Congressional Record, Volume 143 Issue 106 (Thursday, July 24, 1997)

[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 106 (Thursday, July 24, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8007-S8040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1998

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now
turn to S. 1022, the Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary
appropriations bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 1022) making appropriations for the Departments
of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related
Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1998 and
for other purposes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senate will proceed to
its immediate consideration.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask further unanimous consent that with
respect to the Feinstein amendment regarding the ninth circuit court,
there be 4 hours of debate on the amendment equally divided between the
chairman and the ranking member or their designees with no second-
degree amendments in order to the amendment. I further ask unanimous
consent that following the expiration or yielding back of time, the
Senate proceed to a vote on or in relationship to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that the
following Appropriations Committee staff members be granted floor
privileges during the consideration of this bill: Jim Morhard, Paddy
Link, Kevin Linskey, Carl Truscott, Dana Quam, Josh Irwin, Scott Gudes,
Emelie East, Karen Swanson-Wolf, Jay Kimmitt, Luke Nachbar, and Vas
Alexopoulos.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. This request I just made also includes both majority and
minority staff.
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to introduce this bill, S.
1022, for the fiscal year 1998 appropriations for the Departments of
Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies. This
year we have taken great strides to obtain bipartisan support for this
bill and to be responsive to the needs of the people within the budget
that we are provided. I think we have achieved this goal.
I want to especially acknowledge and thank the ranking member of this
committee who for many, many years has served on this committee and
whose cooperation, effort, and knowledge has been a core element in
developing this bill and achieving progress in making these agencies
function effectively. And that, of course, is the Senator from South
Carolina [Mr. Hollings].
The bill before us includes $31.6 billion for programs administered
by the Commerce, State, and Justice Departments, the Judiciary, and
related agencies. That is a lot of money, $31.6 billion, but I would
note that it is a bill that is frugal. It is $4 billion less than what
the President's budget request, and it is over $100 million less than
what the House will have passed in its bill in this area.
The essential thrust of this bill is to make sure the committee
adequately funds the activities of our criminal justice system and to
make sure that the States receive adequate funding to undertake an
aggressive posture to control the spread of violence and crime in our
Nation. As a result, we have increased funding for the Department of
Justice by 5 percent over 1997 levels. This represents a fairly
significant commitment to that Department, obviously.
Within the Justice Department, top priorities include fighting crimes
against children; providing assistance to State and local law
enforcement; countering terrorism activities; bolstering drug control
efforts; and pursuing new juvenile programs.
As chairman, I directed the committee to take a close look at the
needs of the juveniles in our country. In hearings this year, it was
brought to my attention the threats our children face when surfing the
Internet. While the Internet can be a place for the world to be at play
and to be at the access of children's fingertips, that world can also
have its shady side where predators lurk to exploit our children if
given the opportunity.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], along with organizations
like the Center for Missing and Exploited

[[Page S8008]]

Children, has worked to combat pedophile activity on the Internet. In
our legislation we provide funding to continue these efforts: $10
million for the FBI to apprehend the pedophiles who use the Internet in
their criminal activities; $2.4 million to the local and State law
enforcement agencies to form specialized cyber units to investigate and
prevent child sexual exploitation; and $6.2 million for the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children to continue their efforts to
educate and work with law enforcement officials in handing child
exploitation cases.
Also, the committee believes it is in the national interest to
improve the skills of our law enforcement personnel on all levels and
supports initiatives to do this. The Community Oriented Policing
Services, or COPS Program, is funded at $1.4 billion so that 100,000
extra police can be hired by our States and our communities. The
President's request did not include any funding for the local law
enforcement block grant. However, we have provided $503 million so that
localities could obtain funding for initiatives to reduce crime and
improve public safety.
Also, in response to a number of requests from law enforcement
officials, we have added $10.5 million to the President's request for a
regional information sharing system so that law enforcement officers
throughout the country can have increased access to national crime
databases.
This year the committee has taken a strong stance against the violent
acts that are directed toward women and children.
Our support includes a $67.3 million increase in the funding for the
Violence Against Women Act grants. We recognize the need to enhance and
expand current women's assistance programs as violent crimes against
them continue. Violence Against Women Act grants will be given to the
States to develop and implement effective arrest and prosecution
policies to prevent, identify, and respond to violent crimes against
women. This funding provides domestically abused women and children
with additional support services. This includes access to specially
trained prosecutors and law enforcement officials. Only 20 States
received Violence Against Women grants in 1996. We believe there should
be sufficient funding for more States to participate in this program.
Consequently, we have appropriated funds for this effort. And while we
have given significant funding to the Violence Against Women Program,
other grant programs still receive funding--the Motor Vehicle Theft
Prevention Program, the State Prison Grant Program, and the Missing
Alzheimer's Patient Program, just to name a few.
The Counterterrorism Fund received $29.5 million so that the law
enforcement officials can counter, investigate, and prosecute those
people who are involved in terrorist activities. In addition, the funds
will be used to conduct terrorism threat assessment against Federal
agencies and their facilities. Additional funds have been provided in a
classified portion of the bill, which is available to all Members.
Like many Members of Congress, the committee is concerned about the
proliferation of illegal drugs coming across our borders and its impact
on our children. In an effort to support law enforcement efforts to
combat the rampant spread of illegal drugs, the committee devoted $16.5
million to combat the trade in methamphetamine and $10 million to the
effort to reduce heroin trafficking. The committee also provided
substantial funding for the Drug Enforcement Administration program to
provide adequate equipment for its agents. It does no good to hire new
agents--and we are hiring a large number of new agents in this bill--if
they do not have the equipment needed to do the job. So this bill takes
care of that issue.
Over the last few years, the infrastructure needs of organizations
funded by this bill have been neglected. We have made a point of
providing funds to repair buildings throughout our agencies. Over $300
million will go to the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and
the Bureau of Prisons to make much-needed infrastructure improvements.
This money covers the costs of a new FBI forensics lab at Quantico,
State prison grants to help States build new prisons, and facilities
for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents we have funded through the
Immigration and Naturalization Service.

As last mentioned within the Justice portion of the bill, the
committee sets aside funding for a Juvenile Block Grant Program,
subject to the authorization of the Judiciary Committee. It is our
understanding that the authorization may address such issues as the
need for increased penalties for criminal street-gang activities and
prosecuting violent youth offenders as adults at the discretion of the
prosecutor. This funding should assist in undertaking that effort.
This is just a brief summary of a wide range of Justice provisions
that will help law enforcement combat the threats that Americans face
in our daily lives.
In the area of the Commerce Department, we have made some difficult
decisions, but I think they are constructive ones. We have, for
example, provided strong support for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides high-quality research
and provides technical data to our economy. In particular, the bill
increases funding for the Coastal Zone Management Act, which is
important to all coastal and Great Lakes States and provides funding
for estuarine research. Since 75 percent of our Nation's population
lives near the coastline, placing a priority on preserving our
estuarine areas is important. Equally important is the need to conserve
the resources that live in our estuaries and oceans.
The bill increases funding for protected species research. The Sea
Grant Program, which conducts research of regional importance through
colleges and universities, is strongly supported in this bill. While we
believe NOAA is doing essential work for America, sometimes we disagree
with our House colleagues on the level of funding. We intend to address
this in conference, and we will go to conference with a strong bill.
The committee provides increased funding for the National Weather
Service, also. Many of us are concerned that this agency has the
resources necessary to ensure timely warning of severe weather,
especially hurricanes and tornadoes. The bill contains funding for
satellite improvements which are critical to monitoring and predicting
the weather. The committee supports the modernization of the Weather
Service and looks forward to working with the Department of Commerce to
ensure the orderly deployment of technology needed to improve
forecasting and warnings.
The largest increase in the Department of Commerce is the
administration's request for additional funds to prepare for the
decennial census. We have had previous discussions on the Senate floor
about whether or not to use a sampling technique to conduct the census
2000. The bill contains language on this issue developed on a
bipartisan basis during the consideration of the Supplemental
Appropriations bill earlier this year. The increase for fiscal year
1998 does not require a decision on whether or not to employ sampling.
The committee also funds the trade development and enforcement
responsibilities of the Department of Commerce at or slightly above the
administration's requests. The Bureau of Export Administration has two
new requirements which deserve mention. First, the Department of
State's encryption export control responsibilities have been
transferred to the Export Administration.
Second, with the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC), the Export Administration will have the primary responsibility
for enforcing the convention. While funds are provided at the requested
level to support the Export Administration's enforcement
responsibilities, any additional funds which may be needed during
fiscal year 1998 should be provided by the Department of Defense or the
Department of State. There is some concern that the administration has
underestimated the funds needed to enforce CWC. The Department of
Commerce should not be required to shoulder all the costs of Chemical
Weapons Convention enforcement.

Many Senators will be glad to hear that the committee did not agree
with the administration's request to zero out public telecommunication
facility

[[Page S8009]]

grants. We went ahead and provided $25 million for this program based
on the strong bipartisan support it enjoys.
In the judiciary area of the bill, the committee had to confront some
difficult issues, but I believe we have provided the American people
with a better judiciary through our efforts. The appropriation is
sufficient to maintain current judicial operation levels and takes into
account the increase in bankruptcy caseloads and probation population.
We are also providing the Justices and judges with a 2.8-percent cost-
of-living adjustment requested by the President.
The largest change--and it is a change I think will be for the best--
is that the ninth circuit Federal court will be split into two
circuits, reducing the caseload level in each to a manageable level.
During the 1996-97 session, the Supreme Court overturned 96 percent--96
percent--of the decisions reviewed by the ninth circuit. This high
overturn rate is a beacon that the Ninth Circuit is not meeting the
needs of the people it serves. Last Congress, Chief Judge Wallace
stated in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that ``it
takes about 4 months longer to complete an appeal in the ninth circuit
as compared to the national median time.'' The caseload continues to
increase yearly.
Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court testified before our committee
on April 17 that there are ``very dedicated judges on that circuit,
very scholarly judges. * * * But, [he thinks] that institutionally, and
from a collegial standpoint, that it is too large to have the
discipline and the control that is necessary for an effective
circuit.''
While some of my colleagues may disagree, the facts lead me to
believe it is past time for the ninth circuit to be split, and we are
going to hear a considerable amount of debate on that issue later
today.
Lastly, for the judiciary, we are providing an additional $2.2
million to the Supreme Court for renovations in an effort to comply
with safety regulations and with the Americans With Disabilities Act at
the Supreme Court building.
Moving on to the State Department, we have fully funded to the best
of our abilities, the operations carried out by this Department. We
made sure that the day-to-day functions of the State Department are
funded at an acceptable level, and we are going a long way toward
updating their outdated technology systems.
Maintaining infrastructure was a top priority of mine in funding this
bill. To do this, we are providing $40.4 million above the President's
request for the Capital Investment Fund so that desperately needed
upgrades on information and communications systems can be done. It is
quite alarming to hear that the State Department is still using Wang
computers and that oversees, about 82 percent of the radio equipment,
55 percent of the computer equipment, and 40 percent of the telephone
systems are obsolete. These are the people who are representing us in
foreign countries and they deserve to have up-to-date equipment.
As a final noteworthy item, this bill covers the U.N. arrears as
agreed to during the budget talks this year, in addition to supporting
the bicameral U.N. reform package found in S. 903, the Foreign Affairs
Reform and Restructuring Act of 1997. The international organization
and peacekeeping efforts are also included in this appropriation.
This is a very quick rundown of a very complicated and expansive
piece of legislation. I believe it is an extremely strong bill,
complying with the ideas that have been guiding the budget process over
the last few months. As I mentioned earlier, it is under the
President's request and under the House bill. Yet I believe it still
represents a sound and strong commitment to the agencies which it has
to cover.
Before turning this over to my esteemed colleague and ranking member,
I want to recognize the contributions of my staff, which have been
extraordinary, the members of my staff that I outlined earlier, Kevin
Linsky, Paddy Link, Vas Alexopoulos, Jim Morhard, Carl Truscott, Dana
Quam, Josh Irwin, and Luke Nachbar; and I also want to acknowledge the
ranking member's staff, who do such a super job--Scott Gudes, Emelie
East, and Karen Swanson-Wolf. Their help has made a tremendous
difference, and we would not have gotten to this point without their
assistance.
I yield to my ranking member.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank our distinguished chairman.
Mr. President, this Commerce, Justice, and State appropriations bill
is probably the most complicated of the 13 appropriations bills. In it
we fund programs ranging from the FBI to our embassies overseas, to
fisheries research to the Small Business Administration. It requires a
balancing act--considering the priorities of our President, our
colleagues here in the Senate, and our Nation, in equitably
distributing our subcommittee 602(b) allocation to the many programs in
this bill. I think Chairman Gregg has done a masterful job in putting
it together, and I support him in bringing this very solid bill before
the Senate.
I would especially like to recognize the majority staff who are all
new to this bill--Jim Morhard, Paddy Link, Kevin Linskey, Carl
Truscott, and Dana Quam, and our Democratic staff--Scott Gudes, Emelie
East, and Karen Swanson-Wolf. They have been working night and day to
put together this bill. They have done a truly outstanding job, and
have ensured a bipartisan spirit was maintained throughout this entire
process.
In total, this bill provides $31.623 billion in budget authority.
That is about half-a-billion dollars below the President's budget
request * * * and it is right at our section 602(b) allocation. The
bill is $1.4 billion above this year's appropriated levels.

justice

Once again, our bill makes it clear we're not fooling around with
Justice and law enforcement priorities. The bill provides
appropriations totaling $17.3 billion--an increase of $862 million
above last year. Including fees we provide the Department, the total
Justice budget comes to $19.3 billion.
It might be well to note historically that some 10 years ago the bill
was right at $4 billion. We in the Congress run around everywhere,
``Cut spending, cut spending, cut spending.'' If you want to know where
the increases in spending occur, you can look at the space program. I
followed the thought, of course, of the distinguished Senator from
Arkansas--who has been up in space. They say the interest is trying to
get Senator John Glenn back in space. My interest is trying to get the
Senator from Arkansas, Senator Bumpers, out of space. He has been up
there for 2 days. But he has been doing a masterful job, trying to save
moneys there.
Now, with respect to the Justice Department, the DEA, hundreds of
more FBI agents, a new laboratory there, Cops on the Beat, 1,000 more
Border Patrol, half a billion more in prisons--we are building prisons.
If you haven't gotten a prison in your State, call us; we will be glad
to build you one. Because we are not building schools in America, we
are building prisons everywhere. So, everybody ought to understand, in
the 10-year period under the leadership here of this Congress, trying
to cut spending, we have veritably quintupled the Justice Department.
Of this amount, our Federal Bureau of Investigations, the FBI, is
provided $3.1 billion, and we have funded completion of its new
laboratory at Quantico as well as $10 million to enhance efforts to
combat child pornography on the Internet.
As, I said, we've made sure the INS will keep our borders secure, by
providing an additional, 1,000 Border Patrol agents in the Immigration
and Naturalization service. Furthermore, the bill extends section 2451
of the Immigration Act. These fees allow adjustment of status for legal
immigrants in the United States and result in the Immigration Service
getting almost $200 million per year for border enforcement and
combating illegal immigration. This is important to both INS which
needs the funding, and the State Department which no longer has the
consular officers overseas to provide for adjustment of status in
embassies.
Within the Justice Department, we also provide $1,033 billion for our
prosecutors, the U.S. attorneys. That is an increase of $55 million.
I'm pleased to note that it provides for activation of

[[Page S8010]]

the National Advocacy Center to train our Federal and State
prosecutors, and it continues State and local violent crime task forces
which report to our U.S. attorneys.
So, looking at the Justice grant programs: the COPS Program is
provided $1.4 billion; the local law enforcement block grant is $503
million; $590 million is recommended for State prison grants; $264
million for violence against women grants; $580 million is provided in
Byrne grants and; $380 million is provided for juvenile justice
programs which is over twice the amount as this year.

commerce

On the Commerce Department, the bill provides $4.169 billion for the
Commerce Department. That is an increase of $368 million over this
year. Within this Department, the bill provides $659 million for the
Census, which is an increase of $314 million. This bill does not
prohibit statistical sampling, though we will continue to monitor this
issue closely.
We have provided $25 million for the Public Broadcasting facilities
grants and have rejected the administration's proposal to terminate
this program which assists public television and radio.
The recommendation includes $200 million for the NIST Advanced
Technology Program and $111 million for the Manufacturing Extension
Program. So this bill supports the bipartisan budget agreement which
specifically made these technology programs a priority. Another program
of interest, the International Trade Administration, has been provided
with $280.7 million.
The biggest account in the Department of Commerce, NOAA, has been
provided with $2.1 billion. We have included $473 million for Weather
Service operations, an increase of $23 million above the request. This
ensures that we won't have a repeat of all the problems we have seen
this year. LIke cutting the National Hurriance Center. And this bill
continues support for the NOAA oceans programs and the NOAA fleet.
I just attended the commissioning of the most modern research vessel
in the fleet, the Ronald H. Brown. I am pleased to report that, rather
than the interest up here--310 million miles away whether or not some
little instrument ran into a rock--in contrast, the NOAA fleet is out
researching seven-tenths of the Earth's surface, the oceans and
atmosphere, mapping the ocean floor and harbors and conducting surveys
of living marine resources so that the NOAA fleet is alive and well.
And we are not going to scuttle it as has been proposed here
previously.

STATE

In our title for the State Department and international programs, we
have included some $4 billion for the Department of State, and have
supported the consolidation of our international affairs agencies. We
have assigned, again, a priority to the operations and facilities of
the State Department, for example we included $105 million to modernize
computer and telecommunications systems.
We have included $100 million for United Nations and peacekeeping
arrearages as part of the agreement that was reached with the
Administration on the Foreign Relations authorization bill. The
recommendation also includes $20 million for renovating housing and the
U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
I have just had a conversation with the Ambassador Designate to the
Court of Saint James, which has a magnificent residence there. It was
done over by Walter Annenberg. It looks like a beauty to me. It doesn't
look like it's falling down. But they are going to close it and get
into a multimillion-dollar renovation program over 2 years, while they
are in squalor in Beijing.
I can tell you here and now, we have to do something about the
Property Division over in that Department of State, so that we can at
least have decent housing for those who are willing to sacrifice and
lead this Nation's foreign policy, particularly now in the most
important nation with respect to foreign affairs, the People's Republic
of China.
There is almost $400 million in the bill for international
broadcasting, $200 million for international exchanges. That is the
first time, of course, Mr. President, that the Fulbright and other
exchanges have gotten an increase. It should be noted that no funds are
included for the National Endowments for Democracy, and the
distinguished chairman and I are well able to defend that particular
initiative now. I imagine we will be hearing from our colleagues with
an amendment. But if they want to bring this up and talk about pork, I
never heard of worse ones--although we have had it. This Senator at one
time opposed it; at one time supported it at the request--at the fall
of the wall. We didn't have an entity that could really bring
newspapers and printing presses and election fliers for democratic
elections where in countries they had never held a democratic election.
It looked to me it might be an exception.
The Department of State, we ought not to be embarrassed, the
Department of State ought to be, really, about its front-line position,
now, with the fall of the wall, in promoting democracy, individual
rights, and the American way the world around. And we need not fund the
chairman of the Democratic Party, the chairman of the Republican Party,
the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL. I think that here we can make a
savings of several million dollars.
Mr. President, this is a good bill. I support it. We have had to make
some tough decisions, but under the leadership of Senator Gregg, I
think we have made the proper decisions. It is nice to have worked on
this State, Justice, Commerce bill, and I urge my colleagues to join in
its passage.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

Amendment No. 979

(Purpose: To authorize the Administrator of General Services to
transfer certain surplus property for use for law enforcement or fire
and rescue purposes)

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

The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] proposes an
amendment numbered 979.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 65, strike lines 3 through 9 and insert the
following:
Sec. 119. Section 203(p)(1) of the Federal Property and
Administrative Services Act of 1949 (40 U.S.C. 484(p)(1)) is
amended--
(1) by inserting ``(A)'' after ``(1)''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
``(B)(i) The Administrator may exercise the authority under
subparagraph (A) with respect to such surplus real and
related property needed by the transferee or grantee for--
``(I) law enforcement purposes, as determined by the
Attorney General; or
``(II) emergency management response purposes, including
fire and rescue services, as determined by the Director of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
``(ii) The authority provided under this subparagraph shall
terminate on December 31, 1999.''.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. BROWNBACK addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask that the previous amendment that
has been proposed be set aside and I have an amendment that I will send
to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 980

(Purpose: To prohibit certain corporations from participating in the
Advanced Technology Program)

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be set
aside. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report.

[[Page S8011]]

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Brownback] proposes an
amendment numbered 980.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the appropriate place in title VI, insert the following:
Sec. 6 . Section 28(d) of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology Act (15 U.S.C. 278n(d)) is amended
by adding at the end the following:
``(12) For each fiscal year following fiscal year 1997, the
Secretary may not enter into a contract with, or make an
award to, a corporation under the Program, or otherwise
permit the participation of the corporation in the Program
(individually, or through a joint venture or consortium) if
that corporation, for the fiscal year immediately preceding
that fiscal year, has revenues that exceed $2,500,000,000.''.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, this amendment deals with the Advanced
Technology Program which was established to spur high-risk
precompetitive research and development. It was intended to make U.S.
businesses more competitive in the global marketplace by assisting them
in developing technologies which they wouldn't fund on their own.
It was not established to fund research and development which would
have been funded in the marketplace anyway. No one believes that the
Federal Government should be in the business of taxing American
families to subsidize product development, research spending for rich
corporations. I think this would be in anybody's definition what former
Secretary of Labor Robert Reich qualified and stated was ``corporate
welfare.''
I have grave concern that the Advanced Technology Program has become
just that, a corporate welfare program. While recognizing the
importance of a strong Federal role in research and development, I am
very concerned that the ATP program is providing too much money to
companies that have clearly adequate resources of their own to fund any
research that is worth their doing.
My amendment is a simple one, and it should have broad bipartisan
support. My amendment says that no company with revenues in excess of
$2.5 billion--revenues in excess of $2.5 billion--can receive Federal
funding through the Advanced Technology Program. We are talking about
revenues. This is gross revenues of a company of $2.5 billion--so this
is a pretty large company we are talking about--above which you can't
receive funding from the Advanced Technology Program. I think if you
are having revenues of $2.5 billion or more a year, you can afford to
fund your own research and development program, and you don't need the
Advanced Technology Program.
We use the $2.5 billion revenue threshold because it would exclude
the 500 largest companies in America, the so-called Fortune 500, from
receiving welfare dollars.
I think if you are a Fortune 500 company, you can do without
corporate welfare dollars. In the word of one Silicon Valley
executive--and there have been a number out there to support this
provision; we have a letter signed by over 100 CEO's from startup
companies in Silicon Valley which say terminate the entire ATP program,
get rid of the whole thing. We are saying let's hold it to the largest
corporations.
One executive said this:

If you were General Motors with annual sales of $160
billion and $20 billion in the bank, why don't you fund this
great idea yourself and patent it yourself?

I think the answer to this question is pretty simple, and that is, if
there is a Federal subsidy program which will fund corporate R&D for
free, even if the company has enough corporate R&D resources, and if
that company's competitors are taking the money from the Federal
Government, why not take the money from the Federal Government
yourself? Therefore, we need to close that loophole so their
competitors can't get it and they be forced to take it as well.
What may be most troublesome is that for every grant given to a huge
company with a multibillion-dollar budget and CEO making tens of
millions of dollars, there is a small company who may have a good idea
but can't raise the capital and will do without Federal assistance. The
small companies will do without, while the big corporations get it.
What we are saying is let's keep it from going to the megacorporation
and have more available to the small corporation, which is what we are
trying to target in the first place.
We are not talking about a program that gives money exclusively to
small business, entrepreneurs or inventors working in their garages.
Some ATP money goes to small companies and universities. This amendment
would make it more available to them. But the top five companies that
participate in the greatest dollar volume of grants from the ATP
program are some pretty familiar names: IBM, General Motors, General
Electric, Ford, Sun Microsystems. I think they can afford to fund these
programs on their own. They don't need corporate welfare, and we should
be making more of this available to small companies.
Maybe they get it because they have a great idea or maybe they get it
because they have a lobbyist in Washington that watches for these
things. That may be part of it as well. Whereas, a small startup
company is just busy in their garage, or wherever, trying to hustle
enough to make this thing go. We want to make it more available to the
small companies, the entrepreneurs and keep it out of the hands of the
Fortune 500, all of which have large lobbying staffs to get hold of
that here.
According to the Department of Commerce, more than 40 percent of
single-applicant grants currently go to large companies--40 percent.
Other ATP recipients are AT&T, Black & Decker, 3M, DuPont, MCI, Xerox,
Caterpillar, Kodak, United States Steel, Honeywell, Allied Signal, and
the list goes on. These industrial giants have the time and the money
to fill out ATP applications, but also have the money to fund these
projects on their own.
I also take this opportunity to commend Secretary Daley for
initiating a review of the ATP program. As he and I have discussed, I
believe this review is long, long overdue, and I appreciate that it was
instigated very early on in his tenure. The Secretary recognized in his
recent report on the program that the question of whether huge
corporations should participate in ATP grants to the exclusion of some
smaller ventures is a legitimate concern and one that he is concerned
about as well. As a result of the Secretary's review, he has proposed
changes in the match for single-applicant-large companies to a 60-40
match from the current 50-50 and encourage joint ventures over single
applicants.
That is a laudable start, but, my goodness, that is just not far
enough when we are talking about a company that has $2.5 billion in
revenues, huge companies. They can afford to do this on their own. It
just doesn't go far enough. At most, this would reduce the amount a
large company will receive in grants by $65,000 a year, and that is not
much of an incentive for companies like IBM with revenues of $76
billion annually.
To its credit, this year the Department of Commerce requested input
from the public on the ATP. Among the public responses were, listen to
this one:

ATP awards large companies even though a smaller company,
as a single applicant, may have a better technical and
business proposal. In some cases, the large company tries to
get the award in a new research file just to shelf the idea
and prevent someone from doing the research because it will
compete with its existing markets.

