Congressional Record, Volume 144 Issue 35 (Wednesday, March 25, 1998)

[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 35 (Wednesday, March 25, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2526-S2551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

amendment no. 2120

I now would like to talk a little bit about the problems regarding
the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill of the 104th Congress, the Kassebaum-Kennedy
legislation, also known as the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996, called HIPAA. Many consider this
legislation to be the most significant Federal insurance reform in the
past decade. During this Congress, I have tried to closely monitor the
impact of HIPAA over the past year to ensure successful implementation
and consistency with legislative intent.
On March 19th, the Labor and Human Resources Committee held an
oversight hearing to focus on the findings of a GAO report, which I
requested, entitled, ``Health Insurance Standards: New Federal Law
Creates Challenges for Consumers, Insurers, Regulators.'' The report
examines the HIPAA first-year implementation issues and the challenges
that consumers, issuers of health coverage, state insurance regulators,
and federal regulators have faced since HIPAA's passage.
This legislation was limited to the problems of individual insurance.
And another GAO report will be coming forward with respect to the
problems of going from one group to another.
The report confirms that federal regulators have faced an
overwhelming new set of duties under HIPAA. In the five states that
have failed to or chosen not to pass the legislation required by HIPAA
(California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Missouri), the
Department of Health and Human Services is now required to act as
insurance regulator for the state HIPAA provisions. As a result, HHS
has requested an additional $6 million in the supplemental
appropriations bill to fund 65 new full-time equivalent staff for
HIPAA-related enforcement activities in fiscal year 1998.

I share many of the concerns raised by my friend Senator Nickles in
offering his amendment. The federal government is ill equipped to carry
out the role of insurance regulator. Building a dual system of
overlapping state and federal health insurance regulation is in no
one's best interest, and I intend to examine carefully this consequence
of the act. However, we are currently faced with a real problem. We do
not know when the five states will pass the necessary legislation in
order to rely on state regulation. I believe HCFA currently lacks the
expertise and resources to carry out its HIPAA-related responsibilities
absent state action.
I suggested to Senator Nickles an alternative to his amendment. HCFA
has identified a need for 36 employees for essential enforcement in
those states where conforming legislation has not passed. I believe
that Congress should grant HCFA temporary authority to hire these 36
employees for its new HIPAA enforcement in these states for this fiscal
year only. By approving the temporary positions during this fiscal year
at a cost of $3.3 million, we will

[[Page S2527]]

have met today's real need--without permanently adding to the number of
employees at HCFA for non-HIPAA related duties in the future. We should
have the necessary debate on the need to continue this level of
staffing through the normal appropriations process.
I am concerned that if we make these permanent, then California will
just say, ``Well, we might just as well leave it with them,'' and then
we will have employees doing what the States should be doing.
So I will support the amendment of my friend from Oklahoma with the
understanding that during the conference the authors will work out just
how many they have. But I strongly urge they be made temporary
employees and not permanent employees.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of our colleagues, I
think we are very close to concluding debate on this amendment.
I want to thank my colleague from Vermont, and my colleague from New
Mexico and others who have spoken on behalf of this amendment. I also
share his concern. If there are going to be that number of employees in
HCFA, it should be temporary. I very much appreciate that.
I also mention that my friend and colleague from Massachusetts said
that Oklahoma had recently hired five employees to comply with this
provision. I think that is fine. I think that is great, because I
happen to believe in State control of insurance instead of the Federal
Government. States are trying to comply. They are in the process of
complying. The State of Oklahoma can probably hire five employees for
less than $93,000 each, as we would be doing under this piece of
legislation.
So, again, for the information of our colleagues, my amendment would
strike out the provision that would add $16 million for HCFA for the
hiring of an additional 65 employees. I do not think that is necessary.
They have over 4,000 employees today. They certainly can borrow, they
can use, they can have temporary employees. They do not need 65
permanent employees.
We also do not need to be taking money away from the Medicare's
Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, a permanent entitlement provision, to
pay for this measure.
Again, the administration was well aware. The Health and Human
Services Administration has 58,000 employees. Surely they can shuffle
some employees around, if necessary, to meet any emergency that might
arise.
So I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment.
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.
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. 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. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the situation is now that we have nine
amendments in order and probably at least three more that I know of
that are coming. So we have 12 amendments to deal with before we can
get down to the managers' package on this bill. At the request of the
Senator from Massachusetts, I am going to ask that this amendment be
set aside and that it be regular order on the list that we have, to
come before the Senate again after action on the Bond amendments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Nickles amendment is set aside.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, that would mean that at this time, as I
understand it, if I ask for the regular order, the amendment before the
Senate will be the amendment by Senator Faircloth. Is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

Amendment No. 2103

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for the regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is the Faircloth
amendment, No. 2103. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I once again ask Senators to come forward
and tell us if they are going to offer amendments to the supplemental
bill. As I have indicated, we now have at least 12 that are on our
screen and we would like to start working out some sort of time
agreement to dispose of this bill.
I might state to the Senate that as soon as the Senator from North
Carolina has presented his amendment, I intend to make a point of order
against it. That will take place as soon as he has finished his
statement.
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. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. For information of all Senators, it is my understanding
the Senator from North Carolina will take but a short time, and
following his statement, as I indicated, I will make a point of order
against his amendment. He has indicated to me he will ask to waive that
point of order, so that would mean there would be a vote before the
Senate at approximately 10 minutes of 1.
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. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, after discussing the statement I made
previously, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the waiver of my
point of order on the amendment that is going to be offered by Senator
Faircloth--Senator Faircloth will make a motion to waive my point of
order--I ask that the vote take place at 1:30.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

Amendment No. 2129 To Amendment No. 2103

(Purpose: To provide for a reservation of funds for activities under
part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I send to the
desk which is an amendment in the second degree to the Faircloth
amendment which is pending. Is the Faircloth amendment pending?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. GREGG. This is an amendment in the second degree.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. KENNEDY. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] proposes an
amendment numbered 2129 to amendment No. 2103:
At the end, add the following:
(4) Expenditures from trust fund.--
(A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (B), amounts in
the Trust Fund shall be available to the Secretary of
Education for making expenditures to carry out subsection
(a).
(B) Reservation.--
(i) In general.--The Secretary of the Treasury shall
reserve $1,000,000,000 of the amounts in the Trust Fund for
activities under part B of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411 et seq.).
(ii) Use.--Amounts reserved under clause (i) shall be
available to the Secretary of Education, during the 5-year
period beginning on the date of establishment of the Trust
Fund, for use in carrying out activities under such part B.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I will go into this amendment in more depth
after the Senator from North Carolina has proceeded with the core of
discussing his basic amendment. Essentially what this amendment does--
the underlying amendment takes the money from the stabilization fund
and puts it

[[Page S2528]]

toward school construction. Instead of putting it all towards school
construction, this amendment puts $1 billion of it towards special
education. We as a Government have an obligation to special needs
children. I have discussed that on the floor many times. We have made a
40 percent commitment as a Government that, regrettably, is an unfunded
mandate that has not been fulfilled. We are only paying 9 percent of
the local cost. This would help pick up the 40 percent, move towards
that 40 percent, and that is the purpose of this amendment.
I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from North Carolina. As I
understand it, he does not object to this second-degree amendment. I
look forward to hearing this discussion of his underlying amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I am delighted to accept the amendment
from Senator Gregg. It is a good amendment. The States have a burden
complying with this law, and I have no problem with using $1 billion of
the $5 billion we are proposing so the States can meet the law.
Again, these are loans to the States which, in my opinion, is much
better than loans to Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, and others, the likes of
which we have been giving it to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator suspend. Can we take our
conversations off the floor, please. The Senator deserves to be heard.
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I would like to make a motion to waive the Budget Act
with respect to this amendment.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my understanding, if the Senator
will yield, before he can do that, I have to make a point of order,
which I have not made.
Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I was expecting the Senator from Alaska to make the
point of order.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, in view of the information I have just
received that several Senators want to speak on this amendment, I ask
unanimous consent that my previous unanimous consent request be
vitiated.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. That means there will not be a vote at 1:30, Mr.
President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.

Amendment No. 2103

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, what this amendment is about is very
simple. As I have said many times, if we can provide $18 billion for
the IMF without any budget impact at all, I think we can certainly
waive the Budget Act, if it comes to that, to provide $5 billion for
school construction. I don't think it violates the Budget Act.
The ESF at Treasury loans out money. This is what it does. This is
what the new fund will do. The only difference is that this money, I
propose, will be loaned to the school systems throughout this Nation to
rebuild the schools rather than to overseas ventures.
The reason I offer this amendment is this appropriations bill went
from a $2 billion emergency bill yesterday to an $18 billion
international bailout today. I am concerned about the priorities of
some of my colleagues in this body. We are spending money in a
supplemental for operations in Bosnia--a supplemental. Is there anyone
who seriously thought that the President was going to remove the troops
in June of 1998, as we committed he would? Why did we ever think he
would keep that promise? We have no plans to leave Bosnia. There is no
plan to leave Bosnia. We could well be there on into infinity. As long
as we put up money, we will be there.
Second, we are spending money for operations in the Persian Gulf, $1
billion already, to back up a U.N. resolution. Yet, the administration
says that we haven't paid our dues to the United Nations. Well, if they
will pay us for the Persian Gulf operation, we will give them a check
for the United Nations.
Third, we are providing $18 billion for the IMF--$18 billion. I am as
opposed as a man can be to sending our money--and they were identified
by the majority leader in this body as Socialists--I am opposed to
sending our money to silk-suited dilettantes to spread around the world
like it was holy water and theirs to do with as they see fit. This is
not what our money should go for. These are not my priorities. These
are the priorities of the Clinton administration, to send the money to
the IMF while they flit around the country on a diet of champagne and
caviar at the expense of the American taxpayer.
I am tired of and not going to go along with the Tom Sawyer trick of
us painting the fences for the administration, and that is, very
frankly, what we have done. We have catered to and gone along, one
behind the other.

I have priorities that I think need pushing. I think it is far more
important to rebuild the schoolhouses and school buildings in North
Carolina than it is to spend the money around the world for
international bailouts. There is no end to them.
Just to take 1 minute on this international bailout, if the Secretary
of the Treasury Rubin and the administration will come forth and say
this is the last $18 billion, then I might think more kindly of it, but
they wouldn't begin to tell you that, because they know they are going
to be back before the year is out for $28 billion more. They have
already planned it.
I don't work for President Clinton, thank goodness. I work for the
people of North Carolina. Very simply, if we can afford to make loans
to Mexico, Korea, and Indonesia from the Exchange Stabilization Fund,
then we can afford to make loans to the States for school construction
and modernization.
According to the Congressional Research Service, this Exchange
Stabilization Fund had over $30 billion at the end of 1997. This has
become a giant slush fund in the Treasury Department. They do their
dead-level best to keep the fund a secret, because it is under the
exclusive control of the Secretary of the Treasury, and, as I say, they
flit around and pass it out. I think it is time for the Congress to
stand up and say where it goes and when it goes and spend the money for
domestic purposes, whether the Treasury likes it or not.
I thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there are a few times when a chairman
faces dilemmas of this magnitude. I support the concept of more funds
going to schools and to the Disabilities Act. If I make a point of
order, and the Senator makes a motion to waive the point of order, I
think that will carry. I think the Senate will vote to waive. I know
that my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle would vote to make
that money available and, obviously, I think Members on this side of
the aisle think this is a way to somehow or another deal with the
budget in a different way using the stabilization fund.
The net result of the Senator's amendment, if the budget is waived,
is that there will be $5 billion spent from the stabilization fund and
that, in effect, would require our committee to go back and take $5
billion out of the nondefense side of the budget and rescind it. If we
did not do that, our whole bill is subject to a point of order and the
disaster money and the defense money that we so vitally need will not
be available.
I can tell the Senate, it would take me a week to find $5 billion in
nondefense money that we could rescind for 1998. The Senator is aware,
I am sure, that his amendment makes the money available in 1998. It
says that in 1998 the administration is directed to spend $5 billion
from the stabilization fund.
At the time of the Mexico crisis, I did a study of the stabilization
fund. It was created at the time the United States went off the gold
standard, and someone in the Treasury decided that since we are off the
gold standard, we ought to figure out what the gold in Fort Knox is
worth, and they did. As the price of gold went up, the stabilization
fund went up. It does not represent any capital in the sense of income
that is saved; it represents the value of the gold in Fort Knox.
Literally, in order to pay for the expenditures that the Senator's
amendment would authorize, otherwise

[[Page S2529]]

pressed, the Treasury would have to sell the gold in Fort Knox.
Unfortunately, the value of that has gone down, and the stabilization
fund may really not be worth as much as people think it is.

In any event, this amendment has some strange quirks to it, as far as
this bill is concerned. I do not want the Senate to waive the Budget
Act, because if we waive the Budget Act, as I said, the whole bill is
subject to a point of order. If we adopt the amendment, the bill is
subject to a point of order similarly, in my opinion, unless we go back
and take out the $5 billion that it would spend in 1998.
I may be misinformed on that regard, but I know the effect of
spending that kind of money would require us to go back and take the
money out of existing accounts on the nondefense side.
I think the Senate ought to have some time to think about this. I
think the Senator ought to think about it, because it is not going to
achieve the result the Senator seeks. It is not going to embarrass
anybody on the Democratic side. They are going to vote for his
amendment. It is not going to embarrass anyone on our side of the
aisle; they are going to vote for the amendment. And it is not going to
embarrass the administration; they want to spend that kind of money, $5
billion more money.
As my grandmother said, it is money made of whole cloth. It is not
there. It wasn't in the budget to start with and somehow that money
will have to be accounted for in the budget process this year.
I understand what the Senator from North Carolina is trying to do,
but it is not going to achieve the result that he seeks. I can tell him
I am informed the Democratic Members will vote for his amendment, as
Democratic Members will vote to waive, as he seeks to make. The net
result is the Senator will increase spending by $5 billion, unless we
go back, as I said, and take $5 billion out of the nondefense side of
the budget that is left to be taken out in the last 6 months of this
year.
I can tell the Senator, in order to do that, you have to take out
about $15 billion, because we are talking about outlays, and it is just
not possible this time of the year to get that kind of money without
doing severe damage to a lot of programs, whether they be agriculture
programs--they would be on the nondefense side. We cannot touch defense
on this amendment.
It is a nightmare, really. But it comes about because I understand
Senators do not want to vote against the Senator's amendment, as he
might have anticipated. They will not vote against this amendment.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set the Senator's amendment
aside to a time certain at 5 o'clock, and we will find some time to
deal with it between now and then.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

Amendment No. 2120

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment
briefly upon the amendment which was argued a little earlier in the
day. I had been on the floor when the amendment by the distinguished
Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Nickles, was offered. There were many
Senators here, and I had other commitments. I am going to support
Senator Nickles' amendment, although I do so with some substantial
concern for the funding at HCFA.

When the additional personnel had been requested to move forward on
the provisions of the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, it seems to me that
Senator Nickles had made a valid argument that most of the States,
almost all of the States, have applied and it is not in an emergency
classification. I am further concerned that this funding has been
requested by the Department of Health and Human Services on an
emergency appropriations bill which does not quite fit the mold. Where
we have these emergency appropriations bills, it is my view that we
really ought to limit them to matters that are truly emergencies and
not seek to pile on and use this as an occasion for appropriations
which really can wait their turn.
I speak on this amendment in my capacity as chairman of the
appropriations subcommittee which has jurisdiction over the Department
of Health and Human Services. We conduct, through my subcommittee,
considerable oversight on HCFA. I am very much concerned that they
should be adequately funded to carry out their duties.
Last week, we had a hearing with HCFA on the issue of the changes in
compensation for a variety of physician categories, and at the same
time we also had a hearing for the appropriation for fiscal year 1999
where the Secretary of Health and Human Services testified and the
Administrator of HCFA, Min DeParle, testified as well, and did not
raise the issue of this appropriation in this emergency appropriations
bill. So I do think that had it been a matter of great urgency, in my
capacity as chairman of that subcommittee, it would have been called to
my attention, it would have been impressed on me, which was not the
case.

In reviewing this matter with the distinguished chairman of the
Appropriations Committee, I do concur with his analysis that it is not
an appropriate matter for an emergency appropriation. And if it is the
enforcement of Kassebaum-Kennedy, there are personnel available to do
that, and that is not at a critical stage.
I had heard that the appropriation was sought to carry forward the
change in the schedule on physicians' compensation, but apparently that
does not seem to be the case. So, as I say, I am ready, willing, and
able to take a look at what HCFA needs. We are now in the process of
considering the appropriations bill for next year, and I think an
orderly process makes it preferable that we consider this appropriation
request at that time.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). Who yields time?
Mr. SPECTER. In the absence of any other Senator seeking recognition,
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is the Wellstone
amendment No. 2128.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that
amendment be temporarily set aside and that my amendment concerning
Bosnia be before the body.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. President.

Amendment No. 2121

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am glad to have a brief opportunity to
further explain why I have offered this amendment concerning Bosnia. I
believe there will be an opportunity to vote on this, perhaps in the
context of a motion to table, very soon, perhaps as soon as 1:30, so I
would like to offer just a couple of remarks about why I have offered
this amendment.
What the amendment would do is remove the emergency designation from
the Bosnia money that is in this bill. There are various pots of money
in this bill, but I am only talking here about the Bosnia money
concerning the operation in the Bosnia theater. If the Senate
determines that these funds are not an emergency--if I am able to
prevail in this amendment--then they would be treated like any other
kind of spending, any other kind of regular spending. In other words,
under this scenario, if the administration wants to have these
expenditures, they would have to follow the regular procedure. That is,
the administration and the Members of Congress would have to find an
offset from within the budget caps for these defense expenditures.
Otherwise, these defense expenditures would be sequestered.

The reason I am offering this is that the emergency designation as
drafted in this bill for the Bosnia funding is really just a way around
spending caps. In my mind, it is a ruse. It is just a budget fiction.
It means we are ignoring our own budget caps.

