[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 13, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1907-S1926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  BALANCED BUDGET DOWNPAYMENT ACT, II

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair lays before the Senate H.R. 3019. 
The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3019) making appropriations for fiscal year 
     1996 to make a further downpayment toward a balanced budget, 
     and for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.

       Pending:
       Hatfield modified amendment No. 3466, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       Reid amendment No. 3478 (to amendment No. 3466), to restore 
     funding for and ensure the protection of endangered species 
     of fish and wildlife.
       Hutchison/Kempthorne amendment No. 3479 (to amendment No. 
     3478), to reduce funding for endangered species listings.


                           Amendment No. 3479

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment of the Senator from Texas to the 
amendment of the Senator from Nevada is in order.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair advise the Senator from 
Nevada when I have 5 minutes remaining of the 15.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have here a letter from the Evangelical 
Environmental Network consisting of a number of people, including Dr. 
Robert C. Andringa, president of the Christian College Coalition; Dr. 
George Brushaber, president of Bethel College and Seminary; Mr. Roger 
Cross, president of Youth for Christ/USA; Rev. Art DeKruyter, pastor of 
Christ Church of Oakbrook, and on and on with other religious leaders 
of this country.
  The letter, written to all Senators, says, among other things:

       This week the Senate will be voting on an omnibus 
     appropriations bill that contains a subtle attack on God's 
     handiwork. Buried in the legislation is a provision to 
     continue the moratorium on listing plants and animals as 
     endangered or threatened, under the Endangered Species Act.
       Certainly there are scientific, economic, and medical 
     reasons for saving endangered creatures, but for many 
     individuals and congregations linked to the Evangelical 
     Environmental Network, the moral and spiritual aspects are 
     the more important. The Bible records ``the everlasting 
     covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind 
     on Earth'' and God affirms that covenant after using Noah to 
     bring the creatures through the Flood and save their 
     lives.

  Mr. President, the letter continues:

       If I am going to be in the right relationship with God, I 
     should treat the things he has made in the same way he treats 
     them.
       The moratorium on listing species is nothing more than a 
     back door attack. While we stand by and do nothing, this 
     supposedly ``temporary'' measure may stretch over more than 
     two years, with the cost of recovering species becoming 
     greater and greater as time passes.
       The moratorium was a bad idea when instituted; it is a bad 
     idea today. . . .
       Despite anti-ESA propagandists claim, neither law nor our 
     environmental stance values plants or animals above people. 
     At issue is not favoritism but just and moral treatment of 
     all of God's creatures. God placed us here as stewards, not 
     as exploiters, and we have no right to act in a callous 
     manner toward any living creature.
       With respect to the Endangered Species Act, we are 
     compelled to speak out because this matter relates to the 
     core of our faith and respect for God.

  Mr. President, I have read only part of the letter, but the 
indication from these religious leaders is that the moratorium on the 
Endangered Species Act is wrong and it is immoral.
  Mr. President, we have received letters from all over the country, 
not the least of which is a letter from a group of physicians. I talked 
about some of the things they said yesterday. But, in effect, what they 
say is that it is wrong to have this moratorium; it is wrong for health 
reasons to millions of people throughout the world.
  This letter is signed by representatives of the Physicians for Social 
Responsibility, the National Association

[[Page S1908]]

of Physicians for the Environment, someone from the Pennsylvania 
Medical Society, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Nevada Medical 
Society, the Vermont Medical Society, the Arthritis Foundation, AIDS 
Action Council, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston University, and 
on and on, Mr. President, with people from the medical community who 
say that this moratorium is not only wrong from a political standpoint; 
it is wrong from a moral perspective.
  Mr. President, last night I went back to the office and asked my 
staff to look at some of the things we have received over our computer, 
over our e-mail network. We received--and I just at random picked a 
few--we received something from Basking Ridge, NJ, from a woman who 
says:

       I implore you--

  It is written to various Senators.

       I implore you to support Senator Reid's amendment.
       This matter is of critical importance because:
       Listing a species under the Endangered Species Act is not a 
     trivial matter that can be delayed indefinitely. The 
     moratorium on listing and critical habitat designations must 
     be lifted.
       The integrity of the ESA is extremely important to your 
     constituents. Do not allow this Congress to weaken this 
     important legislation.

  That letter was from Merideth Mueller.
  I received a letter from Minnesota from one Todd Burnside of 
Roseville, MN. He says:

       The extinction of species and the degradation of the 
     environment are things that future generations may never 
     forgive us for.

  I received also, Mr. President, a copy of an e-mail written to all 
Senators:

       With all my heart I beg you to vote yes to Reid's amendment 
     to H.R. 3019, so that the awful moratorium to the ESA will 
     end. I cannot express to you how angry and disappointed I am 
     at this government for allowing for an ESA moratorium in the 
     first place. This act completely goes against the needs of 
     the country in terms of economics, morality, responsibility, 
     and common sense. At a time when we urgently need solidarity 
     on all fronts to protect what little we have left of the 
     natural environment and to leave something for our future 
     generations to cherish, and to stop the massive onslaught on 
     our natural world, we as citizens need you to protect the 
     environment, our home.

  Mr. President, it is obvious what has happened here. The second-
degree amendment calls for emergency listings only. We know that this 
will allow people to file all kinds of lawsuits to have emergency 
listings. We know that there were listings prior to this moratorium 
being pronounced. They should proceed in an orderly fashion.
  What this second-degree amendment will do is force the Department of 
the Interior to defend numerous lawsuits to show that what they are 
doing is adequate. We need to get rid of this moratorium and get back 
to good science and good protection of the environment and these 
species. What is taking place now is an assault on good science and 
good government.
  It also allows this body to simply not go forward with reauthorizing 
the Endangered Species Act. As long as this moratorium is in effect, 
there will be no further listings, and that is wrong. This moratorium, 
I think it is clear, is going to continue throughout this Congress with 
all we have to do with all the problems with the balanced budget and 13 
appropriations bills, 5 of which we did not pass last year.

  I think it is going to be extremely difficult to reauthorize this 
bill. This is a license to repudiate the Endangered Species Act. I 
think we as a country and we as a Congress should be ashamed if we 
allow this to happen. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my 
time.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have submitted an amendment to the 
amendment because I think it is most important that we keep the 
integrity of what we are trying to do to protect the endangered 
species. The authorization for the Endangered Species Act ran out 
several years ago. That is because of the ridiculous excesses that have 
been perpetrated on the private property owners in this country. So we 
called a moratorium on the old act so that we could reauthorize it, so 
that we could protect private property and protect the endangered 
species. And we want to have good science, we want to have cost-benefit 
analysis, we want to have economic impact analysis because, after all, 
Mr. President, there is no reason for people in the Northwest to have 
the entire timber industry shut down because of the spotted owl. There 
is no reason to have put people who had worked for generations in the 
timber industry there out of work and untrained to do other things.

  In fact, Mr. President, you and I are paying $250 million to retrain 
those people because we were protecting a spotted owl that could have 
been put somewhere else in a national forest to protect. We could have 
had it both ways if we had just used common sense, Mr. President. But 
we did not do that. And that is why it was necessary and why this 
Congress voted overwhelmingly to put a moratorium on the Endangered 
Species Act listing--not the preparation for listing, not the research, 
just the final listings--until we could have a reauthorization of the 
act that would put common sense into it, that would put people into the 
equation, because after all, people should be in the equation as well. 
I like to joke sometimes and say that the only endangered species not 
protected is Homo sapiens.
  Now, Mr. President, it is time that we started putting common sense 
into this act. Let me talk to you about a few of the excesses that have 
caused us to be in the situation where we are, needing to do a drastic 
reorganization and reauthorization of this bill.
  In Texas, my home State, there is a golden cheek warbler. Fish and 
Wildlife originally said they were going to set aside an area the size 
of the State of Rhode Island to protect a golden cheek warbler. Mr. 
President, we want to protect golden cheek warblers, but I think it is 
a little excessive to cause property values in that entire area to 
plummet to save this golden cheek warbler when we can do it with other 
means. Not only that, but what they said you could not do on your 
property is cut cedar. Now, cedar has a very bad impact on people's 
health. People have what we call cedar fever. People are miserable with 
cedar fever. So they cut cedar trees to keep people from having this 
very annoying sort of sneezing attack.
  Well, in addition to that, even more important to the farmers and 
ranchers in the area, cedar absorbs water so that we lose the ability 
to use water downstream because the cedar trees are absorbing the water 
upstream. So it really is a hindrance and something that our farmers 
and ranchers need to deal with. One Travis County, TX, owner, Margaret 
Rector, invested in land 25 years ago to help her in her retirement 
years. In 1990, her land was worth $830,000. After it was designated a 
golden cheek warbler habitat, its value plunged to $30,000.

  Mr. President, that is not a guess, that is an assessment on the 
county tax rolls in Travis County, TX. Mr. President, that is 
ridiculous. Next is the southwestern willow fly catcher in California. 
The Army Corps of Engineers built the Isabella Dam in Kern County, CA, 
to catch the runoff of melting snow from the southern Sierra Mountains 
to save it for use in the summer. It has saved millions in flood 
damage, increased the water supply, and it is the third largest food-
producing county in the entire country now. But the listing in February 
1995 of the southwestern willow fly catcher has put the dam's use at 
risk, fearing the reservoir will flood fly catcher nesting areas, a 
harm to the bird's habitat. Now Fish and Wildlife may force the Corps 
of Engineers to release water from the reservoir to protect the habitat 
that did not exist until the dam was built.
  These are two examples, Mr. President. The jaguar in Texas. Mr. 
President, they have not seen a jaguar in Texas since 1948 when one 
wandered up from Mexico, they think, and it was cited as sort of an 
anomaly. Now they are talking about listing the jaguar as an endangered 
species in Texas, having not seen one since 1948, and it could cause 
restrictions on land use in 30 counties along the Rio Grande River.
  Mr. President, that is why so many groups and private property 
owners--the American Farm Bureau is alarmed by what is happening with 
this Endangered Species Act. They are in total support of my amendment, 
which does the following. My amendment just says that we will protect 
the ability to have emergency listings. It has been said on

[[Page S1909]]

this floor that we might lose some of the very important endangered 
species. Well, we will not. With my amendment, we give the Secretary of 
the Interior the right to do an emergency listing so there would not be 
a danger of losing an endangered species on an emergency basis.
  But, Mr. President, I think it is very important that we realize that 
the people who are holding up the progress on the reauthorization are 
also the people who are here wanting to lift the moratorium. I do not 
understand that. I do not understand why they would want to lift the 
moratorium on a bill that they have all said has problems. I have 
pointed out a few of those problems here this morning. Why would they 
lift the moratorium under the old act that they say has problems when 
they have the power to reauthorize and to protect everyone--private 
property rights, private property owners, and to protect the animals 
under the Endangered Species Act, as well? Why would we not do things 
the right way, Mr. President? That is my question here today.
  Mr. President, how much time remains on my side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has 7\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the 
remainder of my time.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the Senator from 
Rhode Island, [Mr. Chafee].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. CHAFEE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. President, what is wrong with the Hutchison amendment, the 
second-degree amendment? First of all, it maintains the moratorium on 
final decisions to list species through the end of this fiscal year.
  Now, Mr. President, let us briefly review the bidding. Last March, 
the Senate approved a 6-month moratorium, a brief time out on listings 
under the Endangered Species Act. That was 6 months. That was extended 
another 5 months under the continuing resolution. Now, under this bill, 
the moratorium would be extended for another 7 months. That means that 
for a minimum of 18 months no work will be done toward conserving 
species that warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act, 
species threatened with extinction or destruction, and a lot of ground 
can be lost in a year and a half.
  Now, Mr. President, the second point is that although the Hutchison 
second-degree amendment would allow emergency listings --the word 
``emergency'' is in there--that is not an adequate or practical way to 
recover a species. Mr. President, you come up with emergency listing 
when the situation is really desperate. It is sort of a last-ditch 
effort to save a species, when the species is about to become extinct 
either through disease, or destruction by man in some fashion, or the 
last remnant of the habitat has been wiped out.
  At this point, Mr. President, there is little hope of recovering the 
species. Recovery, after all, is the goal of the Endangered Species 
Act. That is what this is all about. If we do not want an Endangered 
Species Act, just let us say so. But we hear constantly on the floor of 
this Senate--when these amendments are brought up to really demolish 
the Endangered Species Act, it is prefaced by, ``We are all for the 
act, we just want to make these corrections.'' But this ``correction,'' 
so-called, really is devastating to the recovery of a species.
  If you are only listing it as endangered when it reaches the 
emergency situation, then the cause is practically lost, in most 
instances, due to the destruction of the animal, bird or plant, or lost 
due to the destruction of the habitat that is so essential for the 
survival of that.
  Furthermore, Mr. President, I point out that emergency listings are 
only temporary. Under the Endangered Species Act, they last for 240 
days. You go in--it is not like a listing for an endangered species. It 
is an emergency situation. Normally, the Fish and Wildlife Service 
promulgates a final rule to list a species at the end of the 240-day 
emergency listing period.
  Under the second-degree amendment that is presented, the Fish and 
Wildlife Service could not make a final rule to protect the species 
under the Endangered Species Act because you cannot do that. They have 
to go through a whole series of emergency actions--240 days, and then 
another 240 days. That is not the kind of situation that is really 
going to lead to the saving of a species. It is not going to permit 
long-term decisions to be made and expenditures of money, perhaps, for 
the saving of habitat.
  So, Mr. President, I do hope the second-degree amendment will be 
tabled, as the distinguished Senator from Nevada will move at some 
period.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in the Endangered Species Listing Handbook 
published by the Division of Endangered Species, under Procedures 
Guidance for the Preparations and Processing of Rules and Notices 
Pursuant to the Endangered Species Act:

       An emergency listing is a temporary measure, providing the 
     Act's protection for only 240 days. It is only used in 
     extreme situations of dire imminent threat to a species' 
     continued existence.

  Mr. President, there is going to be a flood of lawsuits if this 
amendment of my friend from Texas is not tabled. The listing moratorium 
must be lifted. The motion to table that I will make should be granted, 
and the listing moratorium must be lifted.
  First, over 500 species are dangerously close to extinction along 
with their life-sustaining ecosystems.
  Second, the moratorium on the listing process is a display of lack of 
faith in the legislative process. Really, it is arrogance, because 
everyone knows that as long as this moratorium is in effect, there will 
be no endangered species reauthorization. It removes the incentive for 
opponents of the Endangered Species Act to reauthorize the act.
  Third, it is argued that a time out is what was needed to get reform 
measures in place and better science procedures in the listing process. 
I have two responses. The first is that there is no time out for the 
species who may face habitat degradation and extinction. Finally, the 
science is irrelevant if a species has become extinct. My second 
response to a time out is that the show of good faith in 
reauthorization that my colleagues talked about last night and this 
morning would be the lifting of the moratorium and proceeding with the 
business of reforming the act.

