[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10353-10378]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   1999 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I submit a report of the committee of 
conference on the bill (H.R. 1141) making emergency supplemental 
appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for 
other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the conference report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee on conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 
     1141), have agreed to recommend and do recommend to their 
     respective Houses this report, signed by a majority of the 
     conferees.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senate will proceed to 
the consideration of the conference report. (The conference report is 
printed in the House proceedings of the Record of May 14, 1999.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitzgerald). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is the conference report accompanying 
H.R. 1141 before the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

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  Mr. STEVENS. That conference report is not amendable? There are no 
amendments in disagreement?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I first want to start off by commending 
the chairman of the House committee, Congressman Bill Young, for his 
leadership in the conference on this bill. He was the chairman of this 
conference, and through his efforts we have achieved passage not only 
by the House but we achieved the result of getting a bill out of 
committee. Chairman Young and I have worked very closely in the past. 
He chaired the defense subcommittee before becoming chairman of the 
full committee. I look forward to continuing that partnership during 
his tenure as chairman of the House committee.
  We face a difficult task in reconciling the funds needed to respond 
to hurricane damage in Central America, the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency and agriculture disasters--those FEMA disasters are 
national disasters declared by the President--and continued military 
operations in Kosovo, in Bosnia, in Iraq, and in the high state of 
alert in South Korea.
  This is not an easy period to be chairman of this committee. We have 
what amounts to four major crises going on at one time. We are trying 
to maintain our defense capabilities to preserve our interests 
worldwide. This is very difficult, apparently, for some Members to 
understand. It is a difficult process, at best, to handle a 
supplemental and an emergency bill together, but it does take 
consideration of the Members of the Senate to understand which versions 
in these bills are emergency and which are just a normal supplemental.
  They have been joined together. The President has sent us two bills 
and the House has passed two bills. They address the needs and the 
formal requests of the President. The Senate passed one bill, the 
Central American agriculture bill, in late March, prior to the Easter 
recess. At that time, before the recess, I urged that we have a chance 
to come to the floor and pass that supplemental. We knew there was 
going to be a second supplemental, but we could not get the time on the 
floor and the Senate did not act on the separate Kosovo package.
  Due to the emergency nature of the funding for military operations 
and the availability of the first bill, it was our intention to merge 
the two bills into a second single bill in conference, which we have 
done. That is consistent with rules of the Senate and the House. These 
were matters which were emergency in nature, and we have added them as 
emergencies.
  Now, as I think Senators are aware, there are many ideas in how we 
can address other needs in this bill. Supplemental bills have routinely 
been amended by both the House and the Senate. Questions have been 
raised about some of the matters in these bills--assuming that we have 
no right to add any amendments to emergency bills.
  Now, this is both a supplemental and an emergency appropriations bill 
before the Senate. I hope Senators will keep that in mind. As most of 
the Senators are aware, these matters are brought up by individual 
Members of the Senate or the House and are considered and adopted by 
majority vote. I am not that happy about some of the provisions of this 
bill but, again, I have the duty to carry to the Senate floor those 
amendments that were included by action of the conferees. I hope 
Senators will keep that in mind as we proceed.
  The conferees decided that some of these matters that are before the 
Senate and were presented to us should be reserved in the fiscal year 
2000 bill, which the Appropriations Committees will start marking up 
next week. We cannot get to the regular appropriations bills until we 
conclude the action of the Congress on the supplemental and emergency 
matters in the bill before the Senate now.
  Again, I know there are objections to this bill; there are objections 
to the process we are following. Many of those objections are brought 
forward because we do not have a point of order against legislation on 
appropriations bills.
  That is not my doing. I have sought to restore that point of order 
and I continue to support the concept of that point of order. But we 
have several matters included in the Senate-passed version of the bill 
that were deleted by the conference.
  One of them was a matter that was very close to my heart, and that is 
the Glacier Bay provision which was offered by my colleague, Senator 
Murkowski.
  What I am saying is there are matters before the Senate some people 
object to. There are matters not in the bill that people object to, and 
one of them is that Alaska provision of my colleague. Obviously, a 
conference report is always a compromise. That is why we go to 
conference. We have disagreements with what the House has done, the 
House has disagreements with what we have done, and we meet in 
conference and try to resolve the problems.
  This bill, for instance, contains more money for defense needs than 
were proposed by the Senate. After we went to conference with the 
House, we concluded they were right in seeking additional moneys for 
our defense readiness. There is no question it also contains more 
funding for refugees and for agricultural relief than was proposed by 
the House. The House has come towards the position of the Senate on 
both refugees and agriculture relief. Again, I think that is the 
process of compromise that should take place in a conference. This 
conference report needs to be passed today. The men and women of the 
Armed Forces must understand we support them, regardless of our points 
of view on the war that is going on in Kosovo.
  Refugees ousted from their homes and their country by Serbian 
atrocities need our help also. I was honored to be able to go with 
other Members of the Senate to visit Albania. We saw the camps in 
Macedonia. We visited with the President of Macedonia and the Prime 
Minister of Albania. We went to see our forces in Aviano--that is our 
air base in Italy--and we visited with the NATO people in Bosnia.
  Many Senators here have also visited the region since that trip I 
took with my colleagues and Members of the House. There were 21 of us 
on the first trip. All the Senators who went there know what needs to 
be done; there is no question in our minds. It is unfortunate we cannot 
take more people over there to let them see it, because I think 
uniformly the people who saw the troubles over there are supportive of 
this bill. We have provided additional funds in this bill for the 
Kosovo operation and for the victims of the war there in Kosovo. They 
are sort of an insurance policy.
  We have faced this in the past. We went into Bosnia. We were supposed 
to be there 9 months and be out by Christmas. That is 5 years ago this 
Christmas. We have had to add money every year, take money from various 
portions of our appropriations process and pay for the cost of Bosnia.
  We also have increased the level of our activity in the Iraq area. 
Even during the period of the Kosovo operation, there continue to be 
retaliatory strikes on Iraq because of the their failure to abide by 
the cease-fire agreement.
  In South Korea, the North Koreans are continuing to rattle the cage, 
as far as we are concerned, and we are on a high level of alert in that 
area.
  What I am telling the Senate again is this bill reflects those 
pressures on our defense forces. We want those people who are defending 
this country to know we support them when they are out there in the 
field representing our interests. The funds provided in excess of the 
President's request are contingency emergency appropriations for 
agriculture, for defense, for FEMA and for the refugees. The amounts 
added by the House and the Senate can only be submitted if the 
President declares an emergency requirement exists. We are going to get 
into that question of the emergency requirement here when the Senator 
from Texas raises his point of order. But we worked in conference very 
hard to assure adequate resources will be available through the 
remainder of this fiscal year to meet the needs

[[Page 10355]]

in the areas we visited, in the Kosovo area, and to meet the needs of 
the military worldwide. Some of our systems are being taken from the 
areas I have described before--from South Korea, even from Bosnia and 
from Iraq--to move them into the area of the conduct of the hostilities 
in and around Kosovo and Serbia. Those funds that are needed on a 
global basis are in this bill. Some of them, as we know, the President 
did not request.
  We believe we have taken action. Hopefully we will not have to see 
another emergency supplemental with regard to the conduct of the Kosovo 
operation during the period of time we will be working on the regular 
appropriations bills for the year 2000. In effect, we have reached 
across and gone in--probably this bill should be able to carry us, at 
the very least to the end of this current calendar year. The initial 
requests of the President took us to the end of the fiscal year on 
September 30.
  I am happy to inform the Senate I am told today the President will 
sign this bill as soon as it reaches his desk. He has specifically 
asked us to complete our work and pass the bill today. I understand he 
has a trip planned and it would be to everyone's advantage if we get 
this bill down to him today and have it signed. Therefore, I am pleased 
we do have the unanimous consent which does allow us to vote on this 
bill. I take it that will be sometime around 3:20 we will vote on the 
bill.
  I do earnestly urge every Member of the Senate to vote for this 
conference report. To not vote for this conference report because of 
some difference, because of the process, would send the wrong message 
to the young men and women who represent this country in uniform. One 
of the things that impressed me when I was on the trips, both to Bosnia 
and into the Kosovo area, was if you go into the tents where these 
young people are living when they are deployed, do you know what you 
find? You find computers. They are on the Internet.
  Right now, some of them out there will be picking up just the words I 
am saying. We are not back in the period, like when I served in World 
War II in China, when we did not hear from home but maybe once or twice 
a month at the most. We had to really just search to find news of what 
was going on at home and we were starved for news from home. These 
people are force fed news from home and many times what they see are 
rumors that come across the Internet. We don't need any more rumors 
going out to the men and women serving in the Armed Forces overseas. In 
this bill is the pay raise. We are committed that the money is there 
for the pay raise. We have initiated the concept of reforming the 
retirement system, which was one of the gripes we heard last year both 
in Bosnia and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
  This is a bill the men and women of the armed services are watching. 
They are going to watch how you vote on this bill. And they should. It 
is not time for petty differences over process or committee 
jurisdiction. This is a time to act and give the people in the Armed 
Forces the money they need so they know they will have the systems and 
they will have the protections they need when they go in harm's way at 
the request of the Commander in Chief.
  I urge we not only vote to pass this bill, but Senators listen 
carefully to this point of order the Senator from Texas will raise, as 
it is raised against specific provisions of this bill.
  Mr. President, there is no question in my mind, as we look at this 
bill, it is a different bill. When I woke up this morning, I looked in 
Roll Call and I was interested to see the statistics on supplemental 
appropriations, 1976 through 1996. We had no supplementals in 1995. We 
had one supplemental in 1996. I will get that number for 1997. People 
who are saying we are having too many supplementals--they are just 
wrong. We have not had too many supplementals. We go through a process 
of predicting how much money we will need. The departments of the 
Government start the process of sending their requests to the President 
through their agencies. They come up in the department, they go to the 
Office of Management and Budget, the President finally gets them 
sometime in September of the year before. In January or February, the 
beginning of the year, the President submits his budget which will be 
made available the following September, following October, going 
through the September of the next year.
  In other words, what I am saying is this is the process. The money we 
are spending now on a routine basis started through the agencies in the 
fall of 1997, came into the departments in the spring of 1998, went 
through the President's process and got to OMB and were presented to 
us, in terms of a process, to have a bill for the year 2000 presented 
to us and considered in 1999.
  This appropriations process is a long process. I hope I have not 
shortened it. But it is a very long process. In the process of trying 
to estimate the needs, things are overlooked, concepts are developed 
and, particularly in the defense field, new involvements of our 
military erupt. Kosovo is a good example. We had no knowledge we would 
have that kind of operation, an immense operation now, probably the 
largest engagement we have had, in terms of this type of crisis, since 
the Persian Gulf war. Actually, I think before we are over, it may be 
more expensive than the Persian Gulf war was to the United States.
  I recognize the comments that are coming, particularly from my side 
of the aisle, about greater consistency in our appropriations process. 
I want people to look at the record. We have not had an excess of 
supplementals. We had an omnibus bill last fall, and most of the 
comments made on this floor are about the two omnibus bills that ended 
up the fiscal year--the one my predecessor, Senator Hatfield, was 
involved with and the one last year with which I was involved.
  In both instances, if the Senators look carefully, they will find the 
appropriations process reached a stalemate, and the stalemate had to be 
resolved on the leadership level with the President. That was not the 
two committees that added that money. It was a negotiation with the 
President, in both instances, by the leadership of the House and 
Senate, and I commend them for it. We had to get out of that impasse or 
we would have had another impasse like we had previously when there was 
an attempt to shut down the Government.
  When this Government is at war, it is not going to be shut down on my 
watch. I want everyone to know that. We are not going to shut down the 
Government when there is a war going on. We are not even going to 
suggest it. Anybody who does suggest it better understand he or she 
will not be here for long. The American people will not stand for that. 
Their sons and daughters are out fighting, and we ought to fight to get 
them the support they need.
  I am going to fight--I am going to fight as hard as I can --to get 
bills such as this through and keep funding the Department of Defense 
at the level it should be funded to assure their safety--not just 
normal safety--but every single system we can adopt that will save the 
lives of the men and women in the armed services ought to be approved. 
This is what this does. It gives them the money they need to carry 
through the remainder of this year.
  This year is going to be a very tough year. Any one of those other 
crises which are going on in Iraq, in Bosnia, in South Korea, or other 
places could erupt. I was told yesterday that we have people in the 
uniform of the United States in 93 different places throughout the 
globe now--93 different places--and any one of those places could erupt 
again while this Kosovo conflict is ongoing.
  I do not want to hear anyone tell me that we have provided too much 
money. We have not provided too much money. If the money is not needed, 
I can guarantee you that this Secretary of Defense and this Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs is not going to spend it. We have given them under 
this bill an enormous amount of discretion to spend the money. We have 
not earmarked this money. We have suggested things in the report that 
we hope they will consider, but this is the money to meet the needs of 
protecting our men

[[Page 10356]]

and women in the armed services abroad, and it has to be viewed on that 
basis.
  I urge every Member of the Senate to vote for it and to forget petty 
differences.
  I am delighted to yield now to my good friend from West Virginia, a 
partner in this process of trying to get this supplemental and 
emergency bill to the President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Alaska, the senior Senator, Mr. Ted Stevens, the manager of the bill 
and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He is my longtime 
friend. I have served many, many years in the Senate and on the 
Appropriations Committee and on various subcommittees of the 
Appropriations Committee with Senator Stevens.
  He was fair and he was dedicated to the positions of the Senate 
throughout the discussions on the supplemental appropriations bill when 
it was in conference with the other body. He stood up for the Senate's 
positions, and he was remarkably effective. I am proud to associate 
myself with him. First of all, he is a gentleman. His word is his bond. 
His handshake is his bond. I like that.
  He is not so partisan that partisanship overrides everything else. We 
are all partisan here to an extent, but to some of us party is not 
everything, party is not even the top thing. Party is important, but 
there are other things even more important.
  Mr. President, I intend to support this emergency supplemental 
conference report accompanying H.R. 1141. It is the result of a long 
and difficult conference with the House of Representatives. There are a 
number of matters in this agreement that I do not support, and there is 
one provision which is not included in the agreement but which I 
believe was as deserving as any emergency contained in the conference 
agreement.
  That provision is the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program. 
Senators will recall that the Senate substitute to H.R. 1141 included 
the amendment that I offered to establish a 2-year $1 billion loan 
guarantee program to assist the more than 10,000 U.S. steelworkers who 
have already lost their jobs as a result of a huge influx of cheap and 
illegally dumped steel during 1998, last year.
  This matter had strong support by the Senate conferees during the 
House-Senate conference. After a thorough discussion of the Emergency 
Steel Loan Guarantee Program, the House conferees voted to accept this 
Senate provision. Not all of the House conferees. All the House 
Democratic conferees and three of the Republican conferees voted to 
accept this provision. However, that vote was subsequently overturned 
the next day, and the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program remained a 
matter of contention until the very end of the conference.
  In order to expedite the completion of this very important emergency 
bill, not everything which I support in the Senate, but I am going to 
support the bill, and because of the need to get it to the President as 
quickly as possible, I agreed to drop the Emergency Steel Loan 
Guarantee Program in return for a commitment from the House and Senate 
congressional leadership that this loan guarantee provision would be 
brought up as a freestanding emergency appropriations bill in the very 
near future.
  Pursuant to that agreement, I hope and expect that such an 
appropriations bill will be brought up in the Senate prior to the 
upcoming Memorial Day recess. I hope, because it is vitally important, 
that we act expeditiously, this being a real emergency.
  The plight of many of the steel companies in this country is serious. 
The Speaker of the House has agreed to permit a motion to go to 
conference within 1 week of receiving the Senate-passed bill and has 
agreed to allow normal appropriations conferees to be appointed and to 
permit the resulting conference report to be brought up before the 
Houses.
  Subsequent to Senate adoption of the substitute on H.R. 1141, the 
House Appropriations Committee marked up a second emergency 
supplemental appropriations bill to provide emergency funding 
principally to support the military operations, refugee relief, and 
humanitarian assistance relating to the conflict in Kosovo and for 
military operations in Southwest Asia for fiscal year 1999.
  In light of the House action in relation to the Kosovo supplemental, 
and in hopes of being able to move both the Central American emergency 
spending bill, H.R. 1141, as well as the emergency funding for Kosovo, 
it was determined by the joint leadership that the Kosovo funding 
should be taken up directly by the House-Senate conferees on H.R. 1141. 
As a consequence, the Senate Appropriations Committee never marked up 
the funding measure for Kosovo, nor did the Senate have an opportunity 
to debate that measure at all--no opportunity to amend it, no 
opportunity to debate it, no opportunity to vote it up or down. In 
other words, the first time the Kosovo funding has been before the 
Senate is today in the form of this conference agreement on H.R. 1141.
  I generally do not support the handling of appropriations matters in 
a manner that does not allow the Senate to work its will on each of the 
issues in appropriations bills, but in this instance, I agreed to allow 
this procedure to be followed because of the importance of the matters 
contained in this particular conference report.
  This conference agreement contains appropriations totaling some $15 
billion, of which $10.9 billion is for the support of our men and women 
in uniform in Kosovo and Southwest Asia and $1.1 billion is for Kosovo-
related humanitarian assistance. These amounts represent an increase of 
$6 billion--$6 billion--above the President's request for Kosovo-
related appropriations. The $6 billion in emergency funding above the 
President's request contains a congressional emergency designation, but 
will only be available for obligation if the President agrees with that 
emergency designation, only if the President also requests these funds 
and declares them emergency spending.
  In addition to the $12 billion for our Kosovo-related expenditures, 
both in military and humanitarian assistance, the pending measure also 
includes $574 million in emergency agriculture assistance programs, 
some $420 million higher than the administration's request. For the 
victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America and the Caribbean, the 
conference agreement includes $983 million, of which $216 million is to 
replenish Department of Justice operation and maintenance accounts 
which were used to provide immediate relief to the hurricane victims. 
Finally, the agreement contains $900 million in emergency funding for 
FEMA in order to address the needs of the American people who suffered 
from the recent tornadoes in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Tennessee.
   Mr. President, as I have stated, this was a very difficult 
conference that consumed many days and late nights to reach agreement. 
This was the first time that the present chairman of the House 
Appropriations Committee, Mr. Bill Young of Florida, had an opportunity 
to serve as chairman of the conference. I must say that he performed 
his responsibilities very capably. During the many contentious debates 
that took place, he was always fair and evenhanded and respectful of 
all members of the conference, just like our own chairman, Senator 
Stevens. Yet, at the same time, he displayed the necessary firmness in 
order to keep the conference moving toward completion. So, I compliment 
Chairman Bill Young for his excellent work on this difficult 
conference.
  Let me again compliment Senator Stevens, but also I compliment the 
ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. David Obey, 
whom one will never find asleep at the switch. He is always there. He 
is always alert, combative enough, to be sure, and loyal to his own 
body, the House of Representatives, and the Democrats whom he 
represented in the conference. His work is always effective and very 
capable.
  In closing, let me again say that Chairman Stevens stoutly defended 
the Senate position on all of the matters throughout the conference and