Another one:

ATP should not be a time-consuming, expensive proposal
preparation contest which it is now.

Another one:

ATP does not provide much assistance for individuals or
shoestring startups which need assistance most.

While I am not offering an amendment to kill this program today, I do
have grave concerns about it primarily because I believe there is ample
private capital for good ideas. Last year alone, the venture capital
industry pumped more than $10 billion into new ventures. Last year,
companies raised more than $50 billion from initial public stock
offerings. The top four winners of ATP grants invested more than $20
billion of their own corporate resources on research and development.
We are talking about a total program, the total ATP program of right
around or under $300 million.

[[Page S8012]]

I don't think I have the support this year to eliminate this program
on an appropriations bill. Many of my colleagues believe that would be
more appropriate for the authorizing process, which I think would be as
well and a good place to do it as well.
So let me reiterate, today I am not offering a killer amendment. This
isn't even an amendment to reduce the funding of this program. It does
nothing to the funding of ATP. I am offering an amendment which will
make a small change in the program to better enable it to meet its
mission of providing funds for high-technology research without
replacing private dollars.
I want to note something else, Mr. President, if I can, about people
applying for ATP grants and companies that are applying for ATP grants.
This is according to a GAO report when they were looking at whether
people try to find these first outside the Government. This is the GAO:

When we asked if they had searched for funding from other
sources before applying to ATP, we found that 63 percent of
the applicants said they had not--

Sixty-three percent--

[and] 65 percent of the winners had not looked for funding
before applying to ATP.

In other words, they are going first right to the Federal Government,
to the ATP program. These are huge corporations with over $2.5 billion
in revenues, the only ones we are targeting, and they are saying, ``Let
us take it there first.''
This is a simple amendment and will help the small entrepreneur. It
will bring some sanity back to the process. It will start to address
the issue of corporate welfare, and this is a perfect case.
So, Mr. President, I think this is an appropriate amendment. At the
appropriate time, I will urge its adoption and ask for the yeas and
nays. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). Is there further debate on the
amendment?
Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am reminded of a little ditty they
used to have on the radio each Saturday morning for my children: ``All
the way through life, make this your goal; keep your eye on the donut
and not the hole.''
The distinguished Senator from Kansas is really, with this amendment,
trying to reduce it to a corporate welfare program. The goal, and the
eye ought to be on it, was commercialization of our technology, not
research. In fact, the research arm of the Defense Department, DARPA as
we call it, which has billions of dollars that come over--Greg Fields,
working with the National Institutes of Standards and Technology--this
is now back in the late seventies because I authored this particular
program--in the late seventies in talking with Mr. Fields and the
authorities at the National Bureau of Standards, at the time we called
it, found that we had all kinds of technology backed up in research at
the National Bureau of Standards on the civilian side that was not
being commercialized. In fact, what they call the rapid acquisition of
manufacturing parts--it is a wonderful type program--was developed and
came really out of the Bureau of Standards. A ship broke down in the
Persian Gulf that was 25 years of age, and they weren't making the
parts anymore, so the ship couldn't function. It took several months or
a year to get the part back out to get the ship moving again and
everything else.

The computerization and manufacturing at the defense level of all
parts are immediately on the board. Within days, they knew how to punch
the computer, get the particular manufacturer, get the part back and
going again. That came out of the Department of Commerce that my
distinguished colleague has been bent on trying to abolish.
Back to the commercialization. In the late 1970s, down in Houston,
TX, they developed the superconductor, and right to the point, with the
research initiative, these particular scientists won the Nobel Prize.
But the actual commercialization was caused by our Japanese friends who
correlated some 22 entities and immediately started developing and
commercializing it. Oh, yes, the American scientists won the Nobel
Prize; the Japanese entrepreneurs won the profits.
We are going out of business in this country. This has nothing to do
with small companies or large companies. The staff, of course, has
provided me--but I do not want to get into that because I support DARPA
very much. But if we had this particular amendment and it took, then we
could put it to DARPA and all other research over in the Defense
Department, and then we could grind research to a halt. Because the
reality is that the larger companies do have the better research
entities. And the larger research companies also have the stock-market-
turnaround, get-in-the-black, get-your-stock-increase kind of pressure.
Talk to the CEO of AT&T, a multibillion dollar company. One of the
largest corporations ever in the world is in trouble because the
chairman that they had momentarily, barely a year, could not turn it
around and get it into the black and get it going. He is gone.
Now, Senator Danforth and I, working on this commercialization, said
now we are not going to have welfare and we are not going to have pork.
So we put in unusual safeguards which this Senator from South Carolina
has had to fight personally to maintain.
One safeguard coming with the particular research endeavor was that
we had to have this particular request approved, bucked right over to
the National Academy of Engineering, and saying, ``Wait a minute. Does
this really contribute to the Nation's particular research?'' We did
not just want company research to increase the profits of a particular
company; we wanted a research endeavor that meant something to the
basic research technology advancement of the United States of America.
This is a national program; it is not a welfare program; it is not a
corporate-profit program.
So this is No. 1. The corporation has to come with at least 50
percent of its money. They have to have upfront money they are willing
to put in, then bucked over to the National Academy of Engineering for
its approval on a national basis, then going back for a third
particular test of competition of which were the most deserving because
this has been very, very, very limited.
Look at our agricultural boards. They have multimillions in there for
California raisins and ``Don't drink the wine before its time,'' Gallo,
and all of those other things. The farm boys around here know how to
get things done, but the technology boys are out researching and making
money and continuing to research. Then, like GE coming through my
office and saying, ``We don't have time to turn this particular
around,'' so go sell it to the Saudis because they have the money and
they can develop it.
Mr. President, 15 years ago, I put in a bill to cut out the quarterly
reporting. That is one of the real bad devices--all this quarterly
reporting. The market is going up; the market is going down. Greenspan
says something, it goes up billions, it goes down billions, costs or
whatever it is. We have to understand the global competition has to
steady the boat in this land financially. One of the great initiatives
to have it steadied is to do away with quarterly reports.
We all fault the American entrepreneur and corporate leader
in saying, oh, he won't invest in the long range. Our Japanese
competition, they know how. In Korea, Japan, the competition in the
Pacific rim, they get long-range planning. The American corporate head
cannot do it under this structure. He has to get in and somehow take
the best profits, the bigger profits, go for it. You might have a
technology, but if it takes over 3 years, forget it, ``We don't have
time. We don't have the money. Sell it to somebody else, get a joint
venture with the Germans or the Brits or whatever it is.''

We are exporting our technology. And the security of the United
States of America depends on our superiority of technology. We do not
have as many Americans as they do Chinese. Someday we are going to find
that out, Mr. President.
Running around with a little boat in the Taiwan Straits, I was on one
of those aircraft carriers up in the Gulf of Tonkin 30 years ago. We
did not stop 30 or 40 million little North Vietnamese coming down the
Ho Chi Minh trail. I do not know how, with a couple of these boats in
the Straits of Taiwan, that we are going to stop 1.2 billion

[[Page S8013]]

Chinese. So we better sober up in this land, emphasize our technology,
get it developed. That is the thrust of the Advanced Technology
Program.
So we had all the tests. Like I had commented, I had personally taken
it on over on the House side. We had a distinguished colleague over on
the House side that every time we got to the State, Justice conference,
he wanted to write up one of these particular programs for himself. I
said, ``This is not corporate welfare. This is not pork. We're going to
stand by.'' We held this bill up in conference for weeks on this one
particular point, that it was not corporate welfare, it was not pork.
It was a studied program to commercialize, develop, and commercialize
the technology that we could get financed. It is a solid program with
strong bipartisan support.
Mr. President, I remember when we had the particular--if you can
remember. I can hardly remember when the Republicans were in a
minority, but there was a day. It was just about 4 years ago. They had
a Republican task force in the U.S. Senate at that time chaired by the
distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole. They had over a dozen
Senators endorse this program as it is, which includes, of course, our
distinguished majority leader, Senator Lott; the former Secretary of
the Navy, Senator Warner; the chairman now of our Appropriations
Committee, Senator Ted Stevens; the chairman of our Judiciary
Committee, Senator Hatch--you can go right on down the list--the
chairman of our Budget Committee, Senator Domenici; and others.
I just want the distinguished colleague and friend that I have here
from Kansas to understand coming over from the House side with that
Walker disease--we had a fellow over there named Bob Walker from
Pennsylvania who just took on a personal kind of vendetta against doing
anything about commercialization or development of technology or
research except in his district. He held up the authorization for this
particular measure for several years. Now it has been passed over on
the House side. I thank the distinguished Republican leadership for
passing that authorization bill and do not want to stultify it now by
resolving it into big-little, 2\1/2\ billion or whatever it is.
I can tell you here how they move on these large entities here. They
move on and do not put the money to it. They sell it. I can give you
example after example where I have worked with them in this particular
field, and they come by the office and say, ``I am headed to so and so
just for a joint venture. I will just take it to Japan and get a 49-51
deal. At least I can get my money back out to do some more research.''
But this has been draining, veritably, the security--not just the
technology, but the security--of the United States of America.
It is a well-conceived program, well-administered, just updated by
our distinguished Secretary of Commerce. He has come along. I do not
have the exact breakdown. I wish I had the Fortune 500 approach. We
know about half of it goes to small companies. I have no objection to
it going to small companies. I just have a distaste and would have to
vote against that kind of division because if this kind of thing sells,
then we are going to begin the big-little and it is really going to
miss out on some very, very valued technological programs.

I have example after example that we could get in. I see other
Senators wanting to speak. But the point here is, big, little, small,
or otherwise, you have to first put up some money, at least half of it.
You have to have it reviewed nationally. Some of the smaller companies,
they are engaged in research, but they are not engaged in basic
research. The smaller companies, by their very nature, only have the
moneys for their particular endeavor, their particular profits.
Therefore, they do not come. We tried to get the small companies going
because that is where jobs are created, trying to get small business.
We have a specific program for that. We have in here the Small Business
Administration program in Senator Gregg's bill right here and now. So
we take care of that when it comes to small business.
I know the administration, under Secretary Daley and his particular
study here that we could put in the Record, says let us give even again
more emphasis to it and require more than the 50 percent from the
larger corporations. That particular guideline would be good. I would
have hoped that the gentleman would have come with a sense of the
Senate to confirm that guideline. But to actually put in law this
initiative begins to develop in the minds of everyone that this is a
welfare program and what we are trying to do is finance research.
We are not trying to finance research at all. We are trying to
finance the development and commercialization of already established
research. That really comes for the more affluent larger corporations.
They come in with the great innovations because they have basic
research. The small company--incidentally, I do not know that I have
any--of course, down in my home State it is not welfare. I do know
this.
In the debate, it ought to be understood that I had my textile folks
come to me and they said that they had a technology program and they
knew that I had been the father of the Advanced Technology Program, the
ATP, and the manufacturing extension centers. So they said, ``We need
your help over at Commerce to get this particular''--it had a
computerization of the supplies coming in and going out so they would
not end up with a warehouse full of bluejeans that they could not sell,
whatever it was. Mind you me, I said, No. 1, ``I'll not call over
there.'' I never have called over there to talk to a Secretary about
it. ``This is not pork. It's not corporate welfare.'' I told that to my
own textile leaders.
Mr. President, you know what they did? They went out to Livermore
Labs, through the Energy Department, and got started a $350 million
program in textile research. You see, with the closedown, fall of the
wall and the closedown of some of the defense research and what have
you, to keep Energy's budget livable and alive, they said, ``Sooey,
pig. You all come. We've got money. Anybody that can do it, we are
ready to go.''
That is what happened. They did not qualify at the National Academy
of Engineering for this computerization. It was an advancement. It
would have helped out my home industry and that kind of thing, but it
had nothing to do with the overall commercialization of a national kind
of research unique to the security of the United States itself. So it
was turned down.
So we ought to be looking now and do not start this particular kind
of initiative for defense, because we have the large companies here
that do all--we put this under research in the Defense Department.
United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Texas Instruments, IBM, MIT,
Hughes Aircraft, Carnegie Mellon, Northrop Grumman, Loral, Honeywell,
GE. I can go down the list of millions and millions and millions. If
this particular applied, I can tell you you would not get any defense
research, you would not be getting the F-22, the advanced plane, and
others of that kind that have come on now to maintain the national
defense of the United States.
So I hope that colleagues will understand the genesis of ATP, the
practical reality of financing and developing and commercializing the
research. The large corporations who developed the unique research in
this land of ours can make more money elsewhere, and they have been
doing it like gangbusters by exporting it right and left everywhere,
and we have been losing out. And we are wondering why we still have a
deficit in the balance of trade.
We have gone and manufactured the actual production and
commercialization. We have gone from 26 percent of our work force, 10
years ago, and manufactured down to 13 percent. Oh, yes, we are getting
the software, we are getting the wonderful jobs at McDonald's and the
other hamburger places and the laundries. But the actual production and
high-paying jobs are going elsewhere. We are exporting them as fast as
we can. We ought not to toy around with the solid nature of the
Advanced Technology Program. It is not pork. It is not corporate
welfare. The distinguished Senator has come up with an arithmetic
formula, and if we begin to apply that to research in America, we are
gone goslings.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Tom Wood, a
fellow for Senator Frist's office be

[[Page S8014]]

given access to the floor during the debate of the Commerce, Justice,
and State appropriations bill, and the same applies to Floyd DesChamps,
a detailee from the Department of Energy with the Commerce, Science,
and Transportation Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment of the
Senator from Kansas. The ATP issue has been one of the more contentious
issues that we have dealt with within our committee. Last year, it was
more contentious than this year because of an agreement reached between
the White House and the leadership of the Senate and House. The House
and Senate and the White House agreed that this program would be
funded. I suspect that they agreed it would be funded because of the
strength of the arguments made by the Senator from South Carolina, but
I think most people appreciate the fact that I have, since my tenure on
this committee, opposed funding for this program. It was over my strong
objection that this decision was made. But it was made and I have
agreed to live by the budget agreement and, therefore, the money for
ATP is in there.
But if you acknowledge ATP even as a program that should proceed
forward because of whatever arguments we are inclined to accept, it is
very hard to understand how we can justify using a program, the purpose
of which is to encourage the development of technologies which might
not otherwise evolve. That is the key here--they might not otherwise
evolve. It is very hard to justify such a program being used to fund
Fortune 500 companies' research initiatives. The fact is that Fortune
500 companies, companies with over $2.5 billion in sales, have the
capacity to pursue any technology they wish to pursue if they determine
that it has some value, if it has some economic value and if it is
going to produce some sort of worth to them. And it's very illogical to
presume that those companies would not pursue those technologies if
they felt there is a value and they have the wherewithal to do it. You
have essentially created a piggy bank into which these companies can
step or put their hands into if they desire to pursue a technology,
which they probably would have pursued anyway if they had the financial
wherewithal to do it. But in this instance, there are Federal dollars
available, so they say let's use the Federal dollars instead.
I think it is much more logical to focus this fund on those
entrepreneurs and entities which do not have that sort of flexibility,
do not have in-house the capital wherewithal to fund whatever research
they desire. That is why I believe we should limit access to these
dollars to the smaller companies. And smaller is a relative term here.
We are talking about companies up to $2.5 billion of gross sales. That
is a pretty big entity. I suspect there are a lot of major companies
that fall into that category. In fact, within the State of New
Hampshire, I am not sure how many companies would have more than 2.5
billion dollars' worth of gross sales; it would not be many. We are
retaining the availability of this program to the vast majority of
corporate America and to all of the entrepreneurial world.

It is not as if we were handicapping for purposes of this exercise.
In fact, there isn't enough money to go around as far as applications
are concerned. There are a lot of applications that are not approved.
In fact, the Senator from South Carolina cited one in his own State. It
just seems much more logical to me that we take this money and, rather
than giving it to folks who have the capacity to pursue this research
independently and on their own and are simply using the Federal dollars
to replace dollars that they would spend anyway, that we give it to
companies--or make this money available to entities that do not have
the financial wherewithal to pursue these programs; or if they do have
it, they would be under more stress than a company that has 2.5 billion
dollars' worth of income.
So the amendment of the Senator from Kansas makes an immense amount
of sense. It is not a dagger in the heart of this program. In fact, I
think it is a strengthening amendment for this program. It will
significantly improve the nature of this program. And, really, I am a
little bit surprised at the intensity of opposition to it because it
appears to be an effort to logically and fairly approach this program,
rather than just eliminate it, which would be something that many of us
would support also.
So I think the Senator from Kansas has brought forward an excellent
amendment. I hope that we can pass it. I will certainly support it.
Mr. BROWNBACK addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I want to rise in response to some of
the statements made by the Senator from South Carolina. I deeply
appreciate his heart, of where it is about what we need to do to make
America a stronger economy, to keep jobs, growth, high technology, and
jobs growing and prospering in the United States. I think his heart is
clearly in the right place and he wants to do the right thing.
I just think in a nation this big, with an economy this size, with
the dynamism that we have in this country, you can't control it out of
Washington. That is why the President pronounced, over a year ago, that
the era of big Government is over. It seems to me that was an admission
that things have changed to the point that you just can't direct all
things, and all wisdom doesn't come out of Washington.
This program is one of those that we are talking about in that
particular area. You are basically talking about a program here where
you are going to pick winners and losers out of Washington. We have an
application process that takes place here. You apply for this and give
us your good idea, and we in Washington are going to think about it and
see if we think you deserve to get this money or not. If your
technology is one we are interested in and if we think this technology
is good for our future, then we will decide to give it to you. We will
decide those sort of issues from Washington.
I am not even talking about the overall program here. As I mentioned,
and as Senator Gregg has mentioned as well, this is actually a
strengthening amendment. We are just saying, if you are a Fortune 500
company and have revenues of over $2.5 billion a year, we are not going
to make this program available to you. You are going to have to be, at
least, a startup company, because the larger companies do have
lobbyists here in Washington, as the Senator from South Carolina knows.
They are always coming around looking for things for their companies,
as they should be. Many of their companies take it because their
competitor takes this. Let's remove that as an opportunity and remove
this area of corporate welfare, which truly is corporate welfare.

Now I would like to clear up a couple of other points on this, if we
could. One is that I am afraid, too, that some of these programs
qualify in the area--we put out a big press release saying this program
is going to solve all the problems of technology drifting abroad, and
we are going to solve all of the problems of not having good, high-
wage, high-skill jobs in the United States because we have the Advanced
Technology Program. This will solve all of those problems. This will do
it. I think we suffer here from a concept of having a big press release
and a very small program to answer that.
Listen once again to the figures. We are talking about a program of
$200 million. That is a large sum of money, but if you look at what
venture capital put into new startups last year alone, which was $10
billion, this is 2 percent of what was put into this from just venture
capital. And I add initial public offerings on to that, where people go
to the marketplace to raise capital for a good idea, and that was $50
billion. We are talking about less than 2 percent in this particular
program.
If we really want to help business in America--which I think the
Senator from South Carolina clearly wants to do; he wants business to
stay here in America, to grow in America, and he wants business to
prosper--well, then let's do some things that would actually help
business: cut taxation, regulation and litigation and manipulation out
of Washington. Let's cut capital gains tax rates.
I was just in the Silicon Valley, one of the key areas in this
country where startup companies are flourishing with new ideas and
products that are going

[[Page S8015]]

global rapidly. I was there and talking about the Advanced Technology
Program. I have a letter, as I mentioned, signed by over 100 CEO's of
startup companies saying, ``Do away with this corporate welfare.'' That
is what they called it. These are the people who, arguably, this
program started for. They said:

We don't want you directing it because you move too slow;
Washington moves too slow in trying to figure out what is
taking place in the global marketplace. It can't react fast
enough; it can't figure these out. You are going back and
basically taking taxpayer dollars from the startup companies
to fund more stodgy, slower moving items, many of which end
up going to the private market. If you want to help us, cut
the capital gains rates; do something about the litigation;
as we try to raise capital in this marketplace, do something
about the regulatory regime where we have 50 different
entities regulating us. Much of that is needed, but can you
make it more simplified? What about all the manipulation
where you are trying to direct, by the Tax Code, everything
we do every day.

Then they gave a great example which I thought was wonderful. There
is a little startup company in the Silicon Valley that raised over $300
million in capital. That is more than the Advanced Technology Program.
We are talking about $200 million in this program. They raised that
much. I was speaking to a group of people about 5 miles away from this
startup company that raised $300 million. I was talking to a crowd of
about 100 people there. I asked them, ``Have any of you heard of this
company?'' I gave the name of the company. This was a group of 100
people, 5 miles a way. This company has actually raised more money than
is in the ATP Program. One person there out of the 100 had heard of it.
That is a substantial amount of money, but it is not large compared to
the amount of capital being raised and is needed.
If we really want to do something, let's help the overall atmosphere
and not try to direct it. As I want to point out yet again, look at
what we are talking about with this amendment. We are saying that if
you are a Fortune 500 company, if you have over $2.5 billion in
revenues, we think you can find enough capital on your own to fund
ideas you think are good. Let's target it for the startup companies.
That is what we are supposed to be after with this. These large
companies, when they have an idea they want to pursue, have the ability
to be able to pursue it. That is how you deal with this issue. If we
want to really help corporate America, we have a great chance coming up
to cut capital gains and deal with litigation reform, and we can
actually do something real.
So those are my responses. I know the Senator from South Carolina has
his heart in the right place and his concepts are clear in his mind. If
we really want to help them--and I have been there and talked with
them--target this and cut it away from the Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. President, I do ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment, and
I believe there is some discussion about holding this vote until 2:45.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
It appears there is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2 p.m. the
Senate proceed to a vote on or in relation to the Brownback amendment
No. 980, with no amendments in order to the Brownback amendment prior
to the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, once again, we tried to go to the
fundamental that a $2.5 billion company does not have the ability to
develop it or to pursue it or to commercialize it.
Now, why doesn't it have that ability? I emphasize, of course, the
way the market and the financing of projects works. You have to have a
quick turnaround. A lot of good, fundamental research technology is not
developed and not commercialized in the United States for the simple
reason that the market financing infrastructure does not allow it.
If you were chairman of the board, then we would see how long you
last unless you turn around and get your stock up. And that is the name
of the game in America. And they all have to play it. When they get a
choice of anything beyond 2 or 3 years, then obviously the board
members, everybody wants to look like good guys and making money and
everything else for the stockholders. The pressure is there to go ahead
and export it, get an arrangement, a split arrangement with any of the
other countries that would want to try to develop it. That is our
global competition.
Specifically, right here, in Business Week:

To stay in the game, Singapore is stepping up its
industrial subsidies.

In September, the Government announced it will pump $2.85 billion
over the next 5 years into science and technology development including
research and development grants for multinationals.
No small business. I am trying to get my friend from Kansas to
understand we have got the Small Business Administration. We take care
of small business. We favor small business. But what we are looking at,
to keep the eye on the target, is the development and commercialization
of technology. And small business, if they went with good research that
could really be proven to the SBA, they would get total financing right
now. They would get it underwritten under the SBA technology grants. We
worked that program far more than the little $200 million in this
particular endeavor. They have over $800 million in grant authorization
for small business.
Please, my gracious, let us go with it. Global competition is such
that the smallest of the small competitor, Singapore, recently helped
fund a $51 million research development facility for whom? For Sony, a
$2.5 billion corporation:

Last month Lucent Technologies received a grant for a new
communications research and development endeavor.

I could go on down reading these articles. I wish everybody in the
National Government would be given a book by Eamonn Fingleton entitled
``Blind Side.'' We have all been running around and talking about the
bank problems in Japan and, oh, Japan has all kinds of problems, and
they really have their back up against the wall; they are not any
competition any longer.
The fact is, Mr. President, last year while we had a 2.5 percent
growth with the market booming. A rebirth in America, we have the
strongest economy, Greenspan says he's never seen such a thing, 2.5-
percent growth, Japan had 3.6 percent growth.
The name of the game is market share, market share. They are copying
it off right and left. And at this moment, this very moment, for
example, the great big automaker, United States of America, exports
less cars than Mexico. Mark it down. You are down there in that area,
Mr. President. Mexico exports more automobiles than the United States
of America.