  Fourth, I received letters from 38 physicians, chemists, dentists, 
and others from around the country advocating the repeal of the 
moratorium. I read some of their organizations today. They state with 
clarity: ``What is often lost in the debate over species conservation 
is the value of species to human health.''
  They continue. ``* * * [R]ecent studies have shown that a substantial 
proportion of the Nation's medicines are derived from plants and other 
natural resources. The medicines of tomorrow being discovered today 
from nature * * *.''
  They conclude: ``When a species is lost to extinction, we have no 
idea what potential medical cures are lost along with it.''
  I have talked about the evangelicals and representatives of religious 
organizations. I have read in detail from their letters. They believe 
that this is a moral issue and not a political issue.
  My response to the second-degree amendment is, among other things:
  First, the amendment fundamentally maintains the listing moratorium. 
That is all it does. It fails to mitigate the devastating impact of the 
listing moratorium because it does not allow for a final determination 
of an emergency listing. This means that no real recovery can take 
place. It is a meaningless exercise in paperwork.
  Second, the second-degree amendment only creates wasteful 
bureaucratic procedures and would be a heyday for lawyers.
  Third, the Kempthorne amendment has agreed in the past that we should 
try to avoid emergency listings. This is directly in the offset.
  Finally, Mr. President, there is no justification, no logic, to this 
inactivity when the net result will be a greater cost to the taxpayer, 
fewer management options, and, most importantly, greater increase in 
the likelihood of extinction.
  The amendment is a superficial legislative ploy.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.

[[Page S1910]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized, and the 
remaining time is 7 minutes.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I had 7\1/2\ minutes the last time I asked.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seven minutes remain.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield 5 minutes to the senior Senator from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am very happy to be here to support my 
colleague from Texas. I think on this issue she is absolutely right. 
Let me explain why.
  In 1973, we passed the Endangered Species Act. We have gone back 
periodically and rewritten that law, and in the last rewriting we put 
in a date by which the law had to be updated in order to still have 
force, a sunsetting provision. The logic of the sunsetting provision 
was to assure that periodically as situations changed, such as the 
power of the bureaucracy to expand the law beyond any limit anyone 
foresaw when the law was written, that by that date we were going to 
have to go back and rewrite the law or it was going to stop having any 
force of law. That act expired in 1992. This is 1996. For 4 years, we 
have had no Endangered Species Act because the law is sunset. Granted, 
we have continued to allow it to operate by providing funds for that 
purpose. But the whole purpose of sunsetting is to modernize 
legislation to reflect the new reality.
  Then in April 1995 we took a time out. This time out basically said, 
``It has been 3 years since this law expired.'' We should not allow the 
Fish and Wildlife Service to continue to designate endangered species 
without any limit, without any congressional check, until this law is 
reauthorized. That was eminently reasonable. It was adopted right here 
on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and it became the law of the land.
  Now we have an effort by Senator Reid to go back and, in essence, to 
make the endangered species law a law that operates in perpetuity where 
there is no requirement that it be modernized and where it can simply 
continue to do things like the effort by U.S. Fish and Wildlife to 
designate 33 counties in central Texas as being affected by an 
endangered species called the Golden Cheek Warbler. In the face of 
widespread opposition in Texas, they backed off.
  But the point is we have a right to say that when Congress wrote this 
law, it wanted the right to periodically review it. That time for 
review occurred 4 years ago.
  I think the Senator from Texas, Senator Hutchison, has proposed a 
reasonable compromise that will allow emergency designations and allow 
us to rewrite this law and make changes that the American people 
clearly want but which will put the pressure on those whose viewpoint 
is a minority viewpoint.
  This is not just about endangered species. This is about whether or 
not we are going to let a small group of people who do not agree with 
the mandate of the 1994 election ride roughshod over that mandate by 
extending a law which expired 4 years ago and by allowing bureaucrats 
to continue to not consider cost and benefits. Everybody in the Senate 
knows that if we rewrite the Endangered Species Act in this Congress, 
there are going to be dramatic changes in it.
  If the underlying Reid amendment which Senator Hutchison has amended 
is adopted and becomes law, we will not rewrite the Endangered Species 
Act--and everybody knows it. As a result, even though the majority of 
the American people and the majority of the Members of Congress are 
ready to make the changes, even though the law has expired, we will end 
up continuing to expand the power of the Federal bureaucracy.
  I want to urge my colleagues to support the Hutchison amendment.
  Let me also say that, if the underlying Reid amendment is attached to 
this bill, I intend to oppose this bill and I intend to vigorously 
fight its adoption. I think it would be an absolute outrage if we went 
back now and eliminated the time out we declared in April 1995 on a law 
which expired 4 years ago.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has 2 minutes and 11 
seconds.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, the argument has been made in the Chamber that we 
might lose some very important endangered animals in America. I 
submitted an amendment to the amendment to make sure that that would 
not happen. We allow emergency listings if there really is a danger of 
losing any animal or any species that is under the old act.
  Let us look at what the Reid amendment does. You have heard people on 
the other side argue that there are problems with the act, but 
nevertheless they are urging you in the Reid amendment to go forward 
under the old act which we acknowledge has problems, regardless of the 
fact that it costs people jobs, that it hurts the economies of many 
States, and that it takes away a fundamental constitutional right in 
this country, and that is the right to private property.
  That is wrong. It would be ridiculous for the Senate to vote today to 
go forward, take away jobs, hurt the economy, and take away private 
property rights under an act which everyone has acknowledged has 
problems.
  If we are sincere about doing what is right, if we are sincere about 
reauthorizing the bill with some common sense, with some protection for 
private property, if we are sincere about making sure that private 
property rights and people's jobs have some part in the equation in the 
decisionmaking, then we should vote for the Hutchison-Kempthorne 
amendment. The Hutchison-Kempthorne amendment protects emergency 
listings. If there really is a danger of losing one of the endangered 
species, it protects that right.
  However, what we must do is also protect the right of the people in 
this country. The jobs and the people who work for a living ought to 
have some protection by the Senate. If we vote for the Hutchison-
Kempthorne amendment, their rights will be protected and we will also 
reauthorize the Endangered Species Act to protect the animals in our 
country as well. Let us do it right. Vote for Hutchison-Kempthorne.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I first want to commend the Junior 
Senator from Idaho for his leadership on this issue. I know that 
reforming the Endangered Species Act is a critical issue to Idaho. It 
is a make or break issue for many of our constituents. I am certain 
that he will approach the reauthorization with the reasoned, 
commonsense perspective it desperately needs.
  Mr. President, as a life-long farmer, I understand the value of 
wildlife. I have grown up with wildlife and protected it without 
government forcing me to. But also as a farmer, I understand the 
incredible burden being placed on private landowners and public 
resources to meet the mandates of this act.
  The problem comes when the bureaucracy gets out of control and 
government hurts people in order to protect animals. That is precisely 
what is happening all around the country. And where it is not already 
happening, it will happen soon.
  For instance, in North Carolina we have thousands of acres of 
valuable timberland which cannot be cut because the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service believes it may harm red cockaded woodpeckers. Some 
changes have been announced recently that should help matters some. But 
there remains a big problem back home. By any reasonable measure the 
government has seized the land of many of my constituents without 
offering them a dime of compensation.
  Unfortunately, the bureaucracy and the environmental industry do not 
care about the reality outside of Washington. They seek to use the 
Endangered Species Act and the animals themselves as tools to create 
Federal land use regulations nationwide. The ultimate result being 
thousands upon thousands of overlapping habitat ranges for each and 
every bug, snail, and fly the bureaucrats think we need more of.
  Mr. President, the important question is: What happens when virtually 
all land is home to a protected animal--what happens then?

[[Page S1911]]

  This is a very serious question. It has happened in Idaho, Senator 
Kempthorne's State. As he has shown the committee, virtually all of 
Idaho is regulated as home to some sort of government protected animal. 
Thousands of acres of valuable farmland have been locked off to protect 
an underground water snail called the brunei snail. This kind of thing 
is going to happen everywhere when the environmental industry gets its 
way.
  I will oppose Senator Reid's amendment because we need to restrain 
the bureaucracy that is now operating under a flawed law. A law that 
gives too little consideration for the livelihood and property of 
people, and too much for bugs, bees, and bureaucrats.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that each side have 
an additional 1 minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. I yield my 1 minute to the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I note that in the second-degree amendment 
it provides $1 to the Fish and Wildlife Service to do the entire 
emergency listing. That shows you how serious the other side is about 
this whole proposition.
  In other words, in the underlying bill, there was $750,000 which was 
available for the downlisting and the other activities in connection 
with this program. And now they are saying that we are out to take care 
of this situation because there is an emergency provision, and in order 
to take care of it they provide $1.
  It seems to me that shows you how serious really the other side is in 
proposing this second-degree amendment. And so I hope that the Reid 
effort to table the Hutchison amendment will succeed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield 30 seconds to my colleague 
from Texas and 30 seconds to my colleague from Wyoming.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I hope nobody is confused by the statement 
that was just made. When we took a time out in April of 1995, we did 
not take all the money away from the Fish and Wildlife Service. We left 
them the money to continue to trample on private property and the 
rights of citizens and to continue to fail to look at reason, 
responsibility, and cost and benefits. But we simply took away the 
right for them 3 years after the law had expired to continue to limit 
jobs, growth and opportunity in America. The only reason the Senator 
from Texas added a dollar in her amendment was because this is an 
appropriations bill and it was strictly a technicality. The Senators 
amendment does not reduce the $750,000 available. So I hope no one is 
confused.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.
  I rise in support of the Hutchison amendment. We have worked very 
hard now for almost a year and a half having hearings going on in the 
country, and clearly all of us want to have endangered species 
protection. But very clearly, it needs to be changed, and it needs to 
be upgraded.
  We need to learn from the experience of the past 20 years. This is 
the way to do it. If we do not have passage of the Hutchison amendment, 
then we will not get to making the changes that need to be made. I 
fully support the Hutchison amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. Under the previous 
order, the amendment will be laid aside and the majority leader is 
recognized to call up an amendment.
  The Chair recognizes the majority leader.


          Amendments Nos. 3480 and 3481 to Amendment No. 3466

     (Purpose: To provide economic reconstruction funds to Bosnia-
Herzegovina subject to compliance with the Dayton Accord's requirement 
                   for withdrawal of foreign troops)

  (Purpose: To provide economic assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina 
                     subject to certain conditions)

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I am going to offer two amendments on behalf 
of myself and the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Operations 
Subcommittee, Senator McConnell. One amendment would prohibit the 
release of funds to Bosnia under this act until the Bosnian Federation 
is in compliance with article III of annex 1-A of the Dayton agreement 
which simply means that all foreign forces must leave Bosnia before 
funds for civilian implementation can be released.

  I will also send to the desk another amendment on behalf of Senator 
McConnell and myself which establishes several conditions for the use 
of the funds provided for civilian implementation projects in Bosnia. 
In my view, these two amendments should enjoy bipartisan support. As 
far as I know, there is no objection to the amendments, but I will 
offer the amendments and not ask for final disposition until everyone 
has had an opportunity to take a look at them.
  I am pleased to cosponsor with the chairman of the Foreign Operations 
Subcommittee these two amendments to the Bosnia supplemental portion of 
the continuing resolution. I wish to address first the issues of 
offsets for this $200 million in civilian implementation funding. I 
understand that this portion of the supplemental was designed as an 
``emergency'' by the Appropriations Committee but was offset by the 
House. I hope that the conferees will ultimately offset this $200 
million request.
  As we have seen over the past few months, the military aspects of the 
Dayton agreement have been the easiest to implement. It is the civilian 
side of the equation that poses the toughest problems. Among them, 
facilitating the return of refugees, conducting free and fair 
elections, and establishing a professional civilian police force.
  Indeed, the reports we are getting from Sarajevo have demonstrated 
that integrating the capital is more difficult than separating the 
various military forces. The military task is limited and clear, while 
the civilian task is wide-reaching and complex, with only vague lines 
of authority.
  The United States has made a tremendous commitment of personnel and 
resources in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While many of us disagreed with 
the administration's decision to send troops to Bosnia, while many of 
us advocated a different policy, those American forces are now there, 
and therefore it is essential that we succeed. Our credibility and that 
of NATO is on the line. It is essential that we in the international 
community get Bosnia back on its feet. Otherwise, this risky deployment 
of thousands of American and NATO soldiers will be for naught. It will 
end up being a brief interlude in a long war. The challenges are 
immense. There are more than 2.5 million Bosnians who have been 
displaced from their homes. At least 60 percent of housing in Bosnia 
has been damaged or destroyed. Most Bosnian Moslems and Croats have no 
paying jobs and have been dependent on humanitarian assistance for 
nearly 4 years.
  No doubt about it, the Bosnians need and deserve our help. However, 
there are problems that we cannot and should not ignore. First and 
foremost is the continued presence of Iranian military personnel in 
Bosnia and Iranian intelligence officials.
  They pose a potential threat to our forces--but also to Bosnia's 
place in the international community. The McConnell-Dole amendment 
requires the President to certify that the Bosnians are in full 
compliance with article III of annex 1-A of the Dayton Agreement 
mandating the withdrawal of foreign forces, and to certify that Bosnian 
Government-Iranian Government cooperation on intelligence matters has 
been terminated.
  It seems to me that through our actions today we can send two 
beneficial signals: That we are seriously committed to assisting 
Bosnia, but that the Bosnian Government's continued military and 
intelligence relationship with Iran must be halted.
  We know that Iran provided military aid to Bosnia when the rest of 
the world refused to. I opposed the policy of refusing the Bosnians the 
means to defend themselves. The Congress opposed that policy. But, that 
is the past.
  And now the Bosnian Government must make choices that will affect 
Bosnia and Herzegovina's future. Will Bosnia be part of Europe and the 
West or not? A continuing military and intelligence relationship with 
Iran clearly jeopardizes Bosnia's future as a pluralistic democratic 
state in Europe.
  Looking further at developments within Bosnia, we need to make sure

[[Page S1912]]

that our economic assistance has a positive effect on the social, 
economic and political situation there and that other donors are doing 
their fair share. So, besides limiting U.S. aid to projects in the U.S. 
sector, the second McConnell-Dole amendment would add criteria 
including:

  Prohibiting funds for the repair of housing in areas where displaced 
persons or refugees are refused the right of return due to ethnicity or 
political party affiliation;
  Establishing, in advance, GAO audit access to the banking and 
financial institutions that will receive AID assistance;
  A certification by the president, after 90 days, that the total U.S. 
contribution to reconstruction for this year, $532 million, has been 
matched by a combined total of bilateral donor pledges.
  These amendments do not address all problems related to the civilian 
effort in Bosnia, but they go a long way. For example, more 
congressional oversight and work will need to be done on the matter of 
civilian police and the international police task force which is 
partially funded in this supplemental. This week we saw houses being 
looted and burned in Sarajevo and a handful of international police are 
standing by and watching--because they have no arms and no authority. 
Another vital issue is that of arming and training Bosnian Federation 
Forces--which is critical to the long-term stability of Bosnia. That of 
course, can also only be achieved once the Bosnian Government ensures 
that Iranian military units are no longer on its territory.

  Mr. President, helping Bosnia and the Bosnian people is the right 
thing to do. However, we must do so wisely--and these two amendments 
will ensure that U.S. dollars are spent prudently and in a manner that 
supports our broader goals. It is not only in Bosnia's interest, but in 
our interest, to have a Bosnia which is pluralistic, democratic, 
multiethnic and able to defend itself.
  I certainly urge my colleagues to support these amendments, and I now 
send these amendments to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Dole], for Mr. McConnell, for 
     himself, Mr. Dole, Mr. Bennett, and Mrs. Hutchison, proposes 
     an amendment numbered 3480 to amendment No. 3466.