[[Page 10357]]

also made certain that all Senate conferees were able to express their 
view on each of the issues.
  I hope that the Senate will support the conference report. As I say, 
there are some things in it I do not like, some things that were left 
out of it that I very much wanted and believe in and believe constitute 
as much of an emergency as some of the other items that are designated 
as such in the conference report. But I want to support this. I urge 
all Senators to support it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, thank you.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement of mine 
concerning the objectionable provisions contained in the bill be made 
part of the Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as a former Member of Congress once said, 
``Every disaster is an opportunity.'' This bill proves that statement 
remains true today.
  Scattered throughout this bill, which was supposed to be for 
emergencies only, is more than $1.2 billion in non-emergency, garden-
variety, pork-barrel spending. When the Senate passed this bill just 
two months ago, I could find only $85 million in low-priority, 
unnecessary, or wasteful spending. By the time the conferees were done 
with it, the waste had grown by a factor of 14-14 times more pork-
barrel spending was deemed worthy of inclusion in this conference bill.
  Mr. President, I have compiled a list of the numerous add-ons 
earmarks, and special exemptions in this bill. Now, I know that some of 
these programs may well prove meritorious, but there is no way for us 
to determine their merit because the process for doing so has been 
circumvented in this bill.
  For example, the bill contains $1.5 million to purchase water to 
maintain sufficient water levels for fish and wildlife purposes at San 
Carlos Lake in Arizona, and an earmark of $750,000 for the Southwest 
Border anti-drug efforts. I know that these are important programs, but 
are they the most important programs in my state? The process by which 
these two earmarks were added in conference on this bill makes it 
impossible to assess the relative merit of these programs against all 
other priority needs in Arizona and across the nation.
  The normal merit-based review process, which requires authorization 
and appropriation, was not followed, and these programs were simply 
added to this so-called ``emergency'' bill. The usual ``checks and 
balances'' were just thrown out the window.
  Once again, I have to object to including programs in appropriations 
bills that have not been authorized. The Commerce Committee has 
jurisdiction over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Yet, without 
even seeking, much less obtaining authorization from the Commerce 
Committee, the appropriations put $38 million in this bill for the CPB 
to buy a new satellite. I have raised this issue before. There is a 
good reason for the two-tiered process that requires an authorization 
before appropriating any money for a program--to eliminate unnecessary 
or low-priority spending of taxpayer dollars. That process clearly was 
circumvented in this bill.
  This bill contains the usual earmarks for specific amounts of money 
of special-interest projects, such as:
  An emergency earmark of $26 million to compensate Dungeness crab 
fisherman, fish processors, fishing crew members, communities and 
others negatively affected by restrictions on fishing in Glacier Bay 
National Park in Alaska.
  Emergency earmarks of $3.7 million for a House page dorm and $1.8 
million for renovations in the O'Neill House Office Building, which 
were added in conference.
  $3 million earmarked for water infrastructure needs at Grand Isle, 
Louisiana, again added in conference.
  An emergency infusion of $70 million into the livestock assistance 
program, which is redefined to include reindeer.
  Mr. President, I am sure that Santa Clause is happy today although 
even he would blush not only at the process but the amount of money 
that is included in this legislation.
  Then there are the many objectionable provisions that have no direct 
monetary effect on the bill, but you can be sure there is a financial 
benefit to someone back home. For example:
  Apparently, last year when we added millions of dollars to help maple 
producers replace taps damaged in ice storms in the Northeast, we added 
a bit too much money. This bill directs that leftover money be used for 
restoration of stream banks and maybe repairing fire damage in 
Nebraska.
  The media has reported extensively on a provision (which was added in 
conference) allowing the Crown Jewel mine project in Washington State 
to deposit mining waste on more than the five acres surrounding the 
mine than is currently permitted. What hasn't been reported is that 
this language also reverses for several months any earlier permit 
denials for any other mining operations that were denied based on the 
five-acre millsite limit.
  The bill contains language making permanent the prohibition on new 
fishing vessels participating in herring and mackerel fishing in the 
Atlantic--a protectionist policy that was slipped in last year's bill 
and is now, apparently, going to become permanent.
  The bill contains another provision that provides a special, lifetime 
exemption from vessel length limitations for a fishing vessel that is 
currently operating in the Gulf of Mexico or along the south Atlantic 
Coast fishing for menhaden--an issue that should be dealt with by the 
authorizing committee, the Commerce Committee.
  The report directs that three facilities be built to house non-
returnable criminal aliens in the custody of the INS--facilities which 
are much-needed--but then the conferees decided to go one step further 
and direct that one facility had to be built in the mid-Atlantic 
region.
  Last year's 1999 Transportation appropriations bill earmarked funding 
for a feasibility study for commuter rail service in the Cleveland-
Akron-Canton area, and the conference report expands on the use of 
those funds to allow purchase of rights-of-way for a rail project 
before the feasibility of the project has even been determined.
  There are many more low-priority, wasteful, and unnecessary projects 
on the 5-page list I have compiled, and is included in the Record.
  Most of these add-ons are listed as ``emergencies'' in this bill. Do 
these programs really sound like emergencies to you?
  A small number are offset by cuts in other spending, but that doesn't 
make it right to include them in a non-amendable bill that circumvents 
the appropriate merit-based selection process of selecting the highest 
priority projects.
  Some of these programs, like the page dorm, were not even in the 
bills that passed the Senate and House. They were simply thrown into 
this bill in conference, at the last minute, in a bill that cannot be 
amended or modified in any way.
  For the Coast Guard, this bill presented the opportunity to pick up 
another $200 million for operating expenses and readiness. This, too, 
was a last-minute add in conference of ``emergency'' funding--again, an 
issue for the Commerce Committee to consider.
  I also want to note with interest the apparent prescience of the 
appropriators in including an additional $528 million in unrequested 
emergency funding, for ``any disaster events which occur in the 
remaining months of the fiscal year.'' Apparently, the appropriators 
have some inkling that bad things are going to happen in the next five 
months.
  Mr. President, I hope my colleagues understand that designating 
spending as an ``emergency'' doesn't make it free. It still has to be 
paid for. The fact is that most of the pork-barrel spending in this 
bill comes straight out of the Social Security Trust Fund. At a time 
when the American people are worried about the fiscal health of Social 
Security, worried about whether Social Security will be there when they

[[Page 10358]]

retire, it defies logic that we are taking money out of the Trust Fund 
for these projects. The Trust Fund is estimated to be bankrupt by the 
year 2032, and taking another billion dollars out of it clearly 
accelerates that fiscal crisis. That is exactly the opposite of what we 
should be doing, which is taking the Trust Fund off-budget and putting 
more money into it to ensure benefits will be paid, as promised, to all 
Americans who have worked and paid into the Social Security system.
  Mr. President, disasters should not be opportunities. It seems the 
Congress may still be suffering from ``surplus fever,'' a giddy lack of 
fiscal discipline because of projected budget surpluses into the 
foreseeable future. Last year, we spent $20 billion of the Social 
Security surplus for wasteful spending in the omnibus appropriations 
bill. I voted against the omnibus bill last year, and I will vote 
against this bill.
  This bill is a betrayal of our responsibility to spend the taxpayers' 
dollars responsibly and enact laws and policies that reflect the best 
interests of all Americans, rather than the special interests of a few. 
I cannot support a bill that makes a mockery of the Congress' power of 
the purse and contributes to Americans' growing lack of faith in their 
Government.
  Finally, I was very pleased to see the other Senators come to the 
floor. We cannot continue this practice of adding appropriations in 
conference. We cannot continue to circumvent the authorization process. 
I identified some 30 instances in last year's bill. It will stop, 
sooner or later. We promised the American people when we regained the 
majority we would not do this kind of thing, this kind of money, in 
this kind of unauthorized authorizations that circumvent the committee 
process.
  I find it offensive as a committee chairman. Most of all, I find it 
offensive as an American citizen who also pays his taxes.
  I assure Members and my friends on the Appropriations Committee, we 
intend to take additional measures in the appropriations process. If 
appropriations bills come to this floor without proper authorization of 
expenditures of money or authorizations that are not agreed to by the 
committee chairmen who are authorizers, there are going to be a lot of 
problems around here.
  Last fall, when we added $21 billion in unnecessary spending, some 
30-odd reauthorizations, I said at that time in a letter to the 
distinguished chairman and my friend on the Appropriations Committee 
that I will not stand for it any further. I believe there are a whole 
lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle who are tired of this 
process.
  I say that with all due respect for the dedication, the difficulties 
and the obstacles that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and 
other appropriators have as they go through a very difficult process, 
but it must stop.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.

                               Exhibit 1

    Objectionable Provisions Contained in H.R. 1141, the Emergency 
 Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions for Recovery From Natural 
 Disasters and Foreign Assistance for Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 
                                  1999

     Bill language
       Bill language directing that funds made last year for maple 
     producers be made available for stream bank restorations. 
     Report language later states that the conferees are aware of 
     a recent fire in Nebraska which these funds may be used. 
     (Emergency)
       Language directing the Secretary of the Interior to provide 
     $26,000,000 to compensate Dungeness crab fishermen, and U.S. 
     fish processors, fishing crew members, communities, and 
     others negatively affected by restrictions on fishing in 
     Glacier Bay National Park, in Alaska. (Emergency)
       A $900,000,000 earmark for ``Disaster Relief'' for tornado-
     related damage in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and Tennessee. 
     This earmark is a $528,000,000 increase over the 
     Administration's request and is earmarked for ``any disaster 
     events which occur in the remaining months of the fiscal 
     year.'' (Emergency)
       Report language providing FEMA with essentially unbridled 
     flexibility to spend $230,000,000 in New York, Vermont, New 
     Hampshire, and Maine, to address damage resulting from the 
     1998 Northeast ice storm. Of this amount, there is report 
     language acknowledging the damage, and the $66,000,000 for 
     buy-outs, resuting from damage, caused by Hurricane George to 
     Mississippi, and report language strongly urging FEMA to 
     provide sufficient funds for an estimated $20,000,000 for 
     buy-out assistance and appropriate compensation for home 
     owners and businesses in Butler, Cowley, and Sedgwick 
     counties in Kansas resulting from the 1998 Halloween flood. 
     (Unrequested)
       $1,500,000 to purchase water from the Central Arizona 
     project to maintain an appropriate pool of stored water for 
     fish and wildlife purposes at the San Carlos Lake in Arizona. 
     (Added in Conference)
       An earmark of an unspecified amount for Forest Service 
     construction of a new forestry research facility at Auburn 
     University, Auburn, Alabama. (Unrequested)
       Language directing that the $1,000,000 provided in FY 99 
     for construction of the Pike's Peak Summit House in Alaska be 
     paid in a lump sum immediately. (Unrequested)
       Language directing that the $2,000,000 provided in FY 99 
     for the Borough of Ketchikan to participate in a study of the 
     feasibility and dynamics of manufacturing veneer products in 
     Southeast Alaska be immediately paid in a lump sum. 
     (Unrequested)
       Language directing the Department of Interior and the 
     Department of Agriculture to remove restrictions on the 
     number or acreage of millsites with respect to the Crown 
     Jewel Project, Okanogan County, Washington for any fiscal 
     year. (Added in Conference)
       Language which prohibits the Departments of Interior and 
     Agriculture from denying mining patent applications or plans 
     on the basis of using too much federal land to dispose of 
     millings, or mine waste, based on restrictions outlined in 
     the opinion of the Solicitor of the Department of Interior 
     dated November 7, 1997. The limitation on the Solicitor's 
     opinion is extended until September 30, 1999. (Added in 
     Conference)
       Specific bill language providing $239,000 to the White 
     River School District #47-1, White River, South Dakota, to be 
     used to repair damage caused by water infiltration at the 
     White River High School. (Unrequested)
       A $3,760,000 earmark for a House Page Dormitory. (Added in 
     Conference)
       A $1,800,000 earmark for life safety renovations to the 
     O'Neill House Office Building. (Added in Conference)
       An earmark of $25,000,000 to provide for the construction 
     and renovation of family housing units at Fort Buchanan, 
     Puerto Rico. (Unrequested)
       Bill language, added by the conferees, directing that 
     $2,300,000 be made available only for costs associated with 
     rental of facilities in Calverton, NY, for the TWA 800 
     wreckage. (Added in Conference)
       $750,000 to expand the Southwest Border High Intensity Drug 
     Trafficking Area for the state of New Mexico to include Rio 
     Arriba County, Santa Fe County, and San Juan County. 
     (Unrequested)
       Bill language directing $750,000 to be used for the 
     Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area for the 
     state of Arizona to fund the U.S. Border Patrol anti-drug 
     assistance to border communities in Cochise County, AZ. 
     (Added in Conference)
       A $500,000 earmark for the Baltimore-Washington High 
     Intensity Drug Trafficing Area to support the Cross-Border 
     Initiative. (Added in Conference)
       Earmarks $250,000 in previously appropriated funds for the 
     Los Angeles Civic Center Public Partnership. (Unrequested)
       Earmarks $100,000 in previously appropriated funds for the 
     Southeast Rio Vista Family YMCA, for the development of a 
     child care center in the city of Huntington Park, California. 
     (Unrequested)
       Earmarks $1,000,000 in previously appropriated funds for 
     the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development 
     for work associated with the building of Caritas House and 
     for expansion of the St. Ann Adult Medical Day Care Center. 
     (Added in Conference)
       Bill language permitting the Township of North Union, 
     Fayette County, Pennsylvania to retain any land disposition 
     proceeds or urban renewal grant funds remaining from 
     Industrial Park Number 1 Renewal Project. (Added in 
     Conference)
       $2,200,000 earmark from previously appropriated funds to 
     meet sewer infrastructure needs associated with the 2002 
     Winter Olympic Games in Wasatch County, UT, for both water 
     and sewer. (Unrequested)
       $3,045,000 earmarked for water infrastructure needs for 
     Grand Isle, Louisiana. (Added in Conference)
       The conference report language includes a provision which 
     makes permanent the moratorium on the new entry of factory 
     trawlers into the Atlantic herring and mackerel fishery until 
     certain actions are taken by the appropriate fishery 
     management councils. (Added in Conference)
       Additional bill language indicating that the above-
     mentioned limitation on registered length shall not apply to 
     a vessel used solely in any menhaden fishery which is located 
     in the Gulf of Mexico or along the Atlantic coast south of 
     the area under the authority of the New England Fishery 
     Management Council for so long as such vessel is used in such 
     fishery. (Added in Conference)
       Bill language directing Administrator of General Services 
     to utilize resources in the Federal Building Fund to 
     purchase, at fair market value, not to exceed $700,000, the 
     United States Post Office and Federal Courthouse Building 
     located on Mill Street in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. (Added in 
     Conference)

[[Page 10359]]