[[Page S2530]]

My personal preference would be that we had not put ourselves in the
first place in the position of having our troops in Bosnia this way. I
opposed the deploying of our troops to Bosnia and still do. Since we
have and we are in the situation that we are in, I think at a bare
minimum with regard to the continuing of the Bosnia mission, we have to
exercise some budget discipline here. Why wouldn't the budget rules
apply to this Bosnia situation?
What my amendment does is help us exercise that discipline. It
strikes the emergency designation for the Bosnia money, again for the
simple reason that the Bosnia operation is certainly a very important
operation but it is not an emergency. It is very hard to argue that the
ongoing, ever-lengthening mission in Bosnia is an emergency. Yet we are
faced with this emergency designation as a way to bootstrap this
funding into this bill which is supposed to be about emergencies.
This amendment does not set an end date by which our troops should
leave Bosnia, although I do want to see us do that. I hope it would be
no later than June 30 of this year. This amendment does not call for
our troop withdrawal at this time, although I very much would like to
see that happen. All it does is simply force the administration to be
straightforward and force the supporters of the administration's
policies to be straightforward and to face the reality of the fiscal
demands of this mission.
What has happened here is an operation that we were told would only
cost $2 billion has already cost the American people $8 billion, and
now we are asked to put another half a billion into this, and somehow
people are arguing that it is on the basis of an emergency situation.
That is simply not credible. This speaks both to the problem of the
Bosnia mission and the problem we have with budgeting in general in
this country. People are appalled that emergency bills are used as
windows of opportunity to achieve other agendas. I am the first to
admit that there have been more gross violations than this one, but
this is a lot of money, and the American people are beginning to wake
up to the fact that we have spent 8 billion American dollars in the
Bosnia situation.
At a bare minimum, what we try to do in this amendment is say,
``Let's find out how we are going to pay for this. Let's have the
budget rules apply. Let's have the administration and the Congress say
exactly how they will pay for this,'' instead of, in effect, deficit
spending that is being used to fund the Bosnia mission.
I yield the floor and 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. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 2129

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I know the Feingold amendment is pending,
but I want to speak to the issue of the Faircloth amendment which was
offered earlier and which I understand will be resumed and possibly
voted on later this afternoon, specifically to my second-degree
amendment to the Faircloth amendment.
The second degree says that of the $5 billion that would be taken
from the stabilization fund--which is, I believe, essentially a fund
that allows the Treasury the flexibility to do things like Mexico
bailout and the bailouts in Asia, of the $5 billion that Senator
Faircloth has suggested we take back into the Treasury to take control
over, which I think is a good idea--that $1 billion of that would go
towards special education.
As many people who have listened to me speak occasionally on this
floor know--or some people know because I suspect many don't listen or
would rather ignore it--the special education funding accounts of this
Government are totally skewed in that when the bill for special
education was first passed back in 1976, the Federal Government said it
would pick up 40 percent of the costs of the special needs child in the
local school districts. Over the years, the Federal Government has
failed miserably in fulfilling its obligations, and instead of paying
for 40 percent of costs, as of 2 years ago it was down to paying for
only 6 percent of the costs of the special needs child.
As a result of efforts by a number of Senators, including myself and
Senator Lott and the Presiding Officer, we have been able in the last 2
years on the Republican side to significantly increase funding for
special education, with no support, by the way, from the
administration, to the point where we now have it up to approximately
9.5 percent of the costs of the special education being borne by the
Federal Government--still a far cry from the 40 percent.
The administration has put forward a budget this year which calls for
virtually no increase in special education funds, which is an
outrageous position in light of the fact that they are also suggesting
we create new programs in the elementary and secondary school level
that would cost approximately $12 billion. But they can find no room in
their budget for special education for kids who need special education,
which is truly inappropriate.
What has happened is the special needs child finds himself put in a
situation where in local school district after local school district
that child is really in an untenable and unfair position relative to
other children in the school system. The parents of that child are
forced to be put in confrontation with the children and parents who do
not have special needs, in different school systems, in a competition
for resources, in a competition for resources which should be there if
the Federal Government paid its fair share but which are not because
the Federal Government does not pay its fair share.
This administration, in suggesting $12 billion in new programs
outside of special needs funding, is essentially saying we are not only
not going to fund the needs of the special education to the level
required by the law; we are going to take money which would relieve the
pressure on the special education child, which would relieve the
pressure on the local school district, we will take that money and
create new programs, new mandated programs, new categorical programs
where the local school districts will have to do what we say they have
to do in Washington in the area of buildings and in the area of class
size at the expense of the special needs child, one more time.
If this money was put where it was supposed to be under the law, the
40 percent as the Federal Government is supposed to pay for it, if the
President's budget funded special education at the level that it was
required to be funded under the law, then those new programs, instead
of being started in buildings, instead of being started in class size,
those dollars would flow to the special education accounts and the
local school districts could make the decisions because they would then
have their resources freed up as to what type of buildings they wanted,
what type of courts they wanted, and the decision process would be
controlled where it should be--at the local level, not here in
Washington. But that is not the policy of this administration. The
policy of this administration is to essentially try to take control
over local education, pull it into Washington through these categorical
grant programs, and, at the same time, underfund the special needs
program, putting the local school districts in the lose-lose position
of having to pay the Federal share of special needs and they also have
to do what the Federal Government wants it to do in other areas in
order to get any Federal money at all--totally inappropriate and
extremely prejudicial, especially to the local school districts and the
special needs.

That is a long explanation, but it is an attempt to lay the
groundwork for the purpose of my amendment. If we are going to bring
more money back into the Federal Treasury under the control of
Congress, which we should--and I think Senator Faircloth's amendment is
appropriate in this area--we should not have this, for want of a better
word, ``slush fund'' sitting there for the purposes and under the
control of the Congress to spend, the $5 billion. If we are going to
bring that $5 billion back into the control of the Congress, not only
should we bring it back here, but we should spend it on obligations
that we know we have, which are on the books and, specifically, special
education.

[[Page S2531]]

So the vote on this Faircloth amendment really becomes fairly simple.
To put it in its starkest terms, you can vote for a slush fund that may
be used to bail out the Soeharto family, which is worth billions and
billions of dollars in Indonesia, or you can vote for the special-ed
child back in your hometown and your home State who needs the support
of this Government and whom this Government said they were going to
support. That is the vote. The choice is simple. I certainly hope that
this Senate will come down on the side of special education.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Privilege of the Floor

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ann Sauer and
Orlando Taylor of my staff be granted privileges of the floor during
consideration of S. 1768, the 1998 emergency supplemental
appropriations bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 2121

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the Feingold amendment strikes the
emergency designation for the Bosnian funds from the bill. This
supplemental request is mandated by section 8132 of the appropriations
bill for 1999. If the President certifies that the mission to Bosnia
must continue, under the law this then continues. Bosnia costs are
emergency, as Congress specifically funded only through June 30, 1998.
The problem we face now is the cost of the continued deployment has
already been paid. The administration has sought to seek these funds to
avoid damage to the readiness and the quality of life that the military
faces, which is not currently deployed, but they may face missions, as
I have told the Senate before, to Bosnia or Iraq within the remainder
of this year.
The emergency designation allows those moneys necessary for this
deployment to come out of the emergency fund rather than having to come
out of reprogrammed accounts for the moneys we have already
appropriated for quality of life and for readiness for the remainder of
the force that is not deployed.
Under the circumstances, I agree with Senator Feingold's position.
We, however, thought we had a commitment that the troops would be out
on July 1. I think the Senate realizes that. The President made the
finding that the law required it if he was going to continue the
deployment, and that is not only for 1998 but for 1999.
We will address, as we have already indicated with the comments of
the Senator from Texas, Mrs. Hutchison, today, the continued deployment
in Bosnia at length during the consideration of both the authorization
bill and the defense appropriations bill this year as we look to 1999.
But for the purpose now of dealing with the continued deployment for
the remainder of this year, I implore the Senator not to require, by
striking the emergency designation, that these funds must be taken from
other portions of the Department of Defense that are already accounted
for in the appropriations we have made for those functions. And we
would again just be doing that.
I feel like a white rat in one of those circular wheels. We just
continue to go around and around. And we don't get anywhere if we
appropriate money and we have to go back and take that money and put it
into another purpose, particularly this late in the year.
It would also have a problem because some of the moneys that have
already been committed would not actually be spent until 1999. We went
into that yesterday in connection with another matter.
But, clearly, if we do not have the emergency designation, those
moneys that are actually spent in 1999 will be counted against our
allocation that we are already working on for 1999 in terms of the new
bill for fiscal year 1999. And, unfortunately, the Congressional Budget
Office has already told us we are $3.7 billion short to meet the level
of funding that is indicated in the budget.
There is this battle between the Congressional Budget Office and the
Office of Management and Budget. This will add to that deficit. When we
try to correct that deficit, it would mean the moneys that are
basically emergency moneys to deal with the continued deployment
through September 30 of this year must actually be counted against
1999. I have to tell you, Mr. President, that makes that problem of the
deficit and defense allocation for outlays for 1999 even that much
worse.
So, under the circumstances, I have no alternative but to urge the
Senate to table the Feingold amendment. Let us deal with Bosnia in
terms of the 1999 bill, and let us address the whole subject of the
continued deployment and the funding for anything that goes on.
I will tell the Senate that it is not possible to get those soldiers
out of there at one time. There has to be, if we are going to have a
staggered withdrawal, a staged withdrawal, a downsizing to the point
where we can do it legitimately, and without risk to anyone.
So I urge the Senate to support me in the motion that I am going to
make in order to prevent us from forcing the Department of Defense to
use moneys that have already been appropriated for other functions in
the Department to pay the cost of this emergency caused by the
President's determination that the troops will stay there after July 1.
I am about ready to make the motion to table. Before I do so, does
the Senator wish to make one last statement concerning his amendment?
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for his courtesy,
and I want to speak for just a minute in response to the chairman's
remarks. I appreciate the remarks. I understand the difficult situation
he is in.
But what I can't understand is why we let the administration and
others who have represented to us certain limits with regard to the
Bosnia operation put us in this position. The leadership of this body
said this would cost $2 billion, and that is it, and we would be there
for 1 year, and that is it. Now it has cost $8 billion and another $\1/
2\ billion. Yet they don't provide us with a way to prepay for it. They
don't tell us how to offset it. But what they are, in effect, asking us
to do--forcing us to do--is to take this out of Social Security. It is
deficit spending. It is deficit spending. Sometimes we have to do it,
as the chairman has pointed out, in true emergencies. Some of what is
in this bill I can't deny involves true emergencies, such as tornadoes
and floods. But why should we let this administration put us in the
position of having to deficit spend to add onto what is already a
quadruple of the $2 billion we were promised this would cost?
So, Mr. President, all we are trying to do is have a little truth in
budgeting here, remove the emergency designation, and have an honest
accounting of how this should be paid for.
But I sure want to recognize the chairman's challenge in this area.
It is very difficult. In effect, he and others are being forced to have
to do this in a situation that isn't appropriate. The administration
and others should have identified an offset.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to table the Feingold amendment,
and 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 of
the Senator from Alaska to lay on the table the amendment of the
Senator from Wisconsin. On this question, the yeas and nays have been
ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 92, nays 8, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 41 Leg.]

YEAS--92

Abraham
Akaka
Allard
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Chafee
Cleland
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin

[[Page S2532]]

Enzi
Faircloth
Feinstein
Ford
Frist
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Grams
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Helms
Hollings
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
Kempthorne
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
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--8

Ashcroft
Brownback
Feingold
Gramm
Grassley
Johnson
Kohl
Nickles
So the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 2121) was agreed
to.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move
to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. FAIRCLOTH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator from North Carolina.

Amendment No. 2103 Withdrawn

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I make a motion to withdraw the
amendment that I had introduced, No. 2103. It was introduced yesterday.
I would like to withdraw the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn.
The amendment (No. 2103) was withdrawn.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina.
It does relieve a problem we are developing here.

Amendment No. 2122

Mr. STEVENS. Under the previous agreement we have, it is my
understanding now that the pending business will be amendment No. 2122,
offered by Senator Bond. Is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment
offered by my friend and colleague, Senator Kit Bond. I am pleased to
cosponsor this measure. This amendment will help address the
devastating effects of the 100-year ice storm which tore through the
north country of New York and the Northeast this past January.
The amendment will provide $260 million in community development
block grant (CDBG) funds to State Governments for recovery efforts in
federally-declared disaster areas. The CDBG program has the advantage
of providing states and localities with a great degree of flexibility
in meeting local needs and can be used in the emergency context to fund
home repairs, debris removal and the restoration of electrical power to
low and moderate income families.
Mr. President, the six counties in New York which were declared
federal disaster areas--Franklin, St. Lawrence, Essex, Clinton, Lewis,
and Jefferson--comprise a 7,000 square mile area. This represents an
area roughly the size of Massachusetts. Tens of thousands of homes in
this area suffered structural damage from ice, severe winds and
subsequent flooding. Families were displaced and electricity to over
400,000 people was cut off. The entire high voltage transmission system
for this area was wiped out and replaced in a three-week period.
This amendment will provide much-needed relief for New York
homeowners and ratepayers. This assistance is vital to repair storm-
related damage to the homes of the families of the north country.
Unfortunately, assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) and Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan programs
have not met all the needs of affected families. These funds will help
homeowners repair damaged roofs, plumbing and heating systems.
In addition, this amendment will also help to address the massive
costs associated with the near-total devastation of the region's
electric power system. During the storm, nearly 10,000 utility poles
were destroyed--many literally snapped in half. Repair crews worked 16-
to 18-hour shifts--often in sub-zero conditions in the dead of night--
removing downed utility lines, fallen trees and debris, removing
destroyed poles from the frozen ground and drilling holes for new
poles.
Line crews and tree-cutting crews were brought in from other regions
of New York State, as well as from Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut,
Michigan, Virginia, and North Carolina. These crews replaced hundreds
of miles of electrical cable, 150 two-pole 90-foot-tall transmission
towers and over 2,000 transformers. The equipment and materials for
this undertaking had to be brought in from as far away as Oregon,
Florida, Georgia, and Nevada.
Mr. President, without this funding, the costs incurred by this
massive restoration effort could be passed on to the utility ratepayers
of New York. New York currently has one of the highest electric rates
in the nation--some 40% higher than the national average. The hard-
working families of the north country who have bravely endured the ice
storm should not have to suffer additional increases in their utility
bills.
Mr. President, I commend Senator Bond for including language in this
amendment which will ensure that these funds are allocated in a fair
and cost-effective manner. Specifically, the amendment provides that
funds should be dedicated to states based on unmet needs which have
been identified by the Director of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA). By providing a role to the Director of FEMA, the
amendment will help ensure a fair distribution of funds.
FEMA has made an excellent start in identifying unmet needs which
have not been addressed by other federal disaster assistance programs.
The February 1998 FEMA Report, ``A Blueprint for Action,'' clearly
identifies the principal unmet needs of New York and the Northeast
region resulting from the ice storm. Under the terms of the amendment,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will take into
account the costs associated with these unmet needs in making
allocation decisions. The amendment effectively addresses concerns
which have been raised regarding HUD's past distribution of emergency
CDBG funds. Under some previous allocations, large states have fared
poorly. Specifically, HUD has at times used a ratio which unfairly
penalized states with larger gross products. This amendment effectively
addresses those concerns and makes clear that funding allocations are
to be based on needs which cannot be addressed through other federal
disaster programs.
In addition, I support Senator Bond's inclusion of a requirement for
a State match of public or private funds. This provision is consistent
with other federal disaster programs and will help leverage additional
resources for disaster recovery efforts. This matching requirement will
also give States an added incentive to ensure that funds are used in a
cost-effective and efficient manner.
Mr. President, this amendment is a necessary and vital step to help
the families of the north country recover from the devastation caused
by the ice storm. These funds will bring much-needed relief to a region
which has suffered terrible loss from this natural disaster.
Once again, let me thank Senator Bond for offering this important
measure and providing assistance to the people of New York. In
particular, I thank Senator Snowe for her efforts on behalf of the
Northeast States affected by the ice storm. Also, my friend Senator
Moynihan deserves praise for his efforts on behalf of the people of the
north country. He has helped ensure that their voice has been heard
here today. Finally, I would like to thank Senator Ted Stevens, the
chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for his diligence in bringing
this amendment up for consideration by the Senate. I urge its immediate
adoption.

funding increase

Mr. President, at this point I would like to engage my good friend
Senator Bond, the Chairman of the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee,
in a colloquy regarding the amendment to provide critically needed
funding to the emergency CDBG program. I appreciate your efforts to
increase the funding provided by this amendment from $200 to $260
million. As the Senator is aware, this additional funding is vital to
ensuring that the States in the Northeast which were devastated by the
ice storm receive adequate funding to speed this recovery.

[[Page S2533]]

Unfortunately, while both the Small Business Administration and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have contributed significant
resources to homeowners in the region--the funds provided have been
insufficient to address the full impact of the storm. For instance,
while FEMA's Individual and Family Grant Program has helped hundreds of
families, thousands of other families--including low-income and elderly
persons--have been unable to access the program because of FEMA's
daunting application procedures.
Together with the 25-percent matching requirement which was included
in the amendment this funding increase will help the areas affected by
the ice storm get back on their feet.
Mr. BOND. I thank Senator D'Amato, the chairman of the Ranking
Committee which has jurisdiction over the Community Development Block
Grant Program for his kind words. It was a pleasure to work with you to
ensure that the Supplemental Emergency Appropriations Act contains
sufficient funding to help impacted areas recover from natural
disasters. Specifically, I commend the Senator from New York for his
diligence in ensuring that the full scope of the impact of the ice
storm in the Northeast was made known to the Appropriations Committee.
Without his efforts, and those of his colleagues, many of the needs of
the people of New York and the entire Northeast region might not have
been fully addressed. Given the circumstances which have been brought
to our attention, the committee believes the additional $60 million is
fully justified and will help the residents of the area recover from
the ravages of the ice storm.
Mr. D'AMATO. I thank the Senator and appreciate his willingness to
address our concerns.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, 1998 will long be remembered in the State
of Maine as the year of the Ice Storm. In early January the state was
coated with more than three inches of ice--the result of a once in a
lifetime storm that left more than 80 percent of the State without
power.
It was an extraordinary event--both for the way the people of Maine
pulled together and for the damage it did to the state's utility
infrastructure. The reaction of the people of Maine was proof positive
that ``Maine: the way life should be'' is not just a slogan, it is a
fact. I was overwhelmed by the resiliency and compassion I witnessed
across the state last month, and Senator Collins and I shared our
thoughts and our praise for the people of Maine on the Senate floor.
We have worked, along with our colleagues from Vermont, Senators
Jeffords and Leahy and New York, Senators D'Amato and Moynihan, to
obtain additional federal assistance, through the Community Development
Block Grants Program (CDBG) to help cover damage done in the state that
FEMA did not cover. Specifically, the damage done to the state's
utility infrastructure.
I appreciate the assistance provided to us by the Chairman, the
Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, Chairman Bond of the VA/HUD
Subcommittee, and the Ranking Member of that Subcommittee, Senator
Mikulski in crafting this amendment. The amendment, which I am
cosponsoring, will provide $260 million for the CDBG program. This
money will allow states, like mine, that have been declared disaster
areas, to obtain CDBG money to address the unmet disaster needs--or
fill the gaps--that FEMA has identified.
In Maine, the biggest cost of the storm was the damage done to the
utility infrastructure. Vice President Gore, during a visit to Maine on
January 15, summed up the situation succinctly when he said ``We've
never seen anything like this. This is like a neutron bomb aimed at the
power system''.
The combination of heavy rains and freezing temperatures left the
State coated with more than three inches of ice. The weight of this ice
downed wires, toppled transformers and snapped utility poles in two. At
the peak of the storm 65 percent of the customers--more than 275,000
households served by Central Maine Power (CMP) Company were without
electricity. Bangor Hydro Electric Company had 75 percent of its
customers--more than 78,000 without power.
In fact at the height of the storm more than 80 percent of the entire
State of Maine was in the dark.
It took CMP, which supplies power to 77 percent of the State, 23 days
to restore power to all its customers. They did it with 1,048 crews
working around the clock and running up 177,000 hours of overtime. They
had to secure downed wires, replace more than 1 million feet of cable,
3,050 utility poles and 2,000 reformers. They have estimated the cost
of this heroic effort to be $74 million.
Bangor Hydro nearly tripled the number of crews it normally used--
going from 40 to 117 and put in an estimated 54,402 hours on storm
damage. Their crews worked more overtime in January then they did in
all of 1997. And once they completed their restoration efforts, they
loaned crews to CMP. They estimate they spent more than $7 million to
bring all their customers back on line.
My colleagues will tell similar stories, Mr. President. The rain and
freezing temperatures proved to be a fatal combination for the utility
infrastructure. As Maine Governor Angus King said ``If you designed a
storm to take out the electrical system, this was it''.
I cannot offer enough praise to the men and women of Maine's
utilities and their brethren who came in from all over the East Coast--
including several crews from my good friend, Senator Mikulski's home
state of Maryland. These crews faced freezing temperatures and
hazardous situations as they worked to kill live wires and free
remaining wires from the downed trees and poles. They worked round the
clock until the light was back on in every house in the State. As we
say in Maine, they are the ``Finest Kind''.
And the federal response was just as important and just as swift. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Small Business
Administration, the Department of Defense--all answered Maine's call
for immediate help. We truly appreciate it, Mr. President, and like
many of my colleagues whose states have suffered from mother nature's
rage, I have seen first hand how vital the federal response is in the
early days of a disaster.
Once we were assured of federal assistance and the agencies were in
the State and working, the Maine Congressional Delegation asked the
Governor what else was needed. He told us they needed federal
assistance to cover the extraordinary costs associated with the
destruction of our utility infrastructure. And he asked the President
to include supplemental funding for this purpose, as did the Governors
of Vermont and New York.
The Stafford Act which provides FEMA's guidelines for assistance
covers public power. It will reimburse 75 percent of the costs related
with a disaster. But because Maine and much of the northeast have
investor-owned utilities as opposed to government-owned utilities, we
are ineligible to receive assistance from FEMA for this purpose,
despite the fact that it is the greatest cost of the storm. When we
learned this, we went looking for other sources of federal assistance,
but we could find nothing that could address the magnitude of the costs
of this storm.
Without assistance, the utilities in the states of Maine, Vermont and
New York will have to pass these costs onto the ratepayers, who already
pay some of the highest rates in the country for electricity. Maine's
residential rate is 48 percent higher than the country's average and
New York pays the highest rates in the country. Vermont pays 28 percent
more than the national average.
Yet these ratepayers--who also happen to be taxpayers--have helped
pay the bill for FEMA assistance for utilities in other states, with
lower rates, when they were faced with disasters of their own.
The CDBG funding provided in this amendment will allow Maine and the
other northeast states to apply to HUD for funds to reimburse the
utilities for the huge cost of repair and recovery. FEMA has identified
utility costs as the major unmet need from the Ice Storm of 1998.
Mr. President, I know that some of my colleagues are wondering the
States have asked for assistance for private companies. But a utility
is a