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

       No funds may be provided under this Act until the President 
     certifies to the Committees on Appropriations that:
       (1) The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in full 
     compliance with Article III, Annex 1A of the Dayton 
     Agreement; and
       (2) Intelligence cooperation between Iranian officials and 
     Bosnian officials has been terminated.

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I do not know if anybody now wishes to speak 
on these amendments, but I wanted to offer the amendments. I think 
Senator McConnell will speak after his hearing.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, is there a time limit on this 
amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no time limit.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I believe I sent two amendments to the desk. 
I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the first amendment and call up 
the second amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the second amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Dole], for Mr. McConnell, for 
     himself, Mr. Dole, and Mrs. Hutchison, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 3481 to amendment No. 3466.

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

     On page 751, section entitled ``Agency for International 
     Development, Assistance for Eastern Europe and the Baltics,'' 
     insert at the appropriate place, the following: ``Provided 
     further, That funds appropriated by this Act may only be made 
     available for projects, activities, or programs within the 
     sector assigned to American forces of NATO military 
     Implementation Force (IFOR) and Sarajevo: Provided further, 
     That priority consideration shall be given to projects and 
     activities designated in the IFOR ``Task Force Eagle civil 
     military project list'': Provided further, That no funds made 
     available under this Act, or any other Act, may be obligated 
     for the purposes of rebuilding or repairing housing in areas 
     where refugees or displaced persons are refused the right of 
     return due to ethnicity or political party affiliation: 
     Provided further, That no funds may be made available under 
     this heading in this Act, or any other Act, to any banking or 
     financial institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina unless such 
     institution agrees in advance, and in writing, to allow the 
     United States General Accounting Office access for the 
     purposes of audit of the use of U.S. assistance: Provided 
     further, That effective ninety days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, none of the funds appropriated under 
     this heading may be made available for the purposes of 
     economic reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina unless the 
     President determines and certifies in writing to the 
     Committees on Appropriations that the bilateral contributions 
     pledged by non-U.S. donors are at least equivalent to the 
     U.S. bilateral contributions made under this Act and in the 
     FY 1995 and FY 1996 Foreign Operations, Export Financing and 
     Related Programs Appropriations bills.''
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I do not know of any other speakers, but 
there may be requests from both sides of the aisle. I know Senator 
McConnell wishes to speak briefly. He is now involved in a hearing. I 
ask the amendments be temporarily laid aside, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of the 
amendments that have just been laid down by the majority leader and by 
Senator McConnell of Kentucky. I think it is very important that we 
continue to keep in mind that the agreement that was made by the 
Senate, over my objection, frankly, that we would send the troops to 
Bosnia, nevertheless did include some very important points.
  After the United States has expended so much to try to keep this 
peace agreement, it is most important that the agreement be kept in 
force, including the arming and training of the Moslems. That was a key 
reason that so many people on this floor voted to support sending the 
troops. It is most important that we get on with that part of the 
agreement. Otherwise, after all the money that we have spent trying to 
bring peace to the Balkans, the results will be short-lived, because if 
there is not some sort of parity there among the three parties, I think 
it will be difficult to keep the peace for a long term. The one chance 
that I think we have is if there is parity among the parties. So I hope 
the President will remember that part of the agreement that was made 
and get on with the other parts of the Dayton agreement that would give 
the best chance for this to be a successful mission.
  So I am very pleased to support and ask unanimous consent to be added 
as a cosponsor of Dole-McConnell amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3479

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, very briefly, my friend, the senior Senator 
from Texas, in his closing remarks regarding the Reid and Kempthorne 
amendments, indicated that when the moratorium was originally placed 
that there was no

[[Page S1913]]

money involved. That factually is not so. Mr. President, $1.5 million 
was rescinded at the same time that the original moratorium was passed.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. 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. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Hutchison-
Kempthorne proposal with regard to a final listing moratorium for the 
Endangered Species Act.
  I think a lot about this issue because I have had to confront it 
frequently in my State of Mississippi. I have also heard of many 
instances in other States where major problems have been caused by the 
Endangered Species Act. I say this as one who voted for this act way 
back in 1974, I think, when we originally passed it. I thought we were 
passing an act that would be aimed narrowly at truly endangered 
species.
  I was thinking about perhaps, you know, crocodiles. I was thinking 
about maybe white tigers. I was thinking about elephants. I had no idea 
the extent to which this law would be contorted and twisted and used by 
the bureaucracy to harass people who are trying to create jobs and 
provide economic opportunities.
  There seems to be no end to the lengths bureaucrats will go to use 
the Endangered Species Act to take private and public property. I 
really think that common sense has been lost when it comes to this 
particular statute.
  I do not think when I originally voted--in fact, I know that when I 
originally voted for this act, I had no idea that this would lead to 
the spotted owl situation in the Northwest. I had no idea that it would 
create a problem in my own State of Mississippi with species like the 
gopher tortoise or the ring-necked snake or the red cockaded 
woodpecker. I believe it never occurred to many of us who voted for 
this bill over 20 years ago that it would destroy jobs, cripple 
economic development, and put private property at risk. It has placed 
individual rights behind those of a ring-necked snake.
  In my own State of Mississippi, we have had a real problem with the 
Forest Service because they want to set aside not a few hundred, not a 
few thousand, but 100,000 acres of timber-land for the red cockaded 
woodpecker.
  I thought that a lot of birds were involved. Unfortunately, I was 
wrong. As a matter of fact, it involved just three colonies. Then I 
thought, well maybe a colony represents a lot of birds. Unfortunately, 
I was wrong again. A colony is just two birds, one male and one female. 
My State of Mississippi will have a total of seven red cockaded 
woodpeckers in this 100,000-acre set-aside in the Chickasaw District of 
the De Soto National Forest. Seems a bit excessive, but all done in the 
name of the Endangered Species Act. And, guess what--the Forest Service 
wants still more acreage.
  Most Senators can cite similar examples of unbelievable experiences 
and excesses with this law in their States. I think that there is a 
need to provide some commonsense protection for birds, fish, and 
plants, but a responsible balance must be reached because the 
Endangered Species Act is costing us millions of dollars. It is costing 
us thousands of acres. I think it is getting out of control. Many in 
this city talk about extremism by one side or the other on policy 
issues, and perhaps the bureaucracy's implementation of the Endangered 
Species Act has reached that stage.
  It is time that Congress pull the Endangered Species Act back from 
the abyss and take a calm, reasoned look at it. That is what Senators 
Hutchison and Kempthorne are requesting through their amendment. A 
narrow and limited pause for only one aspect of the statute.
  That is what this debate is all about. Last year the Congress--not 
some alien group--this Congress put a hold on future listing of 
endangered species and the designation of critical habitat until the 
basic statute had been reauthorized. It should be noted that this 
statute is long overdue for a full review and reauthorization. The 
Endangered Species Act authorization and its appropriations expired in 
1992. And, a pause would enable this Congress to work in a measured 
manner to correct the statute before more funds are spent and more 
economic turmoil can occur. The authorization process is the accepted 
method to establish and adjust public policy.
  So why has it not been reauthorized? Because those that want to 
continue this abuse under the guise of protection are afraid that the 
American people will insist that the Congress apply common sense to 
this act. And so the debate has been stalled in the authorization 
committees making it impossible to bring it forward.
  This leaves the appropriation process as the only legislative vehicle 
to address the issue. And to the credit of Senators Hutchison and 
Kempthorne, they are not trying to gut or repeal the statute. Rather 
they are asking for a pause until the authorization work can be 
completed.
  It should be noted that the committee with jurisdiction here in the 
Senate, through the efforts of Senator Kempthorne of Idaho, and others, 
has made a valiant effort to move this authorization forward. But until 
it is reauthorized, we should not continue to act. Abuses that has been 
heaped upon many Americans as a result of this act should be stopped.
  The underlying amendment by Senator Reid would lift the moratorium 
accepted and adopted by this Congress last year. Senator Reid would 
just take it away, saying that proper authorizations for public 
policies are unnecessary.
  The second-degree amendment by Senators Hutchison and Kempthorne 
would maintain the original moratorium, but with some changes. It would 
now only affect final listings and critical habitat designations. This 
means it will permit emergency listings to go forward if the well-being 
of a species is at significant risk. This is a major change because it 
will permit activities to go forward, but they just cannot take the 
final action. Again, I think that this is common sense and responsible.
  There are very few areas where my constituents get absolutely livid 
at what is happening in America--but this is one. We have lost control 
of this act. Congress needs to rethink it. Congress needs to correct 
the problem. We can protect truly genuinely endangered species but we 
have gotten down to the area of subspecies--down to single blades of 
grass, this does not reflect our original intent. It appears that only 
Congress can refocus the basic statute that a bureaucracy has taken 
over.
  So I urge my colleagues to take a serious look at what is going on 
across America, as well as what is being proposed here. We should not 
lift the Endangered Species Act moratorium without a proper 
reauthorization. Nor should we allow the abuses to continue.
  We should support the commonsense proposal by Senator Hutchison. It 
is the right thing to do. It will give Congress time to do the 
reauthorization without impacting emergency listings. So I commend her 
for what she is trying to do. And I urge the adoption of the amendment 
by Senators Hutchison and Kempthorne. I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coverdell). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition this morning to 
comment briefly about the significant amendment which was enacted 
yesterday adding funding for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human 
Services, and Education, the subcommittee of Appropriations that I 
chair, and to say at the outset, again, my compliments to the 
distinguished Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin, who is the ranking 
Democrat on the subcommittee, for his tireless work and the work of his 
staff, as well as my

[[Page S1914]]

staff, in crafting that legislation in a bipartisan compromise. But I 
am very fearful that if the partisan bickering and the political 
credit-taking continues, we are going to jeopardize our chance to see 
that amendment as the cornerstone of this omnibus appropriations bill 
go through in the House of Representatives and be signed by the 
President, so that it becomes law.
  We have seen political gridlock in Washington in the hours of the 
past many months of an unprecedented nature. We have seen the 
Government close down twice, and we have seen the American people 
recoiling in disgust at the kind of fighting for political advantage 
which is taking place in this city. I believe that it is a matter for 
blame to be equally proportioned, 50 percent on each side of this 
aisle.
  I think that what the American people are looking for is to have an 
accommodation and to work out these differences of opinion so that we 
can keep the Government going and not have another shutdown, and work 
in the interests of the American people.
  Yesterday, Senator Harkin and I submitted a bill which we had worked 
on jointly in accordance with our responsibilities as chairman and 
ranking member of that subcommittee and on which we had reached a good-
faith, bipartisan compromise. And there was a very, very strong vote in 
this body--84 to 16--an unusually strong vote on an issue which is as 
highly contested as that one was yesterday, or what would be expected. 
And 37 of 53 Republicans joined in supporting that expenditure, 
although there were many questions as to whether that was a wise 
approach in the overall matter, because we are looking for a settlement 
on the overall budget dispute. But those differences were laid aside in 
the interest of funding for education, for health, and for labor and 
plant safety, to get that done.
  No sooner was the issue resolved on the Senate floor than we had back 
to usual political posturing--taking credit for what had been done in a 
very, very partisan way. Today's New York Times quotes one Member of 
the Senate on the opposite side of the aisle saying--and this is 
attributed--``Many of our Republican friends that have been reluctant 
to indicate their support for this, really fell over themselves to 
support this measure.''
  Well, that is not so, Mr. President. There has been a lot of 
Republican support for education--both on the subcommittee with Senator 
Jeffords being the leader for education funding, and Senator Domenici, 
as well as my own participation. When an amendment was offered on the 
other side of the aisle several weeks ago to add substantial money for 
education, it received 51 votes, and there were many on the Republican 
side of the aisle who joined there.
  Then that Member is quoted going on to say, ``They expected 
Republicans in the House to bridle at the agreement, but they predicted 
that the overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate for the White 
House stance on the issue would help them prevail in the final 
legislation.''
  Mr. President, I had hoped that would be the case, and I still hope 
that will be the case. But I am not so sure when we have this kind of 
political credit-taking by Democrats for what was clearly a bipartisan 
movement. It is a move headed by Senator Harkin and myself. It is a 
move that received an 84-to-16 vote with 37 Republican Senators 
supporting the measure. If we are going to go back to politics as usual 
and a claim of credit by the Democrats, I think this is going to be a 
very, very hard matter to hold in conference. There have been some very 
key legislative proposals that have been defeated this year when 
somebody crows and takes credit in the political context before the ink 
is dry and before the bill is finally worked through a conference 
committee and is finished.
  Another Member on the other side of the aisle was referenced in the 
Washington Times today saying:

       Senator Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican and coauthor 
     of the amendment, ``knows how politically vulnerable 
     Republicans are on education.''

  That is not true, Mr. President. When a reference is made to what 
Arlen Specter knows, the best source is Arlen Specter. I do not believe 
that Republicans are any more vulnerable than Democrats on these 
volatile issues of public policy. I think the American people are 
coming to the conclusion that they ought to throw out all of the 
incumbents because of dissatisfaction for what is going on and the 
political infighting and political bickering which leads to gridlock.
  When we work through a very, very tough, bipartisan amendment and 
accomplish the goals of adequate funding for education and do it in a 
way which protects the balanced budget concept, because there are 
offsets on all of these lines, I would ask for a moratorium on the 
political infighting and the political credit-taking so that we can get 
on with the business of the American people.
  There is an old saying that ``a lot could be accomplished in 
Washington, DC, if people were not too concerned about who got credit 
for what was being undertaken.'' I would say to my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle that we ought to tone down the political rhetoric 
and we ought to get on with the business of the country. What we have 
hanging in the balance from the additional funding which we passed 
yesterday of $814 million for title I school districts, which is very 
vital for education in America, is: $182 million for school-to-work 
programs; we have some $200 million for safe and drug-free school 
programs; we have some $635 million for summer youth job training; we 
have very substantial funding for training for dislocated workers, a 
matter of enormous importance in America today with a downsizing of 
American business. All of this is in jeopardy if we are going to go 
back to crass politics and political credit-taking and political 
bickering as usual.
  I anticipate great concerns in the House of Representatives when they 
exercise their legislative discretion. In the United States, we have a 
bicameral form of government. We have the views of the Senate. We have 
the views of the House. I have great respect for what the House of 
Representatives has to say.
  This kind of political bantering, political dialog, and political 
credit-taking is going to be very, very difficult to deal with, because 
I expect to hear all about it when we go to conference with the House 
of Representatives. They have their own points of view. They have their 
constituencies. They are elected on a 2-year basis. They have certain 
commitments that they have made. This does not help the process at all.
  So, it is my hope that the political rhetoric and the political 
credit-taking will be toned down as we move ahead to try to get this 
omnibus appropriations bill completed.
  Mr. President, beyond this omnibus appropriations bill, it is my hope 
that the leadership and the Government coming from the President, the 
administration, and the leaders of the Congress will go back to the 
bargaining table and try to work out an overall global settlement. We 
are about to undertake now the appropriations process for fiscal year 
1997. We are already scheduling the appearances of the Secretary of 
Education, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the 
Secretary of Labor for the fiscal year 1997 budget. It is a little hard 
to look to the next year's budget when we have not even completed this 
year's budget.
  We were able to have this revenue-neutral on a tough vote for many 
Senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, because we offset it 
against expenditures which are available only on a one-time basis. 
There had been talk on a global settlement where we addressed the issue 
of entitlements and had savings there. There might be as much as $10 
billion available for the issues arising out of the Department of 
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. If we are to find a 
way to have a budget which can be adopted for fiscal year 1997, again 
looking to the concerns of education, we are going to need a global 
settlement. If we have the same allocation, 602(b) allocation for my 
subcommittee, for next year as we had for last year when we go through 
the budget resolution, I do not know how it will be possible to find 
light at the end of the tunnel to add the kind of money which we added 
yesterday in the amendment. And we are looking to a very, very tough 
political season.
  My thought is that, if the Congress of the United States and the 
administration cannot come to terms, it is not

[[Page S1915]]

only going to be bad public policy for the schoolchildren who very 
badly need the money which we passed in the Senate yesterday and hope 
we can get through conference, but what will happen in fiscal year 
1997? It is not going to get any easier as we move from March into 
April, May through to October and November. So it is my hope that the 
people who have been negotiating on that overall budget global 
settlement will come to terms, or I think we are all going to have 
havoc to pay when we look to fiscal year 1997.
  But first things first. Let us focus on the bill which is currently 
on the floor. Let us try to get the job done without rushing to take 
the credit.
  Again, I thank my colleague, Senator Harkin, for his outstanding work 
and leadership on this important matter and for setting a bipartisan 
tone which, if carried out by all Members in this body on both sides of 
the aisle, I think will lead us to sound public policy for the 
education interests and the labor interests, the funding of Labor, 
Health and Human Services, and Education programs.
  Mr. President, in the absence of any other Senator in the Chamber, I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coverdell). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 3482 to Amendment No. 3466

 (Purpose: To provide funding for important environmental initiatives 
                            with an offset)

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this morning, I send an amendment to 
the desk for myself, Senator Mikulski, Senator Daschle, Senator John 
Kerry, Senator Kennedy, Senator Lieberman, and Senator Levin, and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg], for himself, 
     Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. 
     Lieberman, and Mr. Levin, proposes an amendment numbered 3482 
     to amendment No. 3466.

