Congressional Record, Volume 143 Issue 83 (Monday, June 16, 1997)

[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 83 (Monday, June 16, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5655-S5662]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

FOREIGN AFFAIRS REFORM AND RESTRUCTURING ACT OF 1997

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
proceed to the consideration of S. 903, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 903) to consolidate the foreign affairs agencies
of the United States, to authorize appropriations for the
Department of State for the fiscal years 1998 and 1999, and
to provide for reform of the United Nations, and for other
purposes.

The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, the day and the time have arrived. The pending
business, as the distinguished clerk has just indicated, is the Foreign
Affairs Reform

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and Restructuring Act of 1997, legislation which was reported from the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee this past Thursday, June 12, by a
vote of 14 to 4.
This legislation provides sweeping and long overdue reforms in
America's foreign affairs agencies. It also mandates tough reforms at
the United Nations.
As I have tried to emphasize from the beginning, it has been my hope
that the effort to produce this legislation would be a bipartisan one,
dedicated to reorganization and revitalization of our foreign policy
institutions. That is what this legislation is, and that is what has
brought this bill to its present pendency in the Senate. It has been
bipartisanship in the Senate, the same kind of honest give and take
that led to some of the truly great decisions by this Senate in years
past and in past decades.
There is no point now in rehashing past difficulties or actions
either by the Senate or by the President of the United States. The
important point is that this time around there has been a remarkable
degree of working together, of give and take, and a determination by
almost everybody involved that this time a piece of legislation will be
enacted by the Congress and signed into law by the President of the
United States.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the distinguished Secretary of
State, Madeleine Albright, who has made very clear and voluntary public
assurances about this legislation. And that lady, Mr. President, has as
always stood by her word.
While all of that is obviously personally meaningful to me, it is no
more so than the splendid cooperation and genuine interest of the
distinguished Senator from Delaware, the ranking member of the Foreign
Relations Committee, Senator Biden, who not only has made clear his
bipartisan support, he has worked tirelessly to make sure that he would
be on this Senate floor this afternoon to demonstrate his genuine
support for a bill which hereinafter should be and will be known as the
Helms-Biden Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1997. I
suspect that Senator Biden is aware of how grateful I am to him. He is
an able colleague for whom I have enormous respect.
That said, Mr. President, both President Clinton and Secretary of
State Albright came forward with recommendations addressing many,
though not all, of my key concerns, and in the ensuing months Senator
Biden and I, along with our respective and competent staffs, devoted
countless hours putting together this final package which so
overwhelmingly was approved by the Foreign Relations Committee this
past Thursday.
None of us got everything we wanted, but we worked together, and the
legislation before us today is a bipartisan bill that will abolish two
of those temporary Federal agencies that were created a half-century
ago--the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Information
Agency. Moreover, this bill will move some of the functions of a third
such ``temporary'' Federal agency known as the Agency for International
Development. These functions will move to a position within the State
Department under the direct control and supervision of the Secretary of
State.
I must be candid. If I had my way, and many other Senators feel
precisely the same way, the so-called Agency for International
Development would be abolished entirely. But that is going to take a
little time. So, instead, this bill is the first of many steps in a
perhaps lengthy process of reinventing the foreign affairs apparatus of
the U.S. Government. But, have no doubt about it, further reforms will
happen a little further down the legislative line in the years ahead.
The ball has begun to roll. But, for now, the pending legislation
wipes away the Agency for International Development's often arrogant
independence from the Department of State by transferring many of the
functions of that independent 50-odd-year-old temporary agency to the
State Department, and to assure that the allocation of foreign aid will
soon be controlled by the Secretary of State, who will at long last
have policy control over our foreign aid program.
I have thought many times, during the lengthy hours that we have
worked on this particular piece of legislation, of what Ronald Reagan
once said about temporary Federal agencies. He said, ``There is nothing
so near eternal life as a temporary Federal agency.'' I think the three
agencies that we are working on today are an illustration of that.
In any event, the pending bill will also contain U.N. reform
benchmarks that we have been negotiating with the administration for
the past 4 months. I think it is fair to say that this bill represents
the most comprehensive and most far-reaching U.N. reform package ever
considered by this Congress. Indeed, the Washington Post, which is no
fan of anybody who wants to reform the United Nations--the Washington
Post referred to the plan before the Senate today, and I quote the
Washington Post, ``* * * as one which would mark the most fundamental
shift in relations between the United States and the United Nations
since the United Nations was established after World War II.''
Let's look at a few details a little more closely. Among other
reforms, the pending bill will require the United Nations to reduce the
amount of money the American taxpayers are now required to contribute
to the United Nations, reduce it from the present 25 percent of the
total operations cost to 20 percent of the total U.N. operating costs.
If you do not think that is much, I will discuss that with you in just
a minute. This reduction is going to be in effect, by the way, no later
than fiscal year 2000. That one, single reform, two or three lines in
this bill, had it been enacted 5 years ago, would have saved the
American taxpayers more than $500 million. The bill looks a little bit
better as you talk about it and examine it.
What else is in this bill? This bill requires the United Nations to
adopt a real negative growth budget, one that will eliminate at least
1,000 bureaucratic U.N. posts, so that the American taxpayers in the
future will pay a smaller percentage of a smaller budget.
It will forbid future U.N. global conferences, for example the
Beijing women's summit that caused such a stir in this country and
elsewhere, and the Rio Earth summit, meaning that the American
taxpayers will never, never again be forced to pay the exorbitant costs
of such boondoggles as those two that I mentioned.
The pending bill will require the United Nations to reimburse the
American taxpayers for U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping
operations. And that means that the U.S. defense budget will no longer
be raided to support U.N. experimentation with peacekeeping operations.
Most important, this bill provides a very significant aspect. It
forbids requiring the American taxpayers to furnish the money to pay
any so-called U.N. arrearages unless and until the requirements in this
bill have been met by the United Nations.
A lot of crabbing is going on about it, and a lot of speculation
about whether they will like it or not up there. They don't like it.
You know who doesn't care one whit whether they like it or not? You are
looking at him, Mr. President. My message to the United Nations is
simple but clear: No reform, no American taxpayers' money for
arrearages.
Last, and certainly not least, this legislation imposes very strict
and very specific disciplines on spending and authorizing funding for
the Department of State and other related agencies.
Let me repeat for the purpose of emphasis. This legislation is
bipartisan. It does not contain everything that I wanted. Senator Biden
is a tough and fair negotiator. Nor does it reflect everything that the
other side--Joe Biden and the Democrats--not everything that they
wanted is in here. But, in the end, at the end of the day, as is so
often said these days, I believe it is evident that the Foreign
Relations Committee is proposing important reforms that will be highly
beneficial to this country and to the American taxpayers.
So I say again, it is truly a team effort by both sides, and I hasten
to mention that it would not have been possible without the
extraordinary efforts of the chairman of the International Operations
Subcommittee, Senator Rod Grams, who devoted so many

