[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 139 (Wednesday, October 8, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10622-S10624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              QUORUM CALL

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The clerk will resume the call of the roll.
  The legislative clerk resumed the call of the roll and the following 
Senators entered the Chamber and answered to their names.

                          [Quorum No. 4 Leg.]

     Chafee
     Collins
     Daschle
     Dorgan
     Faircloth
     Lott
     Warner
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). A quorum is not present. The 
clerk will call the names of the absent Senators.
  The legislative clerk resumed the call of the roll
  Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator 
from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to 
request the presence of absent Senators.
  I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
instruct. The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] is 
necessarily absent.
  The result was announced--yeas 94, nays 4, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 271 Leg.]

                                YEAS--94

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kempthorne
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--4

     Bennett
     D'Amato
     Gramm
     McCain

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Biden
     Mack
       
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. With the addition of Senators voting who did 
not answer the quorum call, a quorum is now present.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished 
majority leader, the Senator from Mississippi.


                  Motion To Recommit With Instructions

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, a quorum being established, I now move to 
recommit the bill to the Environment and Public Works Committee with 
instructions to report back forthwith.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Can we have order in the Chamber?
  Mr. LOTT. I will repeat. I now move to recommit the bill, S. 1173, to 
the Environment and Public Works Committee with instructions to report 
back forthwith. And I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1317

              (Purpose: To provide a complete substitute)

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

       The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Lott] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1317 to the instructions of the motion to 
     recommit.

  Mr. LOTT. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with. And I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                Amendment No. 1318 to Amendment No. 1317

  Mr. LOTT. I send an amendment to my amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the second-degree 
amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Lott], for himself, Mr. 
     Chafee and Mr. Warner, proposes an amendment numbered 1318 to 
     amendment No. 1317.

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

       On page 44, strike line 6 and insert the following:
       (e) Limitations on Obligations for Administrative 
     Expenses.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the 
     total amount of all obligations under section 104(a) of title 
     23, United States Code, shall not exceed--
       (1) $301,905,000 for fiscal year 1998;
       (2) $301,725,000 for fiscal year 1999;
       (3) $302,055,000 for fiscal year 2000;
       (4) $303,480,000 for fiscal year 2001;
       (5) $310,470,000 for fiscal year 2002; and
       (6) $320,595,000 for fiscal year 2003.
       (f) Applicability of Obligation Limitations.--

  Mr. LOTT. For the information of all Senators, this exercise, 
unfortunately, is necessary to keep the Senate's focus on the vital 
legislation to reauthorize our Nation's surface transportation programs 
for the next 6 years.
  Really good work has been done by the Environment and Public Works 
Committee. In fact, I believe it was reported by a vote of 18 to 0--
unanimous. While there are obviously some concerns--at any time you 
have concerns on a major transportation bill of this magnitude, there 
will be Senators on both sides of the aisle who will have amendments 
that will need to be offered and debated and voted on. And I am sure 
they will have support on both sides of the aisle.
  In accordance with all Senate rules, I have now completed the 
amendment process with relevant and needed changes to the bill. It is 
the intention

[[Page S10623]]

of the manager to eventually have these necessary amendments agreed to 
by the Senate. However, in the meantime, these amendments will remain 
pending and the manager will agree to a consent that will lay aside 
amendment No. 1312 at any time any Member desires to offer a relevant 
transportation amendment.
  We have been in touch with Members who have relevant amendments they 
would like to offer. We will have Senators prepared to begin offering 
amendments this afternoon, and we will continue on that tomorrow.
  I look forward to making progress on this bill prior to our recess at 
the end of the week. I thank all colleagues for their cooperation. We 
do have cooperation from Senator Baucus, who has been working on this 
with Senator Chafee from the committee and Senator Warner and others on 
both sides.
  I know that there has been an agreement reached on some amendments 
coming up later on after we come back from the religious holiday and 
the Columbus Day recess, but we will have full time for debate.
  I think this is perhaps the most important bill left that we need to 
get done before we go out for the year sometime later on this month or 
early in November. So my intent would be to stay on it and try to make 
progress.
  I do not intend for this to become a campaign finance reform forum. 
There will be votes on that issue tomorrow. They are already scheduled. 
There will be other opportunities to debate this issue. But I think 
that the transportation bill is a very important bill, and we have a 
limited amount of time. The Senate is leading the way on this 
legislation, so we need to go ahead and get the process underway. I am 
prepared to give as much time as it takes to try to get it completed.
  Now, I might say for the information of all Senators, there is the 
possibility of at least one more vote. I had hoped we could clear the 
HUD-VA appropriations conference report. The chairman and the ranking 
member are ready to go but don't have the papers yet, so apparently we 
are not going to be able to do that tonight. We hope to do that 
tomorrow. Then, if we cannot work it out, we may even have to have a 
recorded vote to go out for the night.
  Now, we do not know exactly what time that would come. But I presume 
around 6 or 6:30. Perhaps it will not be necessary. But the Members 
should be on notice there is at this point the likelihood of one more 
vote tonight.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. BYRD. I do not want to go ahead of my own leader here. I prefer 
he go ahead of me.
  Mr. LOTT. I will be glad to yield the floor or respond to questions.
  Mr. BYRD. I want my own leader first. And then I would like to----
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, if I could just respond, I appreciate 
very much the consideration of the distinguished senior Senator from 
West Virginia.
  Let me just say, I regret that we are back into a situation very 
similar to that which we were in during the debate on campaign finance 
reform. The leader, as is his right, has chosen to now fill the tree 
once more. In so doing, it will now require his consent before anybody 
has the opportunity to offer an amendment. He has the right. That is 
the prerogative of the majority leader. But he will determine the 
relevancy of any amendment.

