma.
  Opium production in Burma has skyrocketed in recent years. It is, by 
far, the largest heroin producing country in the world. Again, 60 
percent of heroin in the United States originates in Burma.
  The enormous increase in heroin production globally has substantially 
reduced the street price of heroin while simultaneously increasing the 
purity, and, consequently, the lethality of the drug. Overdoses--fatal 
overdoses--have increased rapidly in the United States.
  Sadly, as long as there is demand for heroin, we will never be able 
to keep it out of all our children's hands. But if in Burma and 
elsewhere our efforts make some progress in restricting the flow of 
heroin to the United States, we will make the drug more expensive and 
less readily available on our streets that it is today.
  Mr. President, before I conclude, I should also add that in meetings 
attended by American Embassy officials in Rangoon, Daw Aung San Suu 
Kyi, the Nobel Prize winner, clearly the leader of that nation, who has 
been a beacon of hope for freedom and democracy for the people of Burma 
and people of the world, whose stature is such that she was awarded the 
Nobel Peace Prize, and she, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, expressed her support 
for counter-narcotics assistance to Burma. In fact, she maintained such 
assistance would not directly or indirectly help the SLORC to retain 
power and, on the contrary, might encourage the SLORC to make 
additional human rights concessions. For my part, her opinion should be 
what drives the decisions made here in the U.S. Senate. I think it is 
clearly sufficient justification to approve of this very modest 
antidrug program.
  I am convinced that the counternarcotics assistance envisioned for 
Burma is consistent with our human rights goals in Burma. But I repeat, 
to ensure that it remains so, this amendment requires the Secretary to 
certify that all the programs which our assistance would support are 
fully consistent with our human rights concerns in Burma.
  Mr. President, I believe, as we have in many other countries, the 
United 

[[Page S 16478]]

States can advance its values and protect our national interests in 
Burma simultaneously. They are not mutually exclusive and should not be 
treated so.
  I understand the committee's motive for this provision. I must 
disagree with the means by which it hopes to achieve its objective. I 
hope Senators also disagree with those means and support the amendment 
to help in some small way reduce the flow of heroin to the streets of 
America.
  Mr. President, this amendment is supported by the administration. 
This amendment is supported by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. I have no brief 
for the ruling junta of army officers that control Burma--their human 
rights record is despicable. If any of this money were going to help 
that organization, I would not be proposing it.
  We started a war on drugs some years ago, and we have either declared 
unconditional surrender or we have forgotten about it. I do not know 
which. Whatever, there is an increase in the use of heroin in this 
country. There is an increase in the purity of that heroin. There are 
lethal overdoses that are being taken of that drug as we speak.
  I believe that there are many ways to win the war on drugs. The 
primary one is to reduce the demand here at home. We also must attack 
the supply in whatever way we can.
  I want to point out again, Mr. President, I probably would not have 
proposed this amendment if it had not been for the express support of 
this program by this remarkable, extraordinary woman, a woman who 
transcends human events, a woman who has suffered for her country, 
whose father was a martyr to an assassin's bullet as he was the leader 
of this poor country. Mr. President, if the person who clearly, if 
there were an election tomorrow, would win by an overwhelming majority, 
a landslide, were not in support of this amendment, I would not be 
proposing it, and I hope that the Members of this body will heed her 
words rather than anyone else's, including my own.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in July, Suu Kyi was released after 6 
years under house arrest. It was the first glimmer of hope for Burma 
since the military crackdown in 1988. As she has repeatedly and 
emphatically stated since her release, nothing else has happened. She 
has been released and that is it. Burma is not one step closer to 
implementing the results of the elections of 1990.
  Burmese citizens are still suffering at the hands of one of the worst 
police states in the world. In fact, since Suu Kyi was released, there 
have been more arrests, more Burmese men, women, and children have been 
forced from their homes into concentration camps, more villages have 
been burned to the ground by the government troops.
  In fact, a recent Amnesty International report asserted unequivocally 
that the situation has dramatically deteriorated inside Burma in the 
last 2 months. Let me be clear, the situation has gotten worse since 
Suu Kyi's release.
  Yet this is the very government that the amendment of my good friend 
from Arizona would have us cooperate with. Reasonable people can differ 
about how best to handle this situation, but I must say with all due 
respect to my good friend from Arizona, I see it a little differently. 
A government guilty of arbitrary detentions, torture, forced 
relocations, and killings is, it seems to me, a questionable government 
with which to deal.
  The Assistant Secretary of State for Asia, Win Lord, shares this 
view. When I asked him what were the major impediments to an effective 
counternarcotics effort he said, ``What is gong to solve the problem 
over the long run is a popular, representative open government--all 
other efforts are minuscule compared to whether you have an open system 
there.'' I could not agree more with Secretary Lord's statement. A 
military junta, with an army of 350,000, assembled exclusively to 
terrorize its own people--they have no external threats, this army is 
to terrorize Burmese people--a military junta about which Assistant 
Secretary of State for Asian affairs, Winston Lord, has testified, 
``The only impediment to cooperation on narcotics is their lack of 
interest.'' Their, meaning the SLORC.
  Secretary Lord has testified we can only expect to see real 
cooperation on narcotics if democracy is restored. They had an election 
in 1990. The SLORC did not honor the election. Suu Kyi had been under 
house arrest since 1988, until this July. The situation has 
deteriorated since then. The question I guess we have before us is 
whether cooperation with this regime will produce a positive result. I 
am as concerned about the fact that 60 percent of the heroin coming 
into this country is coming from Burma as anyone else. It seems to me 
reasonable people can differ as to how to approach this problem, but I 
think we should be moving to isolate the military junta, rather than 
pursuing the amendment of my good friend from Arizona. That is why we 
should support the restoration of democracy and implement the results 
of the 1990 election.
  Let me just conclude by noting that Suu Kyi has urged all nations to 
suspend investment in Burma, to take all steps possible to isolate this 
pariah regime. She opposes any efforts to legitimize this repressive 
regime.
  My good friend from Arizona has argued that his amendment is not 
about cooperating with SLORC, but that is precisely what the State 
Department budget materials recommend. That is what the State 
Department is in effect recommending here. So it seems to me that is 
exactly what the State Department has in mind. They are seeking funds 
to train SLORC in counternarcotics efforts.
  My good friend from Arizona has indicated that he believes Suu Kyi 
supports this cooperation. I know that is what the administration has 
represented as her position. The administration said Suu Kyi supports 
this approach.
  But I might point out to my colleagues, to members of the House 
International Relations Committee who met with her, and in interviews 
with the international media, she has explicitly and repeatedly said 
she does not support cooperation with SLORC.
  In fact, when she was advised the assistance we have provided had 
been used to attack ethnic groups on the border, I was advised she was 
horrified. It is the administration's interpretation of Suu Kyi's 
wishes that my colleague is relying upon, and I can understand his 
relying on the administration, I suppose. But there is substantial 
evidence, it seems to this Senator, that the administration is not 
correctly relating Suu Kyi's position to us. They are incorrectly 
characterizing her position.
  There are others, including the international press and members of 
the House International Relations Committee, who have met with Suu Kyi 
and come to a different conclusion. So reasonable people here can 
differ.
  I know my friend from Arizona's intentions are the best. He has been 
to Burma. He knows a lot about Southeast Asia. But it just seems to 
this Senator that cooperation with SLORC is not in our best interests. 
It seems to this Senator there are a number of people, both reporters 
and House Members, who have spoken with Suu Kyi who reached the 
conclusion that she would not favor this approach.
  I simply hope the Senate will not go on record supporting the 
amendment of the Senator from Arizona. The issue of Burma is not going 
to go away. He is extremely knowledgeable about Burma, has very strong 
opinions about Burma. There are others of us who are also interested in 
what we might be able to do to bring about the end of SLORC and the 
return of democracy.
  I hope we could all kind of sit down together and, not using this 
particular bill as a vehicle, sit down together and figure out what our 
best approach to Burma ought to be. With all due respect to my friend 
from Arizona, it seems to me cooperation with SLORC on drugs would be 
like cooperating with Iran on counterterrorism. It seems to me highly 
unlikely that this would be a productive relationship.
  So I hope the amendment of the Senator from Arizona will not be 
approved. I will make a motion to table when we 

[[Page S 16479]]

finish our debate. I understand we are going to be finishing up pretty 
quickly.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] is 
recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I, like the distinguished chairman, cannot 
support the amendment and will join in his motion to table, not because 
I disagree with the Senator from Arizona in wanting to stop the flow of 
heroin from Burma. I totally agree with him in wanting to do that. I 
acknowledge his expertise in that part of the world. Anybody who has 
watched the evidence from the various law enforcement and international 
agencies knows of the tremendous flow of heroin from Burma. But I do 
not think this would stop it. In fact, I believe it will be money 
basically lost.
  The SLORC itself is involved in the drug trade. They are an army that 
violates the human rights of their own people. They oppress their own 
people. They stop dissent in their own people. But, also, they take 
drug money themselves.
  A U.N. program is not going to make any measurable difference. We are 
dealing with an outlaw government. We should not be doing something 
that might suggest that we accept this government in any way. These are 
drug dealers and thugs. They themselves are profiting from something we 
would be asking them to stop. So, while I will be happy to look at 
other areas when this bill next comes up, or any other bill, I will not 
support this.
  I might also say I hope, having cleared 192 out of 193 amendments in 
disagreement, that we might be able to send back to the other body just 
one amendment in disagreement, something that will be debated and voted 
on following the debate and vote on the amendment of the Senator from 
Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, a cable sent back from the State 
Department, which I have a copy of, concerned a long interview that 
took place with Aung San Suu Kyi on July 14 of this year. I quote:
       Speaking to the Richardson-Rohrabacher amendment seeking to 
     bar any USG drug control assistance to Burma, Aung San Suu 
     Kyi disapproved, opining that, while the ``stick'' of 
     impending trade sanctions had been useful in prompting her 
     release, offering USG counternarcotics assistance to the 
     SLORC would be a useful ``carrot'' to encourage additional 
     progress.
       The SLORC's desire to benefit from the political legitimacy 
     accompanying USG drug control aid is well known, pointed out 
     the NLD leader. She cited exchange of information and 
     training as two specific types of counternarcotics assistance 
     she could envision occurring now.