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hours presiding over oversight hearings on important aspects of this
bill. Senator Grams worked with us every step of the way in crafting
the legislation which I have just described in some detail. Moreover,
Senator Grams' special expertise, gained by his having served as the
U.S. Congressional Delegate to the United Nations, has been enormously
helpful in the crafting of this comprehensive U.N. reform proposal. And
then the committee has also worked closely with Senator Judd Gregg, the
distinguished chairman of the appropriations subcommittee which has the
responsibility, don't you know, for the Departments of Commerce, State,
and Justice. Senator Gregg's support for this bill, this pending bill,
sent a message to the administration early on that the appropriators as
well as the authorizers of the U.S. Senate would be standing together,
united in support of this pending bill.

Needless to say, I sincerely hope that the spirit of bipartisanship
will continue and that the Senate will expeditiously complete action on
it.

Privilege Of The Floor

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the staff of
the Foreign Relations Committee, both majority and minority, be given
the privilege of the floor for the duration of the Senate's
consideration of S. 903, the pending legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, Senator Biden is on his way to the Senate
floor. While we await the arrival of the distinguished Senator from
Delaware, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of New Hampshire). The clerk will
call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, is there controlled time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). There is no controlled time.
The pending business is S. 903.
Mr. BIDEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I rise today to speak to the legislation before us.
Today, the Senate begins consideration of the Foreign Relations
Authorization Act, comprehensive legislation regarding the
institutional structure of and the funding for America's foreign
policy. This bill contains much more than the usual 2-year
authorization and funding for our foreign affairs agency which we
attempt to bring to the floor out of the Foreign Relations Committee.
It addresses two important issues which were the focus of much-heated
debate in the last Congress.
Specifically, this bill provides for the payment of U.S. back dues to
the United Nations--I need not say a very controversial and hotly
debated subject in this body--contingent, I might add, on specific
reforms in that body.
I note parenthetically that I spoke on Friday with the Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, and he indicated to me that it was his hope and
expectation that the Senate as a whole, that I in particular and the
chairman of the full committee, Senator Helms, would be pleased with a
number of the reforms he has initiated consistent with what he
indicated he would do. Hopefully, they will be acted upon by the
General Assembly this summer. But whether they are or not, the back
dues are contingent upon specific reforms in that body.
Additionally, the bill establishes a framework for the reorganization
of U.S. foreign policy agencies, which is, in my view, totally
consistent with the plan announced by the President of the United
States in April. The bill, Mr. President, that we have before us is not
only complex and wide ranging, in that it covers more than one specific
subject, but it is also the product of what I think most people would
acknowledge is a serious bipartisan effort on the part of the chairman
of the full committee, members of the subcommittee in the majority,
members of the subcommittee in the minority, and me as the ranking
member of the committee representing the Democratic position. In
addition to that, the administration has been part of this lengthy and
very detailed negotiation for the past several months.
Last Thursday, after a markup that lasted less than 3 hours in the
Foreign Relations Committee, the Committee on Foreign Relations voted
overwhelmingly, 14 to 4, to report this bill, with a majority of the
members on each side of the aisle voting in favor of it. I am grateful
to the majority leader, Senator Lott, and to the chairman of the full
committee, Senator Helms, for working together to bring this bill to
the floor so promptly. The bipartisan cooperation on this bill thus far
is a testament to the commitment of both the chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, the Republican leadership, along with the
administration, to attempt to construct what we all talk about a lot
but seldom occurs: a truly bipartisan consensus on American foreign
policy.
This bill is quite detailed, so with the indulgence of my colleagues,
I will take, which is the norm around here and the requirement, a few
moments to explain, as the Democratic manager of the bill, what its
major provisions are.
First, the bill contains the basic authorization legislation for the
Department of State, or, put in everyday parlance, money, the money for
running the Department of State and our suggestion, as all authorizers
do, to the appropriators as to how much money we should be spending.
First, it contains the basic authorization legislation for the
Department of State, the U.S. Information Agency, the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency and the Peace Corps.
The funding levels in the bill closely reflect that of
the President's budget. The total amount authorized for fiscal 1998 is
$6.1 billion, as compared to the President's request of $6.2 billion.
In fiscal year 1999, and this is a 2-year authorization, the amount
provided in this bill is $5.9 billion. This modest reduction represents
the reduction in the international organization account consistent with
the administration's commitments. During debate on this legislation, I
will explain that in more detail.

