[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 3, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5235-S5248]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FAMILY FRIENDLY WORKPLACE ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota has the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I see that I have another 15 minutes to 
speak about this legislation before being able to focus my attention on 
my major priority here today, which is the need to get disaster relief 
to the people in Minnesota and the Dakotas and other States, who 
deserve our help.
  Mr. President, let me read a letter that I think is extremely 
important as we go through and debate this piece of legislation.

       Dear Senator Lott and Senator Daschle: The undersigned 
     national organizations represent many of the working women of 
     today. We believe passage of S. 4, the Family Friendly 
     Workplace Act, fails to offer real flexibility to the working 
     women it purports to help while offering a substantial 
     windfall to employers. We urge you to delay consideration 
     until a real solution can be found which truly meets the 
     needs of working women and families. Nearly half of the work 
     force is women and the number of women working multiple jobs 
     has increased more than four fold in the last 20 years. S. 4 
     would affect hourly workers, and most hourly workers are 
     women. The majority of minimum wage workers are women. Many 
     of these women depend on overtime pay. Many of them want more 
     control of their schedules, not less. Without strong 
     protections for workers, the comptime bill will cut women's 
     options and women's pay. For example--

  And I will just read slowly.

       Someone pressured into taking comp time when she really 
     wants or needs overtime pay is taking an involuntary pay cut;

  Let me repeat that. That's an argument I have been making. These 
organizations which I will list in a moment are right on the mark:

       Someone pressured to taking comp time when she really wants 
     or needs overtime pay is taking an involuntary pay cut[.]

  So, again I would say, when it comes to the enforcement machinery, 
you have to deal with this whole issue.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield in just one moment. I will 
finish reading the letter and I will be pleased to yield:

       . . . supporters argue that S. 4 is voluntary and employees 
     have a ``choice,'' yet working women who have for decades 
     faced subtle (and not-so-subtle) forms of discrimination are 
     all too familiar with the potential consequences of not going 
     along with the employers' wishes: isolation, intimidation and 
     retaliation; and
       . . . because employees do not control when or if they can 
     use their comp time, they are essentially being asked to 
     gamble on the chance that they will be able to take time when 
     it is as valuable to them as overtime pay.

  This is pretty important because my understanding, with Federal 
employees get to make that choice. That is a big difference here:

       . . . because employees do not control when or if they can 
     use their comptime they are essentially being asked to gamble 
     on the chance that they will be able to take time when it is 
     as valuable to them as overtime pay.

  This is my point again. We had an amendment which would improve this 
bill. We could pass this bill which says: Look, you bank that time. 
It's your time. It's your earned compensation. If you have compelling 
reasons that you need that time off, sickness of child, sickness of 
parent--you know, what's in the Family and Medical Leave Act--you 
should be able to take the time off. You should not have to ask the 
employer. It's your time:

       S. 4 must be defeated. Women want flexibility in the 
     workplace, but not at the risk of jeopardizing their overtime 
     pay or the well-established 40 hour work week.
       Sincerely, 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women, 
     American Nurses Association, Business and Professional Women, 
     National Council of Jewish Women, National Women's Law 
     Center, Women's Legal Defense Fund.

  Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
  I might also add there is a coalition of 180 national civil rights, 
religious and working women's organizations which oppose this 
legislation: League of Women Voters, National Women's Political Caucus, 
National Women's Law Center, American Association of University Women, 
National Organization for Women, Women's Legal Defense Fund, National 
Counsel of Senior Citizens, NAACP, National Urban League, National 
Council of La Raza, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Union 
of American Hebrew Congregations, Southern Christian Leadership 
Conference, National Council of Churches.
  Mr. President, in addition, and then I will yield for a question, a 
couple of other organizations: Mechanical Contractors Association of 
America, Incorporated, National Electrical Contractors Association, 
Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association, 
AFL-CIO, American Nurses Association, National Education Association, 
American Federation of Teachers, Union of Needle Industry and Textile 
Employees, Service Employees International Union, Communications 
Workers of America, United Steelworkers of America, Communications 
Workers of America, United Auto Workers, the International Association 
of Machinists, Laborers' International Union of North America, United 
Brotherhood of Carpenters, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 
International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron 
Workers, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
  Mr. President, you know, it has become fashionable to do all this 
bashing of unions, but I have to say this. As a matter of fact, above 
and beyond all these women's organizations, unions really in the last 
half of the century-plus have been the only institutions which have 
consistently represented the bottom half of the population, those 
people who do not own all the capital and do not own the big 
corporations and depend on the wages and depend on being able to get 
overtime when they work overtime, and depend upon being able to bring 
in the resources to support families. It would seem to me, if this was 
such a great deal for working families and for working women, the very 
organizations which represent women and so many working people in this 
country would be all for it. Yet, you have major opposition.
  So, I will be pleased to yield for a question, if the Senator has a 
question. But otherwise I will continue to make the case that this 
legislation, in its present form, is going nowhere. I am sorry for 
that, because my colleague has worked hard on it. But this legislation, 
it really violates some very cherished principles that have to do with

[[Page S5236]]

fairness in the workplace: Decent wages, overtime wages for overtime 
work, and giving employees--employees--employees the flexibility. This 
legislation does not do that, Mr. President.
  Now, Mr. President, since I have not been asked to yield for a 
question----
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask the Senator if he would yield for 
a question? He had indicated earlier he would. If he still is of a mind 
to yield?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I am sorry, I am being careful about keeping the 
floor. I will be pleased to yield for a question.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I ask if the Senator from Minnesota is aware that the 
law would be enforced as it is written and not as it its characterized 
in that letter? I do not have any doubt that people could oppose the 
law as it is represented in that letter that was written by all the 
labor unions. The letter says that a person who takes comptime forever 
loses their right to the money. That is just simply wrong.
  The law provides, not only do you have a choice about whether you 
want comptime, whether you want to be paid time and a half--and that is 
a clear choice and it is a choice that is to be made without any 
coercion, indirect or direct, or intimidation indirect or direct, or 
threatening--but, even after you have made that decision the law 
provides, not the letter but the law provides you can change your mind 
and decide to cash out your benefits. So, if you want the money you 
have the ability to say I am just going to take the money.
  So, my view is I wondered if the Senator were aware of those kinds of 
things?
  Second, if I could ask a second question, I wonder if the Senator is 
aware that there have been a group of people come to the floor over the 
last several hours who have come to me with amendments, some of which 
are specifically directed toward points of concern raised by the 
Senator, but that the Senator is unable to consider them as long as the 
Senator from Minnesota continues to monopolize the floor and to say 
that no one else will have a chance to work constructively on the bill?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me respond to my colleague's second 
question first.
  I am very well aware of the fact that Senators may want to come to 
the floor with amendments and I have said a number of times, and my 
colleague has been here during this long afternoon, I apologize for the 
inconvenience, but, quite frankly, right now my focus is not on whether 
or not some Senators can bring some amendments to this bill.
  My focus is on men, women, and children back in Minnesota, in 
communities, many of whom have been flooded out of their homes, have 
been devastated, many of whom have supported one another, have loved 
one another. And right now they have been waiting and waiting and 
waiting, and waiting, and the House of Representatives went into recess 
and did not pass a disaster relief bill.
  A disaster is a disaster. And an emergency supplemental is an 
emergency supplemental. So I am going to continue to be on the floor 
and I am going to continue to speak. If that means that the Senate 
cannot conduct business as usual, then I say to my colleague, that is 
the way it should be. Because, quite frankly, at this moment, at this 
point in time, my one priority is to fight like heck for people back in 
the State.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I actually will not yield for a 
question right now because I want to respond to the first question 
first.
  Mr. President, I will just say to my colleague--and I put him at a 
disadvantage because I have the floor right now--that based upon my 
knowledge of him, and I do not know his as well as I would like to, I 
think he would be doing the same thing.
  There comes a point in time when you do not have any other choice. 
You have to use your language. You have to be out there fighting for 
people in your State.
  We tried to appeal, I say to my colleague, in answering this 
question, we tried to appeal to common sense. That did not work. We 
tried to appeal to the goodness of people. That did not work. We tried 
to appeal on the basis of ``we have supported you when your States have 
been hit with these disasters and please support us.'' That did not 
work.
  The leadership in the House, if you can call it leadership, did 
something which is unconscionable. They just went into recess. It was 
insensitive. And now I come back and people are still waiting. We do 
not even know whether they are going to do it this week.
  So I say to my colleague, yes, if it means I am inconveniencing 
colleagues, Republicans or Democrats, I am sorry, but this is what I am 
going to do. And, you know, I will be here for a while and I will stay 
at this all week and next week if I have to, as well. I am going to 
fight for people in Minnesota. No apologies.
  By the way, it does not matter to me whether or not the people who 
were flooded out of the homes were Republicans or Democrats or 
Independents or none of the above. They are entitled to some 
assistance, and they are entitled to it now. This Senate is not going 
to be conducting business as usual until we get our priorities 
straight.
  In response to the first question, I guess this is an honest 
disagreement. I mean, this letter says that someone could be pressured 
into taking comptime when she really wants or needs overtime pay. That 
is what I have been talking about. I believe they are right.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. There is a second choice.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. But, Mr. President, the fact of the matter is that it 
is only in theory. My colleague has constructed this theory, and it is 
a theory that employees have a choice. I have organized with people at 
workplaces. I have worked with people who are working under conditions 
that I sometimes say to them, ``Look, you are going to lose your 
hearing. Or, you're breathing in substances that are going to take 
years of your life.'' They said, ``We have no choice. This is the only 
job we can find.'' People do not always have the choice. It is not an 
equal power relationship; that is not the world of the workplace.
  And even if my colleague was right--and I wish he was and this theory 
would turn out to be true and it would be the reality--why not, if you 
want a piece of legislation, why not err on the side of caution? Why 
not have a clear provision as in the alternative by Senators Baucus and 
Kerrey and Landrieu? Why not have clear protection against that 
discrimination?

  The second thing is, you can say that employees are protected from 
coercion, but it is not clear that that protects them from the 
discrimination.
  Mr. President, the third point is whether or not people will be able 
to take their accumulated comptime and use it when they need to. And we 
do not have any guarantee of that in this legislation.
  So, Mr. President, I think that the women's organizations and labor 
organizations that have written their letters and said, look, this is 
not going to help working people, are right on the mark.
  Mr. President, I also want to cover for a moment the differences 
between the Federal workers program and S. 4. Let me just go over some 
things. Federal employees--I will read for a moment--have job 
protections that private sector workers do not. Federal workers are 
covered by civil service rules requiring good cause for discharge or 
discipline. Private employees typically are at-will employees, who an 
employer can fire or discipline for any reason or no reason. As long as 
we are talking about parity, maybe we ought to turn this around.
  Mr. President, I would be pleased to go back to this debate later on. 
But now I want to focus on what I think is the most important priority 
for this Congress, and that is to get disaster relief to people in my 
State and to other States where people have been affected by the 
floods.
  I would like one more time to say, I am sorry. I mean, I apologize to 
my colleague from Missouri, and I apologize to other colleagues for the 
inconvenience. But I have promised myself that I would do everything I 
could do. And I think maybe by speaking on the floor and holding the 
floor, I can get attention to this unfinished business, that I can put 
some pressure on people here--I am just being very honest about it--and 
I can just fight. This is the way you fight.

