[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 16 (Thursday, February 26, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1061-S1064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            INTERMODAL SURFACE TRANSPORTATION EFFICIENCY ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am relieved, as are many of my 
colleagues, that the highway reauthorization bill is now on the floor 
of the Senate. I compliment the Senate majority leader, Senator Lott, 
for bringing this piece of legislation, which is so important to this 
country, to the floor for debate. Not only do I compliment and thank 
the Senate majority leader, I thank publicly the Senator from Virginia, 
Mr. Warner, Senator Baucus from Montana, Senator Byrd from West 
Virginia, Senator Gramm from Texas, and so many others who have come to 
the floor of the Senate and who, prior to that time, have worked in the 
committees and subcommittees to produce a piece of legislation that I 
think is a very good and very important for this country.
  Again, I express my appreciation to all of those folks who I think 
have crafted a bill that continues to understand that roads and 
highways represent a national priority and represent a national need.
  There are some things in this country that we don't describe as a 
national need or a national priority. We decide that these are things 
that State and local governments make decisions on individually around 
the country. But there are some things that are national in scope. We 
decided some long while ago that if we were to be a world-class 
economy, we must have a first-class infrastructure, and we must have a 
nationwide network of roads over which we can move commerce and trade 
back and forth across the country. Roads that we can be proud of, roads 
that we keep maintained through the investment that we make in 
legislation like this.
  The difficulty that we have had over the years in constructing a 
highway program has been a disagreement among the various States about 
who should get what, and how much money should go to one State versus 
another for the investment in the infrastructure of roads and bridges.
  In the Senate, we have now constructed a piece of legislation that I 
think has an awfully good formula. It is a compromise, a compromise 
that has been worked out by not only Senator Warner and Senator Baucus, 
but Senator Chafee and so many others. This compromise, in my judgment, 
is fair and makes a great deal of sense for this country.
  It is my hope that the Senate, now having this piece of legislation 
on the floor, will move expeditiously to offer amendments, to consider 
amendments and get final passage. And then, hopefully, persuade the 
other body to do the same so that we can get to a conference and 
finally adopt a conference report on this important legislation.
  I am going to be offering an amendment, perhaps two amendments. I 
will not offer them at this moment, but I want to describe one of the 
amendments that I will offer to this piece of legislation.
  Not only is it important that we have good highways and good roads in 
this country, it is important that the roads be safe. This legislation 
deals with safety standards; it deals with highway safety programs and 
the investment necessary to educate the American people and to provide 
assistance to the States in that education process.
  One of the issues of safety in our country is the issue of drinking 
and driving. It is interesting that if you ask the question, ``Have you 
been touched or affected, do you have a relative or an acquaintance 
that you know who has been killed by a drunk driver?'' almost every 
American will raise their hand and say, ``Yes, I know someone who has 
been killed by a drunk driver.''
  Every 30 minutes in this country someone else dies on this Nation's 
roads because of a drunk driver. Someone who took a drink, and then 
took a car out on a public highway and caused a death. Every 30 minutes 
another American dies on our roads because of drunk driving.
  My family has experienced that tragedy twice. The call that I 
received, like the calls that so many other Americans have received, to 
tell me that my mother had been killed by a drunk driver is a moment 
that I will never forget.
  My mother was driving home from a hospital at 9 o'clock in the 
evening in Bismarck, ND, traveling at about 25 miles an hour, about 4 
blocks from home, and a drunk driver in a pickup truck, being pursued 
by the police, according to eyewitnesses, at about 80 to 100 miles per 
hour, on a city street, hit my mother's car. She was killed instantly.
  It took a long, long time for me to overcome the anger that I felt 
about that. I still today think of not only what a tragedy it was for 
our family to lose such a wonderful woman, but every time I pick up a 
newspaper and read a story or watch the television or listen to the 
radio news about another death on our highways caused by drunk drivers, 
stop when I hear it and understand again what a tragic, tragic thing it 
is. This not some mysterious disease for which we do not have a cure. 
We understand what causes these deaths. And we understand how to stop 
it.
  This country does not, regrettably, view drunk driving as do some 
other countries in the world. In Europe, if you drink and drive and are 
picked up under the influence of alcohol, the penalties are so severe 
that you don't want to think about them. So almost inevitably in 
Europe, whenever several people are out drinking, one person is not 
drinking because that is the person who drives. You cannot afford to 
drink and drive in some European countries.
  In this country, regrettably, for a long while, when someone was 
picked up for drunk driving, someone else would give them a knowing 
grin and a slap on the back, and say, ``That's OK, Charlie.'' Well, it 
is not OK. Organizations have developed in this country--Mothers 
Against Drunk Driving, and others--who began to raise an awareness, 
State by State, on these issues, that the carnage on American roads 
does not have to continue.
  But do you know that, despite all of the work that has been done and 
despite all of the efforts in the States, in the cities, and here in 
the U.S. Congress; do you know that there are States in this country 
where you can put one hand on the neck of a whiskey bottle and you can 
put your other hand on a set of car keys? You can slip behind the wheel 
of that car, put the key in, start the engine and drive off and drink 
from that whiskey bottle, and you are still perfectly legal?
  There are still States in this country, nearly a half a dozen of 
them, that do not prohibit drinking and driving. It is

