[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 199 (Thursday, December 14, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18617-S18637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FOREIGN RELATIONS REVITALIZATION ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. HELMS. Here we are, Mr. President. As I was saying a few minutes 
ago, at long last, S. 908 is the pending business before the U.S. 
Senate--S. 908 being the plan to reorganize the State Department--a 
plan much maligned by all the bureaucrats who do not want to be folded 
into the State Department. They do not want to save any money. To their 
chagrin, it looks to me like we are going to save some money, not as 
much as we would have liked, but that is an issue we can work on in 
conference with the House. S. 908 was reported to the Senate more than 
6 months ago, and I have never seen as many erroneous news reports 
about a piece of legislation in all of my 23 years in the Senate. The 
administration at every turn has vowed--and I use the administration's 
words--vowed to ``delay, postpone, obfuscate and derail'' S. 908. They 
made no bones about it. All of that was ignored by the great media of 
this country. There was just one Senator who was holding up the whole 
works--that fellow from North Carolina, Helms--and they went after 
Helms with a feverish attitude.
  Our Democratic colleagues signed up and have refused to allow the 
Senate to work its will, but that did not make any difference to the 
news media. They reported that it was Helms doing the holding up, when 
actually it was the administration and the Democrat Members of the 
Senate. Now, there was one Senator who was willing to negotiate and 
participate in the process, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, to whom I 
shall forever be grateful.
  It needs to be made clear that the Senator from North Carolina has 
never, never demanded that I get my way as press report after press 
report after press report claimed. I have never demanded that the 
Senate accept this authorization bill or that the administration agree 
to downsize Government by eliminating a few Federal agencies. I have 
never demanded that the Senate accept this authorization bill or that 
the administration agree to downsize Government and abolish some 
Federal agencies. I had hoped all of that would happen, and the bill 
was drafted for that purpose, but I never made any demand for 
anything--except that the Senate be allowed to vote on S. 908. I said 
from the very beginning, ``Let me have a vote and you will have your 
ambassadors.'' I have asked only that the Senate be allowed to conduct 
its legislative responsibilities and vote. Not once did I stipulate 
that S. 908 had to pass but just that it be voted upon. But the 
Democrats were afraid that if it were put up for a vote, the Senate 
would agree to abolish three Federal agencies--what a tragedy that 
would have been.
  Since this process began months ago, the Foreign Relations Committee 
has acted on at least 58 of President Clinton's ambassadorial 
nominees--most of them political appointees, I might add. The committee 
has acted on six tax treaties and assorted other international treaties 
in that same time period. I have asked myself many times, what have we 
received in return? Until this date, nothing; nothing. There goes that 
obfuscation, delay, postponement, derailment.

  I take issue with those in the administration and with my colleagues, 
especially the distinguished Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd], who 
at one point asserted that it was the ``height of irresponsibility to 
hold up nearly all other committee business over one piece of 
legislation.'' Chris Dodd knows better than that, Mr. President. He is 
in charge of the political wing of the Democratic Party. He is perhaps 
experiencing a convenient amnesia, forgetting that as chairman of the 
Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere in 1992, Senator 
Dodd himself refused to schedule any subcommittee ambassadorial 
nomination hearings for an entire year. So when Senator Dodd made his 
extravagant statement, I respond, ``Look who is talking.''
  I could go on, but suffice it to say many of my Democrat colleagues 
have engaged in a bit of injured innocence when they weep such copious 
tears about the delay in Senate confirmation of several nominees. Now, 
were it not 

[[Page S18618]]
for Senator Kerry's commitment, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, his 
commitment to negotiate common ground, we would still this very 
afternoon be at an impasse. Everybody knows that there needs to be 
streamlining and consolidation of the whole Federal Government. It is 
one of the big reasons we have a $5 trillion debt hanging over the 
people of this country. Senator Kerry recognized early on and said, 
``Yes, one or more of the three agencies stipulated in this legislation 
have outlived their usefulness.''
  That is putting it the nice way. The truth of the matter is that all 
three of the agencies, ACDA [U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency], 
AID [Agency for International Development], and the U.S. Information 
Agency [USIA] need serious pruning and, in my opinion, should be put on 
the short list to be abolished. I note that in reference to USIA, it 
was never our intention to undermine our international broadcasting 
capability, such as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. But I 
repeat, the ancillary agencies that cost billions of dollars have got 
to be toned down. That is what this bill is all about.
  I remind my colleagues that it was Secretary of State Christopher who 
proposed to Vice President Gore's much-publicized Reinventing 
Government Office that the United States was obliged to restructure the 
U.S. foreign affairs apparatus for the 21st century. Secretary of State 
Christopher himself advocated the elimination of the Agency for 
International Development, the U.S. Information Agency, and the Arms 
Control and Disarmament Agency. Mr. President, Secretary Christopher 
went almost hat in hand down to Vice President Gore's office to plead 
that our foreign affairs apparatus needed a serious rethinking for the 
post-cold-war era. I remind my colleagues that is was Vice President 
Gore, the former U.S. Senator, who was chosen to be the No. 2 officer 
of this country and has spent much of his time in office proclaiming 
his intent to reinvent Government, to downsize Government, and to save 
the taxpayers money. I know of very few successful efforts of the Vice 
President in that regard, because somewhere along the line Vice 
President Gore, decided all of a sudden that the status quo was just 
fine, and Vice President Gore rejected out of hand Secretary of State 
Christopher's proposal. In doing so he became a captive of the very 
Federal bureaucracy he was supposed to reinvent.

  By the way, this past January, it was the Vice President of the 
United States, Al Gore, who promised that he was going to save $5 
billion in 5 years by cutting the U.S. International Affairs budget. S. 
908, under the terms of the manager's amendment, mandates $1.7 billion 
in savings over 5 years. If $1.7 billion in savings ``jeopardizes the 
national interest'', what are we to have said about $5 billion? The 
local press would call such a draconian cut the policy of an 
isolationist if it were made by anybody on this side. They all 
applauded when the Vice President said it. But look at the facts. How 
did Mr. Gore come up with those figures? He yanked them out of thin 
air. Even Senate Democrats acknowledge that they cannot figure it out. 
They have asked for months--all of us have been asking for months--for 
the Vice President's proposals for all of these savings.
  Finally, some of the more candid Senators on the other side of the 
aisle confessed. They admitted that the Vice President's plan had no 
basis in reality and it must have been the result of bad staff work 
down at the White House. So the emperor had no clothes.
  It is worthy of note that the Vice President's book entitled ``Common 
Sense Government'' asserts that his recommendations on restructuring 
the U.S. foreign affairs agencies would be announced in the fall of 
1995.
  Mr. President, it is now the winter of 1995, and we are still 
waiting.
  The fact is, we are never going to hear from him. We are never going 
to hear from his associates. They just do not have a plan. They do not 
know how to produce any savings. They do not have a clue. All they have 
are press releases, and those press releases, as it turns out, are 
not--and were not--worth the paper they were printed on last January.
  S. 908, the committee's plan to abolish three Federal agencies and 
save $3 billion has been available to the administration in writing for 
more than 6 months.
  By the way, I stress that the largest of these agencies--the Agency 
for International Development [AID]--is a temporary Federal agency, 
even though it was established a half century ago. Ronald Reagan used 
to say that ``There is nothing so near to eternal life as a temporary 
Federal agency.'' I think that is correct. The Clinton administration, 
the State Department, and the Vice President of the United States have 
yet to provide an alternative to S. 908. The administration has not 
even bothered to submit an authorization bill to the Congress this 
year.
  So here we are. S. 908 is the pending business in the Senate. What 
goes around, comes around. As I indicated at the outset, 6 months after 
committee consideration of the bill, no thanks to the administration, 
the Senate Democrats have proposed an amendment to our bill.
  Senator Kerry has just arrived on the floor. And I do not know 
whether he knows that I paid my respects to him while he was on the way 
over here. But I have, and I meant it. And I am grateful to the 
Senator.
  The Kerry amendment, as I said earlier, mandates cost savings of $1.7 
billion over 5 years. That is less than one-third of what Vice 
President Gore promised that he would save, and what S. 908 proposed to 
save at the outset. We are not saving enough in my judgment. Senator 
Kerry knows how I feel about that. We have been candid to each other. 
But I want to get started on this business of saving the taxpayers' 
money, and I think John Kerry does as well.
  I have had to console myself with the fact that saving the taxpayers 
$1.7 billion is better than saving the taxpayers nothing. Of course, it 
would have been far better if Senator Kerry had been permitted to 
fulfill his original offer in committee to abolish one agency and save 
$2 billion over 4 years. In fact, at the markup of S. 908, the able 
Senator from Massachusetts strongly stated that he was prepared to move 
forward on the one agency abolition, and that he would not back down on 
that proposal. I thinks it is too bad that he did.
  Remember, Mr. President, the original intent of the pending bill, S. 
908, was to abolish three agencies. The Democrat's compromise proposal 
was to maintain status quo--leave all three agencies fully functioning 
and just ask them to save a few billion dollars. The managers' 
amendment requires the President of the United States within 6 months 
to send up a plan to downsize, consolidate, and streamline. And, if the 
President fails to do it, three Federal agencies will be abolished just 
as we proposed in the beginning. The ball is going to be in the 
President's court. The clock on that 6 months starts ticking when S. 
908 (or H.R. 1561) is enacted.

  So as I said at the outset, Mr. President, here we are. While the 
main focus of this managers' amendment is on reauthorization, it needs 
to be borne in mind that this is a 4-year authorization bill for the 
Department of State.
  Also, the managers' amendment modifies several other sections of the 
bill. For example, we agreed to modify some provisions relating to the 
U.S. relationship with the United Nations. One in particular that has 
bothered me is the provision restricting the share of U.S. intelligence 
with the United Nations. At the administration's insistence we have 
replaced that provision with a much less stringent one.
  I, for one, agree with Senator Snowe of Maine. The original provision 
was proposed by Senator Snowe and it was much tougher. I agree with her 
that the administration should be required to make the case to Congress 
as to why it is crucial for the United States to share intelligence 
with the United Nations which includes in its membership countries such 
as Iraq and Cuba.
  We also agreed to remove section 603 which is a provision dear and 
near to my own heart. The provision would provide asylum for immigrants 
who are fleeing the policies of their home countries that will force 
them to abort their unborn children or force them to be sterilized, as 
the case may be. The silver lining in this decision is that this 
provision is included in the House bill and, therefore, I expect to 
strongly support the House language in the House-Senate conference on 
this bill. 

[[Page S18619]]

  We modified section 604 to authorize payments from frozen Iraqi 
assets for United States claimants. A similar provision was approved in 
committee by a bipartisan vote of 10 to 8.
  Section 168 restricting the issuance of visas to those who traffic in 
expropriated property was deleted at the behest of Senator Dodd of 
Connecticut who has stated that he would prefer that issue be dealt 
with in the conference on the Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, H.R. 
927.
  Mr. President, another important aspect of this agreement is that the 
Senate will provide for the appointment of conferees upon final passage 
of this measure sending H.R. 1561--the House companion bill--to the 
House, and requesting a conference.
  On Tuesday, the Foreign Relations Committee reported out--true to my 
promise--18 pending nominees, and the START II treaty.
  The previous unanimous consent agreement provides for en bloc 
consideration of the nominees upon final passage of S. 908. The 
majority and minority leaders have agreed to make every effort to 
finish START II as expeditiously as possible.
  A few more thoughts and I will be through.
  Early next year the Foreign Relations Committee will begin active 
consideration of the Chemical Weapons Convention, including additional 
hearings and additional steps necessary to full committee consideration 
of this treaty by April 30. I feel obliged to assert that I remain 
opposed to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Until this administration 
comes forward with a public explanation of precisely how this treaty 
can be verified, which it cannot do and has not done yet, I cannot 
imagine that the Senate will be prepared to take action on the treaty. 
But that remains to be seen.
  The road to redemption was not traveled in one day. It began with one 
step in the right direction, and that is where we find ourselves today. 
The Democrats have taken this step by recognizing the necessity of 
consolidating the U.S. foreign affairs agencies and agreeing to mandate 
cost savings and by concurring that the Secretary of State should be 
the primary foreign policy adviser to the President of the United 
States. Ultimately, the President and our Nation's foreign policy will 
benefit from this reorganization which has been endorsed by five former 
Secretaries of State, who, in the process, one after another, conferred 
with us and helped us in the drafting of the bill.
  Let me say this, and I shall yield to the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  The world has changed dramatically during the past 10 years. The 
State Department has not. The issue of consolidation and restructuring 
is not going away this year, and it is not going away next year either. 
I pledge that. Brian Atwood, for example, will have to rethink his 
jubilant declaration this past October when he said, ``AID has survived 
a bruising political battle.'' That remains to be seen.
  Down on the Archives building, not far from the Capitol, is a piece 
of marble that has the words, ``What is past is prologue.'' Somebody 
asked a friend of mine what that means, and he said, ``That means `You 
ain't seen nothing yet.' '' So, Mr. Atwood, I would say, ``You ain't 
seen nothing yet.''
  What has happened here is not the beginning of the end, it is the end 
of the beginning. Eventually--eventually--the American people are going 
to have their say. And to the length of my cable-tow, they also will 
have their way.
  I yield the floor, and I assume the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts wishes to make a statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. I was 
not here when he made some very generous comments about my 
participation in this, and I am appreciative of what I have been told 
that he said.
  As I said the other night, for myself I want to thank the Senator 
from North Carolina for his patience and for his forbearance in this 
process. It has been a difficult process, as many have said, but I will 
say that in all of the dealings that he and I have had, there was never 
any rancor or any raising of voices. We argued and debated and pressed 
and pushed, both of us, for positions that we believed in. In the end, 
what we have here is a compromise, as it ought to be, and I think it is 
a fair compromise. I think it is a sensible compromise. It is a 
compromise that recognizes the changes that are sweeping over all of 
Government and Washington. It recognizes the imperative of that change, 
which no agency or entity of Government ought to be exempt from unless 
they can prove, beyond all doubt, that they ought to be.
  Mr. President, I am pleased that Senator Helms and I have reached 
agreement on a manager's amendment and that the months-long impasse 
over this bill and the nominees and other issues linked to movement on 
this bill has come to an end. The process has been long and at times 
trying. In the eyes of many it was about politics, not policy, but that 
is not the case. From the very beginning there have been real 
substantive disagreements over the consolidation language in this bill 
and over many other policy provisions, such as those mentioned by the 
distinguished ranking minority member, Senator Pell.
  This managers' amendment is a compromise in every sense of the word. 
On the key issue of consolidation, Senator Helms and his Republican 
colleagues on the committee agreed to accept my proposal which 
preserves the President's prerogative to determine how the foreign 
affairs agencies--that is the State Department, AID, USIA, and ACDA--
will be reorganized. This proposal provides the President with 
flexibility. It does not abolish any agencies, unless the President 
fails to send a plan to Congress, but it does require the President to 
save $1.7 billion over 5 years through reorganization and 
consolidation. Recognizing that programmatic reductions are a byproduct 
of consolidation, it allows him to achieve up to 30 percent of that 
savings from programmatic reductions.
  I believe that this proposal will result in some serious and 
beneficial streamlining and consolidation of our foreign affairs 
apparatus. In my view this is necessary in light of the cuts that are 
being imposed on the budget in all areas including foreign affairs. I 
share the concern of many of my Democratic colleagues about these cuts. 
The international affairs budget is only 1 percent of the Federal 
budget, and it is 1 percent well spent when one considers our needs and 
interests abroad. But like it or not, funding for foreign affairs 
programs has been declining over the last decade and will continue to 
decline under whatever agreement is reached for balancing the budget in 
the next 7 years. Against this reality, we must find a more efficient 
and cost-effective way to make and implement policy while still 
preserving critical programs. I think the approach we have in this bill 
will enable us to do that.
  I recognize that some are concerned that the Senate position on 
consolidation, as reflected by this managers' amendment, will be 
reversed or changed in conference. Senator Helms and I have agreed that 
the Senate conferees will operate under consensus with respect to the 
main elements of my consolidation proposal, that is mandatory cost 
savings, abolition of the agencies and the limitations as to where cost 
savings may be achieved. It is imperative that any changes in the 
Senate position on consolidation reflect agreement among all the Senate 
conferees because this issue is at the heart of the bill.