Within this framework, we have provided, first, full funding for the
Department of State's core activities; that is, the diplomatic and
consular programs, salaries and expenses, and protection and
maintenance of our embassies--full funding. It provides 99 percent of
the funding for the U.S. Information Agency's diplomatic programs; full
funding for our exchange programs, the Fulbright program and others;
and full funding for international broadcasting. It provides full
funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, a bipartisan
operation that has had very great success; full funding for the Peace
Corps and the Asia Foundation; and $819 million over 3 years to pay our
U.N. arrears.
After several years of reductions in spending for diplomatic
readiness, I am heartened we are restoring funds to the international
affairs account, particularly to the core activities of the State
Department. Although the cold war has ended, Mr. President, the need
for American leadership in world affairs has not. Our diplomats often
represent the frontline of our national defense, and with the
downsizing of the U.S. military presence overseas, the maintenance of a
robust and effective diplomatic capability has become all the more
important, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a vast majority of
people who study the issue.
Despite the reduction in our military readiness abroad, the increased
importance of diplomatic readiness to our national security has not
been reflected in recent Federal budgets. According to a study of the
Congressional Research Service prepared earlier this year at my
request, foreign policy spending is now at its lowest level in 20
years. Stated in 1998 dollars, the budget in the current fiscal year is
$18.77 billion, which is 25 percent below the annual average of $25
billion over the past 2 decades, the past 20 years, and 30 percent
below the level of 10 years ago, which was very near the end of the
Reagan administration.
Mr. President, I emphasize, again, that this is a lot of money, but
out of a $1.7 or almost $1.8 trillion budget and in light of the fact
we are the world's only superpower it is a small percentage. To
continue to reduce our commitment to foreign affairs at a time when

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we are necessarily reducing our military activity abroad, our military
presence abroad, seems to me to be counterproductive. It seems to me
that in the former Soviet Union, the former Soviet states, the newly
independent states, we should be having an increased diplomatic
presence there. We should be opening consulates; we should have a
robust economic presence there; and yet, as a matter of fact, we have
been cutting back. This bill reverses that trend.
Let me put it another way. This halts the trend of downward movement
and recognizes our need to engage the world with diplomacy and our
foreign policy, not with our military.
So I am pleased that we are reversing the hemorrhaging of funds away
from foreign policy, according to this bill.
Second, the bill provides a framework for the reorganization of the
foreign affairs agencies that is consistent with the President's
announced plan on April 18. The backdrop for this, I know the Presiding
Officer knows very well, is that the world has changed drastically. The
world has changed drastically, as we all discuss and talk about, but we
have not reorganized the foreign policy establishment in our country.
We have not reorganized our foreign policy apparatus.
Although it made a great deal of sense, in my view, in the past years
to have, for example, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency separate
and apart from the State Department and our Agency for International
Development separate and apart, and other departments separate and
apart, it seems to me, and it seems to most observers, including the
administration, that it no longer makes sense. Here the credit must go
to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He has been
consistently advocating a major overhaul of the State Department, as
well as these other agencies, in terms of consolidation.

