[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 31, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2828-S2847]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEARS 
                    1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 AND 2003

  The Senate continued with consideration of the concurrent resolution.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, we are operating under a unanimous consent 
agreement under which the next two amendments are to be proposed by 
Senator Conrad of North Dakota and Senator Coverdell of Georgia. 
Neither of them is here. We do have two Senators here who are ready to 
offer amendments, Senator Reid of Nevada and Senator Allard of 
Colorado.
  I ask unanimous consent now that we hear first from Senator Reid and 
then from Senator Allard, warn the other two Senators that this will 
take perhaps half an hour combined, something of that sort, and they 
will come after that.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. If I may, in my discussion with Senator Reid of 
Nevada, he believed about 15 to 20 minutes would be his maximum 
requirement, and I spoke to the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Allard. He 
also talked about the possibility of a matching 20 minutes. So in the 
unanimous consent agreement, why don't we do that, recognizing that one 
Senator may not be available to do his immediately, and as such, would 
the Senator from Colorado be willing to do his when there is a break in 
the schedule?
  Mr. ALLARD. I am more than glad to work with the floor managers on 
this. I am set to preside over the Senate until 8 o'clock. I have to 
set up some charts and I am ready to go. I can be flexible, and any 
Member who thinks they want to go ahead and make comments, it is all 
right with me.
  I just was hoping I could get to go this evening. If there was nobody 
else that was willing to go, I was ready to go so we wouldn't lose 
time.

  Mr. GORTON. This sounds like a generous offer. I will ask now that 
Senator Reid of Nevada be recognized to offer an amendment in spite of 
the existing unanimous consent agreement, and then when he is done, we 
will see who is here and perhaps be able to accommodate Senator Allard.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. If I may, Mr. President, we are expecting the 
unanimous consent agreement that was propounded before that includes 
Senator Conrad followed by Senator Coverdell, and we intend to follow 
that order, but understanding that after Senator Reid presents his, at 
Senator Allard's convenience when we have a break, we will include him 
as part of the unanimous consent agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Nevada.


                           Amendment No. 2206

    (Purpose: To express the Sense of the Senate that the landowner 
   incentive program included in the Endangered Species Recovery Act 
 should be financed from a dedicated source of funding and that public 
lands should not be sold to fund the landowner incentive program of the 
                    Endangered Species Recovery Act)

  Mr. REID. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no objection, the pending 
amendment will be set aside.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada (Mr. Reid), for himself and Mr. 
     Bryan, proposes an amendment numbered 2206.

  Mr. REID. 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 insert the following:

     SEC.   . SENSE OF THE SENATE ON OBJECTION TO THE USE OF THE 
                   SALE OF PUBLIC LANDS TO FUND CERTAIN PROGRAMS.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that the Budget Committee 
     Report accompanying this resolution assumes that the 
     landowner incentive program of the Endangered Species 
     Recovery Act would be funded ``from the gross receipts 
     realized in the sales of excess BLM land, provided that BLM 
     has sufficient administrative funds to conduct such sales.''
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the Sense of the Senate 
     that the functional totals underlying this resolution assume 
     that:
       (1) the landowner incentive program included in the 
     Endangered Species Recovery Act should be financed from a 
     dedicated source of funding; and
       (2) public lands should not be sold to fund the landowner 
     incentive program of the Endangered Species Recovery Act.

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Bryan be added as a 
cosponsor of this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this amendment is important because I think 
what we are doing here is setting some very important public policy. 
That public policy is that we should not auction off Federal land to 
take care of the Endangered Species Act.
  In short, this sense-of-the-Senate resolution I have presented to the 
Senate deals with the budget resolution and its report concerning the 
sale of excess public lands. The provision in question

[[Page S2829]]

calls for financing of certain landowner incentive programs through the 
sale of excess BLM land. What this means, in layman's language, is that 
the Environment and Public Works Committee came up with an endangered 
species reauthorization compromise. It came out of the committee by a 
vote of 16-3 and received bipartisan support in the committee.
  The problems that have arisen since we reported that bill are 
relatively minor in nature. However, one of the problems that has been 
talked about is some permanent means of financing the programs in the 
new Endangered Species Act. I support the new Endangered Species Act, 
but I know that there must be some form of financing for that. I am 
convinced this is not the way to finance it. As someone who has been 
involved in the negotiations on the reauthorization of the Endangered 
Species Act, I am aware of the need to provide a dedicated source of 
funding for these programs. These programs assist private landowners in 
carrying out the purpose, the intention, the aim of the Endangered 
Species Act. That is basically protection and recovery of threatened 
and endangered species.
  I am supportive of providing the landowners with incentive for 
proactive efforts to conserve endangered species. However, the Federal 
Government's responsibility in assisting landowners carrying out this 
act should not be borne by Western States, and principally one Western 
State, at this time because the real estate market is so hot in the 
southern Nevada area. This responsibility should not be borne basically 
by one State. The Endangered Species Act covers the whole country. In 
that it does cover the whole country, the whole country should be 
involved in solving the details of it, especially the financing. It is 
not fair that States like Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, and New 
Mexico be the cash cow for the Endangered Species Act.
  The Endangered Species Act and requirements apply to all 50 States. 
It is a national Federal law because, Mr. President, there is a 
national Federal interest in the protection and conservation of 
endangered species. We shouldn't turn our Federal lands into a land 
bank that finances this important act.
  I understand the importance of Federal land. The State of Nevada is 
87 percent owned by the Federal Government. I repeat, 87 percent of the 
State of Nevada is owned by the Federal Government; 13 percent of that 
land is owned by private parties. We want to get more of that land in 
the public sector into the private sector, but we want to do it in an 
orderly fashion, and we have done that in the soon-to-be second largest 
city in Nevada. Henderson, NV, is the place where I went to high 
school. At that time, it was a community of about 10,000 people. It is 
now approaching 200,000 people and growing very rapidly--the most 
rapidly growing city in all of Nevada; in fact, one of the most rapidly 
growing communities in all of America.

  Now, the reason it has been allowed to grow is because we have added 
Federal land to the land base of the city of Henderson. It has had a 
very orderly growth. We have some planned communities. One of the most 
important planned communities anywhere in the country is a place called 
Green Valley. It is a beautiful community. Mr. President, that has been 
done in an orderly fashion. It hasn't been forced upon anyone. It 
wasn't done at auction. That, in effect, is what we are talking about 
here. They are public lands that belong to the public for their 
enjoyment.
  Not only has Henderson received the benefit of public lands, but 
other places throughout the State of Nevada, like Mesquite, Carlin, NV. 
We could go on with many other examples. These are public lands and 
they belong to the public for their enjoyment.
  Are we going to auction off all the nice places in Nevada and then 
only people of wealth who can buy those lands will be able to use those 
nice places in Nevada? I hope not. That is in effect what they are 
doing here. They are mandating in this budget resolution the sale of 
public lands to meet the needs of the Endangered Species Act. Mandating 
the sale and using the proceeds to fund programs outside the State 
where the land is would be patently unfair.
  This body should reject this misguided proposal and support this 
amendment. It is surprising to me that any Western Senator could 
support the underlying provision in this budget resolution saying we 
are going to auction off Federal lands the purpose of which is to carry 
out the intent of the Endangered Species Act. Apart from the regional 
States' specific bias, the amendment should also be rejected on 
environmental grounds. This will be one of the key environmental votes 
of this Congress, or any Congress.

  Opponents of this provision in the budget resolution are Friends of 
the Earth, American Oceans Campaign, Center for Marine Conservation, 
Defenders of Wildlife Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, Environmental 
Defense Fund, Grassroots Environmental Effectiveness Network, Izaak 
Walton League of America, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife 
Federation, Natural Resource Defense Council, Trout Unlimited, U.S. 
Public Interest Research Group, Western Ancient Forest Campaign, the 
Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund, and many others.
  The League of Conservation Voters is looking at this very closely, I 
am told, as they should.
  We have worked closely with these groups over the past years in 
coming up with the Endangered Species Act. One of their strongest 
concerns in this period of time is to ensure that we put in place a 
long-term mechanism to finance these programs. The proposal included in 
this resolution funds these important programs only for limited times 
and only for the one-time revenue scheme. As a matter of public policy, 
this doesn't make sense. The demand to participate in the program and 
additional obligation to maintain incentives over time is going to 
create a tremendous pressure to sell additional public lands.
  That isn't how we should get rid of public lands, how we should get 
public lands into the private sector. We should not do it on a forced 
sale. It should be done in an orderly process, certainly not an auction 
so that we need money this year because we have three endangered 
species listed in Florida, two in Colorado, one in Nevada, and three in 
Hawaii. That isn't the way it should be.
  To show you how disingenuous those who are pushing this proposal are, 
the Bureau of Land Management sells an average of 5,000 acres per year 
for about $2.5 million. It is interesting to note that Congress Daily 
quotes an unnamed BLM official as saying the Budget Committee estimates 
$350 million revenue from this proposal. Absurd. It is impossible.
  Mr. President, there are a number of appropriate justifications for 
disposal of public lands. I have talked about the city of Henderson, 
the city of Carlin, the city of Mesquite, and other places in Nevada. I 
have also worked closely with Senator Bryan and my two colleagues from 
the House on the Nevada Public Lands Act, which provides for the 
disposal of certain public lands in Nevada--a good piece of 
legislation. We are going to have a hearing in May on this matter 
before the committee of the senior Senator from Alaska, who is the 
chairman of the committee. We have confidence that he will report that 
bill out favorably and that it will pass.
  Now, why in the world would they--whoever ``they'' are pushing this 
budget resolution--want to undermine something that is working well? We 
have general support from the committee--I spoke to the chairman 
myself--on the Nevada Public Lands Act. And it applies not only to 
Nevada, but to the entire West. It would allow lands to be auctioned, 
and those moneys would stay in the State from where the land is sold 
for environmental concerns. There may be a special piece of land that 
the Federal Government wants. There may be some things that the Federal 
Government needs, and auctioning off these lands would allow them to do 
that.

  For example, we have a number of things in the State of Nevada for 
which the Federal Government wants these lands. They do not want the 
land to be subdivided. It is a special place to be used for a park or 
recreational purposes. So these lands would be auctioned off, and you 
could purchase that land to put it in the public sector or the private 
sector.

[[Page S2830]]

  So I think it is important that some of the lands we identified in 
our legislation--the Nevada Public Lands Act--would, of course, be used 
now for this legislation, the budget resolution. That is not the way it 
should be. I am very concerned. I have worked long and hard on the 
Endangered Species Act, but I am not about to be part of an Endangered 
Species Act if it has this as a source of funding. I think there is 
probably some concern about why this is put in the budget resolution. I 
guess it is kind of like a fire auction. You get the best you can with 
what you have. I think what they have in this instance is a hot real 
estate market in the State of Nevada, southern Nevada particularly, and 
they are going to sell this land as quickly as they can. I think that 
is wrong. The amount of public lands in Las Vegas would be the only 
likely source today of a significant amount of money to fund these 
proposed programs. Tomorrow, it may be the outskirts of Denver. Next 
year, it may be the outskirts of Albuquerque. These would be places 
they would go to raise as much money as they could as quickly as they 
can--fire sales to fund the Endangered Species Act. Funds would then be 
made available for incentives throughout the country, not just in 
Nevada. This is a conflict with the legislation that I have talked 
about earlier that is now before the Energy Committee. The resolution 
puts in place a public lands disposal policy that is entirely driven by 
the need to sell excess lands. But unlike the meritorious programs they 
will fund, which are temporary, the disposal of public lands is 
permanent.
  Mr. President, I have said that this proposal is a poison pill. I 
believe it is intended to kill reauthorization of the Endangered 
Species Act. We have been negotiating the reauthorization of this 
monumental act for 2 years or more, along with Senators Baucus, Chafee, 
Kempthorne, and the administration. We sought to secure a dedicated 
source of funding for these private land programs. This is not it. 
While I can't speak for the administration, I repeat that we were never 
consulted on this proposal. Frankly, I don't like it. I think it is a 
poison pill. If our amendment is defeated, as far as I am concerned, it 
is the death of the Endangered Species Act. I could not agree to 
supporting a bill which so unfairly exploits the value of Nevada public 
lands and undermines the legislation. It has been more than a year in 
the making, the Nevada Public Lands Act.
  Mr. President, I would like to make part of the Record a letter from 
the group of environmental concerns, including Friends of the Earth, 
American Oceans Campaign, and others, dated March 30, 1998. I ask 
unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record, along with 
a letter dated March 31 from the Sierra Club dealing with this subject, 
and a letter from the League of Conservation Voters.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                   March 30, 1998.
       Dear Senator: We are writing to express our concern over a 
     proposal described in the Senate Budget Resolution to use the 
     proceeds from the sale of public lands under the Interior 
     Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to fund the 
     private landowner incentive programs of S. 1180.
       In general, we are supportive of providing private 
     landowners with incentives for proactive efforts to conserve 
     endangered species and would like them funded through 
     sustainable, long-term revenue mechanisms. However, under the 
     proposal being developed, the landowner incentives programs 
     in S. 1180 would be funded presumably only for a limited time 
     from a one-time revenue scheme. Thereafter, additional 
     revenues would need to be generated to continue funding of 
     these programs. The demand to participate in this program, 
     and the obligation to maintain the incentives over time, 
     could create pressure to sell additional public land if 
     other, more acceptable, revenue sources were not identified. 
     We believe a more sustained funding mechanism is needed.
       In addition to failing to establish a reliable source of 
     funding, the proposal would set an unacceptable precedent 
     regarding the sale of public lands. Our public lands are an 
     integral part of America's national heritage, and we strongly 
     oppose the sell-off of such important assets. Disposing of 
     public lands may be appropriate when the planning process 
     concludes it is in the public interest to exchange or sell 
     certain parcels. In such cases, the lands could be exchanged 
     for--or revenues dedicated to--acquisition and permanent 
     protection of lands that contain important natural habitats 
     and/or resources. However, the need for revenues should not 
     drive the decision-making on disposal of public lands. That 
     is exactly the wrong reason to sell off public lands. From a 
     policy and budget perspective, it is not appropriate to tie 
     the permanent disposal of taxpayer-owned property to 
     temporary measures for endangered species.
       While we support efforts to find the necessary resources to 
     fund the protection of endangered species, we believe this 
     proposal creates serious problems and we will oppose it.
           Sincerely,
     Gawain Kripke,
       Director, Appropriations Project, Friends of the Earth.
     Ted Morton,
       Program Counsel, American Oceans Campaign.
     Wm. Robert Irvin,
       Vice President for Marine Wildlife, Conservation and 
     General Counsel, Center for Marine Conservation.
     Michael Senatore,
       Legislative Counsel, Defenders of Wildlife.
     Heather Weiner,
       Policy Analyst, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund
     Michael J. Bean,
       Director, Wildlife Program, Environmental Defense Fund.
     Roger Featherstone,
       Director, Grassroots Environmental Effectiveness Network.
     Jim Mosher,
       Conservation Director, Izaak Walton League of America.
     Mary Minette,
       Director, Endangered Species Campaign, National Audubon 
     Society.
     Sara Barth,
       Legislative Representative, Endangered Species, National 
     Wildlife Federation.
     Philip M. Pittman,
       Policy Analyst, Natural Resource Defense Council.
     Steve Moyer,
       Vice President of Conservation Programs, Trout Unlimited.
     Kim Delfino,
       Staff Attorney, U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
     Jim Jontz,
       Executive Director, Western Ancient Forest Campaign.
     Fran Hunt,
       Director, BLM Program, Wilderness Society.
     Christopher E. Williams,
       Director, Endangered Species Policy and Chihuahuan Desert 
     Conservation, World Wildlife Fund.
                                                                    ____

                                                      Sierra Club,
                                   Washington, DC, March 31, 1998.
       Dear Senator: On behalf of Sierra Club's over half million 
     members, I am writing to convey our opposition to a provision 
     currently in the Senate Budget Resolution which assumes the 
     sale of Bureau of Land Management land in order to fund 
     landowner incentives for endangered species programs.
       While land exchanges may be appropriate for some federal 
     lands if they have little public, ecological, or wildlife 
     value, these exchanges should result in the acquisition and 
     permanent protection of the scarce remaining lands that do 
     have these values. This proposal would set a dangerous 
     precedent regarding the management of our federal public 
     lands and the amount and quality of public land available to 
     future generations of Americans. The Sierra Club is firmly 
     opposed to the selling off of these important assets.
       Sierra Club is generally supportive of providing small, 
     private landowners with incentives for proactive conservation 
     measures, but such measures should be funded through 
     sustainable means. The mechanism proposed in the Senate 
     Budget Resolution is problematic because it fails to 
     establish a reliable source of funding. Under the Proposal, 
     funding for landowner incentives would likely come from the 
     one-time sale of BLM lands. This would not provide a sound 
     funding program for landowner incentives, and would create 
     pressure to sell off additional public lands.
       Some in Congress support the outright ``disposal'' of our 
     public lands. The budget bill should under no circumstances 
     be used as a backdoor mechanism to achieve this controversial 
     goal.
       Later this week, a Sense of the Senate amendment will 
     likely be offered by Senator Harry Reid and Dale Bumpers in 
     opposition

[[Page S2831]]

     to this provision. We strongly urge you to support this 
     amendment and protect our federal public lands from this 
     precedent setting provision. In addition, we urge you to 
     refer to our previously delivered coalition letter in support 
     Senator Frank Lautenberg's amendment to provide adequate 
     funding for environmental protection programs. . .
           Sincerely,
                                                     Debbie Sease,
     Legislative Director.
                                                                    ____



                                League of Conservation Voters,

                                                   March 30, 1998.
     Re Senate Concurrent Resolution 86. supporting the Latenberg 
         amendment to fund environment and national resource 
         protection.