  I will say that it is our right to provide the unanimous consent 
required to move off this legislation for any other purpose. We will 
certainly invoke that right as the situation warrants. I regret that 
this is necessary.
  I regret that we could not take these issues up one by one and 
resolve them, as I know many colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
would like to do. We are precluded from that. So we are now faced with 
a very difficult set of circumstances. I am hopeful that we can find a 
way to address it.
  The majority leader has indicated this is an important bill. And 
certainly it is. I give great credit to the chairman and the ranking 
member for their work in committee to bring us to this point. There is 
a lot of work that needs to be done, and I hope we can get it done.
  But it isn't the only important bill. There is another very important 
bill that we have been precluded from having a good debate on, and that 
is campaign finance. At least for the moment we are precluded under 
these circumstances. But, again, I repeat what I have said before. This 
is a temporary set of circumstances that will be addressed successfully 
before we move on conclusively.
  I yield the floor. Again, I thank the senior Senator from West 
Virginia for his willingness to allow me to make my comments.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could just respond. I am glad to hear 
the minority leader's comments. As the leader of the Democrats, 
certainly he has an obligation to represent their views.
  I agree this is certainly important legislation, and we should 
continue to look for ways that we can have it freely debated and 
amended and move forward. We will keep talking, and maybe we will find 
a way to do that. It is my preference to have every Senator have a 
chance to make his case.
  I would like to get out of the process we are in, but I want us to 
stay on the transportation bill and not have this become another debate 
on campaign finance reform. There are other ways that will be done. 
There are other opportunities that I am sure will come along, but we 
are trying to keep the focus on the highway bill.
  I have discussed with other Senators amendments they have in mind. I 
am going to do everything I can to assure every Senator, he or she, who 
has an amendment will be able to offer it. I would prefer it not be 
done in this process, if we can work out some kind of arrangement 
whereby we would not go with this, where any Senator, as is usually the 
case, can get up and offer an amendment.
  I know Senator Byrd, Senator Gramm, and others are working on an 
amendment that there will be a lot of interest in. I want to make sure 
that amendment has a freestanding opportunity to be fully debated and 
voted upon. I do not think we can ever complete this legislation 
without that occurring. I would like for a lot of other amendments that 
you have--this is important to every Senator. Every State will be 
affected by this, by the formula and by various parts of this bill--
urban mass transportation. It is not something that is partisan. It is 
not something that is regional. It cuts all kinds of different ways.
  So if we can come up with a way over a period of time--I am not 
rushing to judgment, but I do want us to get on--I promised the 
chairman and the ranking member a week ago or more--and we had met 
earlier--that we would begin this bill today, the 8th of October. So I 
am trying to fulfill that commitment. I think we will find a way to get 
it done in a way that will allow us to complete our work, and then 
hopefully the House will follow our leadership on this.
  I would be glad to yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Are you finished?
  Mr. LOTT. As a matter of fact, I will yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD. No, I do not suggest you yield the floor.
  I just wanted the recognition to state for the record that I do have 
a measure to the bill, to the ISTEA bill. I wanted all Senators to be 
aware of that. I would like them to take a look at my amendment when it 
is ready. Before they make any judgment to go with anybody else's 
amendment, I have an amendment that I think will appeal to them, to 
every State. But the leader has already stated that I have an 
amendment, so that takes care of that situation.
  Secondly, I just want to say that whenever we can do our conference 
reports on appropriations, I would like to do them. They are 
privileged. I would like to get as many of those bills down as we can 
get down so we do not have to include them in a continuing resolution.
  If the President is going to item veto any of them, I want him to do 
that in ample time for us to offer a resolution to put those items 
right back on his desk. If he wants to veto that, OK. He has that right 
under the Constitution. We, likewise, have the right to either override 
or sustain. But I would like for him to have time to veto those.
  I hate that item veto with a passion. But it is there, until the 
Supreme Court knocks it down. I cannot see how the Supreme Court can 
avoid knocking that--killing that bill which most Senators voted for, 
which most Members