     Report language
       A $28,000,000 earmark in FY 99, and a $35,000,000 earmark 
     in fiscal year 2000 to the Commodity Credit Corporation to 
     carry out the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands 
     Reserve Program. (Emergency)
       The conference agreement provides $70,000,000 for the 
     livestock assistance program as proposed by the Senate, and 
     adds language providing that the definition of livestock 
     shall include reindeer. (Emergency)
       $12,612,000 for funds for emergency repairs associated with 
     disasters in the Pacific Northwest and for the full cost of 
     emergency replacement of generating equipment at Midway Atoll 
     National Wildlife Refuge. (Emergency)
       Report language acknowledging the damage caused by 
     Hurricane George to Kansas. (Unrequested)
       Report language urging FEMA to respond promptly to the 
     appropriate disaster needs of the City of Kelso, Washington. 
     (Unrequested)
       Language where the Conferees support the use of the 
     emergency supplemental funds to assist organizations such as 
     the National Technology Alliance for on-site computer network 
     development, hardware and software integration, and to assess 
     the urgent on-site computer needs of organizations assisting 
     refugees. (Unrequested)
       $200,000,000 earmarked for the Coast Guard's ``Operating 
     Expenses'' to address ongoing readiness requirements. 
     (Emergency)
       Report language detailing partial site and planning for 
     three facilities, one which shall be located in the mid-
     Atlantic region, to house non-returnable criminal aliens 
     being transferred from the Immigration and Naturalization 
     Service (INS). (Unrequested)
       A $1,300,000 earmark, for the cost of the World Trade 
     Organization Ministerial Meeting to be held in Seattle, WA. 
     (Added in Conference)
       $1,000,000 earmarked for the management of lands and 
     resources for the processing of permits in the Powder River 
     Basin for coalbed methane activities. (Unrequested)
       $1,136,000 earmarked for spruce bark beetle control in 
     Washington State. (Unrequested)
       A $1,500,000 earmark to fund the University of the District 
     of Columbia. (Added in Conference)
       $6,400,000 earmarked for the Army National Guard, in 
     Jackson, Tennessee, for storm related damage to facilities 
     and family housing improvements. (Unrequested)
       A $1,300,000 earmark of funds appropriated under P.L. 105-
     276 under the EPA's Programs and Management for Project 
     SEARCH water and wastewater infrastructure needs in the State 
     of Idaho. (Unrequested)
       Report language clarifying that funds appropriated under 
     P.L. 105-276 under the EPA's Programs and Management for 
     Project SEARCH water and wastewater infrastructure needs for 
     Grand Isle, Louisiana, may also be used for drinking water 
     supply needs. (Added in Conference)
       Report language which authorizes the use of funds received 
     pursuant to housing claims for construction of an access road 
     and for real property maintenance projects at Ellsworth Air 
     Force Base. (Unrequested)
       The conference agreement includes language proposed by the 
     Senate directing a statutory reprogramming of $800,000 for 
     preliminary work associated with a transfer of Federal lands 
     to certain tribes and the State of South Dakota and for 
     cultural resource protection activities. (Unrequested)
       The conference agreement includes a provision proposed by 
     the Senate that clarifies the scope of certain bus and bus 
     facilities projects contained in the Federal Transit 
     Administration's capital investment grants program in fiscal 
     year 1999. The conferees direct that funds provided for the 
     Canton-Akron-Cleveland commuter rail project in the 
     Department of Transportation and Related Agencies 
     Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1999 shall be available 
     for the purchase of rights-of-way in addition to conducting a 
     major investment study to examine the feasibility of 
     establishing commuter rail service. (Unrequested)

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am surprised by some of the items 
listed in the Senator's statement. This bill is both a supplemental and 
an emergency appropriations bill.
  A supplemental appropriations bill that was submitted by the 
President in March contained a request for $48 million to replace the 
National Public Radio satellite system. It is in this bill not as an 
emergency but as a supplemental appropriation. When we passed this bill 
in March, the Senate version of this bill contained $18 million for the 
satellite system. That was less than the President's request. The 
President made that request because the Public Radio system satellite 
failed and radio programs are currently being sent through an emergency 
backup satellite that will not be available until around the middle of 
September, early fall. The supplemental funding was requested by the 
President and approved by the Senate at the level of $18 million. The 
House insisted on the full $48 million. It is an item that is not 
designated as an emergency.
  There are a series of other misunderstandings, I think, with regard 
to this bill, and I will be happy to discuss them with the Senator from 
Arizona later. I don't disagree with him about legislation on 
appropriations bills. The point of order under the rules that were 
previously in place against legislation on the appropriations bills was 
destroyed through a maneuver here on the floor of the Senate before my 
becoming chairman. We have had a tough time trying to get that put back 
into our system. I will be happy to help restore the point of order 
against legislation.
  I don't look with favor on the omnibus process that occurred last 
fall and occurred once before I became chairman. But clearly, my job is 
to carry forward the bills as they come out of the Senate and out of 
the House and out of the conference by a majority vote. Under the 
current circumstances, there is not a point of order in the Senate on 
legislation against appropriations.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I rise to make a brief statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if I might just confer.
  How much time does the Senator from California wish?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. About 5 minutes.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished and 
very able senior Senator from the State of California, which is larger 
than all the nations of the globe except, how many?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much.
  Mr. BYRD. Are there six nations that are larger than California?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is correct.
  Mr. BYRD. Six nations that are larger than California. So the two 
California Senators really are here representing a State that is larger 
than all of the nations of the world except six. I thank the 
distinguished Senator and I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the distinguished ranking member. I 
appreciate his comments about my State. I also compliment both the 
ranking member and the chairman of the committee for their drive, for 
their motivation, and for their staying power to get this conference 
report done.
  Mr. President, the room was crowded. The hours were long. The views 
were sometimes cantankerous. But both the chairman and the ranking 
member, I think, were steadfast in the desire to produce a conference 
report which could, in fact, be approved by both bodies.
  I also pay tribute to the chairman from the House, Mr. Young.  I had 
never seen him preside before. What I observed, which I think is well 
worth noting, was his fairness, his equanimity, and really his ability 
to move the process along which, without rankling, can be a very 
diverse membership. I say the same for Mr. Obey, who really was 
steadfast in pursuing his own views.
  I support this report. It contains the $12 billion for Kosovo. I am 
especially pleased to note that the supplemental contains funding for 
the documentation of war crimes, including rapes that appear to have 
been committed as part of Serbia's brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. 
As the ranking member and the chairman have pointed out, it contains 
the much-needed disaster assistance and the $574 million in 
agricultural funding to provide a measure of assistance to very hard-
pressed farmers throughout this great country.
  I do want to speak about one small item. As we debate the conference 
report on the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, I want to 
express my concerns about the inclusion of a ``hold harmless'' 
provision for what are called concentration grants authorized by Title 
I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  In chapter 5, on page 91 of the conference report (Report 106-143), 
the conferees included $56.4 million for Title I concentration grants 
``to direct the Department of Education to hold harmless all school 
districts that received

[[Page 10360]]

Title I concentration grants in fiscal year 1998. * * *'' The report 
goes on to say, ``Neither the House nor the Senate bills contained 
these provisions.''
  This provision is very disturbing for several reasons.
  First, it was not included in either the House or Senate bills. 
Therefore, it has not been considered by the authorizing committees of 
either house. It has not been considered by the appropriations 
committees of either house. There have been no hearings. It has not 
gone through the normal deliberative process under which we hear from 
experts, weigh the pros and cons and cast votes. Quite frankly, this 
provision appeared ``in the dark of night.''
  Second, the hold harmless provision contravenes an important 
provision of the law, known as the census update, a requirement in law 
that the U.S. Department of Education must allocate Title I funds based 
on the newest child poverty figures, figures that are updated every two 
years. Congress adopted the census update requirement in 1994 so that 
Title I funds--which the law says are to help disadvantaged children--
truly follow the child, that dollars be determined generally by the 
number of children who are eligible. The holdharmless provision in this 
bill before us, guaranteeing that school districts that got funds in 
1998 will get funds in 1999, even if their number of poor children has 
declined, violates the requirement that funds be allocated based on the 
most recent child poverty data available. The provision in this bill 
effectively rewards ``incumbents,'' despite their number of poor 
children, despite merit or need.
  Third, this provision disregards Title I's eligibility requirements. 
Title I concentration grants are supposed to be especially targeted to 
concentrations of poor children, under the law. Districts that have 
poor children exceeding 6,500 or 15% of their total school-aged 
children are eligible for these grants, which are in addition to the 
``regular,'' basic Title I grants. Guaranteeing funds to districts, no 
matter what the number or percent of poor children in those districts, 
spreads limited funds to districts that are not eligible because they 
do not have concentrations of poverty. It effectively takes away funds 
from districts that do have high concentrations of poor children. It 
overrides the eligibility requirements we have set and agreed on in 
law.
  In my state, some school districts could benefit from this ``hold 
harmless'' provision because the number of poor children changed; it 
went below the eligibility threshold of the Title I concentration 
grants program. Like most Senators, I do not want any school district 
in my state to lose education funds.
  But we either have rules or we don't. We have eligibility criteria or 
we don't. If the current eligibility rules are wrong or are not 
working, we should change them in the authorizing process, a review 
which the Health and Education Committee is currently undertaking. We 
should not set up eligibility rules and then flagrantly ignore them, 
override them or ``freeze'' in place funds to districts that do not 
meet the requirements. We should not rewrite the rules in the ``dark of 
night'' outside the normal legislative process.
  Fourth, this provision violates the principle that funds should 
follow the child. Title I was created for poor, disadvantaged children. 
That is its fundamental purpose and funding to states is determined 
largely by the number of poor children, children that all agree have 
great educational needs. This amendment sends funds to districts merely 
because they got funds in the previous year, not because the districts 
have needy children and not in proportion to the number of poor 
children they have.
  Finally, this provision is very unfair to states like mine that have 
a very high growth rate in the number of poor children. In California, 
the number of poor children grew by 52 percent from 1990 to 1995. In 
Arizona, poor children grew 38 percent from 1990 to 1995. In Georgia, 
35 percent. In Nevada, 56 percent. That is why Congress included a 
requirement for a child poverty update. This amendment is very unfair 
to those children. This amendment takes the funds away from the poor 
children for which the funds were intended.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. If I may have 30 seconds to wrap up.
  Mr. BYRD. I yield an additional minute.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the distinguished ranking member.
  Even though it ``freezes in'' funding to districts--including some in 
my state--that got funds last year, even though they do not qualify, it 
makes a mockery of the basic purpose of the Title I program, its 
eligibility rules and the requirement to use recent poverty data. If 
Congress continues to override these basic rules of the authorizing 
law, we are effectively operating with no rules, or at least, 
constantly changing rules. Districts will not know whether they are 
eligible or what they can or cannot count on. This is just plain wrong. 
In my state, even though 39 districts would have their funding ``frozen 
in'' by this provision, next year, California will have 166 new school 
districts that will become eligible. If these ``hold harmlesses'' keep 
appearing in the dark of night, these eligible districts, with 
concentrations of poor children, could be deprived of funds to which 
they are entitled.
  Because this is a conference report, under our procedures, I am not 
allowed to offer an amendment to delete this provision.
  But let me put my colleagues on notice that I find this provision and 
this procedure very objectionable.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in ending this practice so that our 
children can get the education Congress intended in creating the Title 
I program in the first place.
  I thank the Chair, and I thank the ranking member.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am authorized to yield myself 5 minutes 
off of the time of Senator Stevens.
  Eleven billion dollars in this bill are earmarked to pay for the 
costs of the war in the Balkans and its consequences, direct and 
indirect. That war was begun in folly and has been conducted since with 
an almost incredible degree of incompetence. I have opposed the war 
from the beginning and will not support it now.
  The conflict was begun because of Serbia's refusal to sign an 
agreement granting autonomy to the people of Kosovo and protecting its 
citizens. Other demands, including the free right of NATO troops to 
travel through any part of Yugoslavia, were impossible for any 
sovereign nation to agree to.
  Our goals were worthy. But they were not of sufficient importance to 
vital American interests to warrant the use of our armed forces in 
combat. This proposition is perhaps best illustrated by the President's 
refusal to use all of the means necessary to attain his goals, choosing 
to cause death and destruction to the Serbs, and suffering, 
dislocation, and death to the very people we purport to protect, than 
to risk American lives in order to succeed. This is no way to wage a 
war.
  But vital American interests have been seriously and adversely 
affected by the war itself. We have destabilized Macedonia and 
Montenegro, and perhaps other nations in the Balkans as well. We have 
damaged relations with Russia and may have pushed it along the road to 
reaction. We have put ourselves on the defensive with respect to China 
when we should have the high ground in many of our differences. We have 
fueled anti-American sentiment around the world.
  If we win, we get to occupy Kosovo for a generation and to spend 
billions rebuilding it; if we lose, we are humiliated and NATO is 
weakened.
  In addition, this war appropriation comes to the Senate in a form in 
which it cannot be amended. I, for one, am denied the opportunity to 
attempt to earmark a modest portion of this money to arm the Kosovo 
Albanian rebels. It is inconceivable that we should trigger this ethnic 
cleansing, refuse to intervene on the ground to defend the Kosovo 
Albanians, fail even to attack their persecutors effectively, and top 
it off by refusing to aid those who wish to fight for their own 
liberties.

[[Page 10361]]

  Finally, of course, this entire emergency appropriation comes 
straight out of our Social Security surplus. I am not sure that the 
American people are at all aware of this fact. I cannot believe that 
they would support it. At my behest, the conference committee added 
managers' language calling for the restoration of this borrowing to the 
Social Security Trust Fund out of future general fund surpluses. But 
the language is not mandatory, and may well be ignored. We should not 
use Social Security to pay for a war in the Balkans.
  For these reasons, and in spite of its many good and important 
provisions on other issues, I oppose this supplemental appropriations 
bill.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the 
emergency appropriations bill because it is an emergency, it is 
necessary. I have been reading all of the press reports about the bill 
and criticisms of the bill because it is too large or perhaps too much 
money has been spent on one area or another. But the fact is, we have 
emergencies in our country that are not covered by the budget. We have 
had more emergencies in our agriculture area than we ever could have 
foreseen. You can't pick up the paper that you don't read about a 
terrible tragic tornado, and we are coming into hurricane season. So we 
are putting more money into FEMA. We have had floods in my home State. 
We must deal with these as they occur, and clearly on an emergency 
basis.
  A good part of this bill is for agriculture. We are also helping our 
neighbors in Central America who were ravaged with a terrible hurricane 
and tornadoes. We are trying to do the things we have promised we would 
do. But since we started this emergency appropriation, we have also had 
a new emergency, and that is the situation in Kosovo. We are seeing, 
every day, what is happening there.
  Mr. President, it is no secret that I have spoken out strongly 
against the way we got into this Kosovo operation. I have spoken out 
against going into an operation when we didn't have a good contingency 
plan. I have spoken out against so much of our policy in the Balkans. I 
just came back from the Balkans, just over the weekend, and I met with 
our soldiers on the airfield in Albania, the ones who are going to be 
supporting our humanitarian effort and, hopefully, be part of our 
defenses there, whatever we may do. I went to Aviano, Italy, and met 
with the troops who are doing so many of these air operations that we 
are seeing day after day after day. And, of course, there is no 
question that our troops are doing a great job. They don't make the 
policy; they just do the mission they are given. Nobody can question 
their sincerity, their great attitude, and their commitment to our 
country. You will never meet a young man or woman in the military who 
isn't there because they love our country.
  So when I think about this supplemental appropriation--and I know I 
have spoken against the mission itself, the way it has come about--and 
I remember looking into the eyes of the young men and women who are on 
the front line, I think, now, can I vote not to give the money to them 
to have the equipment they need to do the training they need, to have 
the incentives that they need to be doing a very tough job in a very 
tough neighborhood? Well, the answer is no, I can't vote against paying 
for their security, because they are the security for me and my family 
and for every one of us who is lucky enough to live in the greatest 
country on Earth.
  So they have volunteered to give their lives so that we may live in 
freedom. Do you think for one minute I would vote not to give them the 
equipment they need to do that job? It would be unthinkable. So while 
we debate how we pay for it or who is responsible, in the end, I am 
going to vote for this bill, because I am going to support the troops 
who are in the field.
  I am going to continue to argue with the administration that we need 
to learn the lessons about how this operation has been handled, and I 
think we will. I think there is a glimmer of hope that perhaps Mr. 
Milosevic has seen that we are going to win and prolonging it will only 
hurt his own people. So there is a glimmer of hope, and a glimmer of 
hope is better than total darkness. I think we need to seize on that 
glimmer of hope and try to come to the first agreement that we must 
have from Mr. Milosevic--that he will stop the atrocities against the 
people of Kosovo.
  I just visited with the people of Kosovo. I visited with them in 
Macedonia. I visited with them in Albania. Those people have been 
through more than any one of us will ever know or understand. What I 
want now is the atrocities to stop for the ones who are still there. 
The ones we met with are in refugee camps. They are not comfortable, 
but they are safe. I want to try to help the people who are still in 
Kosovo, and the atrocities on them to stop so that we can then allow 
the people who have fled their country in terror to be able to go back 
in and rebuild their homes, rebuild their economy, so that they will be 
able to have a livelihood, so that they will be able to raise their 
children in their homeland without fear of a despot who would commit 
the atrocities that there is no question in my mind have been committed 
in the last 6 months and, indeed, for many years in this part of the 
world.
  So, Mr. President, while we are debating policy, while we are 
debating from where the money is going to come all of which is 
legitimate debate, while we are talking to each other about our 
principles, which is our right to do, but at the end of the day, it is 
most important that we have the emergency appropriations which would 
give our kids who are on the front line and their commanders everything 
they need so as to know that we are not going to pull the rug out from 
under them, that they will have the equipment, they will have the 
airplanes, they will have the helicopters for their own security while 
they are protecting yours and mine.
  So let's talk policy. Let's talk about never going into an operation 
like this again without a contingency plan. Let's talk about the 
treasure we have spent in this country to try to solve this problem. 
And let's not stop with Kosovo, because the money and the troops that 
we have put in harm's way cannot be lost for us to put a Band-Aid on 
Kosovo. Let's finish this job now.
  But when we have stopped the atrocities and when the Serb troops have 
started leaving Kosovo, and when an international peacekeeping force 
moves in, let's take the opportunity, let's seize the moment to do 
something bigger than putting a Band-Aid on Kosovo. Let's look at the 
Balkans and do what we can to try to help them form areas of government 
that have to change so that those people will be able to have jobs, 
start farming their land, to live in security. That is what I want for 
the Balkans.
  But continuing to say we can amalgamate the Balkans as if they were 
America is not going to have a long-term chance for success, because we 
don't understand what they have just been through in the last 5 years. 
We don't understand what it would be like to force people to live next 
door to each other when their mothers have been raped, when their 
fathers have been brutally murdered, when their families have had to 
flee in terror.
  Let's start today by supporting our troops. Let's start today by 
keeping open the glimmer of hope for peace. And then let's take one 
step at a time to try to help these people become a contributing part 
of Europe so that they can do what every one of us wants to do; that 
is, live in peace and freedom, to have jobs, to support our families, 
and to give our kids a better chance than we have. That is what the 
Kosovar Albanians want. It is what the Serbs want. They are the good 
people of Serbia--not President Milosevic. That is what the Moslems in 
Bosnia