     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator, the League of Conservation Voters is the 
     bipartisan, political arm of the national environmental 
     movement. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental 
     Scorecard, which details the voting records of Members of 
     Congress on environmental legislation. The Scorecard is 
     distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide and 
     the press.
       Last year's balanced budget agreement contemplated 
     decreasing spending every year until at least 2003 for 
     natural resources and environmental programs. The American 
     public has made clear that clean water, our public lands, 
     fisheries and wildlife management, and other environmental 
     programs require a higher priority than was reflected in this 
     agreement.
       During consideration of the Budget Resolution, S. Con. Res. 
     86, LCV urges you to support an amendment by Senator 
     Lautenberg (D-NJ) that would restore funding for critical 
     environment and natural resource programs that were proposed 
     in the President's budget but omitted from the Resolution. 
     This amendment would address the following crucial 
     environmental initiatives:
       The Clean Water Action Plan which will provide increased 
     resources to states, tribes and individuals in order to 
     address polluted runoff from urban areas, agriculture, mining 
     and other sources.
       A continuation of funding for the Drinking Water and Clean 
     Water State Revolving Loan Funds which will help to ensure 
     that our drinking water and wastewater treatment 
     infrastructure can meet water quality and public health needs 
     for the next century.
       The Land, Water and Facility Restoration Initiative, which 
     provides increased funding for ``Safe Visits to Public 
     Lands'' and ``Supporting the Land and Water Conservation Fund 
     Vision''.
       An increase in funding to continue progress in cleanups at 
     Superfund sites around the nation, where many communities 
     have been waiting for over a decade to have toxic and 
     hazardous sites restored to safety.
       In addition, LCV urges you to support any amendments to 
     address the following:
       We understand that an amendment may be offered to reduce or 
     eliminate the existing tax subsidy for mining on public and 
     parented lands--known as the percentage depletion allowance.
       The Budget Resolution assumes that landowner incentives 
     programs for endangered species would be funded from the 
     proceeds of the sale of public lands under the Interior 
     Department's Bureau of Land Management. This proposal would 
     set an unacceptable precedent regarding the sale of public 
     lands and would fail to provide a sustainable, long-term 
     revenue mechanism for endangered species protection.
       America's land, water, fish, wildlife and plants are 
     irreplaceable natural assets that belong to, and benefit our 
     entire nation: their protection and stewardship warrant the 
     modest increase in funding that Senator Lautenberg's 
     amendment would allow. LCV's Political Advisory Committee 
     will consider including votes on S. Con. Res. 86 in compiling 
     LCV's 1998 Scorecard. Thank you for your consideration of 
     this issue. If you need more information please call Paul 
     Brotherton in my office at (202) 785-8683.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Deb Callahan,
                                                        President.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as I have indicated earlier in my 
presentation, I think that Senator Bumpers, at a subsequent time, would 
like to come speak on this. His not being here today does not waive his 
ability to come.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator from 
North Dakota is ready, we just heard from the Senator from Nevada; he 
put his amendment in. Further action will occur at the appropriate 
time.
  I would like now to ask our colleague from North Dakota to present an 
amendment he has been waiting for.


                           Amendment No. 2174

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the amendment on behalf 
of myself; Senator Lautenberg, the ranking member on the Budget 
Committee; Senator Bingaman of New Mexico; and Senator Reed of Rhode 
Island.
  Mr. President, this amendment will address one of the problems with 
the budget resolution that was passed out of the Senate Budget 
Committee. The Senate budget resolution says that if any tobacco 
revenues are forthcoming as a result of a conclusion to the tobacco 
controversy, that money can only be used for the Medicare Program.
  I would be the first to acknowledge the critical importance of 
Medicare and to say that some of the tobacco revenues ought to go for 
that purpose. In fact, the measure that I have introduced, which has 32 
cosponsors in the U.S. Senate, provides for some of the funds to go to 
strengthen the Medicare Program. But there are other important 
priorities as well. Under the budget resolution passed by the 
Republican majority in the Budget Committee, none of the funds can go 
for other purposes to address the tobacco challenge facing our country. 
In fact, none of the funds that could come from a resolution of the 
tobacco issue could be used for smoking cessation, smoking prevention, 
counter-tobacco-advertising programs, to expand health research on 
tobacco-related issues, to provide for additional funding for FDA 
increased regulatory authority over the tobacco industry.
  That just seems to be a serious mistake. Every single expert that 
came before our task force on the tobacco legislation said that if you 
are going to be serious about protecting the public health, if you are 
going to be serious about reducing youth smoking, you need a 
comprehensive plan, a plan that raises prices to deter youth from 
taking up the habit; you need to have smoking cessation and smoking 
prevention programs; you need to have counter-tobacco advertising. You 
also need to expand FDA's regulatory authority. And, yes, you should 
have expanded health research into the diseases caused by tobacco 
addiction and tobacco use.
  The resolution from our friends on the other side of the aisle says 
no to all of those other priorities. It says there is only one 
priority. It says all of the money should go for only one purpose. Mr. 
President, that is just a mistake. If we look at all of the 
comprehensive bills that have been introduced in this Chamber by 
Republicans and Democrats, every single one of those comprehensive 
bills provides funding for matters other than just Medicare. They 
provide money for smoking cessation, for smoking prevention, for 
counter-tobacco advertising, for expanded FDA regulatory authority, for 
increased health research into the problems caused by the addiction and 
disease brought on by the use of tobacco products.
  I brought this chart that compares reality to rhetoric. If we look at 
the policy goals in all of the comprehensive bills that have been 
introduced in this Chamber, bills by three Republican chairmen--Senator 
McCain, chairman of the Commerce Committee; Senator Hatch, chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee; and also Senator Lugar, chairman of the 
Agriculture Committee--all of those bills provide for funding for these 
other priorities. In addition to my own bill, the HEALTHY Kids Act, 
Senator Lautenberg's bill and Senator Kennedy's bill, all of them use 
tobacco revenue for anti-youth-smoking-education initiatives--every 
single one of them, Republicans and Democrats, provide for using some 
of the funds for that purpose. The Republican budget alternative 
available on the floor says no money for that purpose. All of the 
bills, Republicans' and Democrats', that have been introduced on the 
floor, use some of the tobacco revenue for public service advertising 
to counter the industry's targeting of our kids. But the Republican 
budget that is before the Senate says no money can be used for counter-
tobacco advertising.
  Mr. President, all of the major bills that have been introduced say 
use some of the tobacco revenue to fund tobacco-related medical 
research. That just makes common sense. But the Republican budget 
alternative says not one dime from a resolution of the tobacco 
controversy can be used for that purpose. What sense does that make? 
All of the major bills that have been introduced by Republicans and 
Democrats say some of the tobacco revenue should be used to fund 
smoking cessation programs. The Republican budget says no. The 
Republican budget says not one penny out of the tobacco revenues for 
the purpose of funding smoking-cessation programs. What sense does that 
make? All of the major bills say use part of the tobacco revenue to 
assist tobacco farmers.

[[Page S2832]]

  The Republican budget resolution says no; not one dime to ease the 
transition for tobacco farmers that would result from the passage of 
tobacco legislation.
  Mr. President, the Republican budget resolution would hold every 
comprehensive tobacco bill that has been introduced by Republicans or 
Democrats to be out of order on the floor of the Senate--all of them. 
They would all be out of order under the Republican budget resolution. 
What sense does that make?
  I submit that we can do better. We should do better. We have the 
opportunity to respond by taking what is in the Republican budget 
resolution with respect to the funds that would be taken in, the 
revenue that might result if we are able to resolve the tobacco 
question, and, instead of only allowing those funds to be used for the 
Medicare Program, to broaden the use of those funds to allow them to be 
spent in a way the American people want to see them spent, and the way 
every bill which is comprehensive which has been introduced by 
Republicans or Democrats provides. It is in my amendment; that is, not 
only should the money go for Medicare; yes, some of the money should go 
for that purpose; but some of the money should go for public health 
efforts to reduce the use of tobacco products by children, including 
tobacco control, education, and prevention programs, 
counteradvertising, research, and smoking cessation.
  Every expert who came before our task force--we heard from over 100 
witnesses--said you have to have a comprehensive plan, you have to do 
some or all of these things, if you are going to be successful at 
protecting the public health; you have to do some or all of these 
things if you are really going to be successful at reducing youth 
smoking.
  We should also provide the chance, at least for comprehensive tobacco 
legislation, to provide assistance for tobacco farmers. The budget 
resolution before us says no; no help for tobacco farmers. Not only are 
we not going to have any money from tobacco revenues for smoking 
cessation, for smoking prevention, or for health research, we have no 
money to assist tobacco farmers and their communities.
  We also provide increased funding, or at least the chance for 
increased funding, for the Food and Drug Administration, which, under 
virtually every bill that is out here, would be asked to take on a 
greater role and more responsibility. If they are going to be given 
more obligations, they ought to be given the funding to match those 
obligations. They ought to be told yes, those additional resources to 
regulate the tobacco product will be provided. Virtually every bill 
that has been introduced here by Republicans and Democrats says that is 
an appropriate outcome. The Republican budget resolution says no--not 
one thin dime for that purpose, or for the purpose of the farmers, or 
for the purpose of smoking cessation, smoking prevention, health 
research, or countertobacco advertising--no tobacco revenues to be used 
for that purpose.
  Mr. President, it just doesn't make sense. Yes, we provide that the 
funds which would be set aside taken from the tobacco revenues could 
also be used for expanded health research. If there is one thing we 
have heard from the experts, it is that we need to know more about the 
causes of the diseases which flow from the addiction and the use of 
these tobacco products.
  The National Institutes of Health need additional funding to look 
into the cancers caused by the use of tobacco products, to examine the 
heart problems caused by the use of tobacco products, to examine the 
emphysema which is caused by the use of tobacco products. We need to do 
more research to understand the role of addiction in causing the 
diseases which flow from the use of tobacco products. But the budget 
resolution which is before us says no; not one thin dime for any of 
those purposes out of tobacco revenue.

  That contradicts every single public health organization and every 
single public health leader in America. Dr. Koop and Dr. Kessler have 
pleaded with us: If you are going to have an effective program of 
protecting the public health, if you are going to have an effective 
program to reduce use of smoking, you have to have a comprehensive 
plan; you have to have one which addresses every one of these aspects. 
You can't just limit it to Medicare.
  Yes, Medicare is very important. There is no question about it. Our 
legislation would provide some of the funding for Medicare. Our 
legislation would provide some of the funding for Social Security, 
which the Republican budget resolution also precludes. They wouldn't 
provide a penny to strengthen Social Security. They oppose providing 
any help to Social Security, even though we know it faces a demographic 
time bomb, the same demographic time bomb that Medicare faces. But they 
say no for any money to strengthen and protect Social Security. And 
they say no to any funding for smoking prevention, smoking cessation, 
countertobacco advertising, and additional health research out of the 
tobacco revenues. It does not make sense.
  Mr. President, I am going to turn now to my colleagues, my leading 
cosponsor, Senator Lautenberg, the ranking member of the Budget 
Committee, and Senator Reed of Rhode Island, who is here as well. I 
don't know--Senator Reed has been waiting--if he would like to comment 
now, or if Senator Lautenberg would like to take this opportunity.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask how much time the Senator from 
Rhode Island would need.
  I yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island may proceed.
  Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I strongly support the amendment proposed by Senator Conrad, Senator 
Lautenberg, and my colleagues. The budget resolution before us today 
does not give us a fighting chance to do what we want to do, but more 
importantly, what the American people want us to do. That is to reduce 
teenage smoking in the United States. We know it is a curse. We know it 
is causing incalculable pain throughout this country in terms of health 
problems down the road.
  But this budget resolution does not give us the tools to grapple with 
the issue of teen smoking. It is illogical, too, as Senator Conrad 
pointed out so eloquently. All of the major legislative initiatives 
have specific provisions which require anti-youth-smoking efforts, 
increased research at the National Institutes of Health, FDA regulatory 
authority, State regulatory authority, and none of these can be funded 
from the budget resolution.
  But there is something that is even more illogical, in my view. I do 
not want to take a brief for the tobacco industry. But with every one 
of these major pieces of legislation for the tobacco industry, you must 
reduce teen smoking by 50 percent, 60 percent, or 70 percent in so many 
years. Yet, if we take all of  the proceeds from the increased tobacco 
taxes and all the other payments and we don't use them in some way to 
try to suppress teen smoking through counteradvertising campaigns, to 
try to get people who are addicted to nicotine over the addiction, 
there is no way that these goals can be met. We are setting up a test 
that is bound to fail. We have to recognize that if we are serious 
about mandating the reduction of teen smoking by significant 
percentages over the next several years, we have to provide the 
resources to do that job. This budget resolution does not make such a 
provision. It does not allow us to take the proceeds of whatever 
tobacco deal is ultimately reached and use those proceeds to invest in 
a healthier America, to invest in the health of our children.

  All of these provisions, which Senator Conrad has outlined, are so 
absolutely necessary in making any proposed agreement work, and also, 
fundamentally, to ensure that we reduce teen smoking, we have to adopt 
a very strong anti-youth-smoking effort. The principal means to do that 
is a counteradvertising campaign. Every year, the tobacco industry 
spends $5 billion on advertising, billboards, sporting events, teams, 
sponsorships, giveaways--hats, jackets, whatever, key chains--a 
powerful influence on the youth of America. In fact, all of us can 
think back through our sort of history, and, even if we do not smoke, 
we know we have been terribly influenced by tobacco advertising 
campaigns.
  I was on the floor a few weeks ago talking about the legislation 
which I

[[Page S2833]]

had, and it came to me that if I asked anyone who is roughly my age--I 
will be kind, about 40--if I asked them what LSMFT meant, the light 
bulb would go right on. If I ask these young ladies and gentleman, they 
would say it is gibberish. I see the shake of the head. They do not 
know. LSMFT means ``Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.'' Through 
literally millions of dollars of advertising over 20 or 30 years, a 
whole generation, or more, of Americans understood that. We have to 
reverse that. We have to convince a whole generation of Americans now 
and in the future that tobacco is dangerous, addictive, and will 
ultimately kill them. We can't do it just with good wishes here on the 
floor of the Senate; we have to do it with real resources. This budget 
resolution will not give us a chance to do that.
  We have to look seriously at NIH research, because there are 
opportunities perhaps to develop antidotes to nicotine, to the harmful 
effects of tobacco smoke. There are ways through science and research. 
We might have better ways to wean individuals off tobacco smoke. All of 
these things have to be done if we are going to meet our objective of 
using this historic opportunity, this historic agreement, to improve 
the public health of Americans.
  We also have to ensure that the FDA has the resources to do the job 
of enforcing on the tobacco industry. We know every year it is a battle 
here through the appropriations process to fund worthwhile programs for 
the FDA. We know at the end of the day that there are many worthwhile 
programs which just do not make the cut, not because they are bad but 
just because we run out of money long before the public health 
community runs out of problem. If we do not provide within this 
resolution for the use of the resources of the tobacco industry to 
invest in FDA, we are not going to be able to give them the tools to do 
the job to make sure that smoking is not contagious among young people.
  Add to that our responsibility to help the States provide an 
important part of this overall agreement. We expect--in fact, in most 
of the legislation it is clearly explicitly written--that the States 
will fund elaborate programs of access control to tobacco through 
licenses of clerks, thorough investigations and inspections of 
facilities that are selling tobacco products, ensuring that products 
don't mysteriously appear in the State without these controls.