[[Page S1062]]

unforgivable, in my judgment, that anywhere in this country someone can 
legally drink alcohol while they drive down the roads. I do not want it 
to be legal for someone to be driving a vehicle and drinking.
  There are a couple of ways to stop that. One simple way is to 
describe, as a matter of Federal policy, with the incentives to make it 
stick, that there shall not be open containers of alcohol in vehicles 
anywhere in this country.
  I come from a State that already prohibits open containers of alcohol 
in vehicles. Most States do that. But many States do not. In fact, 
nearly half a dozen States not only allow open containers; they allow 
the driver to drink. I intend to offer an amendment to this piece of 
legislation that complements an amendment offered by the Senator from 
West Virginia and others. That amendment would establish a .08 national 
uniform standard for determining who is under the influence of alcohol.
  I intend to offer a complementary amendment that says: In addition to 
that, in no State in this country shall we allow drivers to drink and 
drive at the same time and be perfectly legal. That ought not to exist 
on any road or at any intersection in this country's road system.
  Now, having said that, Mr. President, that is one issue that I 
obviously feel very strongly about. I feel strongly about that, not 
only because----
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, that is the first time I ever heard a 
rendition of these facts in some States. As one of the floor managers 
of this legislation, I assure the Senator that that amendment will be 
given most careful consideration.
  I thank the Senator for coming to the floor and sharing with us that 
personal experience because that is the true essence of our legislative 
process where those here in the Senate or the House or in any of the 
legislatures across this country bring their own life's experiences to 
help prepare legislation that will make it a better world for others to 
live in.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the kind words of 
the Senator from Virginia. I know that my experience is not any 
different than the experience of so many other families in this country 
who have suffered the tragedy of death as a result of drunk drivers.
  I have worked for some long while, not only supporting the efforts of 
Mothers Against Drunk Driving all across this country, but worked to 
see if we cannot, in some way, effect public policy to say to the 
American people: ``When you drink and drive, you can turn a vehicle 
into an instrument of murder. And we cannot allow that to continue to 
happen.''
  I just read the other day of someone in my State, regrettably, who 
was picked up for drunk driving for, I believe, the 13th or 14th time--
14th time. The fact is, we must decide as a country that we will not 
tolerate drunk driving. It is not an insignificant event. It is not an 
infraction and is something to be considered seriously. It is in all 
too many instances something that causes the loss of life for someone 
else in this country. And we can do something about it.
  The important thing is to understand this is not some mysterious 
ailment for which there is no cure. We understand what happens on our 
highways, and during the period that I am standing on the floor, if 
averages hold up, another American will have been killed because some 
other American was drinking and got in a vehicle.
  Not only has the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, spoken a great 
deal about this, but Senator Bumpers, who lost his parents to a drunk 
driver, and others who have come to the floor when we have discussed 
this in the past understand the human toll and the tragedy of drunk 
driving.
  The legislation that comes to the floor now is a wonderful piece of 
legislation that not only contains much needed investments in our 
country's infrastructure and jobs and economic growth, but it also 
includes very important highway safety issues, which I know the Senator 
from Virginia and others have worked very hard on. Those safety issues 
are a critically important component of this piece of legislation.