I just helped break ground for Honda in Timmonsville, SC. Who exports
more cars than any other entity in America? Honda; the Japanese. Not
General Motors, not Ford, not Chrysler. Honda.
When are we going to wake up to what's going on? Market share. If you
read Fingleton's book, you go to the Ministry of Finance. Don't worry
about MITI, go to the Ministry of Finance and you get your financing,
your large corporations.
Now, please, my gracious, I am for the little man. I am a Democrat.
Heavens above. We know the large corporate welfare crowd. But we have
been for the little man against hunger. I just voted to take $5 million
off administration in the Department of Agricultural budget to get more
lunchroom programs. So don't talk about corporate welfare and try to
identify. We are talking about global competition, which, frankly, the
White House doesn't even understand.
You know why I say that. We had a course on Tuesday on NAFTA, North
American Free-Trade Agreement, where we brought in Mexico in 1994, and
we were going to have a sort of update on how it was doing, whether it
was a success or not. They wouldn't even send an administration witness
to the senatorial committee, and that's why they called off the
particular hearing. They are embarrassed that they said we would create
200,000 jobs. We have lost 300,000. I will show you the Department of
Labor statistics. We have lost in textiles and apparel 231,000 alone.
So instead of increasing it in one direction, we have decreased it in
the

[[Page S8016]]

other direction; we have been exporting fine, good-paying jobs in the
particular industry that predominates my own State. They said, well, we
are going to increase trade. We had a plus balance of trade of $5
billion and we have gone to a $16 billion minus balance.
And they say exports, exports. Well, exports are up. We are sending
parts down there to be assembled into automobiles and the good
automobile manufacturer is moving to Mexico. You would, too. I do not
blame them. I blame us, you and me. This is the policy. In
manufacturing, a third of your operating costs goes into labor, to
payroll, and you can save as much as 20 percent by moving to an
offshore, or down in Mexico, low wages and little or no worker or
environmental protections.
When I say no particular protections, colleagues are running around
on this Senate floor saying you have to have a minimum wage, you have
to have clean air and clean water and plant closing and parental leave,
Social Security, Medicare, occupational safety from hazard, and up and
down the list. Whoopee, yea, we are great. And then we put in a policy
that says you don't have to do any of that. You can go offshore for 58
cents an hour. Did you see the program on Mexico just last night on
public television?
Come on. We are losing the jobs right and left. We are losing our
technology right and left. Eamonn Fingleton in his book--and I called
him just the other day because he has updated it now with a paperback--
projected by 2000 we would be blind-sided. Today, Japan, a country as
big as the State of California, manufactures more than the great United
States of America. It has a greater manufacturing output. And otherwise
by the year 2000 it will have a greater gross domestic product, a
larger economy, and I will bet you on it. And I want them to come here
and take the bets because I believe he is right. You can just see how
the market share goes. You see how the GDP goes and everything else of
that kind.
We are going out of business the way of Great Britain. They told the
Brits at the end of World War II, the empire was breaking up, they said
don't worry about it. Instead of a nation of brawn, we will be a nation
of brains; instead of producing products, provide services, a service
economy. Instead of creating wealth with manufacturing we are going to
become a financial center.
And England today, Mr. President--I have the distinguished
President's attention--England, the United Kingdom has less of an
economy than little irrelevant Ireland. Mark it down. Read
the Economist just a month ago. Yes, Ireland, now bigger, economically
than the United Kingdom. All they have is a debating society. London is
a downtown amusement park.

Come on. Are we going to head that way as we go out of business,
continue to appropriate again more and more moneys and finance our
campaigns with these false promises of ``I am going to cut taxes.'' Oh,
the Post is running around: ``Are you for cutting taxes? Yes, I'm for
cutting taxes.'' You cannot cut your and my taxes today without
increasing our children's taxes tomorrow. We have deficit financing.
We will get into that debate again when they bring the reconciliation
bill over. It is not the Chinese trying to get into our elections. If
they want to get into our elections, do as the Japanese do. Pat Choate
wrote the book, ``The Agents of Influence,'' 7 years ago. One hundred
Japanese law firms, consultants here in Washington paid over $113
million. Add up the pay of the Senators and Congressmen, the 535
Members of Congress, and boy, oh, boy, you get, about $71.3 million.
The Japanese in Washington by way of pay are better represented than
the people of America.
When are we going to wake up? Tell the Chinese, ``For Heaven's sake,
to do the same thing as the Japanese. Give it to a lawyer. Tell them to
come around and find some lawyers.
But, no, we want to turn this into corporate welfare, show that we
fought against corporate welfare. Absolute folly. There is no corporate
welfare at all in this. It is, by gosh, trying to commercialize
technology and we will not face up to the reality. We are going out of
business and now we want to say to those who do the general research,
the unique research, that there is no reason to try and get into
anything marginal that is going to take over 3 years to develop. Sell
it, move on to the next thing. Let us continue the outflow of business,
the outflow of jobs, the outflow of technology, and the outflow of our
security. And everybody comes around and says that's a good idea.
I think, to the President's credit, it ought to be emphasized that he
put this program down as a quid pro quo in the leadership agreement.
Now, the agreement has been on both sides of the aisle, the Democratic
and Republican agreement, the White House and the congressional
agreement that the Advanced Technology Program would be funded at this
particular level and in the manner in which it is currently funded.
What we are being asked for in this particular amendment is to violate
that agreement. We are running right into a veto situation on a small
matter while trying to make it appear as corporate welfare. The
opponents of this program don't tell you about the National Academy of
Engineering. You show me another grant program that has to be reviewed
that way.
I wish we still had Senator Danforth here because he and I worked on
this thing over the years to develop the bill's credibility, but now we
are going to start tearing down its credibility, by changing it into a
small business program for those small companies that can't afford to
really commercialize their technology. They can't afford to engage in
general research, or in unique research to begin with, on account of
its small nature. They just don't have the labs and facilities that the
large companies do. But we want to act as political animals up here,
pollster politicians and so we are for tax cuts, when we go up and
continue to increase the debt.
We have been reducing the deficit each year for 5 years. Now we are
going to use the public till to run around and say we are going to cut
revenues while we increase, and we are going to have to go out and
borrow the money to do it, because we are in the red. We are not in the
black. So we will take that multitrillion-dollar debt and interest
costs of $1 billion a day and increase that for nothing.

In the last 16 years we have increased the debt from less than $1
trillion to $5.4 trillion without the cost of a single war. Mr.
President, in 200 years of history with the cost of all the wars we
have not even reached a trillion. Now we jump to $5.4 trillion and
instead of $75 billion--$74.8 billion, to be exact, we are going to up
to $365 billion, $1 billion a day. That extra $285 billion, we are
spending it for nothing. And there are all these fellows talking about
pork and welfare and getting rid of the waste, and using that rhetoric
for their reelection next year.
``I am against taxes, I am against the Government, get rid of the
Government.'' That's the big hoopla they have going on, on the other
side of the Hill. They are now tasking the leadership of the contract
to get rid of the Department of Commerce, to get rid of the Advanced
Technology Program, to get rid of all the Government that pays for
itself and keeps us secure and keeps us superior as a nation. So now
they are going against jobs, against the security of the land, and for
corporate welfare, based on this amendment. They say, just on account
of the $2.5 billion measure, that ``the corporation has the ability to
pursue it,'' their exact words. Yet, everyone knows that the CEO's do
not have the ability if they are going to be a good corporate head.
They are going to put their moneys elsewhere because where the
turnaround is, there also is the competition, and they also know that
the other governments are financing not only the research but
development and taking over the market share.
We are going to holler, ``let market forces, let market forces''--
well, let's look at the market that we developed here in the National
Government, through measures such as minimum wage, plant closings,
clean air, clean water--which we all vote for, Republican and Democrat.
But the companies say, ``You don't have any of that in global
competition.'' In addition, they are financing it like we finance
research for the aircraft industry.
They have learned from the United States. We finance Boeing, we are
proud of them. They produce and ship planes globally. Thank God we
still have one industry. Now, however, we

[[Page S8017]]

have shipped the technology on the FSX to Japan, and Boeing has had to
move the parts manufacturing into the People's Republic of China. We
are beginning to lose that segment of manufacturing. We are losing the
automobile industry. Now we are going to lose the aerospace industry.
They told me years ago, ``Hollings, what's the matter with you? Let
the developing nations, the Third World, make the textiles and the
shoes and we will make the airplanes and the computers.'' Now our
competition in the global competition is making the airplanes and the
computers and the textiles and the shoes and we are running around here
jabbering about, ``free trade, free trade, free trade, let market
forces, let market forces, let market forces,'' and don't have any
realization of the actual market forces that we, as politicians,
created.
I hope this amendment will be defeated in consonance with the overall
agreement of the leadership in the Congress and the White House on the
one hand--and defeated based on common sense and competition on the
other hand.
I know my distinguished colleague on the other side of the aisle, the
distinguished Senator from Tennessee, Senator Frist, has been leading
now, in our committee. He has been holding hearings, and has been
providing leadership on addressing the issues relating to the Advanced
Technology Program. I know the others that are interested in this
program, including those that I have listed--trying to emphasize, by
the way, that this effort is bipartisan. Senator Danforth and I worked
this out 10 years ago, and the program is working. It is working well.
We need more money. Thousands and thousands of qualified grants still
don't receive funding.

I asked, I say, does the Senator from Kansas have the documentation
where small business really applied but the big companies got the
award? If that occurred we would have it here. He said these little
businesses are being denied. I know the Commerce Department, Secretary
Daley. I know the administration of this particular program and they
look for the small business in order to sustain the credibility and
support of the program because since its beginnings, critics have been
watching the Advanced Technology Program closely for the simple reason
they don't understand. They think, ``Well, get rid of the Government.
Find out where the pork is. Find out where the welfare is. Characterize
it as welfare. Say you have these big Fortune 500 companies, they have
$2.5 billion so they can do it.'' And they don't understand what they
are talking about.
It is a sad day when we even propose an amendment of this kind,
because it shows that we really don't understand competition, although
we keep running around like parrots, ``Competition, competition,
competition.'' We are the ones with these kind of amendments that
destroy competition.
We are against welfare but we are the ones with these kind of
amendments that create welfare.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are awaiting other Members bringing
amendments to the floor. I appreciate the enthusiasm and energy of the
Senator from South Carolina in his spirited defense of the ATP program,
which he, as he has mentioned and which will be generally
acknowledged--he is the father of.
I would say we are going to have a vote on that at 2 o'clock, and at
that time I hope Members would support the amendment of the Senator
from Kansas because I believe it makes sense and it is a strengthening
amendment to the ATP program.
So, at this time I make a point of order a quorum is not present.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I want to speak very briefly in
opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas, Senator
Brownback, as I understand it.
That amendment, if it were adopted, would essentially prohibit the
Advanced Technology Program, which is administered through the
Department of Commerce, from allowing participation of large companies.
Let me give you my own understanding of how the Advanced Technology
Program works. I think it has been an extremely useful program. It has
helped to keep the United States at the forefront of technology
development and high-technology industry development in the world, and,
to a significant degree, our leadership in that arena, in that area of
high technology, is the reason why we enjoy the strong economy we enjoy
today.
So I believe the Advanced Technology Program is useful. It has been a
great help to many companies. It has been a great help in helping us,
as a country, create jobs in the industries of the future.
In order for that program to succeed, though, we need to be sure that
taxpayer funds are provided, and they are only a very small portion of
the total funds that go into these technology development activities,
but they are a catalyst. They bring together companies. They bring
together research institutions to do this important work. Those funds
also provide a bridge between the Government-funded research and the
private-sector research, so that we have national laboratories, such as
the two in my State, Los Alamos and Sandia, and we have many large and
small companies working together to make breakthroughs in technology.
It is essential, if this program is going to succeed, that we allow
the Advanced Technology Program to put the funds where the most good
can be done and we not begin to structure this program as though it was
some kind of a jobs program or as though it is a doling out of funds to
different corporate interests. It is not that. It is an effort by the
Federal Government to stimulate cooperative research in areas that show
great promise.
Sometimes the people doing that work are in large companies.
Sometimes there are a few individuals in a large company who are doing
very important work and can benefit from collaborating with researchers
in small companies or researchers in national laboratories or
researchers in universities around this country.
I think it would be a great mistake for us to begin to limit the
companies that can participate in the Advanced Technology Program. To
do so would begin to move us down the road toward mediocrity in the
technologies that are developed through use of these public funds, and
I believe that is a very major mistake.
I know that there have been criticisms over the past that any time
the Federal Government invests dollars in research and development
activities that private sector companies are engaged in, that somehow
or another that is corporate welfare. I strongly disagree with that
point of view. I think the taxpayers are well served if we can invest
in developing technologies that will create jobs, will produce revenue,
will produce additional tax revenue in the future and will keep our
economy the strongest in the world.
I very much hope that the Senate will reject the Brownback amendment
when it is finally voted on, and I hope we will allow this Advanced
Technology Program to continue to be the great engine of innovation and
technology development that it has been in recent years.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I rise to urge the Senate to reject
the amendment offered by Senator Brownback that is designed to weaken a
program absolutely critical to the country's technological strength. I
thought that the fact that this bill contains the $200 million in funds
needed for the Advanced Technology Program was a sign that we could
finally get past a debate that is nothing but a distraction and a
danger to our own economy.
I stand here today just as I did last year and the year before to
defend this program--this investment in America's economic
competitiveness. As I, along with many others in this Chamber, have
stated before, this program supports American industry's own efforts to
develop new cutting edge, next-generation technologies--technologies
that will create the new industries and jobs of the 21st century.
Let me remind my colleagues that ATP does not, and I repeat, does not

[[Page S8018]]

fund the development of commercial products. Instead, this program
provides matching funds to both individual companies and joint ventures
for pre-product research on high risk, potentially high payoff
technologies.
The Senate should give credit to Secretary of Commerce Daley, and let
us work with him through the authorization process to improve the
program. Secretary Daley just met his pledge to conduct a 60-day review
of the program to assess the ATP's performance and the criticisms that
have been levied against it.
Sure enough, his review took into account comments provided by both
critics and supporters of ATP. The Department of Commerce notified more
than 3,500 interested parties, soliciting comments about ATP. In fact,
Senators Lieberman, Domenici, Frist, and I joined together and provided
1 of the 80-plus comments the Department received.
I commend Secretary Daley for the job he did in undertaking this
review. As we all know, there is not a department or program that can't
be improved. And as a long time and avid supporter of ATP, I believe
that after 6 years of operation, experience shows us some areas that
indeed can be improved. This review has done just that. I agree with
his suggestion to place more emphasis on joint-ventures and consortia
and more emphasis on small and medium-size single applicants. I also
support his proposal to shift the cost-share ratio for large single
applicants to 60 percent, and I will further review his suggestions to
encourage state participation.

As ranking Democrat on the Science and Technology Subcommittee, which
has oversight of the ATP, I look forward to working with my colleague
Senator Frist to review this report and to make any necessary
legislative changes during consideration of legislation to reauthorize
the Technology Administration.
Secretary Daley's review could not have been done at a better time.
As I stated, this program has been in existence for 6 years, and this
review was conducted on those 6 years of experience. The proposals set
forth in this review strengthen a very strong program that is one of
the cornerstones to the Nation's long-term economic prosperity.
Some of us in the Senate, Senator Hollings, Senator Burns, Senator
Lieberman, and myself, to name just a few, have been fighting every
year for the past 4 years to keep the ATP alive. We welcomed the
Secretary's review because we knew that it would validate the arguments
we've been making for the past 4 years. A new element also is emerging
in this debate that is validating what we have been saying. That new
element is the success stories that are finally emerging. The mere
ideas receiving grant money 4, 5, and 6 years ago are now technologies
entering the market place and enhancing our economy and our livelihood.
Let me close with some success stories that are starting to emerge.
In Michigan for example, there are already two success stories, the
first relating to the auto industry and the second relating to bone
marrow transplants.
In September 1995, an ATP-funded project, the ``2 millimeter (2mm)
program,'' was completed. As a result of this grant, new manufacturing
technologies and practices that substantially improve the fit of auto
body parts during automated assembly of metal parts was developed. This
technology has substantially improved the fit of auto body parts during
assembly, resulting in dimensional variation at or below the world
benchmark of 2 millimeters, the thickness of a nickel. What does this
mean for this Nation's economy? It means that U.S. auto manufacturers
can make cars and trucks with less wind noise, tighter fitting doors
and windshields, fewer rattles, and higher customer satisfaction. In
addition, there is a cost savings between $10 and $25 per car to the
consumer, and maintenance cost savings is estimated between $50 and
$100 per car. In addition, this improved quality is estimated to give
the U.S. auto manufacturers a 1- to 2-percent gain in market share.
Equally important is that this newly developed technology is applicable
in the sheet metal industry, and industries as diverse as aircraft,
metal furniture fabrication, and appliance manufacturing. Quality
improvement from this technology could result in an increase in total
U.S. economic output of more than $3 billion annually.

In 1992, Aastrom Biosciences, a 15-person firm in Ann Arbor, MI,
proposed a bioreactor that would take bone marrow cells from a patient
and within 12 days produce several billion stem, white, and other blood
cells--cells that can be injected into the patient to rapidly boost the
body's disease-fighting ability. The technology looked promising but
was too risky and long-term at that point to obtain significant private
funding.
The national benefit of this program was that it provided a reliable
device that would allow blood cells from a patient to be grown in large
quantities would reduce health care costs, require fewer blood
transfusions, and greatly improve the treatment of patients with
cancer, AIDS, and genetic blood diseases. Aastrom submitted a proposal
identifying the economic opportunity and technical promise, and in 1992
the ATP co-funded a research project that developed a new prototype
bioreactor. Today, after completing the ATP project and proving the
technology, the company has over 60 employees, and another 30 providing
contract services, a practical prototype, and over $36 million in
private investment to develop their new blood cell bioreactor into a
commercial product.
In North Carolina, Cree Research of Durham, won an ATP award in April
1992 to develop improved processing for growing large silicon-carbide
crystals--a semiconductor material used for specialized electronic and
optoelectronic devices such as the highly desired blue light-emitting
diodes [LED's]. In 1992, this market was limited because of
difficulties in growing large, high-quality single crystals. With ATP
support, Cree Research was able to double the wafer size, with
significant improvements in the quality of the larger wafers. Since
1992, LED sales are up by over 850 percent as a result of the ATP-
funded technology.
In Texas, a company has developed a cost-effective, microchip-based
DNA diagnostic testing platform which contains both a family of
diagnostic instruments and disposables. This successful prototype has
demonstrated single molecule detection at a tenfold throughput
advantage over conventional technologies. Numerous patented products
will result from this technology in a market--molecular tools for
diagnostics--which is expected to reach $2 billion by the year 2004.
ATP funded projects from 5 and 6 years ago are becoming success
stories all across the Nation.
Mr. President, ATP is working, and the U.S. economy is benefitting;
288 awards have been given thus far, including 104 joint ventures, and
184 single applicants. Small businesses account for 106 awards and are
the lead in 28 of the joint ventures. For the $989 million in ATP
funding committed by the Federal Government, industry has committed
$1.03 billion in cost sharing. The success stories, however, show us
Mr. President, that the Federal funding and the cost sharing is just
the seed money for enormous contributions to our national economy and
our global competitiveness. Necessary seed money that bridges the
innovation gap in this country between basic research and emerging
technologies. I encourage my colleagues to continue their support of
this worthy and successful program, and to reject this amendment that
will take us backwards and help our foreign competitors while weakening
our own economy.
Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today in support of
Senator Brownback's amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and State
appropriations bill for fiscal year 1998. This amendment prohibits the
awarding of grants from the Advanced Technology Program [ATP] within
the Department of Commerce to corporations with sales greater than $2.5
billion.
This amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas is a good amendment
that should enjoy bipartisan support. After all, I hear my colleagues
on both sides of the aisle talking year after campaign year about
eliminating corporate welfare. Therefore, I assume a vote to limit
grants to the wealthiest corporations in the Nation should be an easy
one. Let's be clear about what

[[Page S8019]]

firms we are talking about. The companies that have been awarded the
largest grant amounts are IBM, General Motors, General Electric, Ford,
and Sun Microsystems, among others. Do these sound like corporations in
need of one, two or three million dollar grants? To me, these
profitable firms sound like companies that could certainly find private
sector funding. And this belief is not without basis. In fact, the
General Accounting Office [GAO] surveyed 89 grant recipients and 34
near-winners that applied for ATP funding between 1990 and 1993. Of the
near-winners, half continued their research and development projects
despite a lack of ATP funding. Among those who received grants, 42
percent said they would have continued their R&D without the ATP money.
The Federal Government should not be in the business of providing
corporate subsidies. However, we should fund basic science projects
that do not have short-term profit-making potential, and would
otherwise not be funded by the private sector. The Senator's amendment
is a step toward reversing this trend toward funding applied research
that ultimately produces handsome profits for these companies. Under
his reasonable proposal, the most profitable firms, companies that
realize more than $2.5 billion in sales, would not be eligible for ATP
subsidies. While I would prefer to see these corporate subsidies
eliminated from our budget, I would be pleased to know that Federal
funding is not going to enormously profitable corporations.
Defenders of the ATP corporate welfare program argue that these
grants allow research that otherwise would not go forward. How do we
know, when many of the grant recipients did not even seek private
sector money before coming to the Federal Government? In fact, GAO
found that 63 percent of the ATP applicants surveyed had not sought
private sector funding before applying for a grant. Other opponents of
this amendment are the same Senators who oppose the efforts of the
Republicans to ease the tax burden on Americans. At the same time these
Members deny taxpayers the chance to keep some of their own money, they
turn around and give the hard-earned tax dollar to billion dollar
corporations.
However, after hearing so many Senators speak out against corporate
welfare, I am confident that this amendment will be approved by a wide
margin. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Department of
Commerce's Advanced Technology Program or ATP. This is an important
program and I have long appreciated Senator Hollings' work in founding
and continuing it. The amendment offered by Senator Brownback would
prohibit ATP awards to companies with revenues that exceed $2.5
billion. I oppose Senator Brownback's amendment and would like to thank
Senator Frist for his floor statement explaining why he too has voted
against the amendment. Like Senator Frist, I think there are several
solid reasons as to why Senator Brownback's amendment should be
opposed.
My first concern is process--this is an attempt to legislate a very
complex issue now being considered by the authorizing committee, on an
appropriations bill. The Senate Commerce Committee, Science and
Technology Subcommittee under Senator Frist, the Subcommittee Chair,
and Senator Rockefeller, ranking Democrat, are planning legislation on
ATP, including a careful look at this issue, later this session. I
believe in this case that the Senate should vote to wait and see what
action the authorizing committee takes.
I would also highlight recent changes to the ATP proposed by Commerce
Secretary William Daley that may assist in resolving this debate. The
Secretary's action plan for changes is very responsive to
recommendations I and other Members of Congress made. Specifically the
evaluation criteria will be changed to put more emphasis on joint
ventures or consortia. This will help ensure that the program funds
only pre-competitive research and development; for if competitors in
the development phase cooperate in research and development, they are
very unlikely to allow access to each other's product development
efforts.
Secretary Daley has mandated that the cost-share ratio for large
companies, applying as single applicants, will be increased to a
minimum of 60 percent. Proposals will also be reviewed by venture
capital experts to ensure that private sector financing would not be
available and a government role is needed. When combined with changes
in the evaluation criteria favoring small and medium sized businesses,
these changes will result in virtually all ATP grants being awarded to
either consortium or small and medium sized company single applicants.
Finally, modifications to the ATP's rules and procedures would help
facilitate cooperative ventures between industry and universities and
national laboratories. To date, university and Federal laboratory
participation has been hindered over concerns regarding intellectual
property and project management.
After studying the Secretary's report, I believe that the ATP will
emerge both as a more effective program and one with a significantly
reduced political profile. Its new structure appears to have answered
criticisms raised and is consistent with the bipartisan ideas endorsed
by the Senate Science and Technology Caucus of which I am a member.
I believe that the changes introduced by Secretary Daley, now under
review by the Commerce Committee, are a better way to ensure the
continued effectiveness of the Advanced Technology Program than the
pending amendment which would completely ban large companies from all
participation in the ATP. Large companies play a key role in the
innovation process through their organizational ability, resources and
market experience. To entirely preclude their participation in the ATP
would be a mistake. I will vote to oppose this amendment and look
forward to Senator Frist's subcommittee review.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to speak on this bill.
I thank Senator Gregg, our subcommittee chairman, and Senator
Hollings, our ranking member, for help, for cooperation and commitment
to the most important issue facing my State, and that is bolstering the
front line of our Nation's defense in the war on drugs.
The U.S. Border Patrol has been funded in this bill. It has been
funded to the extent that we will be able to add 1,000 new Border
Patrol agents during fiscal year 1998. This bill provides adequate
funding for their training and supervision. Moreover, it reflects the
ongoing commitment of Congress to put 5,000 new Border Patrol agents on
the line and to regain control of our borders by the year 2002.
Mr. President, I have to tell you that this was a hard-fought effort.
The Immigration Reform Act passed last year directed the administration
to submit a budget request to Congress which included funding for 1,000
new agents. Regrettably, they only requested funding for 500. I and
Senator Gramm have had many discussions with the Attorney General and
the INS Commissioner. I am convinced of their commitment to secure our
borders. I think they really are sincere. But now they must back that
up with the requested resources in future years.
Over the past several months, I have felt and expressed a sense of
hopelessness in our Nation's war on drugs. I feel this hopelessness
because no matter where I travel in Texas, I meet people who have lost
loved ones to drug violence. I know ranchers and farmers along our
border who have been intimidated by drug smugglers. They have had their
homes shot at in broad daylight. I know of Customs agents of Mexican-
American heritage who have been told by drug smugglers to look the
other way as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamines are
smuggled across the border because their families back in Mexico will
be harmed if they do not.
Just this morning, a friend of mine called me to tell me about his
friend

[[Page S8020]]

who lives in Carrizo Springs. He described gangs of drug thugs and
illegal immigrants who are terrorizing residents of this small Texas
community. They are scared and they feel helpless. These Texans have
the misfortune to live along the front lines of a business that
provides $10 billion to the Mexican economy each year--the drug market.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that approximately
12,800,000 Americans use illegal drugs. Illegal drug use occurs among
members of every ethnic and socioeconomic group in the United States.
And 10.9 percent of all children between 12 and 17 use illegal drugs
and 1 child in 4 claims to have been offered illegal drugs in the last
year.
Drug-related illness, death and crime cost the United States
approximately $67 billion each year, including costs for lost
productivity, premature death, and incarceration.
I strongly believe and share the view that effective treatment and
prevention is needed to break the cycle that links illegal drugs to
violent crime. It is the only way to protect our children and save
their future.
Mr. President, our southern neighbor, Mexico, is the source of
between 20 and 30 percent of the heroin, 70 percent of the marijuana,
and 50 to 70 percent of the cocaine shipped into the United States. If
the flow of drugs is going to stop, the front line of that war will be
along our Nation's border with Mexico. The United States-Mexico border
is 2,000 miles long, and Texas has 1,200 miles of that border.
You can see how that border goes. You can see that, of the 2,000,
1,200 miles is along Texas. Texas has been and will continue to be the
key battleground in this war.
I am pleased that we have been able to work with the Border Patrol
and the committee to correct disparities in placing Border Patrol along
the border. As you can see from this chart, Texas has 1.7 agents for
every 1 of our 1,254 miles--1.7 for this 1,254-mile border. New Mexico
and Arizona do not fare much better. California has 16.3 agents for
every one mile of the border. I cannot go home and tell my constituents
that we are doing all we can in the war on drugs if Congress and the
administration fail to provide the funding for more Border Patrol
agents.
Two of Mexico's largest drug cartels, the Juarez cartel and the
Matamoros cartel operate from El Paso here and Brownsville,
respectively. You can see from this chart that from the Matamoros
cartel, the gulf cartel, the drugs go in and over to the eastern
seaboard. From the Juarez cartel, it goes into Colorado and Chicago,
the Midwest. From the Tijuana cartel, it goes into California, goes to
the Pacific Northwest. So you can see what is happening to our country
and what not closing the border can do to the amount of illegal drugs
that are coming into our country.