  All of that takes money, and the States are going to look to us and 
say, ``Listen. You are the folks that have all of the money. You are 
the ones that are getting the $500 billion over so many years from 
increased taxes and increased fees and penalty payments. We need this 
to ensure that we can control access to tobacco products.''
  One of the other aspects is thrown in our face constantly when we 
talk about this tobacco arrangement. That is the possibility, or the 
probability, the eventuality, of a black market in cigarettes because 
the price is going up. How are we going to counteract this black market 
if we do not have the resources at the State level and the FDA level 
and through other law enforcement means to actually counteract the 
potential growth of black markets? Once again, I don't see within this 
budget resolution those types of resources being available.
  We also have to fund smoking cessation programs. Mr. President, 70 
percent of smokers today want to quit. But wanting to quit and being 
able to beat this addiction are two different things. They cannot do it 
without resources--without access to counsel, without access to 
nicotine patches, without access to those items which are going to 
ensure that they can avoid their present dilemma, which is smoking but 
wanting desperately to quit.
  Then, as Senator Conrad also pointed out, every one of these pieces 
of legislation includes substantial payments to farmers who are likely 
to lose their valuable crops because tobacco is going to be suppressed 
in this country--not prohibited, not outlawed--but certainly we hope 
the demand will begin to shrink for tobacco products as fewer people 
smoke, particularly fewer young people smoke. Every one of these bills 
has it. Both sides of this aisle are trumpeting their support for the 
farmer. They are not going to let these innocent victims of this 
industry be left adrift without any resources, cut off from a lucrative 
economic crop and left to their own devices. Yet, once again, within 
the confines or context of this resolution, there is no resource to do 
the job.
  We have to do something. Frankly, this amendment makes so much sense. 
It allows for the funding of all of these provisions. It allows for 
other important uses of the tobacco settlement, too. But at a minimum 
it allows us to do what we have to do, and I am supportive, not only of 
this effort but overall of developing strong and tough tobacco 
legislation. We have an opportunity, a historic opportunity, for the 
first time in many, many years, to put America on the path of sense and 
sanity when it comes to smoking policy.
  We can, we hope, empower a generation of young Americans with the 
knowledge and with the support to stop smoking. If we do that, we will 
reap a tremendous benefit in a healthier America and a healthier 
society. Yet, without these resources we cannot, in fact, go forward 
because this budget resolution does not give us the opportunity and the 
flexibility to go ahead and do, again, not only what I want to do, what 
I assume the vast majority of my colleagues want to do, but what our 
constituents demand that we do: Use these historic opportunities, when 
the industry has recognized its past mistakes, when the industry is 
attempting to change its culture, when we have for the first time the 
support not only of the American people but the cooperation, to a 
degree at least, of the industry, to ensure that we prevent young 
people from smoking.
  The fear is we will have debates on this floor about all of these 
legislative materials and all of the different aspects of the proposed 
agreements, but, ultimately, when it comes down to the bottom line, 
when we have to put our money where our words are, there will be no 
money because this resolution takes that option off the table for us. 
So I hope all of my colleagues will join us in supporting this 
amendment, will join us in the continued effort to ensure that we have 
good, tough tobacco legislation, but legislation that not only will say 
the right things but have the money and resources to do the right 
things.
  My colleague from New Jersey, I think, is going to speak in a moment. 
I think he is present. While he is coming forward, let me just say that 
we have before us a very challenging set of issues. This is a critical 
one, getting this budget resolution in a shape where it will support 
sound legislation on the floor. There are other issues, too, that will 
come up before us.

  Many aspects of this proposed settlement are controversial, not only 
between the two contesting parties, the tobacco industry and those who 
are trying to protect the public health, but also controversial by 
their nature. I talked a little bit about the need for adequate 
resources to fund smoking cessation advertisements that will actually 
go out and convince young people not to smoke. That will become 
particularly crucial if some provisions we have in the legislation are 
stricken down because of the first amendment. As you realize, most of 
these legislative initiatives contain language which essentially asks 
that the industry give up their first amendment rights to advertise in 
exchange for immunity protection. There is always the threat that 
someone--perhaps not even in the tobacco industry, perhaps a third 
party, like convenience stores--would come out and suggest that these 
restrictions are contrary to the first amendment. In this regard, we 
would really definitely, most definitively, need resources to keep up 
an effective counteradvertising campaign.
  So for these reasons and many others, we must, I think, support this 
amendment, and we must, in fact, ensure that we have the dollars as 
well as the legislative language to prevent teen smoking. If we do 
that, then we will achieve the historic conclusion to these debates.
  Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, 
Senator Reed. He has been one of the most dedicated members on our task 
force on tobacco. He has been absolutely committed to the effort to 
form sound national tobacco policy. Nobody

[[Page S2834]]

worked harder in our task force. Nobody is more thoughtful, more 
creative about how we approach this set of challenges and problems than 
the Senator from Rhode Island. I thank him personally and publicly for 
the role that he has played.
  If we ultimately succeed in passing comprehensive national tobacco 
legislation, in no small measure it will be because of the contribution 
of the Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Reed. I especially thank him 
for his contribution to the debate on this amendment, because I think 
this goes right to the heart of the question. Are we going to have a 
chance to write comprehensive national tobacco legislation or are we 
going to be foreclosed and that effort endangered because the 
Republican budget resolution puts at risk any chance of passing a 
comprehensive bill? They would create supermajority vote requirements 
to pass any comprehensive tobacco bill. Instead of requiring 50 votes 
or 51 votes, we would have to have supermajority votes of over 60 
because they have created points of order against any of the major 
bills that have been introduced by Republicans or Democrats.
  This is a matter that must be fixed. This amendment that Senator 
Lautenberg and Senator Reed and Senator Bingaman and I have introduced 
is the key to unlocking the chance to have national tobacco 
legislation. So I especially thank my colleague from Rhode Island, 
Senator Reed.
  Mr. REED. If the Senator will yield 30 seconds, just to not only 
commend the Senator and thank him for his kind words, but also for his 
tremendous leadership with respect to the tobacco task force and also 
to commend the senior Senator from New Jersey for his leadership over 
many years. I thank both the  Senators.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their kind 
comments and would say, while this looks like a mutual admiration 
society, we kind of get that way because we work on an issue we care an 
awful lot about, something with which several of us have had a history 
for a long time. I particularly say what a delight it is to work with 
our distinguished Senator from North Dakota, Senator Conrad. He is 
always very thorough in his review of budget matters or whatever the 
subject is. He is on the Finance Committee. He has done a lot of good 
work there and has earned the respect of all the people he works with 
because he is so thoughtful and so deliberate and so direct in the 
things he sees and that he wants to work on.
  Senator Conrad was designated as chairman of the tobacco task force 
by our leader. It was a singular honor, because what the minority 
leader wanted to do was to pick someone whose objectivity could be 
counted on because we do have different views on how we ought to treat 
the tobacco negotiations, deal with the tobacco companies, and deal 
with our constituents and the public at large. The Democratic leader, 
Senator Daschle, chose Senator Conrad because he knew he could be 
counted on to do a thorough analysis, bring the parties together, and 
certainly that has been the case. Senator Conrad had people there who 
were friends of the industry, unabashedly. They made sure the industry 
point of view was being represented. On the other hand, we had those 
from the science community, Dr. Koop and Dr. Kessler, and people who 
had seen the effects of tobacco directly in their homes and often on 
their own person.
  So he has done a thorough job all the way through the discussions 
here. We have a chance now to finally come to the beginning of the 
analysis of what might take place here in the Senate as it regards a 
kind of comprehensive settlement. It is discouraging, I must say, at 
this point, to find out, despite the good intentions of our friends on 
the other side, that we wind up with a budget resolution facing us that 
totally restricts our ability to work with the problem. The problem, 
very simply, is how do we protect young people--kids, if I may use the 
affectionate expression--kids, from starting to smoke when they are 8, 
9, 10, 11 years old? We had a boy, a young man, in front of our 
committee. I think he was 12, a young man from Iowa, 12 years old. He 
was pleading for help to stop his addiction--12 years old--because he 
didn't want his little brother to start smoking and be addicted to 
tobacco--12 years old. He said he was already hooked and he tried to 
stop several times.
  I looked at him and I said, ``My gosh, how can that happen that 
someone that age, still in the full bloom of development and growth, 
how could he be hooked on tobacco?'' He told it as it was. He wasn't a 
city slicker. He was a boy from--kind of country. He came in with a 
member of the police department, as I remember, who was his friend and 
kind of counselor.
  We have lost the mission, I think, by directing the language so that 
we are hamstrung. We are unable to say to the country at large that 
what we want to do is we want to see that the tobacco industry finally 
makes up for some of the terrible damage it has brought on our 
community, brought on our people. We lose sight of that sometimes, the 
damage, as we go through the debate, because we talk about  immunity 
from the suit, protection from litigation, talking about how we can cut 
a deal with the tobacco industry. I, frankly, think it comes under the 
umbrella of nonsense.

  I don't like to be casual with language. We are dealing with an 
industry that has taken a terrible toll on America. To put it in some 
frame that makes it quite clear, in all of the wars of the 20th 
century--World War II, World War I, Korea, Vietnam--the casualties, 
those killed in combat in all the wars of the 20th century, don't equal 
the number that die each year as a result of smoking. It is incredible 
when you think about it.
  We know there are over 400,000 deaths a year, most of them premature, 
often fatal after surgery--after surgery--lungs, throat, you name it, 
respiratory conditions galore, gastrointestinal conditions. We found 
out not too long ago, via the Harvard School of Public Health, that in 
addition to those who we knew died from tobacco-developed illnesses, 
that those who have exposure to secondhand smoke, numbering over 50,000 
persons a year, 50,000 persons a year have fatal heart attacks, fatal 
heart attacks from exposure to secondhand smoke.
  We look at this and we say, ``Well, what do we do about our 
arrangement with the companies?''
  The first thing we have begun to find out--and we are about to find 
out a lot more--is what they have hidden in their planning over the 
years, their papers over the years, their attempt to hide information 
from the public by pretending that there is a client-attorney 
relationship.
  The reason I mention these things is, we have to understand who it is 
that we are working with, that we are talking to. This is an industry 
which has been a foul-play industry for decades, knowing very well that 
addiction was being created by the manipulation of the nicotine, trying 
to grow plants that have a higher nicotine content that will addict 
quicker and firmer.
  After a lot of discussion, after the attorneys general of most of the 
States in the country have met and have fashioned out what they think 
is a settlement--which we didn't all fully agree with, but they made a 
start, and I give them credit--they began to lay out what the 
parameters might be, an arrangement which would have the companies 
stepping up to help us develop a proper public health policy, because 
that is the primary mission.
  Money, in this case, while not unimportant, is certainly a secondary 
part of the discussion, because with that money what we want to do is 
stop kids from smoking. We want to teach people how to stop even after 
they have begun smoking. We want to do some research. We want to find 
out what that nicotine does to the body, to the lungs, to the digestive 
system--the whole thing. We want to be able to stand up face to face 
with the powerful tobacco industry and say, ``Hey, listen; whatever you 
do, understand that we are going to limit your ability to get your 
message out to children and to other unsuspecting people, and we want 
you to pay for it, but we want you to work with us to help us develop 
these programs.''
  We thought we were doing pretty well, because that proposed 
settlement served as a springboard for other discussions. It served as 
a springboard for what else we might do, as the President so carefully 
and positively laid out. We saw that there would be programs as a 
result of an agreement with

[[Page S2835]]

the tobacco companies and to ask the public to join in and help pay for 
some of the costs that tobacco renders on our society. There are 
guesstimates that it goes from $30 billion, $40 billion a year, up to 
$100 billion a year when you talk about lost productivity and problems 
which arise for individuals and families which go beyond just the 
treatment of the health problem. We worked hard.
  Mr. President, we have just been joined by the distinguished chairman 
of the Budget Committee, who has become a friend over the years as we 
worked together and with whom we had an unusually successful program 
last year to get to a balanced budget, to help continue the process 
begun by President Clinton and his policy and watch that deficit go 
down. We look forward to surpluses in the future, possibly over $1 
trillion in the next decade. Think about what good we could do with 
that money.
  The President laid it out very carefully. It had to do with teen 
smoking programs, how we stop that from happening, and all the things I 
just talked about to improve health, prevent people from becoming 
addicts, which they are, over 41 million of them--addicts. It doesn't 
sound pleasant, but that is the truth. As a matter of fact, it is said 
in some quarters that addiction to smoking is almost deeper and longer 
lasting than it is with some of the illegal drugs that we hear so much 
about in our society.

  We were enthusiastic. I know I speak for the Senator from North 
Dakota and I speak for myself, Senator Reed, Senator Durbin, and 
Senator Bingaman, when I say we thought, ``OK, we're on a good track; 
we talked to our friends on the Republican side of the Budget 
Committee, and we worked to find a plan so that we could use whatever 
revenues developed effectively,'' even as we developed a good health 
policy, because that was outside the Budget Committee directly. But it 
did include the programs which would be considered as part of the 
budget resolution, budget planning, for fiscal year 1999.
  I don't have to tell you how disappointing it was to find out we were 
not at all going to be able to implement the policies we thought were 
positive--that we thought would prevent the kids from starting to 
smoke, that we thought would help us counter advertising, that we 
thought would help us with research, the NIH--to find out that by 
design, certainly more than by coincidence, what we were doing was 
restricting the use of any funds which might derive from a fee--we 
might even call it a user fee--from those who smoke, but a fee, an 
excise tax--that it was going to be restricted to something we like, by 
the way.
  All of us want to see a more solvent Medicare, a stronger Medicare. 
The President has confirmed his view of what ought to be done, because 
he has appointed a commission. They are going to have a chance for 
deliberation. In the next year, there are going to be specific 
recommendations on how to protect Medicare, how to create the kind of 
solvency which will give us all some confidence that Medicare is going 
to be there as a program to use for all who reach 65.
  We find out, however, despite the fact that we want to see Medicare 
protected, what has happened is the use of funds has become so narrowed 
that we can't do the other programs; that we are going to be unable to 
take the money which was earned off the addiction, off the habit that 
ruined so many people's health. Out of the 41 million people who are 
out there, we don't know how many are going to die prematurely, but we 
know a lot of them are, and we know a lot of them will be wrestling 
with diseases which will render them unable to conduct their lives in a 
normal fashion, and we are not going to be able to use those funds for 
that.
  Again, there is not a suggestion of anything underhanded-- not at 
all, Mr. President. I want to make sure that is completely understood. 
It is a focus on what the programs are that we are going to be able to 
put into place as a result of having those funds available. Our friends 
on the Republican side have decided you are not going to use it for any 
of those things; you are not going to use it for developing an 
appropriate health policy program; you are not going to be able to use 
it to stop teen smoking. I know there are programs within the basic 
budget resolution to encourage that, but, Mr. President, those programs 
are financed to the tune of $125 million a year. That is the 
recommendation. My gosh, even the tobacco companies, who hate to admit 
they have done anything wrong, were willing to put $2 billion into the 
anti-teen-smoking program.
  We find ourselves in the position where we agree with the interests 
and the effort on behalf of the majority of the Budget Committee in 
developing a program, but we also find ourselves saying, ``Hey, wait a 
second, is this going to help the tobacco companies in some way? Is 
this going to hurt our ability to attack the programs that we so 
desperately need to do? Or is it just a little bit of a disguise to 
say, `Well, OK, what we are going to do is, we are going to support 
health programs very narrowly'?''

