[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 16, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9386-S9406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  1998

  The Senate continued with consideration of the bill.


                           Amendment No. 1188

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I am aware there are other Members of 
this body who are going to be coming to the floor to speak on other 
amendments. However, because of the absence of debate at this moment, I 
will add additional thoughts to the thoughts I have already expressed 
regarding the need to cease funding the National Endowment for the 
Arts.
  I have made my position clear here, and I hope I can add something by 
way of suggesting that there are a variety of reasons why it is time 
for us to stop spending the hard-earned resources of taxpayers to 
theoretically support or engender culture or the arts in this country.
  I find it somewhat amusing for individuals to suggest we need to have 
a Federal subsidy in order for people to be artistic. For us to come to 
that conclusion involves us in what is a substantial repudiation of 
American heritage, culture and art.
  We began as a nation long before the midnight ride of Paul Revere. As 
a matter of fact, we remember the poem:

       'Twas late in April of '75.
       Hardly a man is still alive
       That can remember that special day and year
       Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

  Those who say you have to have subsidies in order to have art or 
poetry would have to wonder how that poem ever came into existence. Or 
they might say you have to have a subsidy in order to have quality art. 
Well, I don't know, but I believe that some of the poems and some of 
the art and some of the literature of bygone days will stand inspection 
very well and stand in comparison very well with items that have been 
produced more recently.
  So I want to say for the first several hundred years of this culture 
on this continent we managed to muddle through, but I don't think we 
muddled through it all. We mastered, through creating things that were 
truly artistic and truly things of value, the kind of art that would 
speak to people and that they could understand.
  I was interested in noting an article by William Craig Rice, who is a 
poet and an essayist, who teaches expository writing at Harvard 
University. As an individual who went to a competing institution, I am 
not accustomed to citing Harvard University, but you would think if 
there would be anyone who would be able to have insight about this, it 
might be someone from Harvard University, and you might expect them to 
be uniform in their support of the NEA. He lists objections to the NEA. 
He says that the NEA refused to fund a conservatory in New York City 
because its students were required to master the human figure in 
drawing like the old masters did. They could actually draw people and 
not just put paint on paper. That disqualified the particular 
institution from participating in the NEA funding.
  He points out that the NEA said that being able to draw people that 
looked like people would hamper the creativity of artists.

[[Page S9387]]

  I wonder whether the NEA has this figured out. I don't believe that 
people are not creative because they can draw the human figure. I don't 
think you would want to say that Rembrandt was not a creative 
individual. I don't think you would want to say Thomas Hart Benton, 
from my home State, with his ability to capture people at work, people 
bringing this Nation into existence, people conducting themselves in a 
way that makes America strong--was not a creative individual. He showed 
people in the fields, he showed people in the Civil War, he showed 
people at play, but he showed America as America was and for the 
strength of it. I don't think being able to do that hampers creativity.
  William Craig Rice, who is a poet and essayist, who teaches 
expository writing at Harvard, says, ``The NEA recently refused funding 
to an art colony on aesthetic and sociopolitical grounds and then made 
the inclusion of performance artists and installation artists a 
condition of future funding.'' So you start criticizing people because 
they are the wrong sociopolitical mix.

  Here we have the National Endowment for the Arts taking taxpayers' 
resources, trying to impose on people some political correctness or 
sociopolitical correctness, the right kind of mix, in order to satisfy 
the bureaucracy. These kinds of things--denying funding because they 
insist that people learn how to draw so that they are recognizable 
figures, denying funding because there is an inappropriate 
sociopolitical mix among the artists--sound to me like Government 
management of what people are thinking and of the kind of people with 
whom they would associate. It seems to me that is not what we earn 
money for and pay taxes for: so Government could discriminate against 
someone because they were not of the right sociopolitical mix.
  Mr. Rice, of Harvard University, further writes that ``Nowadays, NEA 
grants are weighted toward multiculturalism, a political cause.''
  I wonder if, really, we as Americans want to try to foster and 
advance political causes through a subterfuge which we might label as 
the National Endowment for the Arts.
  Now, his is not the only voice that has been raised in the arts 
community against the NEA. His is not the only voice which has alleged 
that the NEA is really an enemy of the arts, which he does say. He puts 
it this way: ``The marketplace, with its potential for democratic 
engagement and dissemination, is hardly the enemy of the arts. The 
burgeoning American theater of the 19th century owed nothing to 
Washington. In fact, any system of selective, expert-dictated federal 
support for the arts would have been anathema to the rollicking 
impresarios of that era.'' He says had we had a National Endowment for 
the Arts a century ago, it would have hurt the arts in America, it 
would have curtailed, it would have stifled the creativity of 
individuals in the arts community.
  Responding to a written piece by Robert Storr and Lawrence W. Levine, 
Rice puts it this way: ``What both authors fail to recognize in their 
own examples is that the NEA actually harms artists and the arts by its 
methods of selective sponsorship and top-down control.''
  America prides itself on the freedom of expression, free speech, the 
ability of people to stand and speak their mind, and America has also 
understood that speech is not merely what you say but it is your 
ability to communicate. If you want to communicate artistically, in 
poetry, graphically or pictorially, that is one of the privileges and 
rights of an American, within certain bounds of decency to protect 
children and others from obscenity. We say you are entitled to be able 
to express yourself. We have never thought that the Government should 
be meddling in the way people express themselves. It should not be 
subsidizing one person's expression as opposed to another person's 
expression.
  Here is a good reason for it. Here the author says, ``The NEA 
actually harms artists and the arts by its methods of selective 
sponsorship and top-down control.''
  We have to measure what is meant by free speech. I don't think we 
would say that one of the things included in free speech is top-down 
control. The control of speech is the kind of thing we associate with 
other cultures.
  Now, we know about what happened in Eastern Europe, we know what used 
to happen in the Soviet Union, and we abhor what we hear about the 
control of communication in China. Yet we have an arts bureaucracy 
which is saying to the arts community, if you want to have the favor of 
your Government, you have to be willing to participate in a system of 
selective sponsorship and top-down control.
  To put it additionally, Jan Breslauer, of the Los Angeles Times, in a 
special to the Washington Post said it this way: The effect on the 
American art system is ``pigeonholing artists and pressuring them to 
produce work that satisfies a politically correct agenda rather than 
their best creative instincts.''

  You have to understand, it takes me a minute to put this in 
perspective. Artists might operate at their best creative instincts in 
one system and they might distort or twist what they would otherwise 
say in order to satisfy something else in the other. She is saying that 
the National Endowment for the Arts pigeonholes artists, it gets them 
to create within a very confining space, a space they didn't create, 
but a place where they would be put if they wanted to satisfy the 
bureaucracy. Then it says it pressures them to produce work that is 
politically correct rather than work that is the best of what they can 
offer.
  America succeeds when it operates at its highest and best. America 
fails when it accommodates or induces people to operate at their lowest 
and least. I think it is tragic that we have in the National Endowment 
for the Arts what is confessed by the art critic of the Los Angeles 
Times, the person who spends her endeavors studying art and commenting 
on art, a situation where artists are pigeonholed and pressured to 
produce work that satisfies a politically correct agenda rather than 
producing work that reflects their best creative instincts. I think 
that is a pretty serious charge.
  I think there are other reasons why the National Endowment for the 
Arts ought to be zeroed out in funding. It does not spend money well. 
It is not really something authorized under the Constitution. The 
founders of this country considered it, they voted on it, they rejected 
it. Somehow, the elasticity that some people find in the Constitution 
is supposed to now grow with the document to include something that no 
one ever voted to ratify as part of the Constitution but somehow it is 
appropriate now but it was not appropriate back then.
  The National Endowment itself is not an efficient organization. It 
spends 20 percent of its resources on overhead, so that by sending the 
money to Washington, DC, we get a 20 percent shrink factor immediately 
just by including the bureaucracy in that which we are pursuing.
  So my judgment is that we ought to think carefully about saying what 
the House has said. Let's stop. This thing was never intended as a 
governmental responsibility by those who constructed this country and 
founded it and developed the Constitution to limit what we would do. 
This was not to be within the limits. Let's stop the waste of money. 
Let's stop the frivolous things that are done.
  I was interested to see one of the projects, and I mentioned this 
before. This represents a poem funded by the National Endowment for the 
Arts. This is not the title for the poem, this is the entirety of the 
poem. I had represented earlier that I think this is the English 
version of the poem but because this is not a word which I recognize in 
the English dictionary, it could be some other language version of the 
poem. This poem cost taxpayers $1,500 to write. So it would be about 
$214 a letter we paid for this poem. I wonder if this deserves what 
some Members of this body have called the need for the Federal 
Government to be placing the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on 
various art projects.
  It is obvious to me that the average American is not smart enough to 
recognize this as genius and it may take the special imprimatur of the 
U.S. Government to tell us just how profound this is--whatever it is--
and that we should support this because, well, because Government says 
to support it.
  There are those who came to the floor yesterday who said we need the 
National Endowment for the Arts not because it is a big part of arts 
funding--they recognize it is 1 percent or

[[Page S9388]]

less. The truth of the matter is 99 percent of arts funding comes from 
other sources. They said we need it because when the National Endowment 
for the Arts funds something, it tells everybody that it is something 
good and that by putting that sort of Good Housekeeping Seal of 
Approval on it, it lets people know to support it as opposed to people 
being able to make up their own minds.
  I have to concede the argument is partly correct. I don't think the 
average American would think this is worth $1,500 unless he was told it 
was by his Government. It may be that, once told by Government that 
these seven letters are worth $214 apiece, the average American citizen 
will nod in complete complicity and agreement, and say, ``Well, Thelma, 
I never thought of it that way before, but now that the Federal 
Government has told me of the value of those letters, whatever they 
mean, I sure hope we get a chance to do that over and over again.'' 
Well, as a matter of fact, they do get a chance to do it over and over 
again.

  But the truth of the matter is, there is something more profound than 
the light that I would make of this poem--would I be making light of 
light poetry? I don't know whether that means light or not. The truth 
is--and it is a fundamental truth--that the values are not to be 
ascertained in this culture by Government and then imposed on the 
people. The genius of America is that the values are to be developed by 
the people and imposed on the Government. The genius of a democracy is 
that people have values that they say should be reflected in their 
Government and not that the Government has values that it imposes upon 
citizens.
  Similarly, when they said that we need this kind of guidance from 
Government so that we will know what to support in the marketplace, 
that smacks of marketplace planning of other economies. You know, 
communism is the system whereby the government decided what should be 
produced and what should not be produced. It allocated the resources of 
the culture. It said, well, we are going to have this many potatoes and 
airplanes, and we are going to have this many chairs, and we are not 
going to allow the marketplace to operate. They tried that for 70, 80 
years. Cuba is still trying it; so is North Korea, and their people are 
in serious distress, and we hear the subject of relief over and over 
again to try to give them something to eat. But in this country, we 
have all said that the marketplace should determine this, and we don't 
believe Government should decide how to allocate resources.
  Finally, most of the world has come to that conclusion. The Soviet 
system tried to manage production based on the values of the central 
government and say how money ought to be spent, and it collapsed. And 
when it came down, it wasn't long before the Berlin wall fell, too. 
Thankfully, the people are free there, and they are rejoicing over 
their freedom, and the government that was at the center of things no 
longer tells them what to produce or what not to produce. It is their 
privilege as free citizens to decide about how things ought to be 
produced and when and where. The marketplace either rewards them or 
punishes them. If they don't produce things that are particularly good, 
they don't sell well. That has a way of suggesting that they should 
change their minds.
  Here we have the National Endowment for the Arts with the argument or 
suggestion that it is a good thing to have Government telling people 
from the center of the Nation what they should or should not reward 
with their own support. Well, frankly, that is a failed system. I could 
understand short memories, but it seems to me that while we are 
continually reminded of the poverty of that system and the abject 
failure of that system by countries like North Korea and Cuba, we 
should at least remember long enough to know that we should not be 
embracing some sort of resource allocation strategy in the United 
States of America whereby we put a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval 
on seven letters that may make some sense somewhere, and say, folks, 
with our help, you can learn to recognize a real buy in art when we 
tell you that it is a real buy.
  I appreciate the opportunity to make these remarks. I appreciate the 
opportunity for the debate to go forward on the National Endowment for 
the Arts. I think it is time to say to the American people, who are 
taxed at a higher level than ever before, we believe you work hard for 
your resources and we should not take your hard-earned dollars and try 
to tell you what to support and what not to support artistically. We 
should let you have some of those resources to spend, believing you can 
spend your resources better on your own family than we can to subsidize 
what the Government has decided is art.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The Senator from Washington is 
recognized.
  Mr. GORTON. Madam President, I note the presence on the floor of 
Senator Campbell, who is the chairman of the Committee on Indian 
Affairs. He and I and Senator Stevens, Senator Inouye, Senator 
Domenici, and Senator McCain have had extensive discussions over 
sections 118 and 120 of this bill, both of which relate to 
appropriations for or conditions under which Indian tribes operate in 
our American system. Both are of considerable importance.
  We have reached agreement with respect to the bill and with respect 
to what will take place after this bill has passed. In that connection, 
I think it will be a matter of some intense relief to many of my 
colleagues that what we are going to do is not require a rollcall vote 
at this point. So it does seem to me, in the absence of any Member here 
who is willing to send up an amendment that will require a rollcall 
vote, that we should go through this matter. Two of the Senators are 
present on the floor. I believe others are coming.
  With that, I yield the floor and hope that the Chair will recognize 
Senator Campbell.
  Mr. CAMPBELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, I have an amendment, but before I send 
it to the desk, I want to make a few remarks on H.R. 2107, the fiscal 
year 1998 Interior spending bill. I certainly want to commend the 
managers, Senator Gorton and Senator Byrd, for their efforts in 
constructing a spending bill that balances the competing interests of 
the approximately 27 different agencies and programs included under the 
jurisdiction of this committee. As the chairman of the Committee on 
Indian Affairs, I want to acknowledge both Senator Gorton's and Senator 
Byrd's efforts in funding Indian programs that are administered through 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service at the levels 
that meet or exceed the President's fiscal year 1998 budget request.
  Overall, the funding for these two agencies, which accounts for the 
great bulk of Federal spending on Indian-related programs, is 
significantly increased over fiscal year 1997 enacted levels to the 
tune of about $150 million. The committee has given priority to funding 
basic services that are provided to Indian communities through tribal 
priority allocation [TPA] of the BIA and through direct services 
provided by the Indian Health Service, while also funding several 
important construction initiatives, of which there is currently a 
tremendous backlog.
  While I have supported the priorities given to funding Indian 
programs, I have shared my concern with many colleagues over two 
provisions that remain in the bill. Senator Gorton has alluded to those 
two sections, section 118 relating to the means testing of TPA funding, 
and section 120 relating to the broad waiver of immunity imposed on 
tribal governments. Both are broad policy-related items that I felt 
should not be included in this spending measure.
  I am happy to announce that after several meetings--and Senator 
Gorton alluded to one we had yesterday afternoon--with concerned 
Members on these provisions, an acceptable accommodation has been made 
with regard to both of these provisions. At the appropriate time, I 
will offer an amendment that will reflect this agreement.
  I want to speak briefly to each of these provisions and why, as 
presently written, they would adversely impact tribal government 
activity to a degree that is all but unknown.
  As I informed my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee prior to

[[Page S9389]]

markup, these two provisions constitute a dramatic departure from 
existing Federal Indian policy, which is based on promoting tribal 
economic development, tribal self-sufficiency, and strong tribal 
governments. Sections 118 and 120 would seek to condition the receipt 
of TPA funding, requiring in section 120 that Indian tribal governments 
unilaterally waive their immunity from any and all lawsuits. Further, 
section 118 would require all tribal governments that receive TPA 
funding to be subjected to a form of means testing analysis of all the 
available tribal resources as a determining factor in future TPA 
funding allocations.