  By the way, I ask unanimous consent the entire cable be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the cable was ordered to be printed in the 
Record as follows:

                Sanctions and Drug Control Aid Discussed


         nld leader sees drug control aid as useful ``carrot''

       11. Speaking to the Richardson-Rohrabacher amendment 
     seeking to bar any USG drug control assistance to Burma, Aung 
     San Suu Kyi disapproved, opining that, while the ``stick'' of 
     impending trade sanctions had been useful in prompting her 
     release, offering USG counternarcotics assistance to the 
     SLORC would be a useful ``carrot'' to encourage additional 
     progress.
       The SLORC's desire to benefit from the political legitimacy 
     accompanying USG drug control aid is well known, pointed out 
     the NLD leader. She cited exchange of information and 
     training as two specific types of counternarcotics assistance 
     she could envision occurring now. While the SLORC would 
     appreciate this aid, it would not improve the regime's 
     staying power.
       12. Berkowitz expressed concern that an exchange of 
     information on drug traffickers and operations with the 
     Burmese authorities might hurt the Wa, who are poor farmers 
     with no alternative other than poppy cultivation. Suu Kyi 
     clarified that the type of information she was taking about 
     would not be that which could be used to attack harmless 
     people. Rather, information on drug traffickers' movements 
     would assist Burmese officials in locating and interdicting 
     drug operations.
       She turned to Tin 00, calling him an expert on the Wa, and 
     asked him for expanded views on this issue. Tin 00 noted that 
     poor Wa might be hurt, but added that the exchange of 
     information on areas of poppy cultivation would be good, 
     though the government may not take action against poppy 
     cultivation in ethnic areas even when provided precise 
     information on their location. Aung San Suu Kyi did not seem 
     unduly worried when Berkowitz raised, the possibility that 
     drug control efforts in the Wa area might alienate Wa farmers 
     who depend on drug production for their sustenance.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, unless misinformation--and perhaps it is--
is being conveyed from our Embassy in Burma, I think it is pretty clear 
what Aung San Suu Kyi's position is on this issue.
  Also, let me point out, as I did in my opening statement, I do not 
support any money going through the Burmese Government known as SLORC. 
This money would not go through the Burmese Government known as SLORC. 
It specifically would be provided to the United Nations to work with 
ethnic minorities on crop substitution and other programs intended to 
begin making some, although admittedly small, progress in reducing 
poppy cultivation. None of that assistance would be funneled through 
the Government.
  So I am sorry the Senator from Vermont either is misinformed or did 
not pay attention to what I had to say; perhaps both.
  But the fact is that this money would not--I repeat, not--go through 
the settlement. If it would go through the Burmese Government, then I 
am convinced Aung San San Suu Kyi would not approve of it. After all, 
she is the one spent 4 years under house arrest and was a martyr who 
watched her countrymen be slaughtered by the same group of people. 
Everybody has their own opinion.
  But let us not distort the facts here. The facts are that we have 
credible evidence from a cable sent to the United States State 
Department which clearly indicates her support of certain types of drug 
control programs. That is reality, and that is a fact.
  The other fact that I think we ought to emphasize here is that the 
money would not go through the Burmese Government. And nobody--I mean 
nobody that I know of--would support funding through that government.
  I would also suggest that perhaps the Senator from Vermont--Vermont 
is a little bit different from what it is in Arizona. Perhaps in 
Vermont he does not have kids overdosing on drugs in the streets of the 
capital of his State. Mr. President, I do. The Senator from Vermont 
said it will not do much good. Maybe it will not do much good. But I 
know that people are dying in my home State from overdoses of heroin, 
from lethal doses of heroin that come directly from Burma, because it 
is a proven fact that 60 percent of the heroin that comes into the 
United States comes from Burma.
  So, in all due respect to the Senator from Vermont and the people in 
his State, it is a compelling, urgent, and terrible problem that we 
have to take every possible step to cure. One of them would be to 
reduce the cultivation of this drug where it originates which does not 
require the participation of the Burmese Government.
  Mr. President, it is a $2 million program we are talking about here. 
I am a bit curious why we should have to take up so much time of the 
Senate in a very large multibillion-dollar piece of legislation. But I 
would be willing to vote on the motion of the Senator from Kentucky to 
table whenever he feels that we should.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, by way of very brief response to my 
friend from Arizona, the cable to which he referred was prepared a few 
days after Suu Kyi's release back in July. She subsequently learned 
that we provided information to SLORC on an alleged drug caravan which 
turned out to be used to attack ethnic groups on the border. Her views 
2 days after being totally isolated for 6 years has since been fully 
informed by facts, which are that the money in all likelihood will end 
up with SLORC. She has since repeatedly opposed this cooperation, and 
in interviews, both with the press and with Congressmen who have been 
there, believe that it may threaten Burmese citizens.
  Again, let me say reasonable people can differ about this. I totally 
respect my friend from Arizona and his interest in involvement in this 
issue. Fundamentally, it seems to me, the question is whether we should 
be cooperating with the SLORC, one of the worst regimes in the world, 
if not the worst.

[[Page S 16480]]

  I think we have probably debated this amendment fully. I am not aware 
of anybody else who wishes to speak.
  Mr. President, I move to table the McCain amendment, and I ask for 
the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion of 
the Senator from Kentucky to lay on the table the amendment of the 
Senator from Arizona. On this question, the yeas and nays have been 
ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Hatfield] is 
necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Oregon [Mr. Hatfield] would vote ``yea.''
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] 
is absent because of illness in the family.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 47, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 560 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Akaka
     Bennett
     Biden
     Boxer
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cochran
     Coverdell
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Gorton
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lott
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Stevens
     Wellstone

                                NAYS--47

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Breaux
     Coats
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Craig
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Johnston
     Kempthorne
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kyl
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pressler
     Roth
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bradley
     Hatfield
       
  So, the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 3042) was 
agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the motion was agreed to.
  Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.


                           Amendment No. 3041

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion of the Senator from Vermont to 
concur in the House amendment with an amendment.
  Mr. LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. President. Just so my colleagues 
understand, and I know there are a number of Senators on both sides who 
are going to want to speak, let me back up a bit.
  First, the Senate has voted in favor of the conference report. The 
conference report reflected a conference that agreed on 192 out of 193 
amendments. Now we have the 1 remaining amendment of those 193 which is 
in true disagreement, and we have received from the other body their 
proposal.
  I have moved to amend their amendment in disagreement with an 
amendment by myself and the Senator from Kansas, Mrs. Kassebaum. What 
happened is the Senate conferees were not able to agree to a House 
provision that would reinstate the so-called Mexico City policy of the 
1980's. As Senators may recall, the Mexico City policy caused much 
division in this country and picked up a lot of ridicule for this 
country abroad. It prohibits the U.S. Government from using its funds 
to support private family planning organizations that use their own 
funds to provide counseling and other services relating to abortion.
  What my amendment does, it strikes the House provision and it 
replaces it with the identical Senate language that passed this body on 
September 21. Senator Kassebaum, who is the original author of this 
language, is a cosponsor of this amendment.
  The amendment says that in determining eligibility for assistance, 
non-Government and multilateral organizations shall not be subjected to 
requirements more restrictive to requirements applicable to foreign 
governments for such assistance; provided further that none of the 
funds made available under this act may be used to lobby for or against 
abortion.
  So no matter what your position is on abortion, U.S. money cannot be 
used to lobby for or against it. This has been very carefully thought 
out to give Senators who have strong views on the subject of abortion a 
common ground and be respectful of the views on both sides of this 
issue.
  The sad thing about the House provision, which we are now seeking to 
amend and send back to the other body, is that it is not only totally 
and utterly unnecessary, but if it prevailed on this bill, it 
guarantees a veto, and the work of the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. 
McConnell, and myself, as well as all the other Senators who joined 
with us in putting together the foreign aid bill, goes down the drain.
  Our bill explicitly, and I wish Senators would listen to this, the 
Senate bill explicitly prohibits the use of any U.S. funds for 
abortion. Period. End of sentence. No qualifications.
  It is the same prohibition that we have had for years. It is the same 
prohibition we had in the last Republican administration. It is the 
same prohibition we have in this administration. No funds in this bill 
can be used for abortion.
  We are really ending up debating bumper-sticker slogans. We are 
ending up debating--I do not know--fundraising letters, whatever, but 
we are not debating the reality of the foreign aid bill.
  The amendment I offered simply continues current law and practice, 
and at a time when support for voluntary family planning programs and 
women's reproductive health is growing around the world, it would be 
ridiculous for the United States to, once again, surrender its 
leadership in this area as we did back in the eighties.
  Some have defended the House provision, because it only prohibits 
U.S. support for foreign organizations. That is precisely the problem. 
It is by supporting foreign organizations that we implement our family 
planning programs. We do not stop the population explosion in other 
parts of the country by saying we will send the money to Planned 
Parenthood of Winooski, VT. We do it by sending the money where family 
planning might help. In fact, let me give just one example of what the 
House provision would do.
  A current program that uses United States funds to train Russian 
doctors in providing family planning services would have to shut down 
because it takes place in a Russian hospital. In that Russian hospital, 
Russian funds are used to perform legal abortions. In Russia, the 
average woman has seven abortions, something I find, and I hope most 
people would find, to be a terrible situation.
  But in our program, which tries to help the Russian doctors teach 
family planning so they will not be having seven abortions, the House 
provision says you cannot do that. You cannot do that because in the 
place where they would teach that, somewhere else in that same building 
abortions might take place.
  Well, come on, this is Alice in Wonderland. You teach alternatives to 
abortion at a place where people who are interested in that subject 
might be.
  The whole point of this program is to promote contraceptives and 
alternatives to abortion. It does not ask for money for abortion, it 
seeks alternatives. Every dollar is for voluntary --voluntary--family 
planning. I say to my colleagues, if you vote against the amendment of 
the Senator from Kansas and myself, let there be no mistake, that 
opposes voluntary family planning if you vote against it.
  The other point I want to emphasize is no funds in this bill can be 
used in China. I heard the debate earlier about people who are 
concerned about what happens in China. Well, I am concerned. I am 
appalled by forced sterilization. I am appalled by forced abortions. I 
am appalled by the Chinese 

[[Page S 16481]]

Government telling people, under pain of all kinds of strictures, how 
many children they can have. We all are, but do not knock down our 
ability to help the voluntary family planning in other countries by 
holding up as a straw man somehow the situation in China.
  Chinese population policy should be condemned, but do not condemn the 
program. In fact, the House provision would prevent the United States 
from contributing to the U.N. population fund. It is the largest 
international family planning agency in the world. UNFPA does not fund 
abortion. It has an explicit policy against supporting abortion. It 
funds contraceptives, education and informs about family planning in 
140 countries. It is absolutely vital the United States play a leading 
role in the U.N. agency at a time when the decisions we make today will 
determine if the world population doubles or even triples. The Chinese 
population policy should be condemned, but do not condemn an 
organization that seeks to demonstrate to the Chinese Government that 
they can achieve the same results with voluntary family planning.
  As I said, we contain a prohibition against using U.S. funds in 
China. That is despite the fact U.N. programs in China promote 
voluntary family planning and human rights.
  Mr. President, let us not go backwards, not when so many governments 
are finally seeking out and limiting rates of population growth. Many 
of these countries are already impoverished. We have the technology, 
the expertise and the interest in helping. The amendment in the House 
requires UNFPA to withdraw from China. That is a decision not for UNFPA 
but its governing board, which is made up of its donor governments. By 
attaching a condition UNFPA cannot meet, we cut off funding for 
programs in 139 other countries.