As we work on this funding for fiscal year 1998, I will be asking
many questions about deployment of resources from the DEA and from the
Border Patrol because we must put the resources where the threat lies.
Two-thirds of the illegal immigration and the illegal drugs flowing
through Mexico and into our country go through Texas, through McAllen,
through Eagle Pass, and through the Del Rio Border Patrol sectors. Two-
thirds of the illegal immigration and the illegal drugs go through
these corridors. Yet as we have said, there are only 1.7 agents per
mile in Texas, and we must do something about that, and that is what
this bill is going to address today.
The bill that we pass will fully fund 1,000 new Border Patrol agents.
We need this help. It is the highest priority I have. As long as drugs
are coming through Mexico into the United States through this border,
it should be the highest priority for everyone.
That is why I cannot say enough times how pleased I am that the
chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Gregg; Senator Hollings, the
ranking member of the subcommittee; as well as our chairman, Senator
Stevens, all agreed that this was a crisis that affects all of us. It
is not just the border States; it is all of the States that these drugs
funnel into. Nothing is a greater priority than stopping the flow of
illegal drugs into our country. When 1 child in every 4 has been
offered illegal drugs, we cannot look them in the eye and say we are
protecting their future if we do not stop those illegal drugs.
So I want to work with the Attorney General and the Commissioner of
INS and General McCaffrey, who is our drug czar, who is trying to
grapple with this issue. I want to say to them, no resource is going to
be withheld if it will stop the illegal drugs and the illegal
immigration into our country that has criminalized our borders.
This bill addresses that today, and I will ask the Attorney General
and the Commissioner of INS to help us by deploying the full 1,000 and
making sure that we stop the centers where these people are coming
through Texas. If we can stop it right now, then our children will have
a better future.
Thank you, Mr. President. Once again I thank the subcommittee
chairman. I think, if we can work together on a bipartisan basis, we
can make a difference for the future of our country. And this is a
major first step.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in my judgment, there is an urgent need
that independent counsel be appointed to investigate and prosecute
campaign finance violations arising out of the 1996 Federal elections.
The efforts to persuade Attorney General Reno to make that application
for independent counsel have thus far failed. It is my view that it is
important to consider alternatives in order to have independent counsel
appointed.
In my judgment, there are two possible alternatives available. One
would be a lawsuit to ask the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia, the appropriate panel on independent counsel, to
appoint independent counsel, notwithstanding the refusal of the
Attorney General to make that application.
The general rule of law is that a public official may not be
compelled to perform a discretionary function, an area of law which I
had some experience with as district attorney of Philadelphia. However,
there is a narrow ambit, even when considering a discretionary rule,
where there may be an application for relief if there is an abuse of
discretion by the public official. It is my legal judgment that there
has been such an abuse of discretion by the Attorney General in this
situation.

Another alternative would be to legislate in the field, to make it
abundantly plain that independent counsel should be appointed here, and
that the circuit court would have the authority to do so. In my
opinion, there is a realistic likelihood of success on litigation at
the present time.
Although the independent counsel statute poses certain problems which
make it to some extent uncertain, I believe there is a legal basis for
proceeding to have the court appoint independent counsel without any
modification of pending law. There is the alternative of legislating on
this bill which is before the Senate, to make certain modifications of
the independent counsel law, which would remove any conceivable doubt
about the authority of the circuit court to appoint independent
counsel.
Mr. President, on the issue of the exhausting of remedies on
requesting that independent counsel be appointed by Attorney General
Reno, the record is replete with a whole series of requests having been
made by individual Members of Congress and then by the Judiciary
Committee of the U.S. Senate. The issue was focused on very sharply
with Attorney General Reno in oversight hearings which we had several
months ago. I had an opportunity to question the Attorney General on
this subject and pointed to two specific instances which, in my
judgment, cried out for the appointment of independent counsel.
President Clinton has publicly complained about having been denied
national security information which he thought he should have and has
complained that such information was denied to him by the FBI and the
Department of Justice. In questioning Attorney General Reno on this
subject in the Judiciary oversight hearing, she defended that denial of
information on the ground that there was a pending criminal
investigation and that as a matter of balance, it was her judgment as
Attorney General that the information should not be turned over to the
President.
On the record in that Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, I
disagreed

[[Page S8021]]

with her conclusion on the ground that the Attorney General did not
have the authority to decide what the President should or should not
see on national security matters; the President as Commander in Chief
and Chief Executive Officer of the United States has an absolute right
to that information. If there were to be a denial to the President, it
was not the function of the Attorney General or the FBI to deny that
information. However, if the Attorney General felt that a denial of
information was warranted under the circumstances, that was a very
powerful showing that independent counsel ought to be appointed. If the
President of the United States is in any way suspected, that provides a
very strong basis that his appointed Attorney General ought not be
conducting that investigation. It ought to be handled by independent
counsel.
It was pointed out to Attorney General Reno in the course of that
oversight hearing that this followed directly her testimony on
confirmation where she strongly endorsed the concept of independent
counsel both as a matter of avoiding conflict of interest and, as
Attorney General Reno said at that time, avoiding the appearance of
conflict of interest. Notwithstanding that, she has refused to make an
application for the appointment of independent counsel.

A second line of questioning which I pursued with the Attorney
General involved the issue of violations of the campaign finance laws.
On that subject, there has been substantial information in the public
domain about the President's personal activities in preparing
television commercials for the 1996 campaign. There is no doubt--and
the Attorney General conceded this--there would be a violation of the
Federal election law if, when the President prepared campaign
commercials, they were advocacy commercials, contrasted with what is
known as issue commercials. The activity of the President in
undertaking that activity has been documented in a book by Dick Morris
and also in public statements by his chief of staff, Leon Panetta.
The Attorney General, during the course of the hearing, disputed my
contention that the commercials were, in fact, advocacy commercials. I
then wrote to the Attorney General the next day, on May 1, and set
forth a series of commercials which President Clinton had edited, or
prepared, and asked her if those were, in fact, advocacy commercials.
In the letter, I cited the Federal Election Commission definition of
express advocacy, which is as follows:

Communications using phrases such as ``vote for
President,'' or ``reelect your Congressman,'' ``Smith for
Congress,'' or language which, when taken as a whole and with
limited reference to external events, can have no other
reasonable meaning than to urge the election or defeat of a
clearly identifiable Federal candidate.

Mr. President, it is my submission that reasonable people cannot
differ on the conclusion that the commercials that President Clinton
prepared were express advocacy commercials. This is an illustration of
a commercial:

Protecting families. For millions of working families,
President Clinton cut taxes. The Dole-Gingrich budget tried
to raise taxes on 8 million. The Dole-Gingrich budget would
have slashed Medicare $270 billion and cut college
scholarships. The President defended our values, protected
Medicare, and now a tax cut of almost $1,500 a year for the
first two years of college. Most community college is free.
Help adults go back to school. The President's plan protects
our values.

It is hard to see how anyone could contend that that is not an
express advocacy commercial. It certainly fits within the definition of
the Federal Election Commission, which is that the language taken as a
whole can have no other reasonable meaning than to urge the election
and defeat of a clearly identified Federal candidate. That commercial
refers to two Federal candidates, and one is President Clinton. It
extols his virtues, obviously speaking in favor of the President. That
commercial refers to another candidate, former Senator Dole, arguing
about his failings.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my
remarks, my letter dated May 1, 1997, be printed in the Congressional
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, can I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania
what his intentions may be with respect to the floor, timewise?
Mr. SPECTER. I expect to speak at some length, Senator Kerry, and to
introduce an amendment to the present bill. There is a vote scheduled
for 2 o'clock, and I will have a considerable amount to say, which will
not all be said by the time the vote comes up.
Mr. KERRY. Well, Mr. President, if I could inquire again of the
Senator--and I appreciate his indulgence here. I did want to speak with
respect to the amendment that is pending for the vote at 2 o'clock. It
is my understanding that the amendment being submitted by the Senator
will not be voted on at 2. So I ask the distinguished Senator if he
might be willing to agree to permit some period of time--and I don't
need a lot-- before 2 o'clock so that I might speak on the pending
amendment.

Mr. SPECTER. May I inquire of the Senator from Massachusetts, how
much time he would like to have?
Mr. KERRY. I would be pleased to have 6 or 7 minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my
presentation be interrupted for 7 minutes so that Senator Kerry may
speak and that I be entitled to regain the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to speak with respect to the
amendment that seeks to make it more difficult for large companies to
be able to participate in the Advanced Technology Program. As a matter
of background, Mr. President, for years in this country, we had a
structure where we had the Bell Laboratories, or IBM, and other very
large entities who were engaged in major research and technology. And
for years, this country's economy benefited enormously because of the
remarkable amount of private sector and public sector research. The
defense industry and other industries had an enormous amount of
spinoff. If you look at something like the experience of Route 128 in
Massachusetts, or the Silicon Valley, everybody understands that some
of the great technology jobs of the present time come from the 1960's
and 1970's spinoffs through that investment.
The fact is that our economic structure has changed very
significantly in the 1990's. We no longer have that kind of broad-based
technology research fueled by the Federal Government. We have a much
more specific and targeted kind of research that takes place. And as a
result of that, both the Federal Government and the private sector have
narrowed the kind of basic science and research that we do, which often
results in those spinoffs, which has provided the remarkable foundation
of the economic growth we are experiencing now in our Nation.
It is also ironic that, at the very time that we are doing that,
Japan and other countries are increasing their technology investment. I
believe, last year, Japan committed to a 50-percent increase in their
national commitment to science and basic technology research.
So the truth is that, a number of years ago, the Commerce Committee,
with the leadership of Senator Hollings, Senator Rockefeller, myself
and others, created what is known as the Advanced Technology Program,
which is a way to joint venture in the United States between our
universities and our laboratories and various entities in the private
sector, in order to maximize what was a diminishing ability to move
science from the laboratory to the shelf, to the marketplace. It would
be most regrettable to turn around now and reduce the capacity of a
large company to be able to be part of a consortium, to be able to
joint venture with smaller companies in an effort to fill that vacuum
and make up for that scientific research.
In point of fact, Mr. President, let me just share a couple of
success stories from the Advanced Technology Program from 16 different
States in our country. The Advanced Technology Program put together a
device that would allow blood cells from a patient to be grown in large
quantities, consequently reducing health care costs, requiring fewer
blood transfusions and improving treatment possibilities for patients
with cancer, AIDS, and genetic blood diseases. It developed
manufacturing technologies and practices

[[Page S8022]]

that substantially improved the fit of auto body parts during automated
assembly of metal parts, which resulted in United States auto
manufacturers making cars and trucks with less wind noise, tighter
fitting doors and windshields, fewer rattles, and higher customer
satisfaction, and potentially increasing United States auto
manufacturers' gain in the world market. Another example of success was
a development of a new way to solder electronic circuit boards that
uses less solder, and is more precise, more efficient, and
environmentally benign than current technologies. In addition, there
was a development of a process to develop ultrafine ceramic powders
that can be heat pressed into parts such as piston heads and turbine
blades, and those significantly impact parts manufacturing.

Somebody might sit there and say, well, OK, Senator, these things are
all well and good, why didn't these companies just go do it on their
own? Why should the Federal Government be involved in supporting that?
The answer to that is the reason that we ought to keep this program
going: The reality is that the way money functions in the marketplace,
it seems it's the best return on investment, fastest or safest, but it
doesn't often commit to take some of the higher risks, particularly
given the change within the marketplace today. It is a known fact--you
can talk to any venture capitalist, and talk to anybody out there
seeking the capital--that it is only because of programs like the
Advanced Technology Program, where the Government is willing to share
not only in the risk, but in the burden of trying to find the processes
and the technologies, that we can advance in helping to bring together
the special combinations, where we have been able to make things happen
that simply would not happen otherwise.
We have created jobs, we have advanced ourselves in the world
marketplace. We have maintained our competitive edge as a consequence
of this commitment. And to create this arbitrary, sort of means-tested,
very precise process of eliminating a whole group of companies that
have great technology, but may not be willing to share it with smaller
companies absent this joint risk, would be an enormous loss to the
American competitive edge. That is the reason that it is so important
for the United States to continue this effort. It is also a fact that
while large firms are able to pay for their own research and
development, they are not always going to pay for the longer term,
higher risk, broader applied technology principles that other nations
or other companies might benefit from without paying for it.
So, Mr. President, I strongly urge colleagues not to respond to the
sort of simple view of this adopting a notion that a large company is
automatically able to take care of itself and eliminate this program.
We need large companies in combination with small, we need large
companies lending expertise to our universities, we need large
companies to be part of this combination. Without this combination,
those companies, Mr. President, will not make this commitment and
America will lose in the marketplace. I urge my colleagues to reject
the Brownback amendment. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania again
for his courtesy.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I was in the process of my contention
that the commercials prepared and/or edited by President Clinton
constituted express advocacy, and I asked that my letter of May 1,
1997, to Attorney General Reno be printed in the Record.
I now ask that the reply from Attorney General Reno, dated June 19,
1997, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:

Office of the Attorney General,

Washington, DC, June 19, 1997.
Hon. Arlen Specter,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Specter: I have received your letter of May 1,
1997, asking that I offer you my legal opinion as to whether
the text of certain television commercials constitutes
``express advocacy'' within the meaning of regulations of the
Federal Election Commission (``FEC''). For the reasons set
forth below, I have referred your request to the FEC for its
consideration and response.
Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, the FEC has
statutory authority to ``administer, seek to obtain
compliance with, and formulate policy with respect to'' FECA,
and exclusive jurisdiction with respect to civil enforcement
of FECA. 2 U.S.C. Sec. 437c(b)(1); see 2 U.S.C. Sec. 437d(e)
(FEC civil action is ``exclusive civil remedy'' for enforcing
FECA). The FEC has the power to issue rules and advisory
opinions interpreting the provisions of FECA. 2 U.S.C.
Sec. Sec. 437f, 438. The FEC may penalize violations of FECA
administratively or through bringing civil actions. 2 U.S.C.
Sec. 437g. In short, ``Congress has vested the Commission
with `primary and substantial responsibility for
administering and enforcing the Act.' '' FEC v. Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Comm., 454 U.S. 27, 37 (1981), quoting
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 109 (1976).
The legal opinion that you seek is one that is particularly
within the competence of the FEC, and not one which has
historically been made by the Department of Justice.
Determining whether these advertisements constitute ``express
advocacy'' under the FEC's rules will require consideration
not only of their content but also of the timing and
circumstances under which they were distributed. The FEC has
considerably more experience than the Department in making
such evaluations. Moreover, your request involves
interpretation of a rule promulgated by the FEC itself.
Indeed, it is the standard practice of the Department to
defer to the FEC in interpreting its regulations.
There is particular reason to defer to the expertise of the
FEC in this matter, because the issue is not as clear-cut as
you suggest. In FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign
Comm., 839 F. Supp. 1448 (D. Colo. 1993), rev'd on other
grounds, 59 F.3d 1015 (10th Cir. 1995), vacated, 116 S.Ct.
2309 (1996), the United States District Court held that the
following advertisement, run in Colorado by the state
Republican Federal Campaign Committee, did not constitute
``express advocacy'':
``Here in Colorado we're used to politicians who let you
know where they stand, and I thought we could count on Tim
Wirth to do the same. But the last few weeks have been a real
eye-opener. I just saw some ads where Tim Wirth said he's for
a strong defense and a balanced budget. But according to his
record, Tim Wirth voted against every new weapon system in
the last five years. And he voted against the balanced budget
amendment.
``Tim Wirth has a right to run for the Senate, but he
doesn't have a right to change the facts.''
839 F. Supp. at 1451, 1455-56. The court held that the
``express advocacy'' test requires that an advertisement ``in
express terms advocate the election or defeat of a
candidate.'' Id. at 1456. The Court of Appeals reversed the
District Court on other grounds, holding that ``express
advocacy'' was not the appropriate test, and the Supreme
Court did not reach the issue.
Furthermore, a pending matter before the Supreme Court may
assist in the legal resolution of some of these issues; the
Solicitor General has recently filed a petition for
certiorari on behalf of the FEC in the case of Federal
Election Commission v. Maine Right to Life Committee, Inc.,
No. 96-1818, filed May 15, 1997. I have enclosed a copy of
the petition for your information. It discusses at some
length the current state of the law with respect to the
definition and application of the ``express advocacy''
standard in the course of petitioning the Court to review the
restrictive definition of the standard adopted by the lower
courts in that case.
It appears, therefore, that the proper legal status of
these advertisements under the regulations issued by the FEC
is a question that is most appropriate for initial review by
the FEC. Accordingly, I have referred your letter to the FEC
for its consideration. Thank you for your inquiry on this
important matter, and do not hesitate to contract me if I can
be of any further assistance.
Sincerely,
Janet Reno.

Mr. SPECTER. Further, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the
Federal Election Commission, dated June 26, 1997, be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:

Federal Election Commission,

Washington, DC, June 26, 1997.
Hon. Arlen Specter,
U.S. Senate, Hart Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Specter: Your letter of May 1, 1997 to
Attorney General Reno has been referred by the Department of
Justice to the Federal Election Commission. Your letter asks
for a legal opinion on whether the text of certain
advertisements constitutes ``issue advocacy'' or ``express
advocacy.''
As the Attorney General's June 19, 1997 letter to you
correctly notes, the Federal Election Commission has
statutory authority to ``administer, seek to obtain
compliance with, and formulate policy with respect to'' the
Federal Election Campaign Act (``FECA''). 2 U.S.C.
Sec. 437c(b)(1). The Commission's policymaking authority
includes the power to issue rules and advisory opinions
interpreting the FECA and Commission regulations. 2 U.S.C.
Sec. Sec. 437f and 438.
Your May 1 letter notes that the Commission has promulgated
a regulatory definition of ``express advocacy'' at 11 CFR
100.22. While the Commission may issue advisory opinions
interpreting the application of that provision, the FECA
places certain limitations on the scope of the Commission's
advisory opinion authority. Specifically, the FEC

[[Page S8023]]

may render an opinion only with respect to a specific
transaction or activity which the requesting person plans to
undertake in the future. See 2 U.S.C. 437f(a) and 11 CFR
112.1(b). Thus, the opinion which you seek regarding the text
of certain advertisements does not qualify for advisory
opinion treatment, since the ads appear to be ones previously
aired and do not appear to be communications that you intend
to air in the future. Moreover, ``[n]o opinion of an advisory
nature may be issued by the Commission or any of its
employees except in accordance with the provisions of
[section 437f].'' 2 U.S.C. Sec. 437f(b).
While the FECA's confidentiality provision precludes the
Commission from making public any information relating to a
pending enforcement matter, I note that past activity such as
the advertisements you describe may be the subject of
compliance action. If you believe that the advertisements in
question involve a violation of the FECA, you may file a
complaint with the Commission pursuant to 2 U.S.C.
Sec. 437g(a) noting who paid for the ads and any additional
information in your possession that would assist the
Commission's inquiry. The requirements for filing a complaint
are more fully described in the enclosed brochure.
I hope that this information proves helpful to your
inquiry. Please feel free to contact my office (219-4104) or
the Office of General Counsel (219-3690) if you need further
assistance.
Sincerely,
John Warren McGarry,
Chairman.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the essence of the Attorney General's
response to me was that she would not respond on the legal issue,
notwithstanding she is the Nation's chief law enforcement officer. She
passed the buck over to the Federal Election Commission. The Federal
Election Commission passed the buck back, saying that these were
matters that had already occurred, so they didn't come within advisory
opinions. One way or another, Mr. President, we will have a
determination as to what is involved there. The alternative of
proceeding in court is one which we are currently examining, and as I
have noted, there is an issue as to whether that can be done on the
existing statute.
I do believe there is a legal basis for so proceeding, but on a novel
bit of litigation of this sort, no lawyer can be absolutely certain as
to what the result would be. But in the context of what we have on the
record with the Attorney General's refusal to appoint independent
counsel, in a context where she is denying the President of the United
States national security information, and her refusal to proceed to
appoint independent counsel where the Attorney General concedes that
there has been a coordinated effort by the President so that the only
remaining issue is whether there is an advocacy commercial, which on
their face, I submit, these commercials are. The problems have been
compounded with the conduct of the Attorney General and the Justice
Department in the course of the last several days where they have
opposed applications for immunity requested for consideration by the
Governmental Affairs Committee.
The Governmental Affairs Committee, as is well known, is currently
investigating illegal or improper activities in the 1996 Federal
elections. A modus operandi has been worked out there which would allow
the Attorney General to come in and give the committee the Attorney
General's opinion as to whether immunity should be withheld or granted.
The law is plain that the committee has the jurisdiction to make that
determination, where the statute gives the Attorney General a period of
time to object and additional time for the purpose of putting the
Department of Justice's case together. Due to the problems created by
the decisions involving Admiral Poindexter and Colonel North go to a
point where limited immunity is granted, the prosecutor must prove the
case from independent sources and the prosecutor can put a case
together, can, so to speak, bundle the case before immunity is granted.
So when the request was made for applications for immunity for five
individuals, the Attorney General responded, the Department of Justice
responded that they objected to the grant of immunity. That was, so to
speak, the straw which broke the camel's back and the chairman of the
committee, Senator Thompson, made a very forceful public statement on
Tuesday saying that he had lost confidence in the Department of Justice
to conduct an impartial and appropriate investigation, and that the
refusal to agree to those grants of immunity was just beyond the pale,
a conclusion with which I agree.
On the basis of the equities here, I believe a very, very strong case
can be made out to have the Court, in its supervisory authority,
appoint independent counsel notwithstanding the absence of an
application by the Attorney General. However, in consultation with my
colleagues, I have decided to introduce an amendment to the pending
bill which would make certain modifications in the independent counsel
statute. These modifications would create new authority for the
Congress to seek judicial appointment of an independent counsel where
there is a determination that the Attorney General's failure to do so
is an abuse of discretion. This authority would reside in the Judiciary
Committee, where the full committee or a majority of the majority party
members or a majority of the nonmajority party members could petition
the Court to appoint an independent counsel where the full committee or
a majority of either party's committee members determines that the
Attorney General's failure to appoint an independent counsel is an
abuse of discretion. This carefully crafts a procedure so that there is
a limit of standing as to who may come in and ask for the appointment
of independent counsel.
The amendment, which I propose to introduce, would further provide
for a judicial determination on independent counsel with a
specification that upon receipt of a congressional application, the
Court shall appoint independent counsel where the Court has determined
that the Attorney General's failure to appoint an independent counsel
is an abuse of discretion.
There are considerations on constitutional issues here, but I believe
that other relevant issues must also be considered. Regarding the
context of the current factual situation and carefully limiting the
petitioning authority to the Congress, and in the context where the
Attorney General herself has emphasized the importance of the
independent counsel provision, including the avoidance of appearance of
impropriety, it is my judgment that this law would pass constitutional
muster and would provide an important addition in the interest of
justice to solve the problem which we now confront, where the
overwhelming weight of evidence--and I don't use that term lightly. It
is evidence. It has evidentiary value--calls for the appointment of
independent counsel.