  The nature of these provisions would suggest that because TPA funding 
constitutes approximately $760 million, or over half of the overall BIA 
operating budget, there needs to be some higher level of accountability 
to the Congress and to the taxpayer over how these funds are allocated 
and that the appropriate means to this end is the proposed blanket 
waiver of immunity and an imposed means testing formula allocation.
  I want to be very clear and try to inform my colleagues that the 
impacts of these provisions, if enacted, have yet to be fully 
contemplated. We can't begin to contemplate what effect they would have 
on the native American people.
  For example, with regard to a broad waiver of immunity, as proposed 
in section 120, we could ask several questions:
  What are the potential liabilities that would be incurred by the 
executive branch agencies who serve as the Federal trustees to Indian 
tribal governments and, therefore, would have to defend the tribal 
governments in lawsuits?
  What specific actions would become the purview of the Federal courts 
under a broad waiver of immunity? Is it limited to non-Indian disputes 
with Indian tribes, or could any and all intertribal disputes also be 
heard in Federal court?
  More importantly, what will be the impact on the Federal courts as a 
result of section 120? Would it simply clog the courts with more 
litigation?
  Further, regarding section 118, we should ask:
  What resources should be included in any analysis of how to better 
allocate TPA funding?
  Could the BIA begin to implement any alternative allocation method 
beginning in fiscal year 1998, which begins in just 2 weeks, without 
any public input or hearings?
  These are very practical problems that arise when addressing both of 
these provisions. It is for these reasons that I have strongly 
advocated that the appropriate authorizing committees be involved in 
finding practical solutions to these very complex issues. As the 
chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, I have made it very clear 
that I am committed to examining these issues through the hearing 
process. I have told that to Senator Gorton and have followed it with a 
letter to him guaranteeing that we would hear a bill and we would also 
attempt to have a markup by April 30, 1998.
  Madam President, I want to thank my colleagues for their wisdom in 
supporting this accommodation.
  I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set 
aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


       Excepted Committee Amendment beginning on Page 52, Line 16

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question before the Senate is the excepted 
committee amendment beginning on page 52, line 16.
  The excepted committee amendment is as follows:
       Sec. 118. (a) No funds available in this Act or any other 
     Act for tribal priority allocations (hereinafter in this 
     section ``TPA'') in excess of the funds expended for TPA in 
     fiscal year 1997 (adjusted for fixed costs and internal 
     transfers pursuant to other law) may be allocated or expended 
     by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (hereinafter in this section 
     ``BIA'') until sixty days after the BIA has submitted to the 
     Committee on appropriations of the Senate and the Committee 
     on Appropriations of the House of Representatives the report 
     required under subsection (b).
       (b) The BIA is directed to develop a formula through which 
     TPA funds will be allocated on the basis of need, taking into 
     account each tribe's tribal business revenues from all 
     business ventures, including gaming. The BIA shall submit to 
     the Congress its recommendations for need-based distribution 
     formulas for TPA funds prior to January 1, 1998. Such 
     recommendations shall include several proposed formulas, 
     which shall provide alternative means of measuring the wealth 
     and needs of tribes.
       (c) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the BIA is 
     hereby authorized to collect such financial and supporting 
     information as is necessary from each tribe receiving or 
     seeking to receive TPA funding to determine such tribe's 
     tribal business revenue from business ventures, including 
     gaming, for use in determining such tribe's wealth and needs 
     for the purposes of this section. The BIA shall obtain such 
     information on the previous calendar or fiscal year's 
     business revenues no later than April 15th of each year. For 
     purposes of preparing its recommendations under subsection 
     (b), the BIA shall require each tribe that received TPA funds 
     in fiscal year 1997 to submit such information by November 1, 
     1997.
       (d) At the request of a tribe, the BIA shall provide such 
     technical assistance as is necessary to foster the tribe's 
     compliance with subsection (c). Any tribe which does not 
     comply with subsection (c) in any given year will be 
     ineligible to receive TPA funds for the following fiscal 
     year, as such tribe's relative need cannot be determined.
       (e) For the purposes of this section, the term ``tribal 
     business revenue'' means income, however derived, from any 
     venture (regardless of the nature or purpose of the activity) 
     owned, held, or operated, in whole or in part, by any entity 
     (whether corporate, partnership, sole proprietorship, trust, 
     or cooperative in nature) on behalf of the collective members 
     of any tribe that has received or seeks to receive TPA, and 
     any income from license fees and royalties collected by any 
     such tribe. Payments by corporations to shareholders who are 
     shareholders based on stock ownership, not tribal membership, 
     will not be considered tribal business revenue under this 
     section unless the corporation is operated by a tribe.
       (f) Notwithstanding any provision of this Act or any other 
     Act hereinafter enacted, no funds may be allocated or 
     expended by any agency of the Federal Government for TPA 
     after October 1, 1998 except in accordance with a needs-based 
     funding formula that takes into account all tribal business 
     revenues, including gaming, of each tribe receiving TPA 
     funds.


  Amendment No. 1197 to the Excepted Committee Amendment beginning on 
                            Page 52, line 16

         (Purpose: To provide for tribal priority allocations.)

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam 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 Colorado [Mr. Campbell] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1197 to the excepted committee amendment 
     beginning on page 52, line 16.

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam 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 52 beginning on line 16, strike all through page 
     54, line 22, and insert in lieu thereof the following:
       Sec. 118 Any funds made available in this Act or any other 
     Act for tribal priority allocations (hereinafter in this 
     section ``TPA'') in excess of the funds expended for TPA in 
     fiscal year 1997 (adjusted for fixed costs, internal 
     transfers pursuant to other law, and proposed increases to 
     formula driven programs not included in tribes' TPA base,) 
     shall only be available for distribution--
       (1) to each Tribe to the extent necessary to provide that 
     Tribe the minimum level of funding recommended by the Joint/
     Tribal/BIA/DOI Task Force on Reorganization of the Bureau of 
     Indian Affairs Report of 1994 (hereafter ``the 1994 Report'') 
     not to exceed $160,000 per Tribe; and
       (2) to the extent funds remain, such funds will be 
     allocated according to the recommendations of a Task Force 
     comprised of two (2) representatives from each BIA area. 
     These representatives shall be selected by the Secretary with 
     the participation of the tribes following procedures similar 
     to those used in establishing the Joint/Tribal/BIA/DOI Task 
     Force on Reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 
     determining the allocation of remaining funds, the Task Force 
     shall consider the recommendations and principles contained 
     in the 1994 Report. If the Task Force cannot agree on a 
     distribution by January 31, 1998, the Secretary shall 
     distribute the remaining funds based on the recommendations 
     of a majority of Task Force members no later than February 
     28, 1998.

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, I am very pleased to offer this 
substitute amendment that our colleagues have worked on, which 
accomplishes several things.
  First of all, it holds the tribes harmless to the fiscal year 1997 
TPA levels; it follows the recommendations of the 1994 Joint Tribal/
DOI/BIA Task Force report by providing funding to the 309 small and 
needy Indian tribes; it provides $15.5 million for fixed costs and 
internal transfers; it provides for $17.1 million in increases to 
formula-driven programs; instead of having the BIA or the Congress 
allocate the remainder, it

[[Page S9390]]

creates a mechanism comprised of Interior and BIA officials and tribal 
representatives from around the country to distribute the remaining 
$27.8 million.
  I think that is probably all we need for an explanation.
  With that, I move the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, first of all, I want to express my 
appreciation and high regard for the leadership of my friend from 
Colorado, Senator Campbell, on this issue. In his role as chairman of 
the Indian Affairs Committee, he has taken an active and vigorous role 
on Native American affairs. I am proud of the job he is doing. I know I 
reflect the view on both sides of the aisle on the outstanding job that 
he is doing. We all recognize he is uniquely qualified--uniquely 
qualified, Madam President--to address the issues that affect Native 
Americans in our society today.
  Second, I thank the Senator from Washington, Senator Gorton. He has 
strongly held views on these issues, as we know. Senator Gorton's 
issues have been made clear to those of us on the Indian Affairs 
Committee, of which he is a distinguished member. He has worked very 
hard on these issues. We have significant and profound philosophical 
differences, but our debate and discussions on these issues have been 
characterized by respect for each other's views. I have the utmost 
regard not only for his views, but Senator Gorton has long experience 
in these issues dating back to when he was attorney general of the 
State of Washington and tried cases before the U.S. Supreme Court 
regarding Native Americans.
  I understand his advocacy, and, frankly, sometimes his frustration. I 
am very pleased to see the path of the agreement is that the chairman 
of the Indian Affairs Committee has agreed to hold hearings to consider 
Senator Gorton's legislation, which is the proper way to carry out our 
legislative work.
  I did point out to Senator Gorton--and he knows full well--that his 
proposal will probably not receive the majority approval of the Indian 
Affairs Committee. But the purpose of hearings and the purpose of the 
debate and discussion is to educate our colleagues. I am very pleased 
that Senator Gorton will withdraw that provision which would have 
provoked profound, intense, and emotional debate on the floor of the 
Senate and has decided, albeit with some reluctance because of his 
impatience over his view of our failure to address these issues, to 
agree to take it through the Indian Affairs Committee.
  I thank Senator Gorton. I really do, because without his agreement 
and his position as chairman of the subcommittee, he had every right--
even though I disagreed from time to time about legislating on 
appropriations bills--to bring this issue to the floor as part of his 
bill. We proved in recent days that we do give the utmost respect to 
committee chairmen and subcommittee chairmen in their work.
  I thank Senator Stevens, chairman of the full committee. Senator 
Stevens, who is as knowledgeable on Native American issues as anyone in 
this body, played a key role in negotiating the agreement and 
settlement that we came to, along with my friend, Senator Dan Inouye, 
who is most respected, along with Senator Campbell, on these issues.
  Senator Domenici, I might point out, in his usual articulate, 
vigorous, and certainly nonconfrontational fashion played an important 
role in the spirit of the discussions that we had in Senator Stevens' 
office.
  The upshot of it all is that really, Madam President, there are six 
old guys here that know each other pretty well. We know that we have to 
act in what is the best interests of Native Americans, the interests of 
this body, and, very frankly, the continued bipartisan--indeed, 
nonpartisan--addressing of Native American issues.
  I think we have a very, very good resolution. It would not have been 
possible without all the figures that I mentioned, and I believe that 
we will continue.
  If I could, finally, caution my colleagues, there will continue to be 
issues before this body and the Nation concerning Native Americans. 
There is population growth, which brings Native American tribes and 
non-Native Americans into collision with one another. There is an 
increase in Indian gaming, which in the view of many Americans has made 
all Indians rich. And, by the way, that is far, far from the case. 
There is a total of about 10 tribes that have become wealthy. There is 
continued issues, such as taxation. There will be continued Supreme 
Court decisions, including the recent ones concerning and affecting the 
State of Alaska.
  I urge my colleagues to get involved in understanding these issues. 
But I have some comfort in the knowledge that we have experienced 
people such as Senator Campbell, Senator Inouye, Senator Stevens, 
Senator Gorton, and Senator Domenici who have many, many years of 
experience with these issues.
  Again, I thank my colleagues for resolving this very difficult issue 
in a more than amicable fashion.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I thank my good friend from Arizona for 
his comments concerning my participation in the dialogue on this 
amendment which has just taken place in my office. Let me state at the 
outset that I believe that in this country there is a period of rising 
expectations on the part of our Alaska Native and native American 
peoples that there will be more assistance coming to them from the 
Federal Government. And, of course, we all seek to have greater self-
determination on the part of those people who are part of the Indian 
tribes and native peoples of our country. The great difficulty is that 
this is not just an expectation but an increasing demand now for 
additional money to enable these peoples to carry out the legitimate 
roles that they have in their own tribal and native organizations. This 
comes at a time when we are living under a budget ceiling with 
diminishing resources, as far as the Department of Interior is 
concerned, caused primarily, in my opinion, because of the vast 
increase--the enormous increase--in the amount of interest we are 
paying on the national debt, which is literally squeezing out a lot of 
the items that we were able to afford previously. We are working on 
that in connection with the balanced budget process. But it is hard for 
many people on the reservations in the contiguous States and small 
villages throughout my State, and throughout our Nation, to understand 
that there is a limit on the amount of money we have available to put 
into such funds, like the Tribal Priority Allocation Fund. We face this 
year a situation where there is a budget request for an increase in 
money. Yet, because of actions that have taken place in the last 3 
years, there are almost 100 percent more tribes in number than we 
previously dealt with under this account. Those are primarily in my 
State, the State of Alaska. Alaska now has 226 different entities that 
are called tribes by the Department of Interior. In the past, they were 
Native villages. The population of the Native villages belonged to the 
several different tribes in our State.

  The net result of this is that, despite the increased request for 
funds, it is not really possible to meet these legitimate requests, 
and, as I said, in some instances, demands for increased money. This 
has led to a series of alternative suggestions--some from the Senator 
from Washington, as the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee 
dealing with these issues, and others from those who serve on our 
Indian committee, led by my good friend from Colorado. And I say to the 
Senate that I think it is time that we really have some more 
information to deal with this. I know some people are reluctant to 
solicit that information. But I have joined the Senator from Washington 
in asking the GAO to do some examination into the various types of 
options that may be available to Congress to deal with these increasing 
demands which exceed our ability to provide funds in all these areas.
  It does seem to me that we have to realize, despite our own personal 
feelings that some people might have on the subject, that the people 
who live on Indian reservations and in these very

[[Page S9391]]

isolated Indian and Native communities in my State are literally the 
poorest of our poor. They are the people that need our consideration, 
and our help, more than any I know in the Nation. Many of us have spent 
years trying to find ways to help them deal with their problems. There 
has been no real panacea. We have not discovered a way yet. But we 
clearly now have increasing participation in governmental affairs in a 
democratic way in most of these tribes and villages of our Nation.
  I am hopeful that these tribal priority allocations will, in fact, be 
used to provide a greater degree of democracy, a greater degree of 
participation, and a greater attempt to satisfy the needs of the people 
who should be receiving the benefits of the Federal money that we 
provide through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We all have some serious 
questions about the BIA. It is an institution that may well have 
outlived its usefulness in the sense of being able to deal with the 
problems of the native American and Alaska Native people. But, for the 
time being, it is the only institution we have.
  As Members of Congress we are vitally interested in the affairs of 
the Indian tribes and Alaska Native people. We need to take more time 
in trying to not only work out the differences among us, but also work 
out solutions with respect to how the Federal Government can further 
the aspirations of these people to become more able to deal with the 
problems of the present and the future and better able to find a way to 
preserve their own culture and have greater participation in American 
affairs.

  For that reason, I am pleased that we have had these meetings. I 
think that the meetings that have taken place between the Senators who 
are on the Appropriations Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee 
have been most helpful for us not to only understand one another but 
understand some of the problems that are different. They are different 
in Colorado, they are different in Arizona. They are different in 
Hawaii. Most people do not think of Hawaii having Indian problems. But 
there are issues involving the indigenous peoples in Hawaii that are 
very, very complex. My friend from Hawaii is spending a lot of time on 
this issue, as is the Senator from New Mexico, and legitimately so.
  Our constituents, by the way, don't all make the same requests. They 
don't necessarily seek the same goals. They don't even seek the same 
solutions to their common goals. What I'm saying is that it is not an 
easy thing right now for us to deal with this issue in appropriations.
  Therefore, I am delighted as the chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee that we have this commitment from the Indian Affairs 
Committee that there will be hearings on the subject, that there will 
be really an examination in depth into the possible solutions to the 
problems presented by these issues arising out of the allocation of 
funds in the tribal priority allocation.
  I thank the Senator from Washington for his willingness to step down 
from some of the requests he has made of the Senate, and to give us a 
chance to go back and get some basic data and information that will be 
necessary for us to deal with this. I hope and pray we will deal with 
it next year in a fair and open way, and find a way to ensure that the 
moneys that are available are made available first to those who have 
the greatest need for them, and particularly that the people who are 
seeking this money understand what it is for. It is for assistance in 
maintaining the governance of these tribes and villages. These aren't 
slush money accounts. They are very strictly limited by law, and we 
want to make certain that they are, in fact, used for the benefit of 
the people who are on reservations, as well as in those very isolated 
villages in my State.
  Let me thank all of the Members who have participated in this. I do 
hope that the Senate will accept our compromise amendment to the 
amendment on this subject that was originally in the bill as reported 
from our committee.
  I thank all concerned for their participation.
  Mr. INOUYE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Santorum). The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, thank you very much.
  Mr. President, this is a battle day--an important day in Indian 
country. And I am certain that Indian country applauds the resolution 
that has been reached concerning sections 118 and 120 of this bill.
  So, Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in applauding and 
commending the distinguished Senator from Washington for making this 
day possible.
  I am well aware--and I am certain that all of us are well aware--of 
the controversy that sections 118 and 120 have engendered over the past 
2 months. It has been a difficult time for all of us.
  Indian country has been vocal in its opposition to these provisions--
and I believe rightly so--for these sections go to the very essence and 
the very foundation of our relationship with Indian governments.
  As my chairman, the distinguished Senator from Colorado, Senator 
Nighthorse Campbell, has indicated, section 118 will cause us to 
revisit the commitments this Government made to Indian nations in over 
800 solemn treaties. Most Americans are not aware that our relationship 
with the Indian country is based upon treaties, the Constitution of our 
land, decisions of the Supreme Court, and the laws of this land. These 
800 treaties enable the United States to exercise dominion and control 
over 500 million acres of land which once belonged exclusively to our 
Nation's first citizens. As Chairman Campbell has indicated, section 
120 would have stripped tribal governments of one of the most 
fundamental attributes of their sovereignty.