[[Page S2534]]

unique animal. Whether it is a public or private utility is immaterial
to the role it plays. It provides a public service and it has an
obligation to provide that service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365
days a year--rain or shine, tornado or flood, ice storm or earthquake.
The fact is that these utilities didn't shut down like many private
businesses did during the ice storm--because they couldn't. They had to
protect the public from the danger of live, downed wires and from
freezing to death in their own homes. It was a matter of public
safety--not a business decision. They had to right downed poles,
replace crumpled transformers and get the power back on.
They did not have the luxury of sitting down and saying ``this is
going to cost us a bundle, our stockholders won't like it, we should
take a pass''. They couldn't. They provide a public service, and they
had an obligation to the people they served to restore power as quickly
as possible.
In a letter to Vice President Gore, Governor King explained:

It is important to emphasize that this cost . . . was
purely a function of protecting the life and safety of our
people. . . . the quick restoration of power . . . was not a
matter of convenience, but was an unequivocal necessity.

The amendment we have worked out with the Committee will provide $260
million in supplemental funding to HUD for the CDBG program. This
money, which will go to the states, can be used for a number of
activities, including reimbursement of costs to privately owned
utilities. HUD regulation 24 CFR Section 570.201(l) states:

CDBG funds may be used to acquire, construct, reconstruct,
rehabilitate, or install the distribution lines and
facilities of privately owned utilities. . . .

And HUD Secretary Cuomo has assured Maine that if funds are
appropriated, they can be used for this purpose.
In its Ice Storm ``Blueprint for Action'' FEMA, which listed utility
costs as the top unmet need, noted:

(The) HUD Community Development Block Grant Program can
supplement other federal assistance in repairing and
reconstructing infrastructure, including privately-owned
utilities. . . .

In fact, this amendment, Mr. President, asks for the same assistance
this Congress gave to Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota last
year in an effort to help these states get back on their feet after
they had been ravaged by the worst flooding in 100 years. In the FY97
supplemental, $500 million was appropriated for CDBG to help with
disaster assistance. The Northern States Power Company applied to the
State of Minnesota for funding and was turned down. Minnesota could
have provided them with the funding, but chose not to. The same utility
has applied to Grand Forks, North Dakota--a CDBG entitlement city--for
funding and is still waiting for a response. Again, Grand Forks can
give the money to the utility or turn them down--it is their decision.
Another concern that has been raised is the issue of accountability.
How do we know that this money will cover only those costs related to
the ice storm and not be used by the utilities to upgrade their
infrastructure? Again, the answer lies in the fact that utilities are
unique. They are regulated at the State level, and they must justify
their costs to the regulators who allow them to recover only those
incremental costs directly attributable to the ice storm. In addition,
the bulk of the costs associated with this storm are related to the
cost of labor--not to the cost of new equipment.
In Maine, the Public Utility Commission issued an accounting order on
January 15 that required the utilities to segregate their storm related
costs. The PUC just started an audit of these accounts. If our
amendment is adopted, Maine will receive additional CDBG money that it
will provide to the utilities to cover only those incremental costs the
PUC says are prudent and directly related to the storm.
Without this additional assistance, the ratepayers of Maine will
cover the costs through rate increases. CMP has said it will need a ten
percent rate hike to cover its costs so 77 percent of the utility
customers in Maine will pay 10 percent more. Bangor Hydro has said its
rates will need to increase three percent to cover the storm costs.
One question I asked myself was what about insurance? The utilities
do have insurance, and it is determined by their regulating body. The
coverage, a dollar figure determined on past risk experience, is set
aside. For CMP that is $3.9 million, enough to deal with several major
outages--20,000 to 40,000 households--a year.
Because of the extensive damage done to utilities as a result of
Hurricanes Hugo, Iniki and Andrew, the ability of utilities to obtain
traditional insurance coverage has become very costly. CMP was offered
one policy that provided $15 million worth of coverage. To get this
coverage, the deductible was $5 million and the yearly premium was
another $5 million. So, they were being asked to pay $10 million to get
$5 million worth of coverage. Even with this coverage, Mr. President,
CMP would have been left with $54 million in uncovered costs.
The fact is that the 1998 Ice Storm was a 100 year storm. The Chair
of the Historical Committee of the American Meteorological Association,
who happens to reside in Maine, has said that ``So far this century,
there has been nothing like it. It will probably make the
meteorological text books--even history books--as one of the biggest
storms ever.''
To put this storm into perspective, I want to share a comparison of
the damage done by Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and Hurricane Bob in 1991
with the Ice Storm of 98. The Ice Storm destroyed 3,050 utility poles
compared to 350 as a result of Hurricane Bob. One million feet of cable
had to be replaced in January compared with 52,000 feet in 1991. It
took 1,048 crews working 23 days to restore power to everyone in
January. It took 320 crews working 8 days to restore power after
Hurricane Gloria.
The Ice Storm was simply unprecedented. Nothing had caused damage
that even comes close to the Ice Storm. The utilities self-insured for
the types of storms they were used to dealing with. They couldn't
insure for this storm--because it was completely outside the realm of
their experience and therefore, their expectations.
And it is because the Ice Storm was a once in a hundred year storm
that the people of Maine, and Vermont and New York have asked the
federal government for assistance in addressing the costs associated
with it. Without this assistance the ratepayers will be asked to bear
the burden of a rate hike. This will be in addition to all the other
storm-related costs they have already paid.
Many of my colleagues know, from the experiences in their own states,
the true costs of a disaster. Based on this experience, I would ask
them to lend their assistance to the people of Maine, Vermont and
upstate New York to provide this much needed assistance, and I urge
them to support this amendment.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am delighted to be joining Maine's
senior Senator and a number of my other colleagues in sponsoring an
amendment to the FY 98 Defense/Disaster Supplemental Appropriations
bill that will provide $260 million in additional funding for HUD's
Community Development Block Grant program.
This money is urgently needed to assist the people of my State
recover from the worst natural disaster in Maine history. I refer, of
course, to the unprecedented Ice Storm that began, innocently enough,
as a light rain on the morning of January 7, 1998 and ended four days
later with our State encased in as much as 10 inches of solid ice. The
additional CDBG funding will help not only Maine, but New York and
Vermont as well, rebuild the electric infrastructure of our three
states.
I want to pay a special thanks to the Chairman of the Appropriations
Committee, to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and
Independent Agencies, and to all of the Committee members for
recognizing the harm caused by the Ice Storm and for providing a
mechanism whereby we can secure sorely needed aid. Their cooperation is
greatly appreciated by the people of Maine.
Mr. President, the Ice Storm of 1998 was unlike anything Maine had
ever seen. Having grown up in the most northern part of the State, I
know something about ice and snow. But this was less like a storm and
more like a carefully targeted and highly effective attack on our
electric transmission and distribution system. The damage

[[Page S2535]]

to that system in Maine alone was $81 million, a formidable sum for the
ratepayers of a small state.
Mr. President, there is an erroneous belief in some quarters that
because the CDBG money would be used to rebuild the electric
infrastructure of investor owned utilities, it will benefit a private
corporation and its shareholders. That is not the case. Under the law,
a utility earning less than its allowed rate of return, as is the
situation with the two Maine utilities, is constitutionally entitled to
pass along prudently incurred costs to its ratepayers. And there can be
little doubt that the cost of rebuilding the system by which
electricity is delivered to our homes and businesses is not only a
prudent cost, but indeed, a cost that must be incurred.
Let me make this point somewhat differently. Without federal help,
the money to rebuild the system will not come from corporate coffers.
It will not come from the pockets of company executives. It will not
come from the dividends or equity of shareholders.
Who will bear the expense? It will be the elderly widow who heats her
mobile home with electricity and is already struggling to pay her
bills. It will be the small company that uses electricity in its
manufacturing process and is already fighting an uphill battle because
its power costs are 40% above the national average. Indeed, it will be
virtually all Maine's ratepayers, who because we all use electricity,
are really the same as Maine's taxpayers. That makes them the very
people who have paid their fair share to help defray the costs of
natural disasters that have struck other regions.
Mr. President, let me dispel another potential misconception. This
assistance will not result in special treatment for the citizens of
Maine, New York, and Vermont, but rather put them on an equal footing
with people in other parts of the country.
To be more specific, it is well established that federal emergency
aid can be made available to municipally owned utilities and electric
cooperatives. Some might argue that ours is a different situation, in
that we are dealing with investor owned utilities. Once again, that
argument would make sense if the utility stood to benefit from the
relief. But it is the ratepayers who will be assisted by this
amendment, and there is no reason why the victims of a natural disaster
should be helped if they are customers of a municipal utility or an
electric cooperative but not if they are customers of an investor owned
utility.
Mr. President, in the case at hand, the utilities are really like the
post office. They deliver the bills; they do not pay them. Without the
CDBG money made available through this amendment, the people who will
pay are those to whom the bills will ultimately come--the ordinary
citizens of Maine, New York, and Vermont. And since, unlike a
progressive tax system, electric rates are not based on income, those
who will be hurt the most will be those least able to afford it.
Let me also emphasize that to use the money provided by this
amendment to rebuild our electric infrastructure does not require
legislation to authorize a new type of spending. That authority is
already found in existing HUD regulations. To quote the relevant
language,

CDBG funds may be used to acquire, construct, reconstruct,
rehabilitate, or install the distribution lines of privately
owned utilities. . . .

In short, this amendment provides the funds to carry out an already
existing program under circumstances where that program is urgently
needed by the citizens of our three states.
To give my colleagues a better understanding of the source of that
need, I would offer a description of the storm not in my words but in
the words of ``The President's Action Plan for Recovery from the
January 1998 Ice Storm.''

The storms of January 1998 will not soon be forgotten. . .
. While ice storms are not uncommon to the region, the system
that battered the . . . region in early January was
unprecedented. Below-freezing temperatures combined with
record rainfall to cover an area extending from Western New
York to Maine with solid ice. . . .
The results were staggering. Massive tree limbs shattered
under the weight of the ice, choking roads and trails with
wood debris. Power lines snapped, leaving communities without
electrical power in bone chilling temperatures. At the height
of the crisis, nearly 500,000 homes and businesses were
without electric power.

Of greatest significance is the following observation in the
President's report: ``The single most critical concern is the loss of
electric power caused by the storm.''
Let me supplement the description in the President's report with
facts from Maine. For at least some part of the storm, more than
800,000 people, or seven our of every ten of our residents, lost power.
In most instances, they went without electricity for days, lasting in
some cases as long as two weeks. When you contemplate this, keep in
mind that it occurred in the dead of winter--not a Washington winter
but a Maine winter.
The storm spared no one. Not homes, not businesses, not public
buildings. Schools across the southern half of the State closed,
causing some to cancel their winter vacations to make up part of the
lost time. Even the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine lost power
for more than a week, during which time it struggled mightily to track
weather developments with a less than fully reliable generator. For
many, the experience was like the movie, ``The Day the Earth Stood
Still.'' Only it lasted far more than a day and occurred during the
most difficult time of year.
The restoration of power involved a monumental effort taking 17 days.
Twelve hundred utility crews from as far away as Nova Scotia, North
Carolina, and Michigan were sent to Maine to help with the effort.
Approximately 3000 utility poles and three million feet of electric
cable had to be replaced. All of the poles in one ten-mile stretch were
down, cutting off power to a large section of a rural county. In the
words of Maine's Governor, it seemed like a huge monster had walked
across the state deliberately stepping on all of the electric lines in
its path.
As if guided by a perverse force, the Ice Storm of 1998 struck a
region with some of the highest electric prices in the country. The
rates in both Maine and the affected areas of New York are 40% above
the national average. Thus, without this federal assistance, the
rebuilding costs will fall on some of our country's most heavily
burdened ratepayers.
Some of the areas hit by the storm were already economically
distressed. Indeed, looking at the entire region, one observer has
concluded that the victims of the storm were predominantly persons of
low and moderate income who, even without increased electric rates,
have been seriously harmed by this disaster.
Mr. President, the two utilities serving the areas affected by the
storm in Maine are not wealthy. Indeed, one has been wrestling with
serious money problems, and the financial performance of the other has
been mediocre at best.
Furthermore, while they are private companies, they are also public
utilities. When the ice storm hit, they could not shut down operations.
They could not leave the state until times were better. To the
contrary, they had a legal and moral obligation to do whatever it took
to restore power to people desperately in need of electricity. While
their performance will ultimately be judged by the State Public
Utilities Commission, there is no evidence that they made anything less
than a maximum effort to discharge their public responsibility.
Under these circumstances, should the utilities be able to recover
from the ratepayers the cost of rebuilding Maine's electric
infrastructure? I would be hard pressed to say that would be an
unreasonable result, but in the final analysis, my opinion is
irrelevant. What matters, and the only thing that matters, is that the
law mandates such a result.
Mr. President, on a comparative basis, Maine is not affluent, but its
people have a generous spirit. They believe in helping their neighbors,
whether those neighbors live across the street or 3000 miles away.
They have gladly paid their fair share to help their neighbors in
California recover from earthquakes, to help their neighbors in the
Midwest recover from floods, and to help their neighbors in the
Southeast recover from hurricanes. Their generosity has to not been
limited to money, as they have sent men and women to fight forest fires
in the Northwest. They have

[[Page S2536]]

not split hairs over the precise source or nature of the harm. As long
as the ultimate victims of a disaster have been ordinary citizens like
themselves, they have stood ready to help.
Mr. Chairman, the situation has changed, and we are now the neighbor
in need of assistance. By making funds available to help us defray the
costs of rebuilding our electric infrastructure, our neighbors will be
treating us as we have treated them.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to join Senator Snowe and my
other Colleagues from the Northeast in thanking Senator Stevens and
Senator Byrd for agreeing to include emergency Community Development
Block Grant (CDBG) funding in the disaster supplemental. This funding
is desperately needed to assist in recovery in areas where there are
significant gaps in existing disaster programs.
On January 9, the Northeast was hit by an ice storm of an
unprecedented scale. The storm downed trees and power lines throughout
the northeast. In Vermont, one power company alone replaced more than
50 miles of power lines and 200 power poles. Crews came from as far
away as Hawaii to aid in the effort to restore power to the 10,000
people left without electricity for up to 11 days during what is
traditionally one of the coldest months of the year. Damage to Vermont
utilities was extensive in the six counties declared disaster areas,
with storm damage totaling over $9 million. Of that, only $552,648 was
covered by FEMA.
The storm was unique in the type of damage it inflicted--buildings,
roads, and water and sewer systems were left largely untouched, but
electric utility lines and trees were wiped out completely in some
areas and suffered significant damage throughout the region. This is
not the kind of damage traditional disaster programs were designed to
address, as the ``Blueprint for Action'' report FEMA produced after the
storm makes clear. According to that report ``the single most critical
concern is the loss of electric power caused by the storm.''
The Community Development Block Grant program is designed to provide
flexible funding to promote economic development. That is exactly the
kind of assistance needed to repair the damage to the power
infrastructure in the Northeast. The most serious concern raised by the
damage to the utility system is the cost it will impose on all Vermont
rate payers. At 11.29 cents per kilowatt hour, utility rates in New
England are already 64% higher than the national average. This
increased cost of doing business is a significant hurdle to attracting
and keeping businesses in Vermont. The cost of the storm damage is
expected to force some utility companies to seek further increases in
electric rates. Any increase would be a serious blow to economic
development throughout the region.
The need for Federal assistance to recover from the ice storm is not
the result of poor planning on the part of the utilities. All of the
affected utilities built average annual storm damage costs into their
rate structure. However, the cost of this one storm was so
extraordinarily high, that it dwarfed those set-asides. One company is
facing damage from this one storm equal to eight times its annual
budget for emergency repairs. This is not a cost that these companies
can just absorb.
The need for emergency CDBG funding is clear. I strongly support this
amendment and urge my colleagues to do so as well.
Mr. STEVENS. 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. STEVENS. 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 Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the pending amendment, No. 2122, is the
CDBG amendment; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this amendment will provide $260 million
for emergency Community Development Block Grants that will fund
disaster relief, long-term recovery, and mitigation in communities
affected by Presidentially declared disasters that have occurred in
this fiscal year, 1998. This funding is needed to supplement funding
provided through the more traditional emergency disaster programs under
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, the Small Business
Administration, SBA, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
I have concerns about using CDBG funds for emergency purposes,
especially since the Department of Housing and Urban Development did
not really provide adequate data and accountability concerning the use
of these emergency CDBG funds in the past. Nevertheless, this
legislation is designed to ensure that funds go to disaster relief
activities that are identified by the Director of FEMA as unmet needs
that have not been or will not be addressed by other Federal disaster
assistance programs.
In addition, to assure accountability, States must provide a 25
percent match for these emergency CDBG funds and HUD must publish a
notice of program requirements and provide an accounting of CDBG funds
by the type of activity and the amount of funding and the recipient.
Mr. President, I know of no opposition to this amendment. I ask for
the immediate adoption of this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, the
amendment is agreed to.
The amendment (No. 2122) was agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the
table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, as I understand it, we will now move to
amendment No. 2123, which is the FEMA amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

Amendment No. 2123

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is this amendment before the Senate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes; the Senator is correct.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to support this amendment
to the fiscal year 1998 emergency supplemental bill.
But first, let me extend my deepest sympathies to those communities
and families who have had to deal with the loss and anguish caused by
the terrible natural disasters over the last 6 months.
From the ice storms in New England that left thousands without power,
to the devastating floods in California, and the deadly tornadoes in
Florida. Across this country in these States and in others, we have
seen the destruction and despair that nature can cause.
I know all Marylanders join me in extending our thoughts and prayers
to everyone impacted by the recent disasters.
Mr. President, this amendment will provide $1.6 billion to the
Federal Emergency Management Agency to meet its requirements for fiscal
year 1998 and prior years.
Mr. President, FEMA is the Government's ``911'' agency. It is crucial
that FEMA have the resources necessary to provide the type of response
that our communities so desperately need.
I am pleased that we are finally providing this money as emergency
money--off budget. As you know, the VA-HUD subcommittee is annually
raided to provide funds for disasters in our emergency supplemental
appropriations bill.
Often, the result is that we have to make decisions about cutting
critical programs at agencies like the VA, HUD, EPA, NASA or the
National Science Foundation to provide funds for the much needed
emergency recovery efforts.
Mr. President, this amendment also provides $260 million for the HUD
emergency community development block grant--CDBG--account. This money
will be used to provide funding for several critical needs:
For disaster recovery needs in communities that are not covered by
FEMA, SBA or the Army Corps of Engineers.
This money is designed to fill the gap for legitimate emergency
needs.
Mr. President, I am a strong advocate for fiscal prudence. I am also
a strong believer in the notion that this is a Government ``of the
people, by the people and for the people''.