  Senator Helms and I have also agreed that we will work in conference 
to increase the authorization levels for the operating accounts of the 
agencies affected by this bill. We must ensure that the authorizations 
for these accounts are in concert with the savings we are seeking 
through reorganization and consolidation and that we do not undermine 
the President's ability to reorganize by decimating the operations of 
these agencies through the authorization process.
  As we are all aware disagreements over this bill resulted for many 
months in inaction by the committee on 18 ambassadorial nominations, 4 
FSO promotion lists, and the START II treaty. On Tuesday the Foreign 
Relations Committee favorably reported these items to the Senate. Once 
we act upon this bill, the nominees will be approved by the Senate en 
bloc pursuant to a 

[[Page S18620]]
unanimous-consent agreement reached last Thursday. When the START II 
report is filed, the Senate, pursuant to another unanimous-consent 
agreed to last Thursday, will begin consideration of the treaty. I 
believe there is overwhelming support in the Senate for this treaty and 
I hope that we will be able to complete action before the Senate 
recesses. If we do not, however, the majority leader has given his 
commitment that we will finish action on START II at the beginning of 
the next session. I think these are positive developments, as is the 
procedure we have worked out for committee consideration and action on 
the Chemical Weapons Convention.
  I am hopeful that with these positive steps, we can begin to restore 
the bipartisanship traditionally characteristic of the operations of 
the Foreign Relations Committee. The chairman has assured us that the 
committee will resume normal activities including scheduling of 
hearings and action on all currently pending nominees and other 
committee business. I believe all of us on the committee, Democrat and 
Republican alike, agree that this is in our joint interest and that of 
the country.
  Mr. President, I think most of us approached the issue of how to 
deliver our foreign policy and how to implement the various missions of 
the various agencies that do deliver that foreign policy. Most of us 
approached this with a sense that we can do it more efficiently, that 
we have not patented perfection with respect to it. There are areas of 
waste. There are areas of duplication. There are areas where we can do 
some consolidating, possibly even some merging. But we also recognized 
that within that framework it is important to acknowledge and honor the 
prerogatives of a separate branch of Government, the executive branch.
  So, some of us pressed very hard for the Presidential prerogative of 
being able to line up their own ducks, of being able to make a decision 
as to which agencies to conceivably consolidate, or what the order 
ought to be. I think most people feel, particularly in the arena of 
foreign policy, that is the fair prerogative of the President of the 
United States. We have preserved that prerogative in this compromise. 
So the principle of consolidation, the principle of merger, the 
principle of efficiency is embraced in the compromise, but the 
principle of the separation of powers and the Presidential prerogative 
in foreign policy is also embraced in this compromise.
  In addition to that, I believe the level of savings represents a 
realistic beginning. I think the Senator is perfectly correct in saying 
the ultimate goal here is for all of us to respect the desires of the 
American people to have the most efficient expenditure of their tax 
dollar. This is their dollar and this is their Government, not ours. We 
represent them here.
  So, there are many in this country who have second thoughts about 
some of those expenditures in the foreign field, but there are also 
many people who have enormous commitment to much of what we are trying 
to do abroad--for very little.
  I always ask audiences when I am asked a question about foreign 
policy when I go home and talk to people in Massachusetts how much 
money they think we spend in foreign policy. It is fascinating to 
listen to the response. Many people have a quick response, 20 percent, 
20 percent of our budget. More often than not, it is in the low sort of 
double digits: 12 percent, 11 percent, or the high single digits. 
Almost invariably, I would say 75 percent and higher of the number of 
hands that go up in an audience, will pick 4 percent, 5 percent, rarely 
less than 3.
  I was at a teachers convention not long ago and only one teacher out 
of about 200 correctly picked the amount of money that we put into 
foreign policy in this country: 1 percent. Less than 1 percent of the 
total budget of the United States of America leverages our global 
interests.

  That is not a totally fair assessment because obviously we invest in 
the Defense Department. That is a very big investment and that is a 
serious component of our projection of force abroad and our interests. 
But in terms of assistance to other governments, in terms of 
population, environment, the kinds of things we try to do with respect 
to international narcotics through the State Department and a host of 
those efforts, we are talking about 1 percent and less of the entire 
Federal budget.
  Many of us on our side of the aisle are deeply concerned that in a 
world that is more global, in a world that is less centralized in its 
conflicts, where we no longer have the kind of bipolar, easily 
definable East-West tension that defined most of the history of this 
country since 1945, in that world there may well be more need to think 
about increasing things like the Foreign Commercial Service officers in 
various developing countries.
  When I was in Hong Kong over a year ago, I was struck by the fact 
that in the Foreign Commercial Service in Hong Kong, the several people 
that we have there said to me, ``Senator, we are missing billions of 
dollars of contracts for our companies in America.'' Those billions of 
dollars of contracts translate into thousands of jobs. For every $1 
billion of exports, there are 20,000 jobs created in the United States 
of America. They said to me, ``Because we only have,'' I think--I 
cannot remember the exact number, it was in the single digits--
``Because we only have this few number of people here in Hong Kong, we 
cannot keep up with the requests for proposals. We cannot keep up with 
the meetings that we could be putting together for people to be able to 
be married to a deal.''
  ``If you people''--meaning us--he said, ``were to have enough 
foresight to just give us 10 more people, we would pay their salaries 
within 1 month.'' That seems to me to be a reasonable return on 
investment.
  That seems to make sense, but that is not necessarily--and I 
underscore necessarily--what will happen with this budget. Could it 
happen? The answer is yes.
  Under the consolidation, if the Secretary of State and the President 
were to decide that is an imperative and we ought to put more people 
into that than have some people on some other desk, we can make that 
happen. But I think most people feel many of those other desks are also 
competing with things ranging from international environmental accords 
to international questions of refugees to international questions of 
immigration to international questions of crime to international 
questions of terrorism, all of which in this less bipolar world present 
us with a whole different set of choices.
  Mr. President, I do not want to go on at great length. I think our 
effort is to try to expedite this this afternoon. There is no reason at 
this point to speak at great length, but I do want to simply say, many 
people on our side of the aisle were deeply concerned about the level 
of reductions, and that is why we are starting out at the $1.7 billion. 
It may well prove that in the consolidation program that, hopefully, we 
will set up within the timeframe within this bill--I am confident that 
we may find there is rationale for doing more. And we may also find 
there is a clash of reality that is impossible and that this is, in 
fact, too significant.
  Let me say also that Senator Helms and I have agreed that we will 
work in the conference committee to increase the authorized levels for 
the operating accounts of the agencies that are affected by this bill. 
We have to ensure that the authorizations for these accounts are in 
concert with the savings that we are seeking through the reorganization 
and consolidation, and we do not want to undermine the President's 
ability to reorganize by decimating the operations of these agencies 
through the authorization process itself.
  We are also gratified that part of this agreement now sees the 
ambassadors about to be eminently improved and the START II treaty to 
come to the floor, hopefully, within the next day or so, certainly 
within the next days.
  I am particularly grateful for the commitment of the chairman to 
guarantee that the committee will act on the Chemical Weapons 
Convention, and it is obviously our hope that we will be able to either 
improve it or change it, if it needs improvement, but ultimately the 
full Senate will be able to act.
  I share with my colleague from North Carolina concerns about it in 
its current form. There are issues of verification. There are 
legitimate reasons for the committee to want to do its business over 
the course of the next months. 

[[Page S18621]]

  Moving at this point in time, Mr. President, to a consideration of 
the START II agreement, for which I think there is extraordinarily 
small opposition within the Senate, if any, is very, very important in 
the context of events in Russia, the elections, and also our own 
interests in reducing some 4,000 strategic nuclear weapons from the 
arsenals of both ourselves and the former Soviet Union, including the 
SS-18, which was always the most imposing weapon that was pointed at 
the United States of America.
  I think that moving forward on that treaty is enormously important, 
and it is one of the reasons why this compromise is so welcome.
  I want to say, finally, that I think all of these steps are 
important, positive steps, which I believe, in the spirit that the 
chairman has described, can help to bring us back to a bipartisan, 
joint effort to try to utilize this committee to help address the major 
questions that we have in the country with respect to foreign policy, 
and I am confident that with all of our good efforts it can, in fact, 
do that.
  Mr. President, it is my pleasure to yield to the distinguished former 
chairman, the ranking member of the committee, for his comments at this 
time.
  Mr. PELL. I thank the Senator very much indeed.
  Mr. President, I support the Managers Amendment to S. 908 negotiated 
by Senators Kerry and Helms. I was opposed to S. 908 as reported by the 
Foreign Relations Committee, and regretted at the time it was reported 
that the committee appeared to have abandoned a long tradition of 
bipartisanship in crafting the State Department authorization bill.
  Consequently, I am pleased with the results of the negotiations that 
are reflected in this managers amendment. I congratulate Senator Kerry, 
who so ably managed this bill on behalf of the Democrats. He did this 
in a skilled, professional and brilliant way. I also congratulate 
Senator Helms for his willingness to work with Senator Kerry and 
Democratic members of the committee to achieve this constructive 
resolution to many of the serious disagreements related to S. 908.
  The managers' amendment makes significant improvements in the bill 
with respect to two critical areas: the reorganization of the foreign 
affairs agencies and those provisions related to the United Nations and 
its specialized agencies.
  As we all know, much of the opposition to this bill focused on the 
mandatory abolition of AID, USIA, and ACDA and the transfer of some of 
their functions and personnel to the Department of State. I was 
particularly concerned that ACDA would be abolished because I feared 
that it would eliminate the independent voice on arms control issues 
that every President should have, and a concept which every President 
since President Kennedy has supported.
  I am pleased that the compromise takes a different approach. No 
agencies are abolished, except in the event that the President fails to 
send a reorganization plan to the Congress. The driving force of 
reorganization is the requirement that the plan save $1.7 billion over 
5 years. In my view this is the correct approach as it encourages the 
President to reorganize while at the same time preserving his 
prerogative to determine how that reorganization is done.
  As reported by the committee, S. 908 also contained a number of 
troubling provisions designed to restrict U.S. participation in the 
U.N. system. For example, some placed conditions on the payment of our 
assessed contributions to the United Nations for membership and 
peacekeeping. The managers' amendment which Senators Helms and Kerry 
are offering improves a number of these provisions and deletes others. 
I applaud these changes because we cannot exert leverage at the United 
Nations if we cannot fulfill our financial and other obligations in 
full.
  Finally, with the adoption of this managers' amendment and the 
passage of S. 908, the Senate will proceed to the confirmation of a 
large number of ambassadors and the consideration of Start II. I have 
previously expressed my deep concern and regret over the holding up of 
the important business of the Foreign Relations Committee and the 
nation because of significant differences of opinion over just one 
piece of legislation, particularly if that one piece is unrelated to 
the main body of the legislation and other matters that are being held 
up.
  In my 30 years of service on the committee and 8 years as chairman, 
this was unprecedented. With this action today, however, I am very 
optimistic that the new year will bring a return to the committee's 
traditional bipartisan approach to addressing the foreign policy issues 
before the Senate. We clearly will not agree on all these issues, but I 
hope we will agree to disagree and work where feasible to reflect the 
concerns of all members in the committee's deliberations. This 
managers' amendment, and the committee's 18 to 0 vote on Tuesday, 
December 12, to report the Start II treaty to the Senate, are examples 
of our potential for the new year. As ranking minority member of the 
Committee on Foreign Relations, I pledge to work with our chairman to 
address the issues before our committee in the new year in a bipartisan 
and constructive manner. Although we have agreed to disagree on many 
policy issues, we are friends and colleagues with a long-standing 
mutual respect for each other.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to register my opposition to 
S. 908, the State Department authorization and reorganization bill. 
Before I begin briefly to state my reasons, let me compliment both the 
Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, and the chairman of the full 
committee. I compliment the chairman, my friend from North Carolina, 
for being a consummate legislative craftsman. He held us hostage very 
effectively for a long time. I do not think we would even be talking 
about this compromise bill were it not for the fact that the START 
Treaty was held up, that all the ambassadorial nominations were held 
up, and that we asked Senator Kerry on our behalf to see if he could 
free them up. It reminds me of those buttons we used to have around 
here when we would have long sessions, ``Free The 89th Congress'' or 
free this or free that.
  Well, this was ``free the Ambassadors'' and ``free our national 
security'' so we could have the ability to continue to destroy Soviet 
nuclear weapons and continue the rational arms control regime that was 
begun with President Nixon and went straight through the administration 
of President Reagan.
  This is not a backhanded compliment. I think one of the most fierce 
and effective legislative foes one could have in this body is the 
distinguished Senator from North Carolina. I do think, however, that 
the way my friend from North Carolina went about this one was 
unprecedented, and I hope it is not repeated.
  On that score, I wish to make it clear to my friend from 
Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, why, after all his hard work, I am still 
opposed to this bill. He did a great job. We are going to have a START 
II Treaty, God willing and the creek not rising, and we are actually 
going to put ambassadors out there after the rest of the world wondered 
where the devil they were.
  Let me say at the outset that I admire the skill of both the 
gentlemen who have brought us this agreement. I do not, however, admire 
the product that has been brought.
  No one disputes the need to constantly scrutinize our Federal 
bureaucracy to look for overlaps and redundancies and opportunities for 
streamlining.
  In this case, though, the three agencies that I will now mention 
will, in my view, be emasculated by this bill. The Agency for 
International Development and the United States Information Agency 
effectively are mandated for closing. Most important in my view is the 
supreme irony that just as we finally are allowed by the chairman of 
the Foreign Relations Committee to free up the START II Treaty, this 
bill would severely cut the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
  All of the three agencies I have just mentioned have been 
streamlining themselves and cutting overlapping functions. All three of 
them have already been taking a good, hard look at their missions and 
have been responding to changing circumstances.
  The Agency for International Development, for example, has pioneered 
enterprise funds, which have created 