There is pending at the present time an amendment so I cannot
introduce my amendment now. A subsequent amendment is pending. But it
is my intention, as I say, Mr. President, to introduce this amendment.
There have been some preliminary indications that the introduction of
this amendment might tie up the bill, and I do not intend to tie up the
bill. If that is the consequence of the introduction of an amendment,
if a filibuster were to follow, I would not persist and subject this
appropriations bill to a filibuster. I firmly believe that it is in the
public interest in a very serious way to have independent counsel
appointed, and it is obvious that all the entreaties to the Attorney
General have thus far been unsuccessful and litigation is an option
which may be pursued. However, this statutory change would make it
certain that the Court would have the authority and that the
petitioning parties would have appropriate standing to have independent
counsel appointed.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

U.S. Senate,

Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC, May 1, 1997.
Hon. Janet Reno,
Attorney General,
Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
Dear Attorney General Reno: Following up on yesterday's
hearing, please respond for the record whether, in your legal
judgment, the text of the television commercials, set forth
below, constitutes ``issue advocacy'' or ``express
advocacy.''
The Federal Election Commission defines ``express
advocacy'' as follows:
``Communications using phrases such as `vote for
President,' `reelect your Congressman,' `Smith for Congress,'
or language which, when taken as a whole and with limited
reference to external events, can have no other reasonable
meaning than to urge the election or defeat of a clearly
identified federal candidate.'' 11 CFR 100.22
The text of the television commercials follows:
``American values. Do our duty to our parents. President
Clinton protects Medicare.

[[Page S8024]]

The Dole/Gingrich budget tried to cut Medicare $270 billion.
Protect families. President Clinton cut taxes for millions of
working families. The Dole/Gingrich budget tried to raise
taxes on eight million of them. Opportunity. President
Clinton proposes tax breaks for tuition. The Dole/Gringrich
budget tried to slash college scholarships. Only President
Clinton's plan meets our challenges, protects our values.
``60,000 felons and fugitives tried to buy handguns--but
couldn't--because President Clinton passed the Brady Bill--
five-day waits, background checks. But Dole and Gingrich
voted no. One hundred thousand new police--because President
Clinton delivered. Dole and Gingrich? Vote no, want to repeal
'em. Strengthen school anti-drug programs. President Clinton
did it. Dole and Gingrich? No again. Their old ways don't
work. President Clinton's plan. The new way. Meeting our
challenges, protecting our values.
``America's values. Head Start. Student loans. Toxic
cleanup. Extra police. Protected in the budget agreement; the
president stood firm. Dole, Gingrich's latest plan includes
tax hikes on working families. Up to 18 million children face
healthcare cuts. Medicare slashed $167 billion. Then Dole
resigns, leaving behind gridlock he and Gingrich created. The
president's plan: Politics must wait. Balance the budget,
reform welfare, protect our values.
``Head Start. Student loans. Toxic cleanup. Extra police.
Anti-drug programs. Dole, Gingrich wanted them cut. Now
they're safe. Protected in the '96 budget--because the
President stood firm. Dole, Gingrich? Deadlock. Gridlock.
Shutdowns. The president's plan? Finish the job, balance the
budget. Reform welfare. Cut taxes. Protect Medicare.
President Clinton says get it done. Meet our challenges.
Protect our values.
``The president says give every child a chance for college
with a tax cut that gives $1,500 a year for two years, making
most community colleges free, all colleges more affordable .
. . And for adults, a chance to learn, find a better job. The
president's tuition tax cut plan.
``Protecting families. For millions of working families,
President Clinton cut taxes. The Dole-Gingrich budget tried
to raise taxes on eight million. The Dole-Gingrich budget
would have slashed Medicare $270 billion. Cut college
scholarships. The president defended our values. Protected
Medicare. And now, a tax cut of $1,500 a year for the first
two years of college. Most community colleges free. Help
adults go back to school. The president's plan protects our
values.''
Sincerely,
Arlen Specter.

Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the underlying amendment
briefly, the amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas with regard
to his efforts to really hone NIST's Advanced Technology Program to
serve the public, the amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State, and
Judiciary appropriations bill.
I do wish to thank my colleague, the Senator from Kansas, for his
efforts to accomplish what we all want to do, and that is to have
NIST's ATP serve in the best way possible the public, using taxpayer
dollars. And I, too, am very optimistic and feel very confident that
this can be done, yet I want to rise and speak against the amendment
and stress that the approach is different than what I would like to
take and therefore explain it.
I am chairman of the Commerce Science, Technology and Space
Subcommittee, the committee through which the reauthorization and the
authorization for this ATP takes place. That subcommittee right now is
looking at all of the information in a very systematic way to see how
we best can evolve that program to provide absolutely the best return
on our Nation's investment.
I feel strongly that the proper place to effect such changes should
be in a more comprehensive approach rather than a shotgun approach, and
that is through the committee structure, through the committee that is
charged with the reauthorization of NIST's ATP, and that is what we are
doing.
Just last week an excellent report was released by the Commerce
Department. It is a 60-day report. It put forth recommendations, four
reform efforts in place, suggestions, recommendations--conducted by the
Commerce Department. And I dare say I bet there has not been a Senator
in the room who has read through that report released just last week.
I think the report is a good first step. We need to go much further
than that, but I would rather do that on an authorizing bill rather
than having it tagged on an appropriations bill in more of a shotgun
fashion.
Our subcommittee is right now working on a reauthorization bill that
addresses the longstanding concerns which people have with the Advanced
Technology Program so that it can be become a really more effective
vehicle for stimulating innovation in this country, and that is what we
want to do, stimulate innovation.
I welcome the input to our subcommittee of all interested parties,
including my colleagues from the Commerce Committee and the Senator
from Kansas, who is also on the Commerce Committee, in order to craft
this more comprehensive legislation. Therefore, I rise to express my
opposition to this particular amendment offered by the Senator from
Kansas and hope that we will begin the opportunity through the
appropriate authorizing subcommittee to effect real change, more
comprehensive change where we can consider all of the available data in
order to accomplish the necessary change in the NIST's Advanced
Technology Program through this reauthorization process. I hope my
colleagues will join me in opposition to this amendment, recognizing
that we will be addressing all of these issues through the appropriate
reauthorizing committee, that of science, technology and space.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is
not present.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. 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.
Under the previous order, the question now occurs on amendment No.
980, offered by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. Brownback].
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
Kennedy] is necessarily absent.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from
Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] would vote ``no.''
The result was announced, yeas 42, nays 57, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 202 Leg.]

YEAS--42

Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Bond
Brownback
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Collins
Craig
Domenici
Enzi
Faircloth
Feingold
Gorton
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Inhofe
Kempthorne
Kohl
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Nickles
Roberts
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Wyden

NAYS--57

Akaka
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Burns
Byrd
Cleland
Cochran
Conrad
Coverdell
D'Amato
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feinstein
Ford
Frist
Glenn
Graham
Grams
Hagel
Harkin
Hollings
Hutchison
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kerrey
Kerry
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Roth
Sarbanes
Specter
Stevens
Torricelli
Warner
Wellstone

NOT VOTING--1

Kennedy

The amendment (No. 980) was rejected.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. KERRY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Indiana.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Indiana.
Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chair.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.

[[Page S8025]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will please come to order.
Mr. LUGAR. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid
aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 981

(Purpose: To make appropriations for grants to the National Endowment
for Democracy)

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for
its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Lugar], for himself, Mr.
McConnell, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Graham, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Roth,
Mr. Dodd, and Mr. Mack proposes an amendment numbered 981.

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

On page 113, line 7, after the word ``expended.'' insert
the following new heading and section:

national endowment for democracy

For grants made by the United States Information Agency to
the National Endowment for Democracy as authorized by the
National Endowment Democracy Act, $30,000,000 to remain
available until expended.
On page 100, line 24 strike ``$105,000,000'' and insert
``$75,000,000''.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that no second-
degree amendment to my amendment be in order.
Mr. BUMPERS. Objection.
Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I understand while I was reserving the
right to object somebody else actually lodged an objection.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I object to the request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. LUGAR addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana has the floor.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, point of personal privilege, I would simply
like to indulge the attention of the Chair. I do this in the most
gentle, appropriate way as possible.
I have the utmost respect for the Senator from Indiana. The rules of
the Senate are, Senators are recognized as a right of first voice heard
by the Chair. Three voices were raised on this side of the aisle. And
while I have enormous respect and affection for the Senator from
Indiana, I do not think his voice had even been expressed, but he was
recognized.
I think the Chair should proceed, if I may say, by the rules of the
Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. His voice was expressed. I happened to be
looking in his direction and recognized him.
The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, the amendment that I introduce comes to the
floor because no funding for the National Endowment for Democracy is in
this bill. It has been zeroed out. The bill as written proposes to
eliminate the National Endowment for Democracy, a program that has been
enthusiastically supported by every administration, Republican and
Democratic, since President Ronald Reagan's first term, and by every
Congress, Republican and Democratic, since 1983, when it was first
launched.
The amendment we are proposing would continue funding for the
National Endowment for Democracy at this year's level, namely $30
million. It does not seek an increase in funding. But it proposes that
the funding continue.
The amendment would shift $30 million from the State Department
Capital Investment Fund in the bill to the National Endowment for
Democracy.
I point out, Mr. President, that even with the $30 million shifted
from the State Department Capital Investment Fund, that fund will still
exceed by $11 million the administration's request.
The capital investment fund is an important initiative. Many of us
have written to Secretary Albright and the President about the
importance of strengthening the State Department's technological and
communications capability. They are significant and important
deficiencies in the State Department. And this bill will go a long way
to correct them.
But, Mr. President, the administration requested a total of $64
million for these purposes. The bill before us includes a funding level
of $105 million, some $41 million over the President's request.
Therefore, Mr. President, I am pleased to announce the administration
favors our amendment, it favors support of the amendment because it
provides for the National Endowment for Democracy and all that had been
requested, and more, for the Capital Investment Fund of the State
Department.
Let me point out, Mr. President, an important editorial that appeared
in the Wall Street Journal this morning that very succinctly sums up
the case that we make.
The Wall Street Journal editorial states--and I quote:

A United States Senate accustomed to forking up
multibillions will debate the government's equivalent of the
widow's mite today, a $30 million appropriation to fund the
National Endowment for Democracy. An appropriations
subcommittee chaired by New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg
decided not long ago in a fit of austerity to defund the NED,
on grounds that it was a relic of the Cold War. The same
subcommittee awarded the State Department $100 million, $40
million more than it requested, just to buy computers.
We don't think for minute that a title with the word
``democracy'' in it imparts virtue to a federal enterprise in
and of itself, and we confess to having had some skepticism
of our own about the NED some years after it was founded in
1984. But a closer look at what the NED has been up to
produces some surprises.
Its rather unusual design seems to have encouraged
considerably more initiative in its mission of spreading
democracy around the world than would be expected of the
usual federal agency. Maybe that's because it is not a
federal agency, but a free standing foundation with its own
board of directors supported by both federal and private
money. It channels its grants through four institutes, two of
which are operated by the two major U.S. political parties.
One achievement of this Ronald Reagan brainchild was to
help Poland's Solidarity break the grip of the Soviet Union
in the Cold War days. But it is doing some rewarding work
today as well.
Its Republican branch, the International Republican
Institute, help set up free elections in Mongolia last year,
turning that once-Communist country into a democratic, free
market paragon. IRI also is helping villages in China learn
how to conduct free and fair elections of local governing
committees something they are entitled to do under Chinese
law. The Democrats, through their National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs, are doing similar work.
American politicians are helping teach practical politics at
the very foundations of democracy, and doing it on a
shoestring.
Is this of value to the U.S.? You only have to ask yourself
whether the world is safer with a democratic or an
authoritarian China to answer that question. The fact that
private corporations are willing to fund special NED projects
in non-sensitive situations offers evidence that enlightened
businesses value the stability that democracy and a rule of
law bring to the countries where they seek to operate.
Bulgaria is one such place where new democrats are being
offered such aid.
Since news of the defunding became known, the NED has had
an outpouring of support from people around the world who
have direct knowledge of its contributions.
Hong Kong democratic leader Martin Lee, who faces tough
battles ahead in coping with Hong Kong's new Beijing
landlords, penned a letter to Senator Connie Mack begging him
to help save the NED, Senator Bob Graham has heard from
Sergio Aguayo of the Civic Alliance, which has had a strong
hand in promoting the multiparty democracy now taking root in
Mexico. Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Bennett,
along with such varied Senate personalities as Richard Lugar,
Chris Dodd, John Kyl and Ted Kennedy have weighed in one
behalf of NED.
The NED recently sent out an invitation to kindred groups
in Germany, Britain, Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands to a
meeting in Taiwan in October it will co-sponsor with Taiwan's
Institute for National Policy Research. The purpose of this
gathering in one of the world's newest democracies is to
foster NED-type groups in still more countries. What a shame
it would if the U.S. Senate collapsed with an attack of
parochialism on the eve of such a bold endeavor.

That is the end of the Wall Street Journal editorial.
Mr. President, I simply make the point that the NED is not a cold war
relic. The President of the United States, currently, President Bill
Clinton, just as Ronald Reagan at the inception of this, sees the value
of this type of activity.
President Clinton has said if we are going to make a difference in
Chinese democracy, the National Endowment for Democracy and its
International

[[Page S8026]]

Republican Institute is on the spur of what needs to happen by
promoting the organization of elections in local villages. And this we
are doing. These things do not happen by chance.
The President has commended the idea that the National Endowment for
Democracy has been involved in Mongolia, has commended the work that is
occurring in situations where not only free and fair elections have
occurred, but in its unique way the National Endowment for Democracy,
by placing labor leaders in nations that have gained democracy, helps
build labor unions.
The Chamber of Commerce, by placing businesspeople under the National
Endowment for Democracy's auspices, helps market economics get started.
Are these important to the United States? You bet they are.
The fact is, a free and fair election can occur, and the cold war may
be over, but our Nation needs to relate to other nations that have
ongoing sensitivity toward labor-management relationships, market
economics, price finding in the markets, freedom of speech, and
political dialog that our political parties have fostered.
The suggestion, Mr. President, is this could be done by private
enterprise all by itself. But that would have no particular legitimacy.
The backing by the Congress, by the administration, by every living
Secretary of State, every living National Security Adviser, every
living President, of this idea ought to at least weigh in with this
body.
There may be Members second-guessing all of these people and saying
they are simply out of it. But I would advise Members, they are very
much with it. They understand the dynamics of what has to happen in the
world and why it is important for these four groups in the National
Endowment for Democracy to band together throughout several
administrations and with a continuity of effort to make a substantial
difference in the world.
Mr. President, I cited a few moments ago letters that have been
written. I want to mention specifically one from the Laogai Research
Foundation, and a name that all will recognize in this body, Harry Wu,
its executive director. He simply says:

Tomorrow (Thursday), in a letter he wrote to me yesterday,
in a vote on the Senate floor, you will be presented with a
choice to either support the N.E.D. or [to] kill it. I
understand that particular . . . programs may, from time to
time, draw the ire of lawmakers. [But] may we suggest that
when this is the case, leaders such as yourself [must]
suggest . . . what internal changes need to be made.
In other words, don't throw out the baby with the
bathwater.
If the United States intends to maintain its leading role
in world affairs, continued Congressional support of the
National Endowment for Democracy is imperative.

I have cited a letter that was written by Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack
Kemp, William Bennett, Lamar Alexander, Steve Forbes, Vin Weber, a
whole galaxy of people involved in Empower America. They are important
voices, living, active voices, not relics of the cold war. They
understand the dynamics of what we ought to be doing in American
politics.
They are joined, as I have suggested earlier, by Sandy Berger,
currently the National Security Adviser, and by all the National
Security Advisers since the NED was created.
Mr. President, I want to cite specifically a letter from Martin Lee,
chairman of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong. Not long ago, many in
this Senate honored Martin Lee. Prior to the turnover in Hong Kong,
most of us were worried about Martin Lee and democracy.
I simply cite Martin's letter in which he says:

My main purpose in writing now is to express my concern
about proposals I understand are before the Senate to
consider eliminating funding for the National Endowment for
Democracy. I know you have always been a strong supporter of
NED and the important work it does around the world, but I
wanted to write to express my conviction the National
Endowment for Democracy is indeed indispensable in a world
where democracy and freedom are not entrenched and where--to
cite the example of Hong Kong--all democratic institutions
can be wiped out by fiat.
In Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia--

Martin Lee says

and around the world, the struggle to preserve democracy,
political freedom and the rule of law is far from being won.

Let me just simply say, Mr. President, this is serious business. What
is being proposed here in our amendment is that $30 million for
computers and technological equipment the State Department did not seek
be restored to the National Endowment for Democracy that they did ask
for. The request of the President is for this money, leaving fully all
of the requests that the administration made for the equipment.
Mr. President, what we have before us we need to see very clearly.
There are Members of the body who simply want to kill the National
Endowment for Democracy. Now, I resist that idea, and for good reason.
The experience of most of us in this Chamber, I hope, would be to say
that we have to be active on the front lines, and we have to be active
as Republicans, Democrats, labor union members, and business people in
our own expertise and synergy and continuity; we have to be active not
simply in setting up those activities our diplomacy can do--free and
fair elections--but the centers of support of commerce, of labor, of
freedom of speech and press and contract law and the details that,
alone, make continuity possible and second and third elections in
countries transitioning to democracy possible. Mr. President, I do hope
that Members will support this amendment. I think it is very important
for the foreign policy and security of this country. I thank the Chair.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.

Amendment No. 982 to Amendment No. 981

(Purpose: To make appropriations for grants to the National Endowment
for Democracy)

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the
desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], for himself, Mr.
Lugar, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Graham, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Roth, Mr.
Dodd, and Mr. Mack, proposes an amendment numbered 982 to
amendment No. 981.

The amendment is as follows:
On page 113, line 7, after the word ``expended.'' insert
the following new heading and section:

national endowment for democracy

For grants made by the United States Information Agency to
the National Endowment for Democracy as authorized by the
National Endowment Democracy Act, $30,000,000 to remain
available until expended. This shall become effective one day
after enactment of this Act.
On page 100, line 24 strike ``$105,000,000'' and insert
``$75,000,000''.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the
second-degree amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, independence is the first step toward
democracy--hardly the last. As our own nation's history records, 87
years after our revolution, President Lincoln stood at Gettysburg to
remind a deeply wounded nation----

It is for us, the living to be dedicated . . . to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so
nobly advanced . . . the great task remaining before us--that
this nation, under God shall have a new birth both of
freedom--and that government of the people, by the people and
for the people shall not perish from the earth.

We all, at one point or another in our school careers, memorized that
famous address. Eighty seven years after our Nation's birth--when we
had a strong, well established representative government--Lincoln spoke
of our unfinished work--because we saw our democracy, our Government
and Nation divided and devastated by civil war--a war which serves as a
caution that even healthy, strong democracies suffer attack and
setbacks.
One hundred years after President Lincoln reminded us of our
unfinished work, President Reagan stood before the British Parliament
in 1982 and predicted the certain end of communism.
But, in forecasting communism's imminent demise, President Reagan
called upon his country, our allies and our American political parties
to ``contribute as a nation to the global campaign for democracy
gathering force.''
This remarkable speech set in motion the people and events which
established the National Endowment for Democracy.

[[Page S8027]]

President Reagan's message was as simple and pure as it was powerful
and enduring--the mission he defined was to create a world illuminated
by individual liberty, representative government and the rule of law
under God.
Eighty-seven years after our revolution, we needed to recommit
ourselves to that purpose at Gettysburg. President Reagan renewed the
call and, now, we must rededicate and redouble our efforts to secure
democracy around the globe.
With the end of the cold war, this mission and our responsibilities
have only just begun. It is not ending, it is the beginning.
The National Endowment for Democracy--and especially its four core
institutes--offer the best, most effective, and strongest tools we have
available to consolidate the gains we have made in dismantling the
structure of Communist and totalitarian governments.
We need to remember that tearing down the weak practices and
government architecture of communism is not the same thing as creating
or sustaining strong, viable democratic principles, laws and
institutions.
Communism has indeed been cast on the ash heap of history. The
question remains what will take its place.
Virtually every nation which suffered behind the Iron Curtain has
enjoyed some form of free and fair elections--but the first election is
not as important as the second then third when there is a real test of
democratic principle and practice--when those who have enjoyed elected
office must relinquish power if the principle of self determination is
to survive. In other words, only after an orderly transition of power
from election to election occurs can democracy truly take root.
The key to self-determination--the core of democracy--is the active
engagement of citizens in their government. NED and its institutes, in
turn are the key to building and encouraging this deep, informed
involvement.
These organizations carry out this important work in a number of
ways.
In Burma, NED funding is keeping the faint but fervent hopes for
freedom and democracy alive. Let me explain why their work is so vital.
Burma and North Korea have a lot in common with the Stalinist era in
the Soviet Union. A ruthless 400,000 man military force, led by the
State Law and Order Restoration Council--SLORC--have systematically
destroyed the education system and detained, tortured, and executed
anyone opposing their brutal rule.
NED is a lifeline for the courageous opponents who resist SLORC
inside Burma and the large, exiled community who struggle every day to
restore the results of the 1990 elections and their leader Aung San Suu
Kyi to office.
With less than $200,000 NED has kept alive the only uncensored,
independent newspaper circulated inside Burma. The New Era, a monthly
newspaper, is vital to the effort to raise awareness of SLORC's
violations of human rights and civil liberties, to assure independent
reporting of events and to provide counterbalance to SLORC's daily
campaign to smear and slander Aung San Suu Kyi.
Let me point out that it's a crime in Burma to have a copy of this
newspaper, yet in spite of threats of imprisonment and death, an
extraordinary network of students and citizens take this risk to assure
monthly delivery and circulation of the New Era.
The NED also supports the Democratic Voice of Burma which produces
and transmits a daily morning and evening broadcast of news, features
and ethnic language programming as well as broadcasting recordings of
Aung San Suu Kyi's speeches, the texts of U.N. decisions and other
information of intense interest to Burma's citizens.
Beyond sustaining the independent media, NED supports efforts to
strengthen cooperation among the more than 15 ethnic groups which work
in peaceful opposition to the military junta. This support has enabled
the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma under the
direction of elected Prime Minister Dr. Sein Win to continue to
represent to the outside world the views and aspirations of the
legitimately elected parliamentarians of Burma.
Although they are victims of one of the world's most repressive
regimes, Dr. Sein Win works with his colleagues inside and outside
Burma, calling for peaceful dialog to restore democracy to his
beleaguered nation.
Burma is just one example of the Endowment's exceptional service to
the cause of democracy.
I have also observed the crucial role they have played in the New
Independent States of the former Soviet Union.
Each of these countries illustrate my earlier point that while
trappings of communism have been dismantled, it is far too early to
judge the transition to democracy a complete success.
Communities across the region desperately need precisely the kind of
training and support available through NED. One of the most compelling
reasons why NED is so vital is illustrated by the work done through
their core grantee in Russia.
Although we are all concerned about the reactionary elements which
continue to dominate the Russian Parliament, there is some reason to be
hopeful. During the last election, in every community and town where
the International Republican Institute ran training programs and
supported efforts to strengthen local political parties, reformers were
elected to office--reformers who shared our interests in free market
economies and individual liberties.
Obviously, reformers do not control a majority yet, but IRI's
impressive record suggests we should be substantially expanding our
support for endowment activities to secure the kinds of governments and
societies which share our interests.
The cold war may be over, but repression and authoritarian impulses
are alive and well.
NED nourishes the ambitions of all those who want to participate and
shape their own great experiment in democracy--Muslim women in the
Middle East, journalists under fire in Cambodia, trade unions in
Belarus, political scientists in Azerbaijan, legal defense funds in
Latin America--all benefit from NED's small grants--all contribute to
building the foundation which sustains a healthy democracy.
The National Endowment for Democracy and its core grantees work
citizen by citizen and community by community to transform individual
aspirations of self-determination into the governing nations which
Ronald Reagan defined so well--nations which preserve and protect
individual liberty, representative government and the rule of law under
God.
NED deserves our support. It does a good job and it does it in
service to our national interests. Each democracy which grows is one
more trading partner, one less crisis which may require our political
or military intervention.
We abandon this extraordinary campaign for democracy gathering force
at our own peril.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am proud to strongly support and
cosponsor the McConnell amendment to restore modest funding for the
National Endowment for Democracy. I commend the distinguished chairman
of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee for his continued leadership on
this important matter.
The National Endowment for Democracy is a proven, cost-effective
investment in democracy. It represents our national interests and our
values.
As a member of the Commerce, State, Justice Subcommittee, I am
disappointed that no funds were provided for a program that so
effectively strengthens democracy around the world. Today we seek to
restore funding to continue this important tool of American foreign
policy.
The cold war may be over--but dictatorships and military juntas still
exist. Democracy is still fragile in too many countries. Rigged
elections still occur, and freedom of speech is not a universal right.
The National Endowment for Democracy provides the tools of democracy.
It encourages a free press, unions, and multiparty elections. It
supports women's participation in the electoral process. It assists
grassroots organizations that support democracy and human rights.
The National Endowment for Democracy has a remarkable track record.
It was one of the early supporters of the Solidarity movement in
Poland. It helped to draft South Africa's constitution.
But NED does not rest on it laurels. Today, in Albania, Burma, and
Cuba--NED is supporting democracy. It provides assistance to the only
independent newspaper in Bosnia. It is helping