[[Page S2537]]

The emergency funds provided with this amendment is our way in
Congress, in a clear way, of working for the people. When people are
suffering, trying to rebuild lives, homes and communities, it is no
time to be partisan. The citizens we serve deserve a swift, decisive
and effective response.
I am proud that we are working in a bi-partisan way with this
amendment to provide the resources necessary to ensure that the
agencies responsible can respond to the real needs of our people.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this amendment would replenish FEMA's
disaster relief fund by $1.6 billion, as requested by the
administration, consistent with FEMA's current estimate of the
additional funds needed to meet the fiscal year 1998 and prior year
disaster requirements.
So far this year, there have been Presidential disaster declarations
in 17 States and territories. These disasters include snowstorms,
typhoons, tornadoes, flooding, and ice storms. Most of these disasters
have been related to the weather phenomenon we now know as El Nino.
While funds are currently available in the disaster relief fund,
there are not sufficient funds on hand to meet the total costs which
are estimated to stem from current disasters. In fact, FEMA estimates
it will need every penny currently in the disaster relief fund to meet
the existing cost projections of more than $3 billion from the
disasters that have occurred prior to fiscal year 1998.
Included in the $1.6 billion appropriations request are funds for
disasters which are also anticipated to occur in fiscal year 1998 based
on the 5-year historical average cost of disaster relief. To date, FEMA
disaster relief has been running very close to that 5-year average,
despite the fact that a number of Senators and some people have raised
questions about there being more damage that is caused by El Nino than
has been caused in recent years.
I support FEMA's expeditious provision of aid to many of the needy
communities that are stricken by disasters and wish to be sure that the
disaster fund is fully funded, but, as I stated yesterday, I continue
to be deeply concerned about the cost of disaster relief. Each year, we
are seeing these costs rise exponentially, and the need for cost
containment now is paramount. I urge the authorizing committees to look
at these costs and determine if there is some way to reduce the costs
for these funds. In the last 5 years, we have appropriated a staggering
$18 billion to FEMA for disaster relief compared to $6.7 billion for
the prior 5-year period. Clearly, the costs associated with disaster
relief are growing out of control.
Unfortunately, we also have learned over the past few years that
disaster funds have gone to some facilities like golf courses or to
refurbish shrubbery in high-income communities, to facilities
associated with universities that already have impressive endowments
and revenue-generating capabilities, and to provide housing assistance
to some who are really not in need. I really hope that the
administration will realize it must put controls on these expenditures
if FEMA is to continue to get the support of the Congress.
Moreover, Senator Bond, over the last few years, has pushed FEMA to
submit a legislative plan of reforms to control disaster costs. With
some reluctance, FEMA did submit a proposal for reforming the Stafford
Act last summer. The proposed amendments address several very important
areas, including new incentives for mitigation, streamlining the grant
process, and eliminating certain facilities currently eligible for
disaster relief, such as I said, golf courses. It is critical that this
FEMA reform legislation be acted upon by the authorizing committees
this year, and I urge them to work with Senator Bond to enact these
reforms.
Meanwhile, while it is clear that we expect and need reform of FEMA
programs, we also believe that Congress must complete action on this
disaster relief funding legislation as quickly as possible, so that the
disaster needs of our communities can be met.
I see the Senator from Oklahoma is here. I wish to state, I did
reconsider the vote on the prior amendment. I did not know whether it
was this amendment or the prior amendment that the Senator wished to
address. If he wishes to address the first one, I will be happy to
withdraw that and bring it back to where the Senator can offer an
amendment to it.
Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield, I appreciate his willingness
to do that, because I am opposed to both amendments. I do not find that
to be necessary. I will confine my remarks to this amendment. My guess
is the outcome would be identical. But I feel rather strongly about it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I notice my colleague from Missouri is
here. He is in charge of the subcommittee with responsibility for FEMA.
He may want to make some comments on this amendment. Does the Senator
from Missouri want to speak on this?
Mr. STEVENS. I will say for the Senator, I have just read his
remarks.
Mr. BOND. I thank the chairman.
Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, yesterday Senator Gramm had an amendment
that said let's fund the 1998 emergencies and we will call it an
emergency; we don't have to have an offset. That was the underlying
bill. The underlying bill had money for defense, money for Iraq, money
for Bosnia, money for the so-called emergencies--weather-related
emergencies. I thought he had a good amendment. I did not speak out on
the floor, and I wish I had. That was on the underlying bill, which is
about $3.3 billion. Now we are looking at an amendment to expand that
bill by an additional $1.6 billion. I ask the Senator from Missouri, is
that correct--$1.6 billion for FEMA?
Mr. BOND. That is correct. The amendment would appropriate an
additional $1.6 billion for FEMA.
Mr. NICKLES. The reason I ask the question is because I have heard
this figure bandied around the last few days. But anyway, FEMA did not
request any money initially. This is a late request. This is a late
request, and the Senators from Missouri or Alaska can correct me if I
am wrong, this request did not come in from the administration when
they were marking up the bill; this request just came in lately: ``Oh,
we need an additional $1.6 billion for disasters that we think might
happen. And, oh, yes, we want to call it an emergency.''
What does that mean? By calling it an emergency means there will be
no offsets. These emergencies have not happened yet, but we are
basically going to take this $1.6 billion, and most of the money, I
might mention, will be spent in 1999 and the year 2000, maybe 2001. The
money is going to be spent in the future, but, ``Oh, we don't have to
put that in the budget.''
I am on the Budget Committee, and we had an agreement. The President
signed that agreement, and he said, ``Here's how much money we are
going to spend on discretionary accounts,'' and we passed it. The
President in his State of the Union Address bragged about how good that
is: ``Boy, now we have a balanced budget. We are going to have a
balanced budget for a long time because we worked together.''
Well, this is voiding that agreement. This is saying, let's take $1.6
billion for the future and we are going to call it an emergency and,
therefore, we don't have to have any offsets--none. It is just going to
come out of, I guess, the surplus.
Guess what? The budget that we are going to be considering next week
talks about the surplus. Senator Domenici did a very good job in
working it through. Guess how much the surplus is in the year 2000 when
probably most of this money would be spent. The surplus is $1 billion.
And we are working on an emergency supplemental, if we adopt this
amendment, which will be over $5 billion and probably a couple billion
of that will be spent in the year 2000. In other words, certainly if we
adopt this amendment, we are going to be spending 100 percent of the
surplus in 2 years. And we are spending real money.
I just don't think we should do it. If FEMA wants to ask for this
money, it should be in their budget. They come before the
appropriators. Senator Bond does a very capable job in that
subcommittee. They can come up and say, ``Here is the historical
average; therefore, we should have a couple billion

[[Page S2538]]

dollars a year in FEMA for our budget.'' They have not done that. What
they are really trying to do is, ``Hey, we want to get around the
budget.'' In other words, we have a cap on discretionary spending but
we are not going to include FEMA, like it doesn't count, even though we
have historical averages.

I do not think we should prefund the account and call it an
emergency. If we want to prefund it, fine. I am just saying we should
take the emergency designation off. We should not declare it an
emergency; it has not happened. Frankly, if we have an emergency in 3
months, FEMA will not be able to spend the money until the year 1999,
and we won't have an appropriations bill. Let's go through the
appropriations process.

Amendment No. 2131 to Amendment No. 2123

(Purpose: To ensure that additional funding for the Federal Emergency
Management Agency does not reduce the unified budget surplus)

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

The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Nickles] proposes an
amendment numbered 2131 to amendment No. 2123.

Mr. NICKLES. 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:

Beginning on page 1, line 5, strike everything after the
word ``expended:''.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the essence of this amendment, I tell my
colleagues, is it says that we allow the money to go in for an
additional amount for disaster relief, $1.6 billion to remain available
until expended, period. What I am deleting is the emergency. The
additional part of this amendment says that I am deleting ``provided
these funds will be available only to the extent the official budget
request for a specific amount includes the designation of the entire
amount of the request as an emergency requirement defined in the
Balanced Budget Emergency Control Act of 1985,'' and so on.
In other words, I am striking the emergency section of this request.
So we can put the money in. If there is an emergency, by golly, FEMA
has the money; it can pay it. So nobody should say, ``Hey, you took
money away from my emergency.''
What it does mean is, in the budget next year we are going to have to
include whatever portion of that $1.6 billion would be spent in 1999 in
the budget. We have caps to spend about $580 billion, I am going to
guess, next year in the discretionary accounts. This is going to have
to be part of it, or, in the year 2000, this will be part of it. This
means we still may be able to have a surplus in 2002. It means maybe
our budgets mean something.
How in the world can you have a budget and say we are going to have
caps on discretionary spending and then we say, ``Oh, we're going to
fund in advance future emergencies, and, oh, yes, we're not going to
count that as part of the budget and it's not necessary to affect the
caps''?
Domestic total discretionary spending increased from $274 billion in
1997 to $288 billion in 1998. That is more than a 5 percent increase,
and that is for the year we are in right now. All I am saying is if we
are going to future fund FEMA, it ought to be in the budget.
I do not object to adding $1.6 billion so FEMA will have the money,
and if there is an emergency this year, they can pay for it; if there
is an emergency next year, they can pay for it. But what I am objecting
to is having it classified as an emergency in advance so there have to
be no offsets.
I just think that if we are going to be spending next year in total
discretionary spending, that it should be included and get away from
this game of, ``Oh, we're only going to fund a few couple hundred
million dollars in FEMA, and, oh, yes, if an emergency comes up, we
will just declare an emergency and it doesn't count.'' I do not want to
spend 100 percent of the surplus in 2000 on this bill. I think that is
a serious mistake.
I urge my colleagues to allow the funding to go forward for FEMA, but
let's strike the emergency section of this bill so in the future years
it will have to be paid for. We will have to incorporate that in our
total amount of spending so that our budget will mean something; so a
budget that we are going to be working very hard and probably have
several contentious and tough votes on, probably a good debate on in
the next few days, will mean something.
It is a heck of a deal for people to be saying, ``Oh, yes, we're
fighting for a balanced budget; oh, we can waive the budget, we can
waive it in the future, we don't have to budget for emergencies.'' We
should budget for emergencies. We should have truth in budgeting. We
should say, ``Hey, this should be included and it shouldn't be exempt
from the budget.''
I did not say anything about the $3.3 billion. I think Senator Gramm
was right yesterday, but we did not touch that. Certainly if we are
going to take it from $3.3 billion to over $5 billion, which is what we
are getting ready to do--we started with an appropriations request from
the administration that started around $2 billion, and the
administration keeps sending amendments up: ``Oh, yes, now we have a
little amendment; we want another $300 billion, some $260 billion, I
think, for community block development grants,'' that was just adopted.
``Now we have another little amendment, $1.6 billion for FEMA; ``oh,
yeah, we would like that, too.''
They did not give us that request when we had the markup. They did
not give us that request 2 weeks ago. But all of a sudden, they just
determined a new need. The reason they determined a new need, in my
opinion, is they said, ``Hey, if this is an emergency, this will give
us more money to spend next year for other purposes.'' I think that is
wrong. I think it is a serious mistake.

So I urge my colleagues to adopt our second-degree amendment and
strike the emergency portion of this future funding for FEMA.
Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, while I appreciate the concerns of the
Senator from Oklahoma, let me clarify one point that I think may be
somewhat confusing. The funding in this amendment is to reimburse FEMA
and to cover costs for disasters occurring in this and prior fiscal
years, not in future fiscal years. It would simply allow us to begin
fiscal year 1999 without an enormous, outstanding disaster relief
requirement. In particular, this $1.6 billion appropriation includes
funds to cover the costs of disasters anticipated to occur in the
balance of fiscal year 1998. This amendment is not about advance
funding, but is intended to provide the necessary funding only for
disaster relief requirements for fiscal year 1998 and prior years.
The Senator from Oklahoma has expressed his concern about the cost of
disaster relief. No one has been more concerned about the cost of
disaster relief than I. In our subcommittee, we have held a number of
hearings focused almost solely on FEMA reform and the exploding costs
of disaster relief. In response to these hearings, we demanded that the
administration and FEMA submit a responsible package of Stafford Act
amendments. While FEMA has provided a package of FEMA reform
amendments, these are a difficult sell, although we remain hopeful that
the authorizing committees will work to implement these and other
reforms.
I have been joined by my distinguished colleague and ranking member
from Maryland, who had the great privilege and high honor of chairing
this subcommittee previously and has been an absolutely essential part
of the committee deliberations. I will ask her in just a moment to
address some of these.
I emphasize that we need to amend the Stafford Act. We also need
administrative changes. Nevertheless, at the same time, these FEMA
funds of $1.6 billion are needed now to meet current FEMA requirements.
This appropriation is needed to ensure that we have adequate funding
for disaster relief.
Nevertheless, there are a number of us who are very much concerned
about the cost of disaster relief. Each year, we see the costs of
disaster relief rising exponentially. The need for cost containment is
paramount. For example, in the last 5 years, we have appropriated a
staggering $18 billion to

[[Page S2539]]

FEMA for disaster relief, compared to $6.7 billion in the prior 5-year
period. While I know we have had some major disasters in the last 5
years, we also had significant disasters in the previous 5 years. The
costs are clearly out of control.
As I have noted, for several years, I requested that FEMA submit a
legislative plan to control disaster costs. After cajoling and arm
twisting, threats of reduced funding, FEMA finally submitted a proposal
for reforming the Stafford Act last summer. The proposed amendments
address several very important areas, including new incentives for
mitigation, streamlining the grant process, and eliminating certain
facilities currently eligible for disaster relief, such as golf
courses.
This is how we must address the cost of disaster relief. It is far
better for authorizing legislation to say what we are going to replace
and for what we are going to provide assistance. It is very difficult
to address disaster relief issues after the fact when people come to
the floor and there is a great outpouring of sympathy. I have been
here, I have done that, I have seen it. We have a T-shirt with it
emblazoned on it. Once there is a disaster, people come in and they
have all of these needs for disaster assistance. And I might say that
this body has been extremely generous and, in some ways, we have opened
the floodgates.
Well, we are not talking with this amendment about what we would do
in the future. We are talking about requirements that have already
occurred. I strongly agree that in the future we should limit disaster
aid to those truly in need, to people, to entities, to communities that
cannot protect themselves against disaster. If they are a profitmaking
business, if they are a revenue-generating business, then let them
purchase insurance, let them take care of their needs in advance. We
need to come in and help those who truly cannot help themselves.
However, until we do that, we have to do something to fund and to
provide the resources for the commitments already made.