  So just understand what is here. In the amendment of the Senator from 
Kansas and myself, no money for abortion, no money for child care, but 
money for voluntary family planning. If you are against voluntarily 
family planning, vote against it. But if you would like to see, as we 
do, the ability to give some of these countries alternatives to 
abortion, then vote with us. And also, with all the work that has gone 
into this bill, let us complete the bill so it can actually be signed 
into law by the President and not vetoed.
  I see the cosponsor, my good friend from Kansas, on the floor. I 
yield to her.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Hatfield be made a cosponsor of this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, the language that I am cosponsoring 
with my colleague from Vermont is, as he has said, identical language 
that was included in the Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which 
passed the Senate in September by a vote of 91-9.
  It is also language similar to that which passed the Senate in 1984 
and in 1989. At this time, as Senator Leahy pointed out, House and 
Senate conferees were able to reconcile every other aspect of the 
legislation, except this issue. The House insisted upon their language, 
we insisted upon ours and, thus, the bill was reported out of 
conference with this language in disagreement. I think that if the 
House passed the language they passed and if we pass the language 
offered in this amendment, it is my understanding that a continuing 
resolution would continue for the bill with everything passed--the 
language of everything passed in a continuing resolution, except 
current language reporting the issue at stake in disagreement here.
  The language that has been introduced does not change the current 
U.S. policy that prohibits funding for abortion activities. It simply 
ensures that foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations will 
be treated in the same way with respect to establishing eligibility for 
U.S. population assistance. If abortion is legal in a country and if a 
foreign government is engaged in population assistance programs, why 
should we tell a nongovernmental agency or organization working in that 
country that they cannot use U.S. funds? It seems to me they should be 
able to use them for population assistance, Mr. President. That is what 
this issue is about. It is not about abortion.
  As I think all colleagues know, this issue first came about in 1984 
at the International Conference on Population in Mexico City. The 
Reagan administration announced that any nongovernmental organization 
which used private or non-U.S. funds to contract abortion-related 
activities would be prohibited from receiving U.S. population 
assistance. If they use their own private, or if their own non-U.S. 
funds in any way are involved, as the Senator from Vermont pointed out, 
then they could not receive any U.S. funds for population assistance.
  I just feel that it is far too limiting, Mr. President. It really 
cripples us in our ability to help other nations deal with population 
assistance initiatives.
  Since 1973, the United States has prohibited the use of U.S. dollars 
by any recipient of U.S. population assistance to pay for abortions 
abroad. I support this.
  However, Mr. President, this amendment, as I said before, is not 
about an abortion. As the Senator from Vermont pointed out, it would 
prohibit funds going to China. It would also prohibit funds which could 
be used for lobbying for or against abortion. So I think it is 
important to keep in mind exactly what it is about. It is about 
supporting nongovernmental organizations in creating safe, effective, 
comprehensive family planning programs--programs that are designed to 
prevent the need for abortion.
  Mr. President, some of my colleagues have argued that the United 
States should not have a role in international population assistance 
programs. But while some contend that there is no relationship between 
world population and our national security, a closer look, I think, at 
all the factors involved make it clear that population stabilization is 
in our best interest. Without such an effort, the world's political, 
economic, and environmental forces balance precariously on the verge of 
chaos.
  I think I came to realize this most clearly as I have spent a number 
of years on the Africa Subcommittee in the Foreign Relations Committee. 
It has shown me that arguments to the contrary are misinformed. The 
population assistance initiatives are important. There is no doubt in 
my mind, for example, that overpopulation played a major role in 
compounding famine in Africa. I do not think I need to point out to 
anyone here the tragedies that have resulted from that, or could result 
from that, and the importance of doing thoughtful, constructive 
population assistance initiatives. It is not easy. We have to be very 
sensitive to cultural differences as we work in other countries and 
support work in other countries. But, clearly, it seems to me that it 
does have merit and it is important.
  I realize that many of my colleagues here are tired of this fight. 
But I continue to believe strongly in preventing the need for abortion 
by working to establish effective family planning programs. I hope my 
colleagues will similarly recognize the need to prevent what has been 
called the international gag rule from ever emerging as an obstacle to 
creating effective policy.
  I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this amendment. I suggest, 
Mr. President, it is not really an issue of the President vetoing this 
bill. In my mind, it is an issue of the merit or demerit of this 
amendment. I feel strongly that this amendment really says that we do 
care about working together with nongovernmental organizations, with 
other countries, being sensitive and constructive with family planning 
initiatives.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a 
cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Leahy-
Kassebaum amendment. The Senator from Vermont and the Senator from 
Kansas have done more in the last few minutes to clarify this issue 
than I think has been done for some time--the very clear point that the 
Senate position on this in the past does not provide Federal funding 
for abortions through these organizations. That is the fact. For that 
reason, I stand in strong opposition, as well, to the House language.
  The House language endangers our national interests. It is not simply 
an 

[[Page S 16482]]

antichoice or antiabortion, or a proabortion issue, as some of the 
proponents say. What it is is antifamily planning. The House position 
smacks of being against the interests of women and international 
development.
  Population assistance is a critical component of our foreign aid 
program, and a worthy investment in bracing for the threats to U.S. 
national security that will arise throughout the 21st century.
  Even President Nixon, who was not known as a prochoice activist, 
listed population growth ``among the most important issues we face * * 
* a world problem which no country can ignore, whether it is moved by 
the narrowest perception of national self-interest or the widest vision 
of common humanity.''
  Indeed, President Nixon pledged full U.S. support and cooperation in 
supporting U.N. population and family planning programs at the same 
time the United States played an active role in founding the U.N. 
population fund known as the UNFPA.
  If we were to enact the House language, Mr. President, we would cut 
off support for UNFPA as well as the crucial private organizations 
supporting family planning and women's rights and manageable population 
growth.
  Mr. President, the world population today stands at 5.7 billion 
people, almost double what it was in 1960. It is growing by about 100 
million people per year. Most of this growth is in the developing world 
in regions that cannot, of course, sustain their current populations.
  The environmental and economic effects of this population program are 
very significant. The effect on women as a population is really 
disastrous. If development efforts are going to be successful, they 
have to include the full participation of women--at least 50 percent of 
the world population.
  However, if women are not given control of their own bodies, or if 
they are compelled to carry and deliver unlimited numbers of children, 
then they cannot be full partners. They cannot be full partners 
politically, economically, or socially in the development of their 
country.
  The U.S. population programs, in conjunction with international 
strategies, have actually yielded incredible results for our country 
and for the world. We have seen reductions in maternal mortality rates. 
We have seen improved child survival statistics. We have seen increased 
literacy among women. And we have seen healthier, burgeoning economies 
in many parts of the world.
  Mr. President, this in turn strengthens U.S. efforts to promote food 
security, international trade, and improved public health, all of which 
improve our standard of living. And they also reduce the risk of 
disaster assistance or the deployment of U.S. troops, as the Senator 
from Kansas was alluding to in her previous remarks.
  I have had the opportunity to work with the Senator on the Foreign 
Affairs Committee on the subcommittee concerning Africa where these 
problems can become very, very severe very quickly.
  The provision of population assistance and family planning services 
is important to the United States. Mr. President, again, it is hardly 
support for abortion--although the House amendment infers this.
  In fact, Mr. President, that is what I think is the fundamental 
misunderstanding in this debate, and I think we need to dispel that 
today. Abortion does not equal family planning; in fact, responsible 
and safe family planning reduces the need for and incidence of 
abortion. Nevertheless, somehow this debate always winds up being a bit 
of a red herring debate about abortion.
  Mr. President, if the proponents of the House amendment were trying 
to prohibit U.S. funds from being used to pay for abortion, they 
already achieved that goal many years ago. U.S. foreign assistance 
cannot by law be used to pay for abortion. Let me repeat that: U.S. 
foreign assistance cannot by law--by current law--be used to pay for 
abortion. It says so throughout the foreign aid law, and it is 
reiterated in this conference report that we are considering right now.
  Now, Mr. President, barring people from speaking about family 
planning, contraceptives, and abortion will not solve the problem, not 
to mention the fact that it is a blow for the concept of free speech 
that the United States worked so hard to promote throughout the world.
  Similarly, cutting off private groups which use funds from other 
sources for their abortion activities is only going to hurt the pursuit 
of U.S. Government interests. As in the 1980's when we saw some of 
these regressive policies applied, most effective organizations turned 
down U.S. funding since they could not and would not agree to these 
conditions.
  I commend them for their perseverance, but I think it was shameful 
that the United States did not contribute to programs designed to meet 
our own needs. These are the reasons that the House language on Mexico 
City policy and the gag rule have to be stripped from this conference 
report and why the Kassebaum language should be restored.
  As for these counterproductive restrictions on UNFPA, I again submit, 
as I and others did before the Foreign Affairs Committee, that this is 
an attack on family planning. It is not a serious attempt to stop 
abortion, nor is it a serious attempt to do anything about the 
disgusting practice of coercive abortion.
  Pulling out of the U.N. population fund is not going to stop coercive 
abortion in China, for the simple fact that UNFPA does not engage if 
any coercive abortion procedures in China now. UNFPA's mandate in every 
country, including China, is the provision of family planning services 
and maternal and child health care in 140 countries around the world. 
It has no mandate--it has no mandate--to engage in the provision of 
abortion or abortion-related services.
  Mr. President, in reality, it is programs supported by the UNFPA that 
make abortion less likely. If I believe that withdrawing from the UNFPA 
would reduce the incidence of coercive abortion in China, I would 
wholeheartedly support such a move.
  Human rights abuses such as this should be addressed at the United 
Nations and through diplomatic and economic levers such as the most-
favored-nation status approach, which I have advocated and continue to 
advocate with regard to China.
  In fact, this is one of the reasons why I introduced legislation this 
year with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator 
Helms, to withdraw MFN from China.
  Mr. President, prohibiting United States contributions unless the 
UNFPA pulls out of China is going to do nothing to solve this problem. 
UNFPA officials have already expressed their firm opposition to the 
practice of coercive abortion despite what some Members on this floor 
have said in what amounts to misquoting the organization.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, Mr. President, 
a letter I received from the UNFPA on their perceptions on the China 
policy, which I hope will clear up the misunderstanding.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                               United Nations Population Fund,

                                      New York, NY, July 26, 1995.
     Senator Russell Feingold,
     Senate Russell Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Feingold: It has just come to my attention 
     that on June 28, 1995 during a debate on the House floor, 
     Representative Chris Smith quoted Dr. Sadik, Executive 
     Director of UNFPA, ``China has every reason to feel proud of 
     and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its 
     family planning policy and control of its population growth 
     over the past 10 years. Now the country could offer its 
     experiences and special experts to help other countries.'' 
     Senator Jesse Helms used the same quote in the Senate Foreign 
     Relations Committee Report accompanying S-961.
       I believe this quote comes from China Daily, an English 
     language newspaper published in Beijing. I was with Dr. Sadik 
     when she was interviewed for this article in 1991. This 
     article was a terrible distortion of what she actually said. 
     Dr. Sadik did say that China should be proud of its record of 
     improving women's and children's health since 1949. She 
     commended China's continuing efforts to improve maternal and 
     child health by discussing a joint UNFPA and UNICEF project 
     in 300 poor counties in China that especially focuses on 
     improving children's health through training and supplies for 
     treatment of acute respiratory infection and diarrhea, 
     promotion of prenatal care and nutrition, breast-feeding, 
     assisted deliveries and family planning that assured several 
     contraceptive choices and informed consent. 