[[Page S5237]]

  I hope, I say to my colleagues, that this disaster relief bill is put 
on the fast track and that people will get the work done. I want to be 
real clear that this has been, up until the last couple days before the 
Memorial Day recess, the opposite of sour. It was bipartisan. Thank 
you. I mean, thank you, Republicans; thank you, Democrats. We worked 
together. We put together a really good package. Senator Stevens was 
very sensitive and very committed to what we were saying and went out 
of his way to help. The majority leader, Senator Lott, was helping us. 
I do not believe that the House of Representatives being unwilling to 
deal with this, instead going home, was what the majority leader 
wanted. But this is the deck of cards that we have been dealt.
  At this point in time, it is really a moral outrage. I am going to 
stay at this until the Congress does the right thing for the people in 
Minnesota, the people in the Dakotas.
  This is an article written by Nick Coleman, Tim Nelson, and Brian 
Bonner, who are staff writers for the Pioneer Press. This will give 
colleagues a feel for why I am out here. This was written on Saturday, 
April 19, 1997:

       The river won.
       The Red River of the North overwhelmed months of massive 
     efforts to keep it at bay Friday, bursting over, around and 
     through the dikes of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, Minn., 
     surging down evacuated streets and rapidly drowning hundreds 
     of homes.
       Air raid sirens on both sides of the bloated river wailed 
     ominously all day and night as first one dike, then another 
     succumbed to the river, which in a few short hours made a 
     mockery of the effort to contain it.
       Late last night, Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens interrupted 
     local TV programming to urge the entire city of 50,000 people 
     to voluntarily evacuate their homes and businesses and 
     prepare for possible forced evacuation.
       With the Red on the rise last night to a predicted crest of 
     54 feet--a full 25 feet above flood stage--the overmatched 
     dike sagged like the sides of a child's sandcastle at the 
     beach.
       By the end of the day, several abandoned neighborhoods were 
     swamped in roof-high water. After darkness fell, the 
     situation appeared critical: Water had begun to seep up 
     through downtown sewers, and the city's emergency operation 
     center was forced to move from downtown to the outlying 
     University of North Dakota.
       On the Minnesota side, most of East Grand Forks was under 
     order to evacuate and 400 additional National Guardsmen were 
     on the way to aid the city of 8,000.

  And I say to my colleagues, I was there the day that people from East 
Grand Forks evacuated. And the people, they were like refugees. People 
were dazed.

       Normally divided by the Red River, the two cities found 
     themselves joined in misery by a spreading river that knows 
     no borders. At nightfall, the last bridge linking them was 
     nearly submerged.

  A should have said earlier also that one of the amazing things was 
the way in which--and this would be the same thing in Missouri or 
Kansas--people from the adjoining towns took people into their homes. 
It was amazing. People showed up. Even towns with all the rivalry where 
the high schools were always in big football games against one another, 
and people hardly had a good thing to say about one another, partly out 
of rivalry, people just welcomed their neighbors. That was the goodness 
of people.
  That is what is so frustrating. People have done it right. They have 
done exactly what they are supposed to do. They have showed a real 
sense of community. This Congress has showed no sense of community. 
People back in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks and Warren and Ada, you 
name it, and other communities, they have shown a real sense of 
goodness. We have not.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would yield for a question in just a moment.
  Mr. President, I want to continue to read this article first.

       On the Minnesota side, most of East Grand Forks was under 
     order to evacuate--

  Mr. President, I will yield for a question, but just for a question.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. A point of clarification: Is the Senator aware that the 
U.S. Senate passed a supplemental appropriations measure that would 
carry the relief? I think the Senator is aware of that. And when the 
Senator says this Congress has been irresponsible, I wonder if he means 
what the Senate did was irresponsible when it passed that kind of 
relief or----
  Mr. WELLSTONE. First of all, Mr. President, I made it crystal clear 
today that the House----
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Well----
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will say to my colleague, I have the floor. I made 
it clear, Mr. President, that I cannot believe that the House of 
Representatives went into recess. But it is also true--and I have 
thanked colleagues in the Senate for their work--but I am telling you, 
somebody has got to make it clear, and our colleagues from the Dakotas 
feel just as strongly, and they have made it clear, that business as 
usual is not going to go on. We will use our leverage as Senators.
  It is also true, however, that even on the Senate side, on the 
majority side, I am sorry to say, there is the idea that you should 
attach extraneous measures to the disaster bill. That is not 
acceptable. That was in the Senate bill.
  All this discussion about a CR, good people back in our States do not 
understand what in the world people are doing playing games. That is 
why I talk about this Congress.
  Now, Mr. President, Let me go on.

       Normally divided by the Red River, the two cities found 
     themselves joined in misery by a spreading river that knows 
     no borders. At nightfall, the last bridge linking them was 
     nearly submerged.
       Soon after that, the National Weather Service issued an 
     ominous assessment, raising the crest forecast by a foot. 
     ``This situation is unlike any flooding conditions ever 
     experienced in eastern North Dakota and northwest 
     Minnesota.'' Confounded by the effects of overland flooding 
     and a rapid melt, it was the fifth time in five days that the 
     Weather Service had revised the crest forecast.
       It didn't take an official bulletin to inform Grand Forks 
     residents they were in deep trouble.

  What was so sad about this, I had visited several times earlier and 
people did everything they could. There were high school kids out there 
sandbagging. It was a great community effort. People were working day 
and night. They started very early on. We knew we had a lot of snow. 
People were worried about this. They did everything they could to get 
ready for this.

       It didn't take an official bulletin to inform Grand Fork 
     residents they were in deep trouble.
       The scene in the deserted Lincoln Park area of Grand Forks 
     Friday afternoon was one of almost eerie splendor, with the 
     sound of rushing streams of water drowning out all other 
     noises except the whumping of Coast Guard helicopters 
     overhead and the sirens. If it weren't for the fact that 
     hundreds of homes were being devastated while their helpless 
     owners waited out the flood in safety, you would think you 
     were on the banks of an untamed northern river.
       And you'd be right.
       Millions of sandbags, millions of dollars, hundreds of 
     thousands of hours and months of planning were not enough. 
     Bolstered by a rise in the Red Lake River, which flows into 
     the Red at East Grand Forks, as well as by unprecedented 
     overland flooding to the south--upstream on the north-flowing 
     river, the Red surpassed all expectations and its dikes with 
     an ease that was awe-inspiring to witness.
       Water spilling over the dike several blocks to the south 
     was rushing knee-high along Lanark Avenue, then cascading 
     down a block-long stretch of pavement that has been 
     transformed into a foaming spillway.
       A few blocks away, the surging river poured over a 12-foot-
     high dike on Lincoln Drive, roaring like a waterfall and 
     threatening to burst, unleashing the massive amount of flood 
     water that had been held back by the dikes until yesterday.
       Fireplace logs, plastic snowmen, sofa cushions, and chunks 
     of ice drifted past in the rapid current, sweeping past 
     stacks of sandbags, shovels and piles of sand. ``We're sad 
     about our city and what's happening,'' Grand Forks Mayor Pat 
     Owens said tearfully. ``It is very devastating to all of us. 
     If I were to say one thing to the people of Grand Forks it 
     would be keep the faith and we will make it through.''
       Under a bright spring sky, with lovely cumulus clouds on 
     the horizon and birds singing nesting songs, Grand Forks was 
     receiving the pent-up wrath of a winter of record cold and 
     snow. Temperatures soared into the low 60's for the first 
     time in April and residents of Grand Forks dressed in short 
     sleeves as they turned out by the thousands in one last-ditch 
     effort to hold some of the dikes.
       All nonessential businesses were asked to close and to 
     steer their employees towards the front lines. Cars, pickups 
     and National Guard trucks raced up and down the muddy streets 
     of Grand Forks, giving the city the look of a wartime 
     capital.
       The scene in a packed McDonald's restaurant on South 
     Washington Street seemed right out of a disaster movie. A 
     woman, her sweatshirt caked with mud, sobbed as she embraced 
     a friend and told him that her house in the Riverside Park 
     area of the town was inundated.
       Other muddy-booted patrons stood in line for a hot meal 
     while, in the background, a

[[Page S5238]]

     TV emergency channel blared the latest warnings.
       ``Riverside, Central Park, Lincoln Park areas, please leave 
     at once,'' the message said. ``Critical areas at this time 
     are the Olson Drive and Elmwood Drive areas. Take with you 
     medication, pillow, blankets, immediate clothing needs.''
       Evacuation at dawn.
       Evacuations along the Red River started before dawn: at 
     5:45 a.m., the City of Grand Forks sounded emergency sirens--
     even though almost 1,000 people in the lowest area of the 
     city had left their homes hours before.
       Authorities did, however, have to clear out a nursing home, 
     relocating 106 elderly residents to the library of an 
     elementary school a few blocks away.
       All told, 2,000 residents of nearly 800 homes along the 
     river in Grand Forks had been ordered to leave after the 
     river starting pouring over the dike south of downtown.
       By 10 a.m. the water was running knee deep in the streets, 
     and by evening, it was lapping against the windowsills of a 
     handful of the lowest homes.
       Officials estimated that more than 4,000 people--nearly 10 
     percent of this city's 50,000 residents--would have to find 
     shelter elsewhere Friday night, and even more were moving 
     away from an expected break in the city's Riverside dike. At 
     9 p.m., officials ordered the southern end of downtown Grand 
     Forks to evacuate. A few hours later, the mayor made an 
     appeal for everyone in the city to leave.
       The Minnesota side.
       On the other side of the river, East Grand Forks authority 
     sent police cars through streets before dawn, exhorting the 
     city's 9,000 residents to wake up and go immediately to the 
     city's sandbagging facility to start filling bags.
       The levees on the Minnesota side of the Red River started 
     giving way Friday morning, prompting frantic sandbagging in 
     the city's Point neighborhood. It had been cut off after the 
     Red Lake River--a tributary that is one half of the area's 
     famed forks--turned out of its channel and started running 
     overland.
       Gary Sanders, a consulting engineer who works for East 
     Grand Forks, Minn., estimated that as many as a third of that 
     city's homes might have to be evacuated. He and other 
     officials spent much of the day struggling to stem the 
     breaches in the city's dikes, hoping that massive pumps might 
     be able to drain the area of the city along the river.
       A sandbagging operation in East Grand Forks turned into a 
     crisis at midafternoon Friday, when part of a dike holding 
     back the Red Lake River gave way. It sent water gushing 
     through a neighborhood just south of the Louis A. Murray 
     Bridge.
       Dozens of emergency crews with heavy machinery rushed first 
     to repair the breach and then to evacuate dozens of residents 
     from their homes. Polk County Sheriff Douglas Qualley 
     eyeballed Murray Bridge and expressed concern about whether 
     it would hold.
       There was reason for concern.
       ``We had just got done shoring up on the west side of the 
     bridge,'' said [a volunteer]. ``We went to take a break, and 
     all of a sudden it just started coming in.''

  Mr. President, that was another impressive thing. Not only the high 
school students, but the ways in which all of the students--university, 
college, vo-tech, community college students--were out there 
volunteering. It is just incredible the way in which the worst of times 
can bring out the best in people. Sometimes I wish it would not take 
the worst in times. I wish we would all be like that all the time. But 
the students were great, really a great help.

       Within 20 minutes, the southern section of the bridge was 
     submerged and water--sometimes settling to depths of five 
     feet--rushed south down Third Avenue Southeast.
       Jim Maughton, an Army National Guardsman working on the 
     bridge, said water gushed at ``10,000 gallons a minute'' at 
     its peak.
       Vince and Sue Taylor, carrying a couple of plastic bags, 
     trudged along with their two children.
  Mr. President, that gives you a feel for some of what was happening. 
This is Sunday, April 20, 1997.