If the Nickles amendment succeeds or if this amendment is not
adopted, we are going to be facing in the VA-HUD Subcommittee a $4
billion lien against the bill. And there will be some very untenable
choices. We are the ones, Senator Mikulski and I, who have to take the
first cut at funding the programs in the VA/HUD Appropriations
Subcommittee. To be clear, without this amendment, it will be very
difficult for us to even meet the President's request for Veterans
Administration medical care, which is $40 million less than the fiscal
year 1998 level. We would be shorting veterans medical care which is
not acceptable. In addition, we would be forced to make drastic cuts to
low-income housing, including elderly housing, EPA, and Superfund, as
well as important space and science programs.
I can tell you that this will not be pretty. I can tell you that the
disasters have occurred and that commitments have been made. The
question is, will we, in this measure, replenish those funds and carry
through on the obligations FEMA has made for this year?
As we look to the future, I would love to see us get disaster relief
under control with an appropriate authorizing reform measure and also
adjust the budget for regular and timely disaster appropriations.
Disaster relief needs are running over $3 billion a year--to some $3.6
billion a year. If we are serious about meeting FEMA disaster
requirements in the future, I would love to see the budget take account
of the needed $3.6 billion worth of FEMA disaster relief requirements
each year. We are not there yet, but I am committed to getting FEMA
disaster relief and disaster relief requirements under control.
Mr. President, I see my distinguished colleague on the floor. I yield
the floor.
Ms. MIKULSKI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to support the Bond-Mikulski
amendment and also to oppose the second-degree amendment offered by our
colleague from Oklahoma.
Mr. President, I want to support my colleague from Missouri, the
chairman of the subcommittee on appropriations for FEMA, Senator Bond,
in his remarks about the need for the reform on the funding of FEMA.
Now, Mr. President, let me take a few minutes to say that during the
last 5 years FEMA has reformed itself. Prior to James Lee Witt becoming
the Administrator, FEMA itself in the way it responded to disasters was
a disaster. Each President--Mr. Reagan and then Mr. Bush--often had to
send in a trusted aide to oversee whenever disaster affected a
community because FEMA itself was so obsessed with a bunker, cold war,
civil defense, hide-under-your-desk mentality for nuclear warfare, that
it had not gone to a risk-based strategy to be able to respond to the
disasters that America faced.
When Hurricane Andrew so devastated Florida that the response of FEMA
itself was a disaster, President Bush sent the very able and talented
Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Card, to Florida because FEMA could
not get it together to do the job.
I think we are all agreed that now FEMA has moved into being an
appropriate agency for the post-cold war era. It has focused on the
domestic needs of the American people. It has gone to being an all-
hazards response agency for not only natural disasters but any of the
other kinds of disasters that it has faced. It has worked with
Governors and State agencies on three things: readiness and
preparedness, response, and then rehabilitation after that response--
the three R's of disaster response.
Now, when we have responded, the need has spoken for itself. And that
is what is in this year's appropriation--an urgent supplemental. This
is the need. It is not a made-up need; just like it was not a made-up
disaster. We are living in the year of El Nino. And El Nino is the
weather event of the century and has really triggered a variety of
natural disasters throughout the United States. As has been indicated
in Senator Bond's testimony, there have been 17 Presidential disaster
declarations this year in both States and territories. This $1.6
billion will address current needs and the total cost which will be
generated from the current disasters. These needs are certainly
emergency needs, just like over the last 5 years FEMA has incurred an
average of $2.3 billion in obligations each year; and each year the VA
Subcommittee absorbs the cost; and each year we take it out of other
Federal agencies within our subcommittee.
Now, we do not take it out of agriculture. We do not take it out of
defense. We take it out of the 25 different agencies that are within
the VA Subcommittee. We have already given, and we have given over a
number of years. We cannot continue to do it this way.
I support in the most enthusiastic and the most firm way the call of
the chairman, Senator Bond, for a new authorizing framework on how we
are going to fund FEMA.
Lots of times, because of compassion or empathy, we then often repair
things that might raise eyebrows. But in the midst of a disaster, no
one wants to say no to community need. When it comes to disaster
funding, we cannot have it both ways. When the Clinton administration
has asked for a contingency fund to handle these disasters and
emergencies, it has been dismissed as a slush fund. ``Well, you can't
have a slush fund. We'll do it as pay as you go. Let's see what the
disasters are and make it up in the urgent supplemental.'' Well, now we
are making it up in the urgent supplemental and at the same time we
know that this isn't the most desirable way to do it and therefore need
the authorizers to set that policy.
But I must say, the authorizers and the authorizing committees have
not given this the attention it deserves nor have they had the same
sense of urgency that is required when we meet disaster funding. So,
therefore, for this year, please pass the Bond-Mikulski amendment; and
also for this year's legislative session, give us a new authorizing
framework, invite our participation, as well as the National Governors'
Association, as well as the Director of FEMA, and have a bipartisan
approach to how we are going to fund disasters in the future. But do
not penalize the other agencies within this subcommittee because of the
fact that El Nino and many other terrible situations have affected the
American people.
Our heart goes out to the people who have been hit by the ice storms
in New England, and the horrendous tornadoes

[[Page S2540]]

that devastated Georgia and Florida. There are these disasters. And if
we are going to be in this, we have to have, No. 1, a new authorizing
framework; No. 2, adequate funds, and, No. 3, maybe we have to also
come up with new mechanisms where perhaps residents and businesses have
a new insurance framework to be able to practice self-help. But we
cannot do this today on the urgent supplemental.
What we can do is meet obligations made which need to be obligations
met. So I urge the defeat of the Nickles amendment, the support of the
Bond-Mikulski amendment, and then let us have a new authorizing
framework.
I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for the way he has
worked hard on this. We look forward to moving this legislation and
meeting the obligations that have been made, at the request, I might
add, of Governors. President Clinton doesn't make these up. For it to
be a FEMA-declared disaster grant it has to come at the request of a
Governor.
I might add, when disaster hits, you don't know if it is a Democratic
Governor, you don't know if it is a Republican Governor. We just know
for all Americans it requires the response of the Federal Government.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of both my
friends and colleagues. I had the pleasure of serving on this
subcommittee with them. They do an outstanding job.
Let me make a couple of comments. Is this an emergency? I don't think
so. I have been informed that the administration requested this $1.6
billion yesterday. Wait, these disasters have happened for the last
several months. They requested this yesterday. Gravy train.
The Senate is in the process of moving an appropriations bill, and
they are calling it an emergency bill. If the Senate was having ``pay
fors,'' which we probably should do, they wouldn't be doing this, in my
estimate. Maybe I am wrong. I know in the past this committee has
already made some changes on section 8 to pay for it. I compliment them
for that.
I am not faulting my colleagues on this subcommittee. I am faulting
the Senate, I am faulting the Budget Committee, because we have gotten
this historical, sloppy budgeteering process for FEMA that we will be
funding at $300 million a year when it averages $2 billion or $3
billion a year.
I agree entirely with my colleagues from both Missouri and Maryland.
They say we need to reform the FEMA funding process. That is exactly
right. Maybe now that I have had a chance to look at it, I can help you
with that. Let us give it a little attention. We need to give it
attention. This is ridiculous.
For my colleagues who think we are budgeting and we are real serious
next week, we are serious, except for when we happen to call something
an emergency. This wasn't an emergency 2 days ago, but it is an
emergency now. So here is another $1.6 billion. We just had an
emergency, too. We are going to add $260 million on community
development block grants.
Let me read something from the committee report on community
development block grants. I was going to oppose both. The vote will be
the same. This is from the committee report, and I compliment the
authors.

The committee remains concerned about the Department of
Housing and Urban Development's administration of $500
million in emergency community development block grant
funding which was provided in fiscal year 1997, Emergency
Supplemental Act, public law 105-18, June 12, 1997, last
year's urgent supplemental. This was an unprecedented amount
of emergency community block development grant funding and it
raised a number of concerns regarding inadequate award
procedures and accountability measures. Despite repeated
requests by the committee, HUD has provided little or no data
regarding the funding procedures for emergency CDBG funds for
the amounts of CDBG funds allocated by HUD to the States and
localities by the amount or activity. It is expected that by
April 15, 1998, HUD will provide a summary of the procedures
used for allocating and awarding emergency CDBG funds, a
summary of all waivers made, and a list of all grants by
State, locality and activity.

I compliment them for doing it. But the net essence is last year we
gave community development block grants $500 million in emergency
funds, and HUD can't account for it. We added $260 million this year,
and in addition we are adding $1.6 billion. In a period now we are
going to spend $1.9 billion, call it emergency, and say none has to be
counted as discretionary spending under the budget. Almost all of this
money will be spent in 1999 and the year 2000, probably 100 percent of
it, yet it is off budget, it doesn't count.

Every penny of that is coming out of the surplus, every single penny.
I heard the President, ``We will save that surplus for protecting
Social Security''--except for what he calls an emergency. And we have a
supplemental bill going through and it has emergency designation. Let's
pile on, let's add some more money, add $1.6 billion, make it $1.9
billion.
They gave us that request yesterday, and we are going to submit to
it. The managers of this bill will probably win and so we are going to
spend probably 100 percent of the surplus in the year 2000 in this bill
on this amendment. The year 2000, the Budget Committee did good work,
but we have a $1 billion surplus forecasted for the year 2000--$1
billion--and we are going to spend it because we are calling it an
emergency.
All I am saying, is that it is not an emergency. Those funds should
be allocated and should be under the caps. We should pay for it. I want
to pay for emergencies as much as anybody else in this room, but we
should put it in the budget. This is a fraud on the whole budget
process to say emergency spending, we are not going to count that for
the future years.
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. NICKLES. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. GREGG. Didn't we say we were saving the surplus for Social
Security? Didn't the President in the State of the Union say that
surplus would be reserved in addressing Social Security? And if we
undertake this procedure, which is a request from the administration--
--
Ms. MIKULSKI. We can't hear you.
Mr. GREGG. Soft-spoken.
The question I was asking the Senator from Oklahoma, didn't the
President, in the State of the Union, say we were going to save the
surplus until the issue of Social Security had been addressed?
Shouldn't we be saving the surplus for Social Security? Doesn't this
proposal which has come up from the administration essentially
undermine that goal of saving the surplus for Social Security?
Mr. NICKLES. To respond to my friend and colleague from New
Hampshire, who also serves on the Budget Committee, he is exactly
right. The President said we wanted to save every penny of the surplus
for Social Security, and right now we getting ready to spend it.
My amendment, I might remind my colleague from New Hampshire who has
had some disaster, and several other States--I don't want anybody
coming to the floor and voting against this saying, ``I need to fund my
disaster because we had flooding,'' or, ``We had a freeze,'' or, ``We
had milk cows that needed assistance,'' or whatever that emergency
might be, we put money in for the emergency. We put money in to fund
the emergency.
We are just saying it has to be on budget so next year we will have
to plug money in. We can't get away with the $300 million facade we
have been doing under the Budget Committee and under the Appropriations
Committee and pretending we are funding things.
All I am saying is go ahead, put the $1.6 billion in to take care of
whatever emergency, but take the emergency designation off so Congress
will have to live within the caps and hopefully still have a surplus so
we can save Social Security.
Mr. GREGG. If I could continue that line of questioning, if you were
to support your amendment, you would be protecting the surplus for
Social Security, or hopefully for Social Security, but at least this
spending which is incurred as a result of this proposal would come
under the budget process in the manner which would require it be
accounted for in the caps and therefore it would not impact the
surplus.
Mr. NICKLES. The Senator is exactly right. I appreciate the comment.
I yield the floor.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. NICKLES. I yield to the Senator.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Let me understand the consequences of what the Senator
from Oklahoma is recommending.

[[Page S2541]]

If the emergency designation is removed, the phrase ``emergency
designation,'' then what are the consequences to that? Does that mean
we have to find offsets? What would be the consequences of following
the Senator's suggestion?
Mr. NICKLES. To respond to my colleague from Maryland, the
consequences would be this: We would appropriate $1.6 billion for FEMA.
There would be money in FEMA's account to meet whatever emergencies
might arise. It also means that the money that is spent when spent in
the year 1999 and the year 2000, which is when the money would actually
be spent, would come under the caps. And we have caps, we agreed to
caps, we said here is how much money we will spend on discretionary
spending accounts. It is $580-some billion. That money would have to go
in that amount.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Where does the money come from? Is the Senator saying
this would require us to identify offsets?
Mr. NICKLES. It would mean that it would have to come within the
total amount of money that we have on domestic discretionary spending
caps. It would be in that amount, several hundred billion.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I don't understand that. I appreciate the Senator's
indepth knowledge of the Budget Committee, but if I am a Governor, say,
in California or Florida where the bulk of the El Nino disasters have
occurred, what are you saying that we should do to fund? You say it is
under the caps and all this. If we follow your suggestion, do we or
don't we have to find offsets for the $1.6 billion?
Mr. NICKLES. To respond to my colleague, this year, 1997, we have
domestic discretionary caps at $288 billion. What we will have to do is
fund it within that amount. To answer you specifically, if you wanted
to stay on your HUD baseline--you have a baseline, all the other
subcommittees have a baseline--you would either have to fund it within
your baseline, within your group, within your subcommittee, or if that
wasn't possible, you would have to borrow from some other subcommittee,
but the total would have to stay on the cap amount.
Ms. MIKULSKI. That would mean finding an offset.
Mr. NICKLES. Right.
Ms. MIKULSKI. To be clear, talking of baseline and living within
caps, if we eliminate the emergency designation, fund the $1.6 billion,
it means we will have to find $1.6 billion by taking money from some
other account or some other agency or agencies; am I correct in that?
Mr. NICKLES. Let me respond.
The $1.6 billion, in all likelihood you would have about, I will say,
$600 million next year and probably $600 million----
Ms. MIKULSKI. Do we or do we not have to use offsets?
Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, you have to use offsets; $600 million
in 1999, we have a total amount of spending on domestic discretionary
side. I have the 1997 figure of $288--it is more than that in 1999.
I might mention, between 1997 and 1998, it went from $274 to $288, an
increase of $14 billion that went into domestic discretionary accounts.
I don't have the figure in front of me, what it increases in the next
year, but there was $14 billion in increases. You only have outlays of
about $600 million. Somewhere in that $288 or almost $300 billion we
have to find an offset. I think we should do that.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Which means it has to come from another agency.
Mr. NICKLES. If I can respond, it would either come from within your
subcommittee's budget or it could come from some other budget. Some
budgets have been growing. I mention we had a $14 billion growth in
domestic discretionary between 1997 and 1998. It could be in the growth
funds. We are only talking about maybe $600 million or $500 million per
year. It could come out of your subcommittee or out of another
subcommittee, but the point is it would be accountable.

We wouldn't have something totally extraneous to whatever budget
agreement we come up with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, let me get in on this very elucidating
discussion my colleagues are having. It seems to me that if the
emergency designation was taken off the FEMA amendment without offsets,
I believe this bill would be subject to a point of order. In
particular, we would have to come up with offsets of $1.6 billion in
budget authority for the current year. Plus, we also would have to
offset the outlays.
If you are trying to take $1.6 billion in budget authority out of a
program 7 months into the year, the impact on any one program would be
devastating and, in many cases, would defund the program. If there are
programs with such offsets which my colleague can identify where there
is totally wasteful spending, we would be happy to discuss those
offsets. Frankly, I don't know of any program from which we could take
$1.6 billion in budget authority out of this year's appropriations in
the current fiscal year 1998.
I agree with many of the things the Senator from Oklahoma has said.
He is very eloquent. I look forward to going into battle with him to
trim down and to rationalize the emergency funding process. We need a
champion like the Senator from Oklahoma. I really appreciate him
reading the plaintive words we put in the committee report. I did not
think anybody read committee reports. I am deeply indebted to my
colleague for laying them out for the Senate, because nobody would have
believed me if I had read them.
But this process of putting money into CDBG has gotten out of
control. Frankly, what we said in the committee hearings was far
stronger than what I said in that committee report. The $500 million we
appropriated for the CDBG emergency program in FY 1997 was more than I
recommended. This was for the disastrous flooding in the Upper Midwest.
I thought CDBG emergency funding was out of control, and, frankly,
nobody has yet been able to tell us where the money has been spent. I
wish that everybody who so strongly supported and steamrolled the
passage of that emergency designation and that emergency CDBG funding
would come and help us look through the debris of the accounting
systems and find out where the money went.
But that does not change the fact that we have, in this measure,
tried to establish for emergency CDBG funding some criteria and some
guidelines to make sure that the money is not totally wasted. We say
the money has to go to disaster relief activities identified by the
Director of FEMA as unmet needs that have not or will not be addressed
by other Federal disaster assistance programs. To ensure
accountability, States must provide a 25 percent match for these
emergency funds and HUD must publish a notice of program requirements
and provide an accounting of the CDBG funds by the type of activity, by
the amount of funding, and a listing of each recipient. That is our
effort to get a handle on these things.
The Senator from Oklahoma has identified a much larger problem. We
need to get a handle on our disaster program. We have attempted to
establish reforms. I lost out. I was steamrolled last year, and I am
sure someday we will find out where the money went. But in response to
emergencies, we come through again and again and we are very generous.
For example, in July of 1995, we put in $39 million in CDBG funds for
the Oklahoma City bombing, which was a real disaster. That was put in
as an emergency and it was offset.
Now, the problem of offsets is a problem that we have faced every
year. Over the last 3 and a half years, we have offset the cost of
emergencies out of HUD section 8 housing reserves at a cost of some $10
billion. Last year alone, Congress used $3.6 billion in excess section
8 reserves to pay for disaster relief.
Madam President, the well has run dry. We are at the bottom. If you
want to start throwing people out of publicly assisted housing and say
that rather than designate the FEMA amendment as an emergency, we are
going to walk down the street and tell a sweet little lady in section 8
housing that we need to balance the budget, that we are sorry, but your
section 8 assistance is no longer valid and you have no housing--well,
that is harsh and not acceptable. However, these are the kinds of
decisions we have to make. Nevertheless, I am delighted to know that we
will be working with the Senator from Oklahoma in an attempt to reform
FEMA programs and get FEMA expenses under control.

[[Page S2542]]

I urge my colleagues to support a motion, which I must regrettably
make, to table the second-degree amendment. I certainly want to give my
colleague the opportunity to conclude, and the Senator from Maryland,
if she wishes.
Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I appreciate the comments made by my
good friends from Missouri and Maryland. I do look forward to working
with them.
We need to reform this program. A lot of evidence is in need of
reforming this program because, in fact, we do not fund it but then
every year we come up and start asking for more money. I want to tell
my friend and colleague from Maryland something, because I gave you
half an answer. I said that within the caps we would have to offset,
although the caps have increased. There is one other option. If we
breach the caps, the budget law calls for a sequester to offset. That
is how that would happen--one of those two ways. I wanted to make sure
of that. That is my purpose. I think we should stay within the caps, so
we can keep more money to either pay down the debt, or if there is a
surplus, we can save Social Security or give taxpayers relief, not
spend more money.

I hate to work so hard on the budget and come and say we are going to
have a great big bill and spend billions of dollars. This started at $2
billion, and now it is going to be over a $5 billion bill. My colleague
from Missouri mentioned that I read the committee report. It said that
in last year's emergency bill we spent $500 million, I tell my friend
from Alaska. We do not know how they spent it.
I compliment my colleagues that are heading up the HUD subcommittee.
They are trying to stay up with the housing people and say, ``Where did
that money go?'' It is not accountable. Then I heard, ``Well, we spent
$500 million on rebuilding one hospital.'' I appreciate the fact when
Oklahoma City had the Murrah Building bombing in 1995, which killed 169
people, we put in $39 million. We also paid for it; we had an offset.
That was good. I might have supported it without an offset.
But I think we ought to be within the budget and try to fix this
problem. We ought to find out what happened to that $500 million
Community Development Block Grant money last year. I do not like that.
I would have opposed the amendment. I was going to oppose the $260
million add-on for Community Development Block Grant money. I am
bothered that the administration didn't request this money until
yesterday, if this was such an urgent need and we had to have this for
these emergencies. They came up yesterday. They had plenty of money a
week ago. But all of a sudden, now we need the money. I cannot help but
get the feeling that they see a gravy train coming along and we are
going to call this thing an emergency and say, give us an extra almost
$2 billion so we can fund a lot of things that will be off budget, so
we don't have to live by the caps.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield there?
Mr. NICKLES. I would be happy to.
Mr. STEVENS. When I was informed that we were running out of money,
according to the projections for FEMA, and would be out of money if
they met all of the disaster requirements for fiscal year 1998, I said
we had to do something about it but we would not do anything about it
unless we got a request from the administration. That is why it came in
yesterday.
Mr. NICKLES. Do we have the request in writing? The staff informs me
that we do. I have not seen that. I would appreciate a copy of that. It
is a heck of a deal. Here we are on Wednesday, and this request came in
on Tuesday to give us another $1.8 billion or $1.9 billion, and we are
just going to do it. For the life of me, if this is that much of an
emergency, you would think James Lee Witt would have been working on
every Member of the Congress saying, ``We have to have this money.'' He
has not.
What I was hearing up until a week or so ago is that they had enough.
Now, all of a sudden, they need $1.6 billion or $260 million on
Community Development Block Grant money, and we do not even know how
they spent $500 million last year. They cannot even account for that
$500 million of the emergency money last year. Yet, we are getting
ready to give another $260 million plus $1.6 billion for FEMA. I think
that is a mistake. I am told that there are no community block
development requests from the administration--none. There may be a
verbal request, but no written request. I am assuming that is what my
staff is telling me. They did not make the request, but we gave them
the money anyway. I know some of my colleagues would like to have that
money.
Mr. BOND. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. NICKLES. I will yield.
Mr. BOND. The request for emergency CDBG funds came from our
colleagues. If you wish to have all of them speak to you personally, I
would be happy to direct them to you. I can assure you that the $260
million in emergency CDBG funding is significantly less than has been
requested by our colleagues in this body.
Mr. NICKLES. I am getting too many fights going at the same time. I
have a nice engagement with Senator Kennedy on a HCFA add-on that was
put into the budget, which we will be voting on later. And $1.6 billion
is on the floor now. That is enough. I am not trying to anger Members;
I am trying to have a little bit of fiscal responsibility.
Again, since FEMA did not make this request until yesterday, I cannot
believe it is that urgent. But I remind my colleagues, my amendment
does not strike the $1.6 billion; it just says that the emergency
classification will not be in there. So for next year's budget it will
have to live within the caps, and for the following year it will have
to live within the caps. That is the essence of my amendment, so we can
help protect the surplus and maybe give taxpayers some relief.
So that is my hope, and that is my desire. If there is going to be a
motion to table my amendment, I urge colleagues to vote no on tabling
the amendment.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, I was preparing to move to table. But I
wondered whether my colleague was going to offer a similar amendment to
take the emergency designation off of the CDBG, and if he wanted to
have one vote serve for two----
Mr. NICKLES. No. The result would be the same.
Mr. BOND. That would certainly expedite matters and allow us to
express ourselves. There will not be an effort to change that. So this
will be on the second-degree amendment to FEMA.
Madam President, I move to table and 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
table the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Roth) is
necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 68, nays 31, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 42 Leg.]