  So, in the days ahead, I hope we can focus our attention on the 
concerns that sections 118 and 120 were designed to address in a venue 
that will enable the full participation of those who would be most 
directly affected by these provisions, the tribal governments and the 
citizens of Indian country. For it is my sincere belief that the 
solutions to these matters can be found in Indian country and that the 
tribal government leaders will join us in this effort, and that is the 
way it should be. If we are to legislate, it should be only after we 
have given careful and thoughtful consideration to these matters. We 
should have the benefit of all affected citizens, Indians and non-
Indians, and whatever we come up with ought to have the benefit of some 
consensus.
  With this in mind, I have given my personal assurance to the chairman 
of the Interior appropriations subcommittee, the Senator from 
Washington, that we will seriously and deliberately address these 
matters in the authorizing committee. We have received assurances of 
the chairman of that committee, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell.
  In the interim, I am pleased we have been able to reach agreement and 
that we have done so in a manner that will enable us to work together 
in partnership with Indian country as well as other affected citizens 
to assure the best outcome within the context of our history, our laws 
and our policy.
  So, Mr. President, once again, may I applaud and commend my friend 
from Washington, Senator Slade Gorton.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in the interests of clarity in dealing 
with two related but distinct issues, I have asked, and the Senator 
from Colorado has agreed, to deal separately with two amendments on his 
part to sections 118 and 120. So, while most of the speakers have 
talked about each, to this point, now, before we vote on the proposal 
of the Senator from Colorado, I am going to address only section 118, 
the section that calls, in the form in which it was reported by the 
Indian Affairs Committee, for a study not only of the needs of Indian 
communities across the land but the resources available to those Indian 
communities to support, in whole or in part, their governmental 
entities.
  These tribal priority allocations, in the amount of just over three-
quarters of a billion dollars, are directed at the activities, on the 
broadest possible scale, of the self-governing Indian tribal 
organizations all across the United States, numbering several hundred 
in total. And there are, it seems to me, two distinct questions even as 
we deal with this appropriation of more than three-quarters of a 
billion dollars of

[[Page S9392]]

the money of all of the taxpayers of the United States. The first is: 
Is the historic distribution of money from this account to the various 
Indian tribes done in a fair and rational manner? And, if not, what can 
be done to improve that method of distribution?

  The second and quite distinct question is whether or not full support 
of Indian tribal governments is a permanent duty of the people of the 
United States; a form of entitlement or a matter of discretion in which 
the people of the United States, in addition to encouraging the 
development of self-governing institutions, are also entitled to demand 
on the part of successful Indian governments an increasing duty of 
self-support of these governing institutions--the tribal legislatures, 
the court systems, the police systems, and the like, systems that in 
our Federal system are paid for by the people of the United States in 
connection with this Congress, the people of the States with their 
legislatures, and the people of cities, counties, and towns with 
respect to their governing institutions. And we ran into opposition in 
connection with each of these; a protection of the status quo in 
connection with each.
  I took over the chairmanship of this subcommittee 2 years ago, and 
for 2 years asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs, when it justified its 
budget, about the formula through which it distributed its moneys to 
Indian tribes, without getting a satisfactory answer. Asked whether or 
not it had any ability to determine the relative needs of the varying 
tribes in the United States, the reluctant, ultimate answer was, no, 
the Bureau of Indian affairs didn't have that kind of information, did 
not know in any detail the income of tribal governments through gaming, 
through gambling operations, through natural resource extraction, 
through rental of its properties and the like.
  Moreover, it became quite clear that the Bureau of Indian Affairs 
didn't care to get that information. The reason that the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs doesn't really care about getting that information is 
that it does, in fact, believe that these payments are a permanent 
entitlement, a permanent burden on all of the other taxpayers of the 
United States, and that, therefore, while perhaps an examination of 
needs is appropriate, an examination of resources is not appropriate in 
any respect whatsoever.
  With both of those propositions I disagree. While section 118 that 
exists in the bill today does not change the system and require a 
mandated distribution on the basis of a system of needs, which of 
course implies something about the resources that cover these needs on 
the part of each individual tribe, it became evident that there is so 
much disagreement in Indian country with even a determination of the 
facts on which we can make a later determination of needs and resources 
that section 118 was unacceptable.
  The proposal that Senator Campbell has made, and with which I agree, 
deals rather narrowly with the distribution of the money in this 
appropriations bill, increased by something more than $75 million over 
the current year, and most particularly with the way in which any 
excess over last year's distribution and over a formula already 
developed in the Bureau of Indian Affairs will be made. In that 
connection, it is a significant step and it is something with which I 
agree. Because it is insufficient, however, because it doesn't even 
mention either needs or resources, in my view something else very 
significantly is needed.

  Before I get into that, however, much of the debate on the other side 
of this issue, many of the newspaper editorials, have spoken of the 
appropriation for tribal governments, so-called TPA, as an entitlement 
based on treaty--because there are several hundred treaties with 
various Indian tribes, the last of which was ratified in 1868--that we 
are in fact dealing with an entitlement, that we should not look at 
relative needs, we should not look at the ability to provide for 
governments through the resources of Indian tribes at all because this 
is a matter of treaty obligation between the Government of the United 
States and these various Indian tribes.
  I wish to make the point, as we look forward to a future debate on 
this issue, that there is no such treaty right. Mr. President, there is 
no such treaty right. We found one treaty with one tribe that calls for 
payment in perpetuity of several thousand dollars a year. Most Indian 
treaties, however--and we use here the treaty of Point Elliott in my 
own State, a treaty signed in 1855, that includes a clause very much 
like this one:

       In consideration of the above cession [that is the lands 
     the Indians were signing away] the United States agree to pay 
     to the said tribes and bands the sum of $150,000 in the 
     following manner.

  And it sets out declining annual payments for a period of 20 years, 
ending, presumably, in 1875, or in 1876. That is the typical Indian 
treaty with respect to a fiscal obligation on the part of the people of 
the United States. Obviously, that period of time ran out over a 
century ago. The optimism with which it was signed, the implication 
being that by that time the Indians would be integrated into the larger 
society, did not take place, and the Congress of the United States has 
gone through several phases of attitudes toward Indian tribes, toward 
their integration, toward their self-determination and the like. We are 
now in a period of time in which the strong public opinion, and opinion 
in this Congress, is in favor of self-determination, conscious self-
determination in the Indian institutions.
  The point I am making here is not to disagree with that policy. I 
think it is a perfectly appropriate policy and one that I have 
supported. The point that I am making here is that it is a 
discretionary policy, and that this three-quarters of a billion dollars 
is appropriated as any other discretionary account is in the Congress 
of the United States. Therefore, it is totally appropriate for us to 
determine whether we think the money is being well spent, whether we 
think it is being fairly distributed, whether we think there is a 
better formula, whether we think there should be some obligation on the 
part of wealthier tribes to pay all or part of the cost of their own 
tribal governments.
  So we have taken a sample number of tribes with respect to this 
year's distribution, about 20, on this chart. I may say that this is 
not one of these telescoped graphs that only works between No. 100 and 
No. 200. This graph goes from zero to $2,452. Tribal allocation per 
person to the Pequot Tribe in Connecticut from this year's distribution 
is $2,452. That is the tribe with the most successful gaming operation 
in the United States. Unemployment in the Pequot Tribe is zero.
  At the other end of the scale, the Fond du Lac Tribe, which gets $24 
per person in its TPA allocation, has 67-percent unemployment.
  This, of course, doesn't include anything like all the tribes in the 
United States. I think it is a fair sampling, and any Member who 
desires to know where on this scale a tribe in his or her State falls 
can get that information through us. But you have a range of between 
$24 per capita and $2,452 per capita--a range of 100 to 1. The net 
result of failing to deal with that issue this year is that the ratio 
will be greater in 1998 in the bill we are voting on, it will be 
greater than it is at the present time.
  The original formula, I think, dates from sometime in the 1930's. 
Under those economic circumstances, having no relation to the present 
day, these tribes' governing authorities, of course, have various 
powers. Some provide more services than others do. But nonetheless, 
each year's change has made this system worse and is exacerbated.
  I will show you the same chart in a slightly different form, Mr. 
President. This form works from the Rosebuds in the Dakotas, which have 
the highest unemployment, 95 percent, down to the Pequots that have 
zero. In other words, to the best of our ability to determine need--
because we don't have all of the figures, unemployment figures have to 
be a shorthand here for need--the most needy tribe gets $225 per 
capita. Again, the Pequots, $2,400. But if we don't want to take that 
one, let's take this one in Alabama; it is $1,195.
  Interestingly enough, the second highest distribution here is to the 
tribe that has the second highest unemployment. But the obvious import 
of these charts is that there is simply no relationship whatsoever--no 
relationship whatsoever--between the need, the economic poverty, the 
unemployment on a given Indian reservation and the distribution of 
moneys to the governing

[[Page S9393]]

body of that institution from the Federal Government pursuant to these 
TPA's.
  One further point, of course, in connection with this question about 
treaties, most of the tribes in the United States are not treaty 
tribes. The Senator from Alaska referred to the fact that by fiat, the 
administration created, I think, a couple of hundred new tribes in 
Alaska, none of which are treaty tribes, but all of which, by that 
administrative action, will in a year or so fall into this kind of 
distribution of money. So the distribution has nothing to do with 
whether or not tribes are treaty tribes or nontreaty tribes. The tribes 
really don't have anything to say about the issue.
  We are distributing the money at the present time in a manner that is 
highly irrational. As a consequence, Mr. President, Senator Stevens and 
I have authored a letter dated today to the Comptroller General of the 
United States in the General Accounting Office, asking for a General 
Accounting Office study of the system I have described here, how we got 
to that system and how we can do better.
  Our request does, of course, include in it a request to the GAO to 
make a determination, not only of the needs of the tribes, but of their 
ability to meet those needs with their own resources. We may well learn 
from the GAO that even it cannot answer that question, because the 
tribes will not release a sufficient degree of information for us to 
make an intelligent decision. Then we will be told what kind of 
legislation is necessary so that Congress can deal with this matter in 
a rational fashion.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter that Senator Stevens and I 
have authored to the General Accounting Office be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                      U.S. Senate,


                                  Committee on Appropriations,

                               Washington, DC, September 16, 1997.
     James F. Hinchman,
     Acting Comptroller General, General Accounting Office, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Hinchman: We are writing to request that the 
     General Accounting Office (``GAO'') immediately undertake a 
     study of issues related to the distribution of funds by the 
     Bureau of Indian Affairs (``BIA'') through Tribal Priority 
     Allocations (TPA). The GAO is requested to complete the study 
     and submit a report by June 1, 1998. The study should address 
     in detail the following:
       (1) any inequities in the current distribution of TPA funds 
     among Tribes;
       (2) the results of the distribution of TPA funding in FY 98 
     (to the extent such results are available);
       (3) the tribal and non-tribal resources, including tribal 
     business revenue, available to each Tribe for meeting 
     governmental needs;
       (4) the extent to which each Tribe can or should, in whole 
     or in part, become self sufficient, in terms of its ability 
     to provide government services, through the use of resources 
     available to it;
       (5) the impact of recognition of new Tribes on TPA funds;
       (6) recommendations for determining the level of funding 
     needed for a Tribe to provide governmental services; and
       (7) recommendations for a formula for the distribution of 
     TPA funds that takes into account the disparate needs, 
     population levels, treaty obligations and other legal 
     requirements with respect to the provision of governmental 
     services, and the resources available to each Tribe to 
     provide such services.
       In undertaking the study the GAO should consider the 
     formulas currently used by the BIA for the distribution of 
     funds for other programs, the formulas previously used by the 
     BIA or other federal agencies for the distribution of funds 
     under the Indian Priority System that was developed after 
     enactment of the Indian Reorganization Act, and any 
     formulas recommended by the 1994 Joint Tribal/DOI/BIA Task 
     Force on Reorganization of the BIA, the Commission on 
     Reservation Economics, the American Indian Policy Review 
     Commission, and any other relevant commissions or reviews.
       In evaluating the resources available to each Tribe for 
     meeting governmental needs, the GAO should enumerate in its 
     report the nature and availability of the information BIA 
     needs to determine accurately the level of resources 
     available to each Tribe for the provision of governmental 
     services. The report should include recommendations regarding 
     any changes in law that may be necessary in order to obtain 
     such information and what constitutes a de minimus level of 
     revenue for which the cost of reporting or assessing such 
     revenue would outweigh the benefit of obtaining that 
     information. For the purposes of this study, the GAO should 
     consider the term ``tribal business revenue'' to mean income, 
     however derived, from any venture owned, held, or operated, 
     in whole or in part, by any entity on behalf of the 
     collective members of any Tribe. Such term shall also include 
     any income from license fees or royalties collected by a 
     Tribe. The term ``any venture'' includes any activity 
     conducted by an entity, regardless of the nature or purpose 
     of the activity, and shall include any entity regardless of 
     how such entity is organized, whether corporate, partnership, 
     sole proprietorship, trust, cooperative, governmental, non-
     profit, or for-profit in nature.
       The recommended formula for the distribution of TPA funds 
     should include a means of assigning priority among Tribes for 
     the allocation of funding, so that those with the greatest 
     need for governmental services and the fewest resources to 
     meet that need, relative to the needs and resources of all 
     other Tribes, are given the highest priority. The GAO shall 
     include as an appendix to the report suggested legislative 
     language to accomplish any changes in law or regulation 
     necessary to ensure the distribution of TPA funds according 
     to the recommended formula.
       Thank you for your prompt attention to this request. If you 
     or your staff have any questions regarding this request, 
     please contact Anne McInerney of the Senate Subcommittee on 
     Interior and Related Agencies at 224-2168.
       With best wishes,
           Cordially,
     Slade Gorton.
     Ted Stevens.

  Mr. GORTON. I do want to say this, Mr. President. A number of 
compliments have been made about the way in which Members deal with 
issues that are highly controversial and on which they have great 
differences of opinion. I say, with respect to every one of those who 
have spoken here today, that I have gotten from each of them the 
greatest consideration, even when they have disagreed with me. Each of 
them holds his views as firmly as I do and as significantly as I do.
  The chairman of the committee has agreed, and will speak to that 
later, to dealing with a specific bill on the other subject. I haven't 
asked him to deal with this subject in his committee, but I rather 
suspect that he is going to wish to do so in order to be able to deal 
rationally and intelligently with this issue as well.
  So I have not gained the goal that I have set for myself when I was 
writing this bill to make substantive changes, but we are going to be 
able to vote these issues intelligently in the course of the next year 
in a way that has not been done in this Congress, certainly since I 
first arrived here in 1981 and probably for some time before that.
  I believe the debate on this issue is long overdue, Mr. President. I 
am persuaded, quite persuaded, that we can't engage in it in its full 
substantive fashion at the present time, for lack of information, and 
that what we are doing here is going to give us a greater ability to 
make our points at some time in the future.
  For their cooperation in seeing to it that we are moving forward on 
this issue, I thank each one of them, and we will be back here, I 
suspect, at some time in the future to debate this and the other issue 
more on its merits. Because the other issue is distinct from this one, 
I hope as soon as others who wish to speak on it have spoken, we will 
adopt the proposal, the amendment proposed by the Senator from 
Colorado, and then move on to the second one, and I will have a set of 
different remarks on that one.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from 
Colorado, Senator Campbell, and the distinguished Senator from 
Washington, Senator Gorton, would it be appropriate for me to speak now 
or would they rather proceed with something else? If they have to 
introduce a measure and want to get it done, it will be all right with 
me.
  Mr. President, I say to my fellow Senators, I think the important 
thing for the hundreds of thousands of Indians in the United States and 
Indian country and the 10 percent of the population of the State of New 
Mexico who are Indian people. There are 22 different Indian tribes and 
pueblos in my State, living in a completely different style, but all 
Indians nonetheless.
  The most important thing for them is we have won today. We did not 
lose on the issue of sovereignty as it pertains to their immunity in 
their court systems. We did not lose, in an appropriations bill, 
without adequate hearings, without adequate information on one of the 
most complex and historic-filled situations in our Government and our 
governance. We won, because those decisions to take away tribal 
judicial immunity, whether it be for 1

[[Page S9394]]

year or forever, have been withdrawn from this bill.
  I thank the distinguished Senator, Senator Slade Gorton, for 
withdrawing his judicial immunity provision. I think it has become 
absolutely and unequivocally discernible by everyone that is a very 
complicated issue.
  Later, I am sure, in this discussion, we are going to hear proposals 
about how that is going to be fleshed out and how we are going to talk 
about judicial immunity, the right to sue Indian tribes or not to sue 
them in the courts of America and the courts of the States. We are 
going to hear discussions perhaps on how hearings ought to be 
structured to get to the bottom of certain issues where inequity may 
require that some modifications be made. But essentially, for the 
Indian leaders and the Indian people who came here by the hundreds, at 
least, this year, their tremendous concern about what was going to 
happen to them if this occurred is gone from the scene.