[[Page S 16483]]

     She went on to say that this project was a model that could 
     be replicated in other countries.
       I have no idea why Dr. Sadik was misquoted. I tried 
     unsuccessfully at the time to secure a retraction from China 
     Daily. I remember during her visit being very proud of Dr. 
     Sadik's tenacity and courage and my disappointment with the 
     China Daily article which was not only wrong, but 
     contradictory of her real position.
       In fact, during this trip, Dr. Sadik attended a series of 
     meetings that included: the Ministers of Family Planning and 
     Health, the Head of the People's Congress and several of his 
     colleagues and the General Secretary of the Communist Party 
     of China. During these meetings she was very critical of new 
     laws in several provinces requiring sterilization of the 
     mentally retarded. She also successfully negotiated projects 
     designed to increase training for informed consent and 
     voluntary participation in family planning, and research that 
     would examine the safety and efficacy of the Chinese steel 
     ring IUD. The first project, currently on-going, provides 
     interpersonal counseling training and promotes contraceptive 
     choices for grass-roots family planning workers in several 
     provinces. The second resulted in a Chinese ban on steel ring 
     IUD's in favor of copper based IUD's which in ten years will 
     prevent 35.6 million abortions. It would also prevent 6,300 
     maternal deaths; 365,000 potential infant and 28,000 
     potential child deaths.
       For 3-\1/2\ years I served as UNFPA's Country Director in 
     China. I know first hand what we did and said in China and I 
     can tell you that the way we are frequently portrayed, such 
     as in the statement in question, is absolutely and 
     unequivocally untrue.
       UNFPA has always represented international norms and human 
     rights standards as articulated in several U.N. documents 
     including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 
     World Population Plan of Action and the Programme of Action 
     of the International Conference on Population and 
     Development. For example, Chapter VII, para. 12 of the 
     Programme of Action which states ``. . . the principle of 
     informed free choice is essential to the long-term success of 
     family-planning programmes; that any form of coercion has no 
     part of play; that governmental goals or family planning 
     should be defined in terms of unmet needs for information and 
     services; and that demographic goals, while legitimately the 
     subject of government development strategies, should not be 
     imposed on family-planning providers in the form of targets 
     or quotes for the recruitment of clients''.
       In particular, Dr. Sadik has been a champion of human 
     rights, women's equality and reproductive rights. In the 14 
     years I have known her, I have never heard her use the phrase 
     ``population control.''
       We deeply appreciate your past and continuing support and 
     hope you can help set the record straight regarding the quote 
     used by Representative Smith and Senator Helms.
           Sincerely,

                                          Stirling D. Scruggs,

                                            Chief, Information and
                                      External Relations Division.

  Mr. FEINGOLD. United States funds are already adequately and 
elaborately protected from being used in China at all. In reality, what 
the House amendment is trying to do is prohibit U.S. support for family 
planning in the 140 other countries that the UNFPA operates. It 
essentially punishes the United States and other countries of the 
international community for China's human rights violations which the 
UNFPA, again, is simply not responsible for.
  As we look to the 21st century, we should have a post-Mexico City 
policy on population. The House amendment brings us backward--not 
forward. Family planning is too important for us to lose ground on. But 
that is exactly what the House amendment does. It causes us to lose 
ground on population control.
  We cannot let this stand, Mr. President. I urge my colleagues to 
support the Leahy amendment and to strip this extreme amendment from 
the bill. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me first say I intend to speak for just 
a moment on the budget and on the President's veto threat.
  However, let me say about the pending amendment that the House of 
Representatives has taken a very clear position that maintains the 
position that Congress has historically taken--that is, there is a 
higher standard when you are spending the taxpayers' money.
  In spending the taxpayers' money, the House has taken the position 
that we should not be spending the taxpayers' money either in the 
United States or around the world to fund abortion on demand, and we 
should not be spending the taxpayers' money to subsidize forced 
abortions in China.
  I think we need to reject this amendment. I think we need to stay 
with the House position. I am confident that we will.
  Mr. President, our leader, Senator Dole, and the Speaker of the 
House, Congressman Gingrich, are both down at the White House today 
meeting with the President about the growing confrontation concerning 
our budget.
  I wanted to make some remarks about this confrontation because I 
think we are coming down to the moment of truth where each of us is 
going to have to decide what the 1994 elections were about, what we 
stand for, what we are willing to stand up and fight for, and what we 
are willing to compromise on.
  I want to make just a few observations this afternoon on those 
subjects.
  First of all, we have adopted in both the House and the Senate a 
budget that does what we promised to do in the election. It balances 
the budget over a 7-year period. It saves Medicare. It reforms welfare. 
It changes the relationship between the Government and the people.
  In a very modest way, it begins to let working families keep more of 
what they earn to invest in their own children, their own families, and 
their own futures.
  The President has said so many times that he is going to veto our 
budget bill, that I think people are beginning to believe him--not that 
repetition is always a guarantee. But I think we have to start thinking 
seriously about the possibility that the President might veto the 
budget bill that we have passed.
  I think it is important for individual Members of the Senate to start 
making it clear where they stand on this issue. That is what I want to 
do this afternoon.
  First of all, the President is asking us, by vetoing our budget, to 
continue to spend money we do not have on programs we cannot afford.
  The President has sent not one but two budgets to Congress, and both 
of those budgets would increase the public debt by over $1 trillion in 
5 years. Neither of those budgets would ever come into balance at any 
finite time in the future. Both of those budgets would give us a 
deficit that greatly exceeds $200 billion in the year that our budget 
would be in balance.
  Now, the President says he is going to veto our budget to force us to 
spend more money. Let me make it clear that no matter what might be 
agreed to, I am not going to vote to bust the budget that we wrote here 
on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Under no circumstances am I going to 
vote to increase spending above the level we set out in our budget.
  The President has every right, if he wants to enter legitimately into 
the debate by submitting a real budget that is balanced over a 7-year 
period, to negotiate with us about spending priorities. It is obvious 
his priorities are different, but I think those differences are 
legitimate, and I think they ought to be debated. But, unless the 
President is going to submit a budget to us which tell us how he would 
balance the Federal budget, I am not willing to allow him to force us 
to back away from our budget.
  Our proposal to the President, as a precondition for our negotiation 
with him, ought to include the following items:
  No. 1. Tell us how you would balance the budget over a 7-year period, 
not by wishing the problem away, but in terms that we can all 
understand and in terms that the Congressional Budget Office, which is 
the accountant for this process as designated by the President, can 
certify will really achieve a balanced budget. From that point we can 
then begin to compare the two budgets.
  Second, it seems to me if the President is really committed to 
balancing the budget, he ought to endorse the balanced budget amendment 
to the Constitution, which has passed the House and which is only one 
vote short of the two-thirds vote needed to pass the Senate and send to 
the States. I want to call on the President, if he is serious about 
balancing the budget, to come out and endorse the balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution, to help us get one additional Democrat 
to vote for it, and in the process allow us to send it to the States.
  I believe it is high time that we let working people keep more of 
what they earn. In 1950, the average family with two children sent $1 
out of every $50 to Washington. Today, that family is 

[[Page S 16484]]

sending $1 out of every $4 to Washington. I think our action of giving 
a $500 tax credit per child for every working family in America so they 
can spend their own money on their own children and on their own 
futures, is long overdue. There is no circumstance under which I am 
going to back away from our tax cut so that Bill Clinton can spend more 
money in Washington, DC.
  This is not a debate about how much money we spend on children, but 
it is certainly a debate about who is going to do the spending. 
President Clinton and the Democrats want the Government to do the 
spending. We want the family to do the spending. We know the 
Government. We know the family. And we know the difference.
  So, I think, to conclude and let the debate go back to the amendment 
before the Senate, for 40 years we have been running up bills in 
Washington, DC. For 40 years we have been borrowing more and more 
money. The President's argument to us is, ``We have run up these bills. 
Raise the debt ceiling and pay the bills.''
  It reminds me of an argument that was made when I was a young Member 
of Congress, in my first year, the first debate I ever participated in. 
Then-majority leader of the House Jim Wright got up when we were 
getting ready to vote on the debt ceiling, and he said, ``It is as if 
your spouse has run up a big bill on the credit card and the bill 
collector is knocking at the door. You have to pay your bills.''
  That is what the President is in essence saying to us.
  My response is, let us look at what American families do under these 
circumstances. They do pay their bills. But they do something we have 
not done in 40 years. They sit down around the kitchen table, they get 
out a pad and pencil, they write down how much money they earn, they 
start adding up their expenses, they put together a budget, they get 
out their credit cards, they get out the butcher knife, they cut up 
their credit cards, and they resolve that, while they are going to pay 
their bills today, they are not going to put themselves in a position 
where every year the bill collector is pounding on the door.
  I believe defaulting on the public debt would be irresponsible. I 
believe shutting the Government down to make a political point is 
unnecessary and unfair. But there is something worse than defaulting on 
the debt. There is something worse than shutting the Government down. 
And that is continuing a spending spree that will destroy the future of 
our children. That is worse than both shutting the Government down and 
defaulting on the debt. And I am not going to vote for a budget, and I 
am not going to vote for a compromise, that continues the spending 
spree in Washington, DC.
  The American people in 1994 gave us a Republican majority in both 
Houses of Congress with a clear mandate: Stop the taxing, stop the 
spending, and stop the regulating. I, for one, am not willing to cut a 
deal in Washington, DC, with President Clinton, to undercut an election 
that sought to fundamentally change the way Government is run in 
Washington, DC.
  So I think we ought to negotiate with the President. I think we ought 
to try to work with the President. But we ought to make it very clear 
to the President that we are not going to back away from our commitment 
to balance the budget. We are not going to spend money we do not have 
on programs we cannot afford. And there is no amount of threat and 
bluster that can be exercised by the President that is going to induce 
us to pull down our budget and continue the spending spree in 
Washington, DC.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to support the Leahy-Kassebaum 
amendment on family planning.
  The House has taken an extreme position on international family 
planning. If their position prevails, the world's poorest women will 
pay the price. I urge my colleagues to stick with the Senate position. 
The Senate bill prohibits funds from being used to perform abortions--
or to do anything in China. But it does this while continuing to 
provide family planning services and maternal and children's health 
care to the poorest people in the world.
  The House position is extreme because it would gut our international 
family planning programs. It would prohibit organizations that use 
their own funds for abortion services from receiving any U.S. funds. It 
would prohibit these organizations from offering any information on 
abortion--even factual information about mortality related to unsafe 
abortion. The House amendment would also limit U.S. participation in 
UNFPA--which has the infrastructure, the expertise, and the personnel 
to be the most effective program for providing family planning services 
around the world.
  The effects of this House position on women's health would be 
disastrous. Over 100 million women throughout the world cannot obtain 
or are not using family planning because they are poor, uneducated, or 
lack access to care. Twenty million of these women will seek unsafe 
abortions. Some women will die, some will be disabled. Many of these 
women are very young; they are, in fact, still children themselves. 
When children have children, they often lose their chance to obtain 
schooling, a good job, and ultimately, self-sufficiency. If the House 
position prevails, women will not be able to fully participate in 
development and democratization.
  In this bill, we seek to maintain our modest role in providing family 
planning to the world's poorest women. To this end, we should be clear 
about what is in the bill--and what is not.
  This bill does not contain money for abortions or abortion lobbying. 
Federal funds cannot be used to fund abortions and this bill retains 
this prohibition. In fact, opponents of this amendment include Senators 
who strongly oppose abortion. They know that effective family planning 
actually reduces the number of abortions performed. And this bill does 
not contain money for China. No United States funds may currently be 
spent in China and the bill retains this policy as well.
  This bill maintains current law. It continues to provide modest 
funding for the United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA]. Without this 
assistance, the influence of the United States in the UNFPA is cut off. 
We would have no say on how and where international family planning 
services are delivered.
  This bill continues to provide funds to the most efficient and 
effective private and nongovernmental organization. It is these 
organizations who know best how to make a little funding go a long way.
  Mr. President, I wish we could do more to ensure that all women have 
access to family planning. The Leahy-Kassebaum amendment--which 
reaffirms the bill passed by the Senate-- ensures that we continue to 
do something to help the world's poorest women to control and improve 
their lives. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, we have debated the issue of 
restrictions on international family planning many times in this body, 
and I regret that at this stage in the process, this issue threatens to 
bring down an important foreign aid bill.
  This body voted by a significant margin just 1 month ago to preserve 
a reasoned family planning policy--one that supports important family 
planning work in the most needy areas around the globe. Population 
growth is a crisis that cannot be ignored, that will not wait for 
attention at a later date. Unchecked population growth will ultimately 
threaten every corner of the globe. And a withdrawal on our part from 
our current active role in education and technical assistance to 
successful family planning programs worldwide would be devastating.
  Experience has proven that it does not take a lot of money to have a 
large effect upon population growth. However, it does take efficient 
programming, consistency, and a commitment for the long term. We put 
that all at risk in this debate today if we back away from the 
longstanding position of this body, that restrictions on family 
planning funding to nongovernmental organizations overseas should be 
the same as those applied to U.S. organizations.
  Mr. President, the stakes in this debate are even higher today than 
usual. This is the only issue in disagreement between the two bodies on 
a large and substantive bill; 192 differences have been resolved, 
resulting in a reasonable bill that, with the exception of this 