YEAS--68

Akaka
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Campbell
Chafee
Cleland
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coverdell
D'Amato
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Feinstein
Ford
Frist
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Grassley
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McConnell
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Shelby
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thurmond
Torricelli
Warner
Wellstone
Wyden

NAYS--31

Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Brownback
Burns
Coats
Craig
Enzi
Faircloth
Feingold
Gramm
Grams
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Kempthorne
Kohl
Kyl
McCain
Murkowski
Nickles
Robb
Santorum
Sessions
Smith (NH)
Thomas
Thompson

[[Page S2543]]

NOT VOTING--1

Roth

The motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 2131) was agreed
to.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished senior Senator from Alaska
is recognized.

Amendment No. 2123

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for a vote on the pending
amendment, the amendment of the Senator from Missouri, Senator Bond. I
urge adoption of the amendment at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the underlying amendment of
the Senator from Missouri is agreed to.
The amendment (No. 2123) was agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the
table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending
amendment so Senator Helms may offer his amendment. And I state to the
Senate that this amendment will require a rollcall in the not-too-
distant future.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The distinguished senior Senator from North Carolina is recognized.
Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk that I want to call up
momentarily, but not at this minute.
Mr. STEVENS. May we have order, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 14 doors. If you want to talk, use
one of them.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
As I was saying, I, first, want to offer my personal assessment of
some of the red hot rhetoric coming from and by critics of the United
Nations, and even from this administration, regarding the decision by
the Congress to withhold a portion of the funding for the United
Nations until genuine reforms are implemented by the United Nations. I
happen to know quite a bit about this as a result of my having spent
months and hundreds of hours in painstaking negotiations with Members
of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and the
administration in coming up with a legislative package to pay the so-
called ``U.S. arrearages'' to the United Nations in exchange for
meaningful reform of the United Nations.

That package of reforms passed the Senate twice--once by a vote of 90
to 5. And the conference report has been filed with the House and
Senate. But, unfortunately, by an astounding display of administration
priorities, the White House chose to block this reform bill at the end
of the first session of this Congress after the House of
Representatives added one single provision protecting unborn babies
from deliberate mass destruction.
Amidst all of that, our able and distinguished Secretary of State was
reported as having claimed that not paying the United Nations would
result in what she called a ``shutdown of our national security
policy.'' That statement, by a lady whom I admire and respect,
surprised and saddened me, Mr. President, because Madeleine Albright is
bound to know better than almost anybody else that U.S. national
security policy is run out of the White House, along with the State
Department, which Madeleine Albright, of course, heads. And also it is
run by the Defense Department.
But, Mr. President, Congress has a critical role in all of this as
well--``this'' being a tripartite system of government that we have in
our country. The security policies of the United States are not run by
the United Nations, nor by the U.N. Security Council, nor by Kofi
Annan. Thus, holding out a portion of U.S. funds for the United Nations
in exchange for long overdue significant reforms designed to strengthen
the U.S. national security certainly will not result in a ``shutdown of
our national security policy.''
It is not surprising, however, to hear the familiar anti-American
drumbeat out of the United Nations and from some of its members. I find
it interesting that some diplomats at the United Nations
undiplomatically tossed around the name ``deadbeat,'' referring to the
United States. In fact, the U.N. Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan,
implied as much in his March 9 New York Times op-ed piece entitled,
``The Unpaid Bill That's Crippling the U.N.''
I have a chart here showing that article by the Secretary General,
and I hope the people operating the cameras will make that clear.
I like Kofi Annan fine. He has visited me a number of times--one time
recently in my office in the last 10 days. But in this piece, the
Secretary General made the absurd declaration, a non sequitur, if I
ever heard one. And I quote him: ``Fiji has done its part. What about
the U.S.?"
Well, Mr. President, the Secretary General is a man, I must
reiterate, whom I have regarded and have often described as an
honorable man. I brought up his statement when he visited me in my
office 2 weeks ago.
And, by the way, Mr. President, just for the record, Fiji's United
Nations' assessment for 1998 was precisely $47,636. The assessment for
the United States, our country, on the other hand, was billed for
$297,727,256. But that is not the all of it. The U.S. taxpayers will
pay a total of $901 million to the United Nations and its affiliated
agencies and other international organizations in fiscal year 1998. And
that does not include another $210 million that American taxpayers are
being demanded to pay for U.S. peacekeeping. And that all adds up to
$1.110 billion.

So, it goes without saying that our friend, the U.N. Secretary
General--I suppose in trying to be a little bit cute --in fact ended up
both absurd and untruthful. And I do hope that it was his staff, not
the Secretary General himself, that came up with that quip. Because, as
I say, I have always regarded Kofi Annan as a sensible man.
Nevertheless, it is a perfect example of the disingenuous, even
dishonest arguments being floated to misrepresent the United States of
America, designed to make us pay even more than what we are willing to
or obliged to pay in support of the United Nations. Clearly, it is time
for Congress to meet head on such outrageous charges from those who do
not represent American taxpayers. That is what my amendment is intended
to do.

Amendment No. 2130

(Purpose: To recognize the generous support of United States taxpayers
towards international peace and security)

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I now call up amendment No. 2130 and ask
that its text be read in full and the cosponsors identified. I hope the
full text of the amendment will appear in the Congressional Record at
this point, following which I shall continue my discourse.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms], for himself,
Mr. Lott, Mr. Grams, Mr. Gregg, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Byrd and
Mr. Faircloth, proposes an amendment numbered 2130.

Mr. HELMS. 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:

At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following:

SEC __. UNITED STATES TAXPAYER SUPPORT TOWARDS INTERNATIONAL
PEACE AND SECURITY.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
(1) 8,500 men and women from the United States Armed Forces
are currently serving in and around Bosnia, and 44,200 men
and women from the United States Armed Forces are currently
serving in and around the Persian Gulf;
(2) the Department of Defense has spent $2,200,000,000 in
fiscal year 1995, $3,300,000,000 in fiscal year 1996, and
$2,973,000,000 in fiscal year 1997 for the incremental costs
of implementing or supporting United Nations Security Council
resolutions for which the United States received no credit at
the United Nations;
(3) as of March 1, 1998, the United States Federal debt
totaled $5,537,630,079,097;
(4) as of the date of enactment of this Act, the United
States, according to an audit by the General Accounting
Office, has spent more than $6,400,000,000 in incremental
costs to the Department of Defense in and around

[[Page S2544]]

Bosnia for which the United States received no credit at the
United Nations;
(5) the President is now requesting an additional
$486,900,000 for United States deployments in and around
Bosnia and $1,361,400,000 for United States deployments in
and around the Persian Gulf in ``emergency fiscal year 1998
supplemental funds'';
(6) those funds are in addition to the President's request
for $1,020,000,000 in arrears for all assessed contributions
to international organizations, including a request for
$658,000,000 for United States arrears for United Nations
peacekeeping operations;
(7) in response to spiraling United Nations peacekeeping
costs and excessively broad mandates, the President on April
30, 1994, approved Public Law 103-236, which in section 404
limits the payment of the United States assessed contribution
for any United Nations peacekeeping operation to 25 percent
of the total of all assessed contributions for that
operation;
(8) the United Nations continues to charge the United
States for 30.4 percent of the costs of United Nations
peacekeeping operations, despite Public Law 103-236;
(9) the United Nations continues to demand payment from the
United States of the difference between 25 percent and 30.4
percent of bills for United Nations peacekeeping operations;
(10) United States law prohibits payment of those amounts
as arrears to the United Nations, and the United States is
not obligated to pay those amounts.
(b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate
that--
(1) United States taxpayers should be commended for their
generous and unparalleled support in maintaining
international peace and security through these additional
contributions in support of United Nations Security Council
resolutions, and that the United Nations should acknowledge
publicly the financial and military support of the United
States in maintaining international peace and stability;
(2) the United Nations should immediately reduce the
percentage that the United States is assessed for United
Nations peacekeeping operations to 25 percent to reflect
United States law that limits assessments the United States
will pay to support United Nations peacekeeping operations.
(c) Recognition of United States Support.--
(1) Report by the security council.--The President should
direct the United States Ambassador to the United Nations to
introduce a resolution in the United Nations Security
Council, requiring that the Security Council publicly report
to all United Nations member states on the amount of funds
the United States has spent since January 1, 1990, in
implementing or supporting United Nations Security Council
resolutions, as determined by the Department of Defense.
(2) Demarche to security council members.--The Secretary of
State should issue a demarche to all member countries of the
United Nations Security Council, informing them of the amount
of funds, both credited and uncredited, the Department of
Defense has spent since January 1, 1990, in support of United
Nations Security Council resolutions.
(d) Report to Congress.--Not later than 45 days after the
date of enactment of this Act, the President shall submit a
report to the Committees on Appropriations and International
Relations of the House of Representatives and the Committees
on Appropriations and Foreign Relations of the Senate with
regard to actions taken to carry out the provisions of
subsection (c).

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, instead of complaining that the United
States is not handing over even more millions and millions of dollars,
the United Nations and its members should be thanking the American
taxpayers for their generosity for the past 50 years and the support of
the United States, which continues to provide it. I doubt that anybody
will seriously argue that the United Nations would even exist today had
it not been for the United States and for the generous support provided
by the American taxpayers through good times and bad times. So the
pending amendment stresses this obvious truth and suggests that the
United Nations tone down its crybaby rhetoric and acknowledge the plain
truth. The amendment also calls upon the United Nations to adjust its
peacekeeping assessments to reflect the 25 percent U.S. support for
peacekeeping costs that the Congress and the administration have agreed
to pay.
The amendment further asks that the administration introduce a
resolution in the U.N. Security Council to require the United Nations
to report the total amount of money the United States has paid in
supporting and/or implementing Security Council resolutions since 1990
and for the Secretary of State to inform all United Nations members of
this report.
Finally, the amendment requires the President of the United States to
detail all actions taken by the United States to carry out the
aforementioned recommendations.
Mr. President, let me offer several examples of why the pending
amendment is essential. First, a scandalous situation in which the
United States is treated unfairly involves the assessment for regular
operations of the United Nations. This past December, the United
Nations General Assembly voted to reduce the minimum assessment a
country must pay to be a member of the United Nations. They reduced it
from one-hundredth of 1 percent, that's 0.01, to one-thousandth of 1
percent, 0.001, and the Clinton administration went along with this
giveaway. Of course the U.S. assessment was not reduced 1 cent, not a
farthing, not a penny.
Under this new formula, 29 countries now pay just one-thousandth of 1
percent, .001 of the regular U.N. budget, amounting to $10,516 a year
for each of the 29 countries for the year 1998. Mr. President, 41 other
countries pay between two-thousandths of 1 percent, that is .002, and
.009, nine-thousandths of 1 percent. That is between $21,032 and
$94,647 of the regular U.N. budget for 1998. Four countries pay one-
hundredth of 1 percent, that is .01 of the budget, U.N. budget, for an
assessment of $105,163 each. Another 84 countries, like Red China, for
example, which regularly undermines U.S. interests in the Security
Council, will pay less than 1 percent--less than 1 percent--of the U.N.
budget. But the American taxpayers, they will foot the bill for 25
percent of the U.N. regular budget, and that is $297,727,256, or 28,312
times more than what 29 countries pay, and it is far more than what all
the rest pay.
Mr. President, 7 years ago I asked my lifelong friend, Adm. Bud
Nance, with whom I grew up in Monroe, NC, to assume the
responsibilities of chief of staff of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Bud Nance had completed a distinguished 38-year career in the Navy.
Among other things, he was skipper of the U.S.S. Forrestal, an aircraft
carrier that had more sailors aboard than we had people in our
hometown. He later served as President Reagan's Deputy National
Security Adviser. But the point is, Bud Nance, my friend, agreed to
serve his country and his friend--that is the way he put it--on one
condition. He would come and work as chief of staff if he received no
pay. He did not want to be paid a cent because, he said, his country
had paid him well while he was in the Navy and now he wanted to return
something to his country. So he came.

The admiral and I learned, after he came, that no staff person in the
Senate can hold a security clearance, which is essential for holding a
job, unless he or she is paid at least a minimum salary, just over
$1,000 a year. Several years later Congress applied the laws it forces
the rest of America to live under to itself. It was made applicable to
Bud Nance, and we had to give Bud a pay raise. It was forced upon him,
and he was therefore paid the minimum wage for being chief of staff
with one of the Senate's most important committees; that is to say, Bud
Nance earns $10,712 a year. That is all he earns. He does not want to
accept that.
In any case, when Bud Nance told me that the United Nations reduced
the assessment of 29 countries to just $10,560 apiece annually, he
reminded me that the minimum annual wage in this country, the $10,712
the Senate pays him, is more than these sovereign countries pay in
annual dues to the United Nations.
Mr. President, how about another example? Compare Russia's 2.8
percent U.N. assessment, compare it with the United States 25 percent
assessment. And Egypt? Egypt is one of the largest recipients of U.S.
foreign aid, and it will receive $2.1 billion in foreign aid from the
American taxpayers this year. Yet Egypt will pay just 69-hundredths of
1 percent of the regular U.N. budget, far less than $1 million. By the
way, Egypt voted against the United States 61 percent of the time in
the United Nations in 1997.
India, which will receive approximately $143 million in foreign aid
from the United States, that is to say the American taxpayers--India
will pay just three-tenths of 1 percent of the regular U.N. budget.
India voted against the United States 76 percent of the time in 1997.
So it is obvious that the United States pays far more than its fair
share. And what about the U.S. support for peacekeeping operations? The

[[Page S2545]]

amount that I mentioned earlier for this, $210 million, really is only
a fraction of the amount the United States will pay for U.N.
peacekeeping in fiscal year 1998. As a part of the 1997 appropriations
for the Armed Forces, Congress required the Pentagon to report on the
costs incurred by the U.S. military in implementing or supporting U.N.
Security Council resolutions. Heretofore, the U.N. payment by the
United States has been off the books and intentionally hidden from the
American taxpayers. This chart will be very interesting to American
taxpayers, I think, because it has some rather precise arithmetic, and
I hope the camera can focus upon it.
The information on this chart came from the official Department of
Defense report for fiscal year 1997: $2,972,938,000 was stripped away
from the training and the readiness of our U.S. armed forces and handed
over to support the U.N. Security Council resolutions. This is nearly
$3 billion, mind you, and it is in addition to the $902,102,000 the
American taxpayers provided to the United Nations and its affiliated
agencies and other international organizations, also, in addition to
the $334,780,000 that the American taxpayers were forced to fork over
for U.N. peacekeeping in fiscal year 1997.
So, while the U.N. crybabies whine about not receiving enough of the
American taxpayers' money, the real truth is that the United States
volunteered more than three times what we were asked to pay; that is a
total of $4,209,820,000 to the United Nations in fiscal year 1997. That
is almost $3 billion which was taken off the books, courtesy of the
American sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines. It was taken from them
in terms of what should have been spent for their development in
defense of this country.

Most Americans do not even realize that billions of dollars are being
siphoned away from the shrinking U.S. military budget to support the
United Nations. In fact, most Americans have not the vaguest idea how
much money the United States provides for the United Nations. In 1995,
the United States--that is to say the American taxpayers--provided 30.7
percent of all of the United Nations peacekeeping costs, far more than
any other country. That may have seemed fair in the 1950s, but it is
out of line today. That is why Congress and the administration agreed
to scale back U.S. payments for U.N. peacekeeping to 25 percent, and
that is still far more than any other country pays. Yet, the crybabies
continue to whine at the United Nations.
But the United Nations ignores the will of Congress and continues to
demand--not anything courteous about it at all--continues to demand
that the United States pay the 30.7 percent of the peacekeeping costs.
The United Nations calls this extra 5.7 percent add-on an ``arrear.''
They talk about arrearages, even though it represents hundreds of
millions of dollars that we do not owe and that we should never pay,
and I respectfully suggest that somebody should inform the
international diplomatic corps that the United States controls the U.S.
Government purse strings, not the United Nations.
All of which reminds me of Sam Ervin, that great Senator from North
Carolina, with whom I was honored to serve a couple of years before he
retired. Senator Sam Ervin quoted a Latin proverb that seems apt. He
said: ``Small gifts make friends; great gifts make enemies.'' And I can
imagine what Senator Sam would be saying if he were still sitting right
over there, if he were still around as a Member of the Senate, about
what little impact the United States has had on the operations of the
United Nations, in light of the total amount of millions and millions
of dollars that we have paid to the United Nations, especially since
Americans are being smothered under a $5,531,793,429,306.24 Federal
debt as of March 23.
Some Americans would mistakenly suppose that at least 25 percent of
United Nations employees are American citizens, since the United States
provides 25 percent of the budget and that the United Nations
headquarters is in New York City. But only 7.1 percent of U.N.
employees are U.S. citizens. Surely it is obvious that the Congress
needs to pass and President Clinton needs to sign into law the U.N.
reforms that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware and I negotiated and which
were approved by this Senate last year by a vote of 90 to 5.
Mr. President, I am going to close with one final thought. The
administration spends a lot of time talking about how the United States
has become the indispensable Nation in the post-cold war era, and I
agree with that. But at the same time, the administration acts as if
America is powerless to act in our own people's interest unless the
United Nations is calling the tune. Small wonder that so many Americans
are confused about U.S. foreign policy and the direction this country
is heading internationally.
No; let the record be clear--let the record be clear--America is
anything but a deadbeat nation. The real problem is an administration
that has allowed too many handout artists at the United Nations to go
unchallenged in their arrogance. Mr. President, enough is enough.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator
from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from North
Carolina for his amendment, because it clearly outlines the problems
which we have as a Congress with the representations that we continue
to hear from the United Nations and some of the member nations within
the United Nations relative to the obligations of the U.S. arrearages
and, as we go into the future, relative to the obligations for the
payment of the operation of the United Nations and the payment for the
international organizations for the United Nations and the payment for
peacekeeping.
The fact is that the United States and the taxpayers of this country,
to whom we answer, have been extremely generous with the United
Nations--extremely generous. We have undertaken as a nation far more--
far more--than our fair share of the costs of initiatives which the
United Nations is pursuing, and we are today undertaking far more than
is our fair share, both in Southwest Asia and also in Bosnia.