[[Page S18622]]
partnerships between the private sector and the Government.
  USIA has attempted to utilize modern information technologies to 
spread the message of the United States to the rest of the world. It 
has also entered into local partnerships whenever possible to conserve 
funds.
  Perhaps the biggest mystery to me is why the advocates of this bill 
think that the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency has outlived its 
usefulness. In the confusion of the current post-cold-war era, the 
danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons has dramatically 
increased, not decreased--I repeat, dramatically increased.
  Now more than ever, the critical independence of ACDA is needed to 
counter the natural tendency of the State Department to defer to 
bilateral relationships in sticky situations.
  Another irony is that those proposing the cuts are the very ones who 
have been most critical of the State Department for allegedly having an 
instinct to become captives of the countries with which we deal.
  ACDA has a proven track record of nonpolitical expertise, which we 
can ill-afford to lose at this time.
  The situation at the State Department, which would absorb the 
agencies whose independence is to be sacrificed, is hardly any better. 
Mr. President, the Department of State, the principal vehicle for 
carrying out American foreign policy, has already been forced into 
debilitating reductions.
  The international affairs budget is now 45 percent lower in real 
terms than it was in 1984. Altogether it represents only 1.3 percent of 
Federal spending. Over the past 3 years alone, the State Department's 
budget has been decreased in real terms by 15 percent at the same time 
the Department's responsibilities have increased with the emergence of 
new countries in the wake of the breakup of the former Soviet Union. 
Moreover, since 1993 there has been a 30-percent increase in passport 
issuances to U.S. citizens to travel abroad.
  What has the result been? The State Department has taken the 
following actions to reduce the cost of conducting U.S. diplomatic and 
consular relations.
  First, it has cut its total work force by 1,700 persons.
  It has downsized the Senior Foreign Service by 19 percent. And here, 
Mr. President, I submit that we are wasting a precious national 
resource, the kind of expertise built up over the decades that in the 
short term simply cannot be replicated.
  It has also reduced overseas allowances.
  It has cut its administrative expenses by almost $100 million.
  It has reduced expenditures on diplomatic security by 15 percent. 
And, Mr. President, I doubt anyone would claim that we live in a safer 
international environment.
  It has had to cancel, which I find astounding, the 1995 Foreign 
Service examinations--I repeat, has had to cancel the 1995 Foreign 
Service examinations. That means, of course, that our country is 
cutting off any chance of attracting the best and the brightest of our 
college and university graduates into the diplomatic service this year. 
Talk about being penny-wise and pound-foolish. My goodness.
  The State Department has been forced to slate 19 overseas posts for 
closure in fiscal year 1996. The list of these posts makes the hair of 
any internationally minded American stand on end. Permit me to 
elaborate a bit on this point, using Zurich, Switzerland, as an 
illustrative example of the folly that congressionally induced budget 
slashing has wrought. Zurich is, of course, Switzerland's largest city 
and its economic and financial center. In fact, it ranks as the world's 
fourth largest financial center. Many American multinational 
corporations have their regional headquarters there, including Dow, 
Kraft, General Motors, and many others. In the other direction, 
Switzerland was the second largest foreign direct investor in the 
United States in 1994.
  So, Mr. President, what do we do? We close the consulate in Zurich, 
Switzerland, which does not make a lot of sense. I do not think it is a 
stretch to say that Zurich is a rather important city to American 
business. Apparently other countries also perceive Zurich's central 
position in international finance and trade; 59 other countries have 
consulates there. As one might expect, all of the other leading powers 
in the world have representation in Zurich, but smaller nations also 
consider it in their interest to be represented in Zurich--The Gambia, 
Lesotho, Mongolia, Nepal, Rwanda, the Republic of the Seychelles, 
Swaziland, Vanuatu. The list goes on.
  Mr. President, with all due respect to our friends in The Gambia, 
Lesotho, Mongolia, Nepal, Rwanda, and so on, I find it rather 
incredible to believe that their governments can somehow find the 
funding that they need to keep consulates open in Zurich, and the 
United States of America, the world's only superpower and largest 
economic engine in the world, cannot. We cannot find the money to keep 
a consulate open in the vitally important city of Zurich, a consulate, 
I might add, that I have never visited.
  But let me not be too Eurocentric, Mr. President. Another post slated 
for closing, thanks to congressional budgetary wisdom, is Medan, 
Indonesia. As you know, Indonesia, with a population of over 200 
million people, is the fourth largest country in the world.
  It is also the largest Moslem-majority nation on Earth. Its economy 
offers numerous opportunities for foreign investment. And Medan, after 
the capital Jakarta, is Indonesia's most important commercial center.
  Other countries with consular offices in Medan include Belgium, 
Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, 
Norway, the Russia Federation, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and 
Thailand. Why are they there? To do business.
  So, Mr. President, after we take down the Stars and Stripes and close 
our consulate in Medan, what will happen when an American corporation 
eager to break into the Indonesian market goes to Medan? Our American 
corporate representative can walk down to the the Japanese consulate 
where the nice Japanese attache will undoubtedly be happy to help out 
with business contacts and other valuable information that the American 
corporation needs.
  Although this bill is largely a creation of the majority party, there 
is plenty of blame to spread around. I regret to say that the 
administration, in its zeal to reinvent Government, has aided and 
abetted the feeding frenzy of the small Government ideologues.
  To be fair, this bill can be viewed as but the logical culmination of 
a decade of denigrating the nonmilitary component of American foreign 
policy. Most of us, this Senator included, have voted for reductions in 
one area of foreign policy or another to spare what we deem to be more 
important programs.
  But, Mr. President, this goes overboard. This bill goes far beyond 
what we have seen before. Previous cuts in the budget for carrying out 
our foreign policy, whether they were proven correct or not, were at 
least undertaken with a view toward strengthening the international 
role of the United States of America.
  As I have demonstrated earlier, the agencies charged with executing 
our foreign policy have not been ``fat cats'' of the Federal budget, 
unwilling to change. On the contrary, Mr. President, they have absorbed 
massive cuts up to this point. I repeat, the international affairs 
budget is already, before we pass this bill, 45 percent in real terms 
below what it was in 1984. And as I have said, the State Department, 
USIA, ACDA, and AID have already implemented severe staff reductions. 
Moreover, we are talking about only 1.3 percent of Federal spending 
here.
  So, Mr. President, I think it is totally false to assert either that 
our foreign policy agencies have not reformed themselves or that the 
very carrying out of our foreign policy is a ``big ticket'' item in the 
Federal budget.
  No, Mr. President, the impetus for this proposed legislation is not 
rooted in demonstrated need. On the contrary, I am sorry to say, the 
bill has its genesis in a strain of isolationist thought that harkens 
back to the 1920's and 1930's, which many of us thought was but an 
unpleasant memory.
  By imposing crippling budget cuts on three foreign affairs agencies 
that have served this country well for decades: the Arms Control and 
Disarmament Agency, the Agency for International Development, and the 
U.S. Information Agency, I think this bill virtually 

[[Page S18623]]
assures their demise. That is part of the bill's purpose.
  Moreover, Mr. President, the State Department, which would inherit 
the remains of those agencies, would itself be forced into yet another 
round of devastating cuts. Some of those consequences, as I have 
earlier indicated, would be absurdly funny were they not so tragic.
  Mr. President, this bill represents backdoor isolationism pure and 
simple. At a time when international affairs has become more complex, 
its passage would signal to the world an American desire to simplify 
what cannot be simplified.
  Combined with Republican-mandated cuts in the already meager foreign 
assistance budget, this bill would lead ineluctably in a few years to a 
situation in which the American President would have little choice in 
an international crisis between doing nothing and sending in the 
military. This bill, I believe, is the worst kind of ideologically-
driven false economy. It is a dressed-up isolationist exercise. It is 
not worthy of a country that claims the mantle of world leadership.
  I know that many of my colleagues share my deep misgivings about this 
Congress' evident desire to shrink America's international role. 
Opposition to this bill offers an opportunity to reassert the 
centrality of America's involvement in the world. I urge my colleagues 
to join me in voting against S. 908.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I am not going to debate the distinguished 
Senator from Delaware. I will say, he has a very selective memory. And 
like all of us, I suppose he remembers things that have not happened. 
But that is all right. The Senator forgot, for example, to mention the 
continuous efforts on our part to persuade the administration to engage 
in negotiations.
  On August 11 of this year I had persuaded, through a friend in the 
White House, the White House to have the President invite me and our 
staff to the White House to brief the President on our legislative 
proposal. What it in fact proposed and what the critics of it said it 
would propose were two different things.
  President Clinton was entirely gracious when we arrived. We did not 
meet him on the first floor. He took us up to the family quarters. And 
we spent 1 hour and 20 minutes demonstrating the details of the 
proposal. Vice President Gore was there, as was the Secretary of State, 
the White House Chief of Staff, and the Deputy National Security 
Adviser. I sat between the President and the Vice President, as a 
matter of fact. Several times during the briefing the President leaned 
over to me and said, ``Who could be against that? Who could be against 
that?'' disclosing clearly that he had not been informed about what the 
bill in fact proposed and now proposes.
  Acting in his name had been a concert of the bureaucrats heading the 
three agencies, the three agencies that five Secretaries of State, plus 
Warren Christopher, the President's Secretary of State, had stipulated 
ought to be abolished and folded into the State Department because they 
had become anachronisms of a bygone era.
  Senator Biden is also wrong about this bill having anything to do 
with the cancellation of the Foreign Service examination. The closing 
of diplomatic missions was not only a recommendation of the last two 
administrations, as I said in my opening remarks, but also of the 
President of the United States.
  So it is unfair--and I know that the Senator from Delaware does not 
intend to be unfair--but he is following the same line that the news 
media have followed from the very beginning.
  Why did five former Secretaries of State help us draft this bill and 
publicly endorse it? Why did the present Secretary of State go down to 
the White House and propose, in large measure or in some measure, what 
we are proposing with this S. 908? Those are things that the Senator 
from Delaware just smooths over. And I know he does not intend to be 
unfair because he is a fair individual. He and I came to the Senate the 
same day.
  This bill is intended to strengthen the Secretary of State 
organizationally speaking. Warren Christopher wanted it done but he was 
rebuffed. Now, if you disagree with Mr. Christopher, that is your 
business, I will say to the able Senator from Delaware. But the fact 
is, there have been changes in this world, as I tried to emphasize in 
my own remarks. And the U.S. foreign policy apparatus must change with 
the times.
  Let me address a statement that is so often made by the State 
Department and various others and political operatives who support the 
status quo. Senator Kerry said over and over again in his remarks that 
spending on the U.S. foreign affairs budget takes up only 1 percent of 
the Federal budget, I believe he said 1 percent. Well, the 1.3 is 
correct, but it is not incorrect to say that that is what is spent on 
operating the foreign policy apparatus because the foreign policy 
apparatus reaches out and utilizes the rest of Government, and the cost 
of what they reach out and get greatly increases that figure because 
the 1.3 does not include spending on foreign policy objectives from our 
domestic accounts. That figure does not include the money usurped from 
the Department of Defense. I mentioned the $2 billion spent on Somalia. 
I mentioned the nearly $2 billion that has been spent on Haiti, thus 
far, and much more is going to be spent in Haiti before we are through.

  The Lord only knows how much is going to be spent in and on Bosnia; 
$2 or $3 billion has been mentioned. It is going to be at least that 
much, and probably substantially more. Thirty-two Federal agencies run 
almost $2 billion in international exchanges every year. The point is, 
the American people must not be deceived or misled into believing that 
we only spend 1.3 percent, or 1 percent, of the Federal budget on our 
foreign policy. It simply is not so, and that deception ought to be 
brought to an end.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I do not want to get into a debate with my 
friend, and there is nothing personal about what I said. Let me 
reiterate what I actually said. My criticism and compliment to my 
friend from North Carolina was not that he was original in what he has 
done, in the sense that he had support from like-minded former 
Secretaries, or even, at one time, from the present Secretary, or 
perhaps even from the President. My comments related not to him--it is 
not what he proposed but the fact that he denied us our ability to 
dispose of ambassadorial nominations and the START II Treaty.
  My disagreement is not only with him on this legislation. I also 
mentioned the Secretary of State when we were referring to the State 
Department and the President of the United States. I think, with all 
due respect, all the supporters of this effort are being shortsighted. 
So the chairman is not alone in what I characterize as 
``shortsightedness'' as it relates to what our policy should be. My 
reference to him was explicitly for his unique ability to fashion a way 
to get his point across in this case, which was by denying us the 
ability to dispose of the START II T treaty and dispose of 
ambassadorial nominations, all of which were ready to go. I 
complimented him on his ingenuity.
  I have tried to learn from him. We have been here together since 
January 1973, and I have watched him, and Democratic predecessors, like 
the deceased Senator Jim Allen, and others, use their great skills to 
be able to get the results that they sought. I compliment him on it, 
but I think it is the wrong way to do it. I think it was a high price 
to be paid in order to get agreement.
  So I want to be clear. He was not original in his notion that we 
should cut these consulates. He joined other, I think, wrong-headed 
proposals to close them. My reference to him was explicitly that I hope 
we do not have a repetition of shutting down the business of the 
committee while we arrive at a conclusion that is satisfactory to 
whoever the chairman is then.
  The distinguished Senator from Rhode Island has announced his 
retirement. The Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from 
Delaware are seeking reelection. The Lord only knows, and our 
constituents know, whether both of us will be back, and the odds are 
that he may be back as chairman. But it is also possible that the 
Senator from Delaware may be back as chairman of the committee. 

[[Page S18624]]
 That is the only reference that I was making. It seems to me that what 
he did was legal use, in a senatorial sense, of the power of 
chairmanship, but I think unprecedented and, I hope, not to be 
repeated.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HELMS. It is not a violation of the rules, and it is not 
undesirable unless the other guy is doing it to you. I remember when 
the other side was in the majority, with a different chairmanship. I 
must say that Senator Pell has always been a thoroughbred gentlemen. I 
have said that in many public forums, and I think he knows I mean it. I 
hope that some may later on think that I am a gentleman, too.
  But I am interested in getting the job done. I reiterate, as I said 
at the very outset this afternoon, that this could have been handled 
months ago if the other side had been willing only to let the Senate 
speak on the bill. But, no, no, the first day when it came up, they 
brought out Mr. Kennedy from Massachusetts to speak for 1 hour and 20 
minutes on the minimum wage. Some things are hard to understand. But I 
figured out, after a while, that they were filibustering, that they did 
not want the Senate to speak its mind on this bill. It began there. But 
if we had had a vote, no Ambassador would have been held up. And if we 
let the Senate function as it is intended to function from now on, no 
Ambassador will be held up in the future.
  I am going to use every technique that comes to my mind to try to do 
the best I can for my country. Now, if the Senator wants to talk about 
what it costs to operate the foreign policy establishment, we can get 
into details like, why did the United States State Department, or the 
foreign aid apparatus, have 600 people stationed in Cairo, Egypt, alone 
to give away money? Since I brought it up, they have reduced, somewhat, 
the number of people in AID, the Agency for International Development, 
stationed in Cairo. It is something over 400 now. But they did not do a 
cotton-picking thing about it until I began talking about it in this 
bill. I am going to do the best I can for what I believe in, and I know 
the Senator from Delaware feels the same way about it. We will do the 
best we can together.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, let me say that the way this situation 
developed is, the Senator from North Carolina, the chairman of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reported from the committee a 
reorganization bill on a 10-8 vote, a straight party-line vote. There 
was no bipartisanship on that issue. He then sought to bring that bill 
up on the floor and was not able to get 60 votes in order to invoke 
cloture. Now, pushing the other side to invoke cloture is not a tactic 
strange or unfamiliar to the distinguished Senator from North Carolina. 
He is one of its more avid practitioners here in the Senate.
  So I am not moved by the fact that his measure, in effect, was 
blocked because they were unable to produce the 60-vote margin. They 
tried to do it and fell short on two occasions. Not having been able to 
get his way on this important substantive matter about which there were 
great divisions, a lot of strong feelings, and a lot of differing views 
about what was appropriate, the Senator from North Carolina proceeded 
to take the ambassadorial nominees hostage. He shut down the work of 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he is the 
chairman, holding up such important matters as the START II treaty and 
the Chemical Weapons Convention.

  In other words, because he could not get his way on a substantive 
matter, he then refused for 4 months to allow the committee to carry 
out its functions and responsibilities. We were not able to do any 
business--no legislation, no nominations, no treaties. This is hostage-
taking par excellence.
  Then we are being told, you have to negotiate. The United States says 
to the world, if you take our people hostage we will not negotiate 
under those circumstances. We will not be coerced that way.
  Now, I have never, in the time I have served here, encountered 
anything comparable to what has occurred in this instance, in terms of 
grinding the whole range of work to a halt--particularly by the 
chairman of a committee, which, after all, carries with it certain 
important responsibilities.
  I remember the former chairman of the committee was on the floor when 
the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act was being subjected to this very 
tactic to which I made reference. It was like a rolling snowball. 
Anything that came along, the Senator from North Carolina encompassed 
within his rolling snowball and sought to hold hostage in order to 
increase his leverage to get his way on the reorganization measure.
  So we encountered this with respect to the Middle East Peace 
Facilitation Act, in addition to holding the ambassadors hostage, in 
addition to these treaties that were left to languish, in addition to 
whatever legislation was in the committee. In fact, at that time the 
former chairman of the committee, the distinguished Senator from Rhode 
Island, said, ``I absolutely agree it is inappropriate to link MEPFA to 
the State Department legislation. I do not recall in the years I have 
been in the Senate, 35, or as chairman of the committee, any similar 
action being taken.''
  I then said, ``Will the chairman yield on that point? When did the 
former chairman, if I may say, the very distinguished former chairman, 
go on the Foreign Relations Committee?'' Mr. Pell said, ``I think it 
was 1964.'' And I asked, ``So the Senator has been on it more than 
three decades?'' And Senator Pell said, ``Correct.'' And I inquired, 
``Has my colleague ever seen anything comparable to what is now taking 
place?'' Senator Pell said, ``No, and that is the point that bothers 
me.'' I said, ``I thank the Senator,'' and Senator Pell went on to say:

       I think we should deal with the question of extension of 
     MEPFA on its merits and the merits clearly lie with the quick 
     passage of the short-term extension. We should not, as 
     Senator Kerry noted, trifle with the peace process for the 
     sake of reorganizing our bureaucracy. We should pass the 
     MEPFA now with no linkage. In this regard, I am particularly 
     struck by the words of the Senator from Maryland. I know I am 
     correct in saying I am the only former Foreign Service 
     officer in the Senate. Because the Foreign Service was only 
     created in 1926 under the Rogers Act, I think I am the only 
     Foreign Service officer ever to have served in the Senate. I 
     would also point out this linkage that is being created by 
     the chairman of the committee not only sets a bad precedent 
     but is a linkage that should never have been made in the 
     first instance. It has not been done in the past, and it 
     would be a great sin to move this way now.