[[Page 10362]]

want. That is what the Croats want. It is what the Albanians want. And 
they should be able to have it. That should be our goal.
  I am going to support this bill. I am not going to say there are not 
legitimate differences about certain parts of it. Sure there are. That 
is why 100 of us are elected independently to represent the views we 
have--the views of our States. But we are required to come together. I 
hope the Senate will do the right thing and come together to do what is 
right for the farmers who are hurting, for the people in Central 
America who are hurting, for the people in the Balkans who are hurting, 
to help promote peace in the Middle East, and to continue to appreciate 
that we live in the greatest nation on Earth. We need to make sure we 
keep the security and the freedom of our country on our watch.
  It is our responsibility to pass this bill and talk about the policy 
and talk about our differences, and our Constitution that provided that 
we do this.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time does the Senator wish?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask for 15 minutes.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized to 
speak for 15 minutes.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank the 
Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. President, I rise to offer some comments on the emergency 
spending bill we have before us. Many of us had hoped that the almost 
grotesque experience of last year's omnibus appropriations bill might 
have shamed Congress into refraining from the kind of fiscally 
irresponsible spending and catering to special interests that 
characterized that legislation. Apparently, it was a vain hope. We are 
back at the same disgraceful work barely seven months later.
  Mr. President, few would argue the need for many of the core 
provisions of the legislation, especially the urgently needed 
humanitarian relief in Central America, our current military and 
humanitarian operations in the Balkans, and for victims of natural 
disasters here at home. Regrettably, those legitimate provisions are 
completely eclipsed by dozens of others that are at best highly 
questionable and at worst grossly irresponsible.
  Mr. President, first and foremost among this latter group are the 
billions in additional funding for the military that was not requested 
by the administration.
  Mr. President, to say there is a double standard when it comes to 
fiscal prudence in Congress is to say the ocean is damp. We saw it last 
year in the omnibus appropriations bill, we saw it again when this body 
took up and passed an unfunded military pay and retirement increase 
even before we had passed a budget resolution, we saw it still again 
during the budget resolution when military spending received a special 
exemption from the tough new emergency spending rules we adopted, and 
sadly, we see it now in this bill.
  As has been noted by others, including my distinguished colleague 
from the other House, Wisconsin Representative David Obey, what we are 
probably witnessing is an effort to load as much military spending into 
this bill under the pretext of an emergency in order to make room for 
special interest military spending provisions in the Defense 
appropriations bill later this summer.
  Mr. President, put simply, this emergency supplemental measure uses 
Social Security Trust Fund revenues to help lard up an already 
corpulent defense budget.
  Almost as troubling as this reckless use of Social Security revenues 
to pay for the military budget is that this technique isn't an 
exception. It has become the custom.
  Mr. President, our budget caps have become a sham. We agree to those 
tough caps with great acclaim and fanfare, only to circumvent them 
casually on a regular basis with the emergency provisions of our budget 
rules.
  Mr. President, as much as I oppose raising the budget caps, it would 
be far better if Congress and the White House were to raise those caps 
in an honest and open manner, than to continue the pretense that the 
caps have meaning only to circumvent them through the abuse--I say 
``abuse''--of the emergency funding designation.
  Mr. President, while the doubling of the military budget request is 
certainly the dominant flaw in this bill, there are other provisions 
that deserve notice as well. They represent what is most unseemly about 
the emergency appropriations process--special interest provisions that 
relate to no true emergency, but avoid the scrutiny of the normal 
legislative process and instead capitalize on human suffering or an 
international crisis, finding their way onto what we have come to call 
must-pass bills.
  Mr. President, let me note that it may be that some of these 
extraneous provisions have merit. But they should be subject to the 
same fiscal scrutiny we ask of any proposal. They should be paid for. 
The standing committees should review and authorize these proposals, 
and the Appropriations Committee should propose a level of funding for 
each of them that makes sense in the context of the overall budget.
  Mr. President, by circumventing this process, the advocates of these 
provisions reveal their distrust of Congress and possibly their own 
apprehension that their provisions may not be able to gain passage on 
their merits.
  One such provision is the so-called Russian Leadership Program, a new 
program, Mr. President, newly authorized by this legislation which also 
provides it with $10 million in funding. I understand the program is 
intended to enable emerging political leaders of Russia to live here in 
the United States for a while to gain firsthand exposure to our 
country, our free market system, our democratic institutions, and other 
aspects of our government and day-to-day lives.
  Mr. President, offhand, that doesn't sound like it is necessarily a 
bad idea. I might be able to support such a program, though I would 
certainly want to know something more about it before endorsing still 
another new democracy building effort. But, Mr. President, this 
proposal has not gone through the normal legislative process. It has 
not been held up to the scrutiny of a public review by the appropriate 
committees.
  Mr. President, if one were asked where the new Russian Leadership 
Program were to be housed, one might reasonably guess somewhere in the 
State Department, perhaps in USAID. Those a bit more familiar with the 
array of duplicate programs we have might stroke their chin wisely and 
suggest that it would probably be included in the National Endowment 
for Democracy, a quasi-governmental agency that many of us believe 
duplicates services provided elsewhere in government.
  But, Mr. President, if you guessed the State Department, or NED, you 
would be wrong. For the next year, this new Russian Leadership Program 
is to be housed in the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress, 
Mr. President.
  Mr. President, as some may know, we already have numerous educational 
and other exchange programs with Russia. Agencies and Departments which 
have received funding from the Congress for exchange programs with 
Russia include, but are not limited to: the Departments of Commerce, 
Defense, Education, Justice, State, and Treasury; the Agency for 
International Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, the 
Marine Mammal Commission, the National Aeronautics and Space 
Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment 
for Democracy, the National Science Foundation, the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, and the Peace Corps.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the tremendous impact that educational 
cultural exchanges have had on our relationship with Russia. I have to 
wonder if we really need to create still another

[[Page 10363]]

exchange program. Even if we determine that the program has great 
merit, I think serious questions can be raised about whether this ought 
to be administered by the Library of Congress.
  It doesn't end there. According to the authorizing language in this 
legislation, the Librarian of Congress is given authority to waive any 
competitive bidding when entering into contracts to carry out this 
program. In other words, this program is effectively shielded from any 
expertise or efficiencies that might be brought to bear by existing 
firms or nongovernmental agencies with experience in this area.
  There we have it: In this bill, a brand-new program that has 
completely avoided the review of the appropriate standing committees 
established in an agency, that is wholly inappropriate, with virtually 
no restrictions on its administration. This is a heck of a way to 
legislate.
  Of course, this is just one example, one of dozens of extraneous 
provisions that have been slipped into this emergency supplemental 
bill. I am not talking about a lot of different bills; it is just what 
is going on in this bill.
  As others have noted, these unrelated riders have become business as 
usual. This is especially true with respect to antienvironmental 
policy. This is not the first time I have expressed concerns regarding 
legislative riders in appropriations legislation that would have a 
negative impact on our Nation's environment. I am sorry to say with 
respect to one of these policies, the delaying of the implementation of 
new mining regulations, this is not even the first time such a rider 
has been inserted into an appropriations bill.
  The merits of this policy, this very important policy relating to 
mining, should be debated at length on another occasion. I do want to 
note that the rules that safeguard our public lands with respect to 
mining badly need updating, if only to keep pace with the changing 
mining technology. One such technique, the use of sulfuric acid mining, 
caused grave concern 2 years ago in my own State when it was 
appropriated for use in private lands in the neighboring Upper 
Peninsula of Michigan.
  Regulations also need to take into account other land uses that would 
be displaced by mining, and they need to do more to require meaningful 
cleanup. Currently, there is no requirement to restore mine lands to 
premining conditions. This leaves taxpayers holding the bag for the 
mining industry's mistakes.
  Obviously, this kind of a change requires a full, careful, and open 
debate. It just can't get the kind of attention it needs when it is 
quietly slipped into an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that 
we are only going to debate for 3 hours. Of course, that is precisely 
the reason the advocates of the rider have done it this way. They see 
their opportunity. They don't want a full and careful and open debate--
special interests that push this policy know it will do them best and 
they will get it done best behind closed doors, away from the light of 
open debate.
  In this connection, I think my colleagues should be aware that the 
PACs associated with the members of the National Mining Association and 
other mining-related PACs contributed more than $29 million to 
congressional campaigns from January 1993 to December 1998. Mining soft 
money contributions totaled $10.6 million during the same 6-year 
period. Mr. President, that is nearly $40 million in campaign 
contributions in recent years from an industry that stands to benefit 
from this rider that has been stuffed in this bill which we are only 
going to debate for 3 hours.
  And so it is with too many of these provisions.
  It should come as no surprise that a process characterized by secret 
negotiations and backroom deals should be dominated by special 
interests and produce such questionable policy. These interests have 
succeeded in presenting Congress with a take-it-or-leave-it deal, and 
they are betting we will acquiesce for fear of delaying the true 
emergency assistance that I and everyone else have said is truly 
urgently needed.
  Of course, I realize this measure is likely to pass. I hope it does 
not. But I cannot endorse this package or the process that brought it 
to the floor by voting for it. I ask my colleagues to consider calling 
the bluff of the interests that have succeeded in loading this bill up 
with extraneous matters that could never command a majority in Congress 
on their own.
  If we can defeat this measure and insist on a clean, true emergency 
bill, we just might be able to shame those who have participated in 
crafting it and maybe even prevent this kind of abuse in the future.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 20 minutes to 
speak against this bill.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I will not object.
  Mr. President, Senator Stevens has left the floor and I am here in 
his stead. Please enlighten the Senate as to the time situation 
pursuant to the unanimous consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Stevens has 39 minutes, Senator Byrd 
has 42 minutes, and Senator Dorgan has 15 minutes.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask for 20 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, obviously appropriating money is a very 
difficult task. I had the privilege for 7 years to serve on the 
Appropriations Committee. During that time I had the great privilege of 
serving as chairman of Commerce, State, Justice Appropriations. 
Probably more than most Members of the Senate who don't currently serve 
on Appropriations, I think I have some understanding of the difficulty 
our colleagues have in appropriating money. Let me also say that the 
funding issues are the most important and the most difficult issues we 
debate.
  I will share with my colleagues and anybody who might be following 
the debate an experience I had in 1980. I was a second-year Member of 
the House and I had been an economist prior to coming to Congress. I 
kept noticing that on the issues that really mattered--the spending 
issues on amendments--we were consistently losing on virtually every 
one of those votes. I ran sort of a running total for about 6 months on 
those votes.
  Here is what I concluded, as best I can remember. The average vote on 
spending that really mattered cost about $50 million. These were little 
add-on amendments that were voted on in 1980 in the House of 
Representatives. There were about 100 million taxpayers in 1980. So the 
average taxpayer was paying about 50 cents. The average appropriation 
amendment was costing about $50 million; there were 100 million 
taxpayers; so each taxpayer was having a cost imposed on them of about 
50 cents.
  As best I could figure, the average beneficiary was getting about 
$700.
  Members don't have to have a degree in mathematics or any fundamental 
understanding of economics to understand that if you have 100 million 
people all losing 50 cents each, and then you have beneficiaries who 
are getting, on average, $700 each, it doesn't take a lot of 
imagination to understand why in 1980 we were losing on every spending 
amendment. The reason being, the average taxpayer could benefit only by 
50 cents if the amendment were defeated. That wasn't enough to activate 
them to write a letter in opposition. The average beneficiary was 
getting about $700, as best I could figure, on these votes on 
amendments. For $700 they were willing to do quite a bit, especially 
through groups that represented them where they would have thousands of 
members, sometimes tens of thousands of members, who were getting $700 
each.
  So it very quickly became evident to me that we were fighting a 
losing battle on spending. That ultimately gave rise to our efforts to 
try to elevate this to a national issue where, rather than voting on 
all these little amendments that cost taxpayers 50 cents each, we could 
turn it into a big issue where we were talking fundamentally about the 
future of America, which is what budgets are about. And, in fact, in 
1981 when

[[Page 10364]]