This supplemental appropriations bill has in it $1.9 billion, the
purpose of which is to try to put our Defense Department into a
position of solvency, for lack of a better term, relative to the costs
of these peacekeeping missions, so that we are not culling, draining
from our core defense establishment, funds necessary to maintain that
establishment in order to undertake these peacekeeping initiatives in
two areas where the United Nations has a primary role and has been one
of the primary promoters. That is why we are pursuing this supplemental
appropriations.
But it is part of a larger picture, and the Senator from North
Carolina has outlined it and pointed out rather precisely the dollars
involved and the commitments we have made just in these two areas.
I want to highlight a couple of points, because I am very tired, as
chairman of the appropriating subcommittee that has responsibility for
the U.N. accounts--I am very tired of hearing this constant moaning
from New York, from members of the United Nations, about American
arrears. Let's look at what those arrears are.
Only $54 million--$54 million--a small number in the context of the
entire budget, although a big number in the context of a small State
like New Hampshire and certainly a very expensive number for the people
of New Hampshire because that is coming out of our taxes--only $54
million goes to the operation of the United Nations of the alleged
arrears that are presented to us.
Of the total arrearage--and the debate is out there as to whether it
is $600 million, $900 million, or $1.2 billion--of that total
arrearage, only $54 million goes to operating accounts within the
United Nations. The vast majority of the balance--there are a couple of
international organizations involved here--but the vast majority of the
balance flows through the United Nations to other nations to reimburse
them for their peacekeeping costs.
Let me list a few of these: France alleges it is owed $151 million;
Italy alleges it is owed $62 million; Belgium,

[[Page S2546]]

$58 million; The Netherlands, $50 million; India, $47 million;
Pakistan, $45 million; Russia, $36 million.
So, of the arrearages that are allegedly owed by the United States,
they do not go to the operations of the United Nations. So when I see a
headline like was held up earlier by the Senator from North Carolina
which said we were undermining the United Nations by our failure to pay
these arrearages, that is just poppycock. That is purely a statement of
politics, not a statement of substance.
The fact is that of the arrearages that are owed, should we end up
paying them in full under our definition of what is ``in full,'' almost
all that money is not going to stay at the United Nations; it is going
to flow out to these other countries.
I think the question has to be asked, What part have these other
countries played in undertaking the burden of our activities, for
example, in Iraq? Were they participants in the costs that we just
incurred as a nation, which were dramatic, in Iraq? The present
estimate of the Iraq costs, I think, is somewhere in the vicinity of
$4.6 billion to our Defense Department in order to try to contain
Saddam Hussein, and this was purely--purely--a U.N. initiative and
effort. We were there flying under the flag of the United Nations,
although our country obviously bore the biggest responsibility, because
we are the most capable military power in the world.

But to the extent we were there, we were picking up this ticketed
cost of $4.6 billion to date, and it goes up every day. How much of
that cost did these other nations, which are claiming that we are in
arrears on peacekeeping and that they want us to pay them, pay for? How
much of that cost? Well, France did not participate and has not
participated in this most recent Iraqi buildup, to my knowledge. Italy
did not participate. Belgium did not participate. The Netherlands did
not participate. India did not participate. Pakistan did not
participate. Russia did not participate. So, essentially, they are
asking us to pay twice. They are saying first we have to pay these
peacekeeping arrears to them, and then we have to go out and keep peace
for them in Iraq.
At some point, the American taxpayer starts to scratch his or her
head and say, ``Hold it. You know, this is our money. We recognize we
have a responsibility to the United Nations, but don't try to make
fools of us.'' And that is the concern. The concern is that we are
being asked to pay a disproportionate share of the burden of the
peacekeeping activities of the United Nations today in Bosnia and in
Iraq, and we are not getting any credit for it.
To the credit of the Senator from North Carolina, he worked very hard
to reach an agreement on how these arrearages should be managed as part
of an overall reform package for the United Nations. A basic element of
that reform package was that our peacekeeping responsibility would drop
from 30 percent to 25 percent and that our dues for the operational
aspects of the United Nations would drop from 25 percent down to,
hopefully, 20 percent, at least 22 percent.
We have not seen any action in that area, nor have we seen any action
in the fundamental reforms which were alluded to, not specifically, but
alluded to by the Senator from North Carolina as to the management of
the United Nations, where American tax dollars are being used to hire
the friend of a friend who happened to be the president of some country
somewhere; an institution which is replete with duplication,
bureaucracy, and, regrettably, in many instances pure old-fashioned
patronage.
American tax dollars are not being accounted for. They do not have a
system of telling us where they spent the money. They do not have a
personnel system that can tell us whom they hire, and they do not have
a system which can tell us how their programs are being delivered and
what the overhead of those programs is. So we asked for that as a
condition for paying any further arrearages. None of this has been met.
I come here with the same frustration as that of the Senator from
North Carolina and, I think, the Senator from West Virginia as a
cosponsor of this, and he is certainly a much more eloquent spokesman
on issues like this than I am. But I, like many Americans, am saying,
how can they continue to come to us and say, ``Give us more,'' when
they are not giving us credit for what we have already done?
The American taxpayer has a legitimate complaint here. The amendment
of the Senator from North Carolina is a way to try to raise the
visibility of that complaint. I congratulate him for it, and I hope we
will adopt it. I yield the floor.
Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished senior
Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I strongly support the amendment offered by the senior
Senator from North Carolina. The administration has been on a nonstop
campaign to color the Congress as irresponsible chiselers on U.N. dues.
At the same time, however, we are forking over emergency money for
Bosnia operations and for Southwest Asia operations in this bill that
amounts to nearly $2 billion.
It was the present NATO-led operation that bailed out the
embarrassingly bad failure of the United Nations to keep the peace in
Bosnia which had witnessed a modern version of the Holocaust. It was
the U.S. military operation, exclusively in Southwest Asia, that gave
teeth to the U.N. Secretary General's negotiations with Saddam Hussein,
a fact readily admitted by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The United States has paid out many times over in unilateral costs
the so-called arrearages claimed by the United Nations to be owed by
the United States in support of the objectives of the United Nations in
both theaters.
The amendment by Mr. Helms is truth in international funding, truth
in international fundraising.
We do not see much in the way of contributions by other members of
the Security Council to our operations in either theater.
The figures used by Mr. Helms, some $6 billion or more in U.S.
unilateral outlays since 1990, compared to the trumpeted past due bill
of $1 billion we supposedly owe to the United Nations, provides the
stark contrast--the stark contrast--the basic unfairness of the charge
that the United States is some kind of debtor to the United Nations,
some kind of deadbeat, as it were, some kind of chiseler, as it were.
My mom used to keep boarders back in the coal mining community. And
we took on boarders who came to our house. I often listened to a new
boarder for a few minutes. From time to time I would say to the woman
who raised me--``He's going to beat you out of your board bill. That
man won't pay you.'' And I was amazed in so many instances to find, to
my chagrin, that that man would not pay his board bill. He was a
chiseler. That is what we are portrayed to be--chiselers; deadbeats--we
will not pay our dues; we will not pay our arrearages.
The United States has been bailing out the rest of the United Nations
for years now. Take the United States out of the United Nations, what
do you have left? What is there left? The other members of the United
Nations, in fact, owe the United States. They owe us a massive back
bill for military operations and funding.
The first question that was ever asked in the history of the world,
in the history of the universe, in the history of all creation, the
first question that was ever asked was when God walked through the
Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day, searching for Adam and Eve.
They had forfeited--they had forfeited--their right to that
everlasting life in that garden of bliss, a virtual paradise, by eating
from the Tree of Knowledge in violation of God's warning not to do so.
So God came looking for them in the cool of the day. God asked that
first question: ``Adam, where art thou?'' They had hidden themselves
from Him. ``Adam, where art thou?''
Mr. President, we might well ask the other members of the United
Nations, ``Where were you when we were in the hot sands of the gulf,
when we had sent our men and women away from their homes, away from
their firesides, away from their children, away from their loved ones
to take possible action to protect you and yours? Where were you? Where
were you?''

[[Page S2547]]

Mr. President, the time has come for the administration to cool
down--cool down--it's hot rhetoric on the matter of the so-called
arrearages by the United States. The time has come to see the forest--
not just the trees--on the matter of who is fulfilling the responsible
role--the responsible role--of international leadership against
aggression.
I commend the Senator for his amendment. I thank him for allowing me
to be a cosponsor of it. I hope that it will get a big vote in this
Chamber so that a clear message is sent to the whiners--to the
whiners--both in New York and down Pennsylvania Avenue on this whole
issue.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator
from the great State of Minnesota.
Mr. GRAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I also rise today to support this amendment. The
United States has been called a ``deadbeat''; it has been called a
``bully'' at the United Nations. The United States has been accused of
being ``heavy-handed'' and not doing its ``fair share'' for the
international community. The United States has been berated and
belittled at every turn by many of the countries that have been
benefiting most from U.S. generosity--both in terms of security
guarantees and also in terms of economic assistance.

Mr. President, America bashing is a popular pastime at the United
Nations, and this administration is doing nothing to stop it. In fact,
this administration has been contributing to the feeding frenzy by
trying to undercut the terms of the U.N. reform plan instead of
standing by the deal that it helped negotiate. If this administration
is encouraging anti-American sentiment at the United Nations in order
to gain leverage with Congress to water down the reforms, well, it is
unconscionable and it is not going to work.
Mr. President, this administration has been so weak in defending the
honor and the reputation of the United States at the United Nations,
and so negligent in highlighting the great contributions that America
is making to promote international security, that we feel compelled to
direct the administration to do so with this amendment.
Now, while the United States is being called a ``deadbeat'' regarding
its international obligations, well, the facts say something quite
different. The United States may owe arrears to the United Nations, but
that is only because the United States received no credit at the United
Nations for the $2.97 billion that U.S. taxpayers spent in fiscal year
1997 implementing U.N. Security Council resolutions--again, nearly $3
billion of U.S. taxpayer money to help implement U.N. Security Council
resolutions last year alone.
We received no credit for the more than $6.4 billion that the U.S.
taxpayers have spent to date in and around Bosnia. We will receive no
credit for the emergency funding of an additional $487 million for the
Bosnia mission and the $1.4 billion for U.S. deployments in the Persian
Gulf that the President is asking for in this bill.
As we all know, our troops are in the gulf to enforce U.N. Security
Council Resolution 687 on Iraq. But that does not mean that we will get
credit for our contribution at the United Nations. And while we do need
to settle our disputed arrears to the United Nations, Mr. President, we
should not be myopic. The U.S. taxpayers are doing far more than just
pulling their weight in the international community.
Mr. President, this amendment is necessary to ensure that all U.N.
member states are aware of the great sacrifices that the American
taxpayers are making to support U.N. Security Council resolutions since
U.N. bookkeeping obscures the facts.
First, the amendment states that U.S. taxpayers should be commended
for their generous support in maintaining international peace and
security; the United Nations should publicly acknowledge this support
and immediately reduce the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent
that is in accordance with U.S. law.
Second, it calls on the President to direct the U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations to introduce a Security Council resolution requiring
the Security Council to report to all member states on the amount that
the United States has spent supporting U.N. Security Council
resolutions just since January 1, 1990, as determined by the Department
of Defense.
Third, it requests the Secretary of State to notify all members of
the Security Council on the amounts--both credited and uncredited--that
DOD has spent supporting U.N. Security Council resolutions, again, just
since January 1, 1990.

And, fourth, Mr. President, it requires the President to report back
to the appropriate committees in the House and the Senate within 45
days on the efforts to carry out these steps in this amendment.
Now, I do not know how far this amendment will go toward getting the
U.S. taxpayers the recognition that they deserve for U.S. support of
the United Nations, but I do hope it will put the U.S. arrears in
perspective. Both the administration and the Congress agree that the
U.S. owes only $54 million to the U.N. regular budget and $658 million
for peacekeeping expenses. Now, that is $712 million. You compare that
to the nearly $3 billion the Department of Defense spent in fiscal year
1997 alone--we spent more than four times that amount last year alone--
implementing U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Mr. President, throughout the history of the United Nations, the
United States has always been its most generous donor. American
taxpayers currently are billed for 25 percent of the entire U.N.
operating budget and 30.4 percent of the peacekeeping budget, although
the United States now pays 25 percent, as I mentioned, in accordance
with a law passed by, again, a Democratic-controlled Congress and
signed into law by President Clinton.
Currently, those bills total more than $600 million annually. In
contrast, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and China--which has a veto in the
Security Council--only pay about 1 percent of the entire U.N. regular
budget. The floor of assessment levels was just lowered from .01
percent of the U.N. operating budget, from about $106,000 a year, to
.001 percent, or under $11,000. So each contribution from those nations
will not be enough to even cover one-tenth of the salary of one of
their highly priced bureaucrats. It will only pay about one-tenth of
the salary of one of their bureaucrats at the United Nations. That is
all they pay.
Despite this fact, each member of the United Nations has one vote on
budget issues. In addition to the assessed payments I just mentioned,
the United States voluntarily and generously contributes hundreds of
millions of dollars to programs like UNICEF, UNHCR, and the U.N.
Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. So, Mr. President, the United
States pays more than its fair share for world peace, stability, and
humanitarian efforts.
That being said, we do need to settle our disputed arrears to the
United Nations. We did engage in good-faith negotiations with the
administration, and we made a deal on the U.N. reform package. The
Senate, with the full support of the administration, passed this
bipartisan legislation twice--by a 90-5 rollcall vote and again by
unanimous consent. The only thing that prevented this agreement from
becoming law was a dispute over an unrelated issue.
This administration then decided to forgo nearly $1 billion for the
United Nations and $3.5 billion for the IMF so it could preserve the
ability for U.S. grant recipients to lobby foreign governments to
liberalize their abortion laws.
Mr. President, Secretary Albright recently said that failure to pay
the U.N. arrears would result in a ``shutdown of our national security
policy.'' I must admit, I was somewhat taken aback by that statement,
as I was not aware that this administration had officially
subcontracted our national security policy to the United Nations.

Indeed, I will fight to make sure that it will never happen. But if
the United States truly is suffering a loss of prestige and
effectiveness in the global arena because of our U.N. arrears, as the
administration contends, then it is irresponsible for this
administration to jeopardize our security interests and influence for
domestic political considerations.
I hope that in the near future Congress will pass the U.N. reform
package and the President will sign it into law

[[Page S2548]]

so we can put this small matter of the disputed arrears behind us.
Regardless of the fate of that legislation, I also believe it is
important that we pass this amendment so that the rest of the world
will be aware of what we all know, and that is the huge sacrifice that
the United States taxpayers make to support U.N. Security Council
activities.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished senior
Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his remarks, as I do Senator
Gregg, and particularly Senator Byrd, who is always eloquent.
Now, Mr. President, I want to be sure that all of the cosponsors are
identified. I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished majority
leader, Senator Lott, be listed as a cosponsor, as well as Senator
Gregg, Senator Grams, Senator Hollings, Senator Byrd, Senator
Faircloth, and Senator Ashcroft.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, 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.
Mr. HELMS. Are the yeas and nays ordered, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been ordered.
Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Was there a
unanimous consent for a time to vote? If not, I would like to speak for
3 minutes on this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator
from Delaware.
Mr. BIDEN. I thank the chairman of the committee for accommodating
one of my concerns that I expressed through staff on this amendment
that he changed.
I agree fully, as the Senator knows from our many discussions on the
United Nations and some disagreements relative to the United Nations,
that I, like he, believe we do not get sufficient credit. He may
remember the debate we had in the committee where I found myself at
odds with some of my colleagues who share my view that we, in fact, owe
a good deal of money and should pay it.
I take issue, for the record, with my friend from Minnesota about his
characterization of what a terrible job the administration has done. I
do not believe that is the case. I believe that Secretary Albright,
when she was at the United Nations, and others have never failed to
point out the extent of our involvement.
I do not think we should confuse apples and oranges here. The truth
of the matter is there are certain things that are U.N. sanctioned and
there are other things that are U.N. administered. When folks wear blue
helmets, everybody gets repaid. When they are not wearing blue helmets,
they do not get repaid unless it is a chapter 7 undertaking
administered by the U.N. I will not bore my colleagues with the details
that relates to, but let me say we are not the only country who has
acted unilaterally under the cover of or with the sanction of a U.N.
resolution. There are other countries who have done so and have not
been reimbursed for their contributions, from France to Germany to
Great Britain.
For example, in 1994 voluntary expenditures by France amounted to
$747.5 million, for which they did not seek reimbursement; Italy,
$347.7 million, et cetera. We by far and away are the biggest of the
contributing noncredit-given countries in the United Nations, I
acknowledge that. And I think we should be doing what the Senator from
North Carolina is saying: We should make it clear, in part to our folks
as well as the rest of the world, that we do a great deal more than we
get credit for.
I further say that we could amend--and I am not going to --we could
amend this resolution to ask the world body to understand that there
are other tens of billions, hundreds of billions, we spend that are not
under any U.N. auspices, that are done for the good of the world, that
we get no credit for.
It is true we do not get sufficient credit. But I respectfully
suggest that it should not be confused with whether or not we owe or do
not owe what we agreed to under the deal we signed up to when we joined
the United Nations. I make a distinction here. No state receives credit
against assessments for unilateral activities in support of U.N.
security council resolutions which represent a majority of the U.S.
cost incurred during the period my friend from Minnesota is talking
about.
Again, I will ask unanimous consent a written statement be printed in
the Record to explain in more detail the points I know my colleagues
understand but maybe the public at large, listening to the truncated
debate on my part, may not understand.
For example, let me conclude with this. Italy just spent a lot of
money on Albania under a U.N.-sanctioned resolution. Now, Italy did it
because if Albania goes bad, Italy is in trouble. Italy has a real
problem, a serious problem. It was in their overwhelming interest to
see to it that things did not deteriorate more than they did in
Albania. So the rest of the world did what they always do with us--they
kind of stood by a little bit, and we held Italy's coat, in effect, and
we said, ``OK, you go ahead, you go ahead and spend that money. We know
basically it is in your interest. You would want to do it even if there
were no U.N. resolution authorizing you to do that. You would still
want to do it, because it is in your overwhelming interest and it is in
the world's interest.''
The no-fly zone in Iraq. We have used an attenuated rationale--which
I think we should have--to enforce the no-fly zone. We are paying for
the bulk of that, the United States of America. It is not because the
rest of the world is saying, go in and enforce the no-fly zone. Half
the United Nations might say, don't enforce the no-fly zone. The reason
they do not want to pay, the reason it is not a blue helmet operation,
they could not get the United Nations to go along.