I might add that there are provisions in this legislation that,
obviously, I should have said at the outset that I don't like. There
are provisions I would like to change. For example, I think we should
be funding more money for the United Nations, although I acknowledge
the amount we funded can get the job done. I think we should be making
additional changes and giving greater flexibility to AID than we do in
this legislation. The fact of the matter is, this is a product of a
compromise on three major, major, major initiatives. As a consequence
of that, neither Senator Helms nor I got all that we bargained for in
this. That is the nature of compromise. So this has been a very
important element of this whole package for the chairman of the
committee.
Like the President's plan, the bill that we bring to the floor today
provides for integration of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
within the State Department within 1 year and ensures that the arms
control function is maintained in a position of prominence within the
Department of State.
When I went months ago to negotiate or lay out how I would like to
proceed and was willing to proceed with the chairman of the full
committee, I indicated to him that I would work in a bipartisan way to
deal with the reorganization, deal with the United Nations and deal
with the funding of the State Department, assuming that he was not
using this reorganization and other methods as merely a means for us to
withdraw from the world. He not only indicated that it was not his
objective, he has followed through and has shown it was not his
objective, evidence the fact that we essentially fully fund the State
Department for the next 2 years and he has agreed to significant
latitude for the State Department in the bill and its reorganization
efforts, compared to the bills he has introduced for the last 2 years.
So, like the President's plan, the bill we bring to the floor today
provides for the integration of not only ACDA, but also the U.S.
Information Agency [USIA], into the State Department. It provides for a
2-year transition for that to occur and creates a position of Under
Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy.
Again, I indicated that my concern was that as we bring these
specialized agencies of significant consequence into the State
Department, where they have never been before, that they be brought in
at a level commensurate with their significance, that they not be
subsumed in the State Department and essentially lose their visibility
and significance.
It seems to me, Mr. President, arms control will be the single most
important element of American foreign policy over the next two decades.
For it to be taken out of its independent status and subsumed into the
State Department would be a mistake. What we do is we establish in this
bill a position of prominence for the person who heads ACDA, as well as
for USIA, and we create the position of Under Secretary of State for
Public Diplomacy. There is only one difference in that it integrates
the Office of Public Liaison and Legislative Affairs into the State
Department within 1 year.
The reason for that is, we think, quite simple. It is nothing
complex. We think it can be done quickly and that it saves bureaucracy
and it saves money.
Additionally, this bill puts some flesh on the bones of the
President's plan with regard to international broadcasting. The
President's plan was virtually silent on this question, stating only
that ``the distinctiveness and editorial integrity of the Voice of
America and the broadcasting agencies would be preserved.''
That is just what we have done here.
This bill just holds and protects that principle by maintaining the
existing Government structure established by Congress in 1994
consolidating all U.S. Government-sponsored broadcasting. I might add,
this was a money-saving effort led by the Senator from Wisconsin,
Senator Feingold. He has succeeded, at least in large part, in one of
his objectives, which was to save the American taxpayers a great deal
of money. We have eliminated a bloated bureaucracy. We have
consolidated services, we have consolidated technical capability, and
we have preserved the integrity of the radios.
By radios I mean Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty--the things that
Lech Walesa said helped bring down the Berlin Wall more than anything
else. We established Radio Free Asia and Radio Marti and TV Marti
relating to Cuba. All of these maintain their journalistic integrity
because of their editorial integrity.
So we have done, I believe, what the administration indicated it
wished to do; that is, maintain the distinctiveness and editorial
integrity of these radios as well as the Voice of America. This bill
upholds and protects that principle.
As I said, what we have done is consolidated from 1994 all the U.S.
Government-sponsored broadcasting, that is Voice of America, Radio and
TV Marti, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and
Worldnet TV, under the supervision of one oversight board known as the
Broadcasting Board of Governors. That has been done.
Importantly, however, the board and the broadcasters below them will
not be merged into the Department of State where their journalistic
integrity would be questioned and greatly at risk. The radios will,
however, continue to play an important role in advancing U.S. foreign
policy objectives.
The board will have what I call a dotted line relationship with the
State Department in that the new Undersecretary of State for Public
Diplomacy, the same function now performed by the Director of USIA,
will have a seat on the board. Additionally, the Secretary of State
will provide foreign policy guidance to the board and will be consulted
about additions or deletions of language services currently performed
by the radios.
Like the President's plan, the bill maintains the Agency for
International Development, that is AID, as a separate agency, but
provides for its partial integration into the State Department.
This has been the most controversial part of all of this, I might
say, Mr. President. There is a constituency that has a very solid case
to be made--I think a very strong case to be made--suggesting that the
expertise buildup by AID, headed now by Brian Atwood, and by many other
distinguished persons before him, is unique in that it is the outfit
that literally goes out and provides for digging the wells, bringing
the water, and bringing the new projects to those areas that need the
help.
It was very important that we not take that expertise and merge it
into

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the State Department, get it lost with every other GS-15 or 17 or 12
and lose the distinctive nature of those experiences. There is a
difference between those who do foreign policy and those who dig wells.
It is this distinctive nature--the ability to produce and deliver
services--that says we, the United States of America, through our aid
program, are going to assist populations in need.
But it has been, I think, a legitimate concern, in light of the new
world we now face, that there be more policy sway on the part of the
person dealing with the foreign policy of America--the Secretary of
State. We have tried to accommodate that, Mr. President. Just as the
President announced, the AID administrator will be placed under the
direct authority of the Secretary of State and, consistent with the
plan's objectives of improving coordination between the regional
bureaus at State and AID, the Secretary of State will have authority to
coordinate this aid policy.
This is causing a bit of a flap, though. This has been the single
biggest thing that, to the average American and I suspect the average
Senator, sounds merely like a giant bureaucratic snafu in that
somebody's turf is being stepped on and somebody else's turf is not
being accommodated, et cetera. It is more than that. It is more serious
than that. But I suspect we have not heard the end of what we attempted
to do in this legislation.