  The Senator from New Mexico is fully aware that the distinguished 
Senator, Senator Gorton, desires to fix some things that he feels are 
wrong with Indian law and the distribution of money, and he feels that 
just as strongly as I feel that we ought to be very careful about what 
we do and that it is not a simple proposition. Even the two graphs that 
were put up that show the disparity in incomes and the disparity in the 
distribution of our Federal resources don't tell the complete picture.
  The picture is one of a tribal allocation system evolving over time 
filled with history, filled with court decisions, filled with Senators 
who have purposely helped certain tribes and not helped others, which 
causes some of these funding levels to be out of whack.
  Nonetheless, the needs in Indian country are not debatable, because 
for every Indian person that has an average American income and an 
opportunity for a job and some assets, tribal or otherwise, that are 
significant, my guess would be 50 that don't have these assets. For 
every one that does, my guess would be 50 don't, 50 are poor. Their 
tribes are poor. Their reservations are economically depleted. So I 
suggest, as I did early on when the issue of means testing arrived, 
that we ought to be equally concerned about the needs of the Indian 
people.
  Frankly, the GAO letter that my friend, Senator Gorton, proposes, is 
fully within his rights. Any Senator can write to the GAO, whether it 
is joined by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee or whether it 
is the most junior Member here. You can write to GAO and ask them for 
information. Now I intend to ask them to assess the needs of the Indian 
people: How poor are they, and why are they poor? I want to ask them 
what physical needs they have--water systems, sewers, roads--for they 
live, in most cases, in a pretty bad economic situation and a pretty 
deteriorated public environment with reference to infrastructure and 
the like.
  So it is mighty easy to say, let's fix this formula and have somebody 
in government formulate a new means test for us, but I will tell you, 
it is a lot more difficult to find out what our responsibility should 
have been over the years and how much of the Indians' plight is because 
of the laws we have and our failure to take care of the related trust 
responsibilities that we have.
  The history of Indian people versus the United States of America is 
as old as some of the Supreme Court opinions written by Justice Chief 
Marshall back in 1830's. I am sure Senator Gorton, who is an expert on 
the legal debates, knows about all those cases. While I am not as 
legally perfected, I know that there is not one simple evolution of the 
relationship of the Indian people to the American Government and to the 
States. It has evolved because of court opinions, it has evolved 
because Presidents have articulated American policy with reference to 
Indians. President Nixon articulated a policy of self-governance and 
self-determination, which has then been carried out by the Government 
of the United States.
  So the next time we debate this issue, we will not just have three 
exhibits here, one of which quotes from one treaty, for I am sure that 
more than one of us will be steeped in the history of how we got to 
where we are. It is not going to be as simple as devising a new means 
formula and distributing federal money based upon some kind of new 
means testing.
  It may be that treaties don't govern all of these responsibilities, 
but I can guarantee you, the statutes are filled with commitments to 
the Indian people. Before we have this next debate and during the next 
hearings, we ought to be talking about all of those statutes that said 
we are going to educate the Indian people, and then we never provided 
enough money; that says we are going to house them, and then did not 
provide enough money. Where does that come into the equation?

  We said we wanted economic prosperity for Indians--but until the 
1980's through the highway trust funds, we hardly funded any roads for 
them. I can remember, when I arrived in 1973, $10 million was the level 
of funding for Indian roads. We were thrilled to get it up as high as 
$30 million. When we included Indians in our highway trust funds for 
the first time, the funding jumped dramatically to $80 annually, and in 
the most recent highway bill 6 years ago, we finally got it over the 
$150 million mark for all of Indian country out of the highway trust 
funds. In spite of them paying into the funds everytime they bought 
gasoline, we weren't building any roads from this fund for them until 
the mid 1980's.
  Just a few remarks on judicial immunity. I believe it is incumbent 
upon the Indian leadership of this country to work with us, those of us 
who are genuinely concerned about their well-being and protecting their 
rights to self-determination and self-governance. We ought to work on 
some of the troubling areas where the lack of judicial review is 
something that is beginning to offend many people and that many of us 
who are protective of our Indian people are beginning to ask questions 
about.
  In that regard, Senator Gorton, in conversations that are off the 
record and not on the Senate floor, has talked about the fact that 
maybe the solution isn't a total waiver of their judicial 
immunity. Maybe we need to examine these judicial areas that cry out 
for some kind of equity and fairness. I assume in the next year those 
will be looked at by various committees.

  But in the final analysis, the important thing that happened here 
today is that, in my humble opinion, fairness prevailed because it 
would have been grossly unfair to waive tribal sovereign immunity. In 
fact I think it would have been wrong in the appropriations process to 
waive judicial immunity across Indian country so that Indian tribes can 
be sued by almost anyone for anything in any court. I believe we would 
have wreaked havoc on Indian governance and we would have destroyed the 
tribes of our country in many cases. And this too is an evolving 
situation.
  For in many of the cases where we have cited that the Indian tribes 
cannot be sued, they have insurance, I say to Senator Inouye. We found 
many of them are in fact settling lawsuits because they bought 
liability insurance. We have even found that some of the suits that 
people talked about here on the floor were indeed covered by liability 
insurance. So those who sued tribes were not without a remedy.
  But let us say the process has worked because we have not jumped 
precipitously into changing that very large body of law with reference 
to the governance and status of a recognized Indian tribe in terms of 
the courts of our land and judicial review of their actions.
  And on the previous issue on means testing, in summary, I believe 
that justice prevailed and the right thing is done by us not acting to 
establish some formula or even indicate that we are setting down that 
path.
  All we have done today is to set in motion some questions to the 
Government, the GAO. As indicated, there might be a lot of other 
questions of them. Then, in due course, means testing will be looked at 
in a manner that it should be looked at by appropriate committees.
  I thank Senator Gorton. I was privy to the meetings where this 
resolution was finally arrived at. I was not there at every meeting, 
but nonetheless I was there in time. I was there in time to make sure 
that some ideas that were apparently gaining credence were denied their 
credence. And I feel very good about that. And we are now back together 
saying, let us work together and see what we can do.

[[Page S9395]]

  I say to Senator Campbell, as chairman of the committee, our new 
chairman, I have served on your committee for a while, never as 
chairman because I could not do that, but I pledge to you my support as 
we move through the next year or so in trying to solve some of these 
problems. I am firmly convinced that it will not be a simple 
proposition of ``let's have a means testing formula,'' because there 
will be a lot more to it before we finish as we try to understand just 
what we ought to be doing in fairness.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I think it is certainly appropriate, for a 
few moments, to speak to the issue at hand here on the floor and my 
support for what the Senator from Washington has chosen to do with the 
two issues that he brought to the Interior appropriations bill dealing 
with native Americans and sovereign immunity.
  I discussed these issues with him at length and certainly with native 
Americans of my State--four different tribes. I have spent a good 
number of hours discussing this issue and how it relates to their 
rights and how it relates to the rights of all citizens in this 
country.
  I am extremely pleased also to have worked very closely with the 
Senator from Colorado who I respect greatly for his opinions in this 
area and certainly his long-term knowledge about issues of native 
Americans because he is so proudly one of those amongst us who can 
claim that title and does so proudly and represents them so well in 
this body.
  I am pleased that we are willing to take this back to hearings. It is 
an issue of immense proportion for both non-Indian citizens of our 
country and Indian citizens because of the nature that is evolving upon 
many of our reservations and the questions that are mounting outside of 
them as it relates to fairness and equity.
  In my State of Idaho we have at this moment some conflict that must, 
I think, in the end be resolved so that there is a sense of fairness 
for all parties involved. There is now on both sides of this issue a 
lack of that sense. I hope that we can resolve some of it. It is our 
responsibility. We are talking about Federal law and the recognition of 
that law and that which has built up around it now for well over a 
century.
  I certainly trust my colleague from Colorado to deal with it in an 
even-handed, straightforward way and the Senator from the State of 
Washington who forced this issue upon us, in the right way, to cause us 
to look at something that sometimes we are not willing to or we find 
difficult to deal with.
  Yet there are times in our country's history when it is appropriate 
to look at what we intended in the past and how it has revolved into 
the present and whether it fits today's modernness or if there are some 
reasonable adjustments that can be made within law that affect people 
in their lives. That certainly is our responsibility.
  So I thank both of my colleagues for their willingness to cooperate 
and work with each other and to resolve, out of what could have been 
substantial conflict, an approach that I think in the end meets all of 
our interests in a way that serves this body and native Americans in 
our country well along with non-Indian citizens.
  I yield back my time.
  Mr. INOUYE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from Hawaii is 
recognized.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, as my distinguished friend from New Mexico 
suggested, the matter before us is a very complex one. The history that 
we will be considering in the days ahead, when we debate this matter, 
is also a complex one filled with tragedy and filled with sadness.
  It is true, as stated by my friend from Washington, that many of the 
tribes are not treaty tribes. But I will explain why I believe it is 
not so.
  Mr. President, when the first European came upon this land, 
anthropologists have suggested there were anywhere from 10 million to 
50 million native Americans residing in the present 48 States. Today, 
the number is less than 2 million.
  The history of our relationship with our first citizens is not a very 
happy one, Mr. President. In the early days, we looked upon them and 
counted upon them to help us in our wars. The record indicates that if 
it were not for certain tribes belonging to the Iroquois Confederacy, 
General Washington and his troops at Valley Forge could very well have 
perished. These Indians traveled hundreds of miles carrying food on 
their backs so that our troops would be fed.
  Well, that was a long time ago, Mr. President. But this is part of 
our history. There was a time when Indians sent ambassadors here 
because they were sovereign nations, just as sovereign as Britain or 
France or China or Japan. And we treated them as sovereigns.
  So sovereign nations conferring with other sovereign nations usually 
come forth with an agreement which we call treaties.
  Our history shows that we entered into 800 treaties with Indian 
nations. Of that number, 430 never came to this floor. They are 
somewhere in the archives of the Senate of the United States. For one 
reason or another, we decided not to act upon these treaties, treaties 
that were signed either by the President of the United States or his 
designated representative. They were solemn papers, documents that 
started with very flowery words such as: ``As long as the sun rises in 
the east and sets in the west, as long as the rivers flow from the 
mountains to the oceans, this land is yours.''

  It is true, as I indicated, that not all Indian nations are treaty 
nations, because 430 of the 800 treaties were not ratified, were not 
even discussed, were not debated, were not considered. But most of the 
remaining treaties are treaties that were signed in perpetuity.
  It is true that there are some that were not signed in perpetuity. 
But most of them had the flowery language: ``As long as the sun rises 
in the east and sets in the west, that is yours.''
  Then we decided that the 370 remaining treaties may have been a 
mistake. And, Mr. President, this is a chapter that many of us would 
try to forget and it is almost difficult to believe. But we proceeded 
to violate provisions in every one of them.
  Ours is a proud Nation. We always point to other nations and say, 
``You have violated a treaty. You have violated START II. You have 
violated the nuclear proliferation treaty,'' and we convince ourselves 
that we always fulfill every provision in our treaties. Yes, today we 
do so.
  But there was a time when we disregarded these solemn promises. After 
the treaties were signed, we decided that Indians were a nuisance. That 
is a harsh word to use, but we established a policy of extermination. 
We may not have used that word, but the actions we took were 
extermination.
  We often hear about the trail of tears. We have had hundreds of 
trails of tears. For example, the Cherokees were rounded up in the 
Carolinas--thousands of them. They were rounded up in the summertime, 
and in the wintertime, with their summer attire, some in shackles, had 
to travel across the country to Oklahoma. It is no surprise that over 
half of them perished. These were the trails of tears.
  Oklahoma, Mr. President--we hate to admit this--is a dumping ground. 
There are tribes there that cannot trace their ancestral land in 
Oklahoma. What are the Apache doing in Oklahoma? What are the Seminoles 
doing in Oklahoma? What are the Cherokees doing in Oklahoma? They were 
sent there, and oftentimes sent to areas that no one wanted. Yes, if we 
found gold on certain land, that treaty was violated.
  So, Mr. President, this is a very complex issue. After the Indian 
wars--and we oftentimes look back to those days with great pride; there 
were great soldiers, great generals, like General Custer--at the end of 
the Indian wars, as a result of wartime death, disease, and such, the 
Indian population of the land had come down to 250,000--250,000.
  Yet, with this background, with this history, I think we should 
recall this footnote.
  In all of the wars that we have been involved in since World War II 
of this century, native Americans have put on the uniform to 
participate in the defense of our freedoms, our liberties, our 
Constitution, our people, and our land. They have sent more men on a 
per capita basis than any other ethnic group.

[[Page S9396]]

 More men from Indian reservations served in Desert Storm on a per 
capita basis than any other ethnic group.
  In fact, we oftentimes look at that great statue of the raising of 
the flag at Iwo Jima on Mt. Suribachi. It should be noted that of the 
five Americans that are raising the flag, one is an Indian. That has 
been the contribution of Indian men and Indian women throughout our 
history. They have done so notwithstanding their strange and tragic 
history in the back. So I think they have earned the right to say, 
``Let's not break any more treaties.'' Enough is enough.
  Mr. President, like my distinguished friend from Washington, my 
friends from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska, I look forward 
to this great debate where we can finally with some definitiveness and 
with some depth discuss our relationship with the first citizens.
  In closing, I will read part of the statement of Governor Stevens of 
the State of Washington when he asked the tribe in the Pacific 
Northwest to sign the treaty of Point Elliott. The Governor used some 
extraordinary words:

       There will be witnesses. These witnesses will be tides. You 
     Indians know that the tide goes out and comes in, that it 
     never fails to go in or out. You people know that streams 
     that flow from the mountains never cease flowing. You people 
     know the sun rises and sets and never fails to do so. Those 
     are my witnesses. And you Indians, your witnesses and these 
     promises will be carried out and your promises to me and the 
     promises to the Great Father made to you will be carried out 
     as long as these three witnesses continue.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. I thank Senator Inouye for those very thoughtful 
comments. Until he introduced a bill just a few years ago that 
established a museum of the American Indians as part of the 
Smithsonian--and I was a House sponsor when I was on the House side--
until that happened, there was a common saying here in Washington, DC, 
by Indians throughout the Nation. That saying was, ``There are more 
dead Indians in Washington than live ones.'' It was because at that 
time there were over 16,000 remains, mostly skulls, but other body 
parts, housed by the Smithsonian.
  Senator Domenici, when he was here, I think put it in a good and 
proper perspective. We are dealing with a couple of sections. My 
primary opposition was not that I was trying to lock anybody out from 
debate, but I felt it was the wrong vehicle for putting these very, 
very important policy changes on an appropriations bill. But Senator 
Domenici put it in a proper perspective. Since he did, I will make a 
point of that, too.
  Senator Inouye mentioned the number of treaties that were dealt with. 
It is my understanding that 374 were ratified by the U.S. Senate and 
374 broken--every single one--but not by the Indians. That is something 
that ought to be in a historical perspective when we talk about section 
120 or 118.
  Most of the things that the Indians lost in the centuries past were 
done through two manners: either at gunpoint or through some 
subterfuge. Certainly if they had known the value of Long Island, they 
would never have sold it for $27 worth of beads. In the case of the 
Black Hills, they did not have a choice; it was at gunpoint, as many 
other lands were, too.