Here is a case where we believe it is in our overwhelming naked self-
interest to enforce the no-fly zone, because oil in that region of the
world is as big a deal to us as it is to the rest of the world.
Granted, it benefits the whole world, but we are big boys. We have to
grow up. We have to understand there are certain times when we do
things and expend money that incidentally benefits other people but we
would do even if the United Nations was not around.
So the technical distinction that is made in reimbursement is
between--to overstate it in the interest of time--a blue helmet being
worn and us going in and doing it with the sanction of the United
Nations, saying, ``OK, we have a resolution that says it is OK to do
that.'' There are two different deals.
So we should do what is being proposed. I am voting with my leader on
this issue. He is correct. But let's not get carried away, as I
respectfully suggest my friend from Minnesota maybe has in terms of
how, (a), the administration has done nothing to make clear our
contributions, and (b), that somehow this is the same as what is owed
by us and we are trading apples for apples. They are apples and
oranges. Maybe we should change the way the charter reads. Maybe we
should change it to say, ``Anything done under the guise of''--or
``under the umbrella of a U.N.-sanctioned operation should be given
credit for.'' Maybe we should say that. I am not sure we want to say
that, because we may find a lot of folks involved in things we do not
want to have to contribute to but maybe we should. But it does not say
that now. That is not the way it works now.
Mr. President, I compliment my friend, and I do not disagree with the
underlying thrust of what my friend from Minnesota is saying, that we
do not get enough credit. We do not get enough credit. If we do not get
up there and beat our chest a little bit about what we are doing, sure
in the heck, no one else will give us credit for it. I think it should
at least be done now in part, quite frankly, and you might consider
this typically--my friend from North Carolina would be too polite to
say this--kind of a typically Biden view of this thing in the following
respect: I think it is important to do this now, because we haven't
paid.
In other words, I am so upset about us not having met our obligations
that

[[Page S2549]]

we signed on to, coupled with the damage I think it is doing to our
ability to get other things that are in our naked self-interest done in
the United Nations, that at least this might, by advertising what we
have done, sort of take the stinger out of the rhetoric that is going
around up in the United Nations that we do not do anything, that we are
the bad guys, we are the pariah, we are the total deadbeat. That is one
of the reasons why I am glad we are doing it.
I do not think we should confuse what we have done in other areas,
and I will list for the Record what they are. I am sure my colleagues
already know how we get to the $2,972,938,000. They are: Former
Yugoslavia and Iraq operations, including Able Sentry, Deny Flight,
IFOR/SFOR operations, Southern Watch, Sentinel, and Provide Comfort.
They basically relate to what was cited here, the former Yugoslavia and
Iraq, and with the exception of Able Sentry, I think we would find that
each of the things we have done in there that have not been compensated
for are things we pushed to have done.
There is resistance at the United Nations and in NATO to do --we
brought them around through, in effect, sanctioning us to do this.
I end by saying I think my colleagues would probably be apoplectic if
everything we did in order to get reimbursed we had Americans with blue
helmets on. I think you would all be up here going bananas if that were
the case. Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.
In this case, I think it is worth making the case, I think you
overstate the criticism of the administration.
I thank the chairman of the full committee for allowing me, and I
thank my friend from North Carolina for allowing me to be part of this
amendment.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the written material that
I referred to earlier be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

The Under Secretary of Defense,

Washington, DC, February 13, 1998.
Hon. Jesse Helms,
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: As required by Section 8091 of the
Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 1997, I enclose
a report on costs incurred by the Department of Defense ``in
implementing or supporting resolutions of the United Nations
Security Council.'' Specifically, the report provides
incremental costs for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1997
as well as cumulative costs for the 1997 fiscal year to the
end of the fourth quarter. The report also provides
information on efforts the Department has made to be
reimbursed for troop contributions and provision of services
and commodities to U.N. peacekeeping operations.
We take seriously our commitment to provide data to the
Congress regarding the costs incurred in support of U.N.
activities. I trust that you will find the enclosed report to
be a useful summary of the costs that the Department has
incurred in support of U.N. activities as well as the
Department's efforts to seek reimbursement for these
activities.
Sincerely yours,
Walter B. Slocombe.
Enclosure: as stated.

Report to the Congress for the Fourth Quarter, Fiscal Year 1997 in
Compliance With Section 8091, Defense Appropriations Act of 1997

The DoD Appropriations Act for 1997 (Act) requires the
Secretary of Defense to submit a report at the end of each
quarter indicating ``all costs (including incremental costs)
incurred by the Department of Defense (DoD) during the
preceding quarter in implementing or supporting resolutions
of the United Nations Security Council.'' The data included
herein are provided in response to section 8091.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) compiles
incremental costs associated with United States military
operations based on data provided by the military departments
and defense agencies. These data were modified, as necessary,
to properly reflect transfer actions and unreported costs
applicable to support to U.N. operations. Data are presented
below in both quarterly and cumulative (for the fiscal year)
format. It is important to note that DFAS cost reports
include information received during a particular quarter of
the fiscal year: comprehensive cost data are not available in
the immediately succeeding quarter. The Department collects
only incremental costs, which are defined as additional costs
to the DoD component appropriations that would not have been
incurred if a contingency operation had not been supported.
All incremental costs included below are current as of 30
September 1997, and are aggregated for FY97, and exclude
reimbursements received for troop contributions (section 2),
which are presented individually.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reported for 4Q Cumulative for
Operation/Region FY97 FY97 through 4Q
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former Yugoslavia Operations:
ABLE SENTRY (FYROM)................. $2,950,000 $11,727,000
DENY FLIGHT/DECISIVE EDGE........... 30,101,000 183,266,000
IFOR/SFOR Operations................ 779,316,000 2,087,518,000
SOUTHERN WATCH/VIGILANT SENTINEL
(Iraq)............................... 185,499,000 597,312,000
PROVIDE COMFORT/NORTHERN WATCH (Iraq). 20,627,000 93,115,000
---------------------------------
Total........................... 1,018,493,000 2,972,938,000
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Act requires the Secretary of Defense to ``detail in
the quarterly reports all efforts made to seek credit against
past United Nations expenditures and all efforts made to seek
compensation from the United Nations for costs incurred by
the Department of Defense in implementing and supporting
United Nations activities.''
The Administration's policy is to seek reimbursement, or
compensation as the Act terms it, for all allowable costs of
participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations. There are two
instances in which costs are allowable: (1) costs related to
troop contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations, and (2)
provision of services and commodities to United Nations
peacekeeping operations. The provision of services and
commodities occurs under a process known as the Letter of
Assist (LOA). The LOA process is similar to a contract
between the USG and the UN whereby the USG agrees to provide
support to the U.N. with the understanding that the U.N. will
provide reimbursement under established terms. Only
expenditures in support of a peacekeeping operation conducted
by the U.N. approved by the Security Council and authorized
by the General Assembly (through its annual budget approval
process) as a legitimate charge to the UN are eligible for
reimbursement. No state receives credit against assessments
for unilateral activities ``in support of'' UN Security
Council resolutions, which represent the majority of U.S.
costs incurred during this reporting period.
Information regarding billings and reimbursements for the
fourth quarter of fiscal year 1997 is provided below. Data on
reimbursable support are divided into two sections. The first
section accounts for the provision of defense articles and
services. The Department of Defense submits bills to the U.N.
for these articles and services on a monthly basis. The
second section identifies reimbursements to the United States
Government for troop contributions to a U.N.-mandated and
assessed peace operation. The United Nations reimburses troop
contributors for specific United Nations peacekeeping
operations on a periodic basis depending on the availability
of funds. No troop-contributing government submits bills for
troop reimbursements. Rather, the U.N. reimburses governments
on its own initiative when sufficient funds are available to
pay all contributors to a particular mission for at least a
one-month increment; all member states involved in a
particular mission are reimbursed for troop contributions
simultaneously. Reimbursements for incremental troop
contribution costs are made by the U.N. directly to the
Department of Defense. The Department of Defense has
determined that its incremental costs are $318 per soldier
per month.

SECTION 1--FY 97 PROVISION OF DEFENSE ARTICLES AND SERVICES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Billed
DoD component (cumulative) Reimbursements
--------------------------------------------------------------\1\-------
NIMA................................... $9,550.32 $00.00
Army................................... 98,939.67 350.32
Total............................ 101,489.99 350.32
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The United Nations has not been able to make full payments to the
U.S. and to other member states because of a lack of funds resulting
from unpaid peacekeeping assessments. All DoD bills that have been
presented to the United Nations during FY97 have been certified as
legitimate claims.

SECTION 2--FY 97 TROOP CONTRIBUTION REIMBURSEMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Period covered by
Operation Reimbursements reimbursements
--------------------------------------------------------------\1\-------
0 NA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The United Nations has not been able to make full payments to the
U.S. and to other member states because of a lack of funds resulting
from unpaid peacekeeping assessments. All DoD bills that have been
presented to the United Nations during FY97 have been certified as
legitimate claims.

Mr. STEVENS. Have the yeas and nays been ordered on the Helms
amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent this vote take place at 6:30
p.m.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. 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. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I say to the chairman of the full committee
I will summarize my statement here, and when anyone is ready to go with
an amendment, I will cease. But I will

[[Page S2550]]

speak on the overall supplemental, if I may.
I rise in strong support of the supplemental appropriation for troops
in the Persian Gulf and for our troops in Bosnia. I want to say a few
words about our policy in the Persian Gulf and then turn to a more
detailed discussion, if I have time, of our SFOR mission in Bosnia.
Passing this supplemental appropriations sends an unequivocal message
to Saddam Hussein that the United States is committed to thwarting his
intent to threaten our national interest. Diplomacy backed by the
credible threat of force has put the international inspectors back in
business, and for the first time in 7 years these inspectors, Mr.
President, are doing their work without hindrance. Maintaining our
military force in the gulf is as important as anything else in keeping
Saddam Hussein honest, although it is expensive and it is costly in
many ways.
I know that some of my colleagues, including the senior Senator from
Alaska, have expressed concerns about the willingness of our allies in
the gulf to share the financial burden of our current deployment.
Many of these concerns are valid. We should expect our allies to
support us militarily and otherwise, especially when our actions
safeguard their interests. But I think it is equally important to
recognize that we are in the Persian Gulf, first and foremost, to
protect our own vital interests.
But I think it is equally important to recognize that we are in the
Persian Gulf first and foremost to protect our own vital interests.
First, we ignore at our peril the chemical and biological weapons
programs of a leader with a demonstrated proclivity for using weapons
of mass destruction. Second, whether we like it or not, sixty-five
percent of the world's proven oil reserves are in Saddam Hussein's
backyard.
None of us wants to hand over our energy security to the whims of a
maniacal tyrant. But that is exactly what we would be doing if we
withdrew our forces from the Persian Gulf.
Failure to approve this supplemental would lead Saddam to conclude
that the United States is losing its resolve. He would resume his
defiance in short order, and before long he would menace the region
once again with chemical and biological weapons.
Now, Mr. President I want to discuss the mission in Bosnia.
By now the importance of the American-led SFOR mission in Bosnia
should be manifest. The Dayton Accords of November 1995 ended three-
and-a-half years of carnage and gave Bosnia and Herzegovina a roadmap
for rebuilding a peaceful, civil society.
No one can dispute that it is the overall security environment
created by the international community through SFOR that makes civilian
progress possible.
Mr. President, several Members have already spoken this morning on
the Bosnia amendment offered, and then withdrawn, by the junior Senator
from Texas.
Had the Senator not withdrawn her amendment, I would have opposed it.
If she offers it again on the Defense Appropriations bill, I will speak
against it.
For now, however, I would make only two brief comments on the
amendment before I turn to a more detailed discussion on our strategy
in Bosnia.
First, mention was made of ``shifting goalposts.'' I quite agree, but
the shifting has been done by the opponents of our involvement in
Bosnia, not by President Clinton.
In an effort to prevent, then shorten, our Bosnia mission, the
opponents complained that the Administration had not spelled out clear
benchmarks, which, if met, would enable our troops to withdraw from
Bosnia.
Now, my friends, he has given us these benchmarks. And what do the
opponents of our Bosnia policy say? They say that he has shifted the
goalposts by giving specifics. Give me a break!
Second, I understand that the Senator from Texas said that she didn't
find the benchmarks to be very concrete. After having examined the
conditions and benchmarks, I find her confusion rather puzzling.
Therefore, I will now go into detail about them.
I have spoken frequently about the enormous progress that has been
achieved in Bosnia since the cessation of hostilities and about the
difficult tasks remaining ahead.
Today I will concentrate on showing that in voting to fund a
continuation of the SFOR mission, we are not voting for an open-ended
commitment.
Rather, the Administration has drawn up clear benchmarks, which, when
met, will allow our troops to come home.
But, Mr. President, part and parcel of these benchmarks is
interpreting them, and in this connection I will insist that the Senate
is part of the process.
Mr. President, ten key conditions have been identified, each
containing objectives and concrete benchmarks, which constitute our
``game plan'' in Bosnia.
These ten conditions are: 1. Military Stability; 2. Police and
Judicial Reform; 3. Functioning National Institutions; 4. Reformed Mass
Media; 5. Democratization and a Functioning Electoral Process; 6.
Economic Reconstruction and Recovery; 7. Refugee Returns; 8. A
Settlement for Brcko; 9. Resolution of War Crimes; and 10.
International Organizations Able to Function without Military Support.
I would like to turn to the benchmarks for each of these conditions.
The precondition for all progress, of course, is the creation of
military stability. The benchmarks of this first of the ten conditions
include the maintenance of the ceasefire, weapons secure in their
cantonment sites, and the arms control limits set since Dayton adhered
to.
The special police forces must be disbanded or restructured and
inter-entity arms control and confidence and security building measures
adopted.
In addition, the American-run Train and Equip Program must be
successfully completed, with a traditional support and sustainment
arrangement with the Federation Army in place.
Second, the benchmarks for police and judicial reform require that
all local police forces are restructured and ethnically integrated.
Basic skills and human rights training must be completed so that the
police can deal effectively and fairly with civil disturbances. Police
academies with professional leadership must be functioning.
The intelligence services and the secret police must be stripped of
all police functions, and an effective judicial reform program must be
in place.
Benchmarks for attaining the third condition for troop withdrawal are
in the governmental area. They include all outlawed pre-Dayton
institutions having been dissolved. Foremost among these are the
remnants of the Bosnian Croat so-called ``Herceg-Bosna.''
A functioning customs service and control over state revenues must be
established, including transparency in budgets and disbursements. Funds
must be flowing to national, not entity, institutions, which have
permanent staffs and facilities in place.
The fourth condition for the withdrawal of our troops concerns the
mass media. Its benchmarks begin with political parties being divested
of their control of the broadcast networks. Entity and national-level
media policy and regulatory structures must be in place. A new election
law must guarantee that opposition parties have access to the airwaves.
Independent media, already in existence, should be generally available
throughout the country.
Benchmarks for the fifth condition, democratization and the electoral
process, are particularly important. Local, entity, and national
governments must be beginning to function transparently. Political
parties will have to accept binding arbitration for the implementation
of the results of contested local elections.
Bosnian electoral laws must be modified to meet the standards of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The
September 1998 elections must be conducted in a free and fair manner,
with the need for OSCE supervision reduced.
The sixth condition for withdrawal of American troops involves
economic reconstruction and recovery. As benchmarks, agreement must be
reached on a permanent national currency. Privatization laws must be
drawn in line with Dayton. Major infrastructure including
transportation, power grids, and telecommunications must be repaired
and functioning.
The program of the International Monetary Fund must be in place with
traditional lending programs begun.

[[Page S2551]]

The fundamental and emotional issue of refugee returns comprises the
seventh condition. The property laws of both entities in Bosnia must
comply with the Dayton Accords. Property commissions must be fully
functioning. Both the Federation and the Republika Srpska must be
participating in phased and orderly cross-ethnic returns.
The key cities of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Mostar must have accepted
substantial returns of refugees and displaced persons, and the local
police throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina must protect returnees,
whatever their religion or ethnicity.
The thorny subject of Brcko comprises the eighth condition needed to
be met before all troops can be withdrawn. An arbitration award must
have been implemented without violence. As we know, Mr. President, in
mid-March the arbitration award on Brcko was postponed for the third
time.
Specific benchmarks for Brcko include local elections having been
implemented, an integrated police force functioning, two-way refugee
returns and ethnic reintegration continuing to progress, and job
creation underway.
The ninth condition involves war crimes. All parties to the Dayton
Accords, including entity justice authorities, must be cooperating with
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Local authorities must facilitate the apprehension of indictees.
The tenth and final condition necessary for withdrawal of American
troops, Mr. President, concerns the relationship of Bosnia with
international organizations. One benchmark is certification that local
authorities and the entity armies are capable of assuming
responsibility for demining operations.
Another is that the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia (OHR)
demonstratres its authority to enforce inter-entity agreements without
military back-up.
A third, more general, benchmark is that the OSCE, NATO, and the
European Union develop more traditional relationships with Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
Mr. President, I believe that these detailed conditions and
benchmarks show conclusively that the Administration is not asking for
an open-ended commitment. It has the exit strategy that critics have
long been demanding.
One or two of the ten conditions, and several more of the individual
benchmarks have already been met. Many others are well on their way to
fulfillment. Many others are only just beginning to be implemented.
And, Mr. President, I would repeat my cautionary word that the
fulfillment of such a detailed formulation leaves much open to
interpretation.
If the Senate approves this supplemental appropriation for our troops
in Bosnia--as I strongly believe it should--we have the right to insist
that the Congress be consulted on an ongoing basis on how the
implementation of these civil-military benchmarks is going and also
that our NATO and other SFOR partners are continuing to shoulder their
responsibilities.
The SFOR mission is of high national security importance for the
United States.
We have every right to be pleased with the quite striking progress
that has been achieved in Bosnia over the past year. Much remains to be
done, and with the game-plan--the ``exit strategy'' if you will--that
the Administration has provided, closer cooperation with Congress is
possible.
I urge passage of this supplemental appropriation for both Iraq and
Bosnia. I think that it is vital that the Senate and House pass this
supplemental as soon as possible. The more expeditiously we act, the
less our military readiness will suffer. The brave men and women
serving in Bosnia and Iraq deserve to know that their missions are
adequately funded by a proud Congress and not by cannibalizing
important core military accounts.
For that, they should thank the Senator from Alaska, because he has
been absolutely, positively--how can I say it politely--consistent in
insisting that we undertake these missions without cannibalizing our
core accounts.
Both of these missions further America's national security interests.
They have achieved real results and what the Chairman of the full
committe is suggesting is the way to go.
I compliment the chairman in being able to fend off the amendments
put forward so far today. I wish him luck for the remainder of the
process here.
I yield the floor.
Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Does the Senator from Illinois seek time?
Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Yes, only 2 minutes. It was really a very short
statement.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator for not to exceed
5 minutes because we want to get to the Wellstone amendment as soon as
possible.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.

____________________