The concept of aid coordinators, that is, having aid coordinated by
the State Department, is not new in this legislation. Since the early
1990's, the State Department has had such coordinators that have
supervised the aid programs in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union.
Under the leadership of President Bush and, prior to that, under the
leadership of the Democratically controlled Foreign Relations
Committee, we first had a thing called the SEED program and then the
President expanded that, President Bush expanded it into the Freedom
Support Act. That aid program involved deciding how much aid would go
to the Ukraine, how much aid would go to Russia, et cetera. And we set
up a special coordinator within the State Department to do that.
So this is not a new notion we are applying here. This legislation,
quite frankly, is modeled on that concept. Indeed, the language we use
here is borrowed directly from the Freedom Support Act. But nonetheless
we are going to hear more about this because some of my colleagues, on
both sides of the aisle, have very, very strong views about this. I
suspect we will be debating this aspect of the reorganization more than
any other.
Two other issues bear emphasis and belie any charge that we are
micromanaging the reorganization of the State Department.
First, unlike the bill reported by this committee in the last
Congress, this reorganization bill does not--and I thank the chairman
for doing this because it is one of the major disagreements he and I
had--this bill does not, as the last bill introduced in the Congress
did, mandate specific reductions in budget or personnel. Instead, it
requires only a periodic report on savings that are achieved.
Second, the committee has provided no directives--none--on the
promised reinvention of the State Department itself.
Let me be clear about this. The President's plan stated that a
central element in the plan would be an ``intensified, comprehensive
internal reform program at State.'' In other words, the reorganization
of State by itself.
Again, for my colleagues listening to this, there are basically three
pieces to this reorganization. One is you have the State Department
sitting here and then you have these very important agencies, USIA,
AID--I think those are the acronyms --U.S. Information Agency, the
Administration for International Development and the Arms Control
Disarmament Agency.
For historical reasons, they had all been, if you will, satellite
agencies outside the direct, immediate control of the State Department,
although all related to the State Department. That is one big piece.
What do you do about that matrix?
There is a second big piece here. The second big piece is, within the
State Department, how many Undersecretaries of State do you have? How
many Assistant Secretaries of State? What do you do in terms of how
they relate to one another? How many personnel should be in the field
and not in the field? How many consulates should you have and not have?
These are all very important decisions.
That is part of this $6.1 billion we are giving them to run this year
and $5.9 billion in the second year of this 2-year authorization. We do
not fool with that. We do not micromanage that. We respond to the
concerns of the last administration and this administration. We say,
``Look, you present us with a plan. You come up and you go ahead and
reorganize that. We're giving you authority to go out and do it. You do
it.''
We are not micromanaging, but we are going to deal with this big,
controversial subject that has been sort of rattling around for the
last decade. We are going to take AID, ACDA, and USIA, and we are going
to merge them in varying degrees into the State Department.
There are those who are going to come out on the floor and say that
Senator Helms and I are into micromanaging the State Department's day-
to-day activities. That is simply not true. That is not what we are
doing. But we are tackling the one issue no administration has really
been able to successfully deal with. And that is, what do you do about
these three very important agencies that have very important
constituencies and very important functions? We are taking them--they
have been out there by themselves now for a number of years, with good
reason--and we are merging them, in light of this changed world, into
the State Department. We are doing that. We are doing that, in my
opinion, for several reasons.
I will tell you my motivation for doing it. First, internally
handled, I am not sure how it would ever get settled in the
administration. The constituencies are significant. The bureaucracies
are real. They are important. Second, I worried that if we were
essentially just going to use this as an excuse to eliminate their
functions, we would be doing a great disservice to the Nation. Senator
Helms agreed. Senator Helms said, let us bring them into, in
commensurate positions of responsibility and authority, the State
Department. So we are doing that. But even within that, we leave a
great deal of flexibility for the Secretary of State and the President
of the United States.
Mr. President, I believe I speak for the chairman when I express my
hope that the type of reform effort that the President has indicated he
wishes to undertake--that is the actual reorganization of the State
Department itself, which we do not do--my sincere hope that he will in
fact vigorously pursue the long overdue internal management reform
needed because the State Department's problems could be compounded by
the absorption of two new agencies unless reforms are made.
So the irony here is, Mr. President, we are subsuming these
organizations into the State Department, and now it is real important
that the internal management and reforms within the State Department
take place because, if there is difficulty in terms of organizational
structures at State now, they are going to be compounded by bringing in
these additional agencies.
We leave all of the aid personnel outside here. We take policy and we
put it in, but the personnel, the people who actually go out and make
sure the water goes to the village, their unique capability stays out
here as an independent agency.
So the point is that we are giving the State Department and the
President ample opportunity to do what they say they needed. And I
believe the administration--the administration; Freudian slip--my
administration, in effect, on the floor that I have to deal with is the
majority party. The majority party, led by Senator Helms, has given a
great deal more flexibility than they intended to give for the
administration to be able to do that. Obviously, the administration
would prefer, as a matter of principle, passage of legislation that
delegates broad authority to the President to reorganize the whole
shooting match.
Well, in a perfect world I would prefer that as well. The truth of
the matter is, it is not a perfect world. My

[[Page S5660]]

team does not control this place. The other team controls this place.
They have very different views. And I think we have worked out, in
light of that, a very, very important compromise that is consistent
with the overall objective the President has stated.
But under the administration's approach, which is basically just
delegate, the only moment for congressional action would be a
resolution of disapproval of a plan. What the administration wanted,
and if I could have waved a wand--put it another way; if I had 51
votes--I might attempt to accommodate their wish.
But what the administration wanted was that they send a plan to us
when they have the opportunity to go through it and vet it. They will
say, ``This is our reorganization plan, including the whole shooting
works. Now, you, the Congress, either approve or disapprove it.'' You
can only--excuse me, you have to disapprove it. If you do not
disapprove it, then it becomes law; it is changed. If you disapprove
it, it has the benefit, if you are a President, of allowing you to get
your plan passed with only one-third of the Congress plus one voting
for it, because we can come along and get 51 votes and say, ``No; we
don't like the plan you submitted,'' and disapprove it. The President
then vetoes our disapproval of his plan. Now we have to override his
veto. So we come back up here and we have to find a supermajority if we
do not like the plan.