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 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. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this amendment has a very simple task, 
I think a very important task, and that is to restore funding for a 
critical national priority, and that is the protection of America's 
environmental heritage.
  There is broad support for protecting our environment. Americans 
across the country want to drink clean water. They want to breathe 
clean air. They do not want to live near toxic waste sites that pose 
health risks to their families, regardless of whether they are urban or 
rural dwellers and regardless of the region of the country. 
Unfortunately, despite the public's commitment to environmental 
protection, this Congress has mounted a full-scale attack on our 
environment. The contract on America may not have mentioned the 
environment, but deep in the recesses of the presentation is a full-
scale attack on our environment.
  The contract on America does not have to mention it, but the signers 
of the contract appear committed to doing everything possible to gut 
environmental protection. First, the House of Representatives passed a 
series of riders on the EPA appropriations bill to essentially repeal 
laws protecting our air, our water, our land, and our families. Also in 
that legislation, EPA's budget, already underfunded, was cut by a third 
from the 1995 funding level, and more riders were added on the Interior 
appropriations bill.
  One banned new listings of endangered species. Another rider 
essentially turned over the old growth forests to private timber 
interests. And then the House passed changes to the Clean Water Act. 
That bill dramatically weakened EPA's enforcement authority, wrote off 
the Nation's valuable wetlands, and included numerous other provisions 
apparently drafted not by legislators but by lobbyists for corporate 
polluters. Bills have also been introduced to cripple the Clean Air 
Act, to weaken our program for cleaning up toxic waste sites, and to 
exempt various industries from critical environmental regulation.
  Another legislative proposal which passed the Senate would weaken 
something called the community right-to-know law. I am the author of 
that law, and it has been on the books for some time. It simply 
requires polluters to tell the public the truth about emissions that 
come from their place of business. It has been responsible for a 46-
percent decrease in toxic emissions in 4 years. It has been a smashing 
success, as they say, and yet a rider to the omnibus regulatory reform 
bill would gut that law and allow any company to easily remove 
chemicals from the listing requirement.
  As one can see, the list of congressional attacks on our environment 
goes on and on, and it is a source of great concern to millions of 
Americans. A poll, a Republican poll, commissioned by the Republican 
Party, by Linda DiVall, showed that only 35 percent of the voters would 
support a candidate who supported the one-third cut in EPA funding 
proposed by the House Republicans. Mind you, a Republican poll showed 
that only 35 percent of those who vote would be willing to support a 
candidate who supported this one-third cut in EPA funding. That is 
quite a revelation.
  The same poll showed that while 6 out of 10 Americans say there is 
too much Government regulation, generally only 2 in 10 believe that the 
statement applies to EPA. The public, even those who consider 
themselves Republicans, do not trust their party on the issue of the 
environment.
  In years past, I have been proud to work closely with many of my 
Republican colleagues to pass strong and effective environmental 
legislation. Frankly, I look forward to that opportunity this day. I 
know that there are Members from the other side of the aisle who care 
about the environment that we are leaving to our children and our 
grandchildren. We want to leave them the best, the cleanest available.
  I wish to single out for commendation the distinguished Senator from 
Missouri [Mr. Bond], chairman of the subcommittee on EPA and NASA and 
the Veterans Administration, who has made a serious effort to increase 
funding for EPA over the proposals that came from the House. He has had 
to deal with an inadequate 602(b) allocation from the Budget Committee. 
He has worked hard within these constraints, and he deserves real 
credit for that.

  Unfortunately, despite his efforts and despite the efforts of the 
ranking member of this subcommittee, Senator Mikulski from Maryland, 
laboring hard to try to improve the funding, because of the inadequate 
funding in the Republican budget for almost all domestic needs, the 
funding in this bill for environmental protection is just not enough to 
do the job. And, although better than proposals from the House, the 
legislation would require real cuts in critical environmental programs. 
Compared to last year's budget, even after the enactment of the 
Republican rescissions bill, the bill before us would cut EPA by over 
11 percent.
  So, my amendment proposes to restore funding for the environment to 
bring EPA's budget back up to, essentially, last year's level after the 
rescission.
  And, perhaps most importantly, the amendment will add $365 million 
for States to fund sewage treatment and drinking water programs through 
State revolving funds.
  Our State and local governments need these funds to meet Federal 
standards related to the control of sewage waste and to ensure safe 
tapwater. States leverage this money so its real value will be many 
times the amount appropriated. Yet the needs are enormous. Local 
governments need to meet Clean Water Act mandates that will cost over 
$100 billion. So this is not the time to be stingy with aid. It is 
critical to many hard-pressed communities and to citizens who rely on 
safe drinking water coming from their taps.
  In addition to the $365 million to keep our water clean, my amendment 
includes various other provisions that will improve our environment. 
These include $50 million more for the

[[Page S1916]]

Superfund Program to clean up toxic waste sites, and success and 
progress can be directly measured there. But what is going to happen as 
a result of the funding levels that we presently have is we will be 
shutting down work on sites that had begun, that show some promise for 
cleanup. That will grind to a halt.
  We have $62 million for environmental technology to do the research 
necessary to find different ways and more effective ways to treat the 
environment.
  We have $75 million for the Department of Energy included in here, 
for its excellent weatherization program which will provide 
weatherization grants for 12,000 homes, and give people a chance to 
protect themselves against the cold so they do not have to spend as 
much for fuel and also do not add to the consumption levels.

  Mr. President, we have $75 million for the National Park Service, to 
stop the degradation that is taking place in our national parks. The 
National Park Service needs money. It needs staff. It needs resources 
to keep these parks up to the level that makes them available and makes 
all of us proud about these national monuments.
  There is also $5 million to advance research for methyl bromide 
replacements. Methyl bromide causes nausea, headaches, convulsions, and 
ultimately death in some cases. Research in this area is badly needed.
  Unlike the underlying bill, which provides funds on the assumption 
that Congress and the President reach some type of budget deal, this 
amendment has sufficient offsets so that we can immediately get on with 
our efforts to protect the environment.
  First, the amendment includes legislation, proposed by the 
administration and adopted in the House reconciliation bill, that will 
improve the Federal Government's ability to collect delinquent debts. 
The Federal Government is owed almost $50 billion in nontax debts. We 
simply have to do a better job of collecting them.
  The other offset included in the amendment calls for the sale of 
Governors Island in New York harbor. This also enjoys broad bipartisan 
support and was included in the House reconciliation bill. Governors 
Island is no longer going to be used as a Coast Guard station as it has 
been for so many years. It is now deemed to be inefficient and 
unnecessary as a place for the Coast Guard. With these offsets, our 
amendment is budget neutral.
  Our Nation has made enormous progress since the environmental 
movement was ignited by Earth Day in 1970. Environmental laws have made 
our water safer to drink, cleaned up our oceans and rivers, made the 
air cleaner, and protected our land from dangerous waste disposal 
practices. This is no time to turn back.
  Because of our work, there have been measurable improvements in our 
air and our water. In 1975, 60 percent of our waters--streams, 
tributaries--did not meet water quality standards. Today, only 40 
percent fail that test. That is a remarkable improvement, and we can 
continue to build on that. But if we let it slip back, it does not take 
long for pollution to take over.
  Thanks to our environmental laws there is now a generation of 
children in many parts of the country who have no conception about the 
terrible air pollution that spoiled our air not too long ago. Even our 
biggest cities have fewer days of unhealthy air pollution than they did 
20 years ago, despite economic growth and population increases. Lead 
has been taken out of gasoline, which has had a significant positive 
impact on children's mental health. Today, ambient levels of lead are 
down 89 percent since 1984.

  Sulfur dioxide concentrations in urban areas are down 26 percent 
since 1984, improving the ability of people with asthma and other 
respiratory diseases to lead normal lives.
  Carbon monoxide levels are down 37 percent since 1984, largely due to 
cleaner cars and fuels, and more effective vehicle inspection and 
maintenance programs. These gains have come while the number of cars 
and vehicle miles has grown substantially.
  Ozone levels have dropped since 1984, so 43 million fewer Americans 
now must breathe unhealthy ozone levels.
  These advances occurred because this Congress passed the laws to make 
it happen, not in recent sessions, but over the years, and because we 
provided the funding to do the job. We made an investment in the 
environment and that investment has paid handsome returns. But now, if 
we back off on our commitment to the environment, successes of the past 
no doubt will be reversed in short order.
  The environmental challenges of the future are substantial and in 
many ways more difficult than those of the past. We need to control 
emissions from many smaller businesses, something not easy to implement 
or to police. We will need to develop new technologies and we need to 
develop alternative approaches to controlling pollution. All of these 
require a real commitment of resources. That fact cannot be wished away 
or ignored.
  We have heard it said many times that we need to balance the budget 
because we are piling debt upon our children. But what about the 
environment we are leaving to our kids? In my view, and the view of the 
American people, the environment simply must be a national priority. We 
can agree on balancing the budget and at the same time making certain 
that we provide a cleaner environment for our future generations. If we 
want to balance the budget we ought to find other ways to do it than 
restricting environmental cleanup activities.
  This amendment would simply maintain funding for environmental 
protection at about the same level as last year's budget, after the 
rescission. I think it is a modest and certainly a reasonable proposal. 
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support it.
  Mr. President, we all ought to agree here, and we will agree when we 
cast our votes, that the environment is a priority for those of us who 
can do something about it. We have to decide here and now what it is 
that we want to leave for our kids by way of environmental protection. 
Do we want them to be able to breathe the air without getting sick? Do 
we want them to be able to go to the water tap? Sales of bottled water 
in this country continue to escalate. I am sure, when the original 
settlers came here they never dreamed they could do anything else but 
drink the water that was naturally available, and now some 40 percent 
of the population is buying bottled water. We ought to be able to 
assure people that, when kids go to the tap to take a drink, they are 
not jeopardizing their health, nor is the ground they are playing on 
dangerous for their well-being.
  Those are the decisions we are going to make with this amendment, Mr. 
President. I hope that all of our friends on both sides of the aisle, 
Republican and Democrat, will agree that while we can discuss budget 
priorities, at the same time we can agree that we want to send a 
message on a cleaner environment.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. MIKULSKI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to join Senator Lautenberg and 
other of my colleagues in offering this amendment to restore critical 
reductions taken in the funding for environmental programs. I 
compliment the Senator from New Jersey for his steadfast advocacy on 
the environment, and I look forward to working with him on these 
important issues.
  Mr. President, we in Maryland are budget weary. We have been battered 
by the budget, we have been battered by floods, and we have been 
battered by the shutdowns that have occurred. What has been so terrible 
about the shutdowns that have occurred is that they have shut down our 
ability to enforce America's vital, crucial environmental protection 
laws relating to Superfund, safe drinking water, clean water, to be 
able to help our people be in a safe environment and help local 
communities.
  The full committee and the subcommittee chairmen, Senators Hatfield 
and Bond, have taken important steps by restoring $240 million in real 
money to this omnibus CR. This important effort, I think, will move us 
beyond this weariness that we have with shutdowns. I hope that at the 
end of this week, we have not shut down the Federal Government, we have 
not shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, and we have not shut 
down our ability to enforce public health and

[[Page S1917]]

safety, nor that we have shut down the funding to go to environmental 
contractors.
  But the fact remains that despite the efforts of the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on VA and 
EPA, this appropriation, this CR continues to be $750 million below the 
1995 level. It is the defunding of EPA. That is unacceptable to us on 
this side of the aisle, and it is unacceptable to the American people.
  The American people want clean air, clean drinking water, they want 
contaminated and hazardous waste sites cleaned up, and they want their 
local communities to have the resources to provide wastewater and clean 
water to these communities.
  The American people are absolutely opposed to efforts to weaken the 
environmental laws and are opposed to budget and staffing cuts that do 
that.