  It is with regret that we talk about that today. Mr. President, you 
have seen the list that the Senator from North Dakota has alongside him 
there: Reality versus rhetoric. We have some work to do. We have to try 
to amend what it is that came out of the Budget Committee. I am the 
ranking member. I like working with Senator Domenici. I hope he will 
like working with me when I am the chairman. But that is the way these 
things go, Mr. President. Sometimes what goes around comes around.
  Mr. DOMENICI. How long do you plan to be a Senator?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Long enough to accomplish that objective. Anyway, we 
are going to want to amend this, and I hope we can get that done. That 
would be a positive start. Think about it: 3,000 young people a day 
start smoking; over 1 million a year. One-third of them will die 
prematurely, just as sure as we are standing here, if we don't make 
significant changes in the way tobacco is understood in our society--1 
million kids a year. Wow, that is larger than some of our biggest 
cities. It is certainly larger than a lot of the countries that are on 
this globe.
  It is time we reach out a helping hand and say, ``OK, we are going to 
help you stop before you get started on this addiction.'' I hope our 
friends on the Republican side will join us.
  It was interesting for me to see what happened on two different 
occasions in these last couple of weeks. One was this very day, when a 
senior Member of the Senate on the Republican side, the Senator from 
New Hampshire, offered an amendment to say that there would be no 
protection for the tobacco companies, that they would have to face up 
to what the process is--whether it is the courts or negotiated 
settlements, or what have you--and take their chances. It drew a lot of 
votes. I think there were 75 votes in favor of the Gregg amendment.
  The other was an earlier time, when we were marking up the budget 
resolution, when we had six members of the Republican Party stand up 
with Democrats and confirm the fact that we think the $1.50 price per 
pack of cigarettes put in place over 3 years at the rate of 50 cents a 
year ought to move ahead.
  And that was the only amendment that had any bipartisan support--the 
only amendment. It meant that some of our friends on the Republican 
side, just as we have heard in these Capitol Grounds, just could not 
say no. They had to say yes. They had to say yes, we want to see a 
$1.50 per pack fee imposed on cigarette use.
  We are looking at a lot of money. We are looking at hundreds of 
millions of dollars over the next 25 years. I make a plea for those who 
are going to be voting on this amendment tomorrow sometime: Take a look 
at what it is you are doing. We understand the interests in Medicare, 
but we want you to share our concern that the place to start in 
preventing disease from the use of tobacco starts with kids, starts 
with the youngest of them, starts with the most helpless of us, and 
join us in amending this budget resolution so that we can get a 
different kind of message out there.
  Mr. President, to reiterate I strongly support this amendment, which 
would expand the tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be 
used for anti-tobacco efforts.
  This amendment, in effect, is a test of whether the Senate is serious 
about comprehensive tobacco legislation. If we vote down this 
amendment, then

[[Page S2836]]

we're saying ``no'' to tackling the issue of tobacco this year.
  Senators on both sides of the aisle have various visions of how 
tobacco revenue should be spent. But there had been a bipartisan 
consensus that, at the very least, we should dedicate tobacco revenue 
to fighting teen smoking and developing smoking cessation programs.
  The majority leader, Senator Lott, has taken that position. Senator 
McCain is developing legislation that would use tobacco revenues for 
anti-smoking efforts. And other bills by Senators Hatch, Conrad, 
Jeffords, Kennedy, and myself all would devote tobacco revenue to anti-
teen smoking programs, tobacco-related research, smoking cessation, and 
other tobacco related programs.
  Even the tobacco industry's proposed settlement called for tobacco 
revenue to be used for a variety of programs, including teen education, 
smoking cessation and tobacco research.
  Unfortunately, this budget would block all of these activities. 
That's wrong. And it just makes no sense.
  The distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee has argued that 
there is enough funding available in the resolution for these 
activities. I strongly disagree.
  The budget resolution assumes $125 million in budget authority for 
anti-youth smoking and cessation in fiscal year 1999. But that is far 
below any of the major tobacco bills. In fact, it's not even in the 
same ballpark.
  The tobacco industry's original proposed settlement included over $2 
billion per year for these programs. Senator Conrad's bill included a 
similar figure. That's $2 billion versus $125 million.
  That is not even close.
  Also, the $125 million assumed for teen smoking reduction programs 
and smoking cessation in the budget resolution must be accommodated 
within the discretionary spending caps. And there's reason to be 
skeptical that this will happen. After all, those caps are very tight. 
And increasing funding for these activities would require cuts in other 
programs. Maybe that will happen. But I certainly wouldn't count on it.
  The bottom line, though, is that the restrictive reserve fund 
language in this resolution makes it much less likely that we will pass 
tobacco legislation this year. That's a grave concern to me, and to 
most of my colleagues on this side of the aisle.
  After all, 3,000 kids a day start smoking every day; 1,000 of them 
will die prematurely as a result. We simply must act. And this 
resolution would create a major roadblock.
  I ask my colleagues to support the Conrad amendment, and pave the way 
for comprehensive tobacco legislation this year.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. What is the status of time under the Budget Act on the 
Conrad amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents have 8 minutes remaining, and 
the opponents have 1 hour.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I say to the Senator, my friend, the ranking member 
from New Jersey, when we are finished with this, however soon it is or 
in a half hour, the Senator from Colorado is going to be heard next. Is 
that what we have tentatively understood?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Absolutely. That is what we promised him.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I say to the Senator, can you let me respond a bit 
since there has been a little response? I will certainly not use 
anything like an hour.
  Mr. ALLARD. Take your time, Mr. Chairman. I will be glad to wait 
until you are finished.
  Mr. DOMENICI. For your State and mine, a half hour from now or so is 
a better time for your people anyway.
  Mr. ALLARD. That is correct.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me start by saying that the Senator 
that has proposed this amendment, in my opinion, even though we may not 
have agreed on a number of things, as I have watched things evolve on 
matters pertaining to fiscal policy, has grown tremendously in his 
understanding and his forthrightness and his ability to articulate the 
fiscal condition of this country.
  I want to acknowledge right up front that there are some who worry 
about this budget resolution, but there are some who worry about 10 
years from now. And, frankly, we have an awful lot of new sources of 
information and new sources of estimating that have become very, very 
reliable so that as adult leaders of our country we ought to be able to 
look at a budget 10 years from now and 15 years from now in terms of 
some big big-ticket items and be able to honestly and forthrightly 
indicate where we are.
  I just say to him, he has done a very good job in that respect, and I 
thank him for that. Like I say, I do not necessarily, when he gets up 
and makes his frequent speeches about how wonderful America has become 
since the Democrats voted in a budget, I join him in attributing to 
that the great success of the American economy. But I do acknowledge 
that he has a perfectly valid opportunity to so allege to the world. I 
have not yet really found enough time to really talk with the American 
people about how that is impossible in terms of having been the primary 
reason for America's sustained economic recovery. I am not going to do 
that tonight either, but in a sense--in a sense--I am going to talk 
about something that I believe my good friend, the proponent of the 
amendment that is before us, has stated as well as I will or better 
time and again in the Budget Committee and in the Committee of Finance.
  That is what this chart before us, in back of me, shows to all of 
us--a very, very simple chart. You see that red line, and you see 2021. 
That red line is the Medicare hospitalization trust fund balances at 
the end of each year.
  Now, you see, anything close to that zero line means that the 
balances are pretty close--the outgo and the intake. But look what 
happens to that red line out there in the future, but not so far in the 
future that people like Kent Conrad would not stand up and say, with 
Pete Domenici, for all the accolades we  are giving ourselves about how 
great we have done on fixing the fiscal policy of our Nation, if we sit 
back and do not fix that, where that red line can, in a year or so when 
we have reformed this program, start to move up and parallel the line 
that is at about zero, we have failed the American people in a most 
serious way.

  Because of that we could put one up here on Social Security. We could 
argue about their trust fund. And, frankly, that is a very, very 
exciting argument for 2 or 3 hours, if we want to do it. But 
essentially, in terms of the impact on America, if we do not fix 
something, the impact is apt to be more severe if we do not fix this 
than if we do not fix Social Security.
  Both are serious. Both are predictable. We understand all the reasons 
for what is happening. And we can choose, as we have in the past when 
we did not know any better, we could wait 10 years. We could all be 
running around saying how wonderful everything is. Probably 25 years 
ago nobody could run around after us as we campaigned and say, ``You're 
not facing up to the facts.'' But I tell you, they can now, because we 
know that red line is a pretty accurate presentation of the most 
serious fiscal and social problem that this country has--bar none.
  Now, having said that, the budget I chose to present, after much 
consultation with the Budget Committee, which was adopted by the 
Senators on that committee, I regret, on a party-line basis--but I 
actually believe the total reason for that party-line vote had to do 
with this issue that is before us, because I do not believe that every 
Democrat who voted against the Domenici mark voted against it because 
they want to spend a lot more money on new programs.
  As a matter of fact, if this tobacco settlement, as fragile and as 
amorphous as it is, had not come along--and it was not available either 
to the President in his budget or to us in our markup--there would have 
been little to argue over, because we do not have any money to spend 
unless we want to break the agreement and knock those caps on 
discretionary spending off of their pillars and say, ``We just made a 
deal, but we're going to break it.'' I do not believe that would have 
happened. And I do not think Senator Conrad, who is here with an 
amendment tonight on the tobacco settlement--I do not think he would 
have joined in saying, ``We've got to invent some new programs and 
spend some new money and break those caps.''

[[Page S2837]]

  Essentially, we got off on the wrong foot, because the President of 
the United States gave a speech called a State of the Union Address, 
and, in his normal manner, he was eloquent. The problem was, nobody had 
an opportunity to check his budget. So America got excited about an era 
of balanced budgets where all of a sudden we could spend a lot of money 
that we did not spend the year before. And it was interesting. Some of 
us listened and said, what's happening? I mean, we have a literal 
freeze on all the programs the President is talking about--more 
education money, classroom sizes, interest reduction so you can build 
more classrooms, child care--you know, on and on--oh, more health 
programs for children who are smoking, and a huge advertising campaign 
for that.
  And I was thinking, ``Man, all of those belong over here on that side 
of the ledger where already we've agreed we can't spend any more 
money.'' The President said, ``Well, we'll spend it out of the tobacco 
settlement'' that may never occur. If it  occurs, it might be very 
different than he assumed. And lo and behold, the Congressional Budget 
Office told us, he cannot spend it the way he says without breaking the 
Budget Act of the United States and breaking the caps by $68 billion 
over 5 years.

  That is where we found ourselves, with everybody getting excited that 
we could have some new programs, we could preserve the surpluses, 
right--which my friend from Colorado is going to speak to in a minute--
and we could spend on at least six new programs that pop in my head, 
and a whole bunch of add-ons, we could spend $124 billion over 5 years 
on things we were not paying for last year.
  Mr. President, that sounded like a fairy land, that we would have 
tombs and beautiful songs and we could dream and say, ``Boy, isn't that 
just fantastic?'' Sort of like Alice in Wonderland. But we soon found 
out it was all predicated upon a tobacco settlement that the tobacco 
companies agreed to with the attorneys general. And we had no more idea 
up here how that was going to get resolved than the Man in the Moon.
  And I regret to say, while I think we ought to try to settle that 
dispute--I am not averse to raising cigarette taxes--we are still not 
very close, when you look at the House and the Senate, to coming up 
with a way to do that which has enough votes to do what Howard Baker 
used to say, ``Whatever the rules and procedures are, don't worry about 
it if you've got enough votes.'' Nobody has enough votes yet. But I 
believe there are enough votes for this budget resolution, because it 
does the right thing. This Republican budget--which I wish some 
Democrats would vote for--says: Don't spend the surplus in the regular 
budget of the United States on anything but Social Security, or, as we 
put it, ``Social Security reform.''
  My friend from Colorado has another suggestion--it is intriguing, and 
I hope everybody looks at it--as to the surplus. But we said that. And 
the President said it a little differently than us. But essentially, 
for the year 1999, don't touch it. For those who might think it is very 
big, let me remind you, ``Don't touch it '99'' means don't touch $8 
billion worth of surplus, I say to my friend in the Chair, not $30 
billion, not $60 billion, not $100 billion--$8 billion.
  So this euphoria about, ``We've got to protect that, we can't spend 
it,'' with others saying, ``Let's cut taxes''--it is $8 billion. So we 
said two big goals: Save Social Security--and I might add, under our 
budget resolution that is before us, we literally use the word 
``reform,'' so that we do not just contemplate putting the surplus into 
the Social Security trust fund; we contemplate having it available for 
those who will reform and rewrite Social Security to use, if they need 
it, to make that program one that is far better for America's retired 
people in the future and which has a chance of making the fund itself 
more solvent.
  The second thing we said was once the next program that the American 
U.S. Government has a responsibility to pay for--not a State issue, not 
a city issue, one of ours--and lo and behold, we find the American U.S. 
problem is that one, Medicare. Medicare. We found the second big 
problem is that, one, that huge red line on the chart going down. It 
almost moves in a direction like when you are a young kid and you 
wondered where hell was--that is sort of looking like it is going down 
to hell, down into the depths of the Earth, in the red, going broke.
  We said, what do we do about that? There is nothing more important 
than doing what we can to start fixing that. We said whatever the 
Federal Government keeps from the settlement--if it ever happens, and 
we assume the President's number, but we said whatever it is and 
whenever it happens--put the Government share in that fund.
  What we are going to do with the amendment of my friend, whom I have 
just spoken to, is to say we are not going to put all the money in that 
hospital insurance fund for seniors that is going bankrupt; we are 
going to spend it on some other things. Frankly, I believe for a 
budget, a blueprint, that is a mistake. It will be subject to a point 
of order, and I will make it. It is not with any reluctance that I make 
it, because I think what we have planned in the budget before the 
Senate is better for our country, so long as we have no agreed-upon 
plan to do otherwise. I remind the Senators, and the occupant of the 
Chair was working hard and very knowledgeable about the tobacco 
settlement, we don't have a plan. We have a lot of people talking about 
a lot of things, and a lot of wonderful things we ought to buy, but we 
don't have a plan that has broad-based bipartisan support. I believe 
unless and until that happens, the money ought to go where this budget 
says--every nickel should go in Medicare.
  Now, I am amazed--and I want to allude back and forth to other 
proposals--that the President of the United States in his State of the 
Union Address, and in his budget which followed, which not even the 
Democrats have used in budget debates, that budget that he told the 
American people about, that he sent us, I am amazed in that budget 
there was $124 billion in new expenditures from this, that, and the 
other, but a huge amount of it from the tobacco settlement and not a 
penny for the second worst problem that America has. Not a penny.
  Not so with the budget that is before the Senate. The reverse. Not a 
penny for any other new program but all the money for that one.
  Now, from this Senator's standpoint, I did not set about to ignore 
what many people said we ought to pay for if we get the tobacco 
settlement. Fellow Senators, I want you to know if there is never a 
settlement of the cigarette controversy, if it is never settled and 
never resolved, the budget before the Senate, because we chose to 
prioritize, to put first things first, has the largest increase for the 
National Institutes of Health over the next 5 years for research 
related to the effects of cigarette smoking that we have ever put 
together in the history of our biological and chemical research 
programs of America, the largest. On average, 11 percent a year. We are 
not waiting for a cigarette settlement to pay for that.
  When you vote for the budget before the Senate that I put together--
and I hope it is not just Republicans--we will have dramatically 
increased the National Institutes of Health because we chose to look at 
the President's cuts, and he had many. And we said, amen. But we want 
to spend it where we think we should spend it and we put it in NIH. 
This afternoon we argued about child care, and we put it there, too. We 
put $5 billion there in a new block grant to add to what we are doing, 
and we don't have to wait for the tobacco settlement to do it.

  A number of other items, such as an advertising campaign to address 
the issue of trying, with advertising, to mellow the effect of 
cigarette advertising on young people. We don't have to wait around for 
the cigarette settlement. We have funded that to the tune of $825 
million.
  Now, frankly, we will never have enough for some. There are some who 
would think we should spend $2 billion a year on children's programs 
and on health programs for children out of this settlement. Mr. 
President, what is intriguing about it all is that in order to get that 
done, most amendments around here, and the amendment that is presently 
before the Senate, attempt to solve these problems by creating new 
mandatory permanent programs for ideas that are being implemented about 
which we have little certainty they will succeed. If anything, they

[[Page S2838]]

ought to be annually appropriated so we can look at them each year. Mr. 
President, you understand that can't be done without breaking the 
budget agreement because we don't have any more room in our budget for 
that kind of expenditure. So this amendment and others spend it in a 
new entitlement program for kids' advertising or for tobacco research 
or whatever the five or six programs are that are there.
  Now, $825 million over 5 years for various antiteen smoking and 
public health initiatives--I have heard from some of my colleagues we 
have not put enough resources into these antismoking initiatives, 
without a settlement. I have even heard that we need to spend, maybe, 
and I repeat, ``multiple billions of dollars, perhaps even as much as 
$2 billion a year,'' on such a campaign. Frankly, fellow Senators, I 
find those proposals hard to believe. First, the President's budget 
identified $400 million over the next 5 years for antismoking 
initiatives at the Federal level through the Centers for Disease 
Control.
  Let me quote from the HHS 1999 budget press release. This was when 
the President was still living off the budget that turned out not to be 
doable because it violated the budget but they had money to spend. It 
said, ``We will expand our support for State and community programs 
from $34 million in 1998 to $51 million in 1999,'' a 50 percent 
increase. ``The Centers for Disease Control,'' the quote continues, in 
their public relations submission, ``will now fund all States and the 
District of Columbia to implement innovative tobacco prevention 
programs as a core component of the public health.'' We fund that much 
and more without waiting around for the tobacco settlement. Now, it 
more than doubles the funds identified in the President's budget for 
this initiative.
  Let me also point out that we have some history with public campaigns 
aimed at youth. According to this administration, we have increased our 
efforts to prevent and treat drug use from $4.1 billion in 1992 to $5.4 
billion in 1998. Much of that funding was aimed at young Americans. 
Nonetheless, teenage drug use has increased from 15 percent in 1992 to 
22.2 percent in 1995, the last year we have evidence, and everyone here 
knows it  is higher now than 1995, and the campaign continues to spend 
money, to affect their lives on drugs, with advertising and other 
programs.