[[Page S 16485]]

issue alone, has broad support on both sides of the aisle in both 
bodies and is acceptable to the administration. Yet, failure to insist 
on the Senate position on this important issue, namely a continuation 
of current law, would doom this important legislation to a certain 
veto. We have enough issues in disagreement with the administration 
without adding this one to the list.
  I thank the Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] for her consistent 
leadership on this issue and I urge support for the Leahy-Kassebaum 
amendment.
 Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, once again the Senate and the 
House face the prospect of holding up an important appropriations bill 
over the issue of abortion. I am dismayed that we find ourselves in 
this position especially because the bill before the Senate clearly and 
explicitly prohibits the use of U.S. funds to pay or lobby for abortion 
in our foreign aid programs. The programs at stake involve family 
planning--not abortion.
  I am strongly pro-life and do not support abortion except in cases 
where the life of the mother is endangered. I am also strongly pro-
family planning and have long been an outspoken supporter of our 
domestic and international family planning efforts. I support family 
planning because I believe if more couples have access to 
contraceptives and understand the consequences of the lack of family 
planning, we can make abortion a moot issue.
  But beyond making abortion a moot issue, there are also development 
and environmental consequences of uncontrolled population growth. 
According to the United Nations, the 1990's will see the greatest 
increase in human numbers of any decade, as the world's population 
grows from 5.3 billion to 6.25 billion by the end of this century. We 
know that rapid population growth in the developing world can overwhelm 
the gains made in living standards.
  According to the World Bank, in sub-Saharan Africa the 3.7-percent 
growth in gross domestic product will not be sufficient to offset the 
effects of skyrocketing population growth, and the number of poor will 
increase. On the environment front, when we look at ozone depletion, 
global warming, destruction of tropical rain forests, and the 
elimination of species diversity, we inevitably see the connection 
between those phenomena and the population explosion.
  The international family planning programs that we fund through the 
U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations 
Population Fund [UNFPA] ensure that the United States will maintain a 
leadership role in addressing the population problem. The House 
limitations which were struck by the Senate would undermine our ability 
to continue to play this important role.
  I would like to mention in particular our support of the UNFPA. The 
House amendment would prohibit the United States from participating in 
the UNFPA unless the President certifies that the UNFPA will withdraw 
its program from China. No one condones China's coercive abortion 
policy--I certainly do not. In fact, there are specific prohibitions 
already in law on the use of United States funds for UNFPA's program in 
China. And although there have been allegations that UNFPA funds were 
going to support coercive abortions in China, these allegations have 
never been substantiated. The problem is with China's family planning 
program, not the UNFPA's.
  Despite the fact that the United States has been quite outspoken 
against the practices in China and has already prohibited the use of 
our funds there, those opposed to family planning continue to use it as 
a reason to withdraw all of our support for the UNFPA. This would mean 
that the U.S. could not participate in a program that has the ability 
to reach into areas where no single U.S. program can. The UNFPA 
currently provides voluntary family planning assistance to over 140 
countries besides China; 90 of those nations have populations expected 
to double within the next 30 years. In addition, nearly half of UNFPA's 
assistance is used for family planning services and maternal and child 
health care in the poorest, most remote regions in the world. As a 
nation, we cannot afford to limit our participation in the UNFPA.
  Therefore, I am pleased to say that I am a cosponsor of the Leahy-
Kassebaum amendment to strike the House amendment and return to current 
law on lobbying for or against abortion which was so carefully crafted 
by our colleague from Kansas. I hope that the Senate will retain the 
position we had when we first passed this bill. Moreover, I hope those 
on both sides of the issue will take a closer look at what we are doing 
by polarizing the issue of abortion and using it to hold up these very 
important funding bills. Can we not come together to try to resolve the 
abortion question through the authorizing process? If not, I am afraid 
we are relegating ourselves to years of deadlock and further 
polarization.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the 
amendment to H.R. 1868, the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act of 
1996 offered by my good friend from Kansas, Senator Kassebaum, and my 
good friend from Vermont, Senator Leahy.
  Mr. President, international population growth is a significant issue 
for foreign policy for the United States. It is a significant issue for 
domestic policy, for that matter. Of all the challenges facing our 
Nation and the world, none compares to that of increasing population 
growth.
  Our efforts to protect the environment, to promote economic 
development around the world, and to raise the status of women, will be 
futile if we do not first address the staggering rate of global 
population growth.
  How can we expect underdeveloped countries to pull themselves up when 
the world's population is growing at a rate of more than 10,000 people 
per hour? Today, there are more than 5.7 billion people on this Earth.
  We simply must address these issues. We must acknowledge that we 
cannot talk about population growth without talking about the very real 
and very tragic effects of overpopulation:
  First, the destruction of our environment; and
  Second, the destruction of people--mostly women and young children 
who live in poverty and die from malnutrition, starvation, lack of 
access to basic health care, and botched illegal abortions.
  We need to be working to address these issues instead of spending 
countless hours debating our philosophical differences on abortion. We 
have been over that issue more times than any of us care to count.
  Mr. President, I believe direct, substantial, and long-term benefits 
flow to American families from our national investment in sustainable 
development and population efforts.
  Today, as we approach the 21st century, we are facing a world that 
will be more economically competitive and more challenging than ever 
before. This is not the time to be weakening our role as the world 
leader in these areas.
  Instead, I believe it is in the best interest of America's children 
and families for the Congress to reaffirm and solidify our commitment 
to population stabilization, reproductive choice, and other critical 
health and sustainable development programs.
  For the past 12 years or so, I have spent a lot of my time here in 
the Senate focussing on the domestic and international high-technology 
industries. I have worked to develop strategies to strengthen the 
technology and manufacturing bases in this country and to secure higher 
wage jobs for Americans.
  I have focussed on these issues because of my concern for the long-
term economic viability of our Nation. I believe that to secure our 
economic future, the United States must be fully equipped to compete 
long term with Japan and other highly developed countries.
  But at the same time, I believe we cannot have a successful economic 
strategy in this country if we do not devote serious attention to the 
economies of the developing world.
  Over the past 10 years or so, growth in U.S. exports to the 
developing world has exploded; and today, developing countries account 
for about 40 percent of a growing U.S. export market.
  In fact, trade with the developing world is growing at a rate that 
far exceeds the growth rate of U.S. exports to developed countries.

[[Page S 16486]]

  I believe a significant factor in this growth has been the modest 
U.S. commitment to development and population assistance in the 
developing countries.
  Mr. President, funding for efforts such as those of the U.N. 
Population Fund and the UNFPA, are critical to addressing these issues 
which are among the most serious the world faces and is why I rise in 
strong support of the Kassebaum-Leahy amendment to the foreign 
operations appropriations bill and hope that we will once again send a 
strong message to the House that this funding must, and will, be 
preserved.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the Leahy-Kassebaum amendment puts me in a 
difficult position because it combines two separate issues.
  On one hand, I have consistently supported efforts to reverse the so-
called Mexico City or International Gag Rule policy and therefore 
support reinserting the Kassebaum language that overturns the Mexico 
City policy.
  On the other hand, I have consistently opposed United States funding 
for the U.N. Population Fund while the organization continues to 
operate in China. The amendment before us would strike a restriction on 
UNFPA funding that I have supported.
  Of course, I must vote yes or no on the entire amendment. I cannot 
vote for part and against part.
  Therefore, upon reflection, I will vote in favor of the amendment. 
International family planning programs provide important services that 
lead to healthier families and help to prevent high population growth 
rates, environmental degradation, and the need for abortion.
  We can and we should continue to prohibit U.S. tax dollars from being 
used for abortions. But, I believe that the U.S. Government should not 
be dictating what nongovernmental organizations do with their own funds 
in their work to provide family planning services around the globe, as 
long as they do not use any Federal funds for abortion.
  Nevertheless, I would like to make it clear to my colleagues and 
constituents that my vote today does not represent a change in my 
position on U.S. funding for the U.N. Population Fund at this time. We 
must continue to do all that we can to pressure the Government of China 
to cease any program of forced abortion or sterilization as a means of 
population control.
  Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment that has 
been offered by Senator Leahy and Senator Kassebaum. I ask unanimous 
consent to be included as cosponsor of that amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, first of all I would like to correct a few 
of the statements that were made by the previous speaker, the Senator 
from Texas. He said that this position that is embraced in the 
amendment of Senator Leahy and Senator Kassebaum has been rejected by 
the Congress in the past. That is not true. Back in 1989 both the House 
and the Senate, in fact, rejected the Mexico City policy.
  In addition, he said this amendment before us today embraces coercive 
abortion. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one here supports 
coercive abortions. It is morally wrong, and, furthermore, it is 
illegal.
  The fact is, our policy does not support abortions in terms of 
international family planning assistance. Unfortunately, this issue has 
been misrepresented so many times in the past. We have to get beyond 
those misrepresentations with respect to this issue.
  The United States does not support, through its international family 
planning assistance, abortion. Those funds cannot even be commingled 
with an organization that may use its funds for abortion. The fact of 
the matter is, under the Mexico City policy, our funds could still go 
to a government that uses its own funds for abortion or abortion-
related activities. Yet, on the other hand, we deny those organizations 
who are the most instrumental and the most effective in providing 
international family planning assistance, family planning money, if in 
fact they use their own private funds for abortion-related activities.
  This amendment would overturn the Mexico City policy. That is what 
the Senate voted on, and, I might add, by a vote of 57 to 43--57 to 43.
  Unfortunately, the House has chosen not to compromise at all on this 
issue. But I would urge the Senate to stay firm and committed to the 
position that we have taken--that not only do we reject the Mexico City 
policy, but that, yes, we continue to provide funds to UNFPA which we 
are also on record in support of.
  I think it is unfortunate that we have so many different issues 
entangled. The issue is whether or not you support family planning. If 
you are against abortion, the most reasonable approach to take is to 
support international family planning programs. The United States has 
been the forerunner. We were a leader in international family planning 
assistance. We cofounded UNFPA. We sit on their governing board. Now we 
are saying, well, we are sorry. We will somehow untangle all of this 
family planning money under the notion of abortion when, in fact, our 
money does not go for that purpose. If we are truly serious about 
supporting family planning programs that are effective, then we have to 
provide the necessary funding. That is what this is all about. We are 
asking that we put into permanent law a nondiscriminatory policy on the 
funding of private organizations, that we treat them the same as we do 
foreign governments. It is a matter of simple fairness, and it should 
be preserved.
  What we are talking about here today are the programs that are so 
essential that will make a difference in the developing countries. 
These include voluntary family planning services, contraceptive 
research, maternal health programs, and child survival programs.
  That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about abortion. 
The fact is that this Congress back in 1973 passed the Helms amendment 
that prohibits the use of any U.S. funds for abortion-related 
activities. That is the law. That will continue to be the law. What we 
are supporting is assistance through international family planning 
programs, and to those private organizations that have been the most 
effective around the world.
  So it is a matter of whether or not we want to assist those countries 
that have a truly difficult problem in controlling population growth, 
if we deny assistance as American assistance to these programs, such as 
the International Planned Parenthood Program that provides more than 
assistance to more than 160 countries. When the Mexico City policy that 
took effect that Senator Kassebaum referred to back in 1984, 50 of 
those affiliates around the world were denied assistance. This has 
impaired our ability to support the most capable family planning 
programs in countries such India, which has more births each year than 
do Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico 
combined.
  I think it is a sad irony that by the time the Mexico City Conference 
10 years ago embraced this policy that denial of additional American 
assistance to family planning programs came at a time when most 
developing countries had come to understand the importance of voluntary 
family planning programs to their own countries' development. It is 
interesting because it took that long for us to convince other 
countries what they needed to do, and the validity of those programs 
and the impact it would have in containing the growth in those 
countries. Now we are attempting to resume our leadership role, and 
some are asking us to turn our backs.
  If we believe in voluntarism and family planning--and we do--and, if 
we believe that abortion should be avoided as a method of family 
planning--and we do--then we should maintain our leadership. We have 
unrivaled influence in setting standards for family planning programs. 
A great number of other donors and recipient countries adopted our own 
model in their own program.
  And I would hope that we would reject the arguments in that tradition 
in the position taken by the House of Representatives with respect to 
this issue because it is taking us a step backward. We talk about UNFPA 
being a leader, an organization that has been 