  There was a recent poll that showed that 46 percent of the American 
people want no changes in either clean or safe drinking water.
  When we talk about the impact on these budget cuts, this has a 
tremendous impact not only on local communities and on public health 
and public safety, but it absolutely has a direct impact on business.
  A recent study by the University of Maryland's Jacobs Center, which 
is a business evaluation center, said that businesses are concerned 
that cuts to regulatory agencies lead to delays in permitting, and 
poorly trained staff also lead to a delay in permitting, which is a 
delay to business.
  In my home State of Maryland, good environment is good business. That 
is why we have been such strong supporters of the Chesapeake Bay 
Program and the cleanup of important rivers and polluted rivers, like 
Back River. So the American people do not want any more cuts in EPA, 
and neither do I.
  This amendment restores $738 million and puts us at 1995 levels. It 
is essentially a freeze on EPA, but it does restore funds to implement 
those important standards.
  It also does something else. This amendment restores programs 
relating to the environmental technologies initiative. That is an 
initiative to spur, working with the private sector, new technologies, 
new products that we can manufacture in the United States and sell 
overseas.
  Mr. President, these environmental cuts have a great impact on the 
United States of America and its citizens, but also this has a great 
impact on our national reputation. The world is coming to the United 
States of America for our environmental expertise in Government and its 
form of regulation, in terms of academia, in terms of its scientific 
research on the environment and in terms of a private sector that has 
developed techniques and products in manufacturing biotechnology to 
clean up the environment.
  What we want to do in this legislation is to restore the 
Environmental Protection Agency to do this. To keep the funding cuts, I 
believe, will have a devastating effect on American citizens and will 
be a loss of national honor, as well as a national opportunity to go 
global.
  This national opportunity will enable us to take our environmental 
expertise that the world wants access to and to go around the world 
giving out information, ideas, science and actual products.
  We talk a lot in this U.S. Senate about how we need to have good jobs 
at good wages. I believe the frontier to do that is in the field of 
environment, using the expertise of EPA, working with America's 
academic institutions, encouraging these new technologies in the 
private sector. If we do that, we will not only protect our 
environment, but we will also be able to create jobs and be able to 
have an important contribution internationally.
  So I hope, therefore, that my colleagues will support the Lautenberg-
Mikulski-Lieberman and Kerry amendment to restore these cuts to EPA. We 
believe we have sound offsets to be able to do it, and I believe then 
we can move this process forward.
  Again, I thank the chairman of the full committee, Senator Hatfield, 
and the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Bond, for taking the 
first step by restoring the $240 million. We look forward now to taking 
the next step to put EPA at the 1995 levels.
  I thank the Chair and my colleagues for their attention, and I yield 
the floor.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I particularly want 
to thank the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from New Jersey, 
Senators Mikulski and Lautenberg, for their leadership and efforts to 
try to guarantee that we have a sensible environmental policy in this 
country.
  What is really astonishing is that this is the 10th time this year 
that we are debating the environmental programs of this country, the 
10th time we are debating the 1996 budget. We are now in the sixth 
month of the current fiscal year, and we are setting a historic first 
for the United States of America. In the 11 years that I have been in 
the U.S. Senate, never--never once--have we had to go into a succeeding 
fiscal year and still be debating the items of the last fiscal year.
  I would say, without any question at all, that the responsibility 
that fell to the majority last year or the year before, when they won 
the election, has really not been discharged properly. I remember when 
we were in the majority, in the last occasion of 1994, all 13 
appropriations bills were passed on time. Whatever compromises were 
necessary in order to achieve that, we understood the Constitution of 
this country, we understood the nature of the system.
  What has really happened here in Washington in 1995 and 1996 is that 
a small band of radicals in the House of Representatives have 
fundamentally hijacked the Constitution of this country. In the name of 
ideological purity and of their particular point of view, they have 
disavowed the balance of power between the executive and the 
legislature. They have taken into their own hands their own definition 
of timing.
  They are breaking the law, Mr. President. They are breaking the law. 
The law says that these bills will be accomplished by a specific point 
in time. They have not been.
  So we are here for the 10th time debating where we are going. People 
will say, ``Well, the President won't agree.'' Well, the President has 
the veto power. That is what the Founding Fathers gave him, and when 
the President has the veto power, and there is not a sufficient 
political force in the country to undermine whatever sustaining 
capacity there is in the Congress with that veto, then the President 
gets to have that balance.
  The reality is, you are supposed to compromise. But that is not what 
is happening. I think it is very unfortunate for all concerned. I know 
that there are moderates on the Republican side, many in the Senate, 
who are uncomfortable with what is happening, who do not agree with it, 
who would rather see the Congress of the United States do its business. 
I think it is entirely inappropriate for the country to pay the price 
for this small group in the House of Representatives.
  It is revealing that while a certain group of appropriations bills 
have made it into law, it is revealing that the bills that fund the 
agencies with primary responsibility for the environment and our 
natural resources, the Environmental Protection Agency and the 
Department of Interior, have not been signed into law. I think, Mr. 
President, that the fact that those particular bills have not been 
signed into law underscores the clash of priorities that is evidenced 
in the Republican approach to the funding of those bills and the 
Democratic approach.
  The fact that the Republican leadership is still fighting for large 
cuts in environmental programs is, in my judgment, an indication that 
they are not in touch with the real concerns of the American people and 
their desire for clean air and clean water. The response from some will 
quickly be, ``Wait a minute. Of course we're in touch. Being in touch 
means you balance the budget. We have shown that you can balance the 
budget.'' But you do not have to do it at the expense of these 
environmental programs.
  So, in the final analysis, it really comes down to a fundamental 
confrontation between choices--the choices you make to balance the 
budget. And the choices that you make to balance the budget are the 
final evidence of your priorities and of your values.

[[Page S1918]]

  That is why, Mr. President, I am here once again in this 10th series 
of efforts on the environment with Senator Lautenberg and Senator 
Mikulski and others, to speak in support of increasing the funding for 
specific environmental programs. What we are seeking to do is to add 
back over $900 million for environmental programs at four Federal 
agencies--at the Environmental Protection Agency, at the Department of 
Energy, at the Agriculture and Interior Departments. It is our judgment 
that this money is critically needed in order to fully protect 
America's health and safety at a level that Americans have come to 
expect and that they believe is their right.
  Mr. President, if we succeed in passing an omnibus spending bill, we 
are going to set the environmental budget for the EPA through the end 
of this fiscal year. If we pass a bill that includes environmental 
funding increases in this amendment, all we will have succeeded in 
doing is bringing us back to last year's level of protection. I think 
Americans need to understand that.

  This is not a Democrat effort to try to add huge sums of money, even 
though many of us believe that in certain areas we ought to be spending 
more. This is simply an effort to hold our citizens harmless from a 
reduction below the level that we were at last year.
  If, however, this amendment is defeated, Congress will have turned 
its back and turned the clock back on some 25 years of environmental 
gains. Ironically, for 19 of the last 25 years, Republicans were in 
charge of the EPA. It was Richard Nixon who signed into law the 
National Environmental Policy Act and delivered protection of the 
environment as a national priority. I think it is particularly ironic 
that after George Bush joined with us to help sign into effect the 
Clean Air Act, and after the many efforts of the last years that have 
been bipartisan, that we are suddenly thrown into this partisan clash 
over whether or not we can keep the funding at last year's level.
  Regrettably, our friends on the other side of the aisle have made a 
different choice, and it is different from what most Americans are 
telling us that they want. I think almost every poll in the country has 
shown that Americans want to protect their environment: they want 
cleaner air, they want cleaner water, they want pristine rivers, they 
want our ecosystems protected, they want an abundance of species, 
plants, and animals, they want clean beaches and national parks, and 
they want public lands that are safe and they want them protected. They 
want cities with breathable air and industries and businesses that are 
willing to join in the effort to guarantee that these kinds of 
protections exist.
  Unfortunately, Mr. President, you cannot reconcile that stated desire 
of the American people with the budget figures that we are being 
presented. So the central question in this debate is really: What 
priority do you place on protecting the Nation's environment and 
natural resources and the health of our citizens?
  I am confident that we are going to hear Senators on the other side 
of the aisle say, ``I take no second seat to anybody in the country on 
protecting the environment.'' We will hear Senators say, ``Let's not 
kid ourselves; nobody is against the environment. Nobody wants to have 
bad water,'' and so forth. It is fine to say that, Mr. President, but 
if you are in favor of cutting inspections, if you are in favor of 
cutting a community's ability to be able to provide that clean water, 
if you are voting for an amendment or a bill that reduces the 
commitment from last year, even though no American is asking for a 
reduction except for some companies, it is very hard to follow through 
and say, you are, in truth, voting for what you are talking about.
  That is the real difference here. What are you voting for? What are 
you putting into the budget? What numbers do you really support? While 
the bill that is being brought to the floor is an improvement from the 
conference report, it is still a budget that is hundreds of millions of 
dollars below the level that most people in good conscience and good 
faith have decided is necessary in order to continue the level that we 
have committed to the American people.
  In addition to that, Mr. President, the bill contains a series of 
legislative riders that cripple the EPA's ability to be able to protect 
the Nation's wetlands, which is precisely what some people want to do. 
They have never liked the wetlands protection. They want to develop 
wetlands, and they do not care about the standards. So they are 
intentionally setting out to cripple it. And it would also halt the 
Department of Energy's work on setting energy efficiency standards for 
appliances.
  Mr. President, we have, as I have said before--but I think it needs 
repeating again and again--shown that you can balance the budget in 7 
years without doing what the Republicans are choosing to do here. I 
hope that we will recognize that without restoring some of this 
funding, the cuts to the EPA are going to deal an extraordinarily harsh 
blow to efforts to be able to protect us.
  I would like to bring it down to a local level, if I may, Mr. 
President, to my State of Massachusetts. We are trying, in this bill, 
to increase the State revolving fund by $365 million over what the 
Republicans have provided. Every State will benefit. All cities in each 
of our States that are in need of new infrastructure will benefit by 
adding to the State revolving fund.

  We have communities in Massachusetts, a community like New Bedford, 
for instance, about 100,000 residents, is building a sewer treatment 
facility that will cost more than $200 million. It has to build this 
under Federal law. Yet the tax base is such that the citizens cannot 
really afford to do that on their own. In the 1980's we had a 
partnership with the Federal Government where the Federal Government 
would provide anywhere from 55 to 75 percent of the money. That is not 
happening today. As a result, local communities are being harder and 
harder pressed to be able to try to live up to the standards that we 
have set at the Federal level. Because they are harder and harder 
pressed to do that, they get angrier and angrier over those Federal 
standards and begin to blame the standards themselves.
  What happens here, you get caught in a vicious circle. People begin 
to lose their commitment to the standards and to wanting to clean up 
because they feel oppressed by them. The reason they feel oppressed by 
them is they are required to do things they do not have enough money to 
do. The reason they do not have enough money to do it is the Federal 
Government has pulled out of the partnership and taken away the help 
that was given in the 1970's and the 1980's. That happened, as we all 
remember, in 1982 when Ronald Reagan came along and stripped away title 
II of the Clean Water Act and left the mandate. All of a sudden the 
anger was directed at mandates
  Mr. President, we desperately need that kind of funding assistance. 
In a city like Fall River, a partner city to New Bedford, you have a 
similar sort of tax base, similar difficulties. You have a combined 
sewer overflow problem which the community desperately needs to be able 
to refurbish, rehabilitate the sewer overflows, 100-year-old 
infrastructure, a current population, and the current population is 
required to pay for the next 100 years. That is not fair. You have to 
try to spread that out.
  Nowhere is that more felt, Mr. President, than in the city of Boston 
where we are living under a court order, Federal mandate, Federal court 
order, that you have to go ahead and clean up the harbor; at the same 
time, put in a secondary treatment facility for water, billions of 
dollars of expenditure. So the citizens of our State and city have seen 
a 40 percent increase in their water rates in the last few years. It 
has gone up to about $618 per family and will go up to $800. This 
drives out business, drives down the value of property, and most 
importantly, it is just impossible for the average family, already 
struggling on a lower income, to be able to pay these increasing costs.
  Once again, what is the result? The result is people get angry at the 
mandate, even though it is a legitimate mandate that you have clean 
water. The result is we begin to lose the consensus in this country to 
be able to do these things.
  Mr. President, in the 1970's and 1980's, many communities got money 
to the tune of 90 percent, 75 percent, 55 percent of their project 
being paid for by the Federal Government. In 1996, Boston has received 
a total of 18 percent

[[Page S1919]]

funding, contrary to the 55 percent, 75 percent, 90 percent of years 
past. Even President Bush saw fit to put $100 million each year into 
our budget to help us with that. We desperately need the State 
revolving funds and those kind of commitments. That is an example of 
one State. That can be replicated all across this country. There are 
other communities in need of additional money.
  Mr. President, there is another area that is a concern. That is the 
area of the funding for the cleanup of toxic waste sites. This bill 
provides an increase, for which we are obviously grateful, over the 
conference report which devastated this program. Our amendment would 
restore an additional $50 million to the Superfund which is still 
several hundred million dollars below what the President of the United 
States has asked for. Now, while our amendment is not everything we 
would have liked, we believe what the Republicans are doing will slow 
the cleanups. It will continue to stall cleanup efforts in communities 
that have very, very patiently waited for Federal intervention.

  Let me just share with my colleagues a story that I think underscores 
why this is so important. The toxic waste cleanups are critical to our 
ability to be able to provide the fundamental protection that our 
citizens are looking for. There was a young man in Woburn, MA, named 
Jimmy Anderson who got sick from a contaminated well in Woburn. He died 
from lymphocytic leukemia in 1981. His story underscores why this $50 
million is important. About 30 years ago, his mother, Ann, suspected 
that something was wrong and that their water was bad because it 
smelled bad. She went to authorities and said, ``There is something 
wrong with our water.'' The authorities just said, ``No, don't worry 
about it. It's OK. It will be all right.'' Then in 1972 her son Jimmy 
got sick. Despite her concerns, the wells that they were drinking from 
remained in use until 1979, when an environmental inspection that was 
triggered by a totally different event revealed that in those wells 
there were, indeed, high levels of toxins.
  Eventually, other leukemia victims came forward. It turned out that 
between 1966 and 1986 there were 28 cases of leukemia among Woburn 
children with victims concentrated in the two sections that were served 
by those wells. Now, investigations revealed when they analyzed the 
water, that there were whole lagoons of arsenic, chromium, and lead 
that were discovered on a tract of land that had once housed a number 
of chemical plants, and from a nearby abandoned tannery that had left 
behind a huge mound of decades-old rotting horse hides that gave off a 
smell that commuters used to call the Woburn odor as they drove by.
  I say to my colleagues, before we rush into adopting a budget that is 
going to reduce the level of inspections and give us more Jimmy 
Andersons, why do we not just stop and think about what the 
environmental protection effort is trying to achieve and what it has 
achieved in its previous years. Jimmy Anderson's mother came to 
Congress to testify. This is what she said: ``It is difficult for me to 
come before you today but I do so with the realization that industry 
has the strength, influence, and resources that we, the victims, do 
not. I am here as a reminder of the tragic consequence of uncontrolled 
toxic waste and the necessity of those who are responsible for it, to 
assume that responsibility.''
  Mr. President, in no uncertain terms, the budget that the Republicans 
are offering empowers those polluters and takes away the 
responsibility. The budget that we are offering tries to hold those 
people accountable and provide power to the victims.
  I hope, Mr. President, that in the hours ahead we can find the same 
kind of bipartisan coalition that we found yesterday on education. This 
should not be a partisan issue. I regret that there are some who have 
stated their priorities different from other people's.
  Finally, I hope we will rectify the legislative riders that open up 
more timbering, that create a greater imbalance in the relationship 
between our natural resources and the people of this country. There is 
nothing, frankly, more important, than education. This is part of our 
education effort. It is also part of our fundamental responsibility to 
the next generations. I hope we will add the money that is necessary.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Lautenberg 
amendment. I also must point out to my colleagues that the partisan 
rhetoric that we are hearing about the environment is reflective of the 
fact that this is an election year. I have listened with great interest 
to some of the wild charges and political claims being made. I keep 
checking to find if it has anything to do with the measure before the 
Senate. I find, unfortunately, that it has to do more with somebody's 
campaign than with talking about the issues that are relevant to this 
bill.
  My colleague from Massachusetts has just denounced the fact that we 
are breaking the law because there has been no appropriation for 
veterans, housing, environment, and space--the main subject areas of 
the subcommittee I chair. Well, I can tell you, Mr. President, quite 
simply why there has been no bill passed and signed by the President. 
It is because the President vetoed the bill that we presented to him 
that was within the budget allocation and passed by both Houses of 
Congress.
  I can tell you, also, that beginning last November when we sought to 
work with the White House to find out what would be acceptable, what we 
need to do to accommodate their interests, we were stonewalled, 
absolutely stonewalled. Leon Panetta came and said, ``Well, the only 
way we can sign this bill is to spend $2 billion more.'' This was at a 
time when the President was stating that he was for a balanced budget. 
However, he was asking that we break the budget by $2 billion. He 
vetoed the bill and said we need $2.5 billion. No longer the original 
$2 billion.
  Mr. President, how much is enough? How much is enough? How far do 
they want to break the budget? I have fought hard on this bill, and I 
believe we have fought responsibly to raise the amount of money 
appropriated for vital environmental cleanup efforts, and within the 
appropriations available to us under the budget agreement, we have done 
a good job.
  (Mr. ASHCROFT assumed the chair.)
  Mr. BOND. In this measure before us, we have added additional funds 
and we have put in a provision that if the President will agree to sign 
a balanced budget amendment that would make the budget balance in 2002, 
there will be even more money available for what I regard as a high 
priority, and that is environmental cleanup.
  My friend from Massachusetts said, ``You are supposed to compromise 
and negotiate.'' Well, on that matter, I agree with him 100 percent. 
But let me ask my colleagues, Mr. President, if we are supposed to 
negotiate and compromise, if we are supposed to come to an agreement 
with the White House, how do you do it when they do not show up? This 
Chamber is essentially empty. But this Chamber is just what I have had 
in attempting to deal with the White House--nobody. I have talked to 
the Agency head, Administrator Browner. I have talked to Ms. McGinty in 
the White House, head of the Council for Environmental Quality. I have 
talked to the Vice President. I have talked to OMB director, Alice 
Rivlin. I said, ``We want to compromise and work with you to make sure 
we meet the objectives of the programs funded by this bill.'' We do not 
have a bill, Mr. President, quite simply, because the President has 
chosen the political tack. His political advisers say it is far better 
to veto and throw hot rhetoric than to sit down calmly and negotiate.
  I hope the time has come when we are ready to negotiate, because I 
believe we have made great progress in the environment in past years. I 
want to see that continue. I believe the bill before us will continue 
that progress. I will be happy to work along with the leadership on 
this side and the leadership on the other side of the aisle to come to 
a reasonable compromise that keeps us on our budget goal of balancing 
the budget, so we do not put the burdens of our debt on future 
generations, but which will meet the objectives that are funded in this 
bill in the environmental area.
  Let me return to the Lautenberg amendment. The Lautenberg amendment 
is about pumping up the rhetoric

