[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 77 (Monday, June 19, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5323-S5325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE RELATIONS

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I thank particularly the Senator from 
Arizona for his very thorough and accurate description of where we are 
and where we have been in terms of our nuclear security, in terms 
specifically of the Los Alamos matter, and more importantly, of course, 
where we are in terms of overall security, which has to be one of the 
most important things this Government has to do. The Senator is 
probably one of the more knowledgeable Members in terms of the 
military, in terms of intelligence, so I appreciate that very much.
  Unfortunately, we have been through this now several times, the 
matter of having a system upon which we could rely for the security of 
our nuclear arsenal and secure military information. And even though 
this is a very trying thing we are involved in now, really the overall 
system is what is worrisome. If we are having these kinds of 
difficulties at Los Alamos--there are a number of places in this 
country where, of course, we are required to have security--and if we 
have that notion that there is no more security there than there has 
proven to be, then we have to wonder, of course, about the other 
facilities in this country which require the same kind of security.
  I believe, as the Senator mentioned, the real issue is that we went 
through this before, not very many months ago. I happen to be on the 
Energy Committee in which we listened to this a great many times; we 
listened to the Wen Ho Lee question, and we heard from the Secretary 
that now we were going to take care of this issue and now you could 
rest assured we would have security.

  The fact is we do not. The fact is that apparently there are some 
very simple kinds of things that could be done that would have 
alleviated this problem. It is difficult to understand that in a place 
such as Los Alamos, where you have secure storage for this kind of 
information, as someone said, you have less security than Wal-Mart in 
terms of checking in and out. That is really very scary.
  So my point is that we really have to take a long look at the system. 
As the Senator pointed out, Congress established a while back a 
semiautonomous unit that was to have responsibility for nuclear 
security. The Secretary did not approve of that. The President, despite 
the fact that he signed it, did not approve it either, and therefore it 
was never inaugurated; it was never put into place. That raises another 
issue, of course, that is equally troubling to me, and that is that 
this administration has sort of had the notion that, if we don't agree 
with what the Congress has done, we simply won't do it, or, if we want 
to do something the Congress doesn't agree with, we will go ahead and 
do it.
  That is really troublesome to me in that one of the real benefits of 
freedom, one of the real benefits of the operation of this country over 
the years, has been the division of power, the constitutional division 
among the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. It is so 
vital, and we need to retain it. We find increasing evidence of the 
fact that some of it, of course, is in the closing chapters of this 
administration, but they are determined that if they don't happen to 
like what the Congress has done or can do something that Congress will 
not accept, they go ahead and do it. This is not right. This is really 
very scary.
  We have, as you all know, a great many young people who come to visit 
the Senate, come to visit their Capitol, and I am delighted that they 
do. People want to see all the buildings, and they want to see the 
people who are currently filling these offices and in the White House. 
But the fact is that the Constitution is really the basis for our 
freedom. That is what other countries do not have, a Constitution and a 
rule of law to carry it out.
  So when we threaten the division of power, then it really is 
worrisome, and I think we have the great responsibility to make sure 
that that does not in fact happen. In this instance, I think we have 
had a pretty patent rejection of the things the Congress has done and 
put into law and that have not, indeed, been implemented.
  There are a number of important matters, of course, that are before 
us as we enter into what are almost the closing months of this 
Congress. We have accomplished a number of things that are very useful; 
we have some tax reform, some welfare reform; we have done some things 
for the military, to strengthen it. There are a number of items, of 
course, yet to be done.
  One of them, of course, that is imperative is the passage of 
appropriations, all of which have to be done before the end of 
September, which is the end of the fiscal year. One of the scary things 
for the Congress, I believe, again, with this sort of contest sometimes 
with the executive branch, is if we do not finish these things in time, 
the President would threaten, of course, as he did before, to shut down 
the Government and blame the Congress for doing that and use the 
leverage for the budget to be quite different from what the Congress 
would like it to be. Therefore, we need to move forward.
  I was in Wyoming this weekend, as I am nearly every weekend. There is 
a good deal of concern about regulatory reform, the idea that, first of 
all, we have probably excessive regulation in many places. One of the 
most current examples, I believe, might be in the area of the price of 
gasoline where, without much consideration of where we were going and 
its result, we have had more regulations to control diesel fuel and 
gasoline, which is at least a part of the reason that gas prices are as 
high as they are, the lack of a policy in energy. We have allowed 
ourselves to become overly dependent on OPEC and the rest of the world 
by limiting or restricting, through regulation, our access to energy 
that could be produced in the United States so at least we were not 60-
percent dependent, as we soon will be, on overseas production.
  Those are the things with which we ought to be dealing in terms of 
excessive regulation.
  One of the ways to fix that is to have a system whereby once the laws 
are passed by the legislature and are implemented by the executive 
branch through regulation, those regulations should come back to the 
legislative body to ensure the thrust of the legislation is reflected 
in the regulations.
  This happens in most States. Most State legislators have an 
opportunity to look at the regulations once they have been drafted to 
ensure it reflects the intent of the legislation.
  We passed a law in 1996 to do that. Unfortunately, it has not worked. 
We have had 12,000 regulations. Very few have come back because they 
have to go through OMB to be scanned out, first of all. I believe there 
has been some effort to change five of them, but none of have been 
changed because the system does not work.
  I introduced a bill 3 weeks ago that will give us an opportunity to 
look at the regulations and accept the responsibility that a 
legislature has to oversee the implementation of regulations to ensure 
the laws are carried out properly.
  We have a responsibility for energy policy. I mentioned that. This 
administration does not have an energy policy. We have not dealt with 
the question of how to encourage and, indeed, should