[[Page S 16487]]

a leader in international family planning programs, and, in fact, 
provides a third of all of the assistance in delivering family planning 
programs around the world.
  UNFPA does not support coercive abortions in China. No one does. We 
put a number of restrictions on our assistance to UNFPA because they 
still work in China. They are trying to prevent what is happening in 
China. But we put restrictions in any event so those who say our money 
is fungible can be transferred to one account to another. The United 
States did not contribute to UNFPA during the time of the Mexico City 
policy. We also denied assistance to UNFPA, but in 1993 the U.S. 
resumed contributions to the UNFPA organizations with four major 
limitations. One, that no United States funds could go to China; two, 
United States funds are prohibited from funding coercive abortions and 
involuntary sterilization; that United States funds to UNFPA must be 
held in a separate account from all other UNFPA funds so there is no 
comingling; and, that UNFPA funding for China could not increase for 
the 5 years once the United States resumes its contributions to UNFPA. 
In fact, the UNFPA program in China will end at the end of this year.
  So we have enormous protection in the event that any money would be 
transferred indirectly--not indirectly because we have never provided 
funds in that regard--but even indirectly because of UNFPA's presence 
in China. So we have put all those protections into law.
  But now people are saying we should not provide any assistance to 
UNFPA. That is the leading organization providing and supporting 
multilateral family planning programs throughout the developing world. 
I think that is a truly regrettable. We should be doing everything that 
we can to assist these countries in controlling their population 
problems because we know the implications that it has for global and 
economic instability.
  So I think that we as a country should be a leader in that regard as 
we have been in the past. I hope we will resume that leadership role.
  Mr. President, I urge Members of the Senate to adopt the amendment 
offered by Senator Leahy and Senator Kassebaum. I think that there is 
no question that these countries need our assistance. They need our 
help. They need our leadership in international family planning--not 
only in our country and our own future, but for theirs as well.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, thank you.
  Mr. President, I rise in support of the Leahy-Kassebaum amendment on 
funding for international family planning programs and against the 
House position to cut and restrict family planning aid.
  I want to commend my colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, for the 
excellent statement which she just made on the subject.
  The House position, which we should all vote to reject, is a wolf in 
sheep's clothing. It pretends to be anti-abortion. But in fact, it is 
anti-family planning and does not affect the question of abortion 
funding at all.
  In addition, the House position pretends to address the horrendous 
problem of forced abortions in the People's Republic of China--in the 
guise of trying to solve that terrible problem by denying United States 
support for the United Nations Population Fund.
  Mr. President, the debate surrounding UNFPA began over a decade ago 
during the Reagan administration. Foes of UNFPA claimed then, as they 
do today, that the United States should withdraw support for UNFPA 
because of the fund's presence in China, where there have been 
persistent reports of government sanctioned forced abortions.
  Mr. President, there is no question that the Chinese do many things 
that I abhor. Forcing women to have abortions or forcing individuals to 
undergo sterilization is a gross violation of human rights and should 
be condemned by our Government at the highest level.
  Likewise, the killing of female infants in China is widespread and 
repugnant--and appears to often go unpunished by Chinese officials.
  But it would be illogical--and counterproductive--for the United 
States to pull out of those international agencies that give aid to 
children in China because the horrific practice of female infanticide 
plagues that nation.
  So why should we ask UNFPA to carry the sins of China on its 
shoulders when it comes to the question of family planning?
  The facts have never supported this approach.
  When the question of UNFPA funding was first debated during the 
Reagan administration, officials under President Reagan investigated 
the issue and found--and I quote from an AID document from that time--
that ``UNFPA is a benevolent factor in China which works to decrease 
the incidence of coercive abortion'' in China by providing effective 
family planning services. That same Reagan administration investigation 
found absolutely ``no evidence'' that UNFPA participated in or 
supported in any way China's coercive family planning practices.
  Sadly, caught up in the pro-life politics of the time, UNFPA was 
nonetheless defunded by President Reagan. President Clinton has since 
resumed U.S. support for this agency, and therein lie the roots of 
today's debate.
  Through all of this, however, the facts have been clear--that UNFPA 
has been part of the solution in China, by helping to reduce the 
incidence of abortion in that country and others by providing high 
quality voluntary family planning services.
  UNFPA's goal is to eliminate the need for abortions. They do so by 
providing maternal and child health care and voluntary family planning 
services. These are the kinds of programs that are unquestionably the 
most effective means of preventing abortion. And the majority of 
UNFPA's assistance goes towards projects in these areas.
  In addition to targeting UNFPA funding for elimination, the House 
position seeks to reinstate language similar to what used to be called 
the Mexico City policy.
  The House-adopted language is broad and ambiguous. It will impose a 
gag rule on foreign nongovernmental family planning organizations--
denying those organizations U.S. support if they provide certain 
services--not limited to abortion--with their non-U.S. funds.
  For example, in Russia, where abortion is legal, the United States 
currently provides humanitarian aid to help local family planning 
clinics deliver better services to women. Years ago, the United States 
determined this to be a priority within our Russian aid program because 
of the tragically high abortion rate for Russian women who, lacking 
family planning services, often have as many as 10 or 12 abortions over 
their life time.
  If, however, we adopt the House language, we may be prevented from 
helping Russian family planning clinics simply because those clinics 
are affiliated with Russian hospitals where abortions are performed.
  This would be making a bad situation worse--pulling support from 
clinics that are doing their best with scarce resources to provide 
alternatives to abortion for so many desperate Russian women.
  So the House language is double trouble--targeting UNFPA, the world's 
largest source of voluntary family planning services, as well as the 
hundreds of smaller local family planning providers around the 
developing world.
  Ironically, by denying support for so many organizations that provide 
quality family planning services, the House language might well have 
the unintended effect of increasing the incidence of abortion in China 
and elsewhere.
  As has been pointed out by others during this debate, the foreign 
operations conference report continues the longstanding policy of 
banning the use of U.S. funds for abortions overseas. That ban, 
commonly known as the Helms Amendment, has been a part of the permanent 
foreign aid statute since 1973 and remains unchanged in the committee's 
bill.

  Further, the conference report prohibits the use of U.S. funds for 
abortion lobbying.
  In addition, UNFPA's own position on abortion provides additional 
safeguards. UNFPA does not, and never has, supported abortions or 
abortion-related services in any country in which it operates.

[[Page S 16488]]