Ronald Reagan became President, we were able to adopt a budget that 
dramatically reduced the growth in government spending, that reformed 
entitlements, and that cut taxes across-the-board by 25 percent. And I 
would argue, probably more than anything else, that and Ronald Reagan's 
opposition to regulations and the rolling back of burdensome 
regulations, and the monetary policy of the Fed, explained why we are 
in the happy condition we are in today with the current state of the 
economy.
  But what I discovered in 1981 was the only way you can win on these 
issues is when you are debating the big issue instead of the individual 
spending program. The budget has become our way of trying to rein in 
spending. One of the vehicles we have in that budget process is 
spending caps, where we debate how much money we are going to spend on 
discretionary programs and we set it in law and then we judge spending 
based on that number that we have in fact set into law. In order to try 
to beef up our strength to try to hold the line on spending, we 
established budget points of order. In order to try to enforce them we 
established supermajority budget points of order, with 60 votes 
required in order to violate the budget.
  I will, later today, raise a budget point of order against this 
appropriation bill. Why do I object to this appropriation? First of 
all, you cannot spend $14 billion beyond the spending caps in actual 
cash outlays, without doing a lot of things that almost everybody is 
going to be in favor of. But here is the basic problem. We set out, in 
1990, in a budget agreement, a little loophole. I would have to say I 
was worried about it when it happened. But the loophole was allowing 
the President and Congress to get together and declare emergency 
spending, to designate spending as an emergency and therefore get 
around the binding constraints on spending that we had written into the 
budget. That provision went into effect in 1990. And in 1991 we 
declared $900 million of emergency spending. But in 1992, with the 
Presidential election, with the election of Bill Clinton, and with the 
fundamental change that occurred since then, here is what has happened 
to spending that we have annually designated as an emergency, and 
therefore outside the budget caps, and outside any binding constraint 
that we all solemnly voted for as part of the budget process. In fact, 
the spending levels that I will be trying to defend today with my point 
of order were adopted 98 to 2 on June 27 of 1997. Only two Members of 
the Senate voted against making the commitment to hold the line on 
spending. I am today going to be offering a point of order to try to 
hold the line on that commitment we made.
  But here is what happened. Beginning in 1991 we had $900 million 
designated as an emergency in a government that was spending, in 1991, 
maybe $1.2 trillion. It was not very much money by comparison. In 1992, 
we declared $8.3 billion of spending to be such an emergency that it 
did not even count as part of the budget process; that it was exempt 
from the cap. By 1994 that number had grown to $12.2 billion that, in 
1994, we designated as an emergency.
  Because of our action at the end of last year in passing a $21 
billion emergency funding bill, we have already violated the budget for 
fiscal year 1999 above the level that we committed to on June 27 of 
1997. We have already violated that budget by $15 billion in budget 
authority, which is the portion of the $21 billion that the President 
has already released by concurring in the emergency designation. If we 
adopt this bill unchanged, as it is written and now is before the 
Senate, we will declare another $14.8 billion in budget authority as 
emergency, which will mean that in 1999 alone, we will bust the 
spending cap by $29.8 billion, all of which will be designated as an 
emergency, and all of which will be exempt from our budgetary process.
  First of all, isn't it amazing that we have seen the level of 
emergency spending grow in 1991 from $0.9 billion, to $29.8 billion? 
What this really shows is we have lost control of the budget process. 
This loophole is literally destroying our ability to control spending.
  What are these items that are declared as emergencies, items that 
were so critical that we had to pass an emergency supplemental 
appropriation in order to fund them? Let me just give you some of the 
ones from last year that have already busted the budget by $15 billion. 
Then I will give you a few from this year. Army research into 
caffeinated chewing gum; the National Center for Complementary and 
Alternative Medicine; grasshopper research; manure handling and 
disposal; onion research--those are the kind of items that were 
included in the emergency measure that we passed last year that has 
caused us to violate this year's budget already by $15 billion.
  Let me go over some of the items that make up this supplemental 
appropriation bill. ``National Public Radio, $48 million to purchase 
satellite capacity; $1.3 million for the World Trade Organization 
ministerial meeting in Seattle.'' Would anybody have us believe that we 
planned that meeting and we suddenly discovered, after years of 
planning, that we had to pay for it? Would anybody believe that this 
should suddenly be contained in an emergency bill? No. But what they 
would believe is we always knew we had to pay for it but we did not put 
it in the budget, knowing we would put it in an emergency bill and 
therefore we could get around spending constraints.
  ``Filling up San Carlos Lake; the purchase of a post office and a 
Federal court house in Minnesota; modernization at Washington 
International Airport.'' Modernizing an airport is God's work, but does 
it belong in an emergency bill? Don't we fund that out of a trust fund? 
What is it doing in an emergency supplemental bill? ``Renovating the 
U.S. House page dormitory?'' I do not doubt that is meritorious. If I 
did a survey among the pages they might think it is a wonderful idea. 
But is suddenly the world going to come to an end if we did it in this 
year's regular appropriation? My guess is we will not spend a penny of 
it until this year's appropriation bill is enacted anyway, so why is it 
in this emergency appropriation? It's in this emergency appropriation 
so we do not have to count it toward the spending caps next year. 
``$1.5 million for the University of the District of Columbia.'' Then 
there is funding for the majority whip's office--that is in the House 
let me make clear--and the House minority leader's office, $333,000 
each. Why isn't that in the appropriation bill for the legislative 
branch of Government? Why are we not funding that through the normal 
budget process? The answer again is we put these things in emergency 
funding measures in order, basically, to take them out of the process.
  Why does it matter? Why does it matter that we are getting ready to 
bust our spending caps by $29.8 billion? Why it matters is that every 
penny of that money is coming out of Social Security. We do not have a 
surplus today except for the fact that Social Security is collecting 
more money than it is paying out. In fact, Social Security is 
collecting $127 billion this year more than it will spend. We have 
already spent $16 billion of that on something other than Social 
Security. We are getting ready to spend another $14.8 billion from this 
bill on something other than Social Security.
  The point is, if we had not passed the emergency supplemental bill 
last year, which ended up taking $17 billion away from Social Security 
in this year, we would have had in this year the first time ever in 
American history where we actually had a Social Security surplus 
available to either lock up in a lockbox so it could not be spent or 
use it to save Social Security.
  We do not have that ability now because of the emergency bill we 
passed last year, and now we are passing another bill that will take 
$14.8 billion.
  The point I am making is this: We cannot have it both ways. We cannot 
say we want to lock this money up for Social Security and spend it at 
the same time. You can say you want to spend it and that this spending 
is critical and that it is absolutely essential we fill up these lakes 
and build these dormitories and that we fund reparation payments to 
Japanese South

[[Page 10365]]

Americans from World War II, that we repair high schools, which I never 
knew was a function of the Federal Government.
  You can say those are emergencies and they are important enough that 
we are willing to plunder Social Security in order to fund them. That 
is a legitimate position. It is not one with which I agree, but it is a 
legitimate position. What you cannot do is say we are going to lock 
this money away from Social Security or we are going to use it to save 
Social Security and then turn around and spend it. It is not legitimate 
to do both. What we are trying to do in this Congress is say we want to 
save the money for Social Security and we are trying to spend it at the 
same time.
  I do not hold myself out as being more righteous than anybody else, 
but that is turning a little more sharply than I can turn. I still 
remember the press conferences where we stood up and said we want to 
lock this money away. Here we are today spending it.
  What am I trying to do in my point of order and what will it do? 
First of all, there is not a point of order under the budget resolution 
against defense spending. There is a point of order against nondefense 
spending. The tragedy of this bill is that we could have offset all the 
nondefense spending in this bill. There was a point at which, before we 
started piling on more and more spending, we could have, with $441 
million, offset all of the nondefense spending in this bill, in which 
case we would not have had an emergency designation to allow us to 
spend beyond the budget.
  A decision was made by the Appropriations Committee not to do that. 
They could have done it. The level of reductions in other programs 
would have been minuscule. But the basic response from the 
Appropriations Committee, with all due respect, has been: We are not 
going to pay for these programs, we are not going to offset them and, 
basically, if you don't like it, do something about it.
  That has basically been the message, and people have been up front 
and honest about it. The only thing I know to do about it is to oppose 
the bill and to use the budget which we adopted and of which I am 
proud--it is the best budget that has been written since I have been in 
Congress or certainly the best budget since the Reagan budget.
  The problem is, I do not see any willingness on the part of our 
colleagues to enforce the budget. It is as if somehow writing a good 
budget was enough. Every day I read in the paper, often from members of 
the Appropriations Committee, that they do not have any intention of 
living within these numbers.
  Some people are saying: OK, let this $14.8 billion go and then the 
next time we will resist. If you are going to resist this never-ending 
spending spree and this plundering of the Social Security trust fund, 
you have to begin to resist.
  We are averaging over $10 billion a year of spending we are not even 
counting as part of the budget, and I believe that has to end.
  I am going to make a point of order which simply makes the point that 
under the budget we wrote earlier this year, any Member of the Senate 
can raise a budget point of order identifying emergency designations in 
nondefense areas that are not offset, and that in order to overcome 
that point of order, those who want to spend that money, those who want 
to take that money out of Social Security, will have to get 60 votes to 
waive that point of order.
  I do not deceive myself into thinking we are going to get enough 
votes to sustain this point of order. I realize how the system works. 
But I think it is important that we begin to raise questions about what 
is going on in the Senate. I do not know how we are going to save 
Social Security if we keep spending the Social Security surplus, nor do 
I see how we are ever going to give tax relief if we----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 20 minutes have expired.
  Mr. GRAMM. I ask unanimous consent that I may take 7\1/2\ minutes off 
my 15 minutes on the point of order I will raise and use that 7\1/2\ 
minutes now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I have great 
problems now. I understand the Senator wants to vote on this point of 
order, and there are 30 minutes on that. We then have time left for the 
debate on the bill itself. This vote then, I take it, will occur 
sometime around 25 after 2, the way I look at it. I put the Senate on 
notice that I am going to ask that the Senate stand in recess or stand 
off this bill from the hour of 3:30 p.m. until 4:15 p.m. I have not 
done it yet, but I want everyone to know we have to go off this bill. 
Our committee cannot be on the floor during that period of time because 
of a very important meeting the committee has that we cannot cancel.
  Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. STEVENS. Yes.
  Mr. GRAMM. I will be very happy to have this vote on waiving the 
point of order at any point that will convenience the Senator. There is 
nothing magic about doing it now. I had thought at the end of this 7\1/
2\ minutes that I would raise the point of order, we could go ahead and 
have this vote and dispose of it, and therefore there will be no 
trouble being off the bill or potentially finishing the bill before the 
meeting. If the Senator wants to delay it, I will be happy to do that. 
The time is not of any importance to me. Whatever will convenience the 
Senator.
  Mr. STEVENS. That is 1 hour 6 minutes beyond that. I serve notice to 
the Senate, as manager, I cannot be here between the hour of 3:30 p.m. 
and 4:15 p.m. We will go ahead and have the vote when Senator Gramm's 
time expires, but then I will ask the leader to give us consent to do 
something in that period of time so we can keep our meeting as 
scheduled. The Senator has another 7\1/2\ minutes now, as I understand.
  Mr. GRAMM. On this. Why don't I go ahead and raise the point of order 
and take my 15 minutes and explain it, if that is OK with the chairman.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, what has the Senator been doing? I 
thought we gave him 20 minutes so he can do that.
  Mr. GRAMM. The Senator gave me 20 minutes to speak against the bill. 
I have done that. I am ready to raise the point of order.
  Mr. DOMENICI. And speak 15 more minutes?
  Mr. GRAMM. I have a right to under the unanimous consent request.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I misunderstood when I quickly gave the Senator 20 
minutes.
  Mr. GRAMM. If the Senator wants me to yield the floor so he can speak 
now----
  Mr. DOMENICI. No.
  Mr. STEVENS. There are 30 minutes on his motion to waive.
  Mr. GRAMM. I get half the time on the motion to waive since I am 
against waiving.
  Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the conference report 
contains nondefense emergency designations in violation of section 206 
of House Concurrent Resolution 68. I send a list of those designations 
to the desk. There are 29 nondefense emergency designations in this 
bill that are in violation and that are subject to a point of order, 
and I raise the point of order against each of these 29 designations.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, pursuant to section 206 of H. Con. Res. 
68 and section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive all 
points of order against this conference report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 30 minutes equally divided.
  Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me be sure to clarify: There are 29 
provisions in the bill that are subject to a point of order because 
they are not funded.
  Let me explain to my colleagues what this point of order does and 
what it does not do.
  This point of order does not kill the emergency supplemental 
appropriations bill. This point of order does not strike any funding 
measure in the

[[Page 10366]]

emergency supplemental appropriations bill. What this point of order 
does, by striking the emergency designation for these 29 unfunded, 
nondefense provisions, is that it will trigger an across-the-board cut 
in all nondefense programs to fund these items.
  That across-the-board cut will fund $3.4 billion of unfunded 
programs. It will do it, according to the Office of Management and 
Budget, with a 1.25-percent across-the-board cut in discretionary 
nondefense programs.
  Obviously, our bill--if this point of order is sustained--will differ 
from the House bill. Under the procedures of our budget the bill would 
go back to the House, which could adopt the bill with this point of 
order made and therefore require the across-the-board cuts to offset 
this new spending, or the House could amend the bill to throw out the 
point of order, and the bill would come back and we would vote on the 
bill again and see if we could sustain it.
  So that is basically what we are doing.
  This point of order does not kill the supplemental appropriation, it 
simply pays for it. It simply says, in the $3.4 billion of programs 
that are not funded, that under the Budget Act you can make a point of 
order that they are not funded, and insist on that point of order so 
that 60 Members of the Senate would have to vote to say we do not want 
to fund these programs, we want to bust the budget, and we are willing 
to take the money out of the Social Security surplus in order to pay 
for it--which is what you will be saying if you vote to waive this 
Budget Act point of order. Have no doubt about that.
  If we sustain this point of order, there will be a 1.25-percent 
across-the-board cut in the same accounts, same section of the budget, 
nondefense discretionary, to fund these programs. The Appropriations 
Committee will have a decision at that point as to whether they really 
want these programs if they have to fund them. My guess is for many of 
them, they will not. My guess is, if you have to fund these programs, 
you will decide you do not really want them all.
  Why have I made this point of order? And why is it important? Why it 
is important is that our budget is so different from real budgets in 
the real world. Every time we want to bust our budget, we say we have 
an emergency. But American families have emergencies every day. They 
are not able to bust their budgets. What we basically do here would be 
equivalent to a family--they have written out their budget, and they 
decide to buy a new refrigerator this year or they are going to go on 
vacation this year or they are going to buy a new car this year; and 
Johnny falls down the steps, breaks his arm.
  The way the Government does it, they say: Well, that is an emergency, 
so we are going to waive our budget. We just won't have to count that 
as part of what we are spending. But that is not the way families work. 
Families have to sit back down around their kitchen table, get out an 
envelope and a pencil, and they have to figure out that if they have 
spent $400 setting Johnny's arm, they are not going to be able to buy 
that refrigerator or they are not going to be able to go on that 
vacation. They do not like it, but that is what they have to do, 
because that is the real world.
  All I am asking here is that on these $3.4 billion worth of programs, 
if they are so good and they are so important, let's pay for them. It 
is not as if we are going to do great violence to the budget of the 
United States if we are required to pay for it. We are talking about a 
1.25-percent across the board reduction in order to pay for these 
programs.
  My view is that if you really wanted these programs, you would be 
willing to pay for them. If you are not willing to pay for them, we 
ought not to be spending it.
  So I want to reserve the remainder of my time and conclude by just 
saying this. If you meant it when you set those caps on spending, if 
you meant it when you said you want to lock away this money for Social 
Security or use it for Social Security reform, we have an opportunity 
today to save $3.4 billion that belongs to Social Security. It does not 
belong to general government. It does not belong to all of these 
projects we are funding here. It belongs to Social Security.
  If you want to save that $3.4 billion for Social Security, if you 
want to lock it away or use it to save Social Security, vote to sustain 
this point of order. I hope my colleagues will vote to sustain this 
point of order, because I think it is important. I think if we do not 
stand up now, we will now be at $29.8 billion by which we have 
overspent the 1999 budget before we have ever passed a single regular 
appropriations bill--all in the name of emergencies.
  So if we are ever going to stand up and stop this plundering of 
Social Security and stop this runaway spending train, we have to do it 
now. I urge my colleagues to vote with me if you want to protect Social 
Security and if you want to live up to the budget.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for just 2 minutes on this motion 
to waive. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for making that motion to 
waive.
  My point in addressing the Senate now is to inform the Senators that, 
basically, this point of order deals with the moneys that are in the 
bill for PL-480 food aid, for refugee assistance, for farm aid, aid for 
the Wye River, aid to Jordan, for the Central America and Caribbean 
emergency due to Hurricane Keith, and for the FEMA disasters that have 
taken place throughout our country.
  All of those are matters that could not have been contemplated in 
1947. We controlled $1.8 trillion on a 2-year period. And the Senator 
from Texas is objecting to the fact that these events, that have taken 
place totally unexpectedly, are going to cost $29.6 billion.
  He is talking about 16 one-hundredths of 1 percent of the total 
spending that we control. In other words, estimates that were made have 
been exceeded now because of unforeseen circumstances in Central 
America, in farm aid, in terms of the assistance to Jordan, in terms of 
FEMA disasters, and national disasters declared by the President, and 
have consumed 16 one-hundredths of 1 percent more money than we 
estimated.
  He is wrong in talking about the bill for the year 2000. We have not 
gotten to the year 2000. This does not have any impact on the year 2000 
except in terms of defense. It aids us in defense trying to deal with 
defense matters.
  These are things that the Budget Act rightfully said there is a time 
when you can have emergencies, when they are unexpected items that have 
happened.
  There are a lot of things in this bill that are not emergencies; they 
are supplemental; they are supplemental items. We can argue about them, 
but they are not involved in what the Senator from Texas is doing. An 
opinion about lumping all those things in the bill is one thing, but to 
deal with this concept of knocking out the emergency clause is wrong. I 
hope the Senators will support the motion of the Senator from New 
Mexico.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, not too long ago Senator Gramm and I 
stood on the floor shoulder to shoulder preparing a budget for the 
United States. Not too long ago, I came up with the idea of a lockbox 
for Social Security. Once my friend, Senator Gramm, saw it, a few words 
of congratulations and a few thoughts on how to make it perhaps a 
little better, we stood shoulder to shoulder that we wanted to save the 
Social Security trust fund. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed.
  The Senator from New Mexico is proud of the budget that is going to 
operate for the year 2000, the new millennium. It is going to be a 
tough budget, and we are going to try to live with it. But I do not 
believe we should leave the floor today with a lot of Americans, if 
they were listening, thinking that the budget of the United States is 
out of control.
  Sometimes my good friend from Texas overstates the case. And by 
overstating the case, sometimes, instead of