  I will be happy to yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator for speaking on 
this subject. We have developed a strong moral sense of outrage against 
smoking. We have talked about the effects of smoking on health. The 
administration has picked it up, and there has been a great crusade in 
this country against smoking. There have been laws passed against 
smoking. And there have been bills passed against this or that aspect 
of smoking.
  Tobacco is a very unwelcome--we have a good many tobacco farmers in 
West Virginia. We have tobacco farmers in many States that make their 
living farming tobacco. I am not opposed to this crusade against 
smoking. I am not opposed to that at all. But why not have an equally 
strong crusade against drinking?
  When I am called upon to participate in any program before Christmas 
or before any holiday or before school graduations in which the thrust 
of the message is: ``Don't drink and drive,'' I do not say it that way. 
I say, ``Don't drink, period.''
  When is the country going to develop a sense of moral indignation and 
outrage at drinking? Those who smoke may injure their own health. I 
hear a great deal about secondhand smoke. I do not know how much of 
that can be proved. But drinking alcohol injures the health of the 
person who drinks. All of us can say, ``Well, our granddaddies or great 
granddaddies drank a little toddy each morning, put a little whiskey in 
the coffee, and so on.'' But that is as far as it went.
  We have conducted a great war against drugs in this country, illegal 
drugs. The most popular drug in this country is alcohol. When are we 
going to say, ``Stop it''? When are we going to teach our young people 
not to drink? It is not good for them. It will get them into trouble. 
It has been the cause of unemployment for tens of thousands of men and 
women in this country. It causes men who drink to go home and beat up 
on their wives and to mistreat their children.
  Not only does it injure the health of those who drink, but it also 
constitutes a threat to others. The person who drinks may pick up a 
club and beat you to death. He may pull out a gun and shoot you. He may 
get behind that automobile wheel, because he is already inebriated. But 
if he had been taught, if it had been ingrained into him by his parents 
in the home to ``Stay away from that drug. Stay away from it. There is 
nothing good in it, nothing!'' If he had been taught to stay away from 
it, he would not be drunk when he gets behind the wheel of an 
automobile.
  When is a sense of moral outrage and indignation going to rise in 
this country to the point that people will teach their children not to 
touch it? ``Stay away from it. Don't drink.''
  I would be very happy to see this administration, and other 
administrations in our party and other parties, join in a crusade 
against strong drink--against alcoholic beverages. But there is no 
sense of outrage, no sense of outrage about this drug.
  It is a drug. And it is habit forming. And there is no good in it. 
When one gets on that path, it has an unfortunate end. It costs money. 
It costs jobs. It breaks up families. It destroys homes. It destroys 
marriages. And it kills people. And many times, the people who are 
killed are the innocent people --the wives, the children--who are out 
there going to the grocery store or going home from school or going to 
the child-care center. And they are killed by a drunk driver.
  We talk about people who have been charged with drunk driving 13, 14, 
15 times. That is outrageous!
  When are we going to have judges and people who enforce the law in 
this country throw the book at them? We should simply not tolerate this 
drug. I don't want to be an extremist about anything, and I'm not one 
who would see harm in an old person that takes a little ``toddy'' as we 
say, a little whiskey, but we don't look at it that way. We look at it 
with an attitude that there is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol, it 
is the thing to do, it is the ``in thing.''
  How many students at the universities around this country have lost