  Now, I agree completely with those remarks of the distinguished 
Senator from Rhode Island. The Senator from North Carolina, unable to 
get the votes to invoke cloture--a process, as I indicated earlier, he 
has used himself repeatedly on the floor of the Senate--then decided to 
use that bill as leverage. He was saying, in effect, ``I will take 
every other aspect of business of the committee hostage. No 
ambassadors, no treaties, no legislation, no Middle East Peace 
Facilitation Act. You will have to come to terms with me on this 
reorganization.''
  Now, looking at the national interests of the United States, the fact 
of the matter is that ambassadors and treaties, which are important to 
our Nation's interests and upon which we should have been acting, were 
delayed over the controversy with respect to this legislation.
  Now, I understand the Senator wants his reorganization bill. A number 
of us disagree with that. Fine, I am ready to fight out that issue on 
that legislation. But, to change the pressures, to increase the 
leverage, he decided instead to do a hostage-taking action, which is 
exactly what occurred here.
  Over the past 6 months there has been a long and growing list of 
ambassadorial nominees--currently 19--who had their hearings and were 
ready to be reported. Many of them had their hearings in July and have 
been waiting since then--it is now December--to be approved by the 
Senate. Meanwhile, the countries to which they would go have no 
American ambassadors on the scene, no heads of mission, no one 
coordinating the American presence in that country. Now, most of these 
ambassadors were career members of the Foreign Service, people who have 
committed themselves to serving our Nation in these very important 
ways. Mr. President, 15 of the 19 are career officers. They included 
nominees for a number of major posts, including Malaysia, Cambodia, 
Thailand, Indonesia, 

[[Page S18625]]
Pakistan, Oman, Lebanon, and South Africa. Our former distinguished 
colleague, Jim Sasser, was nominated to go to China. Our relationships 
with all these countries have been suffering because we have no U.S. 
ambassadors there.
  Why are the ambassadors not there? Not because questions are being 
raised about a particular ambassador and his or her qualifications, 
which of course is a legitimate reason. If someone is holding up an 
ambassador on the floor of the Senate because they do not think that 
person is qualified, or because of some other difficulty directly 
related to the nominee, that is a fight that ought to be fought with 
respect to that ambassador. None of that has happened here. No one was 
asserting that any of these ambassadors had any deficiency. They were 
all being held as a pressure tactic on the reorganization bill.
  Hundreds of Foreign Service officers recommended for promotion were 
also being held up. These are career people. They have committed 
themselves to the Foreign Service. There is an established process by 
which they move forward within the Foreign Service. The promotion list 
comes to the Senate and we act on it. Yet all of them were being held 
up.
  Obviously, this is an unfair situation to the individual nominees, 
who have absolutely nothing to do with the reorganization proposal by 
the Senator from North Carolina. In addition to being unfair to the 
nominees and their families, it is contrary to the interests of the 
United States.
  We need to have our ambassadors out there in the field promoting U.S. 
interests such as human rights, conflict resolution, antiterrorism, 
counternarcotics cooperation, and increasing U.S. exports. We need them 
there to respond to incidents before they become crises, to assist U.S. 
tourists and business people, to promote U.S. goodwill, and to spread 
American values and ideals. The fact that they are not there and have 
not been there for a number of months causes friction in our diplomatic 
relations and erodes and undercuts the ability of the United States to 
influence developments around the world.
  Mr. President, I am further concerned because I think that taking 
people hostage this way is yet another attack on the career Foreign 
Service, which is extremely unfortunate. In fact, we received a letter 
back in August from the American Academy of Diplomacy with respect to 
the ambassadors that were being held up. Let me just quote that letter, 
which was written to Chairman Helms of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee:

       Dear Mr. Chairman: The Academy has noted, according to 
     press reports of August 2, that following a deadlock in the 
     Senate on the State Department authorization bill, a hold 
     would be placed on 17 ambassadorial nominations and that 
     committee action was being canceled or postponed on 22 other 
     nominations subject to Senate confirmation.
       The Academy has taken no position on the authorization bill 
     which is currently in contention. But it does not believe the 
     country's larger interests are served by linking action on 
     that bill to the ambassadorial nomination process. Doing so 
     would have the United States without appropriate 
     representation in these countries at a time of dramatic, 
     historic global change.
       We believe that decisions on America's diplomatic 
     representation abroad, including both the timing of such 
     action and the qualifications of those nominated, should be 
     made strictly on the basis of our interests in the country 
     involved.

  Frankly, I think this willingness to make pawns out of ambassadorial 
nominees, most of whom, as I indicated, are career people, is a 
denigration of the career service.
  I am increasingly concerned about the extent to which that is taking 
place and is engaged in by some of my colleagues.
  At an earlier time, the Senator from Texas asserted that he favored 
deep cuts in spending for diplomatic activities to curb the 
department's alleged penchant for ``building marble palaces and renting 
long coats and high hats.''
  Such an attack on our professionals is extremely unfair. They in fact 
are risking their lives. Some are losing their lives. Yet, we have 
Members of this body who attack them for supposedly wearing long coats 
and high hats and living in marble houses.
  Ambassador Robert Frasure, who had so much to do with moving the 
efforts toward peace forward in the Balkans, lost his life in Bosnia. 
As the State Department spokesman put it, when Ambassador Frasure was 
killed ``he was riding in an armored personnel carrier and wearing a 
flak jacket, not striped pants.''
  Ambassador Frasure's widow wrote a very moving letter to the 
Washington Post, in the course of which she said, in defense of her 
husband--it should have never been necessary for her to have to defend 
him--but in the course of which she said:

       Our diplomats are some of the finest, bravest, most 
     courageous people I have ever met. In the past 10 years 
     alone, my husband and I mourned the death of seven of our 
     friends and Embassy colleagues.

  She then listed them, and went on to comment about the remarks about 
long coats and high hats and marble palaces:

       I am outraged also because I remember the dangers as well 
     as the many hardships our family endured in Bob's 20-year 
     career.

  That is from a very moving letter by Katharina Frasure, the widow of 
ambassador Robert Frasure who came to his untimely and much-grieved 
death in Bosnia.
  In fact, over the past 25 years more American ambassadors than 
generals have been killed in the line of duty.
  So I think we ought to treat the Foreign Service with a greater 
measure of respect. Holding up ambassadors for reasons unrelated to 
their qualifications or their mission is not the way we ought to be 
doing business here. And I regret that these able men and women were 
held hostage in order to increase the pressure and the leverage with 
respect to an unrelated piece of legislation.
  In addition to the ambassadors, he also held hostage some very 
important treaties--the START II treaty and the Chemical Weapons 
Convention. We passed amendments and resolutions right here on the 
Senate floor expressing our desire to see these treaties ratified and 
implemented at the earliest possible date.
  As Spurgeon Keeney, the head of the Arms Control Association, 
recently wrote:

       Failure to complete Senate action promptly could delay for 
     years the entry into force of these agreements with great 
     disadvantage to U.S. security.

  U.S. security is being disadvantaged by this holdup. The START II 
treaty, from all testimony and from all analysis, clearly serves our 
national interest. It is a very important measure in terms of reducing 
the nuclear arsenal, and bringing the nuclear danger under greater 
control. Yet, that treaty has been held up over this reorganization 
issue.
  Let me turn to the substance of this bill. I understand that the 
distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, labored under 
a very difficult assignment and under very trying circumstances. He has 
received a lot of unfair criticism, much of it from the other side. He 
was praised today, but along the way he was sharply criticized, which I 
think was very unfair to him.
  The authorization levels in this legislation, in my judgment, impose 
such deep cuts in administrative expenses that we run the risk of 
having, as the American Foreign Service Association said, ``hollowed-
out agencies''. They argued in a letter to the members of the committee 
that actually what was happening was a shift from streamlining agencies 
to hollowing-out agencies. And they then make the point, and I quote:

       It makes little sense to AFSA that at a time when American 
     leadership and ideas are needed and welcomed throughout the 
     world, we would undercut our ability to operate abroad. Lack 
     of adequate funds and staff to actively represent its 
     national interests abroad send the wrong message. The costs 
     of fighting totalitarianism during World War II and the Cold 
     War were extremely high. Having won those wars, we cannot now 
     afford to turn our back on the world or sacrifice our hard-
     fought victories by failing to adequately fund diplomacy--our 
     country's first, most cost effective, and least risky line of 
     defense in these dangerous times.

  The amount authorized here for diplomatic and consular programs at 
the State Department is $30 million below the level in the Commerce-
Justice-State appropriations conference report, $60 million below the 
administration's request. These are funds needed to assist American 
travelers abroad, to process visas, to keep open consulates, conduct 
diplomatic affairs.
  Funding for salaries and expenses at USIA is also cut drastically. 
The same 

[[Page S18626]]
is true at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and at the Agency 
for International Development.
  In my view, the cuts being proposed here are excessive and will 
result in impeding our ability to carry out U.S. foreign policy 
effectively overseas. I agree with the American Foreign Service 
Association's assessment that these cuts will lead to hollowed out 
agencies at the very time, with the end of the cold war, that there is 
an opportunity for the skillful and effective use of diplomacy. At the 
very time when American leadership and ideas are needed and welcomed 
throughout the world, we would undercut our ability to operate abroad.
  I think this is an important issue. People get up on the floor and 
they make speeches about America's leadership in the world. Then they 
fail to provide the wherewithal, or the resources with which to 
exercise that leadership. Many seem to think that leadership only 
exists in the military sphere, not recognizing the important 
accomplishments that can be done in the political and diplomatic 
sphere, and the interaction between the political and diplomatic sphere 
and the military sphere.
  In addition to these funding levels, which I think are a very basic 
failing with this legislation, there are other substantive provisions 
that remain deeply troubling. One section requires massive RIF's by 
USIA and AID in 1996 and 1997; in one instance by more than 50 percent. 
That, in effect, would finish the Agency. There has been no study of 
consequence to support the effort to abolish these agencies that is at 
all comparable with the studies that were made in establishing the 
agencies to begin with. If one goes back and looks at the process of 
analysis that was made when the decision was made to establish these 
agencies, and the rationale that was given--much of which I think 
remains valid, but if you want to argue that, fine--but there is no 
comparable counterpresentation to support eliminating the agencies.
  Actually, there was a commission that recommended AID be eliminated, 
and now the head of that commission is in favor of keeping it, 
particularly on the basis of the very significant reforms that have 
been made at AID under its present administrator, Brian Atwood.
  This legislation places onerous new conditions on our participation 
in the United Nations. It requires the withholding of 20 percent of our 
contributions to the United Nations, 50 percent of our contributions 
for assessed peacekeeping, and 100 percent of our contributions for 
voluntary peacekeeping, until an extensive list of certifications is 
made. The United States, unfortunately--I regret to say this--is now 
the largest deadbeat at the United Nations in terms of meeting its 
obligations. Yet we repeatedly turn to the United Nations in order to 
accomplish important objectives, in Cambodia, Angola, El Salvador, and 
on and on around the world. We should not forget that the United 
Nations cannot take any significant action if the United States does 
not concur with it because we can simply veto it in the Security 
Council.
  There is a also very troubling provision in section 604 relating to 
Iraqi claims. This is a complicated issue. It has been the source of 
intensive negotiations, but it has very serious national implications.
  Briefly, the situation is as follows. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the 
United States froze all Iraq's assets in United States banks. The 
number of claims on those assets from U.S. veterans and business people 
far exceeds the amount of the frozen funds. Yet there is a provision in 
this legislation to allow a small group of claimants to come in and get 
100 percent of their money, leaving less available for the veterans and 
other businesses who have equally valid claims. There will not be 
enough money left to go around for the rest of these people.
  The Bankers Association for Foreign Trade wrote, calling the amended 
language ``bad public policy.'' They oppose it ``not only because it 
would give preference to a small, select group of unsecured creditors 
as against others similarly situated. More importantly, it would 
inevitably increase the cost of trade finance for U.S. exporters 
relative to their foreign competitors.''
  I close by again expressing my respects to the Senator from 
Massachusetts for his hard work. I think the managers' amendment is an 
improvement to the bill itself. I do not for a moment contest that. But 
I still think that overall, this legislation is heading in the wrong 
direction. It may be less bad, and a lot of very skillful work was done 
by the Senator from Massachusetts to bring that about. It was an 
assignment, in effect, handed to him, to which I think he responded 
with great skill. But I do not think that this legislation warrants our 
support.
  There is every expectation when it goes to conference it will only 
get worse. The House bill with which it will be conferenced includes a 
whole host of objectionable provisions.
  So, in closing, I have a number of letters, some of which I will have 
printed in the Record.
  I ask unanimous consent to have them printed in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SARBANES. The various private voluntary organizations that are 
engaged in overseas development, Bread for the World, Oxfam, 
InterAction, and other similar groups, all indicate their opposition to 
this legislation.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose it. I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                Oxfam America Urges Rejection of S. 908

       As a privately funded development agency, Oxfam America 
     supports self-help projects to combat hunger and poverty in 
     31 countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the 
     Caribbean. At the same time we believe it is very important 
     that the US Agency for International Development maintain its 
     ability to offer significant support for poverty alleviation, 
     basic infrastructure, demining and health programs which are 
     beyond the financial capacity of non-governmental 
     organizations and which can determine the long-term success 
     of smaller NGO efforts like those of our local partner 
     organizations.
       For these reasons Oxfam America is seriously concerned that 
     under S. 908, the State Department authorization bill, USAID 
     will share a five-year budget cut of $935 million with the 
     State Department's other two independent agencies. Although 
     we understand that this budget formula was devised as an 
     alternative to a mandated merging of the three independent 
     agencies, we fear that such cuts, on top of current year 
     reductions, will destroy the US commitment to offer a 
     meaningful level of fundamental development assistance to the 
     poorest countries.
       Further, we are aware that passage of S. 908 will result in 
     conference with H.R. 1561--a bill which incorporates a 
     foreign aid authorization for the first time since 1985. We 
     understand that in addition to a 30 percent across-the-board 
     cut in development assistance, H.R. 1561 includes many 
     regressive foreign aid authorization measures. With passage 
     of S. 908, the Senate would therefore face compromise with 
     such provisions without ever having debated and passed its 
     own foreign aid authorization legislation.
       From Oxfam America's perspective, S. 908 poses an 
     unacceptable threat to the United States' ability to 
     significantly reduce hunger, misery and human 
     underdevelopment as the 21st century dawns.
       Oxfam America urges senators to vote against the passage of 
     S. 908.

                                 ______



                                 National Wildlife Federation,

                                Washington, DC, December 11, 1995.

      Vote No to S. 908, the Foreign Relations Revitalization Act

       National Wildlife Federation opposes S. 908, The Foreigns 
     Revitalization Act because:
       The US cannot continue to call itself a world leader if it 
     passes this Bill. Humanitarian and environmental assistance 
     are investments in the future. They have consistently paid 
     off for the US in the past, and have been vital to 
     maintaining the US as the leader of the free world. As the US 
     withdraws from development assistance, its standing in the 
     international community, its influence in multilateral 
     organizations, its voice and vote will be worth less and 
     less. For altruistic and for self-interested reasons, we need 
     to stay engaged in the world. Foreign aid is a crucial part 
     of this engagement.
       It would cripple the US Agency for International 
     Development. The latest compromise offered by Senator Helms 
     would necessitate such heavy cuts to programs and operating 
     expenses at the US Agency for International Development that 
     even if it continues in existence it will be unable to carry 
     out its mission. This will signal to the international 
     community that the US shrugs off its commitments to poverty 
     alleviation around the world, to building democracy and to 
     conserving natural resources. The US will be diminished by 
     this withdrawal from the developing world, and our long-term 
     interests will suffer.
       The bill micro-manages US foreign policy. Although the 
     compromise version would not mandate a reorganization of 
     USAID, the savings goal of $1.7 billion in five years with 
     only 15% coming from State Department means that USAID will 
     have to be sacrificed. 

[[Page S18627]]
     This sort of reorganization is the prerogative of the Executive branch.
       The House companion Bill, HR 1561 is unacceptable for many 
     reasons, including draconian cuts to sustainable development 
     programs, the inclusion of the Mexico City Policy, and 
     elimination of funds for the InterAmerican and African 
     Development Foundations. The passage of S. 908 increases the 
     likelihood that provisions of HR 1561 would become law.
       Vote ``No'' on S. 908, the Foreign Relations Revitalization 
     Act.
                                                                    ____



                                          Bread for the World,

                             Silver Spring, MD, November 21, 1995.
     Senator Paul Sarbanes,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Sarbanes: As the Senate Foreign Relations 
     Committee proceeds in negotiations over a manager's amendment 
     to S 908, the Foreign Relations Revitalization Act of 1995, 
     Bread for the World urges you not to make any deal that would 
     force the merger of the U.S. Agency for International 
     Development into the State Department or otherwise severely 
     weaken its capacity to carry out long-term development.
       We are concerned that the committee has agreed to terms 
     which, even without directly eliminating USAID, might 
     indirectly accomplish this end by requiring a $1.7 billion 
     cut to administrative costs over five years. Because cuts to 
     the State Department would be limited to 15 percent, or $255 
     million, the burden of the budget cuts will fall heavily on 
     USAID, the agency with the largest operating and program 
     budget among the three agencies in question. Such deep cuts 
     could cripple USAID's ability to manage programs, maintain an 
     overseas field presence, and exercise leadership in the donor 
     community. They would also yield greater authority on aid 
     decisions to the State Department, thus subordinating long-
     term efforts to reduce hunger and poverty to short-term 
     political pressures. Furthermore, the agreement encourages 
     Senator Helms in his strategy to hold foreign policy matters, 
     however urgent, hostage to his demands.
       We ask you to raise these concerns with Senator Kerry and 
     to vote against S 908 when it comes before the full Senate. 
     It is important to have a strong show of opposition to the 
     bill, even if it passes, since a large margin of victory 
     would eliminate the possibility of a Presidential veto.
       Although Bread for the World adamantly opposes 
     reorganization proposals that compromise USAID's 
     independence, we have long supported reform that would 
     improve the quality and efficiency of U.S. development aid in 
     reducing poverty and promoting fair, democratic development. 
     The agency has made significant progress toward this goal 
     under current Administrator Brian Atwood. Yet the task is far 
     from complete. Thus, we urge the committee to exercise 
     greater oversight over USAID's internal reform initiatives.
       Finally, we encourage the committee to return to the 
     critical task of redefining the broad purposes of U.S. 
     foreign aid for the post-Cold War world, rather than to focus 
     simply on slashing foreign aid budgets and eliminating aid 
     agencies. Last year, the committee, under your able 
     leadership, made significant headway in rewriting the 1961 
     Foreign Assistance Act. Regrettably, the process was never 
     concluded. But far-reaching global economic and political 
     changes and recurring crises demand that it not be further 
     delayed.
           Sincerely,
                                                   David Beckmann,
     President.
                                                                    ____

                                          Bankers' Association for


                                                Foreign Trade,

                                Washington, DC, December 13, 1995.