[[Page S1920]]

and the polarization surrounding environmental issues. I must say that 
the supporting remarks are completely in that vein. It is not about 
ensuring that limited dollars are spent on EPA programs and activities 
which most effectively reduce risk to human health and the environment.
  The Lautenberg amendment includes funding for the administration's 
entire wish list for EPA, totaling $726 million. I would like another 
billion dollars, too. It is always nice to have that. Maybe the stork 
or the tooth fairy will bring it. I am sure we can spend more money 
well. But it is not possible, unless we reach other agreements that 
will lead us to a balanced budget, that we can accomplish that goal and 
put additional sums in.
  There are additional sums in this measure introduced and presented by 
Senator Hatfield, which will provide more funding when we come to an 
agreement on a balanced budget. The offsets proposed in the Lautenberg 
amendment are phony. They are being used in the other Democratic 
leadership amendment to be offered to the bill. How many times can you 
trod out that same old ghost of imaginary cuts? Imaginary cuts are a 
great offset, but they make awful thin soup because there is nothing 
there.
  As chairman of the VA-HUD subcommittee, I have worked very hard to 
fund EPA adequately within the very constrained budget allocation 
available to the subcommittee. The bill before us today increases EPA's 
budget by $402 million above the conference level, including $240 
million within title I that would be available upon the passage and the 
signing into law by the President of this bill, and another $162 
million in title IV of the bill, the contingency section. We can spend 
the $162 million if we reach a broader budget agreement.
  The total for EPA is $6.1 billion. This, I believe, represents a 
good-faith effort to meet the administration's concerns, even though 
they are not willing to discuss those concerns with us or present us 
with an honest prioritized list of needs and wants.
  We have made these efforts because we are concerned about the 
environment. We have made these efforts, and we have taken these steps 
because Members of this body on both sides of the aisle are interested 
in protecting the environment. This is a bipartisan issue.
  The arguments about the Republican opposition to the environmental 
cleanup are absolute hogwash. It is embarrassing that we have to answer 
those inane charges on the floor of the Senate. It is appalling to me 
that someone would come down and make those assertions. But they have 
been made, and they are nonsense. They do not deserve further 
discussion.
  The additional funds in title I, which are funded within the 
subcommittee 602(b) allocation, are provided for State revolving funds, 
for the Superfund and the enforcement activities, all of which were 
included on the administration's wish list. As a matter of fact, they 
were the first ones mentioned by the Administrator of EPA when I asked 
her to set priorities--assistance to the States for water 
infrastructure construction, toxic waste cleanups for sites posing real 
and immediate risks, and funding to ensure that there are no employee 
furloughs or RIF's. Reductions to ongoing contractual support are high 
priorities.
  Let me be clear. The amount provided in title I--that is not subject 
to contingency. The only contingency is that it be passed by the 
Congress and signed by the President. This appropriation ensures that 
the EPA does not have to fire or furlough a single employee. And the 
enforcement budget is increased, Mr. President, by $10 million over 
fiscal year 1995, in a year when total funds available for commitments 
by this subcommittee were reduced by 12 percent from the preceding 
year.
  We have held EPA at a higher level and even increased the enforcement 
budget. In addition, this legislation recommends another $162 million 
in title IV, the contingency section, for additional State revolving 
funds operating programs and a new laboratory facility in the North 
Carolina Research Triangle Park, where EPA space is sadly deficient.
  This legislation recommends a total of $6.1 billion--just $300 
million, or 4 percent, less than the total fiscal year 1995 actual 
spending level in a bill that is 12 percent overall below. Where did we 
have to cut? We had to choose priorities. We cut earmarked water and 
sewer projects--the pork that Members love to bring home. Bringing home 
the bacon is unfortunately a sport that is still popular around here.
  Last year's appropriations contained some $800 million in these 
bringing home the bacon projects. This bill all but eliminates such 
earmarks.
  I note that the Senator from Massachusetts, a staunch defender of the 
amendment that is being offered, would see funding for his State to go 
up by another $75 million. Certainly it does enhance one's enthusiasm 
for an amendment. But I will address that part later.
  H.R. 3019 provides $1.825 billion for State revolving funds. This 
includes an increase of $100 million over the President's request of 
$500 million for drinking water--State revolving funds to be 
distributed by a formula based on need--a formula based on need and not 
a formula based on who can offer an amendment. It is a formula for 
which we hope the Environmental Protection Agency and State agencies 
will use good, sound science and prioritizing in determining where the 
money needs to go.
  In fiscal year 1995 the States received only $1.235 billion in 
revolving funds. This year's bill ensures that States will receive 
$1.725 billion, and an additional $100 million if title IV spending is 
released; that is, if the President agrees on a balanced budget. That 
would be an increase of almost 50 percent. The occupant of the chair 
and I have served as Governors. We know where the pedal hits the metal 
and where the rubber hits the road, which is in the States where they 
actually do the cleanup. In Washington we talk about it and we 
pontificate about it. It is the States that have to do the cleanup. It 
is the States that take care of the needs of their communities. It is 
the States that take care of the environmental risk to their citizens. 
And we increase that money by 50 percent in this bill.
  I note that it is especially ironic that the pending amendment seeks 
to add back pork barrel sewer projects. This is not environmental 
protection so much as old-fashioned parochial political pork. That is 
what is involved here.
  In addition to the State revolving funds this legislation fully funds 
State agency grants. We have recognized that the States have been 
assigned burdensome responsibilities by the Federal Government to 
protect and clean up the environment. We have tried to provide 
sufficient funds for them to do that despite the budgetary constraints 
under which we must act.
  Despite very serious concerns with the Superfund program--and there 
are serious problems with that program, Mr. President, and everybody in 
this body knows there are problems with it and reservations about 
putting a lot of money into a program which virtually every one agrees 
needs to be reformed--the legislation before us actually recommends 
$1.263 billion for Superfund, $100 million more than the conference 
agreement. This appropriation would result in an increase in the 
dollars spent on actual cleanups in fiscal year 1995 and would provide 
level funding for enforcement activities.
  The Senator from Massachusetts and other proponents of this measure 
have talked about the slowdown in Superfund. Slowdow is synonymous with 
Superfund. That is what Superfund has become--a tremendous slowdown 
project. It has had some tremendous benefits. It has had tremendous 
benefits for the lawyers who file the lawsuits and argue over who is 
going to be responsible. The more money we put in the Superfund the 
more fees we generate. This is a litigation machine. This is a lawyer's 
dream. The law provides more dollars for lawyers and too little for 
cleanup. We cannot just throw more and more dollars at it without 
changing the law.
  If we are serious about the Superfund and toxic site cleanups--and we 
must be--then we have to reform the program. We are working to reform 
the Superfund Program so that the money in Superfund goes to what 
people thought it ought to, and perhaps think it still goes to; that 
is, cleaning up the sites.

  Mr. President, many of the recommendations included in the committee 
reported bill for EPA were made by

[[Page S1921]]

the National Academy of Public Administration. This is a nonpartisan 
organization which was asked by my predecessor, my Democratic colleague 
and ranking Member, Senator Barbara Mikulski, to undertake a report on 
reforming EPA 2 years ago. I want to say once more for the Record that 
Senator Mikulski has been a leader in promoting environmental progress 
and using the best management and the best science to do so, and the 
work that was done at her request in the National Academy of Public 
Administration, I think--in common forums away from the political 
diatribes on the floor and on the hustings--is recognized as the way we 
should go to make sure that we deal with the threats to health and the 
threats to the environment from toxic waste.
  We followed the recommendations in this bill of the National Academy 
of Public Administration. They were presented to Congress almost a year 
ago, and they said turn over more responsibility to the States; turn 
over responsibility to the States which have developed capacity over 
the past 25 years to manage environmental programs. Do not step on 
their efforts, if they are doing a good job. If they are not doing a 
good job, Mr. President, there is every reason to have a Federal agency 
which says, ``You are not doing a good enough job.'' If we in Missouri 
were polluting the air of Illinois, polluting the water of Arkansas or 
Mississippi or Louisiana, the national agency should step in. But if we 
are doing the job in Missouri in cleaning up the environment to 
standards set on a national basis to protect the national health and 
well being of the environment, then we ought to give the States the 
flexibility to do it.
  According to NAPA, ``EPA should revise its approach to oversight, 
regarding high-performing States with grant flexibility, reduced 
oversight, and greater autonomy.''
  That sums it up. This is what we have tried to do through the 
appropriations bill. We have even included authority for EPA to begin 
issuing block grants for maximum flexibility. We have tried in this 
bill to get EPA to focus on the areas of highest risk to human health 
and the environment, and to reduce spending for the time being on those 
programs which produce less bang for the buck, either in terms of the 
cleanup progress or the risk that they are dealing with. Rather than 
spending time organizing press conferences and news events, I believe 
that EPA should follow the recommendations of NAPA to get its own house 
in order. Despite EPA's claims to support NAPA's recommendations, we 
have seen little in terms of real change.
  As I have mentioned before, Mr. President, I have been trying 
unsuccessfully--I have been waiting for 5 months to forge a compromise 
with the White House within the allocation available to my 
subcommittee. Since last November I have placed phone calls, I have 
written letters, and I have held hearings--nothing, zip, nothing. 
Unfortunately, the White House seemingly has decided that portraying me 
and those on this side of the aisle as antienvironment is a better 
political strategy than compromise. My phone calls have not been 
returned. My letters have not been responded to.
  I held a hearing on January 26. EPA administrator Carol Browner 
refused to admit there can--and, indeed, must be--priorities within the 
EPA's budget. The Administrator, when I asked her for her priorities, 
claimed that the entire $966 million of add-backs demanded by the White 
House were critical, including earmarks for sewer construction, the 
pork barrel part of it. Is there anything that is more important than 
the environment? When you cannot set any priorities you do not have any 
priorities. If you refuse to prioritize, to live within a budget, then 
you do not have any idea of what you are trying to do.
  Two weeks ago, I held a second hearing on EPA. We heard from former 
EPA Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus, State environmental commissioners, 
EPA Science Advisory Board members, and others. These witnesses 
confirmed the importance of setting priorities and reordering spending 
to achieve the most gains for the environment with the available 
dollars. These witnesses recognized that spending was not unlimited and 
there must be management discipline to ensure we allocate resources 
effectively.
  Unfortunately, instead of attempts to compromise, we have seen 
nothing but incendiary rhetoric from the administration. Two weeks ago, 
EPA Administrator Carol Browner, at a press event staged by House 
Democrats, stated that the Republican budget would force her to choose 
between setting drinking water standards for cryptosporidium and 
controlling toxic water pollution in rivers, lakes, and streams.
  There is not a shred of truth in that. I think cryptosporidium and 
controlling toxic water pollution are top priorities. How come she 
cannot see that? How come she wants to put pork-barrel projects and 
corporate welfare projects in a budget and say that those are equal in 
priority? They are not establishing any priorities. If they give us 
some priorities, we will work with them. Let us talk about things that 
really can clean up the environment.
  The appropriation for EPA does require EPA to begin to set 
priorities--a novel concept. The National Academy of Public 
Administration, the General Accounting Office, EPA's own Science 
Advisory Board, and other experts who have testified before our 
committee recognize that EPA should begin to do it, but in no way does 
it force the sort of tradeoff that the Administrator described.
  Let me get to one of my favorites. I am sure you read or heard or saw 
on TV about the President's campaign event in New Jersey. Oh, that was 
a bell ringer. The political pundits and spin masters must have been 
rubbing their hands together in glee. He attacked Congress as being 
antienvironment. He accused the Congress of shutting down cleanup at a 
Superfund site in Wallington, NJ. He pointed out that right next to the 
site was a school and children were in danger. Why? It was because the 
Republicans in Congress wanted to subject these children to the dangers 
of toxic waste.
  We listen to a great commentator named Paul Harvey back in our part 
of the country, and he says, ``Now let me tell you the rest of the 
story.'' Well, the rest of the story gets pretty interesting because 
what he did not say, what the President did not say was that EPA 
chose--not Congress, EPA chose--to slow down the work at that site. We 
gave them the dollars and told them: You set the priorities. You 
prioritize your cleanup dollars to put them into the areas which pose 
the greatest risks to human health, and do that first.
  Why did we do that? Why did we do that, Mr. President? Because we had 
a GAO study of existing Superfund cleanup actions. This study showed 
that 32 percent of the sites reflected an immediate threat to human 
health and the environment, and those are under present or current land 
uses; 15 percent would not pose any risk to human health in any event; 
50 percent would pose a threat to human health only if they changed the 
land use.
  Therefore, if you went into an industrial site where they had had 
manufacturing and transportation and did not clean it up and set up a 
kindergarten playground or a day care center, that would pose a risk. 
So you do not do that. Fifty percent of them pose no risk to human 
health under the current land use. And unless you brought in kids and 
had them eating the dirt, there would be no human health risks--15 
percent, no human health risks. Only 30 percent of the taxpayer dollars 
were being spent on human health risks.
  So we told EPA: Go out and spend your money where there is a human 
health risk. You have more than enough money to do that.
  So either one of two things, Mr. President. Either EPA decided that 
the Wallington, NJ, site was not posing a risk to human health, which 
would have been a vitally important factor that reporters could ask the 
President about at his news conference. Or if there was a real risk to 
human health and EPA had staged the slowdown to give the President a 
political forum. One of two choices. Maybe EPA will tell us which. Did 
they allow the President to hype as a risk something that was not a 
risk, or did they slow down funding for something that really was a 
risk in order to give the President political gain and political 
mileage?
  Whichever answer, it is not very pleasant. It is not something that I