  Some authorities, including Herman Viola, head of the National 
Archives and a prominent author on American Indians, has written about 
14 thoughtful books on American Indians, and he says in some writings 
that estimates are as high as 30 million aborigine people--30 million--
died in North and Central America between 1492 and 1992--30 million. It 
was not like this place wasn't inhabited. There were complete nations.
  If you go back in history and you look at the great cities of 
Cahokia, which disappeared 400 years before the landing of Columbus, 
which had 20,000 acres in cultivated crops and astronomers, doctors, 
artists, and every imaginable kind of profession in their own way--
gone, 400 years before anybody landed on a boat here from any of the 
European countries.
  The great city of Tenochtitlan, which the modern city of Mexico City 
is built on top of, had thousands of years of their own history before 
the coming of post-Columbian people. I live about half an hour from 
Mesa Verde, called the Cliff Dwellings. They were there before Christ 
walked the Earth, the people living on the mesas, planting their corn, 
raising their kids, praying to their Lord, passing on generation to 
generation. They left there almost 400 years before Columbus even got 
here.
  So when we talk about who owes what to whom around here, I think it 
is very important that we remember that Senator Domenici and Senator 
Inouye have tried to put this in a proper perspective. They were a 
culture. They did not have prostitution. They did not have jails. They 
did not have communicable diseases. They did not have unemployment. 
They did not have taxes, by the way, Mr. President. They did not have 
welfare, mental institutions, literally all of the social problems that 
we now think are consuming America, eating up America. They did not 
have those. They could not even swear. They could not even swear. They 
had no swear words in the Indian language.
  They were a pretty good culture. We could learn a lot from them. We 
did not learn very much because we found it was easier to take things 
at gunpoint or to get one to sell out another. That was common in those 
days. If the negotiators with the Federal Government could not talk 
some of the chiefs out of the land, they would simply say, ``OK, we 
will set up our own chiefs. We will set up these guys over here. They 
belong to the tribe. We will say they are the guys that have the 
authority to sign the agreements and the treaties.'' That is the way 
some of the land disappeared.
  If we decided we could not deal with the Government of France or 
Great Britain or any other foreign country, we would simply say, we 
will set up our own puppet leaders in your country and then we will 
sign an agreement with them and that will become the law of the land. 
That is how a lot of the land disappeared.
  They had none of these problems. It was not in their nature and it 
was not in their culture. They inherited it all. Many, many tribes are 
still trying to find their center, find their way, and make a better 
life for themselves and their kids. It is an uphill battle all the way 
because this Government, by and large, has never been very sensitive of 
their needs.
  If you remember, historically, in fact, the Bureau of Indian Affairs 
was not part of the Department of the Interior when it was set up. It 
was part of the Department of War. Do you think anybody that sets up a 
framework to try to find fairness after fighting decades of battle, 
where some of their own people were lost in their battles, do you think 
they will be fair? Probably not.

  That is what led to the rise of the Surgeon General in the 1800's 
asking the War Department to send out a request to collect body parts 
from American Indians. If they were already dead, that was OK, dig them 
up and send them in. If they were not, kill them and then send them in. 
The point of that whole study is a matter of historical record. It was 
to do one thing: They took measurements of the skulls, the bones; they 
measured how far apart were the eyes, and the cranial cavity and so on, 
and in their infinite wisdom decided, because those measurements were 
different from the Anglo majority of this country, they could not have 
had the intelligence to own land. That was one of the reasons and one 
of the driving forces of westward expansionism.
  I didn't want to get into a big history lesson here, but that is all 
a matter of record.
  It seems to me that if Senator Domenici and Senator Inouye did 
anything, they tried to put this in a proper perspective. There have 
been many, many bills and many laws passed dealing with American 
Indians where they have had very little input and no voice in this 
body. All they are asking now is to have a voice in this body by having 
these bills introduced in a legislative forum so they can speak to 
them, too, and not just slipped in in an appropriations bill.
  In the past, there have been many devastating laws passed by this 
Congress. Certainly one was simply called relocation. That was not so 
long ago, it just happened in the 1950's, in which Congress decided 
Indians had lived on reservations long enough and they could be 
assimilated, and they uprooted families and sent them to the city and 
taught them to be electricians, plumbers, automobile mechanics, and 
after they finished school,

[[Page S9397]]

they dumped them on the streets of Los Angeles, New York, Fresno, and 
all over this country with no jobs and no skills or ability to get the 
jobs with which they could make a living doing the things they had been 
taught under relocation.
  That is the reason why we have such high alcoholism rates among urban 
Indians now, still to this day, 40 years after the relocation act.
  In its infinite wisdom, this body decided, through the Termination 
Acts of the 1950's, they would arbitrarily say the Indians have been 
living around the city long enough, therefore we will not call them 
Indians now but terminate them as a legal body. The heck with the whole 
treaties, the heck with what we agreed to, our word is no good, we will 
terminate them. I have never understood that. It is like telling a 
black American you have been around the cities long enough, you are no 
longer black. I don't know how they could have even done that, but they 
did it.
  To this day, many of those tribes that were terminated and left in 
limbo, not quite in the Anglo world and certainly not in the Indian 
world because they were no longer legally Indians, and they have been 
trying to find their center. That is why in the last few years we have 
allowed more and more tribes to go through the Bureau's procedure to be 
reinstated as tribes.
  I guess in closing I should say we do an awful lot around here based 
on the law book. It seems to me we ought to do a little more based on 
the Good Book. You can be legally right and morally wrong. Everybody in 
this body knows that. I think we can put something in place that might 
be legally right and stand up in any court of law, but we have to ask 
ourselves, was that the right thing to do? Was that a fair thing to do 
to 2 million people without their input, without them knowing, without 
them having a voice? I don't think so.

  If you look at the unemployment rate on the charts that Senator 
Gorton showed, it was 95 percent on the reservation in Pine Ridge, SD. 
When you talk about a 9 percent unemployment nationwide, this country 
comes unglued. We think we are in a major catastrophe if we have a 9 
percent unemployment. Try 40, 50, 80, 90, or 95 percent, like in Pine 
Ridge, SD, and all the dysfunctional problems, including fetal alcohol 
syndrome. One out of five or six babies born is destined to lead a life 
in an institution because his mother drank too much because she didn't 
know the difference or did not know it would hurt her unborn baby. Try 
to apply those statistics to the outside world.
  Half of our high school kids don't finish high school. We have kids 
sniffing glue, eating paint, blowing spray paint in their face, burning 
our their mind. They don't know what they are doing because they have 
not had proper education or training. We have a suicide rate on some 
reservations where one out of every two girls, one out of every two, 
tries suicide before she is out of her teenage years, and one out of 
every three boys, and too many of them succeed.
  That is the historical perspective that I try to put this in when I 
say we went the wrong way in trying to add this to an appropriations 
bill with no input. I am delighted and honored that so many Senators 
came forward and spoke to this, and at least for this year, we got it 
right and we are telling people this Nation is no better than a human 
being when we give our word. We are now in the process of dealing with 
fast-track for NAFTA, expanding that; we dealt with the Chemical 
Weapons Ban Treaty, and we are dealing with another treaty dealing with 
landmines. They are all going to affect millions of people. It just 
seems to me that if this Nation can give their word in treaties to 
everybody else in the world that live halfway around the world, we can 
darn sure give our word to the first Americans and keep it.

  With that, Mr. President, I would like to get back to the amendment 
and clarify that. I did ask unanimous consent on the pending question 
that is now referred to as section 118, beginning on page 52, line 16; 
is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's amendment does propose a 
substitute for that language. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. I am not sure. Did I ask for the yeas and nays?
  Mr. GORTON. No. I think we are ready to vote on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment by 
the Senator from Colorado?
  If not, the question is on agreeing to amendment No. 1197 by the 
Senator from Colorado.
  The amendment (No. 1197) was agreed to.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. GORTON. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


 Excepted Committee Amendment Beginning on Page 52, Line 16, as Amended

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is now on the Committee 
amendment, amended by the amendment of the Senator from Colorado.
  The excepted committee beginning on page 52, line 16, as amended, was 
agreed to.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I will move to section 120.


       Excepted Committee Amendment Beginning on Page 55, Line 11

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question before the Senate is the excepted 
committee amendment beginning on page 55, line 11.
  The text of the excepted committee amendment is as follows:


                 tribal priority allocation limitation

       Sec. 120. The receipt by an Indian Tribe of tribal priority 
     allocations funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs 
     ``Operation of Indian Programs''' account under this Act 
     shall--
       (1) waive any claim of immunity by that Indian tribe;
       (2) subject that Indian tribe to the jurisdiction of the 
     courts of the United States, and grant the consent of the 
     United States to the maintenance of suit and jurisdiction of 
     such courts irrespective of the issue of tribal immunity; and
       (3) grant United States district courts original 
     jurisdiction of all civil actions brought by or against any 
     Indian tribe or band with a governing body duly recognized by 
     the Secretary of the Interior, wherein the matter in 
     controversy arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties 
     of the United States.

  Mr. CAMPBELL. I ask unanimous consent that the committee amendment 
referred to as section 120, beginning on page 55, line 11, be 
withdrawn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The excepted committee amendment beginning on page 55, line 11, was 
withdrawn.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I wasn't going to speak to that, but I 
might make one comment. As I read the language of the bill, there were 
so many unanswered questions. One that came to mind was this. As I 
understand section 120, tribes who did not want to give up their 
sovereign immunity would be denied Federal funds. If they did willingly 
give up Federal funds, then they would not have had to give up their 
sovereign immunity, which seemed strange to me because the tribes that 
are the most destitute and therefore the most dependent on Federal 
help, would have been the ones who would have had to give up immunity 
and therefore would have been sued more, where the very few, perhaps 1 
out of 100, who do have a casino and have some money, simply would have 
said we don't want Federal money, we have enough; therefore, their 
immunity would have been intact. It seems that paradox should be the 
thing that we discuss in a proper forum, which is the committee 
legislation.
  With that, I have no further comments, Mr. President. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, section 120 of the bill is a section that 
conditioned tribal priority allocations on the abandonment of a 
doctrine called sovereign immunity on the part of Indian tribes. There 
has been much said during the course of the day about justice, about 
simple justice, about there being more important concerns than the 
letter of the law. With that proposition, I find myself in agreement. 
And the proposal with respect to sovereign immunity was aimed at just 
precisely that goal--simple justice.
  In fact, Mr. President, there is a letter to the editor in the 
Washington Post today that goes under the title of ``Simple Justice.''
  I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at 
this point.

[[Page S9398]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 16, 1997]

                             Simple Justice

       I read with disappointment the comments of Sens. Ben 
     Nighthorse Campbell and John McCain regarding Sen. Slade 
     Gorton's provision to the Interior Appropriations bill that 
     would require Indian tribes to waive their sovereign immunity 
     from suit before they can receive federal funds [``Keeping 
     Our Promise to the Indians,'' op-ed, Sept. 10]. Their 
     argument misses the point.
       Sen. Campbell said recently that the legislation that would 
     provide my family access to the federal court system to seek 
     justice for my son's death would pass over his [Campbell's] 
     ``dead body.'' Now Sen. McCain has joined the rhetoric.
       On Oct. 25, 1994, two of my sons were returning home from a 
     school function in our farm pickup truck. When Jered, 18, and 
     Andy, 16, were crossing an intersection on an Indian 
     reservation, a tribal police vehicle hit their truck at a 
     speed calculated at 68 mph. My son Jered was killed 
     instantly, and Andy suffered serious injuries.
       I then learned that my family has no recourse in the 
     federal and state court systems, because tribes have 
     protection for such actions under the principle of sovereign 
     immunity. According to University of Washington law professor 
     Ralph Johnson, sovereign immunity is based on European law--
     ``you can't sue the King.'' There are no kings in America. 
     Sovereign immunity is not a right held by Native Americans; 
     it is an authority granted to them by Congress.
       I was told that my only avenue to seek justice would be 
     through the tribe's makeshift court system that operates 
     without a constitution. Indian tribal courts have routinely 
     shown their inability to administer justice fairly. The 
     tribes don't even have to allow a person to seek damages 
     against them if they choose not to.
       Sen. Gorton has written a provision that tribes receiving 
     federal tax dollars must accept responsibility for their 
     actions in the same court system that every other American 
     must. This proposal is a simple and fair one. Sen. Campbell's 
     objection to this legislation is denying my family's right to 
     seek justice for a tragic incident that has profoundly 
     changed our lives forever.
       When Sen. Campbell talked about this legislation passing 
     over his ``dead body,'' it hit a deep and emotional chord 
     with me; that is why I am urging the passing of this 
     legislation. But the death I speak of is real, no political 
     talk. The justice I ask for is no more than any other 
     American enjoys when not dealing with Indian reservations.
       The two senators wrote that Native Americans ``don't come 
     from large voting blocs, and most cannot afford the kind of 
     access in Washington other Americans have.'' In addition to 
     that, they referred to Native Americans as a ``silent 
     minority''.
       The Center for Responsive Politics totaled the monies spent 
     by Native American interests on lobbying, soft-money 
     donations to national and state party committees, individual 
     contributions and PACs to be $4,248,464. Common Cause listed 
     the top 25 gambling industry soft-money donors during the 
     1995 and 1996 campaign cycle. The No. 1 donor was an Indian 
     tribe, as was the ninth, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th and 23rd.
       I am just the father of a son who was killed on a 
     reservation. I have spent $20,000 of my own money to seek 
     justice for his death--money earned by working on my farm. If 
     the Native Americans who have spent more than $4 million 
     influencing proliticans are the ``silent minority,'' I wonder 
     where that leaves me in the senators' eyes.
                                                   Bernard Gamache
                                                     Wapoto, Wash.
  Mr. GORTON. The simple justice referred to in this article is the 
death of an 18-year-old high school student in an automobile accident 
in the lower Yakima Valley in the State of Washington. That accident, 
according to the father of the boy and the police agencies, took place 
when a Yakima tribal policeman ran a red light in a pursuit and 
broadsided the pickup being driven by the young man and killed him.
  The Yakima Tribe, the employer of that police officer, cannot be sued 
because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. In other words, there is 
no State or Federal court in which the father, the author of this 
letter, can seek simple justice. He is absolutely precluded by the 
doctrine of sovereign immunity. Now, if that police vehicle had 
belonged to the Yakima County sheriff's office, a suit could have been 
brought against Yakima County. If it had belonged to the Washington 
State Patrol, the father could have brought a lawsuit against the State 
of Washington--but not against the Yakima Tribal Council, the employer 
of that police officer.
  The Yakima Tribal Council states that the facts are somewhat 
different and that perhaps the police officer was not negligent. 
Neither you nor I, Mr. President, nor any Member of this body can be 
certain of those facts. But it is for exactly that reason that we set 
up courts in the United States, so that there could be a neutral body 
to make that determination and to reward damages where a judge and a 
jury felt damages were due.
  So when we discuss this question of tribal immunity, we aren't 
dealing with an abstraction, we are dealing with a very real question 
of justice involving very real people and involving responsibilities 
that are undertaken by every other governmental corporation in the 
United States.
  During the course of the debate over sovereign immunity, we have also 
heard, as one of the principal defenses, that it is created by these 
367 treaties with Indian tribes. Unlike the debate on the previous 
question, a treaty-created right of financial support, I can't put a 
display behind me here showing a treaty and what it does to deal with 
tribal immunity because, bluntly, there isn't a word about sovereign 
immunity in any one of those 367 treaties. The reason is not 
surprising. Governmental immunity from lawsuits is not a concept that 
traces from that relationship. It is a doctrine of English common law 
that you could not sue the king, a common law inherited by the United 
States upon our Declaration of Independence in 1776, and abandoned, in 
most part, by the Government of the United States, by the governments 
of varying States, and through them by local governments all across the 
United States. One of the most recent statements of a Member of the 
Supreme Court on sovereign immunity is Justice Stevens, in 1991:

       The doctrine of sovereign immunity is founded upon an 
     anachronistic fix. In my opinion, all governments, Federal, 
     State, and tribal, should generally be accountable for their 
     illegal conduct.

  And, of course, Mr. President, we never, under our system of 
judgment, allow the determination of whether or not something is 
illegal to be made by the person accused of illegality. We use an 
independent court system for that determination. The Supreme Court has 
dealt very specifically with the question of where the authority to 
make that determination about Indian tribal sovereign immunity is 
lodged.
  Chief Justice Rehnquist, in 1991, at the end of a series of cases on 
this subject, wrote:

       Congress has always been at liberty to dispense with such 
     tribal immunity or to limit it.