                Position Paper on Section 604 of S. 908

       The Committee's final proposed version of Section 604 of S. 
     908 does not mitigate the threat to U.S. exports implicit in 
     this special interest legislation.
       The current version of Section 604 continues to change 
     established letter of credit law and practice by proposing to 
     grant holders of advised letters of credit the status of 
     secured creditors, which under present letter of credit law 
     inures only to holders of confirmed letters of credit.
       This outcome is bad public policy not only because it would 
     give preference to a small, select group of unsecured 
     creditors as against others similarly situated. More 
     importantly, it would inevitably increase the cost of trade 
     finance for U.S. exporters relative to their foreign 
     competitors.
       This unfortunate result flows from the fact that even in 
     its final form, Section 604 sets the damaging precedent of 
     giving advised letters of credit holders the same security 
     status as holders of confirmed letters of credit.
       If banks are forced by Section 604 to face unanticipated 
     risks by issuing advised letters of credit, they will have to 
     charge more for this method of trade finance to guard against 
     similar loss in the future. The increase in cost will be 
     substantial and would be an added burden for U.S. exporters 
     that their overseas competitors will not have to pay.
       This is why the Treasury Department continues to oppose 
     Section 604 and has stated so for the record. It is also why 
     OMB has indicated its opposition on behalf of the 
     Administration.
       Trying to find a compromise version on Section 604 is like 
     trying to compromise the difference between certified checks 
     and ordinary checks. The only solution is to delete the 
     provision from the bill.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Wyoming is waiting, 
and I will just take a couple of quick moments, if I may.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Please.
  Mr. KERRY. First of all, I thank the Senator from Maryland for his 
kind comments about the difficult task with respect to this. He has 
been there before many times on a number of pieces of legislation. 
There is nobody more skilled than the Senator from Maryland at dealing 
with that.
  I think the comments from the Senator from Maryland and the Senator 
from Delaware are extremely important. As manager for this side, I in 
no way dismiss or diminish the concerns that they have expressed. Those 
concerns underscore the difficulties that not only we faced in getting 
here, but they also make very, very clear the limitations on where we 
can travel in the course of the conference. I want to underscore that 
to my colleagues.
  If this legislation moves in any way in the direction that the 
Senator from Maryland and Delaware have described, then this Senator is 
going to be disposed to find great difficulty in not only passing a 
conference report but, if a conference report comes to the Senate, in 
seeing this legislation pass the Senate. That is a very large hurdle 
indeed which it yet faces.
  So it is my hope we will work to continue the process of improving 
it. I have that assurance from the Senator from North Carolina. It is 
with that understanding and hope--``hope springs eternal,'' for at 
least this Senator--it is my hope we will be able to continue improving 
this legislation as we go forward from here, and I look forward to 
doing that.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Does the Senator from North Carolina yield time to the Senator from 
Wyoming?
  Mr. HELMS. I certainly do, Mr. President.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my friend from North Carolina. I 
will not transgress greatly on the time remaining to him.
  Let me speak clearly, I hope, on an issue which is, I think, very 
critical, and it comes up in the House version of this legislation and 
at this level with regard to the present legislation.
  I call to my colleagues' attention a front-page article in the 
November 4 issue of the Washington Times, a piece by Michael Hedges 
describing a pattern of the most serious abuse in the admission of 
refugees under the so-called Lautenberg amendment.
  First, let me say my friend, Senator Frank Lautenberg, is a very able 
legislator, a friend, a person I very much enjoy working with. I have 
tried to resist this legislation from its inception. But, nevertheless, 
the Senate felt we should go forward. And now it has been for more than 
6 years since the so-called Lautenberg amendment first provided a very 
dramatic exception to the definition of a refugee in the Refugee Act of 
1980.
  The Refugee Act of 1980 was sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy of 
Massachusetts. I was rather new on the scene in those years and found 
it to be a great learning experience to watch it crafted, to see what 
occurred as it was put on the statute books.
  The provision of the law, the Lautenberg amendment, created a 
presumption--now, this may be inside baseball and I know how that works 
in this place, but this is big-time understanding. If we cannot get 
this understood by the American people, we will not get it unraveled.
  The provision provided a presumption of refugee status for certain 
groups in the Soviet Union--this is the former Soviet Union--who 
``assert'' a claim of persecution or discrimination and that would make 
them a ``refugee.'' That has been now extended three times since 1989 
and is due to sunset at the end of this fiscal year, September 30, 
1996.
  In the House-passed State Department reauthorization, there is yet a 
further 2-year extension of the so-called Lautenberg amendment. When I 
speak of the amendment, I do not speak of its sponsor, I speak of its 
intent and what has happened with it. 

[[Page S18628]]

  What we have now is the fact there is no longer any Soviet Union. 
They are our finest friends, the former Soviet Union. So we are going 
to continue now, according to the House version, this rather 
embarrassing mockery of our refugee laws until the end of fiscal year 
1998.
  The Soviet immigration program has become terribly distorted. There 
is even evidence that Russian mafia members and other criminals are now 
beginning to use this system, and why would they not? It is in 
disarray. But, most importantly, Mr. President, how in the world can we 
explain our posturing around the world about our rare and wonderful 
friendship and alliance with the present Russian Government and the 
present independent states and the Commonwealth and the present 
affection between President Yeltsin and President Clinton--and we do 
that everyday--while pretending in some cruel way that somehow people 
coming out of there are still refugees? That cannot fit. It simply 
makes absolutely no sense. But, of course, it would not be the first 
time in this remarkable city.

  I would not suggest in any possible way that we are forgetting the 
lessons of the past or the persecution of Jews in the former Soviet 
Union and throughout the world or the lessons of the Holocaust, but 
please know--and if we cannot understand this, we are all in trouble--
please know that each and every one of those people will be processed 
on a case-by-case basis in an orderly way, all in accordance with the 
1980 Refugee Act, the creation of Senator Kennedy and other innovative 
legislators, and a piece of very humane and responsible legislation.
  What does it do? It provides that if one is a refugee--that is a 
person fleeing persecution or having a well-founded fear of persecution 
based on race, religion, national origin, membership in a political 
organization or social group--a very clear description; it is the U.S. 
description; it is the U.N. description. Such a person would then be 
designated as a refugee and that would be done on a case-by-case basis.
  All of those in the former Soviet Union, whether they be Jews or 
Pentecostals, Christians, Evangelicals, or persons persecuted for their 
political views, will have the same opportunity as all other true 
refugees around this world to enter the United States as a refugee. But 
the Lautenberg amendment and that program must end.
  With absurdities like this being extended year after year, it is no 
wonder that people scoff at our immigration and refugee laws. Let us 
end it now.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article I referred 
to be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, Nov. 4, 1995]

    Vast Soviet Refugee Fraud Detailed--INS Memos Catalog Misuse of 
                          Lautenberg Amendment

                          (By Michael Hedges)

       A U.S. policy of granting refugee status to Jews, 
     Pentecostals and other religious minorities in the Soviet 
     Union and its successor states has been widely abused, 
     according to confidential government documents.
       Internal Immigration and Naturalization Service memos 
     indicate that by 1993 only about 0.5 percent of those 
     entering the United States as refugees under the Lautenberg 
     Amendment met the classic persecution requirements.
       As early as 1991, INS officials in Moscow detailed serious 
     problems with the amendment, which gave religious minorities 
     refugee status, putting them ahead of the millions seeking to 
     immigrate to the United States.
       A ``cottage industry'' developed to defraud the United 
     States under the relaxed refugee standard, according to memos 
     obtained by Scripps Howard News Service. One says that by 
     1993 ``astronomical fraud'' was occurring.
       About 300,000 refugees have entered the United States under 
     the amendment since 1989.
       Law enforcement experts say they fear the lenient standards 
     have contributed to a burgeoning criminality in the United 
     States on the part of the immigrants.
       A high-ranking INS official wrote in March 1992, ``There is 
     a tremendous sense of injustice adjudicating claims under the 
     Lautenberg amendment.''
       Some standard immigration applicants have been waiting more 
     than 15 years, according to Richard Day, chief Republican 
     counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on 
     immigration and refugee affairs. For example, there are 
     Filipinos with family in the United States who were granted 
     immigrant visas in 1977 who are still waiting to enter the 
     country.
       To be declared a refugee is to jump to the head of the line 
     and have taxpayers pay your air fare and resettlement costs--
     an average of $7,000 per refugee.
       The standard procedure for being declared a refugee 
     requires a well-documented fear of persecution--torture, 
     death or jail. Relatively few who met those requirements made 
     it into the United States after 1980 because a ceiling 
     limited the number each year to around 100,000.
       In 1989, as the Soviet Union began to crumble, Sen. Frank 
     Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, proposed a change to protect 
     Jews, Pentecostals and other religious minorities by denoting 
     them refugees from religious persecution.
       One high-ranking federal official involved says it was a 
     good policy in the beginning because there were deserving 
     refugees. That former administrator grew disillusioned.
       ``Clearly, by 1991, fraud and abuse was rife, and our 
     policy had become a rubber stamp,'' he said.
       Critics of the law say one clear sign that many receiving 
     such status are not genuine refugees fleeing imminent 
     persecution is that 27,000 given visas as ``persecuted 
     refugees'' haven't bothered to leave for the United States.
       INS memos say the policy has blocked the escape of many who 
     are truly persecuted.
       ``The irony is that there are plenty of cases from the 
     former Soviet Union which could qualify [as persecuted 
     refugees],'' noted a top INS official in Moscow in December 
     1993.
       ``However, these cases stand little chance . . . as they do 
     not fit into one of the Lautenberg categories.''
       The INS declined to discuss the memos. Requests for 
     additional information were referred to the agency's Freedom 
     of Information Act office. An FOIA request filed in August is 
     pending.
       At one point in 1992, INS officials in Moscow tried to 
     toughen the standards.
       ``The reality . . . was there were some category applicants 
     who were not able to assert a fear of persecution or a 
     credible basis for such fear,'' an INS official from Moscow 
     cabled Washington on March 31, 1992.
       But, the memo noted, ``certain interest groups were not 
     able to tolerate even a small percentage of denials and 
     eventually INS succumbed to their demands.''
       The standards were further relaxed, officials said.
       Arnold Liebowitz, lobbyist for the Hebrew Immigration Aid 
     Society, said he believed the INS and Jewish lobby groups 
     just had an ``honest disagreement'' about the degree of 
     threat facing Jews in the Soviet Union.
       ``I think there has always been in the INS a feeling that 
     the Jews in the Soviet Union really didn't have much of a 
     problem.'' he said.
       Mr. Liebowitz denied his group or others pushed to have the 
     standards relaxed to guarantee that no Jews would be denied 
     refugee status. He said his group believes there is still a 
     need for the Lautenberg Amendment.
       Roy Godson, a counterterrorism expert, said, ``There were 
     criminals entering the country and no one was doing anything 
     about it. Some of the gangsters were Jewish, and they took 
     advantage of [the amendment].''
       Efforts to defraud the INS were widespread, officials said 
     in internal memos.
       ``Category fraud is relatively easy to perpetrate,'' wrote 
     Leonard Kovensky, INS director in Moscow, in a memo sent 
     through Rome to Washington.
       He said people showed up at INS offices with passports 
     clearly indicating their family ties were all ethnic Russian, 
     but by claiming ``one maternal grandmother was Jewish,'' they 
     had to be offered visas.
       ``The leader of a Pentecostal group has informed INS that 
     many of those scheduled as Pentecostals are not Pentecostals 
     at all,'' Mr. Kovensky said. ``Many reliable sources have 
     told us of a cottage industry which has sprung up which gives 
     applicants classes on how to successfully pass their INS 
     interview.''
       A 1991 INS study showed ``a continued decline, indeed 
     drastic decline, in the quality of refugee claims,'' 
     according to an agency memo sent to Washington. Another 
     study, in 1993, found that of 624 applying as refugees, 
     ``only three cases would have qualified under worldwide 
     standards, an approval rate of one half of one percent.''
       Under the Lautenberg standards, ``ninety-one percent were 
     approved, 4 percent were placed on hold and only 5 percent 
     were denied.''

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this confirms the very serious concerns I 
have always had about the program. According to the article, INS 
memorandums and other communications describe the fraud and abuse in 
the program which, after only 2 years, became a rubber stamp for 
admission to the United States as a refugee of almost any person in the 
former Soviet Union who ``claimed'' or asserted to be a Jew or 
Pentecostal or persecuted Evangelical, Christian or other category.
  The startling part of it is, the article notes, by 1993 only about 
one-half of 1 percent of those entering the United States as refugees 
under the Lautenberg amendment actually have a well-

[[Page S18629]]
founded fear of persecution on account of their religion.
  The problem is if the INS had the audacity, or perhaps the gumption, 
to deny even a small percentage of the applicants, the ``groups,'' the 
interest groups would continue to demand an ever more lenient 
consideration of these so-called refugee claims. The result of these 
demands is that we see a lower standard being applied to applicants for 
this very special program.
  Mr. President, many of the persons being admitted under this 
amendment are excellent immigrants. They bring diversity to our 
immigrant flow, many are well educated, and will be productive members 
of our society. We all like to hear that. I do, too.
  However, many others will require public assistance, some for the 
rest of their lives. We now know of situations where people will bring 
aged parents here and immediately place them on the public support 
system.
  Still others, according to Hedges' article, are frauds, complete 
frauds who should not be here at all, or criminals. But the important 
point I want to make for my colleagues is that all of these persons 
enter as refugees. This means, and there is a tremendous difference 
between a refugee and an immigrant, this means they can receive not 
only Federal assistance with the costs of their airline tickets to come 
here, they will also receive special refugee cash and medical 
assistance after they arrive.
  Further, there are private agencies that receive them at the airport 
and are paid $670 per person for each of these 40,000 to 50,000 so-
called refugees who arrive every year under this program. Those are 
called R&P grants. I do not think the people of America even understand 
that there is $670 per person from the taxpayers to receive and place 
these people. R&P: reception and placement. They do not understand at 
all.
  Occasionaly it was not even all expended--take in the refugees, place 
them, spend $150, $200 or $300, put the rest of the money in the 
account of their group. Congressman Mazzoli and I broke up that 
playhouse some years ago, and I would like to think that does not occur 
anymore. But they would stockpile refugee funds because they did not 
need all that money.
  People do not understand that part of it. This is, as I say, inside 
baseball. But I would trust my colleagues, particularly those who are 
conferees on the State Department reauthorization and reorganization 
bill, will insist on the Senate position and strike any provisions 
which would further extend this now thoroughly discredited program. Its 
original intent may have been met. It surely does not serve us well 
now.
  And if you still do not believe it, then here is a figure for you. 
There are 40,000 people in the former Soviet Union who have been 
designated as refugees, presumed to be so under the Lautenberg 
amendment, who have not come yet. They are still there. They are 
``arranging things.'' They have been there for 6 months or a year or 
longer because they are still searching for the best deal for 
themselves to stay, or to come as a refugee. How do you come in a way 
where the Federal Government of the United States pays you the most 
money to get you here.
  But, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot be a refugee and then hang 
around in your country. A refugee is a refugee is a refugee. It means a 
person fleeing persecution, and it means immediate fear. It does not 
mean you wait around to decide whether to go to southern California at 
your pleasure. That is not a refugee. And if Americans cannot 
understand that, we will have more such Proposition 187's and all that 
goes with it.
  Mr. President, I would certainly call upon the Attorney General to 
take a very hard, close look at this program. I would like to have a 
report from them, from the Attorney General, from the Justice 
Department, from the INS and from the State Department. And I know what 
it will likely be. Hopefully, we will be able to get some breath of 
reality into the situation. To ensure that, there is a very simple 
thing, and the simple thing is a screening program, a case-by-case 
screening, just exactly what was called for in the 1980 Refugee Act, 
and put it in Moscow or elsewhere to ensure that persons with criminal 
records are not entering our country as refugees under this discredited 
program because if this article is at all accurate, it is well apparent 
that this program requires the most careful scrutiny.
  I will be speaking on it from time to time. It will rise apparently 
like a Phoenix, as it does, and then you are not supposed to come and 
say anything against it because then you are against refugees, and you 
are really quite a foul fellow, and that is not who I am. But we are 
going to deal with that. We are going to deal with it realistically 
because you either are a refugee or you are an immigrant. And if you 
are a refugee, it will be a case-by-case determination under the 
Refugee Act of 1980. And if you are really a refugee, can you really be 
one from the present Commonwealth of the Newly Independent States, the 
former Soviet Union, because these are our finest allies, our friends.
  It is like someone said to me the other day: What are we going to do 
with refugees from Mexico? I said if that is where the debate has gone, 
then everybody has rocks in their head or wax in their ears. There are 
no refugees from Mexico. How can one be a refugee from Mexico, a 
democracy, our remarkable neighbor to our south.