[[Page 10367]]

being as effective as he could be, he is a little less effective.
  Nobody looking at the budget of the United States as it pertains to 
the accounts we are talking about, defense and appropriated domestic 
accounts, thinks it is out of control. As a matter of fact, the whole 
world looks at this budget, the one that the Senator from Texas is 
saying is out of control, and says, how do you do it? You are doing so 
well.
  As a matter of fact, the defense spending which is in this budget--
part of the budget that the Senator is talking about--is at the lowest 
level and under control, the lowest level since World War II, the end 
of World War II, in terms of the percent of our gross domestic product 
that goes to defense. Likewise, the domestic spending that he is 
alluding to, out of control, says he, well, let me tell you, it is the 
lowest in history in terms of the percent of GDP. We are doing a great 
job of controlling this part of the budget.
  He and I may come to the floor and discuss another issue where we 
might agree, but it has nothing to do with this bill, nothing to do 
with these ideas that he is alluding to today about the budget. They 
have to do with entitlements and mandatory spending. So for those who 
think the budget has gotten kind of big, we have to face up to where it 
is that it is getting its pot belly. It is not getting it from these 
two accounts, defense and domestic discretionary spending. That is the 
truth.
  The Senator referred to families and their budgets. I noticed some 
people were listening to him almost enraptured thinking about their own 
checkbooks. To compare a family checkbook with a great American country 
that has a war going on in Kosovo that we didn't know about 6 months 
ago and expect us not to have to spend some money for that is to 
compare an individual American family in their kitchen with their 
checkbook to a country that is at war and needs money to fight the war. 
That is what is principally behind this appropriations bill. The 
overwhelming percentage of this spending is for the defense of our 
Nation, if that is why we are in Kosovo, because we have something to 
defend. And whether you like the war or you don't like the war, it 
costs money. It isn't predicted in the family checkbook that in the 
middle of the month you are going to have a war, because families don't 
have wars. They don't go out and buy more tanks and more airplanes, 
when they have a disaster.
  That is point No. 1--the budget is not out of control.
  Point No. 2--the overwhelming percentage of this particular bill is 
for the defense of our Nation. Many of us are proud that we put more 
money in than the President had asked us for. We thought the President 
low-balled the request because he didn't want to be embarrassed about 
this war, and so he has far too little money. We put in $5 billion more 
in this bill. Take that to the American people and ask them: Would you 
do that, or would you not do that? Would you believe Senator Gramm's 
reasoning for saying let's cut some other American programs to pay for 
that?
  By the way, the sequester which he is speaking about, the across-the-
board cut which will be done by the Office of Management and Budget, 
the President's people, it will not be 1.25 percent for all the rest of 
the accounts. Because the year is so far down, it will be almost 4 
percent, 3.75 percent, or some $3 billion. Is that what we should do 
when we have emergencies, cut all of Government across the board 3.75 
percent, not when the budget starts, but when the budget year is half 
over with or more than half over with, just say we are going to cut it? 
Families do not do that either, if you want to talk about families. 
They don't come along when they have all their children's bills paid 
for and everything else and say that we are going to cut 3.75 percent 
out of it and spend it for something else. They don't have that kind of 
problem. That is what we are going to be confronted with for American 
programs in education, in construction, in highways, in everything.
  It is just not worth it, in this Senator's opinion. The longer you 
wait and delay this bill, the more the demands are going to be, not 
less. They will be more.
  Let me just give you one more. If we are out of control, every 
country in Europe and every industrial democracy in the world has 
already gone out of this world. They are all spending more than we are 
as a percentage of their budgets. Their budgets are much higher than 
ours. And that is why we are doing so well--because our budgets are 
low, and our taxes must remain low.
  To be sure on my comments about how low defense spending is and how 
low domestic spending is versus other years and other nations, I have 
that on two pieces of paper. I ask that those two documents be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


 Total government--Federal, State, local--spending as a percentage of 
                               GDP (1998)


                                                                Percent
United States........................................................31
England..............................................................40
France...............................................................54
Germany..............................................................47
Japan................................................................37
Canada...............................................................42

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                    Percentage of GDP
                                               -------------------------
                                                  Defense     Nondefense
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980..........................................          5.0          5.2
1985..........................................          6.2          4.0
1990..........................................          5.3          3.5
1995..........................................          3.8          3.8
1998 \1\......................................          3.2          3.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The lowest percentage since WWII, both defense and nondefense.


  Mr. DOMENICI. The issue now is not whether you want to vote for this 
bill or not. The issue is whether you want to support a motion to waive 
the point of order, a very specific, new point of order; I helped draft 
it. It is a nice point of order. Whether you want to waive it or not, 
that is the issue. If you want to vote against the bill, you can still 
do that but, frankly, you should move to waive this so that when those 
people who want to vote for this bill vote for it, they are not 
confronted with having to cut Government 3.75 percent in order to 
accomplish the purposes suggested here by my good friend from Texas, 
Senator Gramm.
  How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes 4 seconds.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I will yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from New 
Mexico for helping me see that in an effort to derail this point of 
order that we didn't do something that could undercut the whole budget. 
I am very grateful for his help on that.
  I want to disagree with the points that have been made by my two 
colleagues and do it in such a way as to not be disagreeable.
  First of all, our dear colleague, the chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee, says that the violating expenditures here that are not 
offset are only sixteen-hundredths of a percent of overall Government 
spending. Well, my point is, if it is that small an amount of money, 
why don't we pay for it? In a budget of $1.7 trillion, we are in 
essence saying that $3.4 billion of nondefense spending is so important 
we are willing to violate the budget in terms of spending beyond our 
cap. But it is not important enough that we are willing to cut 
somewhere else to fund it? It seems to me if it is that important, we 
ought to be willing to pay for it.
  As to whether the budget is out of control relative to much of the 
world, our budget is not out of control. I agree with our colleagues. I 
am not making a statement trying to send the stock market down at 2, 
nor do I think any statement I could make would be capable of doing 
that. But I am not comparing America to Honduras. I am not comparing 
America to Japan. I am comparing what America is doing relative to what 
Congress promised the American people we would do.
  I do say that when we are spending, in emergency spending in 1999, 
three times as much as we have ever spent

[[Page 10368]]

before, that suggests to me that something is out of control. As we all 
know, we read every day in the paper where Members are saying there is 
no way we can live up to these spending caps, and that this is only the 
beginning of our violation of the budget. My view is this ought to be 
the beginning of the fight to preserve the budget numbers we adopted.
  Let me tell you how the budget is out of control. It is not out of 
control the way we keep our books, even though we are beginning to lose 
control by designating all the spending as an emergency. But if we used 
accrual accounting, like American business has to, with Medicare and 
Social Security, we would be running huge deficits today.
  I agree with our colleague from New Mexico. Many of our worst 
problems are in areas like Social Security and Medicare. But the point 
is, we have to have Presidential leadership, we have to put together a 
program to deal with those problems; and it takes a concerted effort to 
do that. But the one area that we can control by ourselves is 
discretionary spending. The point is, if we don't have the will to 
prevent $3.4 billion of new spending, how are we going to have the will 
to reform Social Security or Medicare?
  In terms of comparing the checkbook of a family to a great nation and 
a great economy, I think it is a good comparison. In fact, Adam Smith 
once observed:

       What is wisdom in every household can hardly be folly in 
     the economy of a great nation.

  Where can we find a better blueprint for fiscal responsibility than 
looking at working American families sitting around the kitchen table? 
The fact that they are dealing with thousands of dollars and we are 
dealing with billions of dollars doesn't fundamentally change things. 
They have to set priorities. They have to say no. And they have to say 
no to their children, the people they love, and to real needs.
  All I am saying is that we need to say no more often so that working 
families can say yes more often. I want to save Social Security so we 
don't have to double the payroll tax. I want to save Social Security so 
we don't have to cut benefits for the elderly. But we can't do that if 
we keep spending the Social Security surplus.
  In terms of across-the-board cuts, if it is not worth cutting to pay 
for, then why is it worth spending? If it is not worth taking it from a 
lower priority, is Social Security the lowest priority? Is taking this 
money out of the Social Security surplus of lower significance than 
funding all the thousands of other programs we fund? I don't think so.
  The final point. This is a point of order under the Budget Act 
against the nondefense portions of this bill. I would have raised a 
point of order against all the emergency designations in the bill had 
the point of order existed. I don't want people to think this is 
somehow nondefense versus defense. I believe in a strong defense. My 
dad was a sergeant in the Army for 28 years 7 months and 27 days. I 
have voted for defense. I have helped write budgets that rebuilt 
defense. But I want to pay for defense.
  I think where the difference is, I am willing to cut other programs 
to fund defense. But I don't understand why we are not willing to take 
it away from something else to fund defense but we are willing to 
violate our spending caps to fund defense. And if this war is so 
vitally important--let me make it clear that I don't see the vital 
national interest here. I don't see this as a vote on the war. But let 
me make it very clear, if this war is so vital, we ought to be willing 
to cut other Government programs to fund it. The idea that we ought to 
take the money out of Social Security to fund this war, I think, is 
wrong.
  So, again, this is a hard issue. I don't doubt the sincerity of our 
colleagues who are trying to do a difficult job in writing these 
appropriations. But there are two reasons I am here making this point 
of order. No. 1, we busted the budget by $21 billion on the last day of 
the last Congress. We are already at almost $30 billion of busting it 
now. We have to stop this from happening at some point. Let's do it 
now.
  Mr. STEVENS. I ask that the Senator yield me 2 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 2 minutes to the chairman.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, let's go back to what we are talking 
about. If a family had a $16,000-a-year income and had a 16 one-
hundredths of 1 percent overage in their expenditures that year, they 
would have to borrow $20. We are talking about 16 one-hundredths of 1 
percent in excess of the budget. And it is for items that are 
emergencies. What family would not borrow $20 to meet an emergency? Is 
it disaster relief emergency? Yes. Is the Central America-Caribbean 
expenditure an emergency? Yes. The Wye River accord for Jordan, was 
that an emergency? Yes. Is farm country in trouble? Is that an 
emergency? Yes. All we are saying is we are going to deal with that $20 
out of $16,000. That is the comparison for an average family.
  Mr. President, the thing that bothers me most about this is, we have 
to contemplate change. I will make one statement to you. If the New 
Madrid Fault that runs through the center of this country suffers an 
earthquake again--the last time it went off, the church bells rang in 
Boston because of an earthquake that took place going through the area 
west of the Mississippi. It changed the Mississippi River. It went 
backwards. It started a new channel which it has today. Can you imagine 
the amount of money we would have to have? That is why the Budget Act 
provides money for emergencies. If the Senator is trying to say you 
have to have 60 votes to overcome that, now, that is wrong. I hope we 
have them today, Mr. President. This is an emergency, and this money is 
needed by the Department of Defense, and the agencies need it.
  Thank you very much.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Does the Senator from Texas have any time remaining?
  Mr. GRAMM. I don't think I have any.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time is up.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, in conclusion, Senator Gramm makes a lot 
of good points. I believe we make some good points, also. I don't 
believe we ought to, at this stage of the budget year, adopt a point of 
order that will send us back to all of the Government programs, some of 
which many of us don't like, some of which many of us love, most of 
which are halfway through a year. I don't believe we ought to go back 
and have them cut 3.7 percent across the board.
  One thing about missing our budget targets--the so-called caps, Mr. 
President--the overwhelming percentage of supplemental appropriations 
have been for real emergencies, or emergencies that the President of 
the United States asked us for and in which we concurred. That is what 
the Budget Act says; caps are binding except for emergencies; emergency 
money is not subject to caps. That is what we have here.
  I hope we pass this appropriations bill today and fund what our 
military desperately needs to replenish the Kosovo war and replenish 
the military equipment and the time that was spent in Central America 
for the disaster that killed 10,000 of our neighbors in Central 
America. Those are predominant items in this bill. There are a lot of 
small ones that are difficult to justify, but in a real sense they 
don't really amount to the essence of this bill, which is emergencies 
we cannot contemplate.
  I yield back whatever time I have.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to offer my support to Senator 
Gramm's point of order against the supplemental appropriations 
conference report. As I have said before, we must provide the offsets 
for the nonemergency portions of this conference report. There is 
currently $13.3 billion of nonemergency spending that has not been 
offset, in violation of the Budget Act. I believe that Congress must 
protect the Social Security surplus and ensure that the money is there 
for future generations, not spend it on items that are clearly 
nonemergency items.
  We have been spending the last few years talking about fiscal 
discipline and the spending caps. Now that we have a surplus, Congress 
must resist the temptation to circumvent the regular appropriations 
process. Many of

[[Page 10369]]

the items contained in the report should have been considered by the 
appropriations subcommittees and debated on the floor of the Senate. 
Congress must allow the regular process to take place and not sneak 
things into appropriations bills.
  I tried to offer legislation that would provide those offsets, but an 
objection was raised. I want to ensure that Congress does the right 
thing and preserves the Social Security surplus. This is what the lock 
box legislation would prevent. This is what my legislation would 
prevent. I ask my colleagues not to waive the Budget Act.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I supported Senator Gramm's point of 
order because, while some of the spending programs in this bill may 
have merit, they should not be funded by Social Security Trust Fund 
balances. The point of order would not prevent these programs from 
being funded, but would force Congress to find adequate offsetting 
spending cuts to pay for those programs, or those spending cuts would 
be imposed automatically at the end of the fiscal year.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion 
to waive.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote 
take place at 15 minutes after 2, in 7 minutes, and I yield that time 
until the vote to the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter. The vote 
will take place at 2:15, in 7 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The vote 
will be at 2:15.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague, the 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for yielding me the time.
  I support the waiver on the point of order. The conference committee 
labored extensively and diligently to come up with the bill that is on 
the floor at the present time. It was a tough, contentious, 
argumentative conference. While not perfect, we conferees did the very 
best we could. At some points on Wednesday night of last week, it 
looked a little like ``Saturday Night Live,'' except it was Wednesday. 
C-SPAN was in the conference room recording and videocasting across the 
country to the few who might have been inclined to watch.
  Having been a party to that conference and having struggled through 
the issues of the necessity for military spending and the emergency 
programs that are involved in Hurricane Mitch and the tragedies in 
Oklahoma and Kansas--Kansas being my native State --the conference 
committee did the very best it could.
  This bill ought to be enacted in toto. Since that requires a waiver 
initially, that ought to be undertaken.
  We are really looking at broader, complex issues as we face the 
appropriations process for fiscal year 2000.
  We have recently seen the allocations in the House of 
Representatives. The allocations in the Senate are portending for very, 
very severe cuts.
  I chair the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services. The 
President's budget is slightly in excess of $90 billion. The allocation 
preliminarily marked up for my subcommittee is $80 billion. If that is 
to happen, we are going to have some really drastic, drastic cuts, cuts 
which the American people are going to have to evaluate as they are 
making their wishes known in our representative democracy to the 
Members of the House and Senate.
  We have budget caps. I would like to live within those budget caps. 
But to do that, we are going to be looking at these kinds of reductions 
in spending:
  On Safe and Drug-Free Schools, there would be a cut of $66 million 
from the Drug and Violence Prevention Program.
  Here we are today on a juvenile crime bill where we are trying to 
deal with the problems of juvenile crime, and at the same time we are 
looking at a budget which is going to cut funding of $66 million from 
the guts of that kind of a program--drug and violence prevention.
  We are looking at cuts on the Job Corps of $150 million from a $1.3 
billion program.
  When we talk about the Job Corps, here again we are talking about 
dealing with juveniles who may have gone astray.
  If you have a juvenile offender without a trade or a skill, a 
functional illiterate who leaves prison, that individual is going to go 
back to a life of crime, and is going to get the first gun he can put 
his hands on. And here we are talking about an enormous cut in the JOBS 
Program, which is designed specifically against that problem.
  We have enormous cuts in child care--$131 million in our efforts to 
whip the welfare program and send welfare mothers to work. Child care 
is indispensable.
  Special education--a favorite of all Senators--would be cut by $480 
million.
  The National Institutes of Health, the crown jewel of the Federal 
Government, perhaps the only jewel of the Federal Government--instead 
of having a $2 billion increase, which the Senate said we ought to have 
in the sense of the Senate, the National Institutes of Health would be 
reduced by $1.8 billion, which would result in approximately 6000 fewer 
grants at a time when medical research is on the verge of solving 
enormous problems of Parkinson's with the new stem cells estimated 
within the 5- to 10-year range.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Some of those who were called to 
order may be the ones who ought to be listening to what needs to happen 
in our appropriations process if we are to achieve the goals of our 
lofty rhetoric.
  But interrupting, the juvenile violence bill on the culture of 
violence we have programs which are designed to deal with that. The way 
we are heading, we are going to be cutting the heart out of the precise 
programs intended to deal with that culture of violence.
  These are issues which I hope the American people will understand so 
that their views may be felt in our representative democracy.
  We would all like to stay within the caps. We would all like to 
economize. But when we take a look at a $10 billion cut which hits 
labor, safety programs, and health and education, those are matters 
which have to be decided by this body reflecting the views of our 
constituency.
  I again thank the chairman for yielding the time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion. On 
this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will 
call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 70, nays 30, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 135 Leg.]

                                YEAS--70

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Gorton
     Grassley
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Mack
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Shelby
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--30

     Abraham
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Crapo
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Fitzgerald
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Kyl
     Lugar
     McCain
     Nickles
     Robb
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Smith (NH)
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Voinovich
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 70, the nays are 30.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.