So it is not something Congress would usually buy on to, any more
than administrations like to buy on to giving up any prerogative, and
one of their prerogatives is to reorganize the executive branch. They
do not like the fact that we are doing part of that for them, which is
understandable. If I were President, I would feel the same way, or if I
were the Secretary of State, I would feel the same way. Conversely,
Congresses are not real crazy about offers made to them that allow
Presidents essentially to control the agenda, control the outcome by
only getting one-third of the Congress plus one person to vote with
them.
So here we are. I now am joining the chairman of the full committee
in preferring that Congress should place its positive stamp on the
President's plan rather than having the chance only to give a stamp of
disapproval and to be overridden by one-third plus one.
In general terms, the committee's approach does not provide any less
flexibility to reorganize. To be sure, the committee locks in the date
for ultimate integration of the two agencies in question. And we are
only fully integrating two agencies, USIA and ACDA. And it speeds up
the partial integration of AID into State.
Within those broad outlines the administration has considerable
flexibility to implement the thousands of decisions required under
reorganization. Ultimately, Mr. President, the administration will have
to return to the Congress for certain authorities to carry out the
complicated integration of two large agencies into the State
Department. However, I would be surprised if the administration
contends that this requirement to return to Congress is unduly
burdensome.
I hope the administration will work with the committee on this
procedure. If the administration is committed to the reorganization
outlined by the President's April 18 statement, as I believe it is,
then it should have no trouble implementing the legislative framework
laid down in this bill.
Finally, Mr. President, the bill provides for the payment of U.S.
arrearages to the United Nations. Now, in my almost 25 years of being a
U.S. Senator, there is little that generates as much enthusiasm for
debate than when we talk about paying arrearages to the United Nations.
Maybe when we talk about the question of abortion more vigor is
displayed on this floor, but only abortion and a few other issues raise
the combative instincts of my colleagues more than paying back U.S.
arrearages.
Now, the proposal contained in our bill, this bipartisan proposal,
led by my friend from North Carolina, I believe will serve three
important purposes. One, it should finally end the long festering feud
between the United Nations and Washington about our unpaid dues.
Second, it should bring much needed reform to the world's body so that
it can more efficiently perform its missions, missions which we
acknowledge in this legislation that we support. Third, it should, I
hope, restore some of the bipartisan support in Congress for the U.N.'s
system, support that has existed for most of the U.N.'s 50-year
history.
The agreement before the Senate will allow us to pay $819 million in
arrears to the United Nations over a 3-year period contingent upon the
United Nations achieving specific benchmarks, to borrow Chairman Helms'
expression.
Now, the payments are broken down as follows: In year 1, we will pay
$100 million. I might add, even if we wanted to pay more, the budget
agreement we passed does not accommodate us paying any more than that,
so even if we wanted to pay all the rest, the Congress and the
President have limited us to what we can pay under that budget
agreement. Now, in year 2--and this was a significant compromise, and
he is on the floor, and I want to publicly thank him for accommodating
my request on this--in year 2, we pay $475 million, assuming the
benchmarks are met. In year 3, we will repay the remaining $244
million.
The significant feature of this payment scheme is that it will allow
the administration to pay off virtually all our arrears in the first 2
years for the two most important accounts, which are the regular and
peacekeeping budgets. With these two accounts current, our diplomats
will have the leverage they need to push through the tough reforms that
are needed.
Let me mention a few of the particularly noteworthy benchmarks, again
using the chairman's term. The plan calls for a two-stage reduction in
our regular U.N. assessment rate from 25 percent to 20 percent. Now, I
have been criticized a great deal for going along with this, as my
friend from North Carolina, I suspect, has been criticized for going
along with paying the arrears. I am told, ``Joe, as a supporter of the
United Nations how can you possibly insist that the U.S. portion of the
United Nation's regular dues be reduced from 25 percent to 20
percent?'' And I say I would rather just pay our arrears and then
negotiate that. But on the issue of what should we pay, Mr. President,
I would respectfully suggest that if the meeting in San Francisco
organizing the U.N. were today rather than 50 years ago, we would not
be sitting down with economic giants like Japan and the European
countries and others and saying, ``By the way, we should pay 25
percent.''
I argue it made sense after World War II when we were the only
economic power left standing in the world. We are not the only economic
power left standing in the world. I want to pay our fair share. I do
want to carry our burden. But I am hard pressed to see why I am doing
such a terrible thing, siding with the chairman, saying our numbers
should get down to 20 percent from 25 percent.

As I said, I challenge anyone to tell me why you think there would be
a consensus in the world that we should pay 25 percent if we were
starting from day one. Now, agreed, admittedly, the chairman and I do
not agree on how we should go about this. I would like to pay the
arrears, not make it conditional and negotiate our dues because this is
a little bit heavy handed, but I am a realist. Politics in the best
sense of the word is the art of the practical. We have to get 51 votes
to get this thing moving. The chairman and I have to make compromises.
He has come a long way. I am willing to go a long way because I think
this meets the most important requirement.
I hear people telling me now, and I see my friends on the floor,
saying, ``Joe, this is great. You worked out this compromise with
Senator Helms, but if you got him to compromise this much, if you were
just a little tougher you would have gotten a billion 300 million for
U.N. arrears.'' First, they do not know my friend like I do. We have
worked together for almost 25 years. We came here at the same time.
Second, it is amazing how people in hindsight say, ``Hey, this is
great, this is great. We are moving along in the right direction.''
This is the end of the road, this direction.
As I told the chairman, he came up to that $819 million, and the
administration says they can get the job done with that--it is a
bottom-line number with me. If we go to conference and the House cuts
that number, I am not voting for this. And the chairman did not