       A city was sinking in the night.
       Occasional bursts of eerie blue light in the black sky 
     signaled the demise of electrical transformers.
       Water boiled up from the sewers, spurting in fountains that 
     were quickly submerged in rising water as the river sought to 
     equalize itself on both sides of failing dikes.
       Downtown Grand Forks was going under. Dikes were giving way 
     along both sides of the Red River of the North.
       Like some proud ocean liner fatally damaged by an iceberg, 
     Grant Forks was dead in the water, filling up fast. And there 
     was not a thing anyone could do but leave.
       Everywhere, between the warble of the sirens, emergency 
     vehicles splashed through the streets, blaring warnings over 
     loudspeakers. ``All residents are ordered to evacuate this 
     area. Get out now!''
       Signs in dorm windows at the University of North Dakota 
     said, ``Build the ark.'' But arks weren't necessary in the 
     darkness separating Friday from Saturday, struggle from 
     catastrophe, hope from despair.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I only yield for a question, I do not 
yield the floor.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield only for a question.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator for yielding for a question with 
the understanding he retains the floor after the question is asked.
  Both the House and Senate passed the emergency supplemental 
appropriations bills. Conferees have been appointed by both of the 
Houses, but the conferees must report out a conference report which 
must go to the House of Representatives first for passage before 
ultimately the Senate gets a chance to act on it.
  Now the Senator, by expressing his concern in such a lengthy way--
over concern, obviously, for individuals for whom we have great 
sympathy--the Senator blocks the Senate from doing its business even 
though the Senate cannot act on the emergency supplemental 
appropriations bill at this point in time.
  Is the Senator aware of the fact that we are being kept from doing 
our business which is appropriate for us to do and that it is now 
impossible for us to act on a matter of greatest concern to him?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague that actually the conference 
committee is meeting to do their work right now and that goes on right 
now. Believe me you, when the conference committee finishes its work 
and we get this piece of legislation, then we will move on it right 
away and I will not be on the floor then. I think my colleague confuses 
matters a little bit in the terms of the sequence of all of this.
  I remind my colleague one more time that the only reason--we should 
not be ahistoric. We only have to go to the question, why am I on the 
floor now? The only reason I am on the floor is because after all the 
work that we did in a bipartisan way to get help to people who really 
needed some certainty that they would receive some assistance, the 
House of Representatives' leadership decided not to do the work. They 
did not agree to let through what we do not disagree on. They did not 
do their work, and they went on vacation.
  Now we are back here and I am on the floor of the Senate today, you 
bet, to signal to colleagues in the House and my colleagues here, let's 
get it done and get this bill out and stop playing games.
  As to the inconvenience, toward my colleagues on other legislation 
which is important, I am really sorry, but in all due respect I do not 
think there is anybody here that is as inconvenienced by my holding the 
floor for a little bit of time today as are the people of Minnesota and 
the Dakotas. They are in the ones inconvenienced. They were 
inconvenienced by the House leadership refusing to do the work and just 
going on vacation. They have been inconvenienced by the games that 
people have played with this, attaching amendments dealing with a 
continuing resolution. People do not know a thing about continuing 
resolutions in Grand Forks or East Grant Forks nor should they have to.

  They have been inconvenienced by other amendments that have been put 
on this bill.
  I refer back to the St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial, in which the 
argument was made that it was important to stop playing games.
  Mr. President, people are not stupid. People are intelligent. They 
know full well when they see Representatives or Senators using their 
pain as leverage. They know what is going on.
  So, Mr. President, I again read an editorial. Believe me, there are 
plenty of editorials like this in papers in our States.

       Congress can't resist political gamesmanship.
       Congress has breezed out of town, leaving Washington for a 
     long holiday recess. Despite evidence to the contrary, 
     congressional bigwigs figured satisfying their political egos 
     was more important than expediting flood relief legislation 
     that would aid, among other backwaters, Minnesota and the 
     Dakotas.

  So, Mr. President, let me just be crystal clear about what is going 
on here. I come to the floor today to focus on priorities. And the 
priority should be simple. The priority for the House of

[[Page S5239]]

Representatives and the Senate, for the conference committee, for our 
Congress this week, should be to pass a disaster relief bill. And I am 
going to make it very difficult for people to conduct business as usual 
until we do that. I think the Chair would do the same thing if it was 
Kansas. I really do. I am sorry to speak for the Chair. I know he can't 
speak. But I really think that it doesn't have a heck of a lot to do 
with party. It just has a lot to do with you just do what you can do to 
fight the people, and this is the way for me to do it.
  Mr. President, since I have spoken a lot about what has not happened 
so far and what needs to happen, let me talk a little bit about 
Breckenridge. I have not spoken much about Breckenridge, MN.

       In the dark, water lapped up the streets, moving as 
     inexorably as the hands on a clock.

  This is a piece, again, in the Pioneer Press by Nick Coleman.

       Breckenridge was going under; the flood had outflanked the 
     city's dikes.
       In the worst flooding so far this season, hundreds of homes 
     and businesses on the south side of Breckenridge were caught 
     by a rapidly rising second flood crest that took the city 
     off-guard and quickly became more devastating than the first 
     wave of flooding that hit 10 days ago.
       Bleary-eyed city officials, assisted by bone-tired troops 
     from the Minnesota Army National Guard, evacuated 400 
     residents Monday night and Tuesday, trying desperately to 
     keep the city of 3,700 from going completely under.

  Mr. President, I would really like to thank the National Guard. I 
have not done that today. They have done a great job. It is incredible.
  So many people back in Minnesota and the Dakotas have done a great 
job, and we have done such a miserable job here. I am not delaying 
disaster relief. My colleagues are delaying disaster relief. And as 
soon as the supplemental bill is ready to bring before the Senate, 
bring it before the Senate. Believe me, I will not stand in its way. 
This is entirely in the hands of my colleagues. It is entirely in the 
hands of my colleagues what happens. And I intend to be on this floor 
for some period of time to make it crystal clear that I am not going to 
be silent until we do the right thing here. It is that simple.
  I ought to add that tomorrow evening the flood Senators will come to 
the floor and speak from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. on the need for disaster 
assistance. I will get a chance to speak at 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Do you 
know that 3 hours isn't enough time? I mean, there isn't enough time to 
try and make the case to my colleagues to do the right thing and please 
get the help to people.

       By Tuesday evening, parts of south Breckenridge were under 
     5 or more feet of water and the floodwaters continued to 
     swell. The water was so deep that when a 5-ton Army truck 
     veered off the curb, a National Guardsman was shoulder deep 
     in the driver's seat, craning his neck to keep his chin above 
     water and reaching down to the submerged gears to drive it 
     out. An exhaust stack kept if from stalling.
       Residents dumped loads of dirt near a railroad line that 
     cuts across town, hoping to stop the flood halfway through 
     the city.
       But officials worried the flood would encircle them from 
     the north. Efforts to sandbag around a nursing home failed 
     after a night of effort.
       Dorothy Pierce, 77, came out of her house on the strong 
     back of a 19-year-old National Guard trooper named Conrad 
     Anderson, a specialist with the Duluth-based Co. C of the 
     434th Main Supply Battalion. Anderson ferried Pierce from her 
     house on Second Street through the darkness in hip-high water 
     to the safety of a Guard truck.
       ``I just moved here from Nebraska in November,'' Pierce 
     said while sitting uncomfortably on a canvas tarp in the back 
     of the truck as it made its bumpy way back to high ground. 
     ``We don't do stuff like this in Nebraska. I got here just in 
     time for the biggest blizzard I ever saw and the only flood I 
     ever saw.''
       Evacuated with Pierce was her son, Lonnie, his wife, 
     Debbie, and the couple's three young children, Jena, 8, 
     Donald, 6, and Dillon, 2. The children, sitting on the floor 
     and clutching their mom, could be heard crying in the pitch-
     black covered troop carrier as it drove through the flood.
       Mama, I'm scared and I'm cold and it's dark,'' Jena said to 
     Debbie Pierce. ``There's nothing to be scared of,'' Debbie 
     Pierce reassured her children, hugging them tight. ``We're 
     all safe.''
       But under a hazy half moon and in a biting chill, 
     Breckenridge was on red alert.
       Crews of sandbaggers labored through the night Monday in a 
     vain attempt to stave off the wandering Bois de Sioux River, 
     which jumped its banks and went overland, creeping into the 
     city from the unprotected southeastern side.
       Everywhere, diesel engines throbbed as dump trucks carrying 
     sand, flatbed trucks carrying as many as 50 volunteer 
     sandbaggers and National Guard trucks on midnight mercy 
     missions roared up and down the streets and slogged into the 
     rising tide.
       But the situation was critical, the weather nasty and the 
     outcome in doubt.
       ``We face a real possibility of the whole town going 
     under,'' police Chief Dennis Milbrandt told the National 
     Guard's Col. Gary Sigfrinius Tuesday morning as crews 
     prepared to construct a makeshift dirt dike along the 
     railroad tracks that separate the city's north and south 
     sides.
       Nearby, three 5-ton Army trucks slowly splashed through 
     cab-high waters on Fifth Street, carrying 41 elderly 
     residents of a senior citizens apartment building that was 
     being evacuated as water poured into the first floor.
       Reaching the still-dry railroad tracks, the gray-haired 
     evacuees, clutching suitcases and wearing blankets to ward 
     off the 30-degree temperatures and 7-degree wind chill, were 
     helped off by teen-age Guard troops.
       ``I never thought I'd have to be fed by the Red Cross,'' 
     said 79-year-old Margaret Olson as she was lifted in her 
     wheelchair from the back of an Army truck. ``I've had three 
     strokes and colon cancer but this is something very different 
     and I'm happy to be on dry ground again.''
       Lonnie Pierce, Breckenridge's utility director, said the 
     rapid rise of the floodwaters had inundated both his family's 
     home and his mother's home. After hours of battling with sump 
     pumps and sandbags to try to save their homes, the Pierces 
     had been forced to make a choice: Save the family or save the 
     house.
       ``It came in awful quick here, awful high,'' said Pierce, 
     36. ``Christ Almighty, we'll lose a lot of houses,'' he said, 
     peering out the back of the truck as it chugged slowly past 
     the silent, flooded homes of his neighbors, pushing a gentle 
     wake through the black waters that lapped against the houses.
       ``There's just no end to this. We haven't gotten one break. 
     All this water was out there and we couldn't do anything 
     about it. It was bound to come.''
       Located where two swollen rivers--the Bois de Sioux and the 
     Otter Tail--join to form the Red River of the North, 
     Breckenridge picked a poor campsite.
       Forecasters thought the Red River's record crest of 19.18 
     feet at Breckenridge last week was as high as if was going to 
     get. But the river was at 19.10 and rising at midday Tuesday, 
     with officials fearing it could pass 20 feet.
       The first round of flooding damaged the city's north side, 
     as the Otter Tail River overflowed. This time, it is the Bois 
     de Sioux cascading into ``South Breck,'' as residents here 
     call the south side of the city.