[[Page S1922]]

think the people of America would tolerate. If there is a risk to human 
health, we said we will give you the money; go forward and clean up 
those risks first. Prioritize them. EPA has a little trouble focusing 
on the priorities. It is about time they did.
  The amount of spending provided in the current continuing resolution 
and in the conference agreement is the same as the fiscal year 1995 
level for actual Superfund cleanups. That is $800 million. And the bill 
before us today would increase the Superfund cleanup budget by an 
additional $100 million, as I have already indicated. We have told EPA 
they have to prioritize Superfund cleanups--something they have never 
done in the past--and it needs to be based on real threats to human 
health and the environment.
  If the Wallington, NJ, site where the President staged the press 
event meets EPA's own risk-ranking process, there is money and that 
site should receive cleanup funding this year under the terms of the 
bill before us today.
  The Lautenberg amendment continues the misinformation campaign of the 
White House. It seeks to add more funds for programs we have already 
increased in this bill. It seeks to add funds for programs which are 
not high priorities such as the environmental technology initiative.
  The environmental technology initiative has funded private sector 
conferences on energy efficiency lighting. In the past, they have 
funded studies on how large corporations can save dollars. That is a 
great idea if they save dollars by energy efficiency, but for a large 
corporation, I think that they probably ought to be willing to fund 
that themselves. We have heard in the past about studies to control and 
study bovine emissions and many other areas that may be of scientific 
interest, although not of great personal interest, I would say.
  We add back money for funds for enforcement. We have already 
increased enforcement spending over the fiscal year 1995 level.
  Now, perhaps most amazingly, the amendment seeks to add funds for 
Boston Harbor when this bill already has $25 million. We did accede to 
the request of Governor Weld of Massachusetts to continue funding it at 
a lower level because of the magnitude of the problem and the fact that 
they have to have some funding as we phase down the availability of 
dollars. But Boston Harbor has received almost $600 million over the 
past several years, even while such earmarks are not authorized and are 
unfair to thousands of communities which do not receive such largesse.
  Surely, it cannot be a priority to move one site above every other 
site in the Nation. We have said that we are making funds available to 
be allocated on the basis of need, on the basis of sound science. If 
that, in fact, is such a need and sound science requires it, then money 
will go there.
  But, as indicated by the Senator from Massachusetts, there are lots 
of requests in lots of other areas. I have had many, many Members tell 
me about the very difficult situations they face in their States. They 
have talked about water system supplies, and I said, ``Yes, I 
understand that.'' And we have not done a good job in the political 
process of determining which of those projects has the highest priority 
need in terms of science, in terms of human health, and in terms of the 
environment. So we put the money into State revolving funds, we put the 
money into programs where it will be allocated on the basis of sound 
science, where it will be allocated on the basis of how much danger is 
posed. That is how the money should be allocated.
  I believe we can establish decent priorities. Mr. President, if the 
Lautenberg amendment goes to a vote, I will oppose it because I believe 
in this bill there is adequate funding for EPA within the constraints 
imposed by the needs to balance the Federal budget. I think it is time 
for EPA to begin prioritizing and instill management disciplines to 
ensure Federal funds are spent effectively on environmental protection 
activities.
  There have been encouraging words. I have been approached by the 
Democratic leadership. I have had a conversation with my ranking member 
and colleague, Senator Mikulski. They have indicated that perhaps we 
can reach a compromise with the administration. And if the 
administration does not want to play, we will reach a compromise with 
the Senate Democratic leadership on what we are going to do. I am tired 
of guessing what the priorities of the administration are.
  We are more than willing to work in a reasonable manner to allocate 
the funds that are available and to make sure the EPA and the State 
agencies have the funds they need to move ahead as we work on 
reauthorizing and changing Superfund and other programs. If the 
administration is serious, if the Democrats are serious, in case they 
have lost my telephone number, my phone number is 224-5721. I have left 
a lot of messages. They have probably been erased from the e-mail 
screens by now, but I can be reached by fax or by message from the 
cloakroom. I will be waiting for a call.
  This is serious business. It is time that we end the partisan charges 
that I think have been totally unwarranted, and talk about how we can 
pass a measure which actually provides funding within the budget 
constraints to do the vitally important environmental cleanup and 
enforcement work that the people of America have a right to expect.
  Mr. President, because we are hoping there will be further discussion 
of this, we have conferred with the minority side and I have not heard 
objection. I therefore ask unanimous consent that this amendment be 
temporarily laid aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, seeing no other Member seeking the floor, I 
now suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
pending business be set aside so that I might speak for no more than 5 
minutes on the preceding Lautenberg amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  First, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Leahy of Vermont be added 
as a cosponsor of the Lautenberg amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the 
Senator from New Jersey to restore funding for the Environmental 
Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of the 
Interior, and the Department of Agriculture.
  Senator Lautenberg and others have discussed the critical programs of 
environmental protection that would be funded by the amendment in some 
detail. I want to touch very briefly on a few of the key aspects of the 
amendment, particularly the provisions related to funding for 
technology.
  First, Senator Lautenberg's amendment adds back a modest amount of 
funding for environmental technology, $62 million, for a total spending 
on environmental technology of $108 million. Unfortunately, the 
continuing resolution includes only $46 million for spending in this 
critical area.
  Funding for the President's Environmental Technology Initiative, 
which is known as ETI, is slashed from his request by 92 percent to 
only $10 million. Mr. President, the failure of the continuing 
resolution to provide adequate funding for environmental technology is, 
in my opinion, very shortsighted. A small amount of funding on these 
programs can yield enormous savings for our regulated industries while 
providing superior protection for all of our citizens.
  During the current debate on environmental protection, we often hear 
what at first appear to be conflicting messages. Some in the electorate 
clearly want less of the overly bureaucratic, heavy-handed command-and-
control approaches we have turned to too often in the past to protect 
our environment. Those folks want new solutions that rely more on the 
marketplace. They have a good point.
  On the other hand, it is clear that the public's commitment to 
protecting the

[[Page S1923]]

environment has remained very strong, and understandably so. I was 
pleased that at a meeting with my staff recently, representatives of 
the Connecticut Business and Industry Association affirmed their 
support for strong environmental protection laws.
  Of course, that should not be surprising. Folks who run our 
businesses, who are citizens, are as concerned as anyone else about the 
quality of the air they and their families breathe and the water they 
drink or swim in. They want to be good citizens, good corporate 
citizens, of our community.
  What the conflicting messages tell me is that we have to be smarter 
in our approaches to environmental protection, not weaker. That is 
precisely what the Environmental Protection Agency is working toward in 
its Environmental Technology Initiative.
  The program is developing and promoting new approaches to regulation 
and new technologies that will increase our efficiency, cut costs, 
expand exports, and produce a healthy, productive environment for our 
citizens. Under the Environmental Technology Initiative, EPA is working 
with the States to streamline permitting processes and to ensure that 
the permit approval process does not penalize those companies that are 
willing to try new, cheaper solutions involving technological 
improvements in order to control pollution. The National Academy of 
Public Administration's report on improving EPA's programs, mandated by 
the Appropriations Committee, emphasized the need to eliminate 
regulatory and policy barriers hampering use of new technologies.
  Mr. President, 63 percent of the funds proposed by the President for 
the Environmental Technology Initiative would be spent on programs to 
promote just this kind of permit flexibility and other regulatory 
innovative practices. These are the type of programs that the 
Connecticut Business and Industry Association and other businesses are 
telling us they want to help them meet their environmental 
responsibilities in a more efficient manner.
  During the last Congress, I worked with colleagues on ways to promote 
these new, more cost-effective environmental technologies. I learned 
that the single most significant barrier to investment in these new 
technologies is that many of EPA's regulations inadvertently lock in 
the old, existing technologies.
  Under the Environmental Technology Initiative, EPA is working now to 
develop regulations that correct this mistake, that do not lock in any 
one existing technology. They are working at EPA with State and 
nonprofit and Federal laboratories to test and verify the performance 
of these new, promising technologies. We need to make sure that this 
verification program can be expanded.
  EPA is investing in other programs that make good economic and 
environmental sense. One of the most successful environmental programs 
has been the market-based program to reduce emissions contributing to 
acid rain. Studies show that this very exciting new program is yielding 
enormous health benefits while costing the industries regulated by the 
Clean Air Act at least $2 to $3 billion less than estimated at the time 
of enactment of the law. ETI, the Environmental Technology Initiative, 
is investing in programs that will expand market-based approaches. And 
that is exactly what the Lautenberg amendment would support.
  Over the long term, improvements in environmental technology, 
particularly when it comes to pollution prevention, are critical to the 
ability of American companies to compete. Not only do new technologies 
reduce compliance costs but they improve competitiveness by leading to 
greater efficiency. Saturday's New York Times had an exciting article 
about the success of the paper industry in vastly reducing its 
discharges of contaminated water into rivers or streams and in the 
process saving huge amounts of water and energy while still increasing 
production. Those companies have found that this approach provides a 
competitive advantage.
  ETI is working in partnership with industry to develop these cleaner 
technologies. For example, it is working with industry to reduce toxic 
emissions released by metal finishing processes used by more than 3000 
metal finishing facilities nationwide. One of these projects already is 
reducing the use of chromium. Another project aims to slash the time 
EPA takes to approve new technologies that prevent dangerous 
contaminants such as cryptosporidium from entering our drinking water, 
and other technologies that will disinfect the water as well as provide 
quicker confirmation of drinking water safety.
  In other words, at the most basic level, the development of 
innovative environmental technology will enable us to maintain strong 
environmental protection at dramatically lower cost. Involving Federal 
and State agencies such as EPA as partners in this effort is important 
because these agencies should have a good sense of the regulations that 
may be promulgated in the next decade. Working in partnership with the 
Federal Government is the best way to focus technology development on 
areas where the economic and environmental benefits will be the 
greatest. Involvement in technology development will also help increase 
awareness by EPA and other regulatory agencies of what is or is not 
possible from a technology development standpoint as they develop 
regulations.
  ETI is also working with industries to promote the exports and 
diffusion of U.S. technologies throughout the world. There is an 
enormous market for these technologies and U.S. companies should lead. 
In Connecticut, the environmental technology industry--a $2 billion 
industry according to recent reports--has become a major exporter.
  Mr. President, the second provision in Senator Lautenberg's amendment 
that I want to discuss briefly is the add-back for funding for the so-
called Partnership for the New Generation of Vehicles. That is 
sometimes referred to more familiarly as the clean car initiative. This 
is an extremely important and innovative program that has transformed a 
traditional adversarial relationship between industry and Government--
in this case the auto industry--into a relationship that is built on 
common goals and has produced a broad-based cooperation. The goal of 
the program is to develop an attractive, affordable, midsized car, much 
like the Ford Taurus, Chrysler Concorde, or Chevrolet Lumina, which 
achieves up to 80 miles to the gallon. It is mostly recyclable, 
accelerates from zero to 60 miles per hour in 12 seconds.
  The occupant of the chair can remember our youths together, when how 
fast you could go from zero to 60 was truly a measurement of one's 
status in life. This car is aimed to hold comfortably six passengers 
and to meet all safety and emissions requirements and to cost about the 
same as comparably sized cars on the showroom floor.
  This would be a revelation. Up to 80 miles per gallon. The program is 
really a win-win program. Government is working as a partner with 
industry to protect our environment. At the same time, it is 
stimulating new technologies that lead to increased competitiveness for 
American industry in the fiercely competitive international automobile 
marketplace.
  The clean car initiative not only protects the environment, but also 
jobs--high wage jobs--for our work force. This program is cost shared. 
Industry is pulling its own weight. Government funding is used in long 
term precompetitivess research and development. And there is clear 
progress being made toward the program's goals. One representative of 
the partnership told Vice President Gore last year: ``By the end of 
l997, we will narrow the technology focus. By 2000, we will have a 
concept vehicle. And by the year 2004, we will have a production 
prototype.'' He added: ``This is not just about jobs. It is not just 
about technology. It is not just about the environment. It is also 
about a new process of working together, for both industry and 
Government, in ways that have not been attempted before.''
  Again, the Lautenberg amendment pluses up the money available for 
this program. It is a very, very cost-effective investment of public 
funds.
  Mr. President, I want to comment briefly on several other provisions 
in Senator Lautenberg's amendment. I strongly support the restoration 
of funding for the State revolving fund under the Clean Water Act. SRF 
money is critical for Connecticut and particularly Long Island Sound.

[[Page S1924]]

  The SRF program espouses the virtues that the majority has been 
emphasizing this Congress--it provides low interest loans to States to 
meet community based environmental needs and offers flexibility in how 
money is spent. For example, Connecticut has received $170 million in 
Federal funds and has committed over $1 billion in State funds since 
1987 to improve sewage treatment plants.
  In Connecticut, clean water is not just an environmental issue--but 
an economic issue. Long Island Sound, for example, generates 
approximately $5 billion per year for the local economy--through fin 
and shellfish harvest, boating, fishing, hunting, and beach-going 
activities. The commercial oyster harvest is a great example. In l970, 
Connecticut's once thriving shellfish industry was virtually 
nonexistent. Today, its $50 million harvest has the highest value in 
the Nation. This improvement is due in large part to required 
improvements in water quality.
  Our work on cleaning up Long Island Sound, however, has a long way to 
go. Health advisories are still in effect for recreational fish 
consumption, and disease-causing bacterial and viruses have been 
responsible for numerous beach closures. Connecticut still needs 
hundreds of millions of dollars to perform needed improvements on 
public sewage system, which continue to be the largest source of 
pollution for the sound. The total estimated cost of upgrading the 
outdated plants is estimated at $6 to $8 billion.
  I am also very concerned that the comprehensive conservation and 
Management plan for Long Island Sound will be curtailed without 
adequate SRF funding. Through this plan, representatives from EPA, New 
York, Connecticut and other local governments have joined forces with 
businesses, developers, farmers, and environmentalists to work 
cooperatively to upgrade sewage treatment plants, improve stormwater 
management and control non point source runoff. A reduction in SRF 
funds will limit each State's ability to assess local conditions and 
move toward more site-specific and flexible watershed protection 
approaches.
  Inadequate funding of the SRF delays needed improvements in Long 
Island Sound and in other greater water bodies in this country--
improvements that have enormous economic, recreational and 
environmental benefits. That is why I support the additional funding in 
Senator Lautenberg's amendment.
  Finally, I want to express my strong support for the modest additions 
to the funding for climate change. I was pleased to be a cosponsor of 
an amendment offered by Senator Jeffords to restore a significant 
amount of funding for EPA's ozone depletion and global climate change 
programs. But I think it is critical that a minimum there be no 
decrease in EPA's programs from fiscal year 1995 enacted levels. 
Adequate funding for DOE's climate change programs is also critical.
  Mr. President, the new scientific assessment by the world's leading 
scientists concludes that the best evidence suggest that global climate 
change is in progress, that the temperature changes over the last 
century are unlikely to be entirely due to natural causes, and that a 
pattern of climate response to human activities is identifiable in 
observed climate records. The assessment concludes that the incidence 
of floods, droughts, fires and pest outbreaks is expected to increase 
in some regions. For example, we are experiencing a continuing rise in 
average global sea level, which is likely to amount to more than a foot 
and a half by 2010. To bring that home to Connecticut, sea level rises 
of this magnitude along the coast could result in total inundation of 
barrier beaches such as Hammonasset Beach, which is probably our most 
popular State park, and destruction of some coastal property.
  The President's global climate action plan is modest . It commits the 
United States to reducing greenhouse gas emission to l990 levels by the 
year 2000. This is a modest step because our efforts at stabilizing 
emissions is different from stabilizing atmospheric concentrations. 
Constant annual emissions will still increase the total concentration 
of greenhouse gases and heat-trapping capacity of our atmosphere.
  The President's plan relies on voluntary, public private partnerships 
which are based on building a consensus between business and 
Government. It does not rely on command and control regulation. If 
these types of innovative alternatives are to be the basis of our 
future approach to environmental protection, it is critical to support 
the programs now in existence.
  I also strongly support the additional funding for the Department of 
Agriculture's Stewardship Incentive Program. This program provides 
financial and technical assistance to private nonindustrial forest land 
owners to manage their forest land for timber production, wildlife, 
recreation and aesthetics. It is an important nonregulatory incentives 
program for preserving wetlands and endangered species across the 
country that has widespread support, including the Connecticut Forest 
and Park Association.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment 
offered by Senator Lautenberg and Senator Mikulski.
  We have to balance the budget, and everyone has to sacrifice a bit. 
The new Congress does deserve some credit for trying. But it has gone 
about the job in the wrong way.
  It wants to give new tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations. 
And to do that, Congress has threatened a back-door tax increase on 
rural America through higher water rates, and threatened the creation 
of good jobs by turning its back on critical research and development 
in environmental technologies. This amendment will help set things 
right.