[[Page S8028]]

to empower women in Turkey. It is helping Asian organizations to fight
against the use of child labor.
Mr. President, the cold war is over--but American leadership is still
important. We are still the strongest voice for democracy. I urge my
colleagues to join me is supporting the National Endowment for
Democracy--one of our most important tools in supporting democracy
around the world.
Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of the
pending amendment, which will restore $30 million of funding for the
National Endowment for Democracy.
Mr. President, unless we reverse the decision that has been made by
the Appropriations Committee, the Senate will be on record as
eliminating this unique, flexible, low-cost, public-private
partnership, an important foreign policy instrument, an instrument that
has proven important today in furthering U.S. interests, as important
today as it was in 1983 when established with the active support and
leadership of President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. President, the Senate has debated the future of the National
Endowment for Democracy virtually every year in recent years. Every
year, proponents of continuing the Endowment have prevailed, but the
fight has taken a toll. NED's budget has been whittled down by almost
15 percent over the last 3 years, and its authorization is now flat for
the next 2 years. Any further cuts will severely hamper NED's ability
to carry out its important programs. That is why so many of us are here
today concerned that its current budget be sustained at the requested
level of $30 million.
Mr. President, although we once again are debating NED's future, this
recurring debate has been, and continues to be, more about our future
and our view of the world than it does this one Federal initiative for
democracy. It is also about how the American people view America's role
in the world. In examining that world view, several fundamental
questions must be answered.
First and foremost is the question of whether it is in the interest
of the United States of America to remain actively engaged in world
affairs.
Second, is it in our interest to creatively promote peaceful
democratic change? To put it another way, is it in our interest to stay
one step ahead of tomorrow's costly conflicts by promoting peaceful
democratic change today?
Finally, does the National Endowment for Democracy make a positive
contribution to advancing these interests?
Mr. President, I submit that the answer to each of these questions is
yes. I would briefly wish to cite two examples.
First, in our own hemisphere, the United States has had a long and, I
suggest, painful and destructive history of being involved in our
hemisphere only when we faced an immediate security, political, or
economic crisis. Once the crisis passed, our interests waned and then
evaporated.
Mr. President, in large part because of some of the things that the
United States led in the last 50 years, we now have a period of
democratic government within our hemisphere that we have never known
since Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. Those democracies,
from Guatemala to Argentina, are new. They are enthusiastic. But they
lack the kinds of deep roots that will assure their longevity. It is
exactly nations such as that and building those roots that will sustain
democracy that the National Endowment for Democracy has exhibited, and
it is in exactly those circumstances within Latin America and the
Caribbean that the endowment has played such an important role, and I
submit will play an even more important role in the future.
Another prime example is China. Those who understand and care about
the need for long-term democratic change in China strongly support the
National Endowment for Democracy. That is because the National
Endowment for Democracy is working with human rights activists to bring
to life abuses by the current regime. The endowment is also creatively
exploring openings at the local level to help officials establish
independent elections.
NED is on the ground working in China every day in ways that very
directly further United States national interests. No other agency of
this Government is equipped to carry out the kind of innovative
grassroots work as is the National Endowment for Democracy.
If we are to successfully engage China over the long term, if we are
positively to influence United States-China relations, if we are to
reverse our past history and demonstrate a sustained commitment to
democratic institutions within our nearest neighbors in the Western
Hemisphere, the National Endowment for Democracy must necessarily be an
essential ingredient in that United States policy.
Indeed, the long-term impact we are confident NED to have in China is
on display today in Mexico, where the Endowment's support of the Civic
Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organizations in that
country, paved the way for electoral reform that resulted in the freest
elections in Mexico's history. The result has been a deepening of
democracy, and a sense among the Mexican people that casting ballots
can produce positive change in their lives. The result is a government
which is far more stable and responsive to the people's needs. The
Mexican people benefit, and so do we.
Mr. President, China and Mexico are only two examples of NED's work.
Indeed, the Endowment is helping dissidents in over 90 countries,
including dissidents who are fighting for democratic change in Cuba,
Burma, Nigeria, Belarus, Serbia, and Sudan. NED is working to
strengthen democratic institutions in Russia, Ukraine, and South
Africa. This is vitally important work. And there are many informed
observers who see it the same way.
Former Secretaries of State Baker, Eagleburger, Haig, Kissinger,
Shultz, and Vance are on record in support of NED. According to them:

During this period of international change and uncertainty,
the work of the NED continues to be an important bipartisan
but non-government contributor to democratic reform and
freedom. We consider the non-governmental character of the
NED even more relevant today than it was at NED's founding *
* *

Former National Security Advisors Allen, Carlucci, Brzezinski, and
Scowcroft also are on record in support. They have stated that:

The endowment, a small bipartisan institution with its
roots in America's's private sector, operates in situations
where direct government involvement is not appropriate.
It is an exceptionally effective instrument in today's
climate for reaching dedicated groups seeking to counter
extreme nationalist and autocratic forces that are
responsible for so much conflict and instability.
Eliminating this program would be particularly unsettling
to our friends around the world, and could be interpreted as
sign of America's disengagement from the vital policy of
supporting democracy. The endowment remains a critical and
cost-effective investment in a more secure America.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous to have printed in the Record an
exchange of correspondence I recently had with National Security
Advisor Sandy Berger. He responded in a July 21 letter reaffirming
strong administration support the NED and ``our opposition to any
effort reduce or eliminate NED funding.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

The White House,

Washington, July 21, 1997.
Hon. Bob Graham,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Bob: Thank you for your letter of July 16 regarding
funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
I welcome the opportunity to reaffirm strong Administration
support for the NED and our opposition to any effort to
reduce or eliminate NED funding. As you correctly note, the
President is a dedicated supporter of the NED, as it has been
in the forefront of U.S. efforts to promote democracy, civil
society and the rule of law around the world. Moreover, it
has done so at very little cost to the American public,
leveraging modest resources with great effectiveness.
I should also note that the NED, established by President
Reagan and strongly supported by each of his successors, has
served as a model for democracy-promotion efforts by our
democratic friends and allies.
For all of these reasons, we enthusiastically endorse your
efforts to restore funding for the NED, and we are prepared
to work closely with you to ensure that objective.
Best regards.
Sincerely,

Samuel R. Berger,

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

[[Page S8029]]

____
U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC, July 16, 1997.
Hon. Samuel R. Berger,
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, The
White House, Washington, DC.
Dear Sandy: The Commerce-Justice-State Appropriation will
soon be debated on the Senate floor. As you may know, the
Appropriations Committee is recommending that all funding for
the National Endowment for Democracy be eliminated.
NED's numerous Senate supporters, including myself, regard
this as a serious mistake, since it would cripple the ability
of our country to assist the various democratic networks
abroad whose continued sustenance is so critical to our
national security.
The President has been a dedicated supporter of the
Endowment in the past. It would be helpful if he would commit
the Administration to reaffirming that support by backing the
efforts of the Endowment's friends in the Senate to restore
its funding.
Sincerely,
Bob Graham,
U.S. Senator.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like now to take this opportunity
to clarify some misconceptions that have arisen regarding NED and its
work over the years. Two of those misconceptions are contained in the
report accompanying the bill we are now debating.
The report states that, because NED was created to support democratic
movements behind the Iron Curtain, it is no longer needed. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Indeed, NED was never intended to be a
cold war institution.
In Ronald Reagan's speech that helped launch the Endowment, he
offered the following vision of NED:

. . . To foster the infrastructure of democracy--the system
of a free press, unions, political parties, universities--
which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop
their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through
peaceful means.

He referred to the work of Western European parties assisting
counterpart institutions and of the foundation looking into ``how the
United States can best contribute as a nation to the global campaign
for democracy now gathering force.''
It is true that the Endowment supported Solidarity and other
dissidents behind the Iron Curtain.
But that represented a small percentage of its funding. In fact, in
the early years of the Endowment, approximately half of its funds went
to support the growing democratic movements in Latin America.
This had nothing to do with the cold war and everything to do with
the reason NED was created and the reason it exists today--because
America believes that the spread of democracy is good for the people of
these countries, and ultimately, for the people of the United States as
well.
NED's work in the Middle East, in East Asia, in Central Asia, in
Africa, in Bosnia, in Mexico, demonstrates that in the post-cold-war
world, efforts to foster civil society are even more relevant today
than they were when the Endowment was created.
The report accompanying this bill goes on to state that NED was never
intended to be a ``private-public partnership.'' According to the
Congressional Research Service, which carefully researched NED's
legislative history, ``While NED was originally established as a
private entity, private funding was not required. Neither the
congressional debate in 1983, nor the National Endowment for Democracy
Act--the law establishing NED--indicates private source funding would
be required.''
It is true that NED does raise some funds in the private sector,
primarily to support its International Forum for Democratic Studies,
which is a research center and clearinghouse for worldwide information
about democracy. In addition, NED has calculated that its funding
leverages over 70 cents for every program dollar it grants.
The essential point, however, is that the founders of NED never
imagined that this would be a privately funded effort. To the contrary,
because NED serves the national interest, it is an entirely worthwhile
expenditure of the Federal Government.
Several other misperceptions have dominated this debate in the past.
Let me address them as well.
Opponents have suggested that the Endowment duplicates those of the
Agency for International Development. AID Administrator Brian Atwood
reported to the House Committee on International Relations in March
1996, following an extensive review of hundreds of programs funded by
his agency and those of the Endowment. His report stated:

We found that USAID and NED do not duplicate, but rather
complement each other's efforts.

In the same report, Atwood outlined a series of steps that AID and
NED have taken together to make sure that this lack of duplication
continues.
NED and its supporters also have been accused of keeping a GAO report
calling for a reassessment of NED's funding from being issued. This is
a nonissue originally raised in print by a long time NED opponent. The
facts are quite simple:
The General Accounting Office, after an exhaustive study of U.S.
Government programs to promote democracy, concluded that there was no
significant overlap between those funded by NED and official agencies.
Referring to the stops that have been taken between AID and NED to
make sure the lack of duplication between their programs continues, a
GAO official wrote to House International Relations Chairman Gilman and
Ranking Member Hamilton that the Agency's concerns about potential
overlap had been allayed.
Another charge frequently made against NED is its funding is used
disproportionately for travel. Some of the over 300 programs that are
funded annually by the Endowment involve the use of experts from the
United States and abroad who travel pro bono basis to share their
knowledge and experiences with grassroots Democrats.
Many of these trips are under adverse circumstances to places that
can hardly be regarded as vacation spots and the trips are not only
working trips but frequently quite rigorous for participants. The
amount of free time that is donated by these experts is rather
significant in dollar terms.
Opponents also charge NED with funding meaningless conferences. NED
funds in fact are used to assist organizations working inside
countries. Occasionally NED funds gatherings of democrats in exile who
cannot operate in their home countries. Countries such as China and
Cuba fall in this category.
An example of a conference pointed to as insignificant by some NED
critics is a meeting held in 1995 in Zagreb, Croatia. In fact this
particular conference brought together activists from all the countries
of the former Yugoslavia at the height of the war to exchange
information.
The meeting succeeded in matching funders and civic groups in the
region in desperate need of help. Apart from bringing together
democrats in a war situation the meeting has led to a number of
worthwhile projects in a region that desperately needs to build up its
civil society.
Mr. President, NED deserves our support. I urge my colleagues to
support a restoration of this funding.
Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for the
pending amendment. I have long been a supporter of the National
Endowment for Democracy because I believe that it serves to promote
U.S. interests by fostering democracy throughout the world.
NED was established by Congress in 1983 as a nonprofit, bipartisan
organization designed to promote democratic values by encouraging the
development of democracy in a manner consistent with U.S. interests,
assisting pro-democracy groups abroad, and strengthening electoral
processes and democratic institutions. NED accomplishes these goals by
providing funding to a wide variety of grantees that operate programs
in more than 90 countries throughout the world.
Mr. President, many of my colleagues may be aware of the work that
NED-funded grantees have done in Eastern Europe and the countries of
the former Soviet Union. These Newly Independent States have benefited
immensely from programs designed to help develop the rule of law,
grassroots campaigns, party organization, and private sector
enterprise. And while the development of truly democratic institutions
is a slow process, I believe that over the long run it remains in the
interest of the United States to continue our commitment to those who
are struggling to build stable, democratic governments.
While NED's work in the newly independent states is commendable, of

[[Page S8030]]

equal importance--and often with less publicity--NED grantees are also
hard at work in countries like Nigeria, Burma, Cuba, and Mongolia where
pro-democracy forces are most in need of assistance, and where the
ability of the United States to make a positive impact is at its
greatest.
Mr. President, even though in the past decade the world has witnessed
a remarkable transformation, and the forces of democracy are on an
upswing throughout the world, it remains a fact that approximately two-
fifths of the world's population continues to live under authoritarian
rule. There clearly remains a need for continued vigilance and support
of those groups still striving to achieve democratic reforms. While
Congress may have created the National Endowment for Democracy during
the cold war, I firmly believe that fostering democracy remains as
important today as it was 14 years ago.
Because of the continued need for U.S. assistance to pro-democracy
forces, I was disappointed that the Senate subcommittee did not fund
the President's request of $30 million for NED. It is for this reason
that I fully support the amendment before the Senate that will fund the
National Endowment for Democracy for fiscal year 1998.
Mr. President, there is a reason that four former National Security
Advisers to the President have said that the elimination of NED funding
would signal America's disengagement from the vital policy of
supporting democracy. There is a reason that seven former Secretaries
of State from both Republican and Democratic administrations have
voiced their belief that NED funding is as vital today as when the
program was created. And finally, there is a reason that brave, pro-
democracy activists like Harry Wu and Vaclav Havel tell us that NED
funding is essential to advancing the cause of democracy. Mr.
President, the reason is that they, like many of my colleagues here
today, realize that America must maintain its commitment to the ideals
and principles of democracy.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise to support the restoration of funding
for the National Endowment for Democracy in the Justice, State,
Commerce appropriations bill. The amount is very modest--$30 million--
and the same level of funding as the NED currently receives for this
fiscal year.
What is the NED? It is a grant-making organization that is governed
by an independent, nonpartisan board of directors. NED monies are
utilized to fund the activities of the four independent institutes--the
National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute,
the Free Trade Union Institute, and Center for International Private
Enterprise.
In addition to funding the programs of these institutes, NED also
provides grants directly to support democratic activist groups
throughout the world. This includes grass roots organizations in
Nigeria and Zaire, women's groups in moderate Islamic countries, civic
groups who worked to make the recently held Mexican elections open and
transparent, pro-democracy groups in Cuba, China and Burma. These are
just a small handful of the activities funded by NED.
The endowment also sponsors the Journal of Democracy, a well known
and highly regarded scholarly publication on global democracy issues.
The journal is part of the work of the International Forum for
Democratic Studies--NED's research center. In addition to the
publication of the journal, the Forum holds important conferences on
issues of particular relevance to democratic societies, such as civil-
military relations, economic reform, and the role of political parties.
In other words, NED has become an important focal point for
democracy-promotion activities around the globe.
For those who say they don't know what NED or the grantee agencies
have been doing with the funds they receive, I would urge them to take
a long look at the annual report which NED issues every year. I have
with me the latest report for 1996--that report goes into great detail
where the monies are being spent. It is my view that if my colleagues
would take a look at this publication they would be impressed with the
extensive activities being undertaken with relatively small amounts of
money.
Mr. President, I strongly agree with President Clinton's assessment
of the NED. Earlier this year he said of the NED, ``through its
everyday efforts, the Endowment provides renewed evidence of the
universality of the democratic ideal and of the benefits to our Nation
of our continued international engagement.''
I urge my colleagues to support the restoration of funding for the
Endowment.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment to
restore funding for the National Endowment for Democracy [NED].
Last month the Senate expressed its overwhelming support for the NED
when it passed the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of
1997--90 to 5. That legislation provided $30 million, full funding, for
the NED.
Even more recently we voted unanimously to congratulate Mexico on its
elections. The NED provided critical support to the Civic Alliance in
Mexico, a nonprofit election monitoring and civic education group that
played a key role in that success story.
When the Reagan administration proposed the NED, I thought it was a
bad idea and voted against it. After seeing all of the good work they
have done and are doing, I have been converted to a supporter.
The NED continues to play a critical role in promoting democracy and
democratic values, and is vital to U.S. national interests.
Mr. President, let me make this clear--NED is not a foreign aid
program. This is because it builds self-sufficiency by working with
indigenous groups that demonstrate a real commitment to democratic
principles.
NED only receives $30 million, but is very cost-effective. It makes
hundreds of grants annually in over 90 countries for civic education,
media, human rights, and other organizations dedicated to supporting
those who desire democracy.
NED funds support political party training and the establishment of
opposition newspapers, helping to promote an independent press. For
example, NED has done important work in China through its support of
Chinese human rights activists.
Another well-known example is Burma, where the NED has strongly
supported Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy movement there.
Still another important aspect of the NED is that it is rooted in the
U.S. private sector, and operates in situations where direct government
involvement is not appropriate.
It is particularly effective in reaching those groups seeking to
counter nationalist and autocratic forces that are responsible for so
much conflict and instability.
The NED provides a successful and cost-effective mechanism for
spreading our democratic values and enhancing American security.
This point was made today in a Wall Street Journal editorial that
highlights and praises the NED's effective and innovative approach to
democracy promotion.
Elimination of this program could be interpreted as a sign of
America's disengagement from the vital policy of supporting democracy
around the globe.
I urge my colleagues to continue to support this critical democracy-
building organization.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, once more we are engaging in the
increasingly repetitive argument over whether the U.S. Senate should
support one of our country's most valuable tools of foreign policy--the
National Endowment for Democracy. The Senate subcommittee zeroed out
the administration request for $30 million for the Endowment, although
the House of Representatives granted it full funding. Today, Senators
Lugar and others are offering an amendment that will restore the
Senate's support for full funding for the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), and I encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of this
amendment.
Mr. President, I've been in this body for the entire history of the
National Endowment for Democracy, and I make no reservations about my
wholehearted support for this organization. My colleagues know I was an
original supporter of the NED, and I am a stronger supporter today than
I was then.
President Reagan clearly summarized the NED's mission when he stated
at its inception:

[[Page S8031]]

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster
the infrastructure of democracy--the system of a free press,
unions, political parties, universities--which allows a
people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture,
to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

I believe that mission statement is as relevant to our goals today as
it was in 1982, when the National Endowment for Democracy was founded.
And I find it illogical and disingenuous that some argue that the
Endowment is a cold war institution which, because we have won the cold
war, is no longer relevant. Many appear to agree with me. In a
September 1995 letter to our congressional leadership, seven former
Secretaries of State said:

During this period of international change and uncertainty,
the work of the NED continues to be an important bipartisan
but non-governmental contributor to democratic reform and
freedom.

It appears that a few still believe, illogically, that because the
NED was engaged in fighting for democracy during the cold war, it is no
longer relevant. This reasoning is unsound, based on facts of the past,
and realities of the present.
First, the past. The NED did have some high-profile involvement
with organizations such as Solidarity, which were critical in loosening
Moscow's grip on its captive nations. I applaud the NED for that, as I
applaud the many other organizations, such as the International Labor
Office and other great anti-communists such as Irving Brown, who worked
with us to undermine Soviet totalitarian control. But anyone who
believes that the cold war was the central or only focus of the NED may
not have all the facts.

It is a fact, for example, that during the early days of the National
Endowment for Democracy, approximately half of NED's funds were
directed toward Latin America. The 1980's, you will recall, Mr.
President, was the decade when democracy swept across the Latin
American continent. The people of Latin America, and their brave
democratic leaders, deserve the credit for this. But it was the wisdom
of U.S. foreign policy--and the participation from the NED--that
provided important diplomatic and practical support.
Second, the present. The obvious fact is, Mr. President, that support
for democracy remains a necessary goal of U.S. foreign policy. Students
of history know that democracies are less likely to try to settle their
internal and external conflicts with a resort to violence. Observers of
current affairs recognize that, while democracy continues to spread,
many parts of the world are in desperate need for further democratic
development. It is no coincidence indeed that many of these areas are
areas where U.S. foreign policy goals are and will be challenged.
To believe that supporting democracy was a need solely of the cold
war is a notion that ignores the basic reality that the world remains
full of nations where democracy needs support. And where democracy
advances, the risk of conflict that could require a U.S. response
declines.
That is why a number of my friends--Jack Kemp, Steve Forbes, Bill
Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Vin Weber, and Lamar Alexander--have
circulated a letter from their organization, Empower America, which I
would like to quote:

NED helps brave people around the world who are engaged in
difficult struggles for freedom. These are America's natural
friends. Resisting the enemies of freedom, they need our
continual solidarity.
A case in point is China, where the Endowment supports
various pro-democracy networks as well as the democracy
movements in Tibet and Hong Kong . . .
China is but one example of how NED, which works in over 90
countries, is as relevant to the post-Cold War world as it
was in the struggle against Soviet totalitarianism. Examples
could be cited from other difficult situations, from Burma to
Cuba, from the Balkans to the Middle East. The kind of
political assistance NED provides is not foreign aid. NED is
more than a program; it is an instrument for transmitting in
a peaceful way American democratic values to a world that
looks to us to maintain our leadership role.
NED works to expand human freedom and helps people help
themselves. It promotes American values and interests. It is
realistic and idealistic at the same time. It
internationalist in the best sense of that term. It is truly
our kind of program.

Mr. President, among my friends at Empower America, you will not find
one person who believes the United States should be the world's
policeman. Most of these individuals are very skeptical--like me--about
some of this country's recent unilateral as well as multilateral
deployments.
But none of these individuals believes that the $30 million spent on
the National Endowment for Democracy is anything but a completely
worthwhile expenditure that supports our national interests by
supporting the spread of democracy around the world.
The cold war is over, Mr. President, and we won it. We won it with a
strong defense posture, with a policy of engagement in Latin America,
Afghanistan, and central Europe. And we won it by standing with
democrats around the world. Despite the end of the cold war, there are
many democratic movements that need our support. As the Empower America
letter said: ``. . . the brave people around the world who are engaged
in difficult struggles for freedom . . . these are America's natural
friends.''
I wish that we could do more for these friends of America, Mr.
President. But the reality of foreign affairs has always been limited
by the need to prioritize limited resources. In my view, an expenditure
of $30 million to support the many activities of the NED throughout the
world may be one of the most cost-effective investments we make in the
support of American's interests overseas.
The critics of the NED should review the Endowment's materials. For
example, this body has spent a large amount of time debating how we
should relate to the rising power of authoritarian China. While we
debate the value of sanctions or engagement, who in this body suggests
that the support for local elections in China that is conducted by NED
with the International Republican Institute is anything but an
enormously positive development? Who suggests that NED-supported
Chinese activists who monitor and report on the repression of
dissidents must not be continued--so that lawmakers around the world
can know the truth when we debate complicated issues of engaging China?
Who believes that Harry Wu's research foundation--dedicated to
monitoring the abhorrent use of prison labor--should not be supported,
so that we know how China abuses our trade relations?
Who believes, Mr. President, that the many programs promoting open
press, reasoned democratic debate and the rule of law that NED supports
throughout the Arab world are not supporting America's goals in that
region? Can anyone who is aware of America's uncertain relations with
the Islamic world declare that it is not in our interest to promote
democratic values there?