[[Page S10624]]

voted for, but it is coming home to roost now.
  Mr. LOTT. If the Senator will yield for a comment, I think there are 
probably more Senators and House Members that would agree with you this 
week than last week, I say to the Senator.
  Mr. BYRD. Well, I am heartened by that. I thank the leader.
  Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. In my discussions 
with the majority leader over a period of discussions of the campaign 
finance reform bill, I told him that I would come back with an 
amendment that I wanted an up-or-down vote on. I want to repeat again 
my intentions to have that. I do not desire to tie up the Senate. I do 
not desire to cause problems with ISTEA or other pieces of legislation 
between now and when we go out, but I will have an amendment that I 
believe is important and one that I think should be considered by the 
Senate. This issue should be resolved, I hope, before we go to recess.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator 
from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I just want to make reference to the comments just 
made by the distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia, my friend 
and colleague of 23 years. He has served here much longer than that. I 
have had the opportunity to serve with him for now almost 23 years.
  Mr. President, I have made it very clear in speeches on the floor and 
comments to the public and people back in my home State of Vermont that 
I completely agree with the distinguished Senator from West Virginia on 
the question of the line-item veto.
  I was one of those, as he knows, who voted against the line-item 
veto. I recall when he first came trying to say something to me about 
it. He may well recall this: I said, ``You don't even have to lay out 
the arguments. I can't imagine why anybody in any legislative body 
would want to give up the power of the purse strings to the 
Executive.''
  Again, I do not blame the Executive for asking for it. If any 
Executive thought that the legislative body would be foolish enough to 
just hand over the most significant part of their power to them, well, 
few Executives could resist the temptation.
  Mr. BYRD. George Washington took the viewpoint that he had to veto 
the entire bill or sign it or let it become law without his signature. 
He could not do it piecemeal. Now the Senate and House have made it 
possible for any President to do just that. I do not think George 
Washington would have done that.
  Mr. LEAHY. I say to my good friend from West Virginia, who has as 
strong and abiding history as any person I have had the privilege of 
serving with, that it goes back to George Washington, that more of us 
should say we want to go back to George Washington.
  Unfortunately, we have a lot of people who give discussions about 
what were the Founders' intention, what was in the Constitution. I 
sometimes wonder if they have read either the Constitution, the 
Federalist Papers, or any history less recent than their latest poll.
  I say this because I heard some Members say in the last couple days 
that they wonder whether they made the right decision in voting for 
that line-item veto but did not go on to say, ``But it was so popular 
in the polls''--so popular in the polls.
  My good friend from West Virginia has read much on decisions made by 
those who were at the drafting and introduction of the Magna Carta, has 
certainly read The Federalist Papers more than anybody else here. He 
has read the decisions that have been made at very difficult times in 
our history. And I suspect at most of those nobody was doing any 
polling.
  I do not think that the Founders in Philadelphia--I do not think 
there were many polls being taken. There were certainly discussions 
among people who had a great sense of not only history but the history 
they were creating and the country they were putting together.
  I suspect also, and my friend from West Virginia would probably agree 
with this, I suspect also there were many, many there who read, as the 
distinguished Senator from West Virginia knows, what happened to the 
Roman Senate. Caesar was given the power of the purse.
  I think it is an interesting thing because shortly after the breakup 
of the Soviet Union, we had many visits here from parliamentarians 
coming to see how to set up a democracy. I am still struck by one group 
from Russia who sat in my office asking, how do you do some of these 
things? Suppose your President said, ``No, we will build this weapon 
and we will do that,'' and you said, ``No,'' how could you stop him? I 
said we would not give him the money, and they said, ``You mean you can 
do that?'' That is why, after 200 years of being the most powerful 
nation on Earth, we are still a democracy. We are not a dictatorship 
because there is that check and balance.
  I hope some who feel set upon because their own projects may have 
been vetoed, if they would go back and read history and think not just 
to be concerned because they are discomfited for the moment, but be 
more concerned that they put an enormous hole in the walls that set up 
the checks and balances in our Nation.
  Does a Congress always use the power of the purse wisely? Of course 
not. I can point to times I have been on the losing end in battles on 
appropriations and spending bills. The distinguished Senator from West 
Virginia rarely loses, but can still think, I am sure, of times he may 
have. But it was the Senate working its will. It was the other House 
working its will. And then, if the President doesn't like it, veto it, 
veto the bill.
  I might say, and my friend from West Virginia will remember, we have 
had a number of times in appropriations bills that we pass where the 
President really was against one particular point, and we sent it down, 
and he vetoed it. Then we entered into a process of negotiation and the 
bill gets passed again, and maybe that item, that one item he wanted 
out, was taken out. But he had to make that whole decision of thinking 
they lost the whole bill in doing it, and we had to, too. It is a two-
way street up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. Now we just send it to the 
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
  I say to my friends here in the Senate, don't always jump to what is 
popular in the polls, especially if it hurts the country. The most 
popular part of the Contract With America, the most popular part, was 
term limits. Now, that struck so close to the bone that those who would 
sign the Contract With America made darn sure no term-length-limit 
bills went through.
  There were five or six different versions, so everybody could vote 
for something, but no one version would pass. That struck close to home 
so that went through. Things that strike close to home like that are 
pay raises and what not.
  What I say is, think about the country itself. The line-item veto is 
not a way in any democracy for a parliamentary party to give up its 
powers.
  I thank my friend from West Virginia for raising the point. I yield 
the floor.

                          ____________________