                    stopping the back-door water tax

  First, we will help small towns and rural communities meet their 
obligations without slapping folks with higher water bills.
  How do we do that? Well, we provide money for the State revolving 
loan funds. These help communities and water systems treat their sewage 
and provide safe drinking water. Without this fund, these communities 
still have to keep the water safe. But they can only do it by raising 
water rates, sometimes through the roof.
  With this amendment, small towns can keep their drinking water safe 
while keeping water rates low. Without this amendment, many just can 
not do it. So if Congress does not pass the Lautenberg amendment, the 
25 million Americans who get their water from a small drinking water 
system could see a back-door tax increase through higher water bills. 
That includes virtually everyone in rural America.


                       protecting high-wage jobs

  Second, by adopting this amendment we will protect high-wage jobs 
that make our country cleaner, healthier, and more competitive.
  We do it by restoring money for the Environmental Technology 
Initiatives [ETI] at the Environmental Protection Agency. Through this 
program, companies and local governments can participate in research 
and development of new technologies.
  In Montana, small businesses like Yellowstone Environmental Sciences 
in Bozeman and public-private partnerships like the Western 
Environmental Technology Office in Butte are some of the most 
innovative players in addressing our Superfund problems. They are also 
some of the most promising sources of high-wage jobs for the future.
  Elsewhere in America, the ETI Program is verifying the performance of 
new technologies that are suitable to the special cost and performance 
needs of small drinking water systems.
  It is helping to reduce dangerous toxic emissions released by the 
metal finishing processes used by over 3,000 metal finishing facilities 
nationwide.
  It is speeding up approvals of new analytical methods which can 
rapidly determine the nature of contamination at toxic waste sites, and 
make cleanups faster.
  The ETI is a great example of how Government and the private sector 
can cooperatively advance technology while protecting the environment.


                               conclusion

  So we need to balance the budget, but we need to do it the right way. 
This amendment keeps us on the path to a balanced budget while setting 
the priorities straight. It will protect good jobs and prevent Congress 
from imposing a large back-door tax on the average family's water 
rates. It will help make sure our country is the clean, healthy Nation 
our children deserve.

[[Page S1925]]

  I urge support for the Lautenberg-Mikulski amendment.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to speak 
in support of the pending amendment, particularly for restoring 
operating funds for the National Park Service. Without these funds 
millions of Americans will not realize the full majesty and spectacle 
of our national treasures.
  The $72 million restoration provides funding to manage the 
operational needs of our national parks. At its current level of 
funding the Park Service is merely treading water with respect to 
maintaining facilities. Additional funding provides for much-needed 
improvements and repair of our national treasures. This would also 
represent a boon to local economies as more visitors will be able to 
make use of upgraded parks. The proposed offset offered in the 
amendment ensures no additional taxpayer money will be spent. As some 
would seek to keep level funding in the face of increasing costs and 
demands, I think you now see sentiment throughout America that 
recognizes the need to stop irreparable damage being done to our 
national heritage. This funding restoration is necessary to ensure the 
future of a strong, accessible National Park System.
  As you know, I have been a strong advocate of promoting and 
strengthening our national parks. Minnesota is home to a truly wondrous 
area, Voyageurs National Park--the crown jewel of the north. This 
unique water-based park is a pristine wildlife habitat where one can 
see wolves in the wild, bald eagles soaring overhead, and fish breaking 
the water in pastoral settings. Voyageurs provides Minnesotans the 
opportunity to explore this national treasure by boat, snowmobile, 
floatplanes, skiing, or hiking. Last summer I had the privilege of 
boating in the park and I don't believe I've ever been so thrilled with 
the beauty of nature as I was on that trip.
  I want to see more people visit and enjoy this spectacular resource. 
As with other national parks, this cannot happen without adequate 
operating funds, money that will preserve and enhance the beauty of 
jewels like Voyageurs. I have fought to maintain the carefully managed 
multiple use nature of Voyageurs, to address water level problems, to 
achieve better safety for boaters, and at the same time benefit fish 
spawning and wildlife habitat.
  Northern Minnesota has a rich history of individuality; the proud 
people of this area have worked the land and provided for their 
families through toil and sweat. Maintaining and improving facilities 
at Voyageurs, ensuring the multiple-use nature of the park, will allow 
more people to come and enjoy it, bring more jobs to the local economy, 
and lead to economic development. Northern Minnesota deserves it and I 
will work to make it happen.
  Some of my colleagues are all too often willing to turn back the 
environmental clock, to say get rid of Government regulation, to go 
back to the days of unregulated extraction and exploitation of our 
lands. I say we cannot go back, we must preserve nature's wonders for 
generations to come. We cannot back down from the gains we've made in 
protecting our great heritage. This must be a shared responsibility, 
one that accounts for the needs of the many and the few.
  When Congress voted to establish Voyageurs, we said yes to preserving 
this wonderful and pristine resource for all Americans. We said no to 
future lakeshore development, to building homes and putting up private 
property and no trespassing signs. We made a decision to provide 
multiple use recreation in a natural setting, free of development, free 
of timbering and free of the threat of losing this resource. Now we 
have to invest in this resource to ensure that all Americans and their 
children will experience our National Parks.
  We often say that someone has good common sense, but we are losing 
sight of what constitutes common sense--or what makes sense. It makes 
no sense to risk the loss of this treasure. Common sense should compel 
us to guard and protect our parks. Once we walk away--once we fail to 
provide adequate funding, it is too difficult to recover what we have 
lost.
  We must continue to support the gains we've made with respect to our 
national parks. We must maintain and improve the treasures we have set 
aside. We must make them accessible to all, to share the splendor of 
nature.
  Take some time, come to Minnesota, enjoy the beauty of Voyageurs. I 
promise you my friends, once you've experience the wonders of our 
northern jewel, you will support full funding for our national parks 
and you will help to ensure their beauty for generations to come.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the 
amendment before us.
  Americans have a core belief in protecting the environment, 
regardless of party affiliation. They may differ on the means to 
achieve conservation and protection of our natural resources, but they 
are in agreement that we cannot squander or waste this precious 
heritage. In this regard, we are the envy of the world. Few other 
nations have approached protection of the environment in such a 
comprehensive fashion. Our parks, our drinking and waste water systems, 
and our pollution prevention efforts are envied around the world.
  Some seek to rewrite our environmental laws through the budgetary and 
appropriations process, rather than through the more deliberative 
process which gave us those laws. It is surely true that many of these 
statutes could be improved. In fact, I have introduced legislation to 
amend the Clean Air Act because I do not believe that it addresses 
adequately the matter of interstate transportation of air pollution. I 
have supported various bills to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act, the 
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. And, as my colleagues are 
aware, I support improving and reforming the Federal Government's 
rulemaking process. However, I vigorously oppose wholesale changes in 
the bedrock protection principles underpinning these laws. Americans 
will not and should not accept such changes.
  We have made huge strides in reducing pollution of the laws Congress, 
States, and local governments have crafted over the years. Our 
emissions of most toxics have been declining, recycling has become an 
accepted waste management strategy, and we're working hard to develop 
cleaner, more environmentally sound products and manufacturing 
processes. All of these trends have occurred while economic growth 
continues and exports rise.
  There is a new approach to business and management catching on in the 
United States. Industries, businesses, and even governmental units, are 
carefully reviewing their production, procurement, and usage practices 
to root out waste and so become more competitive here and abroad.
  Many experts say, and in some cases I agree, that we have already 
required and adopted the easy, most cost-effective pollution control 
technologies. From here on out, we have to focus more carefully on 
refining our laws to provide flexibility to the regulated community and 
ensure that benefits of any required investments in pollution 
prevention and control outweigh the costs. This is a difficult 
balancing act, but if we can carefully review the basic environmental 
status and very carefully adjust them we will further the goal of 
cheaper, but equally effective protection. The Federal Government can 
and should be an active participant in helping those regulated to 
develop technologies and processes that can meet these cost-effective 
criteria.
  This is the direction that the Congress and the Clinton 
administration, and the Bush administration before it, have begun. 
EPA's resources are now being spent more often on commonsense pollution 
prevention efforts that provide environmental protection and 
flexibility.
  But, rather than continuing that process, the bill seeks to cut items 
that are important priorities for environmental protection and 
conservation. Punitive cuts in Endangered Species Act activity, in Land 
and Water Conservation Fund matching grants to States, in Superfund, in 
environmental technology development, in wastewater treatment grants to 
States, in energy conservation and so forth don't add up to a balanced 
careful approach.
  On a Michigan note, I must continue to express my opposition to the 
bills' reductions in the National Biological Service and its transfer 
to the U.S. Geological Survey, primarily because of its impact on 
research at the Great Lakes Science Center. And, I oppose

[[Page S1926]]

the inclusion by reference of the conference report language 
accompanying the vetoed Commerce, Justice, State bill, which proposed 
transfer of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to the Department of 
Interior.
  Industry leaders, business managers, and local elected officials, 
have internalized the public's unquenchable desire for continued 
progress in environmental protection. That is a real revolution.
  Now, we are halfway through the fiscal year for which this omnibus 
bill is providing funds. The uncertainty of funding has caused 
widespread havoc among local governments, businesses, and States. The 
stop and start approach harms good, solid planning and jeopardizes 
public and private sector jobs. It does not make any sense to do things 
this way.
  Most Americans do not have the luxury of time necessary to fully 
monitor how things are being handled here. They don't know who to blame 
for the holdup of wastewater treatment grants or education loans. But, 
they are tired of the infighting and want it to end.
  Americans want our laws fixed to relieve unnecessary burdens or gross 
inefficiency. But, they will not surrender what they know to be 
theirs--the right to clean air, clean water, and a safe environment.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Lautenberg 
amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Act. It gives the environment 
the high priority it deserves, by restoring some of the most serious 
cuts proposed in the pending bill.
  We need to do all we can to see that the Nation's priceless 
environmental heritage is passed down from generation to generation. 
This amendment offers Republicans and Democrats alike a chance to give 
the environment the priority it deserves.
  It restores needed funds for programs to improve the safety of our 
Nation's drinking water supplies, and helps protect our lakes, rivers, 
and coastal areas from harmful pollutants.
  It maintains the Federal Government's commitment to provide needed 
assistance to communities struggling to meet the requirements of the 
Clean Water Act.
  It gives States and localities the support and flexibility they need 
to bring their water systems into the 21st century.
  In particular, the amendment will restore $190 million for the Clean 
Water Act's State revolving fund, which offers a vital source of 
Federal assistance for wastewater projects across the Nation.
  The cost of implementing clean water mandates has put an 
extraordinary burden on families and businesses in thousands of 
communities.
  In Massachusetts, the cost of these mandates has resulted in water 
and sewer bills that exceed many of my constituents' property taxes. 
Low-income families have had their water shut off because they were 
unable to pay their soaring bills. Some families are now paying $1,600 
a year for water and sewer service, and the rates will continue to rise 
through the end of the decade.
  In the communities of Fall River and New Bedford, businesses that use 
water-intensive processes--particularly textile companies--are 
considering leaving the State, because the projected rate increases 
will put them at a competitive disadvantage. To add insult to injury, 
these communities are also plagued by double-digit unemployment, and 
have not yet recovered from the ongoing economic recession.
  Congress has a responsibility to help ease the burden of their rising 
water and sewer rates by providing additional support for the State 
revolving fund.
  The Lautenberg amendment also adds $75 million in clean water funds 
for the cleanup of Boston Harbor. This addition will bring Federal 
assistance back to the $100 million level of annual support recommended 
by President Clinton and President Bush as well, and provided each year 
by Congress over the past several years.
  Over the course of the past decade, the cleanup of Boston Harbor has 
received strong bipartisan support. Democrats as well as Republicans 
have recognized the crushing financial burden on the 2.5 million 
ratepayers in the area to meet the $3.5 billion in federally mandated 
cleanup costs.
  State funds have been essential as well in bringing relief to these 
ratepayers. In addition, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, 
which oversees the cleanup of Boston Harbor, has successfully worked to 
reduce the costs of the project.
  But continuing Federal assistance remains vitally important for this 
ongoing project, which still has several years to go before completion. 
The project has passed some important milestones already--it has 
reduced harmful metals dumped into the harbor from 3,000 pounds per day 
in 1984 to 500 pounds per day in 1993. It has reduced the number of 
harbor beach closings by 70 percent over the last 4 years. But much 
more remains to be done.
  At the $100 million annual level, Federal assistance meets just 18 
percent of the total Boston Harbor cleanup costs--far below the Federal 
share provided in the past for many other clean water projects 
throughout the United States.
  Finally, the Lautenberg amendment will also restore $175 million to 
the State revolving fund under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This fund 
will, for the first time, provide Federal assistance to States and 
localities to improve their public water systems and ensure the safety 
of their drinking water supplies. Many communities urgently need this 
assistance to comply with Federal law and build new water treatment 
facilities, develop alternative water supplies, and consolidate small 
systems.
  The creation of this revolving fund received the unanimous support of 
the Senate last November, by a vote of 99 to 0. The Lautenberg 
amendment will help make that commitment real and bring relief to 
cities and towns across America.
  Communities across America will benefit from this amendment. This 
Congress should not go down in history as the anti-environment 
Congress. I urge the Senate to give this amendment the overwhelming 
bipartisan support it deserves.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

                          ____________________