  I only say that not because I do not think we should continue trying, 
but I firmly believe it would be wrong to put huge amounts of money in 
an entitlement program in this area and just say for the next 5 to 10 
years, that is where it goes. So, wherever I look and however I think 
about this, I say to those committees and those assigned by our 
leadership to try to work a tobacco settlement--good luck. I also say, 
if you put it together and you can find 60 votes, you will pass your 
program in the Senate. And if you do, who knows? I may be one of the 
60. I haven't said I would not, but I believe since we are not anywhere 
close to that and we have no consensus on that, that we ought to do 
what is the most prudent thing.
  I have failed to discuss and I have failed to put up the chart that 
clearly depicts what is happening to Medicare spending on tobacco-
related illnesses. It is there now. It is simple and frightening.
  The hospital insurance trust fund for the seniors of America has been 
made stable for about another 10 years. But we didn't really reform the 
program; we reformed the payment plan. It will, once again, as that red 
line on the previous chart, it will start to go down again, and when 
the baby boomers hit entitlement age, it will go broke. But look at 
that, one of the reasons it has gone broke is we never could have 
estimated the costs that program would bear on its shoulders from 
tobacco-related illnesses of senior citizens. And there it is, $25.5 
billion, 14 percent of total Medicare spending, in 1995. Mr. President, 
1995 is the best we can do. Say it got better. I don't believe so. In 
fact, I am prepared to speculate with a bit of intuition that I think 
is right that it is higher now, not lower.
  So I submit the budget that is before us is better for America and 
has a better chance of solving our serious problems than a budget with 
the amendment before the Senate added to it, because I do not believe 
there is a better way to spend that money than on the program that is 
going bankrupt and is so necessary and was so infringed upon by smoking 
costs that we cannot ignore the reality of the relationship between the 
smoking and the bankruptcy of the hospital insurance program.
  Now, this does not mean, Mr. President, that the Senator from New 
Mexico thinks the distinguished Senator, whom I have spoken of this 
evening with great affection and as honestly and positively as I have 
spoken about a Democrat Senator since I have been here--  perhaps my 
friend Sam Nunn has had me do that once before, and perhaps my friend, 
the ranking member, has had me do that before. But in any event, that 
is not to say that this is a wild idea. It is just that I believe if 
you have the facts before you and you don't know how the tobacco is 
going to come out at all, we have no idea--and there are all kinds of 
things people want to spend it on, right? We could add to this list 
here, in the next 48 hours, another six or seven things, and we might, 
I say to my friend from Colorado. If this amendment fails, we are going 
to see more. They won't all try to do the same things. They will have 
other things we ought to do and pay for it out of this fund.

  So the best I can do is to say that I believe the best budget we can 
do is to save the surplus for reform and solvency of Social Security, 
save the Government's share of the cigarette tax to save Medicare, 
increase the National Institutes of Health, put some additional money 
in child care, add about $9 billion to education. A whole bunch of 
amendments are going to say we didn't do enough about education. I just 
want to say to everybody that we will take those one at a time, one at 
a time. But we put everything in this budget on education that the 
bipartisan administration budget agreement contemplated for the year 
1999. There is an $8 billion-plus increase year after year on 
education, which is exactly what we contemplated. It is there. When the 
appropriators finally do it--we don't know what they are going to do, 
but we suggested some things that were very interesting. We don't wait 
around for the settlement of the tobacco issue for those educational 
add-ons. The President did. We don't. We put $2.5 billion in IDEA or 
disability education to try to move forward in our commitment to pay 
our share. It is embarrassing that we have mandated that disabled young 
people be educated in a certain way from here down to our school 
districts and we are supposed to pay 40 percent of the tab. Senator, if 
you are not embarrassed that your schools have never seen the 
Government put up more than 9 percent of that program, I am. We are 
going to start putting more in there, and do you know what. They are 
going to be relieved of expenditures and be able to hire new teachers, 
as they see fit, and do the other things they may need. We will live up 
to our responsibilities. They will have money left over to do theirs. 
That is in our budget.
  Yet, whatever you do, it isn't enough. Tomorrow, we will speak about 
building classrooms. Let me suggest, for those who want to build 
classrooms and think the President is for it, you will have a surprise 
tomorrow. Two budgets ago, the President said in his Department of 
Education that it is no business of the Federal Government to build 
schools in the school districts of America. He said it even better than 
that. And then he canceled the $100 million worth of programs to build 
schools. All of a sudden, it's the greatest program ever and we better 
do it from up here, even though we have never done that in any big way 
as part of American Government's help to our schools. We will debate 
that. Some will say we should pay part of that out of the cigarette 
settlement. Can you imagine. If you are talking about things related to 
cigarette smoking, isn't that one more related? Isn't that fund more 
bankrupt than any other fund around and any other obligation? So, Mr. 
President, when the time comes after tomorrow--we have a few more 
minutes, and I hope some people listened tonight--we will vote. The 
point of order will be the issue. I have no doubt that 
significant numbers of Senators will vote with my friend. I have 
nothing but praise for him, and if they do that, that is OK. But I 
don't believe there are going to be enough votes to get around the 
point of order.

[[Page S2839]]

 We will be back to where we started, which we think is a very good 
place to be. That is, we are going to spend the money, if we ever get 
the tobacco settlement, to pay for making that Medicare Program 
solvent.

  Mr. President, make no bones about it; we have appointed a national 
commission. It is bipartisan. I have already seen them on C-SPAN, and 
they disagreed violently. I don't know if the chairman is going to be 
able to ever get them together. We were all wondering who ought to be 
chairman and we said, ``Senator Breaux, you ought to be.'' I like him 
very much. He is a Democrat. Frankly, the more I look at the different 
views, I am glad that he is there because, frankly, it is going to be 
hard to put them together. If we have a few tens of billions of dollars 
to help them get this reform put together, it will be one of the best 
things we have ever done. It may just be the ointment, along with 
reforms, that will glue it together. And, conversely, if we throw it 
away on programs that we are not sure will work, we will be real sorry 
if they can't put together a Medicare reform package because we spent 
the money that might have helped them do it.
  With that, I don't know how much time remains, but from my 
standpoint, I yield the floor on this. I will shortly be prepared to 
move with the distinguished Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I wonder if we can get the Senator's 
question answered as to how much time is left on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents have 7 minutes 42 seconds. The 
opponents have 24 minutes 42 seconds.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico just 
volunteered to give us 5 minutes on our side, with the understanding 
that the rest will be yielded back. What I would like to do is ask my 
colleague from North Dakota to say what he wants to do. Does he want 7 
minutes or so? I would like 5 minutes. If that would be all right, I 
would agree with the proposal offered by the Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. CONRAD. That would be acceptable.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator from Colorado thus far for his 
ever-present indulgence.
  I will take my 5 minutes first, and I ask the Chair to remind me when 
my 5 minutes is up so that I can give the remaining 7 minutes to the 
Senator from North Dakota.
  First of all, I am not personally insulted, I promise you that, not 
at all. I heard the chairman of the Budget Committee talk about what a 
great guy and a good friend and a nice Democrat and everything else the 
Senator from North Dakota was. Then he talked about the Senator from 
Louisiana. It doesn't bother me. It is just one of those things, Mr. 
President, two Democrats being described as great guys and all that. 
But we will go on from there.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Let me say, Mr. President, whatever I have said about 
other Senators from the other side of the aisle, it is quite obvious 
that the most significant achievement that I have participated in was 
the balanced budget agreement of last year, and without my good friend, 
Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey, we could not have achieved that 
result. So he knows with that statement that I am very proud to work 
with him. You got it, Senator.

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. We are together, believe me. As a matter of fact, I 
want to tell you something, Mr. President. You have no idea--few have--
how hard I worked to get this man to stop smoking. It showed my true 
affection for him because I wanted him to be around here. Even when I 
disagree with him, I like him here because he stimulates reactions and 
gets us going at times, if you know what I mean.
  Mr. President, I ask people to consider this question with me. What 
grandparent, I ask you, would not say: Take care of my grandchild 
first, help my grandchild so that when he or she grows up, they are 
healthy, help my grandchild to not become an addict to tobacco or other 
drug substances? What grandparent would not stand up and proudly say 
``take care of them first'' because eventually they will be the ones 
who will shoot the Government programs and health insurance programs up 
through the roof?
  Yes, there is $22 billion worth of spending in Medicare on tobacco-
related illness. We are not sure, but there is a significant amount, 
perhaps a like amount, in Medicaid tobacco-related illness. But if we 
don't inhibit smoking among the youngsters today, this price will 
continue. Sometimes you have to make an investment in the long term 
before you can obtain the result that you want. You can't always do it 
overnight.
  So I submit, Mr. President, that we are determined not to break the 
caps. We are determined to abide by CBO accounting. We are determined 
not to spend money that we don't have. And to correct something the 
Senator from New Mexico said a moment ago, he said the surpluses should 
be used for Medicare. I think he didn't quite mean it that way because, 
technically, the words are, ``surplus is going to Social Security,'' 
and hopefully the proceeds from the tobacco legislation would go toward 
creating a more solvent Medicare.
  So, Mr. President, I kind of rest the case here. My colleague from 
North Dakota is going to want to wrap up, as they say, but I say as an 
experienced grandparent--and if anybody wants to see the pictures of my 
five grandchildren, I have them here in my pocket. But I tell you that 
there is nothing--nothing--in my life that I would not give to prevent 
sickness or illness to any one of my grandchildren. There is no price 
that is too high to pay. I will take care of myself, but I want to make 
sure I give my grandchildren a chance to grow, develop, and be healthy.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor for my friend from North 
Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, first of all, I want to say to the 
chairman of our committee, he knows that I have the utmost regard for 
him for the way he conducts our committee. I have real respect for the 
chairman. I have, as well, an affection for the chairman. That really 
is not the issue before us tonight. We work together, and on the larger 
issues of where we are going for the long term, there is much more that 
unites us than divides us because we are both persuaded that if we 
don't address the long-term entitlement changes that are necessary in 
this country, we put this country at risk.
  We are talking about the national security of our Nation because, 
fundamentally, that cannot be preserved if we don't get our long-term 
fiscal house in order. We are united on that question. Mr. President, 
the issue before us tonight is a reserve fund in the budget for tobacco 
revenue. The chairman of our committee says that he believes if we get 
a tobacco settlement, all of the revenue ought to go for Medicare. I 
would be swift to acknowledge that Medicare is a priority, but it's not 
the only priority. Medicare does not represent the national tobacco 
policy. We have to do more with those tobacco revenues than just 
strengthen the Medicare Program. And, in fact, I think the chairman 
would be quick to acknowledge that even if we took all of the revenue 
from tobacco, we would not do the job that needs to be done with 
respect to Medicare. We need fundamental reform of Medicare, and I 
voted in the Finance Committee very controversial votes to do precisely 
that, because I deeply believe we do need to reform the Medicare 
Program, to preserve it and protect it for the long term.

  Mr. President, the tobacco revenues won't do that job. In fact, in an 
odd way, they actually may retard our facing up to the long-term 
challenge of Medicare. But there are other challenges we face as well. 
One of them is, if we get the tobacco revenue, how should it be used? 
The Republican budget resolution says none of it should be used for 
youth-smoking-reduction-education programs. None of it should be used 
for public service advertising to counter the tobacco advertising of 
the industry. Their resolution says none of it should be used for 
tobacco-related medical research; that none of it should be used for 
smoking cessation and prevention programs; none of it should be used to 
assist tobacco farmers in their communities in the transition. That is 
an honest disagreement.

[[Page S2840]]

  In the bill I introduced, some of the money was used for Medicare, 
some of it was used to strengthen Social Security. But we also believe 
that, just as every comprehensive bill that is before this body by 
Republicans and Democrats has said, some of the money has to go for 
tobacco control problems, smoking cessation, smoking prevention. The 
chairman says he has money elsewhere in the budget. Let me just say 
that what he has elsewhere in the budget is wholly inadequate. That is 
not just my judgment; that is the judgment of the public health 
community on a united basis.
  In the budget resolution, there is $125 million a year for smoking 
cessation, smoking prevention, counter-tobacco advertising, and health 
research that is specific to the question of tobacco issues. That is 
apart from the NIH money. But in every comprehensive bill that is out 
here by Republicans, or Democrats, it is not $125 million for those 
purposes. It is $2 billion a year to $4 billion a year. The chairman 
elsewhere in the budget has provided for $125 million, and the truth is 
that under the budget resolution it may be the result that not a single 
dime is available for any of those programs because the Budget 
Committee doesn't make that decision. All the money goes in a pot and 
the appropriators determine what are their priorities. If they have a 
difference on that question, they may decide not to provide one thin 
dime for smoking cessation, smoking prevention, counter-tobacco 
advertising, or even health research. That is the hard reality.
  That is why some of us believe deeply that we have to broaden out 
this reserve fund to accommodate the other priorities, to have a chance 
to have comprehensive tobacco legislation without a supermajority 
requirement here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. A 60-vote point of 
order lies against any of these comprehensive tobacco bills that have 
been offered by three Republican chairmen on that side and every 
comprehensive tobacco bill on our side. We do not believe we should put 
supermajority hurdles in the way of accomplishing national tobacco 
legislation.
  I will just conclude by saying I respect our chairman, I respect the 
work of his staff, I respect the work of our ranking member, and his 
staff. Let me just say with respect to our ranking member that no one 
has been more dedicated on the question of reforming our Nation's 
policy with respect to tobacco than the Senator from New Jersey. If 
people on airplanes like the fact that they are smoke free, there is 
one person who is responsible for it--more responsible than any other 
individual--and that is the Senator from New Jersey. We can all thank 
him for the contribution he has made to try to do something to get our 
kids off the tobacco habit, off the addiction, and the diseases that it 
causes. I think we should recognize his leadership in this regard. 
Nobody has been a more forceful advocate of changing the tobacco 
culture than the Senator from New Jersey.
  At some point we are all going to be on the same page because I 
believe we are going to find a way to get together on national tobacco 
legislation. But I hope that we do not put in the way as a roadblock 
the budget resolution. We could broaden that reserve fund so that if we 
do get tobacco revenue it can be used, yes, for Medicare, and, yes, to 
help strengthen Social Security, as my bill also provides, but in 
addition to that provide for smoking cessation, smoking prevention, 
counter-tobacco advertising--all of the things that the public health 
community has told us is important to a comprehensive approach to 
protecting the public health.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a letter from ENACT, a coalition of more than 45 major public health 
organizations with millions of volunteers and members who support 
comprehensive legislation that will prevent children from taking up 
tobacco and will dramatically reduce tobacco use among adults. They 
support the type of amendment which I have offered.
  I ask unanimous consent to also have printed in the Record a letter 
from the American Lung Association, who say in their letter, ``As you 
know, the budget resolution recently approved by the Budget Committee 
is a disaster for public health.''