[[Page S5324]]

we encourage the production of domestic petroleum. We have great 
petroleum reserves in the West and in ANWR. Better ways of exploring 
and producing resources that are more protective of the environment are 
being developed. Yet we do not have a policy to do that. We find 
ourselves at the mercy of OPEC.
  We have to deal with the question of coal production. There are ways 
in which we can use that resource and make it more environmentally 
friendly. We have to recognize that is a main source of electric 
production as we find ourselves using more and more electricity and our 
generating capacity is not growing, partly because of a lack of an 
energy policy. Interestingly enough, the problem we are having with 
security also is in the Energy Department. So the Senator's suggestion 
that perhaps we have some changes there may apply to some other issues 
as well.
  Many of us are very interested in public land management. In the 
West, in my State, 50 percent of the State belongs to the Federal 
Government. In most States in the West, it is even higher than that. 
Nevada is nearly 90 percent federally owned.
  The people who live there need a way with which to deal with the 
question of public land management. I happen to be chairman of the 
Subcommittee on National Parks. Clearly, the goal is to maintain those 
resources. They are great natural resources. They are national 
treasures.
  At the same time, as we maintain those facilities and resources they 
ought to be available to their owners--the taxpayers--to visit. This 
administration is seeking to limit access in a number of ways, such as 
a nationwide rule automatically designating 40 million acres roadless. 
I have no objection to looking at roadless areas. We have roadless 
areas, and we ought to manage those. It ought to be done on the basis 
of forest plans for each individual forest instead of one plan.
  I see the Forest Service is proud of all the meetings they have been 
having to have input. I attended some of those meetings. The fact is, 
people have very little information available to them when they go to 
the meetings and cannot respond. Sometimes they are not asked to 
respond but only to listen to a broad description of where it is going. 
There was great discussion in the House about the Antiquities Act which 
is an old law. Theodore Roosevelt used it years ago. Most of us have no 
problem with the concept that the President can, through Executive 
order, change their lands and change their designation. This is 
limitless and has been used more over the last few months by this 
administration than at any time in memory without involvement of the 
local people.

  All these things go together. Now we are faced with a proposition to 
take $1 billion a year to acquire more Federal land without any 
recognition of the fact that the States in the West are already heavily 
federally owned.
  These are some issues about which we need to be talking. My friend on 
the other side of the aisle in the previous hour was talking about 
Social Security. He was very critical of the idea of allowing Social 
Security payers to take a portion of their Social Security and invest 
it in equities in the marketplace so that the return will be four or 
five times what it is now.
  Unfortunately, for young people, such as these pages, when they make 
their first dollars, 12.5 percent of it will be put into Social 
Security. If things do not change, there is very little chance they 
will have any benefits for them.
  How do we change that? Raise taxes? I do not think people are 
interested in that. We can reduce benefits; I do not think many are 
interested in that.
  One alternative is to take those dollars now invested under law in 
Government securities and return 1 percent on investment and allow 2 
percent of the 12 percent to be invested in personal accounts. The 
account belongs to the payer and will be invested on their behalf as 
they direct, whether it is in equities, bonds, or a combination of the 
two. If they should be unfortunate enough to pass away before they ever 
get the benefits, it will go to their estate.
  There is great criticism about that on the other side of the aisle 
without a good alternative as to how we are going to provide benefits 
for young Social Security payers as they enter into the program. I 
should mention, one of the safety factors is that no one over 50 or 55 
will be impacted or affected. Their Social Security will not change.
  These are a few of the things with which we ought to be dealing.
  Tax relief: We seem to be greatly concerned about what we do with 
excess money that will appear in this year's budget. Certainly, there 
are some things we ought to do. One of them, of course, is to 
adequately fund Government programs. I understand people have different 
ideas about that, but we can do that and there would still be 
substantial excess dollars available.
  The next priority is to make sure Social Security is there and those 
Social Security dollars are not spent for operations, which is 
something we have done over years, until the last couple of years. That 
ought to be set aside so it does not happen. We ought to be dealing 
with Medicare making sure those dollars are set aside as well and not 
spent for operations so those benefits will be available.
  Frankly--and I realize there are different views and that is what the 
Senate is about--but there are those generally on that side of the 
aisle whose idea--and it is legitimate--is that the Federal Government 
ought to be spending more, doing more; the Federal Government ought to 
undertake to solve all these problems. I do not happen to agree with 
that. I happen to think we ought to have a limited Federal Government; 
that, indeed, we ought to do those things the Federal Government ought 
to be doing, but it should not be involved in all of our lives. That is 
what the private sector is for. That is what local governments are for. 
That is what State governments are for.
  Of course, that is the philosophical argument with which we are all 
faced. One of the elements of that is tax relief. We have passed one 
tax relief bill this year. We passed the marriage penalty tax which is 
more of a fairness issue than anything. It deals with the fact that a 
man and woman, earning a certain amount of money, unmarried pay a 
certain amount in taxes. These two same people get married, earning the 
same amount of money and pay more income taxes. It is wrong. We passed 
a bill in both Houses. Now we need to make sure the President signs it.
  The estate tax is another one that takes away over 50 percent of an 
estate above a certain level.
  We ought to make that more fair. Tax relief is certainly one of the 
things that we ought to be doing, that we ought to be talking about. 
Unfortunately, what we are faced with now is that we find ourselves in 
a position where I think many in the body are more interested in 
creating issues than they are in finding solutions. We find the same 
issues being brought up time after time after time. For example, my 
friend again talked about gun control this morning. He talked about 
additional laws, when the fact is, clearly, what is really important is 
the enforcement of the laws that we have now.
  In the Colorado incident, there were 22 laws broken. Do we need more 
laws? Probably not. What we need to do is enforce them. The General 
Accounting Office did an audit of the effectiveness of the national 
instant criminal background check. As of September of 1999, the ATF 
headquarters staff had screened 70,000 denials and concluded that only 
22,000 had merit. Only 1 percent of those denials were ever pursued as 
to if the person trying to buy a gun was, in fact, legally allowed to. 
Clearly, that issue has been talked about here. It basically has been 
resolved.
  We keep talking about the Patients' Bill of Rights. We passed it in 
both Houses. The question now is whether, when you need an appeal from 
your HMO, you go to the court or physicians in an appeal position, 
whether you want to take a year and a half to go to court, or whether 
you want an automatic and quick response from professionals in the 
medical profession who say: Yes, do it. That is where we are.
  You hear in the media that the Senate defeated the Patients' Bill of 
Rights. That is not true. The Patients' Bill of Rights has been passed 
by this Congress in both Houses. We need now to put it together. 
Indeed, it is in conference.
  We find ourselves debating education. We find ourselves having to 
pull away from the elementary and secondary