  I am going to go on, Mr. President, and read just for the Chair. I 
have been speaking this afternoon about a couple of different issues. 
But most of the time I have been focusing on the need to get disaster 
relief to my home. I again apologize to my colleagues who have not been 
able to bring amendments to the floor and to those who came and maybe 
didn't want to hear one speaker speak all day. But this is just an 
impossible situation.
  I mean we have had people that have been flooded out of their homes. 
Almost everybody in East Grand Forks had to leave. We have schools and 
hospitals destroyed in towns like Ada, and people have done everything 
right. They have supported one another. And we are supposed to get some 
relief to them. Instead, people have been playing political games in 
the House of Representatives. Rather than getting the work done, they 
went on vacation. They went on recess. They didn't even have the 
decency to provide the assistance to people.
  Now we are back in conference committee, and people are playing 
games.
  So I am using my leverage as a Senator to be out here and to say we 
are not going to have business as usual for a while, and I am going to 
fight for people in my State. That is why I am out here reading about 
this flooding.

       This flooding is much more severe than the first and the 
     potential is worse yet: Breckenridge is looking down a three-
     barreled gun, with the possibility that the Red, the Bois de 
     Sioux and the Otter Tail may meet in the middle of town.
       ``This whole year has just sucked,'' said Beth Meyer, a 35-
     year-old hairstylist who rode a National Guard truck into her 
     flooded Seventh Street home after midnight to help evaluate 
     her 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, and the family poodle, 
     Whitney Houston.
       Meyer's husband, Mark, and 13-year-old son, Kyle, remained 
     behind, sandbagging and pumping to try to save the house.
       In January, the roof caved in on the salon where Meyer 
     works in Wahpeton, ND, across the Red River from 
     Breckenridge. For the past three weeks, the Meyers and other 
     South Breck residents have gone without phone service and 
     been forced to go to an emergency phone bank outside the 
     Wilkin County Courthouse, which itself was closed by 
     floodwaters Tuesday.
       The National Guard has taken over the school where the 
     Meyer children already

[[Page S5240]]

     have missed four weeks due to blizzards and flooding. And 
     since the first flood crest hit the city 10 days ago, the 
     family has not been able to flush its toilets. If they needed 
     to relieve themselves, cans were required.
       Wearing a heavy Army jacket lent to her by a trooper, Beth 
     Meyer maintained an exasperated sense of humor about the 
     never-ending battle.
       ``We call this the Year from Hell,'' Meyer said as she 
     gathered up her daughter in the dark.
       ``We're the South Breck Islanders. We're already talking 
     about the party we're going to have this summer, if it ever 
     dries out. We're all going to get together for an island 
     party and we're going to have a little rubber pool in the 
     middle of the street. With a sump pump in it.''
       ``This is very scary stuff,'' said Scott Wermerskirchen, a 
     35-year-old science teacher who was helping out at a 
     barricade Monday night. ``I don't want to think about what 
     will happen if we get an inch of rain. We might as well write 
     a big check and shut the town down.''
       Although Breckenridge was continuing the fight, there was a 
     palpable edge of discouragement in the chilly air Monday 
     night and Tuesday morning, with the mood of the residents 
     deflating with each increase in the water level.
       ``We got up this morning thinking we didn't have anything 
     to worry about,'' said Kirk Peterson as he navigated in a 
     fishing boat through the 5 feet of water in his back yard at 
     2 a.m. Tuesday.
       The floodwater was almost up to the top of his garage door 
     and was running through the first floor of the house where he 
     and his wife, Jackie, live on Second Street.
       ``So much for finished oak floors,'' Peterson said acidly, 
     using a flashlight to peer through the window in to his 
     darkened home.
       Peterson, a salesman, and his wife are ``River Rats,'' 
     meaning they belong to a Department of Natural Resources 
     program designed to preserve and clean up state rivers. With 
     his flashlight, Peterson illuminated a sign in his flooded 
     window: ``Please Keep the River Clean,'' it said.
       Peterson and a friend, Errow Hensch, maneuvered their boat 
     to a clothes pole in the back yard. Monday morning, when he 
     first measured the rising waters, 11 inches of the pole were 
     under water. By 8 p.m., 51 inches were under. And at 2 a.m. 
     Tuesday, as his boat bumped against passing ice chunks and 
     the strangely orange moon glittered off the water, the tide 
     had risen to an even 5 feet.
       ``I hate to say it, but I wonder whether this whole city 
     won't really go under,'' Peterson said as he steered the boat 
     to help rescue a neighbor, Dave Shockley. ``If we were smart, 
     we would all have moved out in February.''

  Mr. President, as it turns out, Breckenridge was hit hard with 
flooding but not totally flooded out, and people are rebuilding and 
people are celebrating. Yes, they are celebrating the help that they 
gave one another. And I say to the Chair, because I know of his own 
small business background and his commitment to small business, it was 
in Breckenridge that I really first got a feel for what the small 
business people were thinking about. They took me to their businesses 
which had just been destroyed by the flooding, and they said to me, 
look, Paul, or Senator, we are hearing about the Federal Emergency 
Management assistance, and we know they can do some repair for the 
infrastructure in the town, and then we are hearing about the Small 
Business Administration loans, but we can't cash-flow loans. It will 
not do us any good at all.
  So all of us in a bipartisan effort got together, and we put together 
a good disaster relief bill with about $500 million in CDBG money for 
all the States affected. But this CDBG money was going to give the 
States, Mr. President, the flexibility to get some direct grant money 
to some of the businesses, and homeowners who needed it who could not 
cash-flow any more loans.
  And that is what people are still waiting on. People do not know 
whether or not they are part of a buyout if they are living in a 
floodplain. People wonder, do we leave or do we stay? If we leave, are 
we going to have assistance? Is that coming? The State cannot make 
plans to do that. The cities cannot make plans to do that. The small 
businesses are still waiting. People are getting discouraged, and 
people are getting pretty angry. Frankly, they are probably angry at 
all of us. They are probably angry at all of us except for some of my 
colleagues from North Dakota, who have just been out here over and over 
again, and South Dakota and some of the other States; they have been 
speaking out.
  But people just cannot understand the code here. They cannot figure 
it out. I think what people are thinking is, look, it is simple--in 
fact, it is a little embarrassing to me because after we passed that 
disaster relief bill, I was so excited I did what I think the Senator 
from Wyoming would do. I got on the phone and had a conference call 
with lots of the small papers in smaller communities--big communities 
and big papers in heart--and I said we have passed this; it really 
looks good. And then, all of a sudden, all of a sudden now we have the 
games being played and people are thinking, well, we have leverage on 
this. We want to have leverage later on on the budget and on the 
appropriations bills so we have to have a continuing resolution.
  You can do that separately. Do it on something else. Just do not play 
around with the lives of people who are really in a lot of pain.
  Now, as I said earlier, if I cannot persuade people to just please 
back off of that for now, then get the work done right now and pass 
this bill and get it to the President. The President is going to veto 
it. He already said he was because of the continuing resolution. So the 
President will veto it. He has to do that. And then you can show that 
the President vetoed it and maybe you have embarrassed him, if that is 
what you are trying to do, and then let us pass it clean. Let us get 
all the provisions off this bill that do not have anything to do with 
making sure that people can rebuild their lives in Minnesota and the 
Dakotas.
  That is all people are asking. So if you want to play your game, play 
it. I do not think you should, but if you want to play your game, play 
it, but why don't you play it in the next couple days. Because I will 
tell you something, if not, at least on the Senate side, whenever I 
have an opportunity to be out here and hold the floor, I am going to do 
it and we are not going to do a lot; we are not going to do much else. 
I put the people from East Grant Forks right now ahead of my colleagues 
in the Senate. I just think that Mayor Stauss and Mayor Owens and other 
mayors have waited too long. So whatever we need to do, whatever I need 
to do as a Senator, I am going to do.
  Mr. President, this is another piece. And there has been some really 
good writing because the journalists that were covering this, they saw 
the pain. They knew what it was in personal terms. They saw the courage 
of people. They saw the devastation, but they saw just that incredible 
determination.

  But for some reason here in Washington, DC, starting with that 
``leadership'' in the House--I say leadership in quotes; we never 
translate it into personal terms--the leadership in the House decided 
to go on vacation. It is not what the majority leader of the Senate 
wanted them to do. It is not what my colleagues here wanted them to do, 
but that is what they did.
  That is why I am in the Chamber. And now I am reading that we may not 
pass this this week. That is just outrageous. So, Mr. President, just 
so my colleagues know, I probably will maybe stay in the Chamber for 
about another 50 minutes or so, up to about 7 o'clock, and then I think 
I will have had time to talk about this today, and I will come back 
tomorrow and figure out a way of getting in the Chamber again, if I 
can.
  By the way, Mr. President, I really should also mention that--I 
mentioned FEMA, James Lee Witt. I also wish to thank SBA, the Small 
Business Administration. What I said about some of the businesses that 
are worrying about cash-flowing more loans is true. But SBA, they have 
been on the ground. They have tried to help. The State people have been 
marvelous. The State office, Jim Franklin at emergency management 
assistance, that office has been great. Legislators have cared. The 
Governor has cared. Really, in our States, we are just forgetting the 
party part, trying to help people. And I want to just make it clear 
that a lot of people deserve a lot of thanks.
  So, Mr. President, I will continue to talk about this. I want to make 
note of the fact that Senator Dorgan had come down to the floor 
earlier, and he is right now tied up in a meeting on the disaster 
conference report. They are in conference, meeting on it, getting ready 
for it, and that is going to be key. We are going to need Senator 
Dorgan's help. But I would just say to members of the committee, thank 
you for your commitment. The good news is we worked together in a 
bipartisan way and we had something good going and people really 
appreciated it and we

[[Page S5241]]

did exactly what we are supposed to do: provide people with some 
relief.
  The bad news is then people started playing games, and then people 
decided not to even finish their work and had the insensitivity and the 
gall to just go home, go home. It is amazing to me how some people can 
be so generous with the suffering of others. Can you imagine a group of 
legislators--and now, I say to my colleague from Missouri, I am 
speaking specifically about leadership in the House--saying, oh, well, 
you know, we got these disagreements and we can't get our work done. We 
can't resolve this. So they go home. That is being very generous with 
the suffering of a whole lot of people in the country, including people 
in Minnesota.
  Well, Mr. President, we can have all of these arguments about what is 
in the pipeline, what is not in the pipeline. We heard from Mr. Raines 
today from the Office of Management and Budget that a lot of this, a 
lot of this money is not going to get out there to the communities.
  I talked earlier about buyouts in construction. I told you Minnesota 
is a cold-weather State. We have to get the work done now because come 
mid-October or the end of October, we are not going to have time to do 
this at all. So one more time I would say to my colleagues, some of 
whom have been inconvenienced today, I apologize, but, in all due 
respect, the problem of time is a bigger problem for the people in 
Minnesota and North Dakota because time is certainly not on their side.
  Think about this. There was a piece that I read earlier about the 
little girl who just sort of had a vacant look in her eyes and was 
really looking down and not playing like you hope and pray a child 
would play. We know what has happened. Just imagine, I say to people, 
what it would be like to be completely wiped out with a flood and no 
longer have your home and be homeless and then people in other towns 
take you in. That is Minnesota. But I bet you it is every State. I love 
to brag about Minnesota, but I bet it is in every State. The goodness 
of people comes out and people take families in and all the rest. But 
it is hard for families because you go back, now the water has receded, 
now you have to go back to your homes and now you have to look at this 
devastation and there it is before you. And you do not know what is 
going to happen next.