[[Page 10370]]


  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. BYRD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if we could, for the orderly presentation 
of the balance of the argument on this bill, I inquire, how much time 
remains on each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska has 12 minutes. The 
Senator from West Virginia has 42 minutes. The Senator from North 
Dakota has 15 minutes.
  Mr. STEVENS. I ask the Senator from West Virginia if we can make a 
list of who is going to be recognized, because almost all the time is 
allocated, as I understand it. I yield 5 minutes of my time to the 
Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner. I reserve 7 minutes of the time. Can 
the Senator allocate his time?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes. Let me see how much time I have left. I have 45 
minutes promised.
  Mr. STEVENS. The Senator has 42 minutes, but I will give him 3 of my 
minutes.
  Mr. BYRD. All right.
  Mr. STEVENS. Please tell us what they are.
  Mr. BYRD. Senator Conrad, 5 minutes; Senator Landrieu, 5 minutes; 
Senator Harkin, 8 minutes; Senator Graham, 7\1/2\ minutes; Senator 
Dodd, 5 minutes; Senator Durbin, 5 minutes; Senator Wellstone, 5 
minutes; Senator Boxer, 5 minutes.
  Mr. STEVENS. Is the Senator reserving some time for himself?
  Mr. BYRD. Senator Dorgan has 15 minutes for himself outside this.
  Mr. STEVENS. Does that allocate fully the Senator's 42 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). It does.
  Mr. STEVENS. I urge the Senators to take their time starting now.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as I begin, I pay tribute to the Senator 
from Alaska, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Stevens, 
and the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, and other of my 
colleagues. I see the Senator from Mississippi on the floor, Mr. 
Cochran, and so many others who in that conference spent hour after 
hour, day after day hammering out a conference agreement. Especially 
the chairman and the ranking member. I recall one evening sitting there 
at 1 in the morning, and they were still there exhibiting the kind of 
patience that is quite extraordinary in order to resolve all of these 
many issues.
  Much of the discussion was about the victims of Hurricane Mitch, the 
responsibility to respond to our neighbors in this hemisphere who have 
been hit with such a terrible disaster, the military needs with respect 
to the airstrikes in Kosovo, and the prosecution of that conflict, the 
needs for spring planting loans in farm country, and a range of other 
issues.
  I support many of those areas, but I am not going to support the 
conference report because I believe, as I indicated in the conference 
committee, that if there are resources above that which was requested 
for the Defense Department for the prosecution of this conflict in 
Kosovo, if there were $2 billion or $3 billion or $5 billion or $6 
billion more available, then I believe we should have a better debate 
on the priorities of the use of those funds. I, for one, believe we 
have an urgent, urgent need in rural America to provide a better safety 
net to give family farmers a chance to make it through this price 
depression. I believe that is the priority.
  We had a vote in the conference on the Senate side, and we lost 14-14 
on a proposal that would have added nearly $5.5 billion for some price 
supports to build a bridge across those price valleys during these 
troubled times in rural America. We lost 14-14. I wish we had won.
  Nearly $5.5 billion to $6 billion was added to this package for 
defense spending that was not requested. It is not that the money is 
not available, it is that a different priority was attached to the 
spending of this money.
  I will tell you why I feel so strongly about this. I come from rural 
America. I come from a small town. We raised some cattle and horses. 
Last Thursday, my brother called a florist in a little town called 
Mott, ND. Mott, ND, is 14 miles from my hometown of Regent. Regent has 
300 people and Mott is a bigger town and always was, even when I was 
growing up. Mott is about 800 people.
  My brother called the florist on the Main Street of Mott. There is 
one little florist shop. He said: My brother and I want to order 
flowers to be delivered to the cemetery at Regent for our mother and 
father for their graves on Memorial Day. We do that each year, and we 
also do so on Mother's Day and Father's Day.
  My brother said he told the woman who runs and owns the floral shop: 
By the way, I forgot to call you this year on Mother's Day. I was going 
to have you deliver some flowers for Mother's Day.
  Incidentally, this floral shop always apologizes when we call because 
she says: We have to charge you a $2 delivery fee. It is 28 miles.
  My brother said: I forgot to call you this year to deliver flowers 
for our mother's grave on Mother's Day, but I would like you to deliver 
them on Memorial Day.
  The woman who owns the flower shop said: That's all right, we 
delivered some on Mother's Day because we know you call every year and 
we thought you just forgot. Later on, we were going to send you a bill, 
and if you paid it, that was all right, and if you did not, that's all 
right, too.
  That probably does not happen across America, but it happens in my 
part of the country, in rural America, where family farmers and Main 
Street merchants work together in a lifestyle that is really quite 
wonderful. People do things, people help each other, but there is no 
amount of help in farm country these days that can reach out and say to 
family farmers who are struggling to make a living: We will help you 
with the price of your grain. We know you are trucking that grain to 
the elevator these days and are told there is no value; we will help 
you.
  That is not what is happening. In fact, they are going to the 
elevators today to find out the grain market has collapsed and they are 
getting Depression-era prices, at the same time the current farm 
program, freedom to farm, is pulling the rug out from under these 
farmers with respect to the safety net. We need to help.
  If we want family farmers in our future, we need to help. If we want 
to preserve this kind of lifestyle, yes, of family farms and Main 
Street of our small towns, we need to do something to help.
  I want to read a few things from Ted Koppel's program ``Nightline'' 
on Tuesday, May 18. They did a program on the farm crisis. They pointed 
out--while all of the good news comes to the Washington Post and the 
New York Times, just open them up and read all the wonderful news, our 
economy is growing, unemployment is down, inflation is down, virtually 
everything else is up, a lot of good news--but the farm belt does not 
experience that good news. Family farmers are in desperate trouble and 
small towns are shrinking. The rural economy is in desperate trouble.
  Ted Koppel on his program had farmers and others talking. I will 
share some of that with my colleagues:

       Here's what many farmers see happening, the prices they can 
     sell their crops for falling and predicted to stay low. . . . 
     wheat prices are down 42 percent.
  Now, ask yourself, how would you feel or your family feel if you had 
a 42-percent cut in your income? Would you feel that the economy is 
doing real well?

       Corn prices are down 38 percent. Oats and barley down 32 
     percent.

  In constant dollars, these are prices that we received in the family 
farm in the Great Depression.
  At the start of the program, Ted Koppel interviewed a fellow. He 
talks

[[Page 10371]]

about a guy who works with farm families, tries to help them. Willard 
Brunell said:

       I think the scariest one was back a few years when I got a 
     phone call from a farm wife [who] said my husband just left 
     with a gun and he's driving away. He said he's going to his 
     tractor. [He said] I was there with him 20 minutes and it was 
     quite a ways away. I got him out of his tractor. He sat in my 
     little car and we spent two hours in that car trying to talk 
     him down and he told me exactly how he was doing, going to do 
     it. He had the gun with him. . . .

  They get more than 50 calls a month in this fellow's church talking 
about that kind of desperation.
  In Minnesota and North Dakota, where Ted Koppel's program was taped, 
is some of the richest farmland in the entire world. Last year, one in 
every three farmers grew a crop that cost more to produce than they 
could sell it for. For many, it was the fourth, fifth year that 
happened.
  Lowell Nelson was interviewed on this program. He is one of those 
farmers.

       He was born, raised and had his own sons on this land, a 
     fertile 400 acres he bought from his brothers 35 years ago 
     after his dad died. But this spring [is the first spring] 
     he's not planting anything.

  He cannot. He is ruined. He said:

       Well, I had been putting it off [this decision] for quite 
     [a long] time and I had gotten a lot of urging, you know, 
     from my wife to make a decision and I had just been putting 
     it off. It's a decision I didn't want to make.

  His wife said:

       One night he was out in the field and all of a sudden 
     called me on the [shortwave] radio and wanted me to come over 
     just to ride with him [on the tractor] and I knew something 
     was wrong and it was shortly thereafter that he decided he'd 
     better get some medical help.

  The interviewer asked Mr. Nelson:

       How badly did you scare yourself?

  He said:

       Real bad.

  The interviewer asked:

       What do you mean?

  He said:

       Thinking that it may be better off not being here.

  The reason I mention the ``Nightline'' program, they interviewed 
these folks. These are real people in desperate trouble--just in 
desperate trouble. We have a country whose economy is growing and 
thriving and rising--full of good news. The stock market hits record 
highs. Everybody says this is a terrific economy. Then you drive out 
down a country road, and talk to a family who has struggled for 20, 30, 
50 years, and you see what is happening.
  A big guy stood up at a meeting I had one day. He had a big beard, a 
tall fellow, a strong fellow. He said: You know, my granddad farmed my 
farm. My dad farmed it for 40 years. And I have farmed it for 23 years. 
Then his eyes teared up and his chin began to quiver, and he could not 
continue anymore. When he finally got the words out, he said: And I 
can't keep going anymore. I'm broke, so I have to sell the farm.
  That may not matter to some, but it matters to me.
  A woman wrote me a couple of weeks ago and said: We had our auction 
sale on our farm, and my 17-year-old son would not get out of bed to 
come downstairs. He refused to come down and help at the auction sale 
because he was so heartbroken. He knew he would never be able to do 
what his dad did. He knew he would never be able to farm that farm. She 
could not get him out of bed he was so heartbroken.
  I tell you all of that because we pass a supplemental bill and we 
say: All right, on defense, the Defense Department needs $6.1 billion 
to prosecute this war in Kosovo. We must restore munitions and planes 
and do other things. And I am for all of that. I support all of that. I 
support our men and women in uniform and support this mission.
  But then we also say there is another $5 or $6 billion we want to add 
to that. And I say, if there is $5 or $6 billion around that can be 
used in this discretionary way, then I want the priority to say: We 
want to continue to invest in America's family farmers.
  You think this country is going to be a better, stronger place when 
we don't have family farmers left? When corporations farm America from 
California to Maine, you think food prices are not going to go up? And 
it is more than just farming. These folks contribute in every way to 
their community. They contribute to a way of life that we are losing in 
this country. Yet, somehow, when we talk about all of these fancy 
economic theories, nobody talks about the family as an economic unit--
nobody.
  The economic unit in this country is the large corporation. They are 
all getting married, as you know. There is all this corporate romance 
going on all over America. Every day you wake up and see a new couple 
of corporations have decided to get hitched and get bigger.
  What about the economic unit that really matters in the center of 
this country in America's farm belt that grows America's food? That 
makes America's communities strong? That helps build America's 
churches? That puts life on main streets on Saturday night? What about 
those economic units? What about family farmers?
  Last year, we passed an emergency bill. About half of that money is 
not yet in the hands of family farmers. It will be there in a matter of 
weeks, I guess, through the USDA, through this formula. But it is $1.5 
billion short of what was promised. We should have at least added that 
to this piece of legislation. We should have at least added some 
additional support to say to family farmers, when prices collapse at 
Depression-level prices, we are going to reach out a helping hand, 
extend a helping hand to you to say you matter to this country.
  We had an opportunity to do that and did not. A 14-to-14 vote, and 
how I regret losing that vote--but in this business, in this system, 
you win some and you lose some. My hope is that those who felt it not 
appropriate, those who felt it was not the time to respond to this need 
now will, a week from now or a month from now, decide that it is time 
to respond.
  This is not Democrat and Republican. We have had bad farm programs 
under all kinds of administrations--Democratic administrations, 
Republican administrations. I want the farmers to get the price from 
the marketplace as well. That would be my fervent hope. But when the 
marketplace collapses, we must help.
  Let me make a final point. I think it is fascinating that at a time 
when somehow the economic unit of the family, with respect to 
agriculture, does not seem to matter, that which the family farm 
produces in this country is used by everybody else to make record 
profits--the railroads make record profits hauling it; the cereal 
manufacturers make record profits putting air in it and puffing it up 
and putting it on the grocery store shelves and calling it puffed 
wheat--the farmers go broke. The manufacturers get rich. Or they sell a 
steer for a pittance or sell a hog for $20, an entire hog. You can buy 
a hog for $20 at the bottom of the hog market, and then go to the store 
and buy a ham that cost you $30 or $40. Buy a small ham at twice the 
price you bought the entire hog for.
  Something is fundamentally wrong, and farmers know it. So everybody 
who touches these products make record profits and are getting bigger 
and richer; and the folks who start the tractor and plow the ground and 
plant the seed, and then hope all summer it does not hail, the insects 
don't come, that it rains enough and doesn't rain too much, and that 
they, by the grace of God, might get a crop, wonder whether they will 
be able to sell it in the fall and make any kind of profit.
  So I cannot vote for this conference report. But having said that, I 
deeply admire the work of the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from 
West Virginia and others who participated in it. The priorities, in my 
judgment, needed to include the priorities I have just discussed with 
respect to helping family farmers, and they do not, regrettably.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of this 
conference report. I say to my good friend from

[[Page 10372]]

North Dakota, I had oriented myself to one set of remarks, but I 
listened carefully to his, as I frequently do. He certainly speaks from 
the heart about his people. I remember the floods that his State 
experienced years ago. I feel as if I am on the farm, the family farm, 
with him. And you talked about that family.
  So while we may be at odds on this bill, I want to take the same 
theme and talk about a family. I want to talk about a military family. 
This bill has in it provisions for a military family.
  I want to talk about that wife here in the United States, or in other 
places of the world, with their children, whose husband is flying an 
aircraft right at this minute in harm's way. It could be the reverse, 
because women are flying aircraft in harm's way in this conflict over 
the Balkan region, over Iraq.
  Mr. President, this country is at war. And for that wife at home, war 
is hell. For that individual in the cockpit, war is hell.
  The purpose of this emergency legislation is to provide the dollars 
necessary to alleviate to some extent the strain on the families and 
those in the cockpits.
  Every Member of the Senate has young men and women involved in the 
conflict in Kosovo or over the general Balkan region or over Iraq or 
standing guard, as they are, in other far, remote areas of the world to 
protect freedom. That is what this bill is all about.
  Let me add one other feature, and then I will yield the floor, 
because many are anxious to speak.
  Each year, the Department of Defense plans for the next year and the 
year following as to how many aviators, for example, they will train to 
keep the cockpits filled. Last year, the number of pilots we had to 
keep to maintain the flying status of sufficient men and women fell by 
1,641. That number of young men and women trained as aviators decided 
they no longer could remain on active duty and would return to civilian 
opportunities. Many of those decisions were dictated by their concern 
for their families. But stop to think of what it costs every American 
taxpayer to replace that individual in that airplane, to train the 
number of new recruits to be pilots or navigators or to take to sea in 
those combat airplanes.
  I ran that calculation. It costs roughly between $2 million to $6 
million, depending on the type of aircraft, to train a man or a woman 
to become an aviator, $2 to $6 million. If you multiply the average of 
that times 1,641, it is $9 billion just to replace the aviators. That 
same drain on trained manpower, womanpower in the military occurs in 
other branches of the service where perhaps their training is not as 
costly to the taxpayer but $9 billion just to close the gap for those 
flying aircraft.
  Let us think about the families, as my good friend from North Dakota 
described, the farm community. Let us talk about the military, what 
those wives and their children, what those aviators are doing in harm's 
way today. They are carrying out the orders of the President of the 
United States, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. This Nation 
is but one of 19 nations locked together in the first combat operation 
in the 50-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  This is a critical moment for families, be they farm families or 
military families.
  Mr. President, as I said, support the emergency supplemental 
appropriations bill now before the Senate. As chairman of the Committee 
on Armed Services, I join with my colleague and close working partner 
on defense matters, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, to 
urge all our colleagues to support our military forces by voting for 
this bill.
  I support this bill for one simple reason--we are at war. As we 
speak, we have military forces engaged in combat--going in harm's way--
in the skies over the Balkans and Iraq. Whether or not there is 
agreement on how these risk-taking operations are being prosecuted is 
not now the question. We must support our military forces who are 
risking their lives daily to carry out the missions they have been 
assigned.
  Mr. President, the conflict in Kosovo has been ongoing since March 
24, when the NATO use of force began. Since that time our pilots and 
the pilots of our allies have flown thousands of combat missions 
against Milosevic's military machine. We have already spent billions of 
dollars--on both aircraft operations and munitions--in support of 
Operation Allied Force. These funds are now coming out of the readiness 
accounts of our military services. Without this supplemental, there 
would be further and unacceptable degradation of the readiness of our 
forces.
  The conference agreement provides $10.9 billion for defense, 
including $2.2 billion above the President's request for aircraft 
flying hours, spare parts, depot maintenance and munitions, including 
sophisticated precision-guided missiles and bombs, which allow our 
pilots to be more effective at reduced risk--both to them and to 
innocent civilians on the ground.
  Mr. President, I know that some of my colleagues have expressed 
concern regarding the funds provided in this bill for pay raises, pay 
table reform and retirement reform. I firmly believe that all my 
colleagues would agree that we have very serious problems of recruiting 
and retention in our military services. I believe the problems are of 
such magnitude--indeed, we have a hemorrhaging of skilled personnel 
leaving our military--that this situation qualifies as an emergency. As 
an example, both the Army and the Navy failed to meet their 1998 
recruiting goals and the Army, Navy, and the Air Force project that 
they will not meet their recruiting goals for 1999.
  Last year, 1641 more pilots left the service than the Department of 
Defense projected. It costs about $6 million to train a single pilot. 
The cost to replace these 1641 pilots is more than $9 billion. We must 
act to stop this hemmorhage of pilots and other skilled military 
personnel. We must send a signal now that we in the Congress intend to 
take care of our military personnel and their families.
  I know that there are Senators who are concerned about this process, 
and there are Senators who disagree with some of the items in this 
emergency supplemental. I share some of these concerns. But, Mr. 
President, as I stated earlier, our Nation is at war. We can argue the 
process and our other concerns at another time.
  I believe that now is the time for the Senate to show its support for 
our men and women in uniform who are, as we speak, carrying out their 
assigned missions under difficult and dangerous conditions. I will vote 
for this bill, and I strongly urge my colleagues to do likewise.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator from West Virginia. I appreciate 
his work on this very important measure for our country at this time.
  I was here in the Chamber and got to hear the remarkable speech of 
the distinguished Senator from North Dakota. He is absolutely correct. 
There is not enough money in this supplemental appropriations bill to 
address the devastation that we are experiencing throughout rural 
America. My State in particular has been hard hit because of weather-
related disasters, the worst drought in over a century occurred last 
year.
  It is my hope that in the months ahead we will all, on both sides of 
this aisle, Democrats and Republicans, be more mindful of the 
tremendous difficulty that rural America is experiencing and come up 
with additional and real ways of helping that lead us to a more market-
oriented approach but recognize that there are some safety nets and 
some bridges that need to be put in place that are not there yet, and 
it is causing great pain throughout America.
  However, I want to point out that in this supplemental, partly 
because of the fine work by the Senator from North Dakota and others, 
we have added a half billion dollars for much-needed farm relief. It is 
not enough, but it is better than nothing. Farmers