  It is not a matter contained in any treaty. It is a matter that the 
Constitution of the United States of America lodges right here in the 
Congress of the United States.
  Now, I have agreed to the amendment that was just accepted because 
the Senator from Colorado, the Senator from Hawaii, and others have 
also graciously agreed that a subject that, for all practical purposes, 
has not previously been taken up by the Committee on Indian Affairs 
will in fact be taken up.
  I will, in the next few days or weeks, introduce a bill on sovereign 
immunity. They have agreed that there will be a series of hearings in 
which we will hear from victims of sovereign immunity, like the author 
of this letter, and from many others, and hear the justification of the 
various tribes for the retention of this anachronistic concept. They 
have also agreed that we will have a markup and a vote on such a 
proposal in the committee.
  My friend, the Senator from New Mexico, who is not here now, who 
vociferously and successfully argued for the removal of this section 
from this bill, has said, as he just did a few moments ago, that he 
feels that there may be real room, in connection with this doctrine, 
for changes, for some removal of that tribal immunity, even if not a 
total abandonment of it. I find that to be a most encouraging 
statement. I hope he reflects on others of his own view. The particular 
example that he has used is one that is pretty close to home, because 
as long ago as 1981 when I was attorney general of the State of 
Washington, I was involved in a lawsuit in which the Supreme Court of 
the United States made the judgment that Indian tribal smoke shops were 
required to collect the State's cigarette tax on the sale of cigarettes 
to non-Indians and to remit them to the State. It is curious that now 
we are debating actively just how much more we should pile on in the 
way of cigarette taxes in order to discourage smoking.

[[Page S9399]]

  But in the 17 years since the Supreme Court made that decision, a 
decision renewed in another case in the Supreme Court of the United 
States just a few years ago, Indian tribes have systematically and 
successfully ignored the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United 
States and have refused to collect those cigarette taxes, and sell 
cheap cigarettes, often to minors, without collecting the State sales 
tax, and to successfully defy the Supreme Court because the smoke shops 
are considered tribal enterprises and the State taxing authorities 
can't sue to enforce the collection of those taxes because of the 
doctrine of sovereign immunity. Just what justification we are going to 
get in these hearings for defying decisions of the Supreme Court of the 
United States and selling cheap cigarettes in the year 1997 and 1998 I 
am not sure about. I am going to be very interested in listening to 
that argument. We are talking about fairness here. We are talking about 
taxes that support the schools to which members of the tribe go. We are 
talking about a tax system that creates fair competition between 
sellers who hold that tribal immunity and those who do not. And, in a 
third area, we need to examine whether or not the ordinary forms of 
contract law ought to allow the enforcement of contracts, as against a 
claim of tribal immunity preventing a determination as to whether a 
contract has been violated or not.

  Those are three areas. I don't know that they are necessarily 
exclusive, and probably the considerations in each one of them may be 
different.
  Should States be allowed to enforce the collection of taxes that the 
Supreme Court says they have lawfully imposed? Should persons alleging 
violations of contract be able to go into a court to get a fair and 
equitable determination of whether a contract has been violated? Should 
the victim of negligence, or even an intentional harm in an automobile 
accident, or an assault, or the like, be able to seek redress in the 
courts of his or her State, or his or her Federal system, against an 
Indian tribe under pretty much the same circumstances in which they can 
seek that redress against any other governmental entity in the United 
States?
  The Supreme Court, Mr. President, has said the buck stops here. It is 
up to us to make that decision. We have not even talked about it for 
20, 30, or 40 years.
  I think it is a major step forward that we will in fact talk about 
it. I suspect that it will still be a controversial issue, though it 
may be that the Senator from New Mexico has come up with a way for us 
to say, ``Well, perhaps we are not going to go all the way; perhaps we 
will try to deal with areas which are really quite open and shut, and 
see whether or not it works to the administration of justice; whether 
or not it does undercut any kind of tribal right of self-
determination.''
  That offer, as well as the generous statements from the Senator from 
Hawaii, and the Senator from Colorado, I greatly welcome. And I think 
we can deal with this in an orderly fashion of committee hearings and 
committee action.
  I now think perhaps for the first time we have some hope that we may 
not only be able to talk about the issue but to come to some kind of an 
accommodation in which we meet somewhere in the middle of the road--
hopefully we will not get hit by a car on the way--and see whether or 
not we can't move forward on this.
  So, I agree with the amendment of the Senator from Colorado which has 
just been agreed to. I thank him for his agreement to move forward on 
an issue on which he feels strongly, just as I do. But that, of course, 
is the way in which we deal with controversial issues, and I look 
forward to the next round.
  Mr. President, I think we have exhausted this subject. With respect 
to the bill as a whole, we will return I believe to the debate over the 
various amendments on the National Endowment for the Arts. The majority 
leader informs me that he in the strongest possible terms wishes to 
complete all action on this bill by adjournment tomorrow. Once Members 
who wish to speak to the National Endowment for the Arts, or any other 
issue, come to the floor and do so, we will have a further opportunity 
this evening.
  There is an amendment on forest roads to be proposed by Senator Bryan 
of Nevada, which I understand will be proposed early tomorrow, which 
will be highly controversial. And this will require a vote. The Senator 
from Arkansas, Mr. Bumpers, and the other Senator from Nevada, Mr. 
Reid, may well have settled the controversy involving them, and others.
  So I am not certain, on the Bryan amendment and the various 
amendments on the National Endowment for the Arts, that there are any 
others that will require rollcall votes. If there are, I urge Senators, 
or their staffs, to notify us and come to the floor and discuss them.
  We need to pass this bill. We need to get it into a conference 
committee. There are many controversial differences with the House 
bill.
  With that, Mr. President, and the request of anyone who wants to say 
anything tonight to say it, 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. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                  THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, last November, the people of Rhode Island 
gave me the great honor of succeeding one of this Chamber's true 
giants: Senator Claiborne Pell. Throughout his years of service, 
Senator Pell committed himself to increasing access to education and, 
fittingly, his name has become synonymous with the fight to open the 
doors of higher education to all of our Nation's citizens, regardless 
of income.
  Senator Pell also dedicated himself to increasing access to the arts 
for all Americans, regardless of an individual's or a community's 
wealth. He recognized the power of the arts to inspire people of all 
ages, through national and local exhibitions as well as arts education. 
With his wise and steadfast leadership, Congress made a commitment to 
advancing these aims, creating a National Endowment for the Arts.
  I am proud to follow in Senator Pell's footsteps in supporting the 
NEA and a strong Federal commitment to the arts. Across the country and 
in my home State of Rhode Island, the arts enhance our culture and 
strengthen our economy.
  The events of recent years in Rhode Island's capital city of 
Providence are a testament to the power of the arts. The last half 
decade has seen the revitalization of Providence's downtown area. One 
major factor in this rebirth has been the emergence of Waterplace Park, 
which uses architecture to take advantage of the Woonasquatucket and 
Providence Rivers' natural beauty. This summer, with NEA support, the 
WaterFire exhibition was introduced to the park. In the few short 
months since its installation, this artistic display has already 
encouraged thousands of Rhode Islanders to rediscover Providence's 
treasures.
  The arts have also contributed to Providence's revival in other ways. 
Institutions like the recently renovated Providence Performance Arts 
Center and Trinity Repertory Company, both of which receive NEA 
support, provide our State's residents with opportunities to see well-
renown and innovative theatrical works. In addition, the passage of new 
tax incentives for artists residing in downtown Providence has 
attracted a vibrant and increasingly active artistic community to the 
city. Taken together, these developments led USA Today to name 
Providence a ``Renaissance City'' in 1996.
  The Federal investment in the NEA is minimal. The $100 million this 
bill would provide for the NEA, for which I commend the chairman and 
ranking member of the subcommittee, represents less than 40 cents for 
each of our Nation's citizens.
  But with this tiny investment, the NEA does great things, offering 
our Nation's citizens increased access to all forms of the arts. In my 
State, the NEA supports not only theatrical productions, but also the 
work of the Children's Museum of Rhode Island, the youth concerts given 
by the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, and the interactive music 
program that Rhode Island Hospital offers to its patients. In my 
hometown of Cranston, the NEA

[[Page S9400]]

supports the annual Labor and Ethnic Heritage Festival, which brings 
people of diverse backgrounds together to celebrate and learn about 
each others' traditions and cultures.

  These programs reach a wide range of Rhode Islanders, but even those 
who choose not to participate in these events benefit from NEA support 
and our State's vibrant arts communities. There is a close relationship 
between the arts in Rhode Island and economic growth.
  Working closely with the NEA, the Rhode Island State Council on the 
Arts supports many arts organizations, social service organizations 
conducting arts programs, and arts educators. One of the Rhode Island 
Council's funding categories, which supports 26 of the State's largest 
arts organizations, is known as general operating support. In 1995-96, 
the council's grants in this category totaled $355,000, with an average 
grant size of $10,000.
  For this investment of $355,000, the State of Rhode Island saw an 
enormous return. The 26 general operating support organizations 
directly contributed more than $24 million into the Rhode Island 
economy. More than 1.1 million people attended these organizations' 
programs last year, further spurring the economy. Using modest 
Department of Commerce multipliers, these figures suggest that the 
activities of the general operating support organizations alone 
contributed a total of more than $97 million to Rhode Island's economy 
last year. The figure for all arts organizations would be even greater.
  These impressive findings are repeated on a national scale. Recent 
studies have shown that the national nonprofit arts industry generates 
some $36.8 billion annually in economic activity; supports 1.3 million 
jobs; and produces $790 million in local government revenue and $1.2 
billion in State revenue. For each dollar the NEA invests in 
communities, there is a twentyfold return in jobs, services, and 
contracts. Without question, this is a wise investment of our 
resources.
  We must also recognize the importance of national leadership in the 
arts, which only a strong, sufficiently funded National Endowment can 
provide. As my colleague from Utah, Mr. Bennett, noted yesterday, the 
NEA's seal of approval helps countless organizations across the country 
to raise matching funds from private sources to support the arts.
  In addition, by identifying arts education and increased access to 
the arts as its priorities, the NEA has promoted these issues 
nationwide. In recent years, we have seen a resurgence of our 
commitment to include the arts in elementary and secondary school 
curricula in Rhode Island, largely spurred by the NEA's emphasis on how 
exposure to the arts helps young people to grow more proficient in all 
subjects.
  I am proud to serve on the Labor and Human Resources Committee, which 
has examined many of these issues. I am also proud to be a cosponsor of 
S. 1020, which the committee passed earlier this year by a bipartisan 
14-to-4 vote. S. 1020 reauthorizes and continues to reform the NEA, 
while maintaining a strong Federal commitment to the agency and its 
ideals. I look forward to the consideration of this important 
legislation on the Senate floor.
  Standing on this floor 32 years ago, Senator Pell observed that ``the 
arts throughout history have greatly enriched all truly worthwhile 
civilizations. The arts can put into tangible form the highest of man's 
creative ideas, so that they may become permanently memorable.''
  Today, I wish to echo Senator Pell's wise counsel. I urge my 
colleagues to support the NEA at the funding level requested by the 
subcommittee and to preserve a strong Federal commitment to the arts.


                          vanishing treasures

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to bring 
an issue to the Senate's attention related to the National Park Service 
and it's new initiative called Vanishing Treasures.
  In a number of park units throughout the Southwest, the Park Service 
is responsible for maintaining and interpreting numerous ruins and 
historic structures, some that date back over 1,000 years.
  One example of the wonderful ruins that exist in our National Parks 
is the Chetro Ketl kiva found in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico; a 
fascinating structure demonstrating the advanced architectural skills 
of the ancient Anasazi culture.
  Many of these structures have become unstable and are constantly 
being degraded, primarily by the effects of the harsh desert climate. 
Furthermore, the almost artistic skill required in the stabilization 
methods that are necessary to preserve these structures is being lost 
because of the emphasis on other programs within the Park Service.
  The Vanishing Treasures initiative will provide a 10-year program to 
stabilize these kinds of ruins to the point where they can be preserved 
by routine maintenance activities. Additionally, the initiative will 
place an emphasis on the training of younger employees, both permanent 
and seasonal, in the skills needed to perform this needed work.
  In all, over 2,000 prehistoric and historic structures in 41 Park 
Service units, and countless numbers of future visitors will benefit 
from the work performed under this initiative.
  The bill before us provides $1.5 million for this program, which is 
$0.5 million more than provided by the House, and $2 million less than 
requested by the administration.
  I hope that the chairman will work with me to ensure the Senate level 
is at least maintained in conference, and I look forward to working 
with him to explore other opportunities to see that this initiative has 
sufficient resources to do this important work.
  I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     Vanishing Treasures Initiative

       Vanishing Treasures (+$3,500,000; 18 FTE): The initiative 
     proposed here would enable the NPS to reduce threats to 
     ancient prehistoric ruins and historic structures that have 
     grown to serious proportions in recent decades. ``Vanishing 
     Treasures'' will improve the preservation of over 2,000 
     prehistoric and historic ruins in 41 parks in the arid west, 
     all located within the Intermountain Field Area of the Park 
     Service. The NPS estimates that half of these structures, the 
     remains left by ancient American Indian societies such as the 
     Anasazi, their historic descendants, and later pioneers, are 
     in less than good condition. About 60 percent of these 
     structures are being impacted severely or substantially, 
     mainly by weathering and erosion. The severely impacted 
     structures are at risk of collapse in the near future Others 
     are deteriorating a bit less quickly, but with continued 
     deferred maintenance this process will accelerate. Also of 
     special concern is the poor documentation of these 
     structures, about 60 percent of which are not well recorded 
     and are poorly known.
       An estimated 20 million visitors annually come to see these 
     prehistoric and historic ruins and to learn about the ancient 
     and historic cultures that created them. This visitation 
     contributes over $1.6 billion to the economies of the States 
     where the parks are located, helping to create over 33,000 
     jobs there. If the NPS is unable to maintain these 
     structures, they will be lost. There is no Servicewide base 
     funding for this program in FY 1997.
       ``Vanishing Treasures'' is proposed as a 10-year program to 
     bring NPS capability and the prehistoric and historic 
     structures to a condition in which they will be preserved by 
     routine preservation maintenance activities. The initiative 
     includes: immediate emergency actions to be carried out in 
     the first year; documentation, planning and management of 
     projects to be carried out over the 10-year period of the 
     initiative; a focus on skilled maintenance expert development 
     and training; and provisions for appropriate expertise in 
     other disciplines to make the program successful. Projects 
     will be carried out by parks or centers, depending upon the 
     nature of each project. Following is a summary of the four 
     components of the Vanishing Treasures program:
       Emergency Needs. Wind, rain, ice, snow, visitor use, site 
     looters and vandals, insects, birds, rodents, and other 
     forces wear down, break up, and deteriorate prehistoric 
     structures unless counteractive steps are taken. Lack of such 
     steps in recent decades has placed some structures in grave 
     danger. In FY 1998, $2.045 million will fund the most acute 
     emergency preservation projects where collapse and permanent 
     loss of irreplaceable resources is imminent. Approximately 18 
     to 24 projects will be undertaken to meet most of the acute 
     emergency need. A few examples of types of projects to be 
     undertaken include:
       Wupatki and Walnut Canyon National Monuments: These units 
     include 202 sites that have standing prehistoric 
     architecture, including large interpretive sites as well as 
     smaller sites whose structural conditions have been 
     identified as threatened with imminent loss. Only one 
     position is currently devoted to ruins preservation.
       Chetro Ketl, Chaco Culture National Historical Park: Large 
     elevated circular kivas are a hallmark of Classic Bonito 
     Phase great

[[Page S9401]]

     house architectural design. Among many, only Kiva G in the 
     Chetro Ketl ruin has been extensively excavated. Kiva G is a 
     series of eight superimposed, independently constructed 
     ancient kivas, representing at least 18 separate prehistoric 
     construction episodes and elevated 35 feet in the central 
     building mass of the ruin. A support system of masonry and 
     wooden piers, wooden sheathing, and steel beams installed 
     more than 60 years ago to preserve the site have rusted, 
     twisted, bowed, fractured, and rotted so that stresses are 
     now transmitted to the prehistoric walls the system was 
     intended to protect. The area is hazardous to the very 
     workers who preserve the walls. Because of the extreme height 
     and mass, collapse would be catastrophic to the kiva and 15 
     surrounding rooms. Funding would allow a structural/safety 
     evaluation, design plan, and preservation treatment for this 
     important resource.
       Fort Union National Monument: In late July of 1995 a major 
     architectural feature located in the Quartermaster's Office 
     fell, and in the summer of 1996 another wall gave way to 
     strong winds. Resources needed preservation work at Fort 
     Union include but are not limited to a minimum of 250,872 
     square feet of adobe, 83,725 cubic feet of rock foundations, 
     25 new and replacement braces, and an undetermined amount of 
     fired brick in over sixty structural remains.
       Mesa Verde National Park: This park and two associated 
     units protect 5,000 documented prehistoric sites, including 
     585 cliff dwellings and 45 mesa-top towers. Only about 100 of 
     these sites have received treatment over the last ninety 
     years, and structures renowned for their remarkable state of 
     preservation are deteriorating at an alarming rate. 
     Collapsing walls, undermining foundations, sagging roofs, 
     rising damp and eroding mortar all place the integrity of 
     this architecture in danger. Moreover, the recent fires at 
     Mesa Verde National Park revealed as many as 500 new sites 
     that will adds further to the conservation workload.
       Upper Ruin, Tonto National Monument: Unexcavated Room 15 
     contains as much as eight feet of dirt fill, creating immense 
     stress between it and adjacent excavated Rooms 7 and 14. 
     Stress is exacerbated as seasonal rains swell the fill with 
     moisture. Walls are bulging and cracking despite various 
     temporary shoring and runoff diversions. Without correction, 
     the inevitable collapse will soon destroy important 
     prehistoric architecture and unstudied archaeological 
     deposits.
                                  ____