[[Page S1063]]

their lives, who have committed suicide or died in automobile accidents 
as a result of binge drinking? We have read about it in the papers--the 
University of Virginia and other universities. It is bad. When are we 
going to teach our children that it is bad? Don't follow the crowd. It 
is not the ``in thing'' to do. It is a drug that kills. It may kill 
you. It may kill someone else. You will have the blood of that person's 
life on your hands.
  Why don't the legislators of this country get up and talk about it? 
Talk about booze, booze that kills people. They don't want to talk 
about it. We would not hear anything about drunk driving if people 
would teach their children not to drink. There wouldn't then be any 
problem with drunk driving. It is not the ``in thing.'' It is a drug 
that kills, and it is America's most popular drug.
  So count me as one who feels that we ought to have a crusade against 
booze--not just a crusade against smoking, but also a crusade against 
booze. I hope my fellow legislators will rise and stand with me. It may 
not be a very popular thing to say but it is right. I'm right in saying 
that. I'm not right in everything I say, but alcohol is destructive. 
The sooner we teach our young people by our own example not to drink, 
the sooner we won't have as many drunk drivers.
  I smoke a cigar, and have been smoking cigars for more than 35 years, 
but I am supportive of the crusade against smoking. It is not good for 
one's health, but neither is alcohol. I will be happy to have others 
join me in cracking down on drinking and in really, really making it 
tough on drunk drivers. Why should they be allowed to continue to drive 
an automobile if they are going to drive while drunk? Why not take that 
driver's license away? Why not put them in jail, too? And if they 
insist on driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquors, 
put them in jail, fine them. Make it tough on them--the tougher the 
better. Just stop them from driving at all. If they kill other people, 
they might as well have had a pistol. I might as well carry a pistol 
around, just pull it out, shoot anywhere, just let the bullets fly in 
any direction and kill somebody--I ought to go to jail. Let the drunk 
drivers go to jail. Put them in jail and keep them there until they dry 
out.
  Let's try in our churches to create that moral indignation against 
drinking.
  I cannot compliment the distinguished Senator too highly for what he 
has said on the floor today. He has a story that all people ought to 
hear and I commend him for what he has said.
  Now, with respect to the bill, the bill is a good bill but it doesn't 
go far enough. Those who have joined with me in offering the Byrd-
Gramm-Baucus-Warner amendment are saying let's take that money the 
people pay as a tax when they buy gasoline, and spend it on highways 
and mass transit. We are not doing that. The American people, I think, 
are very supportive. I know they are. Our amendment would do just that. 
It would provide that the 4.3 cent per gallon gas tax go for highways 
and mass transit. I have no doubt the American people want it to be 
that way. That is the purpose of our amendment.

  So it is a good bill but we are trying to make it better. I hope we 
will have the support of all our colleagues.
  I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank very much the Senator from West 
Virginia for his generous statement.
  The Senator from Rhode Island was not in the Chamber when I 
complimented him for his work on the piece of legislation that is 
before the Senate, and I appreciate very much the work he has done.
  Let me finish the discussion for a moment on the drunk driving issue 
and the legislation that I will intend to offer. There are a couple of 
statistics that I think are important about this. The Senator from West 
Virginia described the circumstances with young people in this country. 
Drunk driving is killing a disproportionate number of young adults and 
youth in this country. In 1995, over 25,000 children under the age of 
21 were injured because of drinking and driving. In 1995, while 30 
percent of the driving population was between the age of 21 and 34, 50 
percent of the fatalities and 50 percent of the drunk driving injuries 
were in that same group. That amounts to 6,760 deaths and 95,800 
injuries. A couple of other statistics. Hard-core drunk drivers cost us 
thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Fifty-five percent of the 
drunk driving offenders, an estimated 790,000 each year, are repeat 
offenders. An estimated $33 billion in economic costs can be attributed 
to hard-core drunk drivers involved in alcohol-related traffic 
fatalities in 1995.
  I mentioned earlier, there are five States in which it is still legal 
to drink and drive at the same time. There are 22 States in which there 
are no open container restrictions. So there are nearly half of the 
States in this country that say it is just fine to have booze in your 
car, just go ahead and have some whiskey or beer and drive down the 
road, and it is just fine. That ought not to exist anywhere in this 
country. You ought to be able to drive on any road, any place in this 
country, at any time of the day, and not worry about whether the car 
you are meeting is going to cross the intersection has a passenger or a 
driver that is involved in drinking alcohol. You ought not to have to 
worry about that on any road in this country. We ought to be able to 
have some sort of uniform standard on this kind of issue.
  In 1996, the last year for which I have data from DOT, there were 
17,272 alcohol-related traffic fatalities. One every half-hour. Now, we 
have made some progress. I mentioned Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an 
organization for which I have great respect. There has been much 
greater awareness of the drunk driving problem all across the country, 
and organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and others have 
pressed for tougher laws. The fact is fatalities have come down, but 
they are far too high all over this country.
  I mentioned a moment ago a North Dakota driver that the Bismarck 
Tribune, on the 13th of February of this year had an article, ``Driver 
Tops North Dakota's Worst.'' It lists North Dakota's 10 worst drunk 
drivers according to the Department of Transportation information.
  It says, Bismarck man fails to appear on the 11th drunk driving 
charge because he is in a South Dakota jail awaiting trial on the 12th 
drunk driving charge. A Bismarck man labeled the worst driver in North 
Dakota by driver's license officials missed trial Thursday on his 10th 
and 11th drunk driving charges. Why? He is in South Dakota, in jail, on 
another DUI arrest.
  Some might smile at that. This man, if he hasn't already, will kill 
someone. He will get drunk, get in a car, meet a family on the road and 
there will be dead people in his wake. Then no one will smile and 
everyone will understand the tragedy of it and ask why wasn't he 
prevented from being on the road. Why didn't someone lock this person 
up?

  Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. BYRD. And the chances are that the drunk driving escape with only 
a few bruises.
  Mr. DORGAN. That is all too often the case.
  Let me read to you a letter that I received a while back from a woman 
named Brenda Olmsted from North Dakota. I mentioned my family's 
circumstances, the experience that we have had, the tragedy of death 
from a drunk driver. It has happened in family after family across this 
country.
  This young woman wrote to me, and I just want to read a portion of 
her letter.
  My name is Brenda Olmsted, and my life as well as many others was 
dramatically changed. My father and mother had just picked up my 
brother and myself from college and we were returning home to Watford 
City, ND. Our happiness of being reunited was shattered in an instant 
when we were struck by a drunk driver. My father was killed and my 
mother left in critical condition. . . . my brother and I were injured. 
This event took place just over a year ago but its memories are still 
very vivid and the effects are continuing. My mother is slowly 
recovering from a broken back that we have been told will never fully 
heal and bulging disks in her neck and various other serious injuries. 
She is slowly learning to cope with the permanent brain damage that has 
slowed down her thinking process. My brother is slowly struggling to 
overcome some traumas

[[Page S1064]]

to the head as well as the terrors of the vivid memories of that night. 
My father was a pastor, which meant his job provided us with a house. 
With his death we not only lost a father (which hurts more than words 
can tell) but we also lost our home.
  I write this by no means to ask for a hand out but instead to ask 
that you do all you can to make the penalties against drunk driving as 
strict as possible.
  Most of us have seen the public service advertisements on television 
about drunk driving, and most of the advertisements we see these days 
from nonprofit organizations are of some wonderful people--in many 
instances children--on a video camera. Then we learn after 15 or 20 
seconds of the video that this is a young child who was killed in a 
drunk driving accident.
  Let me again reiterate that we can prevent many of these accidents if 
we as a country decide to treat drunk driving differently, if we get 
serious about dealing with this issue. One amendment which is going to 
be offered to this legislation deals with a national standard of .08 
blood alcohol content. The other, I hope, will be a prohibition of open 
containers of alcohol in vehicles across this country.
  Mr. President, I have spoken longer than I intended. I appreciate the 
contribution of the Senator from West Virginia, as well as the 
contribution of the Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner. I look 
forward to coming back to the floor and offering my amendment. Again, I 
hope very much that we will move quickly with this piece of 
legislation.
  Let me finish, as I started, by complimenting Senator Lott, the 
majority leader, for bringing this legislation to the floor now. I 
commit, and I hope my colleagues will, as well, to work in a very 
serious way to move this legislation along as quickly as possible and 
get it to conference so we can finally pass a highway bill and provide 
some certainty about highway investment and safety programs in this 
country's future.
  I yield the floor and 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. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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