  So those are the twisted terms we get to play with in this particular 
arena, and I hope that we can at least for the American public's 
edification and clarity try to describe what those terms are and what a 
refugee really is. And it certainly cannot be presumed that there are 
40,000 of them coming per year from the former Soviet Union. That makes 
no sense whatsoever.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to yield myself 6 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise in support of the legislation 
before us. I have listened with some interest to the latest discussion 
here, particularly to the Senator from Maryland decrying the decision 
of the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to withhold action 
on several items prior to this, that have been before this committee.
  I am fairly new at this thing, my first year on this committee. I 
have, however, paid some attention to it, with years in the House 
watching. And I guess I am a little surprised at the conversation. I 
recall others talking about this idea of holding hostages. It seems to 
me that the other side of the aisle, apparently at the insistence of 
the President, has made a conscious effort to avoid moving forward with 
this State Department authorization bill that they promised to 
filibuster to death.
  Time and time again we have read internal memos from the 
administration declaring their intent to stall the bill at any cost. I 
think my colleagues will recall the phrases they have used--obfuscate, 
derail, delay. I certainly would have liked to have seen some of the 
Ambassadors in their posts. We have them before my subcommittee. I was 
anxious that they go forward, partly because I thought they were very 
excellent candidates, partly because I think we ought to have someone 
there.
  Of the 18 nominations, the majority were designated to serve in 
countries within the jurisdiction of my subcommittee, Eastern Asia and 
Pacific Affairs. Indonesia, the People's Republic of China, and APEC 
were without representation. But as important as these posts are, Mr. 
President, passing a State Department authorization was and is more 
important. Yet, the Senate was denied the opportunity to vote one way 
or another on the issue because it was held hostage by the Democrats.

  I guess I was a little surprised at this last discussion that has 
been going on. Hostage takers, Mr. President? What about the senior 
Senator from Massachusetts who took over 2 hours to speak about the 
minimum wage debate during the course of considering this bill in an 
effort to stall it. What about the White House that refused to meet 
with the chairman to discuss a compromise position? What about the 
officials at AID who, rather than rationally discussing the bill and 
offering their alternatives, instead waged guerrilla warfare against 
any compromise?
  These are the hostage takers, Mr. President, not the senior Senator 
from 

[[Page S18630]]
North Carolina. The American people, who deserve a bureaucracy that is 
cost conscious and responsive to the times and streamlined, were held 
hostage.
  I remind my Democrat friends that it is probably not useful to cast 
blame on who is holding whom hostage. As I mentioned, I am fairly new 
to this thing, but I have to observe that it appears many who are not 
new are very, very resistant to change, to even considering change in 
the way we have been doing things.
  When you take a look at the results of some of the things we have 
done in terms of reorganization of the State Department, in terms of 
the operation of some of these units, we obviously need to make some 
changes. If you do not make some changes, there is no reason to expect 
different results.
  So, Mr. President, I am very much in favor of this bill. I am very 
much in favor of the efforts that are being made here to assign some 
responsibility, to assign more accountability, to make this State 
Department just like the rest of the departments --more responsive, 
more efficient, more effective.
  For the first time in almost everything we do here in the Federal 
Government, we are having an opportunity to analyze what they are doing 
and make some evaluations in terms of how these things are working in 
terms of some oversight. That is part of the job of this Congress.
  But too often we get built in to what happened because it is what 
happened 10 or 15 years ago; it has always been that way, so we cannot 
change it. You know we cannot change it; just put some more money in, 
that probably will do it. That has been the notion.
  That is what is unique and exciting and different about this 
Congress. We are having an opportunity to do some evaluating, to set 
some priorities, to make some changes, to cause things to be changed, 
to expect different results from what is happening.
  So, Mr. President, I strongly support this bill. I hope Members of 
this Senate will vote affirmatively and we can move out of this 
hostage-taking mode that we have been in. You can assign the hostages 
to whomever you choose. I assign mine to the other side of the aisle in 
holding this bill hostage.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
  Mr. HELMS. I yield such time as the Senator may require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina, 
and I congratulate him on obtaining floor time for this bill and 
finally getting it to a point where it is going to pass. It really is 
an excellent initiative that deserves the support of the Senate and the 
House, and hopefully will end up being signed by the President. It has 
been a long time coming, as has been mentioned by a number of speakers, 
and it is long overdue.
  We are, after all, almost 4 years into the post-cold-war period, and 
yet we still function with a State Department, an AID and ACDA 
organization, not to say anything of USAI and Voice of America, that 
are clearly creatures created and designed for responding to a 
worldwide ideological confrontation with the Soviet Union. As has been 
mentioned many times in this debate, that is no longer the case; and 
yet the momentum of those departments go forward as if it were the 
case, in many instances.
  I come to this debate because I have the great good fortune to be, 
through no cause of my own, but luck basically, chairman of the 
Commerce-State-Justice Appropriations Committee, which basically must 
fund the ideas which come from the Foreign Relations Committee, which 
is so ably chaired by the Senator from North Carolina and so ably by 
such an able ranking member as the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Therefore, as the person responsible for the appropriations 
activities relative to the State Department, I take seriously the 
proposals of the Foreign Relations Committee because they are obviously 
going to guide the actions of the appropriating committee. It is our 
intention and has been our intention as the Appropriations Committee to 
essentially support and work with the Foreign Relations Committee as 
they pursue and reform and reorganize the State Department.
  I strongly support the basic concept which was created by, initiated 
by, and now has been instituted by the chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee in his proposal as presented in this bill, which is 
essentially that the State Department, ACDA, and AID must rethink their 
roles, so that, hopefully, we will see a bringing together of these 
various agencies in a manner which will lead to a more efficient, 
focused, and effective delivery of their mission.
  I happen to strongly be of the view, as I know the chairman of the 
Foreign Relations Committee is--really I am of this view in large 
measure because of the education which I received while being on the 
Foreign Relations Committee, at the feet of the chairman and the 
ranking member--I am of the view that we need to give the Secretary of 
State more control over these various agencies so that we have a more 
coordinated policy.
  It is not a unique view, actually, held by Republicans only. It 
happens to be a view that at least initially was held by, I believe, 
the Secretary of State, and, I suspect, in the quiet of his office when 
he is not being confronted by the requirement of public policy 
positions pressed upon him by other members of the administration, he 
still agrees with that view and agrees with it strongly.
  It was a view which, initially at least, was supported by the Vice 
President in his proposals for reinventing government; that is, that we 
should give the Secretary of State, the person who logically is the 
prime spokesman and policymaker on behalf of the President of the 
United States, the authority to manage the foreign policy of the 
country. That means the authority to manage two major agencies which 
now function as independent satellites of the Department and, in some 
cases, extraordinary satellites.
  But this bill does not go so far as to direct how it is done 
precisely. Rather, I believe this bill takes the very logical approach 
of allowing the Department to report back and design a program which 
accomplishes the goals which I think are well set out, which is that 
more focus be given through the Secretary of State in controlling and 
managing the various functions of our international policy. Also, it 
proposes that in this exercise of reorganization we save some money, 
not a request which is illogical.
  There is no question but that there is a great deal of overlap, there 
is a great deal of duplication, there is a great deal of atrophied 
agencies within these various departments which were produced and 
created for the purposes of addressing issues of the cold war and which 
are no longer serving a viable function and which, in many instances, 
could easily be reduced or at least consolidated in a manner which 
would deliver more efficiency and refocus them more effectively and 
which would save dollars.
  The proposal which has come forward is to save, I think, $1.7 billion 
over, I believe, 7 years, if I am correct. And if I am not, I will be 
happy to stand corrected. I guess it is 5 years. I would note that this 
is not a reach. In fact, in the appropriations bill which was just 
recently passed by this Senate, we saved $500 million just in the year 
1996; $65 million through rescissions, $435 million by reducing 
spending activities within these various departments.
  So we are clearly on the path to this level of savings. In fact, when 
it was reported at the initial proposal, which the Vice President's 
group, I believe, was dealing with and which had been put forward by 
various members of the administration, it would save, I think, 
approximately $5 billion during this same timeframe. I was supportive 
of that number and happened to believe that number is an attainable 
number, $5 billion rather than the $1.7 billion which is in this 
authorization bill.
  I hope as we move down the road toward this reorganization, that 
should this $1.7 billion become the number that is focused on or 
settled on, that the Department might even, in a gesture of good will, 
try to exceed that number and go closer to the $5 billion which was 
originally thought of.
  I can tell you right now, at least at the appropriating level, we are 
going to be looking for numbers at a little higher level because we 
think it is certainly doable. But I strongly congratulate the chairman 
of the committee for having gotten us on the road to what I think is a 
long overdue, but very effective as presently proposed, attempt to 
reorganize departments which were designed 

[[Page S18631]]
to address one issue, the cold war, and which now are not functioning 
effectively addressing a new issue, which is the world as we know it 
today.
  Today when we think of the threats that confront this Nation and the 
issues of international policy, we should be thinking about things like 
population excesses and thinking about things like environmental 
concerns. We should be thinking about things like availability of food. 
We have to worry about ethnic conflicts, and we have to worry about 
religious conflicts--totally different issues of philosophy, totally 
different issues of real threat to our country or real threat to 
stability around the world than what we confronted under the regime of 
the cold war. Thus, we need to reinvent the agencies which address 
that, and in this bill the chairman and the Committee on Foreign 
Relations has taken a major stride toward doing just that.
  So I congratulate the committee. I look forward to continuing to 
follow the guidance of the committee as we move forward in the 
appropriations process.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair. I am grateful to the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on State-Commerce-Justice appropriations, the 
distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, for his kind remarks. And I 
am very grateful to the distinguished Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. President, I had to take a telephone call on a very important 
matter involving North Carolina. But while I was talking, I heard 
Senator Sarbanes. I like Senator Sarbanes. I do not like everything he 
says. Sometimes he reminds me of a pregnant cobra, but I know he feels 
deeply what he has said, and I know he thinks it is correct. But the 
trouble is that it is not correct. I think Senator Sarbanes, if he will 
forgive me, forgets that at the close of the Bush administration, the 
Democrats held up 12 ambassadors that President Bush had sent to the 
Senate. They were not given hearings. They were given no consideration 
for 6 months--6 months. They, frankly, said, ``We do not want any 
ambassadors appointed by a Republican President.''

  So it is not exactly a novelty to hold up an ambassadorial 
nomination, or a group of them. But I know that Senator Sarbanes did 
the best he could with his argument. But this business of fairness is 
in the eye of the beholder. You do the best you can in the Senate when 
you have a strong and effective opposition, such as Senator Sarbanes. 
And, of course, it was Senator Sarbanes who was micromanaging, to a 
certain extent, I believe, the negotiations between Senator Kerry and 
me. That is all right. I have no objection to that. Senator Sarbanes 
has been around this Senate for a while, and he is entitled to be 
recognized for his seniority.
  Now, President Clinton, let me remind anybody who heard Senator 
Sarbanes' criticism that, just last week, after Senator Kerry and I 
reached our final agreement--and we reached a ``final'' agreement a 
number of times during these negotiations, but last week, when it was 
the final-final agreement, there came the White House saying, ``We have 
one little thing more we want to do.'' It was the White House, do you 
not see, Mr. President, that held the ambassadors hostage because they 
delayed any action on negotiations because they wanted to include a 
guarantee that a nominee to the Environmental Protection Agency be 
confirmed by the Senate in order for this agreement between Senator 
Kerry and me to occur. Well, I said, ``I have nothing to do with that 
nomination, and I will defer to the majority leader.'' I think they 
worked it out with Mr. Daschle and others.
  Now, let me say again that I was ready at any time--and I said so 
repeatedly--to have a vote. I did not ask to be assured of this or 
that; just let the Senate vote. Senator Sarbanes was unyielding on 
that. He did not do so publicly, but he was unyielding that I was not 
going to get a vote because, as he has said, he does not like this 
bill. He thinks we are not spending enough money on the foreign policy 
apparatus as it is. He is in contradiction of the opinion of the 
American people, who pay the taxes. Senator Sarbanes and I only pay a 
small part. But the people who pay the bulk of it do not agree with 
him, and maybe they do not agree with me. I do not have any pull one 
way or another.
  I suppose it ought to be said, in all fairness, that there are good 
ambassadors and there are some who are not so good. Various Senators 
have had various experiences with how embassies are not run by the 
ambassadors but are run by the ambassador's assistant. I have about 
reached the point that I wonder if having an Ambassador in Paris is 
essential, because is it not an anachronism in a day when we have such 
instant communication. When we sent Benjamin Franklin and Thomas 
Jefferson over to Paris, they had to go over on a ship, and they had to 
understand the administration's policy on this, that, and the other. 
But I do not think that the relations with China went to pot because 
Jim Sasser was held up. Somebody said that Jim Sasser is a nice guy and 
he was a good Senator. I like him and all that. But U.S. relations with 
Beijing did not go to pot because Jim Sasser was not over there. As a 
matter of fact, somebody commented that China was making a number of 
concessions while we had no Ambassador.
  So it is OK to take a hit at Helms. I am used to it, but those taking 
the hit better look at the history of what both parties have done when 
they have been in the majority.
  Now, I confess that I may be the first chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee who does not really care what the editors of the 
New York Times feels about foreign policy. I do not run to the 
Washington Post to say, ``Please, is this all right?'' I try to use my 
own instincts and try to base my judgments on what I think the American 
people want in terms of decisions.
  If Senator Sarbanes does not like that, that is fine. The Council on 
Foreign Relations is not going to run the Foreign Relations Committee 
as long as I am chairman of it. I say that with all due respect to the 
organization.
  As far as letters inserted in the Record, I could put 50 pages of 
letters into the Record right now, Mr. President, from people all over 
the country, who have written to me and said, ``Jesse, hang in there.'' 
So we can all play that game and insert letters from lots of 
organizations. I can insert letters from businessmen, who say, ``You 
are doing the right thing.'' So it is a matter of opinion. Some of it 
may be partisan, some of it may not be.
  I do not know that it is entirely useful to excoriate another Senator 
with whom you disagree. I say again, I like Paul Sarbanes, and I 
thought our relationship was better than it apparently is. Foreign 
Service officers and ambassadors are expressing strong, unequivocal 
support for this bill.
  So I do not want to hear all this ``moaning and puking,'' as 
Shakespeare put it, about how we are tromping on the Foreign Service. I 
have not done it, and I am not going to do it. They have been some of 
the loudest advocates of the reorganization of the State Department. 
Five former Secretaries of State have said this is a great piece of 
legislation. They helped us with various points on it. Warren 
Christopher went down and tried to sell it to Al Gore, who was busily 
announcing in press release after press release that he was going to 
``reinvent'' Government.
  So it is time we stopped talking and start doing something. I am not 
going to go any further. I think enough has been said on that.