[[Page 10373]]

in my State in Louisiana and in many States around the Nation are 
depending on us today to vote favorably toward this measure and to send 
them this help. Every day in my office the phone rings with farmers 
needing their emergency assistance that was promised to them last year 
but not forthcoming.
  It is estimated from our agriculture commissioner that there are over 
300 to 400 farmers that are just barely holding on, waiting for these 
checks and this assistance so that they can make future plans.
  It is important. It is not enough money in this bill, but it is 
better than what it started out to be. Because of the leadership, a-
half-billion-dollars has been added. I am happy to say that a great 
deal of that money will go to help Louisiana and other States in our 
area.
  This package includes much-needed emergency assistance to farmers in 
Louisiana and other agriculture States still reeling from last year's 
extreme weather conditions.
  Mr. President, I will never forget the faces of farmers in my home 
State as they showed me acre after acre of scorched row crops, or how 
shocking it was to see the horrible cracks and craters in what was once 
fertile soil.
  This package, Mr. President, includes additional assistance to 
replenish the fiscal year 1999 emergency loan account, which has been 
depleted due to the severity of this crisis.
  Hundreds have received help but, right now more than 300 farm 
families in Louisiana are waiting for their emergency loan applications 
to come through. And although more assistance may still be needed, 
those loan payments are crucial to help our farmers stay in business.
  Mr. President, hurricane victims in Central America are also waiting 
on this emergency package. In fact, they've been waiting for more than 
6 months.
  The winds and rains of Hurricane Mitch claimed the lives of more than 
10,000 people, and left an estimated 1 million homeless. It completely 
wiped out hundreds of schoolhouses, bridges, roadways, and churches. 
But after visiting Honduras and Nicaragua, I can assure you the numbers 
fail to convey the full extent of the devastation.
  Besides the obvious humanitarian reasons, helping our Central 
American neighbors recover serves the long-term interests not only of 
the United States but the entire Western Hemisphere.
  Within the past few decades, we have seen Central America move from 
conflict to peace, from authoritarian governments to democracies, from 
closed to open economies. Now this progress is at risk.
  In the past, the United States has played a strong role in 
encouraging economic development in Central America.
  Nearly four decades ago, President Kennedy traveled to Costa Rica to 
announce his ``Alliance for Progress'' to promote the expansion of 
agriculture exports throughout the region.
  Since then we have pursued a variety of other measures designed to 
help these countries diversify their economies and boost exports.
  While these policies have not always been successful, the United 
States has always shown its willingness to help lift these economically 
depressed nations to a more prosperous standard of living.
  The point is--the United States has a long history of helping our 
Central American friends move further down the path of development. 
Now--perhaps--that friendship is being tested by the devastation that 
has decimated their towns and villages and the commerce that flows 
through them.
  But, as we all know, friendships become stronger when they are 
tested. And I am glad that the United States is responding like good 
friends should.
  I am also particularly pleased that this supplemental package will be 
used in part to addresses the problem of permanent housing in Central 
America.
  During a historic meeting--hosted by Senators Lott and Coverdell--
held in the LBJ Room several months ago, four Central American 
Presidents made it clear that permanent housing is among the highest 
priorities for their recovery. The numbers say it best: Mitch destroyed 
700,000 homes, severely damaged 50,000 and left 35,000 people in 
temporary housing--tents, schools, churches.
  I will be working--along with other colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle--to see that we do all we can in the area of housing in Central 
America.
  Helping Central America rebuild is of special concern in Louisiana. 
With one of the largest Honduran communities outside Honduras, New 
Orleans is sometimes referred to as ``the third largest Honduran 
city.''
  Brought to our State through trade with the port, these enterprising 
people have been a source of strength to our community for many years 
now. So this package is of utmost importance to them and so many others 
back home.
  Before yielding the floor, Mr. President, let me also express my 
support for the increase in military spending in this supplemental.
  Over the last decade, we have seen a slow, steady decline in the 
recruitment and retention of our military men and women. We have 
allowed the disparities between military and private sector to grow so 
large that our service men and women are being lured away.
  For instance, B-52 pilots at Barksdale Airforce Base in Shreveport, 
LA, can go right down the street to the Shreveport International 
Airport and sign on with a commercial airline with better salaries, 
pensions, and benefits.
  It is imperative that we reverse this trend. Mr. President, my hope 
is that these military spending increases will mark a good step forward 
in helping us recruit and retain the best and the brightest.
  In closing, let me say again how important this Emergency 
Supplemental Package is to farmers in Louisiana and other rural 
communities in America. And as we consider the interests of our Nation 
and this hemisphere--and the future of the fragile democracies in 
them--on the edge of this new century, let us make sure we honor our 
ties of friendship with the nations of Central America.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from West 
Virginia and my leader on the Appropriations Committee, and my friend, 
Senator Stevens from Alaska, who is not present on the floor; he is 
also the chairman of this important committee.
  You can measure the values of a nation by the way it spends its 
money. If you take a look at this bill, you will see that the values of 
America are strong in many areas. We are prepared to spend $6 billion 
to make sure that the men and women in uniform in Kosovo have the very 
best. Were it my son or daughter, I would demand nothing less. I am 
sure we all feel the same.
  We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars for humanitarian 
relief. Isn't it typically American that no matter what our sacrifice, 
we are willing to help others, whether it is the refugees in Kosovo or 
those suffering from the hurricane in Central America.
  Many other good things are in this bill. I was happy to be part of an 
effort to provide financial assistance to those who have been in the 
pork production industry and have been hard hit during the last year. 
Senator Bond and I have worked for $145 million to try to help some of 
these farmers to face the toughest times in their lives. Net farm 
income in Illinois is down 78 percent. Farmland in Illinois is some of 
the best in the country, yet farmers have seen this dramatic decline in 
income. With all these good things in the bill, it would seem fairly 
obvious to vote for it without reservation. I wish I could. I plan on 
voting for it, but with serious reservations. Let me tell you what they 
relate to.
  When this bill came from the White House, the President asked for $6 
billion for military and humanitarian assistance, and then the House 
added $5 billion in military spending which the President didn't ask 
for. Among other things in this bill is $500 million for military 
construction around the world that is not authorized, not requested. It 
is put in here.

[[Page 10374]]

  When I went to the conference with Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens, 
the Senate side of the aisle said we are going to propose an amendment 
that I offered--$265 million for American schools. You have heard of 
all the things I have mentioned. There is not a penny in this bill for 
American schools--nothing. Are schools on our minds? You bet they are. 
Cities like Conyers, GA; Littleton, CO; Jonesboro, AR; West Paducah, 
KY; Pearl, MS; Springfield, OR. The sad roster of schools in America 
that have been hit by school violence continues to grow.
  I produced an amendment for $265 million for two things--not radical 
new suggestions but tried and true things such as school counselors so 
that kids who are troubled and have a problem have somebody to turn to, 
and afterschool programs so that kids are supervised in a positive, 
safe learning environment. The House conferees rejected that. Not a 
penny for schools, not $265 million. Not a penny for schools, but $5 
billion more in military spending than this President requested.
  Where are our values? Where are our priorities? If our priorities are 
not in the schoolrooms and classrooms of America, if they are not with 
our children, where are our values?
  I salute what is in this bill. Much is good. But it pains me greatly 
to stand on the floor of the Senate and say that in a conference 
committee only a few days ago the idea of sending money to America's 
schools for America's schoolchildren was soundly rejected by the House 
conferees. That makes no sense whatsoever.
  We will talk in the juvenile justice bill about how to reduce crime 
in America, how to reduce violence, and we should. We will talk about 
gun control, and I support it. But there is more to it. We have to be 
able to reach out to those kids who show up at school every day with a 
world of hurt, a world of problems, kids who probably see school as the 
only shelter, the only nurturing environment, in their lives. These 
kids need a helping hand, and with this helping hand they can be better 
students and better Americans.
  We missed an opportunity in this bill by denying one penny for those 
schools. We missed that opportunity. I am sorry to say that this bill 
does not include it. But I promise you this. As long as I serve in the 
Senate, I will join with those in the Senate and, I hope, others in the 
House, who come to the realization that there is no greater priority 
than our children.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Virginia, Mr. Robb.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from West 
Virginia and the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. Like 
our other colleagues, I commend him and the distinguished Senator from 
Alaska for their hard work on this particular proposal we will be 
voting on today.
  I regret that I am not able to support this particular bill because 
there is so much in it that I do support. I clearly recognize the 
critical need for additional spending for our military. Indeed, we are 
not spending enough on our military today, even with the emergency 
spending that is legitimately included in this bill for the crisis in 
Kosovo. We are going to have to spend even more if we are going to meet 
our commitments around the world and provide the national security that 
we're expected to provide--and indeed that we profess to be able to 
provide. We are not spending enough money on ships, or planes, or 
ammunition, or on quality of life improvements for members of our Armed 
Services. We are going to have to address those needs, even beyond what 
is provided in this bill.
  I am embarrassed by the fact that we're just now getting around to 
funding the emergencies that occurred as a result of Hurricane Mitch, 
and the needs of our farmers are acute and critical. There is simply no 
excuse for the delay in providing the emergency funding in these areas. 
The concern I have is with the process. We cannot continue to do 
business this way. If we determine that this is an emergency spending 
measure, we ought to make sure that what we are funding are true 
emergencies and take care of our other priorities through the normal 
authorization and appropriations process.
  We have the promise of a surplus. We ought not to abandon the fiscal 
responsibility that brought us that promise and has given us the chance 
to make real progress on debt reduction. We should not use the fact 
that we have our men and women in harm's way overseas as an excuse to 
go on a spending binge here at home. Many of the projects in this bill 
have merit. If it is an emergency, it ought to be in this bill. And we 
ought to take out the nonemergency spending, pass a clean bill, and get 
the emergency spending where it is needed, especially to our military.
  In short, Mr. President, providing substantial emergency funding for 
our troops in Kosovo is the right thing to do. Providing long-overdue 
emergency funding for the victims of Hurricane Mitch is the right thing 
to do. And providing desperately needed emergency funding for our 
nation's farmers is the right thing to do. But combining these 
legitimate emergency requests with billions of dollars of nonemergency 
spending--no matter how meritorious the individual project--is the 
wrong way to do it.
  With that, I yield back any time I may have. With great regret, I 
announce that I am unable to support the bill, although I fully support 
many of the priorities the bill includes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 7\1/2\ minutes to Mr. Graham.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that Colton 
Campbell be afforded floor privileges during the duration of my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I will reluctantly support this 
legislation because it contains important issues. It contains the 
funding for our troops in the Balkans. It contains the funds to meet 
our humanitarian responsibilities to our neighbors in Central America 
and the Caribbean. It also retains a provision--which I know the 
Presiding Officer has strongly supported--to clearly state that the 
funds the States secured through their tobacco settlements will be 
funds to be managed, administered, and prioritized at the State level.
  Mr. President, I share many of the concerns of my colleague from 
Virginia. I share those concerns because what we are doing is to chip 
away at the financial security of 38 million Americans--38 million 
Americans who receive Social Security income. Forty percent of those 38 
million Americans would have fallen below the poverty line but for 
Social Security.
  Why is this relevant to this debate? It is relevant because we are on 
the verge of draining an additional $12 billion from the Social 
Security fund through this legislation. We had three choices when we 
started this debate. One choice was to do the tough thing, to 
reprioritize our spending, to say that if it is important that we spend 
money on our humanitarian needs in Central America and the Caribbean, 
then let us reduce spending somewhere else.
  I am pleased to say that for that account we in fact have done so.
  We had another choice, which was to say let's raise revenue. If we 
can't find an area where we think it is appropriate to reduce spending, 
then let's be prepared to pay for this emergency.
  Third, we could say let's use the accumulated surplus that we have, 
which today is a 100-percent surplus generated by the Social Security 
trust fund. As to the $12 billion in this legislation, we have elected 
the third course of action.
  Mr. President, this is not the first time we have done so. In fact, 
it is not the first time in the last 8 months that we have done so.
  Last October, in the waning hours of the budget negotiations, 
Congress

[[Page 10375]]

passed a $532 billion omnibus appropriations bill.
  Tucked into that bill was $21.4 billion in so-called emergency 
spending.
  The effect of that designation then--as it is today--was to relieve 
Congress of the necessity of finding some other reprioritized spending 
to eliminate in order to pay for this emergency.
  But because of the emergency designation, the $21.4 billion in 
October could be approved without offsets, and because of the emergency 
designation today, we will approve an additional $12 billion of 
expenditure without offsets.
  Let's look at the numbers.
  In 1998, Social Security was $99 billion. The first use of that money 
was to offset $27 billion in deficit in the rest of the Federal budget. 
An additional $3 billion was used to pay for emergency outlays, leaving 
us with a total surplus not of $99 billion but of $69 billion.
  This year, 1999, we are projecting a $127 billion surplus.
  Again, we have used $3 billion to offset deficits elsewhere in the 
budget, $13 billion for emergency outlays, and we are about to spend 
another $14.6 billion for emergencies, reducing our surplus from $127 
billion down to $96 billion. And for the year 2000, we have already 
carried forward some of the emergency spending from 1999.
  Again, we will be reducing the Social Security surplus by $10 
billion. This is from where we are paying for these emergencies.
  Mr. President, the repetitive misuse of the emergency process is 
continuing to erode the Social Security trust fund. This misuse is done 
in a manner that precludes most Members of Congress from any meaningful 
role in what has traditionally been accepted as emergencies. We have 
been denied the opportunity to participate in a determination as to 
whether the proposed emergency expenditure met the standards of being 
sudden, urgent and unforeseen needs, which is the standard that has 
traditionally been used for emergencies.
  The same Congress that claimed to be saving the surplus for Social 
Security--committed to a ``lockbox'' for Social Security--is again 
actively participating in raids on the Social Security trust fund 
through the back door.
  Willie Sutton once was asked, ``Why do you rob banks?'' His answer: 
``That's where the money is.''
  We may manufacture the strongest vault to protect the Social Security 
surplus from Willie Sutton. But if we let Jesse James continue to steal 
the money on the train before it gets to the bank, we will have the 
same result. The money will not be there for our and future generations 
of Social Security beneficiaries.
  Social Security is a federally mandated program. We have a legal 
obligation to our children and grandchildren to secure the surplus for 
its intended purpose--Social Security. We must assure that the budget 
surplus is not squandered on questionable emergency items in the 
future.
  Mr. President, with your support and that of Senator Snowe of Maine, 
we have introduced legislation which has as its objective to establish 
permanent safeguards that will assure that nonemergency items are 
subject to careful scrutiny and not inserted into emergency spending 
bills to circumvent the normal legislative process.
  I urge our colleagues' support for this legislation.
  Mr. President, as we adjust to the welcome reality of budget 
surpluses--after decades of annual deficits and burgeoning additions to 
the national debt--we must never forget how easily this valuable asset 
can be squandered.
  For too long, the Federal Government treated the budget like a credit 
card with an unlimited spending limit.
  Private citizens are warned against falsely dialing