  I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter 
from Public Citizen making the same point; finally, a letter from Smoke 
Free 2000, a coalition interested in advancing the public health with 
respect to the question of tobacco policy.
  So, we will have those letters in the Record demonstrating the 
support of the public health community for broadening our tobacco 
reserve plan so that a comprehensive bill is possible.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                        ENACT,

                                                   March 27, 1998.
       Dear Senator: The ENACT coalition of more than 45 major 
     public health organizations with millions of volunteers and 
     members supports comprehensive legislation that will prevent 
     children from taking up tobacco and dramatically reduce 
     tobacco use among adults.
       We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding 
     the restrictions contained in the Budget Resolution that 
     limit the use of money in the Tobacco Reserve Fund to the 
     Medicare Hospital Trust Fund. These restrictions will hinder 
     efforts to enact effective and comprehensive tobacco 
     legislation by requiring 60 votes to include funding for key 
     anti-tobacco programs. We believe that the Budget Resolution 
     should be changed to allow the Tobacco Reserve Fund to be 
     used for programs that will reduce the use of tobacco and its 
     harmful effects.
       To reduce tobacco use among children and adults, 
     comprehensive tobacco legislation must contain funding for 
     tobacco-related public health programs, including:
       1. A nationwide public education and counter advertising 
     program as well as state and local tobacco control programs 
     and projects.
       2. Cessation programs to help children and adults who want 
     to quit.
       3. Regulation of tobacco products by the Food and Drug 
     Administration.
       4. Research into how we can best prevent tobacco use and 
     help those who want to quit--this research will build on what 
     we already know and ensure that our efforts to drive down 
     smoking rates are effective.
       Funding for tobacco-related public health programs should 
     be the first priority for any funds raised through tobacco 
     legislation; we are therefore opposed to the current 
     provision in the Budget Resolution that limits the use of 
     such revenue to the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund.
       We recognize that the Budget Resolution includes funding 
     for teen smoking prevention and cessation programs, but these 
     programs would have to compete for limited discretionary 
     dollars available in the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations 
     bill. Additionally, the funding called for in the Budget 
     Resolution under the discretionary caps is far below the 
     funding levels recommended by virtually every major public 
     health organization and below what was outlined in the 
     proposed Attorneys General agreement.
       The undersigned groups support amending the Budget 
     Resolution to ensure that funds in the Tobacco Reserve Fund 
     can be used to support critical tobacco-related programs that 
     will help drive down smoking rates. This is a historic 
     opportunity to achieve fundamental change in tobacco 
     addiction and disease and to save lives. We are committed to 
     working with you and other members of Congress to pass a 
     Budget Resolution that will help protect America's children 
     from the dangers of tobacco addiction.
           Sincerely,
         Allergy & Asthma Network--Mothers of Asthmatics, Inc.; 
           American Academy of Family Physicians; American Academy 
           of Pediatrics; American Association for Respiratory 
           Care; American Cancer Society; American College of 
           Chest Physicians; American College of Preventive 
           Medicine; American Heart Association; American 
           Psychiatric Association; American School Health 
           Association; American Society of Internal Medicine; 
           Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids; College on Problems of 
           Drug Dependence; Family Voices; Federation of 
           Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences; The 
           HMO Group; Interreligious Coalition on Smoking or 
           Health; Latino Council on Alcohol & Tobacco; National 
           Association of Children's Hospitals; National 
           Association of County and City Health Officials; 
           National Association of Local Boards of Health; 
           National Hispanic Medical Association; Oncology Nursing 
           Society; Partnership for Prevention; and Summit Health 
           Coalition.
                                                                    ____



                                    American Lung Association,

                                     New York, NY, March 25, 1998.
     Hon. Frank Lautenberg,
     Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Lautenberg: As you know, the Budget Resolution 
     recently approved by the Budget Committee is a disaster for 
     public health.
       Instead of allowing the use of tobacco revenues for public 
     health programs, as is the case with every major piece of 
     tobacco control legislation before the Congress, the 
     committee bill actually precludes the use of any new tobacco 
     revenues for public health. Moreover, the provisions of 
     committee bill will set up procedural barriers that will 
     hamstring the use of these new revenues for preventing youth 
     smoking, lifesaving research

[[Page S2841]]

     at the National Institutes of Health, or FDA efforts to rein 
     in the tobacco industry. Monies that are provided--$800 
     million over five years, is way below most other bills. For 
     example, the Health Kids Act, (S. 1638) calls for over $2 
     billion per year for tobacco control efforts.
       The American Lung Association strongly supports an 
     amendment to the Budget Resolution that would include funding 
     for public health programs in the tobacco reserve fund 
     established by the Budget Committee. We believe that the goal 
     of tobacco control legislation should be to control tobacco 
     use--not raise revenue.
       Lastly, we support any amendment expressing the sense of 
     the Senate opposing immunity and supporting full FDA 
     authority to control tobacco. Recent public opinion polls 
     conducted by the American Lung Association indicate the 
     American people strongly oppose granting special protections 
     to the tobacco industry. The Senate should follow their lead.
       We look forward to working with you to craft tobacco 
     control legislation that protects the public health without 
     creating special protections, like immunity, for the tobacco 
     industry.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Fran Du Melle,
     Deputy Managing Director.
                                                                    ____



                                               Public Citizen,

                                   Washington, DC, March 26, 1998.
     Hon. Frank Lautenberg,
     Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Lautenberg: Public Citizen has long supported 
     efforts to reduce the death and disease caused by tobacco 
     products and has worked for years against legislation that 
     would protect corporate wrongdoers from legal accountability 
     for the harm caused by their dangerous products. We applaud 
     your work in pursuit of the same public health goals.
       We are concerned that the Budget Resolution recently 
     approved by the Senate Budget Committee does not reflect 
     sound public health priorities. The measure contains no 
     funding for many of the health related programs that should 
     be funded by new tobacco revenues. Instead, the Budget 
     Resolution proposes that these new tobacco revenues be 
     earmarked for Medicare. In addition, the money the Budget 
     Resolution provides for tobacco control--$800 million over 
     five years--is well below the amount that would be generated 
     by most of the tobacco bills now before Congress. For 
     example, the Healthy Kids Act, (S. 1638), calls for over $2 
     billion per year for tobacco control efforts. We urge that 
     these deficiencies be corrected.
       Further, Public Citizen strongly supports a floor amendment 
     expressing the sense of the Senate that the tobacco companies 
     must not be given any special protection from legal liability 
     as a quid pro quo for its payments--or for anything else. We 
     oppose any sweetheart deal for this industry that lied to and 
     cheated the American public and costs the U.S. economy over 
     $90 billion each year in health care costs alone.
       Finally, Public Citizen believes that the FDA must be given 
     full authority to regulate nicotine and tobacco products, and 
     we would also support a sense of the Senate amendment 
     advancing that position.
       Thank you for your leadership on these important issues. We 
     look forward to working with you to craft tobacco control 
     legislation that protects the public health without creating 
     special protections, like immunity, for the tobacco industry.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Joan Claybrook,
     President.
                                                                    ____



                                    Smoke Free 2000 Coalition,

                                     St. Paul, MN, March 25, 1998.
     Hon. Frank Lautenberg,
     Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Lautenberg: The Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition 
     strongly supports an amendment to the Budget Resolution that 
     would include significant funding for public health programs 
     in the tobacco reserve fund established by the Budget 
     Committee.
       In order to reduce tobacco and prevent tobacco use, a 
     comprehensive approach is needed including, counter-
     advertising and education campaigns, reducing illegal sales 
     to minors, smoking cessation for those who want to quit. The 
     goal of tobacco control legislation should be to control 
     tobacco use--not just raise revenue.
       The budget resolution recently approved by the Budget 
     committee prohibits the use of tobacco control revenues for 
     public health programs. This would be a disaster for public 
     health and exactly what the tobacco industry would support.
       The Minnesota Coalition represents more than 60 health, 
     education, consumer and civic organizations from across the 
     state of Minnesota. Collectively, we urge your support of an 
     amendment to the Budget Resolution that would include funding 
     for public health.
           Sincerely,
                                           A. Stuart Hanson, M.D.,
                                                        President.

  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, is it fair to assume now that we have 
both yielded our time on this?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes.


                           Amendment No. 2209

  (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate that the Committee on 
Finance shall consider and report a legislative proposal this year that 
  would dedicate the Federal budget surplus to the establishment of a 
     program of personal retirement accounts for working Americans)

  Mr. DOMENICI. Before our friend from Colorado proceeds, I send to the 
desk an amendment on behalf of Senators Roth, Breaux, Gregg, Robb, 
Hatch, Nickles, Gramm, Gordon Smith, and Santorum, and ask it take its 
place among the amendments to be determined in the future as to when a 
vote will occur.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), for himself, 
     and Mr. Roth, Mr. Breaux, Mr. Gregg, Mr. Robb, Mr. Hatch, Mr. 
     Nickles, Mr. Gramm, Mr. Gordon Smith, and Mr. Santorum, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 2209.
       At the end of title III add the following:

     SEC. ____. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON SOCIAL SECURITY PERSONAL 
                   RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS AND THE BUDGET SURPLUS.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:
       (1) The social security program is the foundation of 
     retirement income for most Americans, and solving the 
     financial problems of the social security program is a vital 
     national priority and essential for the retirement security 
     of today's working Americans and their families.
       (2) There is a growing bipartisan consensus that personal 
     retirement accounts should be an important feature of social 
     security reform.
       (3) Personal retirement accounts can provide a substantial 
     retirement nest egg and real personal wealth. For an 
     individual 28 years old on the date of the adoption of this 
     resolution, earning an average wage, and retiring at age 65 
     in 2035, just 1 percent of that individual's wages deposited 
     each year in a personal retirement account and invested in 
     securities consisting of the Standard & Poors 500 would grow 
     to $132,000, and be worth approximately 20 percent of the 
     benefits that would be provided to the individual under the 
     current provisions of the social security program.
       (4) Personal retirement accounts would give the majority of 
     Americans who do not own any investment assets a new stake in 
     the economic growth of America.
       (5) Personal retirement accounts would demonstrate the 
     value of savings and the magic of compound interest to all 
     Americans. Today, Americans save less than people in almost 
     every other country.
       (6) Personal retirement accounts would help Americans to 
     better prepare for retirement generally. According to the 
     Congressional Research Service, 60 percent of Americans are 
     not actively participating in a retirement plan other than 
     social security, although social security was never intended 
     to be the sole source of retirement income.
       (7) Personal retirement accounts would allow partial 
     prefunding of retirement benefits, thereby providing for 
     social security's future financial stability.
       (8) The Federal budget will register a surplus of 
     $671,000,000,000 over the next 10 years, offering a unique 
     opportunity to begin a permanent solution to social 
     security's financing.
       (9) Using the Federal budget surplus to fund personal 
     retirement accounts would be an important first step in 
     comprehensive social security reform and ensuring the 
     delivery of promised retirement benefits.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that this resolution assumes that the Committee on Finance 
     shall consider and report a legislative proposal this year 
     that would dedicate the Federal budget surplus to the 
     establishment of a program of personal retirement accounts 
     for working Americans and reduce the unfunded liabilities of 
     the social security program.


                           Amendment No. 2210

   (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding repair and 
                 construction needs of Indian schools)

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, before we go on to the Senator from 
Colorado, I, too, have an amendment to be sent up to the desk on behalf 
of the Senator from South Dakota, Senator Johnson, and ask that it be 
placed in the order for such time as it is called up.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Is that the amendment on Indian schooling?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes. We should note that the Senator from New Mexico 
is a cosponsor of that amendment, and please note that carefully.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg), for Mr. 
     Johnson, Mr. Domenici, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Bingaman, 
     Mr. Wellstone, and Mr. McCain, proposes an amendment numbered 
     2210.


[[Page S2842]]


  The text of the amendment follows:
       At the end of title III, insert the following:

     SEC.  . SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING REPAIR AND CONSTRUCTION 
                   NEEDS OF INDIAN SCHOOLS.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--
       (1) many of our nation's tribal schools are in a state of 
     serious disrepair. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) 
     operates 187 school facilities nationwide. Enrollment in 
     these schools, which presently numbers 47,214 students, has 
     been growing rapidly. A recent General Accounting Office 
     report indicates that the repair backlog in these schools 
     totals $754 million, and that the BIA schools are in 
     generally worse condition than all schools nationally;
       (2) approximately 60 of these schools are in need of 
     complete replacement or serious renovation. Many of the 
     renovations include basic structural repair for the safety of 
     children, new heating components to keep students warm, and 
     roofing replacement to keep the snow and rain out of the 
     classroom. In addition to failing to provide adequate 
     learning environments for Indian children, these repair and 
     replacement needs pose a serious liability issue for the 
     Federal government;
       (3) sixty-three percent of the BIA schools are over 30 
     years old, and twenty-six percent are over 50 years old. 
     Approximately forty percent of all students in BIA schools 
     are in portable classrooms. Originally intended as temporary 
     facilities while tribes awaited new construction funds, these 
     ``portables'' have a maximum 10 year life-span. Because of 
     the construction backlog, children have been shuffling 
     between classrooms in the harsh climates of the Northern 
     plains and Western states for ten to fifteen years;
       (4) annual appropriations for BIA education facilities 
     replacement and repair combined have averaged $20-$30 million 
     annually, meeting only 4% of total need. At the present rate, 
     one deteriorating BIA school can be replaced each year, with 
     estimates of completion of nine schools in the next seven 
     years. Since the new construction and repair backlog is so 
     great and growing, the current focus at BIA construction must 
     remain on emergency and safety needs only, without 
     prioritizing program needs such as increasing enrollment or 
     technology in the classroom; and
       (5) unlike most schools, the BIA schools are a 
     responsibility of the federal government. Unfortunately, the 
     failure of the federal government to live up to this 
     responsibility has come at the expense of quality education 
     for some of this nation's poorest children with the fewest 
     existing opportunities to better themselves.
       (b) Sense of the Senate--It is the sense of the Senate that 
     the assumptions underlying the functional totals in this 
     budget resolution assume that the repair and construction 
     backlog affecting Bureau of Indian Affairs school facilities 
     should be eliminated over a period of no more than five years 
     beginning with Fiscal Year 1999.

  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor so the Senator from Colorado can call 
up and debate his amendment.
  Mr. ALLARD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask that the pending amendment be laid 
aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2170

 (Purpose: To require the reduction of the deficit, a balanced Federal 
            budget, and the repayment of the national debt)

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

       The Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard) proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2170.

  Mr. ALLARD. 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 end of title II, add the following:

     SEC.   . REDUCTION OF NATIONAL DEBT.

       (a) In General.--In the Senate, beginning with fiscal year 
     1999 and for every fiscal year thereafter, it shall not be in 
     order to consider any concurrent resolution on the budget, or 
     amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that--
       (1) that would cause budgeted outlays for that fiscal year 
     to exceed budgeted revenues; and
       (2) does not provide that actual revenues shall exceed 
     actual outlays in order to provide for the reduction of the 
     gross Federal debt as provided in subsection (b).
       (b) Amount.--The amount of reduction required by this 
     section shall be equal to the amount required by amortize the 
     debt over the next 30 years in order to repay the entire debt 
     by the end of fiscal year 2028.
       (c) Waiver.--The Senate may only waive the provisions of 
     this section for a fiscal year in which a declaration of war 
     is in effect.
       (d) Passage of Revenue Increase.--No bill to increase 
     revenues shall be deemed to have passed the Senate unless 
     approved by a majority of the total membership of each House 
     of Congress by a rollcall vote.

  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, first of all, I would like to commend the 
chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico, for his 
very laudable statement, which he made earlier on in the debate this 
evening. I think we are very fortunate in this body to have somebody 
who is trying to bring accountability to the process. I hope that 
America was listening, because I think he made some very good points, 
and I think as Americans we need to stop to think about our priorities 
and how we would like to see those priorities come down in the budget 
and how we would like to see those priorities in the budget reflect how 
we want to live our lives as Americans.
  I have an amendment that I would like to see added to the budget plan 
that this chairman and his committee has put forward, the plan to pay 
down the American debt.
  I think back last year when I proposed an amendment to the then-
budget, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, that asked the President of 
the United States to come forward with a plan on how he might want to 
pay down the debt that we have. I think we ought to take a little time 
to define the terms. The deficit is how much more we spend in any 1 
year than what we bring in in revenue. The debt is an accumulation of 
all of that excess spending over the years--the accumulation of all of 
these deficits. So I am of the view that we need to do something; we 
need to have a plan before us to pay down that debt.
  The President ignored the sense-of-the-Senate resolution that was 
part of the budget resolution last year, and we got into the budget 
debate this year. There was simply not any plan coming from the 
President, or anybody else at that point, on how we might pay down our 
national debt running somewhere around $5.6 trillion.
  So I have decided I will put forward my plan on how I think we might 
be able to pay down the debt. As we go through the discussion and the 
debate, I will show that we will even have some money left over as we 
pay down the debt to provide some tax relief for Americans.
  I think we are very fortunate that we have somebody like the chairman 
of the Budget Committee who really believes we need to work to 
eliminate the deficit and to balance the budget. It brings forth a 
certain amount of accountability to the process. I think we need to 
have leaders like him due to the fact that we do not have a balanced 
budget amendment.
  I was very disappointed last year that a balanced budget amendment 
did not pass, because I think we needed that accountability in order to 
assure that the Members of this Senate would work hard to set 
priorities and not ignore deficits that have been accumulating over the 
years out into the future and to continue to allow the debt to grow 
year after year.
  I would like to move forward by beginning to congratulate, again, 
Chairman Domenici and the Budget Committee on crafting a sensible 
resolution that maintains the discretionary spending caps previously 
set forth. I reemphasize that is very key in this debate to assure that 
we have protected the future for our children and grandchildren by 
having a responsible budget which holds the promise that we made to the 
American people.
  Even though it appears that we will realize a surplus before the year 
2002, I believe that it is essential for this Congress to show 
restraint when it comes to budget surpluses. The future solvency of the 
Federal Government will likely rest on what we do in the next 3 years. 
There is simply no doubt that the economy is performing well--much 
better than anyone has expected. But today's rosy predictions could 
turn out to be a black future if we do not plan appropriately. We must 
begin the process of paying down the Federal debt and preparing for an 
investment-based Social Security system. Some have said that they would 
like to see the surplus used for Social Security. I say let's do it. 
The fact of the matter is that making payments on the national debt is 
the best way to provide flexibility for changes in Social Security in 
the short term. The last time I came to the floor to discuss the 
national debt, it stood at $5.476 trillion. Yes, $5.476 trillion. 
Today, even as the U.S. economy continues to grow, we have added $114 
billion to the debt, which is now over $5.59 trillion. I believe to not 
apply at least a portion of any surplus to pay down the debt is simply 
unconscionable.