                             end strengths

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, section 141 of the bill deals with end 
strengths for the Foreign Service and the Senior Foreign Service in the 
State Department, USIA, and AID. We had similar language in the Foreign 
Relations Authorization Act for fiscal year 1994-95. However, the end 
strengths in section 141 of this bill are based on the original 
consolidation language which would have abolished AID, USIA, and ACDA, 
rather than the new language we have agreed upon. We addressed this 
problem in part in the managers amendment by deleting subsections (c) 
and (d) of section 141. However, to be consistent with the new 
consolidation approach, we need to revise the end strengths in 
subsections (a) and (b).
  Mr. President, I would ask the distinguished chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee if he is willing to work with me to correct this 
problem in conference?

[[Page S18632]]

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I am prepared to do that. So the numbers 
reflect the intent of the conference report.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the chairman.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I understand that a colloquy was entered 
into earlier, which I believe misstates the legal status of a provision 
in this bill. May I inquire of the Democratic manager, who determines 
the validity of a claim submitted under section 604(a) relating to Iraq 
claims?
  Mr. KERRY. It is my understanding that the Foreign Claims Settlement 
Commission determines the validity of all claims submitted to it 
regardless of past litigation.
  Mr. SARBANES. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I will be happy to yield to the 
distinguished Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, under section 604(b), I understand that the 
Foreign Claims Settlement Commission is authorized to receive and 
determine the validity of claims of United States persons against the 
Government of Iraq and its instrumentalities. May I assume that claims 
which have been reduced to judgment in Federal district court are 
valid?
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, yes. A judgment obtained in Federal 
district court will be considered a valid claim. Clearly there could be 
no more valid claim than a judgment received through the adjudication 
process.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, may I further assume that such judgments and 
their amounts, having been certified as valid, will receive expedited 
processing for payment?
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, yes. It is our expectation that the Foreign 
Claims Settlement Commission will establish an expedited procedure to 
pay such claims, given that their validity is not in question.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina and 
appreciate his management of this bill.


                expropriation in the dominican republic

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to discuss with the 
distinguished manager, the senior Senator from North Carolina, section 
168 of S. 908. First, I want to commend the Senator for his leadership 
on behalf of all U.S. citizens who have suffered expropriations 
throughout the world. The Senator has been a great champion for these 
Americans whose rights have been trampled by foreign governments.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Texas for her kind words, and I am happy to discuss section 168 of S. 
908 with her. Section 168 would exclude from the United States aliens 
who have expropriated U.S. property or who traffick in such property. 
As the Senator knows, this provision has been deleted from the pending 
bill at Senator Dodd's request because it is included in the House-
passed version of H.R. 927, and he would prefer that it be addressed in 
that bill. Senate conferees will be named for H.R. 927 immediately upon 
Senate passage of S. 908.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have been trying to help resolve an 
egregious expropriation executed by the Dominican Republic's military 
against Western Energy, Inc. Western Energy is headquartered in my 
State and operated an important liquid petroleum gas facility in the 
Dominican Republic until the military took over in April 1994.
  Our Ambassador to the Dominican Republic should be commended for her 
efforts to resolve the expropriation suffered by Western Energy. The 
names of the persons involved are well known because the case is 
prominent and, I am told, has caused great outrage and shame over the 
Government's action. Would my distinguished colleague join me in 
encouraging the U.S. Ambassador to inform the affected persons that 
promptly upon enactment of section 168 in H.R. 927 they will be 
excluded from the United States until the Western Energy case is 
satisfactorily resolved?
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, section 168 reflects the frustration with 
the lack of progress in resolving property claims, especially in the 
Western Hemisphere. The Dominican Republic is among the worst 
offenders, and the distinguished Senator from Texas can count on my 
support.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I intend to vote against the State 
Department authorization bill and I want to briefly explain why. But 
before I do, I want to commend the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator 
Kerry, for the herculean efforts he made to resolve an impasse that has 
prevented confirmation of over a dozen American ambassadors as well as 
Senate ratification of the Start II treaty.
  Senator Kerry believes, as I do, that the foreign policy apparatus of 
this country needs reform. There is duplication, lack of coordination, 
and money has been wasted. I know the compromise we are voting on today 
reflects his best effort to address these problems, without doing 
grievous damage to the agencies that administer foreign policy.
  But while I commend Senator Kerry for the thankless job of bringing 
to closure the tedious and often acrimonious negotiations over this 
legislation, I will vote against this bill because I do not believe 
that blackmail should be rewarded in the U.S. Senate. I will also vote 
no because although this managers' amendment is a significant 
improvement over the bill as reported by the Foreign Relations 
Committee, I believe it will weaken U.S. diplomacy, not strengthen it.
  Senator Sarbanes has spoken eloquently on this and I want to 
associate myself with his remarks. What we have seen is the 
immobilization of the Foreign Relations Committee for the better part 
of this year. The fact that there has not been a foreign aid 
authorization bill since the mid-1980's has not made any difference. 
But the committee does have certain important responsibilities, 
including ambassadorial nominations and reporting treaties for 
ratification.
  I could list any number of Foreign Service officers who serve this 
country every day with incredible professionalism and bravery. Yet 
because the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee could not force 
the Senate to support his effort to eviscerate portions of the foreign 
policy apparatus of the U.S. Government, he refused to permit the 
committee to carry out functions that are crucial to this country. It 
has caused countless problems for both American foreign policy, and 
American citizens who have needed assistance overseas.
  There are other problems with this bill which do not merit our 
support. It contains authorization levels that will cause grave 
problems for U.S. leadership and U.S. representation overseas. It 
requires deep cuts in the operating expenses of the foreign policy 
agencies, including U.S. AID, in our contributions to the United 
Nations, and in our foreign exchange programs.
  In conference, it is a virtual certainty that the bill will get 
worse, not better. Senator Sarbanes has already pointed out that the 
same people who favor slashing resources for diplomacy voted to add $7 
billion to the defense budget, over and above the quarter of a trillion 
dollars requested. This entire bill authorizes less than that increase 
to the defense bill.
  Senator Kerry's efforts resulted in significant improvements in the 
bill that was originally reported by the committee. I also want to say 
that I do not question the motives of the chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee. I agree with his goal to cut the cost of these 
agencies, and to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. They need 
streamlining. But I cannot agree with these methods.
  I vote to reject them, not reward them.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, as chair of the International Operations 
Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the issues contained in the 
legislation, I rise in support of this bill.
  It is regrettable that this bill is coming up today with a managers' 
amendment drafted by Senate Democrats that will have the effect of 
undoing the Foreign Relations Committee's main work on this 
legislation. Lacking a sufficent level of support to actually make 
these changes by a majority vote, the Senate minority has insisted in 
changes in this bill that could not pass under normal legislative 
procedures.
  Although a freshman Senator, I have more than a decade of experience 
with these issues. I have worked on the State Department authorization 
bill 

[[Page S18633]]
since 1985, when I became ranking member of the House International 
Operations Subcommittee. Continuing this role in the Senate, this is 
the sixth State Department authorization process in which I have served 
as a Republican manager of the legislation.
  I would like to thank the chairman of the full committee, Senator 
Helms, for his perseverance with this legislation. That we have this 
bill back before the Senate today is in large part due to his stalwart 
support of the legislative process.
  I would like to also thank the ranking member of the Foreign 
Relations Committee, Senator Pell, for his graciousness, comity, and 
belief in the legislative process. I would note that Senator Pell--the 
former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee--was the only member 
of the other party to support cloture when this bill was last before 
the Senate on August 1. This kind of steadfast support for the role of 
the authorizing committees will be sorely missed in the Senate after 
his retirement next year.
  I would also like to thank the majority leader for his strong support 
for this bill, and the other Republican members of the Foreign 
Relations Committee for their votes and their support when it was most 
critically needed.
  Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of the staff, 
particularly the committee's staff director, Adm. Bud Nance. He has 
brought dedication and integrity to every aspect of his efforts, and he 
has greatly assisted the work of the committee.
  The bill before us today authorizes the budget and operations of the 
foreign affairs agencies, establishes policies for our participation in 
international organizations, and strengthens U.S. standards for our 
participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
  As reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee, this bill would 
have implemented an innovative restructuring plan first proposed at the 
beginning of this year by Secretary of State Warren Christopher. I note 
with regret that this is no longer the case. The original version of 
this bill would have terminated three independent foreign affairs 
agencies, and achieved $3 billion in savings over four years by 
consolidating the functions carried out by those agencies into the 
Department of State. The three independent foreign affairs agencies 
are: the U.S. Information Agency, which deals with the public relations 
aspects of our foreign policy; the Agency for International 
Development, which runs our foreign assistance programs; and the Arms 
Control and Disarmament Agency, which conducts diplomatic activities 
related to arms control and nonproliferation.
  This bill no longer explicitly requires bringing under the direct 
control of the Secretary of State the activities of these three 
existing independent agencies. The bill, however, does mandate to the 
President that he achieve over five years $1.7 billion in savings at 
least 70% of which must come from the elimination of duplication and 
bureaucratic downsizing.
  This is less than half of the savings contained in the committee 
bill, and about $500 million less in savings from Senator Kerry's own 
amendment that failed to pass during committee mark-up. I would also 
note that at committee Senator Kerry proposed the mandatory elimination 
of at least one agency, at the President's discretion. As I mentioned, 
this bill, with passage of the Kerry managers' amendment, no longer 
requires the consolidation of any agencies into the Department of 
State.
  To any who believe that the bill's original $3 billion in savings 
over four years is excessive, or even the current $1.7 billion in 
savings over five years, I would to point out that on January 26 Vice 
President Gore issued a press release announcing the second phase of 
the ``National Performance Review.'' That press release announced, and 
I quote:

       It is anticipated that the overall review of international 
     affairs programs and agencies will result in savings of at 
     least $5 billion over 5 years and a substantially enhanced 
     capacity to deliver more effective programs overseas and 
     provide value to the American taxpayer.

  The problem is that now, 11 months later, the Vice President still 
has not presented his plan for saving $5 billion over 5 years through 
restructuring and consolidation of our foreign affairs agencies. In 
fact, the Administration has refused to even present to Congress its 
normal legislative request for the foreign affairs agencies. And that 
is the first time this has happened in the 10 years I have worked on 
this legislation.
  So in the absence of any positive Administration proposal, all we are 
mandating in this bill is that the Administration develop and implement 
a proposal for saving $1.7 billion over 5 years, not the $5 billion 
over 5 years that the Vice President promised at the beginning of this 
year. Frankly, I believe that we can do more, and the original bill did 
do more. But at least this is a first step toward that goal.
  I hope that once the President is forced to begin looking at even 
this modest level of bureaucratic downsizing, even this Administration 
will recognize the wisdom of Secretary Christopher's original plan for 
consolidating the functions of all three independent foreign affairs 
agencies into the Department of State. Let me just give a small example 
of the reasons why the original consolidation would improve the 
formulation and conduct of American foreign policy.
  On October 12 my office received a State Department inspector general 
report that reviewed the activities of the Bureau of Political-Military 
Affairs. That report discusses efforts to identify and eliminate 
redundancies between this State Department bureau and ACDA.
  This is an effort that we should certainly all applaud, but without a 
formal consolidation between the two entities, a total elimination of 
duplication would either deprive the Secretary of State of any 
expertise over arms control issues, or rob ACDA of any diplomatic 
capabilities to conduct sensitive arms control negotiations. It would 
further isolate important arms control and nonproliferation 
considerations from the formulation of American foreign policy. Or, in 
the words of the State Department inspector general:

       If [the State Department] were to relinquish a significant 
     portion of its nonproliferation functions, the overall 
     effects could be counterproductive.
  This is a perfect illustration why merging the functions of these 
three independent agencies into the Department of State is needed not 
just to save money, but to improve the flexibility and coordination of 
American foreign policy in the post-cold-war era.
  And this is not just my own opinion, the opinion of Chairman Helms, 
or the collective opinion of the other body, which has included 
Christopher's consolidation plan in its own State Department 
authorization bill. This consolidation proposal is also supported by 
five former Secretaries of State and two former National Security 
Advisers.
  Mr. President, I would like to now discuss the reason for their 
support.
  The world has changed dramatically in the last decade, and with it 
the demands on our foreign policy structure. Gone is the cold war--and 
the certainty of a single opposing force in our foreign relations. 
Gone, too, is the highly focused foreign policy we once waged against 
an expansionist and authoritarian Soviet Union and its satellites.
  We face a new imperative: to maintain a strong and aggressive foreign 
policy, while streamlining our operations, achieving cost savings, and 
meeting the new criteria of a changing world. Consolidation among our 
foreign affairs agencies is an idea whose time has come.
  In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 
reigniting of ethnic strife that had been kept bottled up by the cold 
war, we live in a new world. But it is not necessarily a safer world. 
The reason five former Secretaries of State support this concept is the 
need to integrate the important public diplomacy, arms control, and 
foreign assistance aspects of American foreign policy into our basic 
policy formulation process.
  For example, currently the independent Arms Control and Disarmament 
Agency is primarily responsible for nonproliferation policy. But 
concerns about nuclear proliferation frame our relations with a range 
of countries around the world, from North Korea, to Pakistan, to Iran. 
It would enhance, not detract, from this important goal of American 
foreign policy for it to be integrated into the policy formulation 

[[Page S18634]]
process at State. It is far too important to be an afterthought 
considered only later in the interagency process.
  And by better coordinating public diplomacy with policy, we can 
directly benefit the conduct of our Nation's foreign relations. Public 
relations play an increasingly important role in a world that is 
increasingly democratic. But currently, our public diplomacy expertise 
rests in the independent U.S. Information Agency. Does it enhance the 
formulation of American foreign policy to consider its impact on world 
public opinion only after the fact?
  Similarly, there is a great need to more closely tie our foreign 
assistance programs to policy goals intended to directly advance our 
national interests. And there is a desperate need to cut back on AID's 
huge administrative structure that today consumes vast amounts of our 
humanitarian and developmental aid funds.
  Out of a $2.3 billion developmental aid account, AID spends $600 
million on its formal operating expenses account. This is 25 cents for 
every developmental dollar. But in reality, AID's administrative costs 
are much higher because AID's formal operating expenses only count 
5,000 out of its 9,000 employees worldwide. The missing 4,000 are AID 
contract employees who are paid out of program funds, not operating 
expenses.
  There are other important aspects to this legislation. The bill 
contains many management improvements sought by the administration. I 
regret that what State Department initiatives are included in this bill 
had to come to us informally, as the administration even to this day 
has refused to submit a formal legislative request.
  The bill also puts into permanent law many of the international 
peacekeeping reforms that were first enacted in our last bill.
  Let me also briefly mention a few of the initiatives I have included 
in this bill.
  I have included the text of the Terrorist Exclusion Act, which I 
first introduced in the House 2 years ago, and which I have 
reintroduced this year with Senator Brown as my original cosponsor. 
This provision will restore the pre-1990 standard allowing denial of a 
U.S. visa for membership in a terrorist group.
  Another provision would codify existing embassy visa terrorist 
lookout committees. These committees were established by the State 
Department in 1993 under the Visas Viper Program. However, recent GAO 
and IG reports indicate that these committees have become moribund. My 
provision would require the terrorist lookout committees to meet 
regularly and become more active.
  I have also included the requirement for two GAO studies. One would 
look at the extent to which the activities of four long-standing 
grantees duplicate activities carried out by the U.S. Government. These 
groups are the Asia Foundation, the East-West Center, the North-South 
Center, and the National Endowment for Democracy.
  A second study would look at the question of whether the North-South 
Center used U.S. funds to engage in improper lobbying effort in support 
of the North American Free Trade Agreement. I am particularly concerned 
about a publication the Center sent to Members of Congress during the 
NAFTA debate, entitled ``Assessment of the North American Free Trade 
Agreement.''
  Mr. President, as I have expressed in the past, I know that there has 
been a great deal of anxiety among the dedicated, hard-working 
employees of our foreign affairs agencies. That concern comes not just 
over this bill, but over the generally recognized need to downsize our 
Federal work force as we move to a balanced budget. I believe that all 
of us need to do everything we can to remember the human dimension of 
what we are trying to achieve.
  This bill contains broad early retirement and buyout authorities, and 
we have taken every step we know how to take to make the transition as 
easy as possible to a streamlined foreign policy structure. This bill 
also gives the President extraordinary authority to formulate his own 
transition plan, limited only by the bill's mandated savings target.
  Mr. President, the bill before us is an important bill, and I hope 
that in conference it will become even better. The Foreign Relations 
Revitalization Act gives credit to our Chairman, to our committee, and 
to all of the Senators who have supported it since its inception.
  I urge its adoption, and I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I want to lend my support to the 
compromise version of S. 908, the State Department Authorization bill.
  I would like to take this opportunity to thank the distinguished 
Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Helms, and the 
distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, and their 
staffs, for the many hours they devoted to the long, hard negotiations 
that were necessary to reach this compromise.
  In particular, I want to recognize the efforts of the Senator from 
Massachusetts. He inherited a difficult, perhaps even thankless, task, 
and pursued it with his usual diligence, dedication, and wisdom. He had 
to balance the concerns of many of his colleagues, and of the 
Administration, while negotiating a very controversial bill. I believe 
the consolidation compromise he has struck with the Chairman is a good 
one, a workable one, and a fair one. I want to thank him for his 
efforts and commend him for his work.
  The plan that emerged from the negotiations is a reasonable one. It 
requires the Administration to submit a plan to consolidate the foreign 
affairs agencies, but it gives them flexibility to decide how to do so 
effectively and responsibly.
  They are tough standards that the Administration must meet. Within 
six months they must submit a reorganization plan to the Congress which 
achieves $1.7 billion in savings over five years. If Congress deems the 
plan to be unsatisfactory, we can pass a resolution of disapproval and 
force the Administration to submit a more acceptable plan.
  But most importantly, the compromise does not require the 
Administration to eliminate USAID, USIA, or ACDA. They may decide to do 
so. But this bill gives the Administration an opportunity to figure out 
a way to achieve real savings and reform, without necessarily 
abolishing three valuable agencies that do important work: development 
and disaster assistance, negotiating and monitoring of arms control 
agreements, and international broadcasting and exchanges. This 
flexibility is the key.
  The passage of this bill today will produce some other positive 
developments, many of them long overdue. With the disposition of S. 
908, the Senate will be able to confirm 18 ambassadorial nominations 
and hundreds of foreign service officer promotions. We will also be 
able to consider the START II treaty before the end of this session, 
and the Chemical Weapons Convention in the spring.
  Of all embassies that are waiting for ambassadors, I think none is 
more important than the one in Beijing, China, where our former 
colleague, James Sasser, will become United States Ambassador. I am 
confident that our country will be well served by the job that he, and 
the other nominees, will do in their new posts.
  Finally, I do want to note that even with the consolidation 
compromise, there remain a number of provisions in S. 908 that I find 
deeply troubling. Several of them have to do with China.