  If you have lived in the floodplain, are you now going to move? If 
you haven't, are you going to have the money to rebuild your home? And 
you are just there and you do not know where you stand. And you hear 
that the Federal Government is going to help.
  You better believe that over the years when my colleagues have come 
to the floor from Missouri or from California or from Florida and they 
have said we need help, there has not even been any question in my 
mind.
  Well, that is the situation right now. The only question is, where is 
the soul of the Congress. I say to my colleague from Missouri, where is 
the soul of the leadership of the House of Representatives, who do not 
even get the work done and send back a bill to us. Well, this time, 
this week there is going to be a conference committee and they are 
going to do the work. I feel they will do the work. I believe my 
colleagues will spearhead that. We are going to get this done. And as I 
said before, the best of all worlds will be, please, just keep all the 
extraneous political stuff off. Let's just pass a clean disaster relief 
bill and get the money out there to people, get the help out there to 
people.

  Mr. President, let me just read about Chip Rankin. I started to talk 
about him.

       [He] looked tired in his National Guard fatigues, stood in 
     the pulpit of the Immanuel Lutheran Church on Sunday, reading 
     aloud from the Gospel of St. Luke, [this is from the Pioneer 
     Press of April 14] recounting how the apostles, frightened by 
     a storm on the Sea of Galilee, wake Jesus from a nap and beg 
     him to rebuke the raging waves.
       An hour later, the 22-year-old wrestler--

  Mr. President, did you hear that? Wrestler. Now we're really talking.

       At the University of Minnesota-Duluth would find himself in 
     troubled waters.

  By the way, Mr. President, while I am speaking about wrestling, the 
University of Minnesota-Duluth had their wrestling program shut down. 
It was a real shame. The title IX program is a great program. I mean, 
as a father of a daughter who loves athletics and is a good athlete, 
and having one granddaughter, the idea of full participation of girls 
and women in athletics is right on the mark. But the shame of it is, in 
a lot of these schools, in order to reach parity, what they do is go 
after the minor men's sports, the sports that don't have the clout. 
It's a political issue, I say to my colleagues. The University of 
Minnesota lost their wrestling program. A real shame.
  Mr. President, I am not without my biases, since I wrestled and love 
wrestling. I do think it is a real shame. There has to be some way to 
make sure this doesn't happen around the country. It is so unfair, 
gymnastics, swimming, other minor sports--who gets to define what's a 
minor sport? Baseball.

       Rankin and a Guard sergeant were caught in a frightening 
     torrent of water that threatened to wash his 2\1/2\-ton troop 
     truck off a Norman County highway and into a forbidding sea 
     of ice and water. Rankin's truck lurched and sagged, plunging 
     into holes that were rapidly forming in the crumbling highway 
     while a Hovercraft and men with ropes stood by in case they 
     had to attempt a desperate rescue in the icy current.
       God, and the National Guard, would come through. But it was 
     close.
       To some, it might sound like just another day on the Red 
     River of the North, this spring of record flood. But it 
     wasn't just another day. It was the Lord's day. A day when 
     the weary people of Hendrum--those who haven't fled the 
     flood--paused in their struggle against the water that 
     surrounds them on three sides to worship in an extraordinary 
     ecumenical service.

  This was written by Nick Coleman. ``Faith and the flood. It was a 
time of prayer, reflection and drama as Sunday came to the Red River of 
the North.''

       You knew it was going to be a different kind of service 
     when you saw Rankin line up a dozen troops and march them, 
     single file, into the church, reminding them to doff their 
     camouflage caps. This wasn't a ho-hum Sunday go-to-meeting 
     with everyone freshly scrubbed and in their Sunday best. This 
     was a battlefield prayer meeting, with the enemy on the 
     horizon and coming on fast.
       It was a ``come-as-you-are'' service where the pastor 
     sported a week's worth of grizzled whiskers and refused to 
     take an offering because, he said, the people in the pews had 
     been offering all week and giving all they could give. A 
     service in a church where people have been sleeping in the 
     basement and the congregants had mud on their boots and 
     exhaustion on their faces. Where men and women wept without 
     shame. Where some folks had to scoot out during the sermon to 
     check on the pumps keeping the waters at bay. Where 
     helicopters chattered overhead and where everyone looked at 
     each other when the lights flickered, it being only a couple 
     of days since the town got its power restored. Where the 
     mayor read from Genesis about ``the spirit of God hovering 
     above the waters,'' and the police chief's daughter sang, 
     ``Yes, Jesus Loves Me.'' And where the psalm they chose for 
     the day, Psalm 46, praised ``a river whose streams make 
     glad the city of God.''
       The Red River isn't in the Bible. But it has taken on 
     Biblical proportions. And, for generations, through flood and 
     drought, blizzard and blight, the response of the people 
     along the river, many of them the descendants of devout 
     Norwegian Lutherans, has been to roll up their sleeves and to 
     put their trust in their God. Praise the Lord and pass the 
     sandbags. Or, as they simply say in Hendrum, ``toss 'em.''
       That was the tone at Immanuel Lutheran. . ..

  Mr. President, I notice that my colleague from North Dakota is here. 
I would be pleased to yield for some questions, if my colleague has 
some questions. And then, if my colleague, who I know has been out here 
over and over again and back in North Dakota, wants to speak, then I 
would at that point in time--I would then ask consent to yield. But 
right now let me just ask my colleague whether he has any questions and 
respond to some questions. Then we will see what kind of unanimous-
consent agreement we can get.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have the floor.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator hasn't yielded the floor, he 
has the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I have not yielded the floor.
  Mr. President, I was getting ready to yield to my colleague. He 
looked like he was raising his hand to ask a question. So, if he had a 
question, I was going to yield for the question, that's all.

[[Page S5242]]

  Mr. CONRAD. Yes. Understanding that I don't have the floor, I am 
simply asking the Senator from Minnesota some questions--without his 
yielding his right to the floor.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota has the floor and 
has the right to yield for a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Has the Senator from Minnesota yielded for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I haven't yielded for the question yet. 
I yield for the question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed with his question.
  Mr. CONRAD. The Senator from Minnesota has been here speaking about 
what we confront in North Dakota and Minnesota and South Dakota and the 
other disaster States. I would just ask him if he was aware of the 
recent editorial that appeared in the Grand Forks Herald on May 27? The 
bold headline in that editorial was, ``4 Days Since Congress Let Us 
Down.'' And they posed the question, ``How Long Will It Be Before 
Congress Gets to Work and Passes the Disaster Relief Bill?''
  This is an editorial in the Grand Forks Herald. Grand Forks is the 
town that has been devastated by this remarkable series of disasters--
first of all the most severe winter in our history, 10 feet of snow, 
followed by an incredible ice and snowstorm in early April that knocked 
down the electrical grid for 80,000 people, which was then followed by 
the 500-year flood and, in the midst of that, a fire that burned down 
nearly three city blocks in the city of Grand Forks that led, this 
combination of events, to the evacuation of virtually the entire city 
of 50,000 people. Mr. President, 50,000 people evacuated. We have not 
had that happen in America. That has not happened in American history 
where a town that large is virtually totally evacuated. And the 
neighboring town of East Grand Forks, that is in Senator Wellstone's 
home State, a city of 9,000, similarly evacuated--completely evacuated.
  In this editorial, I am asking Senator Wellstone if he is aware of 
this editorial, this gives ``11 Reasons To Pass Federal Disaster Bill 
Now.''

  We have heard a lot of talk from some, ``Well, it doesn't matter that 
there has been this debate, it doesn't matter that they have had 12 
days of delay; there is money in the pipeline.''
  There is not money in the pipeline for the Housing Department for 
buyouts and relocations. There is no money in that pipeline. There is 
no money in the Agriculture Department pipeline to give some relief to 
the ranchers across the State of North Dakota and across the State of 
South Dakota that have lost over 200,000 head of cattle. There is no 
money in that pipeline. And there is no money in the pipeline to allow 
the school districts that have taken the kids from the disaster areas 
to get reimbursed. There is no money in that pipeline. That is what is 
happening out in the State of North Dakota and the State of Minnesota 
and the State of South Dakota.
  I ask the Senator from Minnesota if he is aware of the 11 reasons 
that were given in the Grand Forks editorial for the passage of the 
disaster bill now? The 11 points that they make in this editorial are:
  No. 1, the need is great; 80 percent of the homes in that town of 
50,000 people were damaged and several thousand are unlivable. We have 
thousands of people who are homeless, don't have a place to stay. We 
have hundreds and hundreds of people who are still on cots 6 weeks 
after the disaster.
  No. 2, they point out that the disaster is different from others 
because it affected the entire community and there is no nearby 
community that can provide housing and other support for flood victims.
  The third point they make is that time is of the essence. Our 
construction season is short. In fact, the outdoor work pretty much has 
to be done by October 1 in our part of the country.
  The fourth point they make is that hundreds of businesses need loans 
and other forms of assistance to get reestablished, and that those 
businesses underpin the economy in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.
  Fifth, they make the point that they need to make decisions about our 
homes and businesses. In order to do that, they need certainty about 
the resources available for disaster relief efforts.
  The sixth point they make is the property, in the way of flood 
control, will have to be bought out. The buyout money will make it 
possible for people in the way of flood control works to rebuild their 
lives elsewhere in the city.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I raise a point of order. It is my 
understanding the Senator from Minnesota yielded for a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I still have the floor, and I intend to 
answer the question of my colleague.
  Mr. CONRAD. The Senator from North Dakota is posing a question to the 
Senator from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is entitled to one 
warning. It is to be a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if I might just inquire, I intend to 
answer the question. But the question embodies the eight reasons, and 
the Senator from North Dakota is going over those, asking me if I am 
aware of those reasons. I can't read that chart.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is understood, but the Chair will rule 
that a statement is being made rather than a question asked.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Fine. Mr. President, if my colleague, then, in the 
form of a question could summarize that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is the duty of the Senator from Minnesota 
to guard his right to the floor. That is one warning.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to make clear I was not aware of 
the editorial and the Senator from North Dakota--well, I was aware of 
the editorial. I can't lie. I was aware of the editorial. Nevertheless, 
I need to answer, but I can't read it from here. I would like to 
respond to the question of the Senator.
  Mr. CONRAD. I would pose a question, a point of order to the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Minnesota yield for a 
point of order?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask----
  Mr. CONRAD. Perhaps I could ask that later and just continue my 
question of the Senator from Minnesota.
  Was the Senator aware of this editorial in the Grand Forks Herald and 
the 11 reasons they gave?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I was aware of the editorial, but I do 
not remember all of the reasons. And as I go on and speak, it might 
help me if the Senator would be able to pose each of those points as a 
question, and then we could talk about it as I go forward.
  I would be pleased to yield to the Senator for a question on each of 
those points, if the Senator has a question, but only in the form of a 
question.
  Mr. CONRAD. Let me ask the Senator from Minnesota, very specifically, 
it has been reported in the press that this does not matter, this 
delay, that there is money in the pipeline. And in this editorial, they 
point out that it is true that FEMA is adequately funded, but that 
money is for immediate disaster relief, not for long-term rebuilding.
  Was the Senator aware of that point that is in this editorial?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am. It is a very important point. I 
say to my colleague from North Dakota that the key thing--and both 
efforts are equally important--that people need the short-term relief, 
but people need to think about how they rebuild their lives and whether 
they have a future. And that is what is so unconscionable about this 
delay and the House going on vacation before getting this work done.
  I would say that to my colleague.
  Mr. CONRAD. Is the Senator aware-- again, I am asking a question--is 
the Senator aware that in this disaster supplemental is the money for 
housing assistance through the CDBG program that would allow the funds 
for the buyout and relocation of homes that are in the floodway?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I respond to my colleague that this is 
also an important point. The buyout of the homes in the floodway is key 
to the future for people. And the only way this can be done is through 
the CDBG money that is being held up right now.
  And I say to my colleague from North Dakota, who knows this so well, 
that the awful thing is that so many people do not know where they 
stand. They do not know whether to move, not to move, where they are 
going to

[[Page S5243]]

have a home. They do not know where they are going to be, where their 
children are going to be? People have been through enough, I would say 
to my colleague.
  Why do we want to heap more pain on the people who have already been 
through so much pain? That is what is unforgivable about this delay. 
That is what is unforgivable about political games. That is what is 
unforgivable about our failure to just get the relief to people, to get 
this emergency supplemental bill passed. It is an emergency. Just get 
the disaster relief to the people.
  Mr. CONRAD. In addition to the question of the housing not being 
available, is the Senator aware of the fact----
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has a right to call the Senate to 
order.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask for recognition. The Senator from 
Minnesota yielded the floor without yielding for a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yielded for a question. I made it 
crystal clear it was a question. The Senator from North Dakota asked me 
whether I was aware.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has a right to yield for a 
question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. That is what I have done. And I have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator does not have the right to solicit 
a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from North Dakota, if my 
colleague has a question, we will put it in the form of a question.
  Mr. President, I will, in any case, just to save my colleague from 
Missouri some frustration--I am going to yield the floor in just a 
moment. I am going to finish up. I am going to respond to some 
questions that my colleague from North Dakota has put to me. And I will 
yield to questions from the Senator from North Dakota only for 
questions, but I intend to finish in just a few moments, I say to my 
colleague. I will be yielding the floor in about 5 minutes or so.