              [From the New Mexico Journal, Sept. 2, 1997]

                     Sun, Wind, Rain Crumble Ruins


             preservation efforts hindered by lack of funds

                         (By Peter Eichstaedt)

       Chaco Canyon, N.M.--Harsh winds, driving rains, and an 
     unrelenting sun are as common here as the timeless stone and 
     dried mud dwellings of the ancient Anasazi.
       But wind, rain and sun could spell the end of these 
     mysterious ruins unless measures are taken soon to preserve 
     them, say National Park Service officials.
       The common notion is ``you don't need to fix them because 
     they're ruins,'' says Dabney Ford, archaeologist at the Chaco 
     Culture National Historic Park.
       Because most visitors come and go quickly, spending only an 
     hour or two at the parks, they rarely notice the annual 
     deterioration of the ruins, Ford says in a recent interview.
       ``There are some genuine disasters,'' she says of Chaco and 
     40 other national parks, monuments and historic sites across 
     the West in need of preservation. Walls are falling down and 
     sites are being washed away by flash floods and downpours, 
     she says.
       To generate public sympathy and federal funds to preserve 
     these ruins, Ford and other national park employees earlier 
     this year launched a drive to secure $3.5 million from 
     Congress.
       But Congress, scheduled to reconvene this week, is poised 
     to provide less than a third of that request.
       If approved, the money would begin a 10-year project called 
     the ``Vanishing Treasures Initiative'' to improve and protect 
     more than 2,000 prehistoric and historic ruins in 41 national 
     parks in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Utah and 
     Wyoming.
       The money would also set up a mentor program where the 
     parks' experienced Native American preservationists would 
     train another generation to do the work, Ford says.


                           gone with the wind

       As Ford leans into the wind while balanced on the rim of a 
     large round kiva, she points to a bulge in the sandstone 
     masonry work below her feet.
       The bulge has been caused by underground moisture that has 
     weakened the ancient mud mortar between carefully laid rock. 
     Natural pressure did the rest, she says.
       The rock must be removed and replaced, she says. ``It takes 
     about one hour to repair one square foot.''
       The hands-on work is done by Navajos such as Charles 
     Lanell, who began working part-time at Chaco Canyon in 1973 
     and who uses techniques that preserve the historic integrity 
     of the sites, she says.
       The parks also face a loss of expertise, Ford says, because 
     the most knowledgeable of the Native American restoration 
     specialists are soon to retire. There are no apprentices 
     to replace them, she says.
       What repairs are performed on the ruins are dire 
     emergencies, Ford says, and only as much work is done as can 
     be paid out of various park funds.
       In some cases, the best thing to do for preservation is 
     simply to backfill some of the multi-room stone structures 
     and kivas, Ford says. Burying these ruins protects them from 
     the ravages of rain, wind and sun.
       ``We haven't been taking care of these things,'' she says. 
     ``There are reasons, and they are mostly fiscal.''
       The situation at Chaco is not unique. At Aztec Ruins in 
     Aztec, N.M., ancient rock walls are tilting and some have 
     fallen. Some of the country's best-preserved and hand 
     plastered rooms are being washed away by periodic rains that 
     leak through deteriorating chamber roofs, says Barry Cooper, 
     Aztec Ruins' superintendent.
       Mike Sherris, facility manager at Aztec, was among the 
     three people who launched the preservation program.
       ``They just were not well-funded for many years,'' Sherris 
     says of preservation work at Aztec and other monuments. 
     ``We're going to lose sites here if we don't maintain them.''
       A third major ruin in New Mexico also has been 
     deteriorating.
       Mike Schneegas, facility manager at Salinas Pueblo Missions 
     National Monument, near Mountainair, also helped initiate the 
     program.
       The preservation needs at Salinas ``were much greater than 
     we thought,'' he says. With just three or four seasonal 
     employees to do the repair work, ``we just can't keep up.''
       Erosion is the biggest problem at Salinas and threatens the 
     many towering rock walls, he says. Moisture from the soil 
     creeps into the mud mortar and weakens the walls.
       A little bit of preservation work goes a long way and can 
     save money in the long run, he says. Repairing a 
     deteriorating wall is much cheaper than rebuilding one.


                            finding a means

       Like other federal agencies in recent years, the National 
     Park Service suffered deep budget cuts and preservations 
     funds were lost, Ford says.
       ``We've downsized and it's been for the good,'' she says, 
     but ``money is tight'' and budgets focus on simply keeping 
     the parks open.
       The House and Senate, in separate measures in July, 
     proposed $1 million and $1.5 million respectively for the 
     Vanishing Treasures program.
       In addition, another $2 million has been proposed for 
     ``stabilization'' work across the country, only a portion of 
     which would be used by the western parks, says Jerry Rogers, 
     superintendent of the Southwest Office of the Park Service.
       The $2 million will be available to all 375 parks and 
     historic sites in the country, Rogers says, while the 
     Vanishing Treasures funds are just for the 41 parks in the 
     West.
       ``The final amount for Vanishing Treasures will presumably 
     be worked out in a conference committee and will be somewhere 
     between $1 million and $1.5 million,'' he says.
       Rogers says he hopes to get more money in future years, but 
     is happy about any money Congress provides.
       ``The need for $3.5 million is very real,'' he says. ``We 
     understand the difficulties Congress faces in setting 
     priorities. The National Park Service will make Congress glad 
     it gave us what they did.


                           Amendment No. 1200

 (Purpose: Clarifies that funds provided for land acquisition in south 
 Florida may be used for acquisitions within Stormwater Treatment Area 
                                  1-E)

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk sponsored 
by Senators Mack and Graham, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no objection, the pending 
committee amendments are set aside.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton], for Mr. Mack and 
     Mr. Graham, proposes an amendment numbered 1200.

  Mr. GORTON. 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 19, line 2, strike the colon and insert in lieu 
     there of ``: Provided further, That the Secretary may provide 
     such funds to the State of Florida for acquisitions within 
     Stormwater Treatment Area 1-E, including reimbursement for 
     lands, or interests therein, within Stormwater Treatment Area 
     1-E acquired by the State of Florida prior to the enactment 
     of this Act: ``

  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I rise today to thank the distinguished 
chairman of the subcommittee for his hard work in getting this bill to 
the floor today. I also want to express my personal thanks for his 
including a truly historic appropriation for land acquisitions related 
to the Everglades restoration effort in my State of Florida. I would 
like to take a moment of the Senate's time today to engage the Senator 
from Washington in a colloquy.
  As the chairman well knows, the restoration effort encompasses all of 
south Florida, from the Kissimmee River in the north to the Florida 
Keys in the south. I understand that while

[[Page S9402]]

the $66 million has been allocated for land acquisitions in Everglades 
National Park, the bill contains language allowing the Secretary to use 
these funds to purchase lands elsewhere in the south Florida ecosystem. 
Is that correct?
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Florida is correct. The legislation 
before us today allows the Secretary to use this funding to assist the 
State of Florida in acquiring land in Stormwater Treatment Area 1--
East, should he determine it appropriate and deemed necessary by the 
Secretary.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I join my colleague from Florida in thanking the chairman 
for his hard work on behalf of the Everglades. As my friend from 
Washington is aware, the Federal Government--under an agreement 
enshrined in the Everglades Forever Act of the State of Florida--is 
committed to purchase land for Stormwater Treatment Area 1--East. This 
land will be used to create a buffer marsh bordering on the Everglades 
agricultural area to help restore water quality. As I understand it, 
nothing in the bill before us today prevents the Secretary from using a 
portion of the Everglades National Park land acquisition funding to 
assist in STA-1E land acquisitions. Is that correct?
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator is correct. The Secretary may use the funding 
in this provision to improve and restore the hydrological function of 
the Everglades watershed. Nothing here prevents the Secretary from 
providing park acquisition funding to assist the State of Florida in 
the purchase of land for the project you described.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I appreciate the chairman's comments and assistance.
  Mr. MACK. I thank the chairman for his work on behalf of Florida's 
environment and for his help here today. I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared by the 
managers on both sides and is noncontroversial. I recommend its 
adoption.
  Mr. REID. I would say these amendments have been cleared on this 
side, on behalf of Senator Byrd.
  I urge the adoption of this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). If there is no objection, the 
amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1200) was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1201

(Purpose: To permit the Virgin Islands to issue parity bonds in lieu of 
                            priority bonds)

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk sponsored 
by the junior Senator from Alaska. I ask unanimous consent the pending 
committee amendment be set aside and we proceed to the consideration of 
the Murkowski amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton], for Mr. 
     Murkowski, proposes an amendment numbered 1201.

  Mr. GORTON. 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:

       Sec.   . (a) Priority of Bonds.--Section 3 of Public Law 
     94-392 (90 Stat. 1193, 1195) is amended--
       (1) by striking ``priority for payment'' and inserting ``a 
     parity lien with every other issue of bonds of other 
     obligations issued for payment''; and
       (2) by striking ``in the order of the date of issue''.
       (b) Application.--The amendments made by subsection (a) 
     shall apply to obligations issued on or after the date of 
     enactment of this section.
       (c) Short Term Borrowing.--Section 1 of Public Law 94-392 
     (90 Stat. 1193) is amended by adding the following new 
     subsection at the end thereof:
       ``(d) The legislature of the government of the Virgin 
     Islands may cause to be issued notes in anticipation of the 
     collection of the taxes and revenues for the current fiscal 
     year. Such notes shall mature and be paid within one year 
     from the date they are issued. No extension of such notes 
     shall be valid and no additional notes shall be issued under 
     this section until all notes issued during a preceding year 
     shall have been paid.''

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the amendment that I am offering would 
amend the Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands to permit the 
Virgin Islands to issue parity bonds rather than priority bonds as now 
required under the organic legislation. The amendment would also permit 
the Virgin Islands to issue short-term revenue bonds in anticipation of 
the receipt of taxes and other revenues. These are authorities 
generally available to the States. The Governor requested this 
authority. The Delegate supported the legislation. The administration 
testified in support of the provisions and the Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources unanimously adopted the provisions as part of S. 210, 
which has passed the Senate. Inclusion of this language on this measure 
may facilitate providing the Government of the Virgin Islands with this 
authority and I thank the managers of this legislation for their 
cooperation.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I believe this amendment has been cleared 
by both sides and we are prepared for its adoption.
  Mr. REID. This amendment has been cleared. On behalf of Senator Byrd, 
I urge its adoption.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no objection, the amendment is 
agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1201) was agreed to.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. REID. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1202

   (Purpose: Technical amendment clarifying that committee provision 
regarding Forest Ecosystems Health and Recovery Revolving Fund applies 
                   only to Federal share of receipts)

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk for myself 
and Senator Byrd.
  This is a technical amendment regarding the Bureau of Land 
Management's Forest Ecosystems Health and Recovery Revolving Fund. The 
Recovery Fund is used for the planning, preparing and monitoring of 
salvage timber sales and forest ecosystem health and recovery 
activities. The amendment clarifies that the Federal share of any 
receipts derived from treatment funded by the account shall be 
deposited back into the Recovery Fund. A percentage of the receipts 
that are collected from salvage timber sales are returned to the 
States.
  That applies to only the Federal share of receipts.
  I ask unanimous consent the pending committee amendment be set aside 
and this amendment be considered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton], for himself and 
     Mr. Byrd proposes an amendment numbered 1202.

  Mr. GORTON. 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 6, line 20, strike ``Any'' and insert in lieu 
     thereof ``The Federal share of''.

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the amendment has been agreed to by both 
sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no objection, the amendment is 
agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1202) was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. GORTON. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1203

 (Purpose: Technical amendment clarifying provision allowing TPA funds 
      to be used for repair and replacement of school facilities)

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I send a further amendment to the desk 
sponsored by myself and Senator Byrd. It is another technical amendment 
clarifying the provision allowing TPA funds to be used for repair and 
replacement of school facilities.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton], for himself and 
     Mr. Byrd, proposes an amendment numbered 1203.


[[Page S9403]]


  Mr. GORTON. 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 32, beginning with the colon on line 13, strike all 
     thereafter through ``funds'' on line 18 and insert in lieu 
     thereof the following: ``: Provided further, That tribes may 
     use tribal priority allocations funds for the replacement and 
     repair of school facilities which are in compliance with 25 
     U.S.C. 2005(a) so long as such replacement or repair is 
     approved by the Secretary and completed with non-Federal 
     tribal and/or tribal priority allocations funds''.

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the amendment is technical. In response to 
the growing backlog of unmet need for replacement and repair of BIA 
schools, the committee recommended that tribes be allowed to use their 
Tribal Priority Allocations funds for replacement and repair of schools 
if they wish. The technical amendment we are recommending today would 
clarify that, if a Tribe decides to use its TPA funds for the 
improvement, repair, or replacement of a school, that work must be 
preapproved by the Secretary of the Interior. In addition, future work 
must be completed with TPA or non-Federal Tribal funding. The Bureau 
correctly noted after the committee included the original language 
that, absent such conditions, it cannot currently meet the needs as 
they exist now. We are attempting to give Tribes some options; however, 
we do not wish to simply add to the need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no objection, the amendment is 
agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1203) was agreed to.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. REID. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. GORTON. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to spend a few moments 
discussing the issues pertaining to the National Endowment for the 
Arts. There are a number of amendments which are either already filed 
at desk or will be filed between now and, I gather, tomorrow afternoon. 
There will be further debate on this tomorrow as well. But I wanted to 
add additional comments, as well as to reiterate some of the points I 
made yesterday, both in support of the amendment which I have filed, as 
well as the general issues that have been raised by a number of the 
others who have spoken with regard to the NEA.
  Again, I would like to begin as yesterday by pointing out that, like 
many of the people here in the Senate, I am a strong proponent of the 
arts; a supporter. In our State we have a number of outstanding 
institutions too numerous to mention without forgetting important ones. 
I will just say in our State we make a major commitment and investment 
in arts activities. There are problems, though, as have been discussed 
at great length in the last day and a half, with the way the National 
Endowment for the Arts has functioned. I don't have specific criticisms 
of individuals, but I do think the results have been ones that have 
raised concerns. They have been concerns I have had since I came to the 
Senate in 1995.
  The principal concern I have is that the way we have proceeded has 
sort of established an ongoing debate which, on the one hand, has 
people arguing that the funding of specific types of, either arts 
institutions or artists, has meant that, in effect, tax dollars have 
been used for unacceptable or, in some cases it is argued, obscene 
activity. On the other hand, we hear from those who seek to be 
recipients of NEA grants, the argument that every time we add more 
controls here in Congress on the way these dollars are distributed, we 
are in effect performing a type of censorship on art and creativity in 
our country.
  My fear is that ultimately this leads us in a direction where there 
is a no-win outcome. Everybody loses. I met and discussed this with 
Jane Alexander. We have talked. I have outlined to her my concern that 
all it will take is one or two or maybe three more objectionable or 
provocative grants and we could well see an immediate cessation of 
support for the National Endowment or for any concept like it. In my 
State, that would be a bit of a problem because a lot of the 
institutions, I think, need lead time before we would totally cease 
support.
  Also, I think if we continue this debate we are really, in many ways, 
undermining the arts themselves. Because every time we have national 
focus on the problems with respect to artistic activity in this 
country, I think if anything it causes people not only to want to see 
fewer tax dollars supporting the NEA, and more strings attached to 
those tax dollars, but I think it diminishes the overall level of 
interest in and positive feelings toward arts activities.
  I also am concerned, and have expressed this before, about the way 
the NEA makes its decisions. Because, as we have seen in the very 
excellent presentation by the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator 
from Alabama and others, the Senator from Texas as well, the 
distribution of these dollars has not been in any sense based on any 
kind of ratios based on population or similar criteria, but rather are 
very disproportionately focused in a small number of communities in our 
country. I think a lot of people, at least in my State, probably in 
others as well, are frustrated, again, with the sort of Washington 
knows best mindset that makes those allocations.