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like going up that high but he is sure going no higher, unless I
misread him. So people say, ``Well, Joe, you are forcing the United
Nations to make these decisions. It is not fair.'' Well, I remind them,
can the United Nations take another year, can we handle another year of
nonpayment without doing permanent damage or additional damage to our
status within that agency, which I think is an important agency?
Everybody tells me it is important this get done. I asked those folks
who now are saying this is not enough, I asked them, you figure out how
to get 51 votes for something more than that, and if you do not get 51
votes and this carries over for another year, what damage have we done?
If damage would be done by not paying the disputed amount between $819
million and what others say we owe, if damage would be done by that,
how much damage would be done if this thing goes over another year? I
respectfully suggest, a lot more damage by not acting. And, by the way,
I have had this conversation with the President of the General Assembly
and with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. They both want
action now because they say what our fellow nations in the United
Nations are wondering, are we ever going to pay? Do we think we have an
obligation? This, at a minimum, establishes that. It is very important,
very important.
We may have a slight disagreement, my friend from North Carolina and
me, but I see the United Nations as a valuable tool. I do not want to
be sending U.S. troops everywhere in the world where there is a need
for international action, where there is a need for the world to
respond so it does not blow out of control. I do not want to do that.
The United Nations can be and is a very valuable adjunct and tool. I do
not want to see it come apart. To me, this is the single best way to
meet our foreign policy needs now. It is important we act now.
Let me mention a few of the particular noteworthy benchmarks beyond
moving from 25 to 20 percent. The plan also requires that the United
Nations make a commitment that the United States be reimbursed for
support we provided for the peacekeeping operations, something that is
very important to the chairman. Some of my colleagues, all of whom I
respect, will come to the floor and say, ``Well, you know, Joe, look at
what our share of the world's resources are and look at what our share
of the world's economy is and look at what our share of our involvement
in the United Nations is, and it really should be 25 percent.'' I say,
does the rest of the world take into consideration the billions of
dollars American taxpayers are paying to keep peace in the world? How
about Korea? How about Japan? How much do they pay? How about the
billions of dollars we have committed in Bosnia? How about the billions
of dollars we have committed around the world? Now, I am not asking the
United Nations to credit us for that. I do not know how they would
calculate that. I am asking them to recognize it.

I am asking, by us coming up with these arrearages, to stop the
bashing, to stop the U.S. bashing, as well as, hopefully, to stop the
U.N. bashing. This is a time for us to take advantage of the
institutions in the best sense of the word that exist to maintain world
peace without our having to be the world cop.
In addition, the plan calls for a number of budgetary and oversight
reforms that promise to improve the efficiency both at the U.N.
Secretariat and in its largest specialized agencies.
I say again to my friend who is on the floor, he may have been off
the floor earlier, I spoke with Kofi Annan on Friday. I suspect the
Senator may have, as well. He indicated he appreciated our efforts.
Obviously, he would like more. He said something interesting. He said
that he was hopeful that you, Mr. Chairman, and I would be pleased with
the reforms he has already suggested and that he hopes the United
Nations will act upon this year prior to--prior to--commitments
mandated by us in these benchmarks. He did not get specific about each,
but I am sure, knowing him as I do, he is committed to reasonable
reform just like every other major business in the world is reforming
and every major governmental institution is reforming and streamlining.
I believe that it is the intention of the Secretary-General to do the
same thing. The end result will be to increase the efficacy of the
United Nations and the fairness of those nations that contribute to its
function.
There are many of my colleagues that will look at the list that I
mentioned here today and wonder why such detailed restrictions are
attached to the payment of this money. In an ideal world, as I
indicated in committee, I indicated to the chairman, and I indicate
now, I would prefer far fewer restrictions. I support the United
Nations with all its flaws because I believe, more often than not, it
advances our national interests by providing a forum for combating
problems that no single nation can address on its own, or at least no
single nation can efficiently address on its own. We should not have to
be the nation to address problems solely on our own. Placing conditions
on U.S. payment is not unprecedented. Congressional pressure has often
been an important catalyst for change in New York.
For example, were it not for the efforts of our former colleague,
Nancy Kassebaum--and everybody thinks of Nancy Kassebaum as a supporter
of the United Nations and looks to Senator Helms as the person who
stopped all these payments to the United Nations, Senator Nancy
Kassebaum, now Nancy Kassebaum Baker, when she was a leader on this
floor--her efforts required that the U.N. system would have to adopt a
consensus-based budgeting process. Were it not for her efforts, that
would not have occurred. Were it not for the initiative of Congress in
1994, then under Democratic control, in fairness to the chairman, there
would be no inspector general at the United Nations. That was a
condition we placed. That was a Democratically-controlled Senate, that
was a Democratically-controlled committee.
So this notion of benchmarks is not an unprecedented notion. What is
unprecedented is the Senator from North Carolina saying, ``I will sign
on to pay our arrearages.'' That is the unprecedented part, from my
standpoint, and the benchmarks that he has insisted upon, I cannot look
him in the eye and say that they are not reasonable. I would prefer not
to have them, but they are not unreasonable. I would prefer to do it
another way, but they are not unreasonable, and consequently I am
supporting him because this is all part of an overall agreement to deal
with the entire foreign policy of the United States of America.
Mr. President, the achievements I mentioned earlier, the inspector
general and others, were reasonable conditions. So, too, are those
contained in the Senate bill now before the Senate.
The original plan offered by the majority, in my view, did not meet
the same standard, but as a result of good faith negotiations with the
majority, we now have a set of conditions, which the administration,
including our Ambassador to the United Nations, our former colleague
and now Ambassador Bill Richardson, believes are achievable.
Mr. President, I am often asked what it takes to be a U.S. Senator,
and I say it takes two very important things: One, you have to be an
optimist. If you are not, you are in the wrong business. It is not the
place to be. The second thing it requires, I think, is that you be a
pragmatist, because we have to achieve a consensus in this body. We
represent over 250 million people with very different views. We
represent very different constituencies and very different ideologies.
Pragmatically, we have to get to the point where we get 51 votes.
I recognize that no plan to pay our U.N. arrearages can get through a
Republican-controlled Congress without some of the conditions that are
on here. Again, I think the ones that remain are not unreasonable. I
believe it is important to get this issue behind us and move toward a
bipartisan foreign policy. This legislation should contribute
considerably to straightening out our relations with the United
Nations.
For those colleagues on my side of the aisle who remain unconvinced,
let me state clearly that the administration was involved every step of
the way in the U.N. negotiations, and it has signed off on every
element of this U.N. package and supports the proposal as the best deal
that can be achieved, because they believe, as I do, that we must put
this behind us. So I don't