  I will yield for a question.
  Mr. CONRAD. I think it has been made abundantly clear the Senator is 
yielding to me for a question, not yielding his right to the floor.
  The question I would pose is----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinction here is whether the Senator 
has the right to solicit questions or whether the Senator has to ask to 
yield for a question.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I will keep speaking.
  Mr. CONRAD. I ask the Senator from Minnesota to yield for the 
purposes of my posing a question to him.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield for a question from the Senator 
from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Is the Senator aware that not only does the Housing 
Department not have funds that are in the pipeline, but then in 
addition to that that the Agriculture Department does not have funds in 
the pipeline, so livestock producers in our States, who have lost 
hundreds of thousands of head of cattle, have been in a situation in 
which they are delayed in receiving assistance that is in this disaster 
supplemental?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senator from 
North Dakota has posed that question to me because I have been remiss 
in not focusing on livestock producers. The importance of funding that 
is not in the pipeline has everything in the world to do with whether 
our ranchers and producers are going to be able to get back on their 
feet.
  So I say to the Senator, yes, I am aware of it. That is yet another 
example of families in our States--agricultural producers, who work so 
hard and are waiting for some help.
  And I say to the Senator from North Dakota, earlier I quoted him 
because I heard the Senator say, the question is, how many more days do 
people have to wait? How many more days do the homeowners have to wait? 
How many more days do the small businesses have to wait? How many more 
days do ranchers, livestock producers have to wait? So I am aware of 
that.
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield for a further question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield for a question from the 
Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Is the Senator also aware in the Grand Forks editorial, 
the 11 reasons they give for passing the Federal disaster bill now, 
they point out that not only the Housing Department does not have 
funds, those funds are not in the pipeline, the Agriculture Department 
does not have funds to address this disaster, those funds are not in 
the pipeline, and in addition to that, the school districts that have 
taken the children from the disaster areas, they do not have funds in 
the pipeline, and so those school districts that have taken on 
substantial additional costs are also being delayed in being 
compensated even though they have taken children from the disaster 
areas?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to respond to the questions 
because this is exactly what is going on. The Senator is raising these 
questions, and I am responding. And I thank my colleague from North 
Dakota, Senator Conrad, because this is again another area that I 
really did not speak about and I should have.
  It has been wonderful to see different school districts, a 
neighboring school district taking students and making sure they do not 
have to drop out of school, making sure they can graduate. That has 
been happening in Minnesota and North Dakota. That is the goodness in 
people.
  I do not see much goodness in this Congress right now. I do not see 
much goodness in the House. I think we make a mistake when we go on 
vacation and do not come through for people.

  I am aware of the fact that these schools are now waiting for some 
assistance for the extra costs that they have incurred in taking in 
other students and making sure those students graduate. And so I say to 
my colleague, I am aware of this, but I am glad he has emphasized this 
in the question that he has put to me.
  Mr. CONRAD. Would the Senator further yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to yield for a question.
  Mr. CONRAD. Is the Senator aware that while some have said that it 
just does not make a difference, these delays are inconsequential, they 
really do not matter, that the people that I think we can turn to for 
the best answer as to whether these delays matter are the people who 
are affected most directly by the disaster, the people of Grand Forks, 
the people of East Grand Forks, and that they are telling us, their 
elected Representatives, that these delays do matter, that delay in the 
face of disaster is a disaster in and of itself?
  Is the Senator receiving those same kinds of messages from his 
constituents as I am receiving from mine with respect to how 
significant these delays are?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Well, Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota 
raises a very important question that I will respond to. And the 
question that he raises has to do with the effect of the delay both in 
a material sense in terms of economic resources but also in almost as 
serious a way, the way in which it erodes people's--it is personal-- 
People need some certainty. People need to be able to plan for the 
future. People need to get through this.
  This is a very difficult time. And our failure to act does not give 
people that confidence, does not give people that support. Moreover, I 
say to all my colleagues, in responding to the question from the 
Senator from North Dakota, the failure to act, the failure to get help 
to people, the playing of political games, has done an awful lot of 
harm. It has soured people and eroded people's confidence. That is a 
terrible mistake.
  Mr. President, I say to my colleague from North Dakota that I am 
about ready to yield the floor in any case.
  Mr. CONRAD. Would the Senator yield for a final question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will yield for a final question.
  Mr. CONRAD. The Senator from Minnesota perhaps is aware that tomorrow 
a group will be coming from Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, a 
delegation of community leaders and business leaders. I think, perhaps 
the mayor of East Grand Forks is coming. I ask the Senator from 
Minnesota if he is aware of that?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Yes.
  Mr. CONRAD. The message, as I understand it, is that they want to 
send a

[[Page S5244]]

clear and unmistakable signal to the Congress and to the country that 
the time to act is now.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am aware of the fact, and I will 
answer this question, I am painfully aware of the fact, as a Senator 
from Minnesota, that the mayors from Grand Forks, ND, and East Grand 
Forks, MN, and maybe some other mayors will be here tomorrow to say to 
the Congress, the time to act is now. And that is what I have tried to 
do today on the floor of the Senate, to say that as well.
  That is what the Senator from North Dakota has said today and has 
been saying for a good, long period of time.
  Mr. President, I hope that by holding the floor for a while this 
afternoon that in a small but hopefully significant way I have been 
able to speak for and to fight for and to help people in my State.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I appreciate the opportunity to return to Senate bill 4. Senate bill 
4, as you well know, is the Family Friendly Workplace Act. It was to 
have been the business of the Senate this afternoon. And I do 
understand the frustration of the individuals from the flood-ravaged 
States who have been victims of flooding and all. But I find it very 
difficult to understand why, especially when a conference report is 
being worked on, we have to insist that the Senate cease serving the 
Nation while the conference committee serves the people of the flood-
ravaged areas. It seems to me that while we can do both, it would be in 
our best interest so to do.

  And so with all respect to my colleagues who have sought to galvanize 
the public attention on the need to act here, I want to commend the 
members of the conference committee who are working to do exactly what 
they are being called upon to do to provide an opportunity for relief 
in those areas.
  The Family Friendly Workplace Act is a way that we can help all 
Americans. We can help all Americans to balance the tension that exists 
between the workplace and the home place. We can help Americans who 
find that both parents are having to work in two-parent families. We 
can make sure that they have the capacity to spend the necessary time 
with their children that they need to spend.
  So, Mr. President, I think it is important that we get on with the 
business of trying to provide to hourly-paid workers in this country 
the same kind of flexible working arrangements which have been 
available to others for quite some extended period of time.
  As a matter of fact, in 1978, we began according flextime benefits to 
workers in the Federal Government system. It was done on a pilot 
project basis so that we could make sure we did not offend the rights 
of individuals and that we made sure that it was a workable system. For 
years, we inspected the system, and it was extended to more and more 
workers.
  In 1985, in the Federal system we made it available to Departments 
generally if they thought they could use those procedures wisely and if 
that would be helpful to people in balancing the needs of their 
families with the needs of the workplace.
  The major components are these. When you work overtime, instead of 
being paid for overtime, you might want to take time off with pay later 
on so that you could make up some of the lost time you have with your 
family.
  Most Americans do not realize it is illegal now for an employer 
outside of the Federal Government to offer an hourly paid worker time 
off with pay instead of paying the normal overtime pay. Now, it is, I 
think, an unjust situation where Government workers have a series of 
benefits that the private workers do not have. Similarly, Government 
workers, if they know they will be needing some time for their families 
can request to work an hour extra one week and take that hour off the 
next week so they can spend the necessary time with their families.
  Now, there are ways that private workers have the capacity to spend 
time with their families, and it is under a rubric known as the Family 
and Medical Leave Act, and that is a Federal law, but it says that 
under certain narrow conditions if you want to take time off you can 
take time off but you have to take time off without pay, so if you want 
your child to go to the doctor or you want to take your child to the 
doctor you can give notice to your employer that you are going to do 
that but you take a pay cut in order to do that.
  Now, if you knew you had a doctors' appointment next Tuesday 
afternoon and you wanted to tell your employer you would like to work 
an extra 2 hours this week to take the 2 hours off next Tuesday, that 
is the Federal system, available to Federal employees. You work the 2 
hours extra this week, you get your work done, make the arrangements, 
take the hours off next week and you do not end up with a pay cut but 
keep your paycheck intact. That is very important.
  I should hasten to add that nothing in this bill would in any way 
erode, undermine or abolish any of the Family and Medical Leave 
provisions which are to the benefit of employees across America, but in 
conjunction with those benefits this would add a new array of 
potentials. One of the potentials is that you could take time off to be 
with your family when necessary, with pay, instead of having to go 
under the Family and Medical Leave Act procedures which require that 
you take the time off without pay.
  Now, most of us are familiar with the fact that not only do Federal 
Government workers have comptime and flextime proposals and State 
government workers have been authorized a very substantial comptime 
proposal and the boardroom folks have comptime proposals and the 
supervisors and managers and all the salary people obviously have 
flexible working arrangements, it is the hourly-paid workers of America 
who are being treated as second-class citizens. Frankly, they are in a 
minority. The majority of workers in this country have flexible working 
arrangements. Hourly paid workers do not.
  I think it is time that the hourly paid workers have that kind of 
opportunity. That is what Senate bill 4 is all about. I do agree that 
it is important for us to act with expedition on the supplemental 
appropriations bill but, in my judgment, it is also important for us 
when we have the opportunity like we should have had today, especially 
while this appropriations matter is still in the conference committee, 
to make progress on meeting the needs of Americans, especially when we 
are talking about benefits that Government workers have been enjoying 
in the 1970's, 1980's, and all through the 1990's now. It is time we 
give the same kind of opportunity to workers in the private sector. It 
is with that in mind that I say that I look forward to the opportunity 
of welcoming amendments and proposed improvements to Senate bill 4.
  Now, several hours were spent today in criticism of our proposal, but 
the fact of the matter is none of the amendments that have been filed 
have been filed by those who have been criticizing the bill. If, 
indeed, they want to do something constructively to help workers, I 
invite Members of the opposition to bring their amendments to the floor 
and to make their amendments available so they can be filed, so we can 
vote on those amendments, so we can take action on them, so we can make 
the improvements. We will upgrade what we really need to do to help the 
citizens of America who do not have this privilege.
  It is my understanding that the occupant of the Chair might be 
interested in making some remarks on Senate bill 4. I ask unanimous 
consent after a quorum call which I will put in place that the occupant 
of the Chair be recognized to make the remarks, and the conclusion of 
those remarks be followed by another quorum call, at which time I be 
recognized again to finish my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to again voice my strong 
support for S.