Mr. President, I've cited a few examples and endorsements from
prominent U.S. foreign policymakers--Republican and Democrat--but I'd
like to close my remarks by quoting Martin Lee, who my colleagues
surely recognize as Hong Kong's voice of democracy. As we know, the
reversion to the People's Republic of China opens a new--and
uncertain--page in the recent history of democracy in Hong Kong.
Martin Lee recently wrote a letter to my colleague, Senator Mack.
Members of this body know that Senator Mack has devoted a large amount
of his time to the difficult process of Hong Kong's reversion, and he
is one of the leaders who will increase his attentions to the former
British colony now that July 1 has past. Martin Lee wrote:

In Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia and around the world,
the struggle to preserve democracy, political freedom and the
rule of law is far from being won. But by supporting key
human rights organizations which work for development of
democracy and the preservation of the rule of law and human
rights in Hong Kong, the Endowment's work in Hong Kong has
had profound effect at a critical time. During what I realize
is a time of shrinking budgets, I cannot think of better
value for money than the National Endowment for Democracy.

Mr. President, Martin Lee is correct: ``The struggle to preserve
democracy, political freedom and the rule of law is far from being
won.'' What a sorry signal the United States would be giving democrats
struggling around the world if we ended our support for the National
Endowment for Democracy. What a shortsighted notion it would be to save
$30 million by abandoning our support for an organization that promotes
our political values around the world.
I urge my colleagues to support full funding for the National
Endowment for Democracy.

[[Page S8032]]

Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be
set aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California has the floor.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I yield the floor, Mr. President, to the Senator from
Maryland.
Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator can't yield the floor. But I will
recognize the Senator from Maryland.
The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise in strong support for the
amendment now pending. The National Endowment for Democracy has done
some extremely effective work around the world in strengthening and
assisting in the development of democratic institutions and protecting
individual rights and freedoms. Endowment programs have assisted
grassroots organizations and individuals in more than 90 countries
across the globe.
A great number of distinguished individuals have walked through the
Halls of the Capitol over the years whom we have recognized as fighters
for human rights, freedom, and democracy. They are leaders from abroad
who have come to visit the U.S. Congress as a sign of their respect for
American democracy. They have led the way toward democracy and human
rights, and freedom in their own countries. In expressing their support
for the National Endowment for Democracy, they have underscored the
critical assistance that they have received from it, which made it
possible for them to pursue democratic efforts in their own countries.
The National Endowment for Democracy has enjoyed broad bipartisan
support since it was established in 1983 under the Presidency of Ronald
Reagan. Seven former Secretaries of State--James Baker, Lawrence
Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, Edmund Muskie, George
Shultz, and Cyrus Vance--wrote to the leadership of the Congress in
1995 to express their support for continuing funding of the National
Endowment for Democracy. Their letter and stated, and I quote:

During this period of international change and uncertainty,
the work of the NED continues to be an important bipartisan
but nongovernmental contributor to democratic reform and
freedom. We consider the nongovernmental character of the NED
even more relevant today than it was at NED's founding 12
years ago.

The NED serves an important role because of the fact that it can
operate as a nongovernmental entity. It can support nongovernmental
organizations which, in turn, provide opportunities that would not
otherwise be available if these activities were undertaken by a
government or governmental agency. This is an extremely important
dimension to the work of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Former national security advisers of previous administrations and the
President's current Adviser for National Security Affairs, Sandy
Berger, have expressed their strong support for the NED. Mr. Berger
noted in his letter to Members of Congress this week:

I welcome the opportunity to reaffirm strong administration
support for the NED and our opposition to any effort to
reduce or eliminate NED funding . . . The President is a
dedicated supporter of the NED, as it has been in the
forefront of U.S. efforts to promote democracy, civil society
and the rule of law around the world. Moreover, it has done
so at very little cost to the American public, leveraging
modest resources with great effectiveness.

The sweeping and profound changes resulting from the end of the cold
war provide ample reason for why we continue to need institutions like
the NED, which can operate in a cost-effective manner and at the same
time promote our interests and values. Many of the new democracies that
have emerged from the implosion of the Soviet Union and the collapse of
the Iron Curtain have benefited from the assistance NED and its
grantees have provided. Those who paved the way for freedom and
democracy in their own countries have consistently testified as to the
importance of NED support to the success of their efforts.
In fact, President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic stated that
``the National Democratic Institute was one of the first supporting
actors in the democratic revolution in our country.''
And others have made similar statements with respect to the
activities of the two party organizations, the business groups, and the
labor groups that are the core grantees of NED.
This is a program that is working. It is producing significant
results around the world.
I strongly support this amendment, and urge my colleagues to adopt
it.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, first of all, I would like to say to my
very dear friend, Senator Feinstein from California, who is anxiously
awaiting the floor so she can get into the ninth circuit debate, that I
am going to object to moving to that amendment until this amendment is
disposed of.
Let me also say that I am prepared to enter into a time agreement,
but not yet.
Let me start off by saying that Rasputin was a piker compared to the
National Endowment for Democracy. It took him a long time to die, and
it has just taken forever for this boondoggle to die.
I have heard so may people in this body lament the size of
Government, the waste of Government, the terribleness of Government,
and here is $30 million of wasteful Government spending. There was
actually an effort to get NED's appropriation up to $50 million 3 years
ago.
I can tell you that, in this Senator's opinion, the National
Endowment for Democracy is without question the biggest waste of money
I can think of next to the space station. That is saying something.
It is a cold war relic. Everybody in this body knows that the
National Endowment for Democracy was started in 1983 as an answer to
communism in the world. We were not only spending $250 to $300 billion
a year on defense at that point--that was not enough to contain
communism around the world--we decided to add $18 million to bring
democracy to the world. We started this program with $18 million in
1983, and a year after that, it soared up to about $23 million; the
year after that, $27 million, then $35 million. Then, finally, I was
able to get it back to $30 million 2 years ago. And this year, in this
bill, thanks to the very good judgment of our chairman of this
subcommittee, Senator Gregg of New Hampshire, it was sacked as it
richly deserved.
Mr. President, we have been holding hearings in the Governmental
Affairs Committee. And the headlines in the paper since January have
been in anticipation of those hearings about foreign influence in
American elections. I want to say that if China had had any judgment at
all they would have consulted with the NED before they started trying
to influence American elections.
The National Endowment for Democracy has as good a record of meddling
in foreign elections as any organization the Earth has ever known. They
tried to clean it up a little bit. They used to be very overt, and made
no bones about who they were giving money to. But they are still giving
out money to influence foreign elections.
One of the things that is the most intriguing of all is: Who do they
give this $30 million to?
At the expense of sounding terribly arrogant, I would just like to
say that on the debate on the space station which occurred day before
yesterday, I daresay if that debate were held on national television
before an American audience of every voter in America, the space
station would be dead, dead, dead, at this moment, by an overwhelming
vote. But, unhappily, all the people who might be watching that
telecast wouldn't be interested in those few jobs that NASA has put in
their State.
But now when it comes to boondoggles and giving away money, I invite
my colleagues' attention to this:

[[Page S8033]]

What happens to this $30 million? It took me 2 or 3 years for the
realization really to soak in that this actually is the case.
Out of the $30 million, first of all, 15 percent of it, 15 percent of
it, or $4.5 million, goes for NED Administration. And if you look at
the way the money is spent, you will find a lot of it going for first
class airfare to transport people all over the world, people who every
year will write letters to the people who are engaged in this debate.
They will write letters about what a wonderful program NED is.
You think of it. If a food stamp program had a 15 percent
administrative cost, we would kill it dead. We would not tolerate that
for a moment. But we are willing to put aside $4.5 million, 15 percent
of this $30 million, and allow NED to use that for administrative
expense.
But that is not the worst of it. We give the money out as follows.
Listen to this, colleagues. CIPE--that's a nice acronym, isn't it. CIPE
gets 13.75 percent of the money--$4.125 million. Who is CIPE? I bet you
never heard of them. CIPE stands for Center for International Private
Enterprise, but they are really the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This is a
little offspring of the chamber of commerce, CIPE. We give them a neat
$4,125,000 out of this $30 million.
Let me ask you this: how much of that do you think they spend on
administration? Bear in mind, 15 percent comes off the top for NED
administration. Then you give the chamber of commerce $4.125 million,
and what do you think their administrative expense is?
Then to even things up, we give an organization called FTUI, to make
things even we give them 13.75 percent, also $4,125,000, the same
amount we give the chamber of commerce. Who is FTUI? The Free Trade
Union Institute. Why, that's the AFL-CIO. You cannot give money to the
chamber of commerce unless you are willing to balance it out and give
the AFL-CIO another $4,125,000. And what do you think their
administrative expense is? Lord only knows. I cannot find out.
So you have the administrative expense of the chamber; you have the
administrative expense of the AFL-CIO; you have the 15 percent for NED
right off the top.
We are not finished. Now we go to the IRI. Whoever heard of the IRI?
Now, this is going to be hard for you to believe. I will tell you who
the IRI is. That is the International Republican Institute--the
Republican Party. Can you believe this, another 13.75 percent,
$4,125,000. We have to be evenhanded. We have to give the chamber
$4.125 million, have to give the AFL-CIO $4.125 million, have to give
the Republican Party $4.125 million.
And then we get down to the fourth organization, NDI. Who do you
think NDI is? Why, you guessed it. It is the National Democratic
Institute--the Democratic Party. And we are going to give them 13.75
percent. They get $4,125,000. I will say one thing. What do you think
the administrative expense is for all those four organizations on top
of the 15 percent administrative expense of NED? Who knows? The
National Endowment for Democracy is an egalitarian group; they treat
everybody the same. But some are more equal than others.
Here is the portion for everybody else. After you get through giving
it out most of the money to all these groups who we know will send
members to the Senate every year to tell us how wonderful NED is so we
will give them another $30 million the next year after they
evenhandedly give everybody $4.125 million in exchange for writing
Senators here saying how wonderful it is, they have $9 million left.
That's what everybody else gets.
Do you know what that amounts to? It comes to an average of $41,096
for all the grantees who are not part of the chamber of commerce, the
AFL-CIO, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Everybody else,
the other grantees--there are 218 of them for 1996, 218 grants made
with the remaining $9 million, gets an average of $41,096. Now, ain't
that something--218 grants. When you get past the big boys, the
Republicans, Democrats, labor and the chamber, you have 218 grants,
$41,096 each. What are they going to do with that? That will not even
buy enough first class air tickets to get to the election in Cambodia
or wherever. And what is the administrative expense for those 218
grantees? You talk about money well spent and saving the world through
democracy.

Mr. President, we spend on the Agency for International Development
about $4 billion a year. And did you know that I am a great champion of
that program? And do you know what that is for? That is to help
countries help themselves. That is to help them generate electricity so
they can develop. That is to teach them how to plant crops so they can
feed themselves. And it is also designed to make those people feel
kindly toward the greatest democracy of all, the United States of
America. And about $450 million of AID's budget is for democracy-
building projects.
And then there is Public Law 480, popularly known as Food for Peace--
over $1 billion a year. Do you know who favors that? The Senator from
Arkansas. We help feed people who cannot feed themselves. Mr.
President, Public Law 480 has been around as long or longer than any
Member of the Senate, with a couple of exceptions, and it is designed
to help people keep from starving.
Do you know what else it is designed to do? It is designed to help
them feel kindly toward the United States, that great citadel of
democracy.
Then, Mr. President, there is that $13 to $14 billion a year we spend
on that terrible thing that the American people have such
misconceptions about called foreign aid. And you know something else? I
vote for that. I vote for foreign aid. Never made any bones about it.
No. 1, it helps farmers because that money also buys food. It helps
industry because people buy American products with the aid we give
them. It is money well spent.
Do you know what else we expect to get out of it? We expect people to
want to be like us. We expect them to want to be democratic. We expect
them to want to be free and enjoy the same kinds of freedoms we enjoy
here in the United States.
I have just finished listing for you all those billions of dollars we
spend for what? To try to build democracy around the world. What good
do you think this $30 million will do in changing China from a
Communist nation to a free democracy? None. It is utter waste, $30
paltry million dollars that ought to be saved. It is nothing.
You have the Voice of America. You have these radio programs to
influence the rest of the world about the joys of democracy and how
great the United States is. And $450 million for the Agency for
International Development is for democracy building. This is nothing in
the world, but in 1983, when Ronald Reagan was President and everybody
thought the Communists were going to come up the Potomac River and get
us any minute, we thought, well, we will just dump a little more money
into this democracy-building business.
You know something else. It was never intended--I want everybody to
understand this. It was never intended that the National Endowment for
Democracy would be a federally funded agency. We started it off with
$18 million with the clear understanding that within a short period of
time they were going to have to stand on their own feet with private
contributions. We never intended for that to be another perpetual
Government program. And so last year, 1996, do you know what their
report shows? Out of $30 million, they collected from the private
sector $541,000. And if I am not mistaken that is their high watermark.
It is just like so many other Federal programs. It is a program that
becomes self-perpetuating because a lot of people find it to their
advantage. It is difficult when you think about how I was trying to
save $100 billion, 2 days ago, on the space station. Here I find myself
just as exercised, just as exercised about $30 million because it
doesn't really matter. It is money that ought not to be spent. The
taxpayers have a right to expect more of us. Can you imagine, Mr.
President, can you imagine members of the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of
Commerce sitting around the table with some people from a foreign
country and trying to explain the joys of democracy, the Chamber member
representing what democracy means to him, the head of the labor union
telling what democracy means to him.

[[Page S8034]]

Why, if those people on the other side were not confused beforehand--
--
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. BUMPERS. I will be happy to yield for a question.
Mr. GREGG. I was wondering if the Senator would be willing to enter
into a time agreement so that we could move on with the bill. The
Senator mentioned that after he had spoken for a while he might be
willing to consider that. He has spoken now for approximately 40
minutes and the other side has taken approximately the same amount of
time.
I was wondering if we could enter an agreement which would limit
debate to an additional hour with the time equally divided between the
proponents and the opponents and have a vote here at 4:30.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me say to my distinguished chairman,
of course, I sit on this subcommittee and he is doing an excellent job.
One of the greatest day's work he ever did in his life was when he
torpedoed NED in the bill. But let me say, to accommodate the chairman,
I will be delighted to agree to 1 hour equally divided, 30 minutes on a
side, with a vote to occur at 4:30.
Mr. GREGG. If there is no objection from the other side, I would ask
unanimous consent that the vote on the pending amendment be at 4:30,
with the hour equally divided.
I would ask, additionally, after the vote on the second-degree
amendment offered by Senator McConnell, if the next matter before the
body could be the matter of the ninth circuit and the amendment of the
Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. McCAIN. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. I would ask in that unanimous-consent agreement I be
allowed 10 minutes.
Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. BUMPERS. If I may ask----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
Mr. BUMPERS. There is objection--reserving the right to object, is
the request of the Senator from New Hampshire on the McConnell
amendment or on the Lugar amendment?
Mr. GREGG. I believe the pending amendment is the second-degree.
Whatever amendment is presently pending would be the intention of the
Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The current amendment which is pending is
Amendment 982 offered by the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. McConnell].
Mr. GREGG. And the yeas and nays have been asked on that, is that
correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. GREGG. And the Senator from Arizona is asking for 10 minutes. I
would suggest that neither myself nor the Senator from South Carolina,
both of whom are involved in this issue, have had an opportunity to
speak. So we may have to add a little bit more time. Why don't we add
an additional--have the vote be at quarter of 5, add an additional 15
minutes with the time, an hour and 15 minutes equally divided, and 10
minutes to the Senator from Arizona. Is that acceptable?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. LUGAR. Reserving the right to object.
Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have been on the floor for the
substantial period of this debate. It is my intention to speak on this
as well. I have no objection to a time agreement provided there is
sufficient time.
Mr. GREGG. How much time would the Senator need?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, 10 or 15 minutes. I guess I would like 15
minutes. I may not use all of it, but I have waited for some while, and
I intend to speak in support of it.
Mr. GREGG. The Senator from North Dakota would like 15 minutes, the
Senator from Arizona--does the Senator rise in support or opposition to
the amendment?
Mr. McCAIN. I rise in support of the Lugar amendment.
Mr. GREGG. Well, I represent we will get the Senator his time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, it would be my intention at the
conclusion of that time to move to table the Lugar amendment. Of
course, if that would prevail, it would take the McConnell amendment
with it. When we talk about voting at 4:30, I want to reserve the right
to make that motion to table at the expiration of that period of time.
So the unanimous-consent agreement does not necessarily pertain to the
McConnell amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. LUGAR. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, or I will ask
unanimous consent as a part of my assent to the idea before us, that I
have the right to withdraw my amendment, and I would say, for clarity
of all sides, my intent would be to send an amendment to the desk
promptly thereafter. I simply want to make certain that all sides know
this, so there is not any misunderstanding. But I reserve the right to
object until I am certain I could withdraw my amendment and send an
amendment to the desk.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I withdraw my request, and we will just
proceed here and see what happens.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas retains the floor.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment that
is pending and in support of the underlying bill, obviously. I think
the Senator from Arkansas had certainly outlined rather effectively the
problems with NED, the expense of this program, and the fact that the
program, for all intents and purposes, involves a passing of Federal
tax dollars, hard-earned tax dollars, on to a number of groups for the
purposes of exercises which are of questionable value in the post-cold-
war period: the Democratic National Committee, Republican National
Committee, the AFL-CIO, and the Chamber of Commerce being the primary
beneficiaries of this fund.
I call this the club fund. You know, here in Washington there are a
lot of folks who are sort of part of a club. The city has a bit of a
clubby atmosphere. It is a you-scratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-your-back
club. This is sort of one of the funding mechanisms for the club. I am
not too surprised that some community of the press supports the
exercise because the club, regrettably, involves some of the press,
too. But, as a practical matter, there is very little substance done
here.
Let's take China, for example. I suppose if there is an example of a
nation where we have concerns about democracy and its impact on our
future as a country, China is probably it. How valuable is NED in
relationship to China? Well, last year NED sent a lot of people over
there. A lot of people took airline flights over there. There were a
lot of good trips, I am sure, to China. China is a nice place to visit.
I am absolutely sure of that. A lot of people had an opportunity to go
there, people who were members of the Republican National Committee,
Democratic National Committee, AFL-CIO activists, Chamber of Commerce
activists, people who are friends--a lot of people who were friends of
members of these different organizations went on trips. All of them
went to China for a variety of meetings, and NED committed $2 million
for various programs. They had about, I think, about 20 or 30 different
meetings in China to tell China how to become a democracy; $20 million
for 1 billion people. That works out to about 2 cents a person. I think
they must have distributed toothpicks that said ``vote'' on them for 2
cents a person.

The fact is, it had absolutely no impact. All it did was represent a
nice trip for a bunch of folks from the United States who probably
looked forward to going to China and meeting some folks in China.
The inverse, of course, is that when China tried to influence our
elections, I

[[Page S8035]]

think we generated a fair amount of outrage here in the United States
about that. We are still looking for Charlie Trie. Maybe he is working
for NED in China now. The fact is, the influence of elections in the
United States by a foreign country tends to really antagonize a few
people--as it should, in the post-cold-war period. And vice versa. You
know? Vice versa.
So what's the purpose of NED? The purpose of NED is to, for the most
part, be a nice gathering of folks who find it is a very effective way
to fund various trips, various get-togethers around the globe. What
does this amendment suggest we do to pay for these trips, to pay for
this club activity? What is the suggestion of the way they are going to
fund this? They are going to take the money out of the State Department
capital account.
Yes, the White House did not ask for as much money in the capital
account as we put into it, because the White House wanted to spend the
money on the United Nations and on international operations,
international organizations. So they raided that fund for that account.
That is a little more legitimate than NED but not a whole lot more
legitimate than NED when you are talking about the capital account of
the State Department.
I submit to the people who are supporting this amendment that maybe
they should read a few of the reports from the State Department about
the present status of the State Department's capital situation. Maybe
the people who offered this amendment would like to call up the United
States on a dial telephone from Lagos. Maybe the people who offered
this amendment would like to be working on a Wang computer that cannot
communicate with any other computer in the United States. That is what
we subject our people to at the State Department.
The present infrastructure of the State Department is a disaster.
They can't call home. And the practical effect of this amendment is
that a lot of them aren't going to be able to call home. Or maybe when
you have a constituent who has a family member who has run into a
serious problem in one of these Third World nations and you are out
trying to help your constituent out, you are going to be really upset
that the State Department can't communicate with its people in the
field effectively because 82 percent of the State Department radio
equipment, 55 percent of their computer equipment, and 40 percent of
their telephone equipment is totally obsolete.
So what does this amendment suggest? It suggests we keep it obsolete
so we can fund a bunch of folks at the Republican National Committee,
Democratic National Committee, the AFL-CIO, and the Chamber of
Commerce--who happen to have the best computer equipment in the world,
the best communication equipment in the world--so we can fund them for
their trips. What an absolute outrage.
I cannot believe that we would consider doing this to the people who
work at the State Department. It is an absolute affront. This is
important. Yes, somebody said, this is serious business. You are darned
right this is serious business. This is very serious business. You go
out to these embassies in some of these Third World countries and you
see what we subject our people to, and it is not right. They take their
families along with them. They take their families along with them, and
they get into some of these countries where Americans aren't all that
popular, and their families are driving to work some morning, or
driving to school, and their lives are threatened and they have no
secure vehicles to travel in because we can't fund it--because we can't
fund it. But we can fund a first-class airline ticket to China for
somebody here in the United States to go to a meeting to talk about
stuff and come back and have a good time on the trip. But we can't fund
the protection of an American family serving overseas. It's really
incredible.

I heard somebody on this floor citing an editorial from the Wall
Street Journal, or some commentary in the Wall Street Journal. You tell
me the last time a reporter at the Wall Street Journal used a Wang
computer to file their story. You tell me when that happened. Wang was
a great company. It started right down the road from where I live. We
were very sad to see it go by the way. The fact is that it did. Yet we
still ask our people in the field to use Wang computers.
This amendment takes from the capacity of the guys and women who are
in the field doing the job of presenting American policy, it takes out
of their hands the capacity to do their job and gives it to a bunch of
folks who may be well intentioned but who do not accomplish a whole
lot.
I just find it unbelievable that the account into which you would dip
to pay for the NED is the account which is absolutely critical to
upgrading the State Department and giving our people in the field an
adequate opportunity to represent us. But that is the amendment, and I
look forward to this vote with some enthusiasm because this is going to
be a real test of who really cares about the future of our State
Department.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, you know now why, in my opening
statement on this particular measure, I said I was so enthused about
working with the distinguished chairman, the Senator from New
Hampshire--he laid it on the line. Last December we had a NATO
conference in Paris whereby we elected the distinguished Senator from
Delaware the president of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Council. Senator Roth is now the president.
Pamela Harriman, the distinguished Ambassador, was there, and she
knew that I was ranking member and had been the chairman. The word had
gotten around of our attempt to try to bring the State Department from
the Third World into the first world. I am aghast here that those who
chaired foreign relations would put in such an amendment, to tell you
the truth. I feel just as strongly as the Senator from New Hampshire.
Because Pamela Harriman came to me and said, ``Can I meet you in the
morning?'' Then we met for the entire morning. We spent the morning
together.
Exactly what the Senator from New Hampshire said was pointed out.
Although the Embassy in Paris was nice, their equipment was outdated.
Their computers were totally obsolete. They couldn't even get
replacement parts for it. Their communications had broken down. They
had a premier facility, an embassy, with hundreds of Americans coming
in daily--I don't know how you handle a post of that size--but I
wouldn't even volunteer for it. It wouldn't be an honor; it would
really be a drag, because trying to keep up with national policy while
dealing with the visiting firemen and repairmen and all the other
problems, the problems that ensue in a wonderful city like Paris. It is
really hard work--she was doing an outstanding job. I said to her--the
Assistant Secretary, Dick Moose, who used to head up our Foreign
Relations Committee, and I have been trying to increase funding for the
capital account to modernize telecommunications, to modernize
computerization and other equipment in hopes of doing all the good
things that the distinguished Senator from Kentucky says that NED does.
Let's assume it is true, and I can tell you, I opposed this in the
very beginning and then finally said, ``I'm wasting my breath.'' The
one time I actually supported it was when the current Secretary of
State, the distinguished Secretary Albright, came to me and said,

We've got an election in Budapest, Hungary, and we can buy
some old printing presses out in Indiana and print up voting
bills to be handed out and ballots to help conduct an
election.