[[Page S2843]]

  In February, Senator Enzi and I introduced the American Debt 
Repayment Act legislation. It is legislation that I believe is integral 
to the future of this country. I am a realist. I understand that we 
cannot retire the Federal debt immediately. What we can do is create a 
plan which I hope will become a part of the budget plan by which we pay 
down the debt over a set number of years.
  This is just a minimal plan. There is nothing in it that says we 
cannot do more. In fact, I hope we can do more because we need to sign 
on to a plan to pay down the debt. The American Debt Repayment Act 
provides such a plan. Senate bill 1608 would amortize and pay off the 
debt in the year 2028.
  Frankly, this is as simple as it gets. The plan puts the Federal 
Government on a 30-year mortgage to pay its creditors and place our 
country on sound financial ground.
  Because I believe that we must have a plan when dealing with the 
debt, I am offering this legislation today as an amendment to the 
budget resolution. By approving this amendment, we have made the 
initial commitment to pay down the debt. We are saying to the American 
people that the Federal Government has finally recognized the time has 
come to begin to pay off our Nation's credit card balance.
  I realize that there are many competing interests when it comes to 
using the surplus, and I am willing to meet my colleagues halfway. 
Anything above the amortized payment is not affected by my amendment 
and can be used in any way that Congress may deem appropriate. While I 
advocate tax relief for the American family from any surplus above the 
required payment, my colleagues might decide differently. This 
amendment proves that debt reduction and tax relief are not mutually 
exclusive.
  I would like to take just a moment and refer to the chart that I have 
here on the floor with me and talk a little bit about the chart. This 
is an amortization schedule, much along the lines of what you would be 
shown if you were to buy a new home. Say you are a new American family; 
you have just been married; you decide to make probably the first big 
investment of your marriage, and you will make a commitment to pay that 
down over 30 years. Your banker may very well give you a similar chart 
which shows how you are going make that payment year after year to pay 
down the mortgage on your home.
  This is the plan where we talk about paying down the mortgage of the 
Federal Government year after year. It is a 30-year plan, just pretty 
much like everybody's home mortgage. To keep things simple, I have just 
adopted in this proposal pretty much what the Budget Committee has 
estimated will be the surpluses for their 5-year plan. I say fine, we 
will not argue with the Budget Committee. We will keep that in place. 
But after that period of time, we ought to set $11.7 billion a year, in 
addition to what we did the year before, towards paying down the debt. 
This accelerates and accumulates over time.
  If we do that, let's look at the year 2004, after the current plan 
has been adopted. In the year 2004, we have $616 million left over for 
tax relief, or maybe program growth or some other needs. When we drop 
into 2005, that comes up to $2.1 billion over and above what I put 
together on this amortization part for program growth or to reduce the 
tax burden. My personal preference, as I stated earlier, is to reduce 
the tax burden on the American family.
  What happens over a 30-year period? We save $3.7 trillion. I think 
that is a pretty substantial step, savings that we can use for Social 
Security reform or maybe doing something with our Medicare problems. 
This is a plan that shows how we can begin to address those very 
serious problems we have before us, but to also keep as a top priority 
of this Congress and this Senate a commitment to pay down this national 
debt. This plan reflects the amount of savings we are going to save for 
the future generations, our children and our grandchildren.
  The important point I want to make here is to have a commitment to 
pay down the debt. With even a minor commitment with a 30-year payment, 
where we are setting aside $11.7 billion a year, we can accomplish 
this. We can accomplish this with just a simple, straightforward 
commitment. I remind everybody, our total budget is somewhere around 
$1.7 trillion. It is not much of the total picture.
  I believe an excerpt from an article on March 23, 1988, in Newsday 
strikes right at the heart of the issue. I have a quote out of that 
particular article. I will read part of it. I have it up here on the 
floor. It says:

       * * * if Congress and the President agreed to toe the line 
     and direct all surpluses to pay down the debt for the next 30 
     years [apparently he has thought about this, too] and if the 
     economy remained on a steady, moderate growth path, the 
     government could pay off its entire debt while covering 
     Social Security and other costs.

  Mr. President, I have that article. I ask unanimous consent it be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [from Newsday, March 23, 1998]

            Dear Uncle Sam: Use Cash Surplus To Pay Off Debt

                  (By Clay Chandler and John M. Berry)

       Imagine that after years of struggling to gain control of 
     your finances, you suddenly come into some extra money. Even 
     better: Suppose you're likely to earn more money than 
     expected every year for the next decade.
       How best to use the windfall? A good financial planner 
     might recommend you start by cutting debt.
       ``One of the very first things I tell my clients is to get 
     rid of debt,'' says L. Edward O'Hara, a financial planner in 
     Silver Spring, Md. ``A lot of people are reluctant until I 
     show them what a huge difference it can make to their 
     financial situation over a long period of time.''
       Economists are offering much the same advice to Uncle Sam.
       With the federal government suddenly expecting surpluses 
     estimated between $660 billion and $1.1 trillion over the 
     next decade, a large contingent of fiscal experts is 
     recommending that President Bill Clinton and Congress resist 
     calls for new tax cuts or increased government spending. 
     Instead, many economists argue, the government is likely to 
     get the highest economic return from future surpluses by 
     using them to whittle down the $3.8 trillion in federal debt 
     held by the public.
       ``Pretty much all macro-economists would be in the debt-
     reduction camp,'' asserts N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of 
     economics at Harvard University and author of one of the most 
     popular economic textbooks for undergraduates. ``For most of 
     us, the choice seems clear.''
       Others aren't so sure. Supply-side economists and GOP 
     presidential hopefuls Jack Kemp and Malcolm (Steve) Forbes 
     Jr. blast debt reduction as a ``castor oil'' remedy of no 
     benefit to the economy. A recent Wall Street Journal 
     editorial excoriated Republicans who would ``stand for an 
     abstraction of paying down the national debt . . . even if it 
     means taxing Americans at higher rates than needed to balance 
     the federal books.''
       At the opposite end of the political spectrum, liberals 
     such as Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Northwestern 
     University economist Robert Eisner decry the folly of 
     extinguishing Treasury IOUs with money that might otherwise 
     be ``invested'' in new schools or health care for needy 
     children.
       Meanwhile, lawmakers from both parties, rallying behind 
     House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), 
     can tick off reasons why using the surpluses to fund 
     construction of new roads, bridges or other projects in their 
     districts will make the economy more productive.
       Still, a little-noticed set of long-term projections 
     prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget 
     makes a tantalizing case for the benefits of using projected 
     surpluses over the next 30 years to pay down the debt. If 
     Congress and the president agreed to toe the line and direct 
     all surpluses to pay down debt for the next 30 years, and if 
     the economy remained on a steady, moderate growth path, the 
     government could pay off its entire debt while covering 
     Social Security and other costs.
       Such an optimistic scenario hasn't been previously 
     envisioned, in part, because official economic projections 
     rarely go out longer than 10 years. But also, pragmatic 
     economists note that it is unlikely a government would direct 
     all surpluses to paying down the debt rather than funding 
     important programs.
       ``From a political standpoint, the problem is simple: 
     Paying down the debt doesn't get your picture in the paper,'' 
     says economic historian John Steele Gordon. ``There are no 
     ribbon-cutting ceremonies,'' no throngs of grateful 
     constituents.
       Brookings Institution economist Henry Aaron said the OMB 
     projections--while they are based on conservative economic 
     assumptions--may be overly optimistic because they do not 
     incorporate the distinct possibility of a recession. ``The 
     right way to look at this is to say that there has been a 
     distinct change in the budgetary climate,'' Aaron said, 
     noting that he believes current tax and spending policies 
     could produce surpluses for the next 20 years. ``The sun is 
     shining, but that does not mean we won't have deficits

[[Page S2844]]

     arising from recessions . . . It does mean we have more elbow 
     room to plan for the restructuring of Medicare and Social 
     Security than we had just a few years ago.''
       One reason the OMB projections turn out to be so favorable 
     is the enormous saving on interest payments as the size of 
     the debt is reduced. If paying down the debt also caused 
     interest rates to fall somewhat, as some economists believe 
     it would, the fiscal picture would be even brighter.
       Debt-burdened U.S. families last year used an average of 17 
     percent of their after-tax income to make interest payments. 
     Similarly, last year the government paid out $244 billion, 
     more than 15 percent of its income, to cover interest on the 
     debt owed to the public.
       Paying down debt triggers a sort of virtuous cycle: As the 
     amount owed drops, so does the interest due on the remaining 
     unpaid balance, and the saving on interest leaves still more 
     money available to reduce the debt.
       May economists in the debt-reduction camp concede, however, 
     that their position of pay-down-the-debt-first is colored by 
     assumptions about the mechanics of American democracy. In 
     theory, they acknowledge, it might be possible to craft tax 
     cuts or new spending programs that would harness projected 
     surpluses as efficiently as shrinking the debt. But as a 
     practical matter, they say, such ideas aren't likely to 
     emerge from the legislative sausage grinder in an 
     economically rational form.

  Mr. ALLARD. I say to my colleagues, this is exactly what my amendment 
does, what is talked about in this article. It creates future 
flexibility to deal with the impending Social Security crisis by paying 
down the debt over 30 years. I understand we cannot budget 30 years 
out--the free market economy does not allow us to do that--but what we 
can do is adopt a blueprint for the future, a blueprint that Congress 
can follow to eliminate the debt and show the American people, with a 
little bit of discipline, we can do that--and a little bit of 
accountability. The American people know how difficult it is to make a 
living and pay the home mortgage. Let's give them a hand by retiring 
the national debt and thereby decrease the interest rates that we pay 
on everything from a home loan to a student loan.
  If somebody asks you, ``How am I going to benefit if you pay down the 
debt?'' they are going to benefit because we have lower interest rates 
with tremendous savings for home loans and student loans. A tax cut 
would most certainly be beneficial, but we cannot cut taxes at the 
expense of our children's future and our grandchildren's future. I ask 
that each and every one of my colleagues join me in this effort and 
make a commitment to retiring the Federal debt by voting to pass this 
simple, commonsense proposal.
  Mr. President, if we don't have any further debate on this on either 
side, I yield back the time, if that is appropriate at this particular 
point, so the Senator from Idaho can be recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I suggest the Senator not yield back his 
time but, rather, let us set his amendment aside, reserving whatever 
time he has, and we will proceed with the next debate. So tomorrow, if 
my colleague wants to pick it up when we are in session and use another 
period of time, maybe that will give the opponents a chance and we will 
have a good debate. If we don't need it, we will yield it back then.
  Mr. ALLARD. I thank the chairman for his suggestion. Mr. President, I 
will amend my unanimous consent request. I will just yield the floor 
and reserve my time until tomorrow. I may use it at that time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time is reserved.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I understand the distinguished Senator from Idaho, Mr. 
Craig, would like to speak for about 5 minutes.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. 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. DOMENICI. 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. DOMENICI. How much time did the distinguished Senator from 
Colorado have under the unanimous consent agreement?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. He had 45 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Remaining?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. That is with an hour allowance.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent whatever time the Senator has, 
he reserve that time and we set aside his amendment so Senator Craig 
can introduce an amendment and speak to it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending 
amendment be set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2211

(Purpose: To modify the pay-as-you-go requirement of the budget process 
 to require that direct spending increases be offset only with direct 
                          spending decreases)

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

       The Senator from Idaho [Mr. Craig], for himself, Mr. 
     Allard, Mr. Grams, Mr. Helms, Mr. Inhofe, Mrs. Hutchison, and 
     Mr. Thomas, proposes an amendment numbered 2211.

  Mr. CRAIG. 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 end of title II, add the following:

     SEC. ____. REQUIREMENT TO OFFSET DIRECT SPENDING INCREASES BY 
                   DIRECT SPENDING DECREASES.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the 
     ``Surplus Protection Amendment''.
       (b) In General.--In the Senate, for purposes of section 202 
     of House Concurrent Resolution 67 (104th Congress), it shall 
     not be in order to consider any bill, joint resolution, 
     amendment, motion, or conference report that provides an 
     increase in direct spending unless the increase is offset by 
     a decrease in direct spending.
       (c) Waiver.--This section may be waived or suspended in the 
     Senate only by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the 
     Members, duly chosen and sworn.
       (d) Appeals.--Appeals in the Senate from the decisions of 
     the Chair relating to any provision of this section shall be 
     limited to 1 hour, to be equally divided between, and 
     controlled by, the appellant and the manager of the 
     concurrent resolution, bill, or joint resolution, as the case 
     may be. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of 
     the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required in the 
     Senate to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a 
     point of order raised under this section.
       (e) Determination of Budget Levels.--For purposes of this 
     section, the levels of direct spending for a fiscal year 
     shall be determined on the basis of estimates made by the 
     Committee on the Budget of the Senate.

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as I debate this amendment this evening, 
let me first recognize my colleague from Colorado, who has just brought 
before the Senate an almost unbelievable proposal. I say that because 
it is difficult for us to fathom a savings of $3.7 trillion to the 
American taxpayer and to future generations in this Nation by taking it 
upon ourselves to pay down the Federal debt over a 30-year period. I am 
proud to support my colleague from Colorado. It is these kinds of 
initiatives that I think reflect to the American people that we really 
are sincere about getting the spending habits of this Government, and 
the debt we have accumulated over the last good number of years, under 
control. It is also very reflective of the kind of impact that 
controlling deficits and debts has on our economy and on our future 
generations.
  So, in my offering of the amendment this evening, I am proud the 
Senator from Colorado has joined me along with Senator Helms, Senator 
Hutchison, Senator Inhofe, Senator Grams, and Senator Thomas. Mine is a 
similar measure to once again shape the spending habits of this 
Congress. My amendment is entitled the ``Surplus Protection 
Amendment,'' because it does just that; it protects the surplus from 
irresponsible spending.
  Current budget policy as we know it, pay-as-you-go--so-called PAYGO--
budget enforcement rules were established to help put Washington's 
fiscal house in order. Since fiscal year 1994, the Senate has had a 
point of order requiring 60 votes to waive against any legislation 
which would result in mandatory spending increases that would increase 
the deficit. Mandatory spending in Washington's version of a fiscal 
autopilot. Once enacted, it requires no

[[Page S2845]]

further congressional action to operate. And we know that. We see it 
happening right here. It is a part of this budget resolution. Rather 
than a perpetual motion machine, mandatory spending is a perpetual 
spending machine. It is the Energizer Bunny of budgeting, and it has 
kept this budget growing and growing and growing.
  What does all of this mean? Any increase in mandatory spending must 
be paid for with a tax increase, and any tax cut must be paid for by a 
mandatory spending cut. We wonder why taxes are high. We wonder why it 
is so difficult to cut taxes. Those are the reasons. As anyone can 
tell, PAYGO--that is what we call this provision in its present form--
isn't sufficient. Mandatory spending has increased dramatically and 
will continue to increase dramatically as far as any of us can sense 
it.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 1987, mandatory 
spending accounted for 47 percent of the Federal budget. In 1997, it 
accounted for 56 percent of the Federal budget, and in the year 2008 
under this budget resolution, it will account for about 70 percent of 
the total Federal budget.
  Now remember, that is the portion that is on auto pilot; that is the 
portion that just keeps growing and growing and growing. This means 
that there has been and will increasingly be a crowding out of what the 
Federal Government can spend on schools, on roads, on law enforcement, 
and some of those fundamental things that keep our country operating in 
a civil way, the kind of things for which historically our Government 
was envisioned to have a responsibility.
  I believe because of that it is time that we try to make a change. 
Current estimates are that the budget will be balanced this year, and 
the budget chairman, my colleague from New Mexico, the senior Senator 
who has done such a marvelous job shaping and nurturing and bringing 
this balanced budget along, is going to see that that happens. We are 
going to help him, and of that we are proud.
  As far as we can see out there, we are 4 years ahead of schedule on 
balancing the budget, and I applaud it. I am proud to have been a part 
of it, and I think it is wonderful for the American people, for our 
economy, for job creation and all that that means. The Senator from New 
Mexico can be rightfully proud of it, and I know he is. However, we 
must look not just at the horizon of the current budget, but we ought 
to look beyond it, beyond the 4 years. I know we can't get beyond it in 
the budget process, but we can get beyond it in the policy. We can get 
beyond it in how we operate moving toward the future.
  To avoid what will happen in the future, we must change the way we 
work now. I am proposing, as a modest first step, that like a good 
doctor, we first pledge to do no harm, and I believe my modest first 
step does no harm.
  My surplus protection amendment establishes a point of order that 
requires new mandatory spending programs be paid for by mandatory 
spending savings. Let me repeat that.
  My amendment establishes a point of order that requires new mandatory 
spending programs be paid for by mandatory spending savings. In other 
words, it would require 60 votes in the Senate to create a new 
mandatory spending program that was not funded by an equivalent 
mandatory spending savings.
  If all of the new mandatory spending programs had been paid for, as 
we had claimed, we would not be facing a fiscal future with exploding 
spending and exploding deficits in the outyears.
  Why does this Senate and this country need the Craig amendment? I 
think the current budget path that the Senator from New Mexico and all 
of us have worked so hard on is truly unsustainable. As good as a 
balanced budget today is, without ever more fundamental changes, it 
will not remain balanced. And it ought to be our goal to at least 
strive to maintain a balanced budget.
  That this path is unsustainable is no secret. We all know because of 
what we have been told by so many. My colleague, Senator Kerrey of 
Nebraska, who chaired the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax 
Reform has said that is impossible to do. The General Accounting Office 
says we cannot sustain a balanced budget under our current scenario, 
and the President's own budget office says so.
  In its most recent report, the Congressional Budget Office states:

       Currently, more than half of the nearly $1.7 trillion in 
     Federal spending goes for entitlements and other mandatory 
     programs (other than net interest) . . . As a share of total 
     outlays, mandatory spending has jumped from 32 percent in 
     1962 to 56 percent in 1997. If current policies remain 
     unchanged, such spending will continue to grow faster than 
     other spending, reaching 63 percent of total outlays by the 
     year 2002--or twice the size of discretionary outlays. Under 
baseline assumptions, continued growth in mandatory outlays would raise 
their share of the budget to 70 percent by the year 2008.