[[Page S5245]]

4, the Family Friendly Workplace Act. I have listened to several of my 
colleagues speak about this important and necessary legislation. I want 
to especially commend Senator DeWine for his steady work in the Labor 
Committee and for Senator Ashcroft for the many hours he has spent 
working on this bill.
  I comment that today we have heard several speeches dealing with S. 
4. We have heard several speeches that did not deal with S. 4. The 
other speeches dealt with a very important topic, too. They dealt with 
the disaster funding, but that was actually a filibuster against this 
bill. It was a request by certain people in this body that S. 4 not be 
adopted. They do not want people to have that kind of flexibility. It 
was a plea to do disaster relief, but it was directed to keep this bill 
from ever coming to a vote.
  Disaster is on the mind of everyone that is affected. One of the 
things I have discovered in my years in the legislature and since I 
have been here is that the disaster is in the mind of the one who is 
affected as well. Everybody has different kinds of disasters. The 
disaster that was talked about for a long time tonight is being handled 
in the conference committee right now. There is another disaster in 
America that is being kept from being debated in this body, that is 
kept from being passed in this body, that a vast number of people in 
this country need. It is a disaster that is happening to them. There 
are people out there that need more flextime and comptime to be able to 
spend time with their families. Some of those people are married to 
Federal employees. That Federal employee is able to take that flextime 
and the other spouse is saying, why can't I?
  In fact, in the early days when this bill passed that allows the 
Federal employee to do just exactly what we are talking about for the 
private hourly employees, the discriminated-against group, the private 
hourly employees, when we allowed Federal employees to do it we should 
have included the private sector at that time. We should have given 
them the same right that the Federal employees had.
  I know that in Cheyenne, WY, at the Unicover Corp., some of the 
people that worked in that corporation were hired by the Federal 
Government. They got flextime and they got comptime. I want to 
emphasize they got flextime and comptime, both of the advantages that 
are being talked about in this bill. Not just one, like is being 
implied, both of those advantages were given to the Federal employee.
  Their spouses said this is really a great idea. We should take it to 
our boss and get it implemented, and they took it to the Unicover 
Corp., they took it to the management and the management said, you 
know, that really is a great idea. We should do it, and they did it. 
Then they found out that they were in violation of the law. The Federal 
employees could do it, the private hourly employees could not.
  For 19 years the Unicover Corp. has asked Congress to pass a bill 
that would give them the same right as the Federal employees--not a 
different right, the same right. The same right for flextime, the same 
right for comptime. They are not asking for a special break that nobody 
else gets. They are just asking for an even break. Well, they found out 
they were in violation of the law and they had to end it. They have 
been working on it for a number of years to try and get it changed. I 
heard about it when I was campaigning and I said I do not know why we 
do not have that, and now I have a better idea why we do not have that.

  Today, the Small Business Advocate Award luncheon was held here in 
Washington, DC, over in the Dirksen Building. I had the opportunity to 
attend, and I got to meet the Wyoming Small Business Person of the 
Year, and there were small business people from all over the United 
States there, being recognized for the leadership that they have taken 
in their company, in their State, to make a difference.
  Marjorie Mathieson of Jackson is the Wyoming Small Business Person of 
the year, and I am very proud of her. That is one of the few 
manufacturing businesses in Jackson and it has been there a long time. 
They have gone through a number of different phases to keep current 
products that will sell to keep that small business in business.
  She talked to me a little bit about the Family Medical Leave Act. 
Some people have suggested that is an answer for all of the problems of 
meeting flexibility. Well, it is not. And it should not be expanded to 
be the answer to all of those either, because it is a paperwork 
nightmare, particularly for smaller businesses. Now, that is limited to 
businesses over 50 employees. There has been a request to bring that 
down to a smaller number. What we need is this Family Friendly 
Workplace Act that will provide the same kinds of benefits that we are 
talking about, bringing in the more complicated system, and bringing it 
down to a smaller level where they cannot handle the paperwork.
  A part of that business that the Wyoming Small Business Person of the 
Year runs is welding. They have five welders. Those welders make $40 an 
hour. Not bad. Five welders, $40 an hour. They want flextime and 
comptime. The business needs them to take flextime or comptime or both, 
and the reason they need them to take that is because they have work 
that has to be done. They have five welders. If one of the welders is 
to leave without doing some kind of a flex in the schedule, they lose 
20 percent of their welding income. That is a significant portion of 
their business. That person loses $40 an hour. They do not want to lose 
$40 an hour. For overtime, they lose $60 an hour. They do not want to 
lose that. But the business can make arrangements for them to get 
flextime and comptime so that they can still have the time off, the 
revenue still comes into the business.
  More importantly, the paycheck comes to the individual. They want 
flextime. They talked to her about flextime. Marjorie wanted them to 
have flextime. She allowed flextime, and then found out that she 
couldn't have flextime, that she couldn't have comptime, that she could 
not offer this benefit to the people that worked for her. Jackson has 
some Federal employees. Those Federal employees get this. But these 
guys that weld can't have it not because the business doesn't want to 
give it to them, but because we have a law against it. And that is not 
fair.
  I have listened to the debate as we have gone through this topic. I 
am a certified professional in human resources. The Society of Human 
Resource Management, a national society, does education and testing in 
all of the areas of human resource management. When you complete the 
course and the testing, you can be certified as a professional in human 
resources. I have been through that process. They do an outstanding job 
of keeping track of the problems in the workplace. These are, for the 
most part, employees. I am not talking about employers. They are 
employees, employees who want benefits as well. And they see this as 
being a critical issue for the hourly worker in the workplace, a way 
for that worker to have more capability in their own scheduling.
  Everybody recognizes that this bill has provisions in it that both 
the employer and the employee have to agree to before it can be done. 
It isn't the case of forcing the employee to do it. It isn't the case 
of forcing the employer to do it. I am telling you, there are 
businesses across this Nation that want this and want it badly. And it 
is usually the employees that bring the idea to the employer and say, 
``Why can't we do this?'' You know, they just do not believe that, 
since they know that the Federal employees get to do it. They just do 
not believe the employer when he says it is against the law.
  One of the biggest things raised in the hearing that we had was, 
``Well, you can be paid for your hours anyway. Then you can save that 
money from being paid for your hours, and when somebody gets sick, if 
there is a soccer match, if you want to go someplace, or if you want to 
have an anniversary, or any of those great things that people would 
like to have time off to do, then you can use this money that you 
save.''
  I ask you, how easy is it for you to save? It is pretty difficult. A 
lot of the people out there in the work force that we are talking about 
are women. They have gotten into the workplace because of some of the 
things that we have done back here. They have gotten into the workplace 
because of the way that taxes have gone up in the United States, the 
way that inflation has gone up in the United States.
  We have a situation now where in most families both people work. One 
of

[[Page S5246]]

them works to pay the expenses, the other one works to pay the taxes.
  So it is not an option on whether they work or not. We asked a lot of 
women through the process in this thing why they didn't just bank the 
money and then use that money when they needed time off. And every one 
of them said to me, ``When it is time that I am banking, it is mine. I 
can use it for my family. But if I accept that paycheck, if I take the 
money, that is the family's money. It has to go for all of those family 
expenses. And there are always family expenses.''
  But another unique part about this bill is that you can bank the 
hours and you can take the money. I don't know very many families in 
this country that do not come up with emergencies once in a while. If 
you have hours banked, there is a provision in this bill to be able to 
cash it in. So when the refrigerator breaks down and you don't have any 
alternative but to buy another refrigerator, even though it means 
putting off that vacation that you had planned, you can take some of 
the hours you have banked and cash it in.
  So they see this as a way to bank money for emergencies and to have 
time for themselves, time for themselves that they invest in their 
family. They really want to go to the soccer match. They really have to 
go sometimes to take their kids to the dentist. They like to celebrate 
those anniversaries. And this is a bill that allows it.
  The biggest complaint that I have heard about this bill is that there 
is a cap on the number of hours that they can have, a limit. And they 
say, ``Why do you have a limit on that--240 hours? Maybe my boss wants 
me to be able to bank more hours and maybe I have a bigger event than 
240 hours.''
  So that is a complaint on it. We are not even proposing that be 
changed. But we are asking for some consideration of the bill.
  The American workplace is dramatically different than it was 60 years 
ago when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. We have 
all heard the stories about the dirty thirties from our parents. So I 
don't have to repeat them here.
  I will, however, illustrate how nice it was for Congress to pass that 
Fair Labor Standards Act to specifically address the numerous problems 
that existed back then. Cheap labor was abundant. Folks were awfully 
hungry for work. And there were many employers who took advantage of a 
bad economic situation. The 40-hour workweek did not exist. Overtime 
did not exist. Child labor was being exploited. There were some 
problems that stemmed from the trends of that era.

  Under the circumstances, Congress acted, and acted appropriately, by 
passing the Fair Labor Standards Act. We are never going back to that. 
There is no suggestion of ever going back to that. But there is fine 
tuning that needs to be done.
  It is important to illustrate how times have changed since the 1930's 
and why it is the responsibility of Congress to legislate for the 
present with the future in mind. As a certified professional in human 
resources, I have had the exhausting and daunting task of filling out 
the federally mandated forms and paperwork. I have worked one-on-one 
with my employees to try to meet their needs. Through it all, I have 
always found my employees to be well schooled and extremely intuitive. 
As a result, they inherently understand how the modern workplace 
functions. And the smaller the business, the better they understand how 
it works, the more connected they are to realizing that the success of 
that business and the time they spend there means their job and the way 
they work there means their job. They don't need someone to hold their 
hand and show them the way things work. That might have been the case 
60 years ago.
  I certainly don't view employee knowledge as a problem, but rather 
welcome it as an important addition to the mix. Employers have every 
reason to reward employees who clearly understand how to use their time 
in the workplace to its full advantages. America's working parents want 
to decide for themselves whether or not they want overtime or paid time 
off. This is a modern day reality that requires a modern day 
legislative fix. This act does not eliminate overtime pay, nor does it 
eliminate the 40-hour workweek. That kind of talk is simply nonsense. 
These things will stay just where they are, and the Family Friendly 
Workplace Act guarantees that.
  Before coming to the Senate I was the owner and operator of a small 
business for 27 years. Folks in Washington, of course, have a 
completely different sense of what constitutes the small in small 
business. I have had several discussions back here about whether a 
small business is 500 employees or 125 employees. I can tell you that 
is not even close anywhere in America. A small businessman is one who 
sweeps the sidewalk and cleans the toilets and waits on customers. He 
does it all. He has to do it all.
  We held a small business hearing in Casper, WY, early this year. I 
was real pleased to have the honor of chairing that in Casper. We had 
about 75 to 100 people show up for that, rotating out and others 
rotating through. When it was over, one of the news media people said 
to me, ``How come you didn't have a better turnout?'' I said, ``That 
was a great turnout for a daytime hearing.'' Because we are talking 
about small businessmen. Quite frankly, they are different than big 
business because in small business, if they had one person that could 
take off for that day to just listen to a hearing, they would probably 
fire them because it would be one too many people. That is small 
business.
  So that illustration is radically different from that of a big 
business that has the financial and the employer resources to institute 
very sophisticated job training and flexibility problems that sidestep 
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. And that is being done now. There 
are ways, very complicated ways. But if you can afford the attorney 
fees and have the specialists, you can provide this for some of your 
employees--not all of them. But this bill will allow the small business 
person to have the big business advantage, that extra flexibility.
  Sadly enough, small businesses are further behind under the 
flexibility of this 60-year-old antiquated law. That is a further 
reason for passing the Family Friendly Workplace Act. Personal 
computers, high-speed modems, cellular phones, pagers, and fax machines 
have all become commonplace in small business. Moreover, these popular 
commodities have paved the way for telecommunicating, telecommuting--a 
work environment that could not have been envisioned 60 years ago.
  While the number of working women in our country continues to rise, 
so does the number of telecommuters and in-home businesses. A lot of 
businesses are being started in the home. Then when they expand bigger 
than the home can handle, they become an outside business. But there 
are a lot of them working in the home that will be the future successes 
in this country. It will be the future opportunity for people who want 
the American dream. They will start a small business in their home. It 
is happening because of the growing trend of spending more time at home 
with our families. If they telecommute, they don't have to spend an 
hour each way driving.
  That is part of the flexibility. That is something that the modern 
age has provided us. It is impossible to bottle up workplace 
flexibility. But we have an antiquated law that is suggesting that we 
can. That is why it is so important to modernize this archaic Federal 
law that squelches any chance of giving American hourly workers more 
time at home with their kids, a true investment in our Nation's future.