  When I came to the Senate I spent a lot of time trying to decide how 
best to address the problem. The conclusion I reached in 1995, about 
which I have spoken on this floor since, which I worked on when I was a 
member of the Labor Committee, which I have written about in 
editorials, is that we ought to move in the direction of a private, 
privately financed, privatized NEA. In my judgment, moving us outside a 
situation where it is supported with direct tax dollars will allow the 
National Endowment to retain its independence, to not have to get 
embroiled in this debate between censorship and obscenity; to fund 
projects that this national entity would decide makes sense, and not 
have to worry about whether there would be political consequences each 
time it made said decisions.
  I believe such an approach is in the best interests of the arts. I 
certainly think it's in the best interests of the NEA. And I think it's 
in the best interests of the taxpayers who sent us here to make these 
decisions.
  Privatization of the NEA cannot happen overnight. So when I was first 
elected to the Senate, I proposed a 5-year plan to slowly reduce the 
Federal Government's support for the NEA, giving that entity the 
opportunity, the time necessary to become privately chartered, to raise 
money, to build the kind of support necessary to sustain itself at 
least at the current levels, and in my judgment it would be sustained 
at a much greater level if it was privately supported.
  I believe, if we provide a similar kind of timeframe from now forward 
as I originally contemplated--that is through the year 2000, that is 
now 3 years away--that would be adequate to accomplish this mission.
  So, first we need time. Second, we would need to provide, I think, 
some mechanism, some assistance to the NEA to allow it to move to a 
situation where it was privately supported. As I say, my proposal is 
that it be phased out over 3 years. That will give organizations who 
are looking to receive support, lead time to make long range plans. It 
will give the NEA time to build support in the private sector for its 
continuance.
  As a consequence, I am offering an amendment that would set in motion 
the first year of that 3-year plan, by reducing the budget for the NEA 
accordingly, by approximately one-third. At the same time, I think we 
need to provide help. Consequently, my amendment would provide the NEA 
with the authorization to go forward and use some of its dollars to 
begin the fundraising activities needed for it to be an independent 
entity.
  In addition, it would be my plan, if my amendment is agreed to, to 
subsequently introduce a sense-of-the-Senate resolution which would 
encapsulate the full privatization plan that I contemplate. It would 
also be my plan to work with other interested Members of the Senate to 
provide additional tools that would make it more feasible for the NEA 
to function in a private sense.

[[Page S9404]]

 For example, ideas which we have looked at already would be the 
creation of a special postage stamp which would be marketed and sold at 
a greater amount than 32 cents, with the proceeds being made available 
to the private entity.
  Other ideas which have been discussed would include such things as a 
tax checkoff on the tax form through which people could direct a small 
number of dollars they would otherwise be paying to the NEA. So, in 
fact, the people who really wanted to support it would be given this 
opportunity. There are a variety of other ways that we can do it.
  The point is, I believe it is very feasible to generate private-level 
support at least as great as we are providing currently, at 
approximately $100 million a year. I say that for the following 
reasons. First of all, we already know that in this country the arts 
are supported on an annual basis by approximately $9 billion of 
activity and support of this type.
  In addition, we have specific institutions, arts institutions, in 
this country, such entities as the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art and many others, that have an annual operating budget 
considerably greater than the National Endowment for the Arts. So it is 
certainly the case that support is out there across this country to 
provide the kind of resources necessary for the entity to function 
privately and absolutely would be the case if such funds were available 
if we provided some of the tools that I mentioned earlier.
  In addition, as I have indicated in previous speeches on this, I 
think there are a number of other mechanisms that could be available to 
the National Endowment for the Arts if it became a private entity to 
raise funds. They range from fundraising events, where the artists, the 
very artists, in fact, who come and knock on our doors urging us to 
support the entity, could produce and support fundraising activities on 
behalf of that private entity.
  My belief is that such events, whether they are simple dinners or 
they are concerts and performances of that sort, could generate 
enormous amounts of money. In fact, I was noting the other day that one 
of the artists who has been down to see Members of Congress, Garth 
Brooks, just had a concert in Central Park, NY. Approximately 700,000 
people attended that concert. It was broadcast on the HBO network. I am 
sure a huge amount of revenue was generated by the event. Those are the 
kinds of things I would think artists would be available to do in 
support of the NEA, especially those artists who have come to us and 
have said, this is a worthwhile project that ought to be supported.
  I also believe there could be support generated for special events. 
As I pointed out in the Labor Committee when I brought a similar 
amendment before that committee a couple of years ago, each year during 
the various televised awards ceremonies celebrating the arts, such as 
the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tonys, the country and western musical award 
shows, and so on, we hear a great deal of support expressed for the NEA 
by the very performers who attend those events and give away awards. 
Those programs are literally built around the appearance of these pro-
NEA entertainers, and it is my suspicion that those programs generate 
extraordinarily substantial profits for the networks that broadcast 
them. Indeed, I believe just a couple of years ago it was estimated 
that the Academy Awards show drew a worldwide audience of over 500 
million people.
  Certainly, that is the type of programming that could be turned into 
a fundraising opportunity for a private entity supporting the arts. 
Indeed, as I pointed out a couple of years ago, only 5 percent of the 
audience that watched were still willing to pay to watch through a pay-
per-view broadcast of that type of program. It would generate more 
revenue, given the rates that one charges for those pay-per-view shows, 
more revenue than the NEA's current budget.
  Again, all these are opportunities that I think exist out there, and 
I believe we should move in the direction of providing the NEA with the 
chance to benefit from that type of support.
  There are others as well: Collaborative efforts of artists ranging 
from the kind of support we saw a few years ago for USA for Africa when 
the ``We Are the World'' recording produced approximately $60 million 
of support for that cause, to similar types of collaboration, or the 
possibility of reimbursements for commercially successful grants and 
events which the NEA provides the seed money for.
  In short, Mr. President, a variety of opportunities, I think, exist, 
and I think, therefore, it is feasible for the private entity to at 
least generate the type of support that we provide annually and, in my 
judgment, probably considerably more support as if it truly was, as I 
believe it can be, a national level organization.
  Another question, of course, that also has been raised by my 
amendment is, are there other important American treasures--perhaps 
arts related, perhaps not--that we ought to be considering funding? So 
what my amendment does, in addition to beginning the process of 
privatization of the NEA, is to expend the dollars which would be 
reduced from the NEA's budget on the preservation of American 
treasures, the restoration of national treasures. Let me outline the 
specifics.
  First of all, $8 million for the restoration of the Star Spangled 
Banner. The cost to transfer the flag to begin its restoration will be 
approximately $1 million alone. It was recently reported in the media 
that the total cost could run as high as $15 million. Currently, the 
Smithsonian's calculating this amount will not confirm this number, but 
the $8 million we would earmark in my amendment represents a 
responsible amount to begin the preservation effort of the Star 
Spangled Banner itself, the actual flag which prompted Francis Scott 
Key to write America's National Anthem.
  The amendment would also provide $8 million for the preservation of 
Presidential papers. Our former Presidents were prolific writers, Mr. 
President. Their works survive to this date. Private enterprises worked 
for over 40 years to preserve the works of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, 
Franklin, and other Founding Fathers, and they will not survive another 
two centuries.

  The National Archives has focused its resources on preserving modern 
electronic records of local and State archives. The National Historic 
Publications and Records Commission once provided about one-third of 
the funding for the preservation of the Presidents' works, but has 
recently announced that the projects will now have to contend with 
whatever is left after it has satisfied the local archives proposal.
  The fact is the preservation of Presidential papers is now at some 
risk. As a consequence, approximately $8 million of these earmarked 
funds would go to maintaining active support adequate to maintain our 
Presidents' documents.
  Two million dollars in this amendment is directed at the restoration 
of Ellis Island, the site of the arrival of so many people in the 
United States. On islands 2 and 3, the old hospital ward, the 
crematorium and housing for immigrants are in desperate condition and 
appear in the same condition as when they were abandoned by the U.S. 
Coast Guard in 1954.
  The National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed these 
buildings as 1 of the 11 most endangered historic sites in America. The 
$2 million which my amendment would earmark to Ellis Island restoration 
would prevent water intrusion and provide the ventilation and other 
support services necessary to preserve this national treasure.
  There are other components, as well, to my amendment, one which would 
go toward helping to address a serious problem at Mount Rushmore, to 
maintain that facility in good condition, as well as preservation of 
the manuscripts and original works of great American composers which 
are at some risk now of being, like the Presidents' papers, 
inadequately supported.
  In short, my amendment does several things. It sets us on the course 
to privatize the National Endowment for the Arts as opposed to an 
immediate abolition, a 3-year timeframe in which we would slowly give 
that entity the opportunity to move in the direction of privatization.
  Second, it would protect and provide support to protect key national 
treasures--the Star Spangled Banner, our Presidential papers, the 
manuscripts and original works of great American

[[Page S9405]]

composers, Ellis Island, and Mount Rushmore.
  Finally, I think it would help end the division that continues to 
exist at all levels with respect to the National Endowment for the 
Arts. By making the Endowment a private entity, we will take this 
issue, this very divisive issue, out of the Congress, give the arts the 
opportunity to act and give this entity the opportunity to act in an 
independent fashion without a lot of strings and a lot of limitations 
and allow us, as a consequence, I think, to move on in other 
directions.
  We would still have a national entity. We would still have that 
entity supporting worthwhile projects as it deemed, but we would no 
longer have the ongoing battle I have outlined between the argument on 
the one hand that we are too often using taxpayers' dollars for 
objectionable activities and the argument on the other that every time 
we apply strings to these dollars, we are engaging in a form of 
censorship.
  Mr. President, I think this is the right course to follow because it 
would accomplish the goals I have set forth, and tomorrow I will be 
speaking in greater detail on this during the debate time that has been 
set aside.
  At this point, I yield the floor. I thank the Presiding Officer for 
the time.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                           Amendment No. 1196

    (Purpose: To authorize the President to implement the recently 
announced American Heritage Rivers Initiative subject to designation of 
                 qualifying rivers by Act of Congress)

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside 
the pending committee amendments and call up amendment No. 1196.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1196.

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. 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 152, between lines 13 and 14, insert the following:

             TITLE VII--AMERICAN HERITAGE RIVERS INITIATIVE

     SEC. 701. AMERICAN HERITAGE RIVERS INITIATIVE.

       (a) In General.--During fiscal year 1998 and each fiscal 
     year thereafter, the President and other officers of the 
     executive branch may implement the American Heritage Rivers 
     Initiative under Executive Order 13061 (62 Fed. Reg. 48445) 
     only in accordance with this section.
       (b) Designation by Congress.--
       (1) Nominations.--The President, acting through the Chair 
     of the Council on Environmental Quality shall submit to 
     Congress nominations of the 10 rivers that are proposed for 
     designation as American Heritage Rivers.
       (2) Prioritization.--The nominations shall be subject to 
     the prioritization process established by the Clean Water Act 
     (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.), the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 
     U.S.C. 300f et seq.), and other applicable Federal law.
       (3) Consultation with Property Owners.--To ensure the 
     protection of private property owners along a river proposed 
     for nomination, all property owners holding title to land 
     directly abutting river bank shall be consulted and asked to 
     offer letters of support for or opposition to the nomination.
       (3) Designation.--The American Heritage Rivers Initiative 
     may be implemented only with respect to rivers that are 
     designated as American Heritage Rivers by Act of Congress.
       (c) Definition of river community.--For the purposes of the 
     American Heritage Rivers Initiative, as used in Executive 
     Order 13061, the term ``river community'' shall include all 
     persons that own property, reside, or regularly conduct 
     business within 10 miles of the river.

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, this amendment supports one of our 
most fundamental rights, the right of property ownership. This 
fundamental right, I believe, is threatened by an Executive order 
signed by the President on September 11 designating the American 
Heritage Rivers Initiative. This initiative is intended ``to help 
communities and protect the river resources in a way that integrates 
natural resource protection, economic development, and the preservation 
of historic and cultural values.''
  Who could be opposed to that? That, I think, is a goal that all of us 
share. However, in the eyes of those who live along these historic 
rivers, this initiative is just another Washington power grab for 
valuable river front property. It is another Washington intrusion under 
the guise of a program that has never--has never--been authorized or 
appropriated.
  This Executive order allows for eight Cabinet Departments--the 
Departments of Defense, Justice, Transportation, Agriculture, Commerce, 
Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Energy--along with four 
Government agencies--the EPA, the NEA, the NEH, and the Advisory 
Council on Historic Preservation--to decide what happens to America's 
rivers. I ask you, what does a Washington bureaucrat know about the 
Arkansas River or the White River, or any of the 16 leading candidates 
to be designated as American heritage rivers?
  I have listened to my constituents, and they want vibrant river front 
communities that are reflective of the needs of the values of the local 
community in which they live and work. They want a community-led 
process that will make the right decisions for their particular 
community, not a federally dominated process that could dictate to 
property owners how they can use their land.
  The amendment that I offer allows for the river front renaissance 
that so many of our communities desperately need, while offering 
protections for the average property owner and members of the community 
that must live with the decisions that are made.
  My amendment provides the necessary safeguard for property owners and 
communities, while at the same time allowing these river communities to 
benefit from the Federal funds that are available to improve their 
polluted or damaged river areas and spur economic development.
  Specifically, my amendment requires that the list of 10 rivers, 
nominated through the American Rivers Heritage Initiative, be submitted 
for congressional review. It also ensures that the nominations for the 
initiative will be subject to existing priorities that have been 
established by the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
  Most importantly, this amendment ensures protection of private 
property owners who live and own property along the river proposed for 
nomination as an American heritage river. It requires that all property 
owners holding title to land directly abutting the river bank shall be 
consulted, shall be asked to offer letters of support or letters of 
opposition to the nomination as an American heritage river.
  This amendment also protects vital community interests by defining 
what constitutes a river community. Under the Executive order--a flawed 
Executive order, indeed--anyone who is so inclined can nominate a river 
or have input into the nomination process without any relationship--
business, property ownership, any kind of connection--anywhere near the 
river under consideration.
  My amendment defines the river community as those persons who own 
property, reside, or who regularly conduct business within 10 miles of 
the river considered for designation. This ensures that the real 
interest of the community is truly reflected in the development, 
design, and operation of a river that receives the designation of an 
American heritage river.
  This, I think, is an important issue. It is an issue that many of my 
constituents have been energized about. It has just recently come onto 
the scene, in one sense, because the Executive order was issued 
September 11, and the President is seeking to implement this. So I 
think it is appropriate for us on this Interior appropriations bill to 
provide some safeguards and to ensure that while the initiative moves 
forward, that the right of the property owners along these rivers is 
protected; that there is a process that is in place to ensure that 
those who are most vitally affected by the initiative will have input 
in the process, will have some input, have some say as to whether or 
not that river should be so designated.
  While it ensures the environmental protections of the Safe Drinking 
Water Act and Clean Water Act, it will also ensure that these 
communities, many

[[Page S9406]]

times with damaged rivers and polluted waters, will have access to 
vital Federal funds to ensure that those communities can be 
reinvigorated.
  So I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this amendment as a 
safeguard for private property and for American communities.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I share many of the sentiments expressed 
by my colleague from Arkansas. I believe that he has brought up an 
important issue, an issue that should not be decided simply by fiat 
from the President and the President's administration, but one that 
ought to be carefully considered here by the Congress.
  Without having read every word of his amendment, I am inclined to 
tell him that I agree with it. I must tell him at the same time, in 
this relatively empty Senate Chamber, as he knows, his amendment will 
be quite controversial. I am certain it will require a rollcall. For 
that reason, I am particularly happy that he did bring it up tonight so 
that other Members can consider its provisions so that it can be 
debated further tomorrow. But while I had said not too long ago that I 
did not know of a number of other amendments that will require a 
rollcall, I will have to amend that statement and say that I think that 
the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas will require a rollcall.
  I do hope that he and others will speak on it tomorrow. I just say 
that I think the statement he has made is correct, that this is an 
issue in which the Congress should be involved.
  With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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