  According to the UNFPA's governing Council, it is ``the policy of the 
UNFPA . . . not to provide assistance for abortion, abortion services, 
or abortion-related equipment and supplies as a method of family 
planning.''
  So the real question facing the Senate today is this: The conference 
report is already stringently anti-abortion. But if we adopt the House 
language, thereby disqualifying the most tried and true family planning 
organizations from receiving U.S. support, do we really want to make 
this bill anti-family planning as well?
  Let me take a minute to review for my colleagues why U.S. support for 
voluntary family planning is so important.
  While childbirth anywhere carries certain risks, in the developing 
world mothers face grave statistics. In Africa, for example, 1 out of 
every 21 women will die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, making 
the African woman 200 times more likely to die as a result of bearing 
her children than a European woman.
  The kinds of programs provided by UNFPA and other voluntary family 
planning organizations can prevent many of these maternal deaths.
  So when we support family planning aid, we are supporting those women 
and families across the developing world who seek the means to space 
their births and avoid high-risk pregnancies.
  Equally important, when we support family planning aid, we are 
increasing the chances that child survival rates will increase across 
the developing world.
  We know that babies born in quick succession, to a mother whose body 
has not yet recovered from a previous birth, are the least likely to 
survive. Voluntary family planning programs seek to support child 
survival efforts, and help women understand the vital link between 
child survival and family planning.
  So as I noted in my earlier remarks, the House language will do 
nothing to prevent abortions in China or elsewhere. But it will prevent 
vital health services from being delivered to women and children in the 
world's poorest nations.
  I urge my colleagues to remember what is really at stake here. This 
is a public health issue, and an extremely serious one.
  Family planning saves lives. Experts estimate that the lives of 5.6 
million children and 200,000 women could be saved every year if all the 
women who wanted to limit their families had access to family planning.
  I ask my colleagues to really think about those statistics--5.6 
million children and 200,000 women each year.
  So when we debate this issue of whether to support voluntary family 
planning programs like UNFPA and others, let us keep this debate 
focused squarely where it belongs--on the world's young women, who 
struggle against impossible odds to better their lives, and who 
desperately need reproductive health care services.
  Let us keep this debate squarely focused on the young mothers around 
the world, who have small children or babies and need family planning 
assistance to ensure that they do not become pregnant again too 
quickly--endangering their own lives and that of their babies and young 
children.
  Let us keep this debate squarely focused on the thousands of women in 
poor nations who, lacking access to reproductive health care, resort to 
self-induced abortions and, too often, tragically lose their lives. 
Experts estimate that at least half a million women will die from 
pregnancy-related causes, roughly 200,000 from illegal abortions which 
are prevented when women have family planning services.
  The issues of refunding UNFPA and the Mexico City policy came before 
Congress again and again when Presidents Bush and Reagan were in 
office. Congress repeatedly voted for the United States to resume UNFPA 
funding, and to reject Mexico City-like restrictions on our family 
planning program.
  So let us move on to the task of ensuring that women in the 
developing world have access to the kinds of reproductive health 
services they deserve. Let us adopt the Leahy-Kassebaum amendment.
  I yield back the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, a number of Senators have spoken on this 
issue. And I also know that the Senate bipartisan leadership and the 
House bipartisan leadership are meeting with the President, so there 
will not be a rollcall vote immediately.
  I urge Senators who wish to speak on this subject to come to the 
floor and speak. I see the distinguished Senator from California, and I 
ask the Senator if she wishes to speak.
  Mrs. BOXER. About 7 minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. Whatever time the Senator wants.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor so the distinguished Senator can, in 
her own right, have the floor.
  Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am very pleased to rise in support of 
the Leahy amendment. I think the Senate was right on this issue, and I 
think the Senate should hold its ground. The Senator from Kansas, 
Senator Kassebaum, worked hard to write language that makes sense. 
Senator Leahy has worked with her.
  We ought to be very clear in this body that we support family 
planning, certainly we do not want to see abortion, and we are not 
going to cut the legs out from under agencies that work to prevent 
abortion, that work to make sure there is family planning all over the 
globe.
  These are nongovernmental entities that work hard to make sure that 
overpopulation is addressed by prevention. To punish--to punish--these 
nongovernmental entities in this bill, as the House wants to do, by 
restricting their funding and holding them to a standard that really 
has no rationale, to me, makes no sense. Then, of course, we have the 
attack on the U.N. Population Fund in this House amendment, which the 
Leahy-Kassebaum amendment would strike.
  The United States was instrumental in creating the U.N. Population 
Fund in 1969 and, until 1985, provided nearly 30 percent of its 
funding. UNFPA is the largest internationally funded source of 
population assistance, directly managing one-third of the world's 
population assistance to developing countries. It is the principal 
multilateral organization providing worldwide family planning and 
population assistance to developing countries. It operates in over 140 
countries in the poorest and the most remote regions of the world. 
Nearly half of the UNFPA assistance is used for family planning 
services and maternal and child health care. Another 18 percent is 
allocated for related population information, education, and 
communication.
  I say to my friends who call themselves pro-life--and you have every 
right to call yourself whatever you want. And if that reflects your 
view on issues, fine. I feel I am for life, but I am pro-choice. And I 
feel I am for life because I am pro-choice, because I want to make sure 
that families have what they need to engage in sensible family planning 
so they are not faced with terrible choices.
  Why on earth would the House of Representatives and some Members of 
the Senate want to punish an organization that helps people with family 
planning services, that educates them on how to prevent unwanted 
pregnancy, how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS 
and others? Why would we want to punish those organizations?
  Well, I think it is clear why. Because when you strip it all away, 
there is punishment at work out here, punishment for organizations that 
believe it is very important to keep abortion safe and legal. And I do 
not think it is the job of the U.S. Senate or the House of 
Representatives to lash out at these people who are working in the most 
difficult conditions, in the most difficult areas of the world, and 
punish them for no other reason other than they believe, if abortion is 
legal, let us make it safe. That is what this amendment would do.
  The fund that the House of Representatives and the Republicans over 
there want to stop provides support for population data collection and 
analysis, demographic and socioeconomic research, and population policy 
formulation and evaluation.
  What does that mean? It means that we need to know statistically what 
is 

[[Page S 16489]]

going on in these countries. Is birth control working? Is family 
planning working? How is the infant mortality rate connected with 
runaway population growth? In 1993, UNFPA supported 1,560 projects in 
141 countries, including 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 33 
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 39 countries in Asia and 
the Pacific, 25 countries in the Arab States, and in Europe.
  Already we have a prohibition on U.S. dollars; they cannot be used 
for abortion. That is clear. And that has been in the law for a long 
time. But this is that long arm reach of big brother and the Contract 
With America that says, ``We are going to stop them from everything 
that they are doing, including family planning, even if they use their 
own funds for abortion-related activities.''
  I find it incredible, my friends, that the Republican-led Congress 
that talks about States' rights and local control wants to take the 
long arm of Uncle Sam and put it in the middle of these countries, into 
nongovernmental organizations that are out in the worst circumstances, 
in the worst poverty, and stop these organizations from doing their 
good work by forcing them to say, ``You can never be involved, even 
with your own funds, in abortion-related activities, even if abortion 
is legal in the country.''
  UNFPA programs contribute to improving the quality and safety of 
contraceptives, to reducing the incidence of abortion, and to improving 
reproductive health and strengthening the status of women. Well, I 
think we ought to be applauding the UNFPA. I think we ought to be 
applauding the work of the U.N. Population Fund, not saying, ``We're 
going to take away your funding, nongovernmental organizations in other 
countries, if you use your own funds to ensure that women get safe, 
legal abortions.''
  You know, I was around this country when abortion was illegal, and I 
want to tell you what it was like because a lot of the younger people 
do not remember it, and some of the older, older people are beginning 
to forget.
  But what it was like is the following: Abortions were illegal, but 
women still, in certain dire circumstances, chose to get them. They 
risked their lives. They had to go down back alleys. They had to beg, 
borrow, and steal the money. It was risky, and it was dangerous. 
Hundreds of women died every year. I do not understand how someone can 
call himself pro-life when they want to go back to those days.
  Today we had a vote on the House side, an overwhelming vote, related 
to late-term abortions. To tell you how radical this group is over 
there, they did not even make an exception for the life of the mother.
  So I say to the men in this country, think about what it would be 
like if your wife came home, they had found a cancer, she was in the 
mid-term of her pregnancy, and the doctor said, ``I cannot say that you 
will not die if you go ahead with this birth,'' and you and your wife 
and your family had to face a horrible decision, a terrible, terrible 
choice.
  I ask you, why should Members of Congress climb into that living room 
with you and tell you what to do with your family? I am revolted by it. 
I am disgusted by it. And I am stunned that a party that says, ``We 
don't want to get in the middle of your life,'' would get right in the 
middle of your most personal decision.
  What is going on here with the UNFPA is an outgrowth of that 
mentality. ``Oh, yeah, we want you to make your own decisions''--except 
if we disagree with it, then we are going to pass a law--``your most 
private, personal, difficult, agonizing choices that you should make as 
a family.'' And now we are going to reach in to nongovernmental 
organizations that operate in Latin America, in Africa, in Europe, and 
we are going to tell them as Members of Congress, because we are so 
important and we know so much about everything, that we are going to 
deny them funding even with their own funds, with their own privately 
raised funds--not our funds--they help a woman with a safe and legal 
abortion, rather than force her into some back alley and some butcher's 
knife.

  I hope the Senate stands tall on this amendment. It is very important 
that we do. It is all interconnected. It is all about what we stand for 
as a nation. Do we stand for individual rights, or do we stand for Big 
Brother telling us how to make these private, agonizing, and difficult 
choices?
  Let me tell you what the House did today in their vote. They said if 
there is a midterm or late abortion, it is illegal and the woman and 
the doctor can go to jail. Oh, yeah, they can defend themselves. The 
doctor can use as a defense, ``I thought her life would be 
threatened,'' but there is no presumption that the doctor can make that 
ruling, not even an exception for life of the mother.
  In my opinion, what the House did today will lead to women dying if 
this Senate does not stand up against it. I have to tell you, I will 
stand on this floor as long as it takes--and people know me, they know 
I will--to stop that kind of legislation from becoming the law of the 
land, to stop an attack on women.
  I have not read on this floor some of these cases and the agony of 
these cases where women are faced and their husbands are faced with the 
most difficult decisions of their lives. I, frankly, was not elected to 
be God, and I was not elected to be a doctor. They even made up a term 
called ``partial-birth abortions.'' There is no such scientific term. 
They made it up just to try to incite people's emotions.
  Let me tell you, they are going too far. They are radical, and they 
are going too far. Just like they are radical in their budget when they 
take $270 billion out of Medicare and give a tax cut to the rich with 
it. Just like they are radical on their environmental policy where the 
Republican study group put out a bulletin--I am going to put it in the 
Record--that is a guide to Republicans in the House and says, ``Go home 
and plant a tree and visit your zoo and then they can never say you are 
against the environment.'' Go home and plant a tree and visit your zoo 
and give a report card out to the best environmentals and then, yes, 
you can vote against the Clean Air Act, the wetlands, forget the 
Endangered Species Act. Who needs the bald eagle anyway?
  Well, it is a radical crowd. They have gone too far, and this is an 
example, UNFPA, an organization that does so much good out there.
  UNFPA helps to promote male participation and responsibility in 
family planning programs; address adolescent reproductive health; reach 
isolated rural areas with high demands for family planning services.
  They want you to believe in this amendment that it is about China. 
Let me be very clear. No United States funds made available to the 
UNFPA shall be made available for any activities in the People's 
Republic of China. Our funds are not being used for any activities in 
China. I do not want them to go to China because they have a policy, we 
know, that we do not agree with: forced abortion, particularly as it 
relates to females.
  So the bottom line is, none of us is for that, but this has nothing 
to do with this amendment. UNFPA United States funds do not go to China 
and will never go to China. It is a back-door way to hurt a very 
important program. It is about ending the U.S. participation in the 
U.N. family planning fund where we have been active since the sixties, 
and we should be proud of our activities there, because we are saving 
lives, we are giving health care to people who need it desperately, and 
we are not controlling the way people think. Why should we? It is their 
right in their country to support safe, legal abortions if they want. 
We should not try to gag them as a result of our participation in 
UNFPA.
  So I hope the American people follow this debate, because there is a 
linkage here to what has gone on in the House today, their attack on a 
woman's right to choose. They basically ended Roe versus Wade today, 
because Roe versus Wade said, in the late terms of a pregnancy, after 
the first trimester, the State shall regulate. They stepped in and took 
over and reached the long arm of Uncle Sam into every doctor's office 
in America, disrespecting women, disrespecting families, disrespecting 
individual rights, disrespecting physicians.
  They have gone too far, and now in this bill we face this fight. I 
hope that my colleagues will support the Leahy-Kassebaum language. It 
is the language we all agree with. We are not saying in 

[[Page S 16490]]

any way in this bill that Federal funds are going to be used in any way 
for abortion, but what we are saying with this amendment is that 
nongovernmental organizations--nongovernmental organizations--operating 
in other countries have a right to do what they will with their own 
funds.
  As far as UNFPA, they are using this China argument and distorting 
it. They just want to get us to pull out of this family planning, this 
very important agency. I hope we will support Patrick Leahy on this 
one.
  I ask unanimous consent that the think-globally-act-locally House 
Republican Agenda be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Think Globally, Act Locally--A Pro-Active, Pro-Environment Agenda for 
                           House Republicans