  Congress must legislate with the times to provide the opportunities 
for our Nation's parents to make that investment. It is often the case 
with a lot of families that both parents work. They do this, and they 
do it happily because they have to meet the bills. They also do it 
because they cannot get extra hours off from the job the way they would 
really prefer to do it unless they work for another business as well. 
If they work two jobs, they don't get any overtime. But a lot of them 
work two places. They don't get comptime. They don't get flextime. They 
don't get overtime.
  This unfortunate trend in the business world can be addressed by 
providing this workplace flexibility with the choice of paid time off 
for flextime.
  Times have changed and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 does not 
permit employees to choose between

[[Page S5247]]

paid time off or overtime pay. My experience is that there are a lot of 
people out there who know that if they take the money, they will spend 
the money. They want the time instead. I also found that fact to be 
more prevalent among women in the work force. They feel the need for 
the time to spend with their children, and they understand that money 
belongs to the family. They have a much stronger family belief than 
most of the men I have worked with. So they prefer to take flextime or 
comptime and use that for themselves or their family.
  One of the businesses I worked for often had additional assignments 
that employees could take on, if they chose to do so. When we asked if 
the employees wanted additional work, they said ``yes,'' if they could 
have time off the following week with compensation, but if they could 
only choose to be paid, they didn't need it. They would rather have the 
time off this week than to take the money next week. We explained to 
them that they had the capability of taking the overtime pay, not 
working the following week, and spending that extra pay that week. But 
somehow those paychecks don't get distributed at home quite the same 
way they do on paper or here.
  I am hoping that everyone will reflect a bit on the trends that our 
modern work force is talking about and not the mandatory things that 
seem to be implied by this legislation imposed upon us. The downsizing 
problems today are leading to less flexibility as well as families 
making less money than if they were doing the job they preferred to do, 
not the second jobs they are having to do without getting overtime 
because it is a second job. There has been a tremendous increase in 
temporary positions in this country. This has taken flexibility away 
from the families. It has taken money away from the families. This a 
modern day problem that requires a modern day solution.
  This matter cannot possibly be addressed by legislation that we have 
crafted to address the problems of the 1930s. We have taken care of 
those problems. We are not going back to that situation. But we need to 
adjust for the future. Indeed, our society is constantly driven by 
changing trends. I can comfortably argue that our society is one of the 
most trendy in the world, a fact that has kept America on the leading 
edge of technological innovation. We have been at the peak in 
technology and at the tail in taking care of the hourly worker.
  I hope that before people begin making up their minds on this bill, 
they will take a close look at the language and what it really calls 
for rather than relying on misstatements, and I see those misstatements 
in the paper from time to time, misleading statistics, partisan 
posturing. Read the bill. Ask for a copy of the bill. Read the bill. It 
is amazing.
  Our Nation's work force is calling for this much-needed change. I 
again urge my colleagues to support the Family Friendly Workplace Act. 
Bring this to a vote. Give the hourly working people of this country 
the opportunity to choose how they want to work, the way that they want 
to choose to help their families.
  I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


   Amendment No. 265, As Modified and Amendment No. 256, as Modified

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Gorton 
amendment, amendment No. 265, be modified with the changes that I now 
send to the desk. And I further ask unanimous consent that the Grassley 
amendment, amendment No. 256, be modified as well with the changes that 
I send to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendments, as modified, are as follows:

                           Amendment No. 265

       Beginning on page 10, strike line 7 and all that follows 
     through page 10, line 16 and insert the following: ``time; 
     respectively, by subsection (o)(8).''.
       (4) Application of the coercion and remedies provisions to 
     public safety employees of state agencies.--Section 7(o) of 
     the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 207(o)) is 
     amended--
       (A) in paragraph (7), by striking ``(7) For'' and inserting 
     ``(8) For''; and
       (B) by inserting after paragraph (6), the following:
       ``(7)(A) In a case in which an employee described in 
     paragraph (1) is engaged in work in a public safety activity, 
     the provisions under subsection (r)(6)(A) shall apply to the 
     employee and the public agency employer, as described in 
     paragraph (1), of the employee to the same extent the 
     provisions apply to an employee and employer described in 
     subsection (r)(2)(B).
       ``(B)(i) Except as provided in clause (ii), the remedies 
     under section 16(f) shall be made available to a public 
     safety employee described in subparagraph (A) to the same 
     extent the remedies are made available to an employee 
     described in subsection (r)(2)(B).
       ``(ii) In calculating the amount a public agency employer 
     described in subparagraph (A) would be liable for under 
     section 16(f) to a public safety employee described in such 
     subparagraph, the Secretary shall, in lieu of applying the 
     rate of compensation in the formula described in section 
     16(f), apply the rate of compensation described in paragraph 
     (3)(B).''.
       (5) Notice to employees.--Not later than 30 days after the 
     date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor shall 
     revise the materials the Secretary provides, under 
     regulations contained in section 516.4 of title 29, Code of 
     Federal Regulations, to employers for purposes of a notice 
     explaining the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to employees 
     so that the notice reflects the amendments made to the Act by 
     this subsection.
                                                                    ____


                           Amendment No. 256

       At the end of the substitute amendment, add the following:

     SEC 4. APPLICATION OF LAWS TO LEGISLATIVE BRANCH.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section, the terms ``Board'', 
     ``covered employee'', and ``employing office'' have the 
     meanings given the terms in sections 101 and 203 of Public 
     Law 104-1.
       (b) Biweekly Work Programs; Flexible Credit Hour Programs; 
     Exemptions.--
       (1) In general.--The rights and protections established by 
     sections 13(m) and 13A of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 
     1938, as added by section 3, shall apply to covered 
     employees.
       (2) Remedy.--The remedy for a violation of paragraph (1) 
     shall be such remedy, including liquidated damages, as would 
     be appropriate if awarded under section 16(b) of the Fair 
     Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 216(b)), and (in the 
     case of a violation concerning section 13A(d) of such Act, 
     section 16(g)(1) of such Act (29 U.S.C. 216(g)1)).
       (3) Administration.--The Office of Compliance shall 
     exercise the same authorities and perform the same duties 
     with respect to the rights and protections described in 
     paragraph (1) as the Office exercises and performs under 
     title III of Public Law 104-1 with respect to the rights and 
     protections described in section 203 of such law.
       (4) Procedures.--Title IV and section 225 of Public Law 
     104-1 shall apply with respect to violations of paragraph 
     (1).
       (5) Regulations.--
       (A) In general.--The Board shall, pursuant to section 304 
     of Public Law 104-1, issue regulations to implement this 
     subsection.
       (B) Agency regulations.--The regulations issued under 
     subparagraph (A) shall be the same as substantive regulations 
     promulgated by the Secretary of Labor to implement the 
     statutory provisions referred to in paragraph (1) except 
     insofar as the Board may determine, for good cause shown and 
     stated together with the regulation, that a modification of 
     the regulations would be more effective for the 
     implementation of the rights and protections under this 
     subsection.
       (c) Compensatory Time Off.--
       (1) Regulations.--The Board shall, pursuant to paragraphs 
     (1) and (2) of section 203(c), and section 304, of Public Law 
     104-1, issue regulations to implement section 203 of such law 
     with respect to section 7(r) of the Fair Labor Standards Act 
     of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 207(r)), as added by section 3(a).
       (2) Remedy.--The remedy for a violation of section 203(a) 
     of Public Law 104-1 shall be such remedy, including 
     liquidated damages, as would be appropriate if awarded under 
     section 16(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 
     U.S.C. 216(b)), and (in the case of a violation concerning 
     section 7(r)(6)(A) of such Act (29 U.S.C. 207(r)(6)(A))), 
     section 16(f)(1) of such Act (29 U.S.C. 216(f)(1)).
       (3) Effective date.--Subsection (a)(3), and paragraphs (3) 
     and (4) of subsection (c), of section 203 of Public Law 104-1 
     cease to be effective on the date of enactment of this Act.
       (d) Rules of Application.--For purposes of the application 
     under this section of sections 7(r) and 13A of the Fair Labor 
     Standards Act of 1938 to covered employees of an employing 
     office, a reference in such sections--
       (1) to a statement of an employee that is made, kept, and 
     preserved in accordance with section 11(c) of such Act shall 
     be considered to be a reference to a statement that is made, 
     kept in the records of the employing office, and preserved 
     until 1 year after the last day on which--
       (A) the employing office has a policy offering compensatory 
     time off, a biweekly work

[[Page S5248]]

     program, or a flexible credit hour program in effect under 
     section 7(r) or 13A of such Act, as appropriate; and
       (B) the employee is subject to an agreement described in 
     section 7(r)(3) of such Act or subsection (b)(2)(A) or 
     (c)(2)(A) of section 13A of such Act, as appropriate; and
       (2) to section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 
     U.S.C. 159(a)) shall be considered to be a reference to 
     subchapter II of chapter 71 of title 5, United States code.
       (e) Effective Date.--
       (1) In general.--This section shall take effect, with 
     respect to the application of section 7(r), 13(m), or 13A of 
     the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to covered employees, on 
     the earlier of--
       (A) the effective date of regulations promulgated by the 
     Secretary of Labor to implement such section; and
       (B) the effective date of regulations issued by the Board 
     as described in subsection (b)(5) or (c)(1) to implement such 
     section.
       (2) Construction.--A regulation promulgated by the 
     Secretary of Labor to implement section 7(r), 13(m), or 13A 
     of such Act shall be considered to be the most relevant 
     substantive executive agency regulation promulgated to 
     implement such section, for purposes of carrying out section 
     411 of Public Law 104-1.

                          ____________________