[[Page S5662]]

want to hear that the chairman did this by fiat, or the chairman--which
he is capable of doing--got the ranking member in and convinced him, or
has mesmerized him into changing his view. That is not true--possible,
but not true. That is not what happened. The administration was either
in the room or informed of everything we have done on this point. They,
like me, believe that this is the best we can get and that it can get
the job done.
Now, I say to some of my colleagues, very bluntly--I will state it on
the record--they say that they think the administration is wrong as
well. Well, look, I have to sign on with some team here, you know. They
are the ones running the show. They are the ones with the expertise.
They know a lot more about what is needed to satisfy the 150 some
nations of the United Nations. I take their word for it and I believe
they are correct--substantively correct--that it can be done. The
administration doesn't love this; I don't love it; the chairman doesn't
love it. But that's what this legislation is about. That is why we have
a Congress. That is how it is supposed to work to arrive at a
consensus.
Let me conclude by saying, Mr. President, that I have been here a
long time. I have worked on a lot of big bills. I have been, like the
chairman of the committee, in the majority and the minority. I like one
better than the other. I have been both places, and I have been in both
places twice. As I said, I have had the responsibility on my side of
the aisle of shepherding through some very comprehensive legislation,
not the least of which was the crime bill. But I think if the chairman
of the committee and I stood here in January, the first week we were in
session, and said that Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Joe Biden of
Delaware are going to sit down in a room over the next 5 or 6 months
and work out an entire package on how to deal with all this--when is
the last time we passed an authorization? It was in 1994. That was the
last time we passed any legislation to pay arrearages. It was the last
time we got any consensus on how to reorganize. Well, we have done
that. We both may be wrong, but we have done it.
We have brought to the floor a comprehensive package. So that I don't
confuse anybody, the most important thing to me is, first of all, to
maintain my principle, and, second, to maintain the commitments I make.
There are going to be amendments on this floor that I would like to
vote for. For example, my friend from Indiana, Senator Lugar, one of
the most informed men in the United States of America on foreign
policy, believes, as I do, that we should dedicate more than $819
million toward paying our arrearages. As a matter of fact, I am the guy
who called him when I thought my friend from North Carolina and I could
not work out an agreement, and said, ``If I introduce an amendment to
raise the arrearages, will you vote for me in committee?'' But then the
chairman came along and said, ``I will agree.'' I ended up voting
against my friend from Indiana in the committee to raise the number
higher. I did that because I made a commitment.

This is an overall package, all of this. It is not fair for me to say
to the ranking member or to the chairman, who has made significant
concessions from his former positions, I want to take this one piece
out of the overall agreement and still keep the agreement, any more
than it would be fair for him to go into a committee and vote to reduce
the number from $819 million to $600 million. He will not do that to
me, and I will not do that to him. This is not a matter of us making a
personal deal. This is meeting the commitment given to us by the
Senate: Can we put together a bipartisan consensus on this?
I want to announce to everybody that I am probably going to be
casting votes here, and I will state why at the time--they may say,
``How can Biden vote that way?'' If it stood all by itself, I probably
would not vote that way. But I believe the package we brought for the
Senate's consideration is serious, balanced, important to the foreign
policy of this Nation, and workable. I will stick with it. It is not a
perfect bill. Like any document that is the result of negotiations
between two opposing parties, it represents compromise and it contains
some elements that neither of us like. But it represents, in my
judgment, an incredibly constructive compromise. I urge my colleagues
to support it.
Mr. President, unless my friend from North Carolina wishes to take
the floor, I have nothing further to say.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I shall not devote a lot of time to
expressing my appreciation to Senator Biden. He knows how I feel.
Beginning in January, he is correct, I wasn't sure that we would work
this out. He is a fair man, and I try to be. As I look back on it, it
was an inspiring experience for me. I thank him, and I hope we can
expedite the proceedings from now on.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the bill is open for amendment. This is a
good time for Senators who have amendments--and I hope only a few, if
any, do, but I expect there will be some--this would be a good time for
them to come over. We will accord them as much time as they need. But I
say with all the earnestness that I have, it would be helpful if
Senators will come and offer their amendments because the bill is open
to amendment at this time.
I thank the Chair, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for
15 minutes as if in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________