                              introduction

       As we all know, the environmentalist lobby and their 
     extremist friends in the eco-terrorist underworld have been 
     working overtime to define Republicans and their agenda as 
     anti-environment, pro-polluter, and hostile to the survival 
     of every cuddly critter roaming God's green earth.
       While we all know that this characterization of Republicans 
     is far from true, it will continue to be the drumbeat message 
     of the left for as long as it helps them a) grab headlines, 
     b) write fundraising letters, and c) energize people who 
     consider themselves pro-environment.
       The new Republican Congress is committed to updating 
     environmental legislation written in the 1960s and 1970s to 
     better address the problems of the 1990s and for the century 
     to come. As we move this agenda based on sound science, 
     results and real clean-up, better use of tax dollars, respect 
     for property rights, and less reliance on lawyers, the 
     establishment environmentalist community in Washington has 
     begun its own fear campaign to preserve the status quo they 
     make a living from.
       Although Republicans and the vast majority of the American 
     people believe you can't have a strong economy without a 
     strong environment, and you can't have a strong environment 
     without a strong economy, the extremist environmental 
     movement will stop at nothing to distort the facts, lie about 
     our legislative agenda, and paint you and your fellow 
     Republicans as the insensitive extremists in this fight. And 
     while we will never satisfy the most extreme in the 
     environmental movement, to many in our growing Republican 
     majority--especially suburban women and young people--the 
     environment is an important issue.
       In addition to the legislative battle the Conference will 
     help you fight, and win, here in Washington to bring common 
     sense reforms to environmental legislation such as the 
     Endangered Species Act, Superfund, and Clean Water 
     legislation, there are very real and very effective steps you 
     can take in your districts to help further insulate yourself 
     from the attacks of the green extremists.
       As we are ``thinking globally'' about how to improve our 
     nation's environmental laws here in Congress, the steps 
     listed below will help you to ``act locally'' and get 
     involved in your districts on the side of a cleaner 
     environment.
       By taking some time to get involved in a variety of pro-
     environment projects in your communities, you can go over the 
     heads of the elitist environmental movement and work directly 
     with the people who care most about the environment in your 
     communities--your constituents.
       The time to act is now. In order to build credibility you 
     must engage this agenda before your opponents can label your 
     efforts ``craven, election year gimmicks.'' Remember, as a 
     famous frog once said, ``it ain't easy being green,'' your 
     constituents will give you more credit for showing up on a 
     Saturday to help clean up the local park or beach than they 
     will give a press release from some Washington-based special 
     interest group.
       Think of it this way, the next time Bruce Babbit comes to 
     your district and canoes down a river as a media stunt to 
     tell the press how anti-environment their congressman is, if 
     reporters have been to your boss' adopt-a-highway clean-up, 
     two of his tree plantings, and his Congressional Task Force 
     on Conservation hearings, they'll just laugh Babbit back to 
     Washington.


                              Action Items

                            I. Tree planting

       Whether sponsoring tree planting programs in your district 
     or participating in ongoing tree planting programs, this 
     exercise provides Members with excellent earned media 
     opportunities. When participating in tree planting programs 
     you should include both children and seniors. In addition, 
     while it is important to discuss the positive environmental 
     aspects of planting trees, don't forget the symbolism that 
     trees represent--i.e. roots in the community, family, and 
     district.
       Tree planting can occur at schools, parks, public 
     buildings, and even senior centers. If the Member plans on 
     sponsoring his/her own tree planting program, consider, 
     contacting local nurseries who may donate trees for the 
     cause. (Contact the ethics committee prior to undertaking 
     this activity)

         II. Special environmental days--Earth Day & Arbor Day

       During the year there are at least two days when the 
     ``environment'' is a major news story.
       Earth Day--Usually third week in April.
       Arbor Day--Proposed in 1996 for April 26th.
       During these special environmental days, chances are good 
     that the media will be writing an Earth Day or an Arbor Day 
     story. In addition, chances are also good that somewhere in 
     your district there will be a group sponsoring an event. Plan 
     on participating in these events, or at a minimum, plan on 
     releasing a statement of support. In your statement of 
     support, make sure to include your positive environmental 
     activities.

            III. Adopt a highway, walking trail or bike path

       While traveling your district, you will no doubt come 
     across ``Adopt a Highway'' signs. This is an excellent 
     program that embodies the Republican philosophy of 
     volunteerism. To participate in this program you should 
     contact your state, county road commission, or local roadway 
     authorities.
       In addition to participating in an ``Adopt a Highway'' 
     program, you may also want to participate or initiate an 
     ``Adopt a Walking Trail'' program or ``Adopt a Bike Path'' 
     program. For these type of programs you should contact your 
     local, county, or state parks authorities.
       Once you decide to participate in any of these programs, 
     make sure to announce your participation at the site. Stress 
     community involvement in your remarks and have plenty of 
     supporters on cite at the press conference.

                      IV. Environmental companies

       Environmental high tech ``clean up related'' companies or 
     companies that produce products from recycled materials are 
     among the fastest growing industries in America. Through your 
     local Chamber of Commerce or National Federation of 
     Independent Businesses, do some investigative work to seek 
     out environmental related companies in your district. If you 
     have an environmental company in your district, contact the 
     facility and arrange for a tour.
       During the tour be sure to invite the media to participate 
     (make sure you receive permission from the facility). Become 
     briefed on the company's mission and offer your support. 
     Chances are, the company will be happy to participate in this 
     earned media opportunity which offers them positive media 
     coverage.

                   V. Start a conservation task force

       One of the best ways to keep informed regarding local 
     environmental issues is to organize a local conservation task 
     force in your district. In addition to keeping you informed 
     on local environmental issues, this group can also assist you 
     in developing an environmental legislative agenda. To set up 
     such a group invite local environmentalists and sportsmen to 
     join. Groups to contact include: garden club members, 4H 
     representatives, Ducks Unlimited members, Audobon members, 
     and other local or grass-roots organizations that are 
     symphathetic to your common sense environmental agenda.

                VI. Local conservation groups and boards

       What types of environmental groups are already active in 
     your district? Look for zoo boards, garden clubs, or other 
     community conservation/environmental groups in your district. 
     Become an active board member where possible.

                    VII. Local school participation

       Many school curriculums include environmental issues or 
     offer special environmental programs. Find out which schools 
     offer these programs and become a guest lecturer. In your 
     lecture be prepared to offer congressional environmental 
     action highlights as well as a reaffirmation of your 
     commitment to a clean environment.

                   VIII. Constituent letter data base

       Undoubtedly, your office has received environmental related 
     constituents letters. Hopefully, you have coded these letters 
     in your data base. These are constituents who care enough 
     about the environment to take the time to write you and in 
     many cases will appreciate updates from you concerning your 
     environmental agenda. These are also the same people that you 
     can ask to participate in your conservation task force.

IX. Using recycled materials & initiating a recycling program in office

       One of the best ways to show your concern about the 
     environment is to lead by example. One way to show this is to 
     announce an office policy which includes purchasing recycled 
     materials and initiating a recycling program in your office. 
     When announcing this new office policy be sure to include 
     local environmentalists who will praise your actions.

                  X. Recycling facilities in district

       Many municipalities and counties have ongoing recycling 
     programs. Seek out those who have these programs and tour the 
     facility or drop off area. If they don't currently have 
     recycling programs, you might want to head up a task force 
     with local officials to implement a municipal or county wide 
     program.

                 XI. Teddy Roosevelt conservation award

       Through his conservation efforts President Teddy Roosevelt 
     is probably known as the Republican's most famous 
     environmentalist. Using his name, consider establishing a 
     yearly ``Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Award'' 

[[Page S 16491]]

     for someone in your district whose achievements exemplify 
     President Roosevelt's conservation commitment. You can even 
     recognize several award winners by establishing a youth 
     award, a senior award, or a local business conservation 
     award.
       Be sure to contact your local media when you establish the 
     award and when you award the winner. To facilitate the 
     process of identifying potential winners. You can involve 
     your local conservation task force and local schools in the 
     decision process.

                        XII. Environmental PSAs

       Members of Congress are important leaders. As such it is 
     both appropriate and encouraged that you speak out on local 
     environmental issues through the use of public service 
     announcements (PSAs).
       Suggested environmental PSAs could include:
       Proper battery disposal.
       Encouraging recycling at home.
       Proper motor oil disposal when changing your car's oil.
       Encouraging respect for nature when camping or hunting.
       Keeping lakes, rivers, and beaches clean by putting garbage 
     in its place.
       These PSAs can air on both radio and cable stations. To 
     produce a PSA first contact your local radio and cable 
     stations to inquire if they will run your PSA. When producing 
     PSAs, you can use studios at the radio and cable station or 
     you can use the House Recording Studio.

              XIII. Door to door-handing out tree saplings

       If your current plans include door to door, consider 
     passing out tree saplings with your door to door pamphlet. 
     Some Members even design the pamphlet so that it is attached 
     to the tree sapling.
       This practice demonstrates your commitment to the 
     environment by encouraging the planting of the trees and it 
     provides you with an opportunity to use appropriate language 
     tying your legislative agenda to the ``roots'' you are 
     establishing or growing in your community.

               XIV. River, lake, beach, or park clean ups

       Through your conservation task force or through already 
     established organizations, consider participating in local 
     river, lake, beach, or park clean ups. Participating in these 
     events will provide you with an opportunity to gain positive 
     media exposure and further demonstrates your commitment to 
     the environment.

                             XV. Local zoo

       Become active in your local zoo. Go for a visit, 
     participate in fundraising events, become active on its 
     citizens advisory board, or help create enthusiasm for 
     special projects it might be promoting.


                               conclusion

       Remember, the environment must be a proactive issue. 
     Congressional staff in both the Washington office and the 
     district office need to concentrate on seeking out 
     environmental opportunities for their boss. Republicans 
     should not be afraid of the environmental extremists--embrace 
     our record and act to promote it.

  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by the 
distinguished Senator from Kansas, Senator Kassebaum, and supported by 
others, Senator Leahy and Senator Boxer as well.
  It seems to me a fundamental proposition that a private organization 
ought to be able to use its funds overseas for any purpose which it 
chooses. The Kassebaum amendment provides that there will be no U.S. 
dollars used to pay for abortion, and, in my view, that ought to take 
care of the objection of anybody who does not want to have U.S. 
taxpayer dollars spent on abortions.
  But the factor of not limiting a private organization to a standard 
which is different than the laws of the host country seems to me to be 
fundamental. Were these moneys to be spent in another country, let the 
laws of those countries determine what is appropriate. To try to impose 
a limitation under the so-called Mexico City policy, the House 
language, which would prohibit United States dollars to organizations 
which are bilateral or multilateral, where those organizations use 
their own funds for whatever purposes, including abortion, seems to me 
to be a matter which is really within the purview of those private 
organizations. What concerns me, Mr. President, is that this 
controversy is part of a broader controversy which has engulfed the 
U.S. Senate and the House on the confirmation of Dr. Henry Foster, 
where he was not even given a vote on confirmation in the Senate 
because he performed medical procedures--abortions--permitted by the 
U.S. Constitution; a debate on an appropriations bill about whether 
women in prison would be able to have abortions at public expense, 
where they were necessary, in the judgment of the doctor, for medical 
purposes or where that woman might have been a victim of incest; even 
under the restrictive language of limiting the language of abortion to 
incest, rape, or the life of the mother. It is not just whether funds 
ought to be available if a woman in a Federal prison is unable to earn 
any money or to take care of her own medical needs, and she is denied a 
medical procedure--an abortion--if she is the victim of incest, or the 
issue about having medical procedures--abortions--available for women 
in overseas medical installations.
  There is really a broad scale attack on a woman's right to choose, a 
constitutional right that is recognized by the Constitution of the 
United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United 
States--not going back to Roe versus Wade in 1973, but a decision 
handed down in Casey versus Planned Parenthood by the Supreme Court in 
1992, an opinion written by three Justices appointed by Republican 
Presidents, Reagan and Bush, an opinion written by Justices Souter, 
O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy.
  So I hope that we will not further limit the right of a private 
organization to use their own funds for overseas purposes, even if they 
include abortion, simply because that U.S. organization may have U.S. 
funds for totally separate and collateral purposes.

                          ____________________