[[Page S5325]]

education bill in which the Federal Government participates--not 
heavily. The Federal Government's role in funding elementary and 
secondary education is about 7 percent of the total expenditure. But 
the argument is whether the decisions are made in Washington as to how 
that 7 percent is used before it is sent down to the school districts 
or whether we send down the 7 percent and let the States and the school 
districts decide, which is what our position is on this side.
  I spoke at a graduation a couple weeks ago in Chugwater, WY. The 
graduating class was 12. You can see that is a pretty small school. The 
things they need in Chugwater, WY, are quite different than what you 
need in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or Washington, DC. So if you are 
going to really be able to help all different kinds of schools and have 
the flexibility to do that, clearly, you have to transport those 
decisions to State and local government.
  These are some of the things in which we find ourselves involved. I 
am hopeful we can move forward. I do not expect everyone to agree. 
Certainly, that is not why we are here. But we ought to have a system 
where, No. 1, after we have dealt with an issue, we can move on to the 
next issue, and not have it continuously brought up as nongermane 
amendments, which is happening all the time. We ought to be able to 
say, we have a system where we can participate. But we have a system 
that can hold everything up, which is being used now in not allowing us 
to move forward as we should.
  As you can imagine, it gets just a little bit nerve-racking from time 
to time when you think of all the things that we could be doing, and 
need to be doing, but find it difficult to do.
  Finally, there is something, it seems to me, that would be most 
helpful if we could do it a little more. We are talking now about the 
reregulation of electricity, trying to make it competitive so there 
would be better opportunity for people to choose their supplier, so 
there would be a better opportunity for people to invest in generation, 
and do all those things. But we really have not decided where we want 
to go and where we want to be.
  One of the things that seems to be difficult for us to do in 
governance is, first of all, to decide what we want to accomplish and 
then talk about how we get there. It sounds like a fairly simple 
routine, but it is not really happening. It would be good if we could 
do that, if we could say, for example, in terms of the Patients' Bill 
of Rights: All right, what do we want the result to be? What is our 
goal? What do we want to accomplish? and see if we could not define 
that, and then make the rules, make the regulations, pass the laws that 
would implement that decision. But instead, if we do not have that 
clearly defined, it seems that we continue to go around and around.
  I am sometimes reminded by children of Alice in Wonderland. She fell 
through the hole in the Earth and was lost, and she talked to people to 
try to get some directions. None of them were very useful. She finally 
came to the Cheshire cat who was sitting up in a tree at a fork in the 
road.
  She said: Mr. Cat, which road should I take?
  He said: Where do you want to go?
  She said: I don't know.
  He said: Then it doesn't make any difference which road you take.
  That is kind of where we are in some of the things we do. In any 
event, we are going to make some progress. I hope that we move forward 
and get our appropriations finished. I hope we can do something on 
national security. We need to have a system that works to decide what 
it is we want to accomplish, how we best accomplish that, and put it 
into place.

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