  Last year, the Congressional Budget Office wrote:

       [T]his year's budgetary news should not lull people into 
     complacency: the retirement of the large baby-boom generation 
     is just over the horizon--

  Just beyond where this budget and all of us can see--

       . . .If the budgetary pressure from both demography and 
     health care spending is not relieved by reducing the growth 
     of expenditures or increasing taxes, deficits will mount and 
     seriously erode future economic growth.

  That is the reality of what we deal with. That report concluded, Mr. 
President:

       [C]urrent budget policy is unsustainable, and attempting to 
     preserve it would severely damage the economy.

  How serious are future projections? The Congressional Budget Office 
concluded that even if the budget were balanced through 2002--and that 
is our goal, that is the goal of this budget--if that were true, we 
would still have a deficit equal to 34 percent of the gross domestic 
product by the year 2050 and the public debt would be 283 percent of 
the gross domestic product.
  There will be a demographic shift to an older population. We all know 
that. The experts show us that. I am part of that. I am a baby boomer.
  In 1995, there were 34 million 65-year-old, or older, citizens. In 
the year 2030, there will be twice that number or 68 million. There 
will be more elderly. They will be living longer and using Federal 
services much more intensively. There will be relatively fewer workers 
around to pay all the bills. Let us remember that it is the current 
working population that generates the economy that pays the bills.
  In 1950, there were 7.3 workers for every senior. In 1990, there were 
4.8 to 1 senior. In the year 2030, there will be 2.8 workers per every 
1 senior.
  So if that senior is receiving well over $1,000 a month in Social 
Security benefits and maybe health care benefits, who is paying for it? 
Those 2.8 workers. Divide it up. Count it out. It is pretty obvious how 
much has to come out of their wages on a monthly basis to transfer it 
to that senior's well-being.
  What the demographic shift means is that spending will rise rapidly 
relative to revenues. Quoting the Congressional Budget Office:

       Revenues will be squeezed as the number of people working--
     and the economy--grows more slowly. At the same time, outlays 
     for Government programs that aid the elderly will burgeon as 
     the number of people eligible to receive benefits from those 
     programs shoots up.

  What the fiscal squeeze means, if we don't begin to recognize it now, 
is enormous deficits. Just at a time when we thought the deficit battle 
was over, when this Congress has battled through to get to a balanced 
budget, where we are now, all of a sudden this begins to dramatically 
shift. We know it will happen because the facts, the figures and the 
spending programs are already in law.
  The deficit last year was less than 1 percent of the gross domestic 
product of our country. In 2035 it would be 29.8 percent. Let me repeat 
that. The deficit by the year 2035 will be 29.8 percent of the gross 
domestic product if we don't begin to shape it down and scale it down.
  The Federal debt was 50 percent of the gross domestic product last 
year. Now we are talking about debt. It would be 250 percent by the 
year 2035. These are not my figures. These are the projections of the 
professionals, the budget professionals--the Congressional Budget 
Office and others--who look at the long term, who put on the binoculars 
and look over the horizon to see what our spending programs must yield 
to benefit the citizens who are

[[Page S2846]]

living today who will be recipients of those benefits in the year 2035.
  Those figures I have given you are truly unprecedented. We have never 
had to deal with them before as a percentage of the gross domestic 
product of this country. The deficit has been higher than 10 percent of 
GDP, but only briefly and during a major war. Not during peace times, 
not during prosperity, but at a time when we were fighting for the 
safety and the security of this country.
  The debt exceeded 100 percent only once, briefly during World War II. 
The results, if we were to continue to do this with these projections I 
have just given you, would be economic catastrophe. Even to make the 
burden sustainable, in CBO's terminology, allowing debt to rise but 
keeping it at a constant to the gross domestic product rate would have 
dire consequences. In other words, we can't just sustain where we are. 
We have to begin to back away from where we are and do so over an 
extended period of time. The tax burden would have to increase 20 
percent above where it is today just to continue running deficits and 
adding debt.
  Of course, some will say that this budget agreement solves the 
problem. I wish it did. It solves the problem in the short term, and 
for that we are proud. For that all of us who vote for it and support 
it and support the chairman in what he is bringing before us ought to 
be proud. We have a right to be. But it is within the short term. It is 
in the foreseeable future.
  It is certainly an improvement, but it only delays the same scenario 
that I have just sketched out. According to the CBO, even if the budget 
is balanced through the year 2010--and that is the Congressional Budget 
Office speaking--it will take less than 15 years to reach the scenario 
that I have just projected, and that is a debt that consumes over 250 
percent of the gross domestic product of this country.
  The Congressional Budget Office states:

       Regardless of how the budget is balanced in the near term, 
     additional budgetary action. . .would still be needed to put 
     the budget on a sustainable path.

  I am offering, as I said, a modest first step. The year 2030 and the 
year 2050 are unreal to any of us on this floor. But if there are any 
young people in the galleries tonight, it is their budget. It will be 
their Government. It will be their responsibility to run it. And it 
will be their responsibility to pay for it. The Congressional Budget 
Office paints such an alarming picture that even the authors cannot 
imagine it, and they write this:

       Policymakers would surely take action before the economy 
     was driven to such dire straits.

  So even those who analyze it are willing to say surely those of us--
that's me, that's you, Mr. President--as policymakers would never allow 
this to happen. But we are not taking steps to change it. We are 
dealing in the short term, and we have to deal in the short term first. 
For that I have already applauded the chairman and the ranking member, 
but we have to do more.
  Now is the time for us at least to prepare for such an action. My 
amendment takes this first modest step that we do no fiscal harm to our 
children, like a good doctor would.
  The first frightening thing in the CBO report is that it only 
addresses existing programs. It makes plain that our children cannot 
afford them. The existing programs are not now and will not in the 
future be paid for by our taxes. We certainly cannot responsibly add 
more.
  Regrettably, the President's budget adds more: $28 billion in new 
mandatory spending, $118 billion in total new spending, and $43 billion 
less in surplus that would be saved for Social Security as the 
President himself has called for.
  My amendment will not affect a single beneficiary for a single 
existing program. My amendment will not even affect anyone who would be 
qualified in the future for one of these programs. My amendment will 
not prevent a tax increase in order to reduce deficits. And my 
amendment will not even prevent a new spending program if a new program 
is so important that there is a supermajority, 60 votes in this body, 
to bring about a new spending program. This amendment should appeal to 
everyone serious about deficits. It will merely make sure that there is 
an overwhelming demand for a new program before we create it.
  These are shared goals. By all 66 who supported the balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution last year. By even those who opposed it 
because it included Social Security. For whatever purpose people want 
to use the surplus, they must first be protected. My amendment not only 
protects them now but will for the future. Because mandatory spending 
has historically failed to adhere to estimates, we must offset new 
mandatory spending with mandatory savings.
  Good-faith first steps are something that we should all come together 
on. So I urge my colleagues to take a look into the future to recognize 
those figures that are very real, that no one disputes, whether it is 
the President's budget estimators or whether it is our Congressional 
Budget Office. My amendment is a modest first step to look beyond the 
horizon of a balanced budget, to recognize that our current spending 
programs produce deficits and debts in the future that we have not yet 
devised a method to respond to. And I would suggest, Mr. President, 
that my amendment would attempt to do just that.
  With that, I have spoken about this issue all that I would care to 
tonight. I would be happy to reserve the balance of my time if no one 
else wishes to speak to this issue this evening.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield myself 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. CRAIG. Before the chairman speaks, let me ask, Mr. President, 
that Senators Sessions and Coverdell be put on my amendment as original 
cosponsors. I ask unanimous consent that that be done.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me just say, when we were attempting 
to come up with a constitutional amendment that would work with 
reference to a balanced budget, Senator Craig was the leader, and we 
all worked with him in an effort to get an amendment which controlled 
spending through controlling the amount of debt that could be issued. 
And, frankly, that was a lot better approach than many before it 
because it was actually doable, it was achievable, and it was 
understandable.
  And it controlled spending in the right way, because essentially 
spending is one thing, but spending when you do not have the money is 
another thing. And we have such a powerful country that we can borrow 
and borrow and borrow. It is just in recent years that we have finally 
got a hold of our senses and have taken such a lead in the world, the 
industrial world where we have competition and capitalism and free 
enterprise. We have taken such a lead of late because we are getting 
our debt under control.
  I think it is fair to say we are also getting our entitlement 
programs under control. We have never before, before the last decade, 
been so concerned--and rightly so--about entitlement programs as part 
of the package of expenditures that make up our budget for which we 
either pay or, if we do not have enough tax receipts, for which we 
borrow. And while I am not certain that I will support the amendment 
exactly as it is--I have not made up my mind--I do think it is welcome 
here on the floor, because we have been talking about a lot of new 
entitlements in an era where we are proud of balanced budgets and an 
era of surpluses.

  While they are not totally inconsistent--to be talking about an era 
of surpluses and balanced budgets for many, many decades--it is obvious 
that the biggest danger is new entitlement programs. And since we 
cannot increase discretionary programs, as the Senator well knows, 
because we finally found a way with the caps and the automatic 
sequester at the end of the year--found a way to control them, and 
everybody now expects us to, the next front is to increase entitlements 
and in some way find money to pay for them, but that will just make a 
much bigger, bigger budget and it will be more and more dangerous than 
even if you increase discretionary spending.
  If you increase discretionary spending 1 year, you don't have to the 
next year. But if you increase entitlements, you have to change 
entitlements. If

[[Page S2847]]

your estimating is wrong, you have to have an amendment. By then, you 
have people who have been receiving the entitlement; right? Not so easy 
to change.
  So I commend you on the thrust of the amendment and the remarks 
tonight. I think they are welcome in the debate we have had for the 
last 2 years.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Let me thank the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee 
for those remarks. I think they are candid and appropriate to the very 
essence of my own that, at a time when we have an opportunity to begin 
to shape control over mandatory spending, we ought to take a look at 
this time, and we can do that in a unique period in our Nation's 
history which we all fought to get to. So I thank my colleague for 
those comments.
  I ask to retain the balance of my time.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I understand the amendment will take its place among 
the many amendments which will be at some point appropriately sequenced 
for votes.
  Does the Senator from New Jersey wish to speak?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I listened with interest and do not 
want to enlarge the debate at this time. Obviously, the hour is late, 
but I listened with a degree of interest and care to the comments of 
the Senator from Idaho. And we have this debate sometimes that centers 
around whether the glass is half empty or half full. And we are looking 
at the same matrix, but I see it differently. I do not see a nation out 
of control. I do not see an economy that is in great jeopardy. I do not 
despair over what is taking place in our economic structure. Yes, we 
are paying more taxes in total, but that is because people's incomes 
have gone up and thus they are paying a larger share of the tax burden 
than they used to pay.
  But when we look at a time when the unemployment rate compares to 
all-time lows, when we see inflation so well controlled, when we see 
the investment climate in our country so appetizing, no one knows when 
this is going to change, but the fact of the matter is, lots of people, 
lots of hard-working, what we will call modest-income people, have made 
good returns on their investments. And, Lord willing, they will be 
protected.
  But why is all that taking place? Why has the stock market galloped 
up like it has? It is not simply because there is some kind of a 
speculation fever out there. A lot of it has to do with the fact that 
the United States is the most attractive investment country in the 
world. People feel secure. They know if they invest in America that 
they have a better chance of keeping their money safe and getting a 
return than any other place because of the structure of our financial 
being. We cannot ignore these things.
  I share the Senator's view. I would like to see us paying off the 
debt. I am one of those who said, yes, I want to shore up Social 
Security. And how are we going to do it? We are going to do it by 
paying down the debt. The President has forecast over $1 trillion worth 
of surpluses over the next 10 years. That is a pretty encouraging 
prediction.
  So, I hope we will continue this debate on the morrow, because I 
think there are other people here who would also want to comment.
  Mr. President, I do not think we ought to ever lock ourselves into 
straitjackets to say that you cannot do this unless you do that. We are 
sent here to exercise judgment. And when I hear the speeches of some of 
my colleagues, I say, well, we sound like a bunch of recalcitrant 
children who have to be locked in a corner or put in our seats, or we 
are so bad--why can't we control ourselves? I do not see it that way.
  I must tell you, I have great respect for those that I disagree 
deeply with here. They are sent here to represent a constituency who 
thinks that these people, the Senators in this Chamber, are going to 
carry a point of view that they share. And if not, there is a test that 
comes every 6 years. And you can see what happens. You have either 
passed the test or you have flunked it; it is very decisive.
  But with all of that, I just do not see this, if I might call it, 
self-flagellation, this beating of ourselves. Look at the facts. The 
economy is really good. I know that I feel better about my children's 
future now than I did a few years ago. I think we have proven one 
thing. And some would say, well, we have not, Alan Greenspan has. He is 
part of our crowd, whether we think we are in his league or not.
  The fact of the matter is, we have inflation under control--something 
that was hard to believe could be done, and has not caused deflation, 
has not caused a crisis. Things are going along very well.

  So I hope, Mr. President, we will have a chance to chat about this a 
little bit tomorrow, and I hope we will be able to encourage our 
colleagues to vote against the Craig amendment, to say that we do not 
have to put on the handcuffs and apologize for our behavior. I do not 
think I do everything right, but I know one thing: I work at what I do. 
And so does everybody else here.
  I do not think there is anybody here who shirks their responsibility, 
who does not take it seriously. And I do not think I have to be put in 
a corner like a child and told, well, you are not going to be allowed 
to do this unless you do that; you are not going to be allowed to spend 
money. How do we know when the crisis is coming?
  We have done the things we said we ought to do. We have a balanced 
budget. I think we are all proud of that. We can argue whether it is 
CBO balanced. We say, yes it is. We all kind of believe that on a 
unified budget basis we are going to be seeing a slight surplus in the 
very short period. So I hope our colleagues will stand up and say no to 
limiting our ability to use our heads, to use our judgment, to take the 
risk of our votes and to see if we can do things without limiting our 
ability to act.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I think we are about ready, as soon as the clock 
strikes 10 o'clock, to recess. I think I have a long enough list of 
unanimous consent requests for all those wonderfully glowing, smiling 
faces lined up alongside of the dais there. We will be 1 minute or 2 
past 10 before we finish.
  Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that 
the vote in relationship to the Conrad amendment No. 2174 now occur at 
2 p.m., with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I also ask unanimous consent that when the Senate 
resumes the budget resolution on Wednesday, there be 20 hours remaining 
under the overall statutory time limitation. And, finally, I ask 
unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes the resolution on 
Wednesday, the Coverdell amendment No. 2199 be the pending business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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