       Section 606 declares that the Taiwan Relations Act should 
     supersede the three U.S.-China joint communiques as the basis 
     of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan.
       Section 608 calls Tibet an ``occupied sovereign country, 
     and Section 609 requires that the President appoint a Special 
     Envoy for Tibet.
       Section 415 requires USIA to submit a plan to create a 
     Radio Free Asia.
       Section 611 erects an unnecessarily labyrinthine procedure 
     for screening products that may have been produced by forced 
     labor in China.

  These provisions and others combine to create an unnecessary 
provocation in our relationship with China, at a time when the 
relationship is still recovering from a recent crisis. They threaten to 
undermine our One China Policy, which is the basis of the relationship, 
and to exacerbate tensions when we should be trying to ease tensions.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues who will serve on the 
House-Senate conference on this bill, with the goal of removing or 
rewriting these provisions. I consider the successful resolution of 
these matters to be critical to my consideration of whether or 

[[Page S18635]]
not to support the conference report on this bill.
  I am also hopeful that the consolidation plan will not be modified in 
conference. I am aware that the plan in the House bill does require the 
elimination of USAID, USIA, and ACDA. If the Senate compromise 
agreement is substantially altered in conference to reflect the more 
draconian House plan, it will be difficult, if not impossible for me to 
support the conference report.
  Having said that, I believe it is important to get the State 
Department Authorization bill to conference, and I intend to support 
the bill today.
  Mr. HELMS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I have just been informed that the Acting 
Secretary of State has taken an action that seemed to me to be a direct 
affront to the Foreign Relations Committee and to the future of 
relations between the United States and Taiwan, the Republic of China. 
The Acting Secretary has just named three men to sit on the board of 
the American Institute in Taiwan, under a procedure that is not normal. 
Under a longstanding agreement between the Department of State and the 
committee, specifically between the then-chairman of the committee, Mr. 
Church, and then-Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, the Department of 
State is to notify the committee of appointments to the board. Under 
the terms of the agreement, the committee is to be able to voice its 
concerns about any of these appointments and these concerns are to be 
satisfied before the Department proceeds with the appointments. Today, 
the Acting Secretary of State abrogated that agreement, in my judgment. 
Now, since 1979, the committee's role in the appointment process was 
that the committee could have an opportunity to voice its concerns 
about any individuals appointed to the board of the American Institute 
in Taiwan, our de facto embassy. We do not recognize Taiwan as a 
nation. I think we should, speaking as one Senator, but we do not. The 
American Institute in Taiwan is our de facto embassy.
  These concerns were to have been worked out through the department 
before the appointees are identified. I have just been informed that 
the department has proceeded with three appointments the day before the 
committee was scheduled to meet these gentlemen, for the first time. 
Mr. President, this action, I believe, is an especially strong affront 
in light of the fact that this very week the Department of State is 
receiving confirmation of 18 of its ambassadorial appointees and four 
Foreign Service officer promotion lists.
  I am astounded by this decision and have determined that the 
committee will hold a hearing on the role of the American Institute in 
Taiwan at which we will compare its role today to the role agreed to 
previously when it was established in the late 1970's or early 1980's, 
whenever it was.


                           Amendment No. 3100

  (Purpose: To authorize the transmittal of a reorganization plan or 
 plans streamlining and consolidating the Department of State and the 
 independent foreign affairs agencies, to make technical amendments to 
                   the bill, and for other purposes)

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] for himself and 
     Mr. Kerry, proposes an amendment numbered 3100.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (The text 
of the amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Amendments 
Submitted.'')
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, this amendment has been agreed to on both 
sides.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me just clarify with the Senator, it is 
my understanding the amendment is pending.
  Mr. HELMS. Yes.
  Mr. KERRY. With the amendment pending, once accepted, the order of 
business will be to pass the bill and immediately subsequent to the 
bill being passed we will proceed to the Ambassadors, is that correct?
  Mr. HELMS. That is correct.
  Mr. KERRY. How much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 54 minutes 
and 45 seconds, and the Senator from North Carolina has 39 minutes and 
44 seconds.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I see two Senators on my side who are on 
their feet. We would like to yield back some time.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to yield 2 minutes.
  Mr. SARBANES. I ask that 5 minutes be yielded to me.
  Mr. KERRY. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I listened with interest in the Cloakroom 
to my friend from North Carolina and what he had to say in response to 
the Senator from Maryland. The Senator from Maryland can surely take 
care of himself and respond in any way he thinks is appropriate, but at 
one point we all say things that we sort of slip and say and do not 
mean.
  He made reference to our nominee to China, former Senator Sasser as 
``needing a job.'' I inform the Senator that not only does Senator 
Sasser not need a job, he is doing financially much better now than he 
did when he was here. He needs no job. This is a public service to 
which he has agreed to return, and I am sure the Senator did not mean 
to imply anything by what he said, but I want the Record to make it 
clear. Senator Sasser does not need a job--it is for those of us, 
including the President, who think we need Senator Sasser to come back 
to public service. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Maryland.
  Mr. SARBANES. I listened with a great deal of interest to the Senator 
from North Carolina.
  First of all, let me say that in the last 6 months of the Bush 
administration we confirmed 63 ambassadorial nominees. The Senator said 
there were 12 that were not confirmed. So that would be 63 out of 75, 
which is 84 percent.
  The Senator has allowed no ambassadors to be confirmed--not 10 
percent, not 20 percent, not 40 percent, not 60 percent, not 80 
percent, not 84 percent. None. None at all.
  Some of the nominees that were not confirmed at the end of the Bush 
administration were not ambassadorial nominees, but nominees to 
commissions and boards. In any event, the Senator said there were 12 
that were not confirmed. Sixty-three were confirmed over the last 6 
months of the Bush administration, 84 percent.
  The Senator from North Carolina has held everyone hostage. He will 
not allow any of them to go through, even though we have very important 
national interests with respect thereto.
  The Senator was given two votes in the Senate in trying to get to his 
reorganization bill--votes of 54 to 45. The Senate refused to invoke 
cloture and to go to that legislation. Having been thwarted in that 
sense, the Senator then set out on his hostage strategy and held up the 
ambassadors and held up the treaties, in my view putting at risk very 
important national security interests.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a column from the Arms Control Association newsletter following my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, in that newsletter it says:

       Prompt Senate approval of START II--the treaty that would 
     reduce the Russian strategic threat to the United States from 
     some 8,000 to 3,500 nuclear warheads--is becoming 
     increasingly doubtful despite overwhelming bipartisan 
     congressional support. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), asserting 
     his power as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations 
     Committee, is holding this important treaty, as well as the 
     Chemical Weapons Convention, hostage to passage of unrelated 
     legislation. Failure to complete Senate action promptly could 
     delay for years the entry into force of these agreements with 
     great disadvantage to U.S. security.
     
[[Page S18636]]

  And I underscore that concluding phrase ``with great disadvantage to 
U.S. security.''
  Finally, I say to my colleague from North Carolina that, as chairman 
of the committee, it seems to me, the Senator has certain 
responsibilities. To hold the balance of the work of a committee 
hostage because the Senator has not been able to get his way on a 
particular piece of legislation is not a very efficient way to carry 
out the work of the committee.
  Obviously, it was a tactic used to heighten pressure, in a sense, a 
coercive tactic. And I very much regret that it occurred.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                  [From Arms Control Today, Oct. 1995]

                     Holding U.S. Security Hostage

                      (By Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr.)

       Prompt Senate approval of START II--the treaty that would 
     reduce the Russian strategic threat to the United States from 
     some 8,000 to 3,500 nuclear warheads--is becoming 
     increasingly doubtful despite overwhelming bipartisan 
     congressional support. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), asserting 
     his power as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations 
     Committee, is holding this important treaty, as well as the 
     Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), hostage to passage of 
     unrelated legislation. Failure to complete Senate action 
     promptly could delay for years the entry into force of these 
     agreements with great disadvantage to U.S. security.
       By refusing to schedule any meetings, Helms has stopped all 
     action before his committee in an effort to force the 
     administration to accept his plan to integrate into the State 
     Department three independent agencies, the Arms Control and 
     Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the Agency for International 
     Development and the U.S. Information Agency. Senate approval 
     of START II, which Helms has not opposed, could be obtained 
     with little or no opposition as soon as a formal committee 
     markup of the resolution of approval can be scheduled. But 
     until Helms relents, the United States cannot demonstrate to 
     Russia and the world its support for reductions in strategic 
     nuclear forces.
       The multilateral CWC, which will ban development, 
     production and stockpiling of chemical warfare agents as well 
     as their use, may require a final hearing to resolve some 
     questions. But, under the able leadership of Senator Richard 
     Lugar (R-IN), the necessary resolution of approval should be 
     easily obtained. Because many countries are awaiting U.S. 
     ratification, Senate inaction prevents the early entry into 
     force of this agreement, which universally bans possession 
     and use of the ``poor man's nuclear weapon.''
       Senator Helms is reportedly willing to reduce the ransom to 
     only two of the three threatened agencies with the choice 
     left to the administration. The White House has properly 
     declined to bargain with hostage-takers and vowed not to 
     yield on this issue. However, the longer this standoff lasts, 
     the less likely any action will occur in time to influence 
     favorable Russian action on either treaty.
       The prospects for START II ratification in the Russian 
     Parliament are much more precarious than in the U.S. Senate, 
     notwithstanding Helms' maneuvering. A narrow window of 
     opportunity for action appears to exist for the next month or 
     two before the Russian Parliament adjourns to prepare for 
     mid-December elections. While the makeup of the next 
     Parliament cannot be predicted, it may well be even more 
     nationalistic and more hostile than the present body to 
     proposed NATO expansion, military action against the Bosnian 
     Serbs and reduced U.S. economic support.
       President Boris Yeltsin has strongly endorsed START II, 
     subject only to the condition that the ABM Treaty remain in 
     force. Although members of the Russian Parliament have 
     attacked the agreement as biased against Russia, support for 
     the agreement from the Russian military has helped counter 
     much of the criticism. The military recognizes that it does 
     not need and cannot afford its current strategic force 
     structure and appreciates the value of maintaining strategic 
     parity with the United States. Faced with a more 
     nationalistic Parliament and U.S. endorsement of a national 
     ABM system, the Russian military cannot be expected to carry 
     the torch for START II into the post-Yeltsin era.
       Delay invites unanticipated, disruptive events to 
     intervene. Progress on a comprehensive test ban was 
     interrupted by external events in the Eisenhower, Kennedy and 
     Carter administrations. START I was signed by President 
     George Bush in July 1991, but entry into force was delayed 
     until December 1994. START II, signed by Bush in January 
     1993, has been delayed first by the problem of resolving the 
     nuclear status of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, and now by 
     the actions of a single cantankerous senator. A future 
     Russian Parliament may be the next barrier. But Russia's 
     uncertain future is all the more reason to move promptly to 
     pin down these gains for U.S. and international security 
     before unanticipated events make START II's entry into force 
     impossible.
       These truly bipartisan treaties, which were negotiated and 
     signed by former President Bush and nurtured by the Clinton 
     administration, must not be casually sacrificed as hostages 
     in guerilla political warfare. The Senate Republican 
     leadership has a clear obligation to persuade Helms to 
     release them without further delay so the Senate can perform 
     its constitutional role in foreign policy. If the Republican 
     leadership acquiesces in this exhibition of irresponsible 
     personal politics, it will not only have relinquished its 
     deserved share of credit for the treaties, but it will have 
     to accept responsibility for this blow to U.S. security.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back my time if 
Senator Kerry could yield back his.
  This back and forth like two sore-tailed cats in a room full of 
rocking chairs is not serving the Senate well, and I do not intend to 
participate in it any further. And I am a little bit sorry that I did 
at all.
  But I accept the Senator's criticism. I know how he feels, and he 
knows how I feel, too.
  So, tentatively, I yield the remainder of my time pending whether 
Senator Kerry yields his back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KERRY. 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. KERRY. Mr. President, it is my understanding that Senator Helms 
yielded back his time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has indicated that he is prepared 
to yield back the remainder of his time pending the decision on the 
part of the Senator from Massachusetts to do so as well.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I believe the business before the Senate is 
the amendment. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. HELMS. I believe it is understood between us that this will be 
approved on a voice vote. Is that correct?
  Mr. KERRY. Yes.
  Mr. HELMS. I ask the Chair to put the question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
of the Senator from North Carolina.
  The amendment (No. 3100) was agreed to.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the 
amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. KERRY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. HELMS. I thought I had yielded mine back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is now yielded back.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read 
the third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order the Foreign Relations 
Committee is discharged from the consideration of the House companion 
bill, H.R. 1561.
  The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 1561) to consolidate the foreign affairs 
     agencies of the United States; to authorize appropriations 
     for the Department of State and related agencies for fiscal 
     years 1996 and 1997; to responsibly reduce authorization for 
     appropriations for United States foreign assistance programs 
     for fiscal years 1996 and 1997, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the immediate 
consideration of the bill?
  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, all after the 
enacting clause is stricken, the text of S. 908, as amended, is 
inserted in lieu thereof, and the bill is considered read a third time.
  The question now occurs on passage of H.R. 1561, as amended. 
  
[[Page S18637]]

  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 Texas [Mr. Gramm] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 82, nays 16, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 605 Leg.]

                                YEAS--82

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bryan
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner
     Wellstone

                                NAYS--16

     Biden
     Bumpers
     Dodd
     Harkin
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Reid
     Sarbanes
     Simon

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Gramm
       
  So the bill (H.R. 1561), as amended, was agreed to.
  (The text of the bill will be printed in a future edition of the 
Record.)
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, S. 908 is 
indefinitely postponed.
  The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I do not see the distinguished Senator from 
Maine [Ms. Snowe] in the Chamber, but I wish to thank her for her 
unwavering commitment to seeing this reorganization bill through to 
this point.
  In fact, all of the Republican members of the Foreign Relations 
Committee have stood in unison throughout, from the very beginning, in 
support of this bill.
  I wish to pay my respects to Admiral Nance, the chief of staff of the 
Foreign Relations Committee; Steve Berry and Elizabeth Lambird, Chris 
Walker, and Kristin Peck and, as always, the able floor staff for their 
help, Elizabeth Greene and the rest.
  I thank Senator Kerry for his cooperation in these difficult times 
the past few weeks, and I especially thank his staff person, Nancy 
Stetson, for her continued work on this bill.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the other day when we completed the 
unanimous-consent agreements, I took the time to thank each of the 
staff. I would simply thank the distinguished chairman for his comments 
right now and for his expression of gratitude to my staff, and he knows 
I have reciprocated, joined with him in thanking all of them for a job 
well done.
  I thank the Chair.

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