Now everyone is bothered about foreign governments trying to
influence our elections? Heavens above, the other day we had, I think,
99 votes commending Mexico on its elections because it was the first
time the United States stayed out.
We have been funding activities through Wall Street or otherwise down
there with the PRI. That is a big financial fix. Paying off the Mexican
debt was just a refinancing. Nothing went to the Mexican people. It all
went back up to the banks on Wall Street. It is time we sober up and
understand. My colleagues should get the American Chamber of Commerce
report in Mexico City 60 days ago and see what it says: Unemployment is
down, the economy is down and the forecast is no recovery for several
years to come. NAFTA

[[Page S8036]]

hasn't worked. It has worked for the financial crowd, and it has worked
for those who want to export the industrial backbone of America.
I reviewed, as a member of the Hoover Commission in the fifties, the
Central Intelligence Agency. That was our primary function. I can see
Sonny Purfoy in the Guatemala election. I can see him in the Greek
election. His job was to run elections the world around.
So the Chinese learned to do a little bit of that, and now we are
going to have a big Federal program and spend millions of dollars, all
to get on national TV to express our horror and surprise. Mature
individuals ought to quit acting like children, and let's move on and
let's get the work of the Government done. Now that is what I want to
speak about, the work of the Government, namely the State Department.
Assume everything said by the distinguished Senator from Indiana,
everything said by the distinguished Senator from Kentucky is
absolutely true and ought to be done without apology by the Department
of State. What is wrong with that? What is wrong is under communism, we
said, ``Well, we couldn't do that.'' We always apologized because of
our democracy and our freedom and our individual rights.
The Department of State ought to be around as the foremost lead
organization, not the Department of Defense, now with the fall of the
wall. We ought to be selling democracy. To Secretary Christopher's
credit, he finally got them doing business.
I started back 37 years ago as Governor of South Carolina. I went
down in Rio de Janeiro and, like the distinguished Senator from North
Carolina, Chairman Helms, I thought of them in that same vein. Why?
Because the United States Ambassador, standing up with the Governor of
Guana Bera, in the Embassy in Rio in Brazil, reached over into my glass
and pulled the ice out of it and threw it on the floor and said,
``Don't drink that, Governor, the ice is dirty in this country.'' How
do you think I felt? I said, ``That fellow doesn't have any manners.''
But a lot has happened in 37 years.
Our Department of State has outstanding personnel the world around,
and they are trying to work in the business field to help spread
capitalism. In my opinion that is what really prevailed with the fall
of the wall. It wasn't the CIA or anything else. It was capitalism. I
served on the Intelligence Committee, and they never briefed us that
the wall was about to fall.
So be that as it may, let's bring our Department of State in and put
in a billion more. They gave a billion more in foreign aid and less to
the Department of State. The distinguished chairman, the Senator from
New Hampshire, comes around and finds some money here, and we put it in
the infrastructure to try to build up the Department of State. We come
around and we have a crowd that says, ``No, the Republican Party, the
Democratic Party, the AFL-CIO, the chamber of commerce''--now, by gosh,
they have their minions all over this Capital City, and so they can fix
the vote and tell what wonderful work it does. Well, if it is wonderful
work, let's let the Department of State, without embarrassment or
apology, perform it.

I yield the floor.
Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have on previous occasions come to the
floor of the Senate to support amendments offered by the Senator from
Arkansas to strike the funding for the National Endowment for
Democracy. I must say that I was surprised and very pleased by the
actions taken by the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from
South Carolina and the subcommittee to strike the funding in the
subcommittee and recommend to the full Senate there be no funding for
the National Endowment for Democracy.
The chairman and the ranking member say it very simply. They simply
cut the $30 million out. In their report, they tell us that:

The National Endowment for Democracy was originally
established in 1984 during the days of the cold war as a
public-private partnership to promote democratic movements
behind the Iron Curtain. Limited U.S. Government funds were
viewed as a way to help leverage private contributions and
were never envisioned as the sole or major source of
continuing funds for the National Endowment for Democracy.

I might say parenthetically, it wasn't really a private-public
partnership, it was public funding. There was never very much private
money available. But the subcommittee says:

Since the cold war is over, the committee believes the time
has come to eliminate Federal funding for this program.

Once again, I am pleased by this recommendation. I think it is the
right recommendation.
We have a weed in North Dakota out in ranching and farming country
called the leafy spurge. The leafy spurge is kind of an ugly weed. It
grows anywhere, without moisture. You just can't get rid of it. You can
cut it, you can spray it, you can mutilate it, you can dig it up, and
you come back and it is still growing. We have some things in the
Federal budget that remind me a little bit of leafy spurge. It doesn't
matter what you do, you just can't kill it.
The chairman and the ranking member bring a proposal to this floor
from the committee that says this program is a program that is done, it
ought not be funded. I think the Senator from Arkansas, the Senator
from New Hampshire, the Senator from South Carolina, and others, have
said it well. Most taxpayers, I think, would be surprised to discover
that we were spending nearly $30 million and we were dividing it up and
saying to groups, ``Take this and go around the world and promote
democracy.'' We would give a pretty big chunk to the National
Democratic Party. Then we would give an equivalent chunk to the
Republican Party, because you can't give to one without the other. Then
we would give a big chunk of money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and
then give an equivalent amount of money to the AFL-CIO, and we would
say, ``With this, promote democracy, promote free enterprise, promote
unionism.''
It is 1997. The cold war is over. The Soviet Union doesn't exist.
There is no Berlin Wall. There is no Warsaw Pact. Democracy has marched
across the continents on this Earth, and yet, today, we face an
amendment that says, ``Let us decide to continue to spend $30 million a
year for the National Endowment for Democracy.''
I must tell you that I sort of view these things also in the context
of what else is necessary to be done. The Senator from New Hampshire
talked about trying to make a telephone call from a U.S. embassy on
foreign soil to the United States or to use a computer in an American
embassy abroad to try and connect to the United States. He talked about
the Department's equipment needs, and I understand that. I think most
of us have seen that first hand. He is talking about the needs of the
State Department.
Those needs are great, and yet the funding to meet those needs is cut
under this amendment, in order to pay for this $30 million for the
National Endowment for Democracy.
There are other needs that frustrate me from time to time, sufficient
so that I sit and grit my teeth and wonder why, why can't you get
something so small done that would help people who are so important?
But you just can't. And yet $30 million is available for a National
Endowment for Democracy.
I think for 4 or 5 years, I have come to this floor to try to get,
first, $1 million, then $2 million, to deal with the issue of child
abuse on Indian reservations. I have been unsuccessful all these years
to get that money.
I held a hearing one day, and at the hearing, we heard the story of
Tamara DeMaris, a young Indian girl 3 years old who was put in a foster
home, and they didn't have enough time to check out the foster home. So
this 3-year-old girl was in this foster home, and a drunken party
ensued. The 3-year-old girl was beaten severely, her hair was torn out
at the roots, her arm was broken and her nose was broken. Why? Because
she was put in a foster home and no one checked to see that the foster
home was safe. Why? Because one person had 150 cases of children who
needed help and didn't have time to check the foster home.
At a hearing on this issue of child abuse, I had a young woman sit at
the table and begin to weep. She was in charge of child welfare. She
said, ``I have stacks of folders on the floor alleging physical abuse
and sexual abuse that haven't even been investigated because I don't
have the money.'' She

[[Page S8037]]

began to weep. She said, ``I don't even have the ability to transport
kids to a doctor.''
I tried for 4 or 5 years to get money to start a pilot project to
deal with those child abuse issues. The money is not available. But $30
million for the National Endowment for Democracy? A big chunk to the
AFL-CIO, to the chamber of commerce, to each political party, and then
send some contracts around the world, fly around the world to meetings
in the biggest cities in the world and talk about democracy?
We are going to come to a portion of appropriations, as the Senator
from Arkansas said, where we will spend $4 billion for something called
the Agency for International Development. That is a program that
promotes democracy abroad. That is a program that helps people around
the rest of the world. Four billion dollars, I am told. The U.S.
Information Agency is a program that helps people around the world;
Food for Peace; the contribution we make to NATO.
I was asking somebody today, if we contributed the same amount of our
national income as all of our NATO partners do to the defense of
Europe, what would it mean to us? I discovered something interesting:
$100 billion a year of savings. If we were contributing the same
average amount for defense as all of our allies are contributing, $100
billion a year. Think of that.
So we spend $100 billion extra a year to promote democracy, to help
our allies, to help defend the free world, and then we spend money in
AID, we spend money in USIA, we spend money in Food for Peace in a
dozen other ways, and then we want to duplicate it in a minuscule
program that doesn't have a reason for being, except that we fund it
and it sets up a very well-connected board. The Senator from New
Hampshire said, I guess he called it the club, I think that was the
reference.
I don't know much about this club. The names I see are some of the
most distinguished Americans, no question about that, people for whom I
have great respect. I would expect every single one of them associated
with this organization would support the organization. I understand
that.
The point is, we spend billions and billions of dollars supporting
democracy abroad through this Government's programs--the foreign aid
program, the Food for Peace Program, USIA, AID, and dozens of others--
and there is not a need when the cold war is over, when there is no
Soviet Union, when times have changed, to resurrect a $30 million
program that this subcommittee decided it wanted to kill.
It is unusual to see a bill come to the floor of the Senate with a
recommendation that says, you know, this program has outlived its
usefulness. This program is no longer needed. This money ought to be
saved. It is very unusual to see that happen here in Congress. But it
happened today when Senator Gregg and Senator Hollings brought a
recommendation to the floor saying this organization that produces
these slick annual reports is no longer necessary.
That conclusion is contested by some who say, yes, it is. We want $30
million more added to the bill to support the continued existence of
this organization, the National Endowment for Democracy.
We live in the greatest democracy on the face of this Earth. Half of
the people in the last election said they did not want to go vote. If
we want to endow a democracy, let us invest this $30 million here, let
us continue an investment in this democracy.
You know, I know some people look at, I suppose, some of the things I
talk about on trade and other things I talk about and say, ``Well, it's
some of the same old story, kind of isolationist, and don't understand
things, can't see over the horizon. You just don't have the vision, the
breadth of understanding that it takes to know why this is necessary.''
I think I do understand this.
I am not a foreign policy expert by any means, nor am I an
isolationist, nor do I believe the world is growing larger--it is
growing smaller--nor do I believe that we do not have to be involved in
what is happening in the rest of the world. But this country can no
longer afford to spend money it does not have on things it does not
need. And it does not need the National Endowment for Democracy, an
organization with a fancy title, that gives its money to the AFL-CIO,
the chamber of commerce, the two national political parties, and then
goes without much strain to promote democracy abroad.
There is plenty of democracy to promote here at home, plenty of
reasons to decide either to save this money or to invest it here in
things we need to do in this country and use the promotion of democracy
as it is effectively done in AID, in USIA, and Food For Peace, and so
many other organizations, yes, including, as Senator Bumpers said, the
foreign aid bill. That is where we promote the principles of democracy
abroad. It is where it should be promoted.
Finally, let me just say this. This organization was created on a
recommendation offered in 1983, created in 1984 in the middle of the
cold war, I assume for good purposes at that time, for people who felt
it was a necessary organization. It is now no longer necessary.
The subcommittee is dead right. This is a colossal waste of the
taxpayers' money. If we cannot kill this organization, and end this
funding, then in my judgment we have a very difficult time taking a
look at other areas of questionable funding and making the right
choice.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time?
Mr. LUGAR addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana is recognized.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I withdraw amendment No. 981.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn.
The amendment (No. 981) was withdrawn.

Amendment No. 984

(Purpose: To make appropriations for grants through the National
Endowment for Democracy)

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for
its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Lugar], for himself, Mr.
Leahy, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Graham, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Roth, Mr.
Lieberman, and Mr. Mack, proposes an amendment numbered 984.

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

Strike all after the last word in the bill and substitute
the following:

``1998

``SEC. . NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY.

``For grants made by the United States Information Agency
to the National Endowment for Democracy as authorized by the
National Endowment for Democracy Act, $30,000,000, to remain
available until expended. The language on page 100, line 24
to wit, `$105,000,000' is deemed to be `$75,000,000'.''

Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.

Amendment No. 985 to Amendment No. 984

(Purpose: To make appropriations for grants through the National
Endowment for Democracy)

Mr. McCONNELL. I send a second-degree amendment to the Lugar
amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], for himself, Mr.
Leahy, Mr. Lugar, Mr. Graham, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Roth, Mr.
Lieberman, and Mr. Mack, proposes amendment numbered 985 to
amendment No. 984.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike all after the word ``1998'' on line 4 of the
underlying amendment and substitute the following:

SEC. . NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY.

For grants made by the United States Information Agency to
the National Endowment for Democracy as authorized by the
National Endowment for Democracy Act, $30,000,000, to remain
available until expended. The language on page 100, line 24
to wit, ``$105,000,000'' is deemed to be ``$75,000,000''.
This shall become effective one day after enactment of this
Act.

[[Page S8038]]

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me just say very briefly--we are
anxious to hear from Senator McCain, and move on to a vote--the capital
investment account referred to by the distinguished chairman of the
subcommittee and the ranking member will still be $105 million after
the Lugar amendment is approved. That would exceed the President's
request by $10 million and exceed the 1997 level of last year's bill by
$80 million.
The distinguished chairman of the subcommittee certainly raises a
valid point with regard to the infrastructure at the State Department.
But it will be substantially increased for all the purposes he alluded
to even after the amendment restoring the National Endowment for
Democracy is hopefully approved.
Just one other point, Mr. President. I just want to mention a letter
that was sent to the chairman and the ranking member in support of the
National Endowment funding at $30 million signed by, in addition to
Senator Lugar and myself, Senator Graham, Senator Mikulski, Senator
Lautenberg, Senator Mack, Senator Sarbanes, Senator Cochran, Senator
Lieberman, Senator Hatch, Senator Bob Kerrey, Senator Inhofe, Senator
Dodd, Senator Abraham, Senator Kennedy, Senator Murkowski, Senators
Leahy, Roth, Kerry of Massachusetts, Robb, Levin, Breaux, Kyl, DeWine,
Coverdell, Jeffords, Moynihan, Reed, Hagel, Torricelli, Thomas, Reid,
Rockefeller, Frist, and of course the distinguished Senator from
Arizona, who is about to speak who has been an enthusiastic supporter
of this program over the years.
The NED, many of us feel, has done wonderful work, has broad
bipartisan support across both party and ideological lines.
Mr. President, we hope the amendment offered by the distinguished
Senator from Indiana will be approved.
I yield the floor.
Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator
from Indiana have made I think a strong and compelling case for this
amendment. I am grateful for what they have said and their active
involvement in the pursuit of democracy throughout the world.
The Senator from Kentucky just recently completed action on an
appropriations bill here that I think embodies frankly what the
National Endowment for Democracy is all about. And of course the
Senator from Indiana, Senator Lugar, is acknowledged throughout the
world, not only in this body, but throughout the world as one of the
foremost experts on national security issues and foreign affairs.
Mr. President, I do not want to repeat a lot of the things that have
already been said about this issue, except to try to define really what
this debate is all about.
The Senator from North Dakota just talked about the fact that there
was no use for this kind of activity by our Government. I understand
that. I less understand the Senator from New Hampshire who I have
always known to be a person who supported efforts for freedom and
democracy throughout the world.
We have people, Mr. President, like Martin Lee, who everyone
recognizes as the voice of human rights and freedom in Hong Kong. He
says:

In Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia and around the world,
the struggle to preserve democracy, political freedom and the
rule of law is far from being won [is far from being won].
But by supporting key human rights organizations which work
for the development of democracy and the preservation of the
rule of law and human rights in Hong Kong, the Endowment's
work in Hong Kong has had a profound effect at a critical
time.

I do not know if the Senator from Arkansas, who I have debated this
issue for several years with, takes the time or the effort or the
trouble to hear from people like Martin Lee and Harry Wu, and people
who have suffered--who have suffered--on behalf of fighting for human
rights and freedom in their countries.
I wish the Senator from Arkansas would take some time and listen to
these individuals, not me, not the Senator from Kentucky, not the
Senator from Indiana, but why don't you, I would ask the Senator from
Arkansas, listen to people like Martin Lee and Harry Wu, the Dali Lama,
the Prime Minister of the National Coalition Government of Burma, the
former chief of staff of the President of Chile, the President of
Lithuania, the list goes on and on, names that are not known to some in
America but are known throughout the world in their struggle for
freedom in virtually every part of the world. That is why I am a bit
puzzled and confused by the length of this debate and, frankly, the
emotion associated with it.
As has already been noted by the Senator from Indiana and the Senator
from Kentucky, there is an editorial in the Wall Street Journal this
morning. I quote:

Hong Kong democratic leader Martin Lee, who faces tough
battles ahead in coping with Hong Kong's new Beijing
landlords, penned a letter to Senator Connie Mack begging
him--begging him--to help save the NED. Senator Bob Graham
has heard from Sergio Aguayo of the Civic Alliance, which
has a strong hand in promoting the multiparty democracy
now taking root in Mexico.

The list goes on and on.

One achievement of this Ronald Reagan brainchild was to
help Poland's Solidarity break the grip of the Soviet Union
in the Cold War days.

It goes on and on.
Mr. President, as I said, I am not going to take a lot of time. I
just want to say as strongly as I can, in the end I think it is fair to
say that the opponents of the National Endowment for Democracy are
those who define this country only by what we are against and not by
what we are for. It is enough for them that the United States opposed
communism, and once the threat communism posed to our own security was
defeated, they viewed America's role as the champion of liberal
democracy to have become an expensive vanity which deserved to
disappear with the Berlin wall.
But such a cramped view of American purpose ignores the service and
sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Americans who were ordered into
innumerable battles, not just in defense of American security, but of
American values.
It ignores the aspirations of our Founding Fathers who conceived of
this Nation as an inspiration for and friend to all peoples who sought
their natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It ignores the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln who knew that the outcome of
our Civil War would affect the world as profoundly as it affected our
own society. And it ignores the generous spirit of Ronald Reagan who
believed that supporting the forces of democracy overseas was our
abiding moral obligation, just as it was a practical necessity during
the cold war.
I am proud of America's long and successful opposition to communism,
but being an anticommunist is not enough. It was never an end in
itself. We are all small ``d'' democrats in our efforts to help secure
the blessings of liberty of what truly distinguishes American history
from all other nations on Earth. It was necessary to defeat communism
to protect the well-being of Americans, but it was also necessary to
defeat communism because it threatened America's best sense of itself
and our sublime legacy to the world.
Mr. President, $30 million is a small investment in preserving that
legacy. And I ask all my colleagues to keep faith with the many revered
Americans who paid a much higher price than that to keep America a
beacon light of liberty.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. I am delighted I was here to hear the Senator from
Arizona comment on the program. I will call attention to the fact that
the bill in the other body has the same amount of money that is in the
amendment as proposed here. This matter will be at conference. And it
will be a long and sustained conference whether this amendment is
adopted or not.
I believe that we should keep on course. I am not an opponent of this
matter. As a matter of fact, I have always voted for it. But I do not
think it gains anything to have a prolonged discussion here at this
time. I will assure Senators who support it, we will do everything in
our power to assure the conference of their objectives at conference.
But I move to table this

[[Page S8039]]

amendment, and ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to
be.
The yeas and nays were ordered.

Vote on Motion to Table Amendment No. 984

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
lay on the table the amendment. The yeas and nays are ordered. The
clerk will call the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
Kennedy] is necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting, the Senator from
Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] would vote ``no.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 27, nays 72, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 203 Leg.]

YEAS--27

Allard
Baucus
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bumpers
Byrd
Cleland
Cochran
Conrad
D'Amato
Dorgan
Faircloth
Feingold
Ford
Grassley
Gregg
Helms
Hollings
Kohl
Lott
Nickles
Shelby
Stevens
Thompson
Warner
Wyden

NAYS--72

Abraham
Akaka
Ashcroft
Bennett
Biden
Bond
Brownback
Bryan
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Collins
Coverdell
Craig
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Frist
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Gramm
Grams
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kempthorne
Kerrey
Kerry
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Roberts
Rockefeller
Roth
Santorum
Sarbanes
Sessions
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Thomas
Thurmond
Torricelli
Wellstone

NOT VOTING--1

Kennedy

The motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 984) was rejected.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there is overwhelming opposition. But I
do want to tell the Senate that we are spending time on an amendment
that deals with a subject the House has always insisted on in
conference. I don't know why we spend time debating here on the floor
whether or not we are going to give this subject approval by the
Senate, because it is one item that the House will not let us come out
of conference on unless we approve it. So we have taken time to get
negotiating room with the House, and the Senate won't let us have it. I
am sorry to say that I think the Senate just made a mistake.

Amendment No. 985

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the pending
business before the body is the second-degree amendment by the Senator
from Kentucky.
Is there further debate? If not, the question is on agreeing to the
amendment of the Senator from Kentucky.
The amendment (No. 985) was agreed to.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.

Amendment No. 984, As Amended

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is now on the first-degree
amendment, as amended. Is there any further debate? If not, the
question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 984), as amended, was agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the amendment was agreed to.
Mr. McCONNELL. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.

Amendment No. 986

(Purpose: To establish a Commission on Structural Alternatives for the
Federal Courts of Appeals)

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

The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], for herself,
Mr. Leahy, Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Bryan,
proposes an amendment numbered 986.

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

On page 93, line 5, strike all through line 15 on page 97
and insert the following new section:

SEC. 305. COMMISSION ON STRUCTURAL ALTERNATIVES FOR THE
FEDERAL COURTS OF APPEALS.

(a) Establishment and Functions of Commission.--
(1) Establishment.--There is established a Commission on
Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals
(hereinafter referred to as the ``Commission'').
(2) Functions.--The functions of the Commission shall be
to--
(A) study the present division of the United States into
the several judicial circuits;
(B) study the structure and alignment of the Federal Court
of Appeals system, with particular reference to the Ninth
Circuit; and
(C) report to the President and the Congress its
recommendations for such changes in circuit boundaries or
structure as may be appropriate for the expeditious and
effective disposition of the caseload of the Federal Courts
of Appeals, consistent with fundamental concepts of fairness
and due process.
(b) Membership.--
(1) Composition.--The Commission shall be composed of 10
members appointed as follows:
(A) One member appointed by the President of the United
States.
(B) One member appointed by the Chief Justice of the United
States.
(C) Two members appointed by the Majority Leader of the
Senate.
(D) Two members appointed by the Minority Leader of the
Senate.
(E) Two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
(F) Two members appointed by the Minority Leader of the
House of Representatives.
(2) Appointment.--The members of the Commission shall be
appointed within 60 days after the date of the enactment of
this Act.
(3) Vacancy.--Any vacancy in the Commission shall be filled
in the same manner as the original appointment.
(4) Chair.--The Commission shall elect a Chair and Vice
Chair from among its members.
(5) Quorum.--Six members of the Commission shall constitute
a quorum, but three may conduct hearings.
(c) Compensation.--
(1) In general.--Members of the Commission who are
officers, or full-time employees, of the United States shall
receive no additional compensation for their services, but
shall be reimbursed for travel, subsistence, and other
necessary expenses incurred in the performance of duties
vested in the Commission, but not in excess of the maximum
amounts authorized under section 456 of title 28, United
States Code.
(2) Private members.--Members of the Commission from
private life shall receive $200 for each day (including
travel time) during which the member is engaged in the actual
performance of duties vested in the Commission, plus
reimbursement for travel, subsistence, and other necessary
expenses incurred in the performance of such duties, but not
in excess of the maximum amounts authorized under section 456
of title 28, United States Code.
(d) Personnel.--
(1) Executive director.--The Commission may appoint an
Executive Director who shall receive compensation at a rate
not exceeding the rate prescribed for level V of the
Executive Schedule under section 5316 of title 5, United
States Code.
(2) Staff.--The Executive Director, with the approval of
the Commission, may appoint and fix the compensation of such
additional personnel as the Executive Director determines
necessary, without regard to the provisions of title 5,
United States Code, governing appointments in the competitive
service or the provisions of chapter 51 and subchapter III of
chapter 53 of such title relating to classification and
General Schedule pay rates. Compensation under this paragraph
shall not exceed the annual maximum rate of basic pay for a
position above GS-15 of the General Schedule under section
5108 of title 5, United States Code.
(3) Experts and consultants.--The Executive Director may
procure personal services of experts and consultants as
authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, at
rates not to exceed the highest level payable under the
General Schedule pay rates under section 5332 of title 5,
United States Code.
(4) Services.--The Administrative Office of the United
States Courts shall provide administrative services,
including financial and budgeting services, to the Commission
on a reimbursable basis. The Federal Judicial Center shall
provide necessary research services to the Commission on a
reimbursable basis.
(e) Information.--The Commission is authorized to request
from any department, agency, or independent instrumentality
of

[[Page S8040]]

the Government any information and assistance the Commission
determines necessary to carry out its functions under this
section. Each such department, agency, and independent
instrumentality is authorized to provide such information and
assistance to the extent permitted by law when requested by
the Chair of the Commission.
(f) Report.--No later than 18 months following the date on
which its sixth member is appointed in accordance with
subsection (b)(2), the Commission shall submit its report to
the President and the Congress. The Commission shall
terminate 90 days after the date of the submission of its
report.
(g) Congressional Consideration.--No later than 60 days
after the submission of the report, the Committees on the
Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate
shall act on the report.
(h) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized
to be appropriated to the Commission such sums, not to exceed
$900,000, as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of
this section. Such sums as are appropriated shall remain
available until expended.

Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from New York
has a question. I yield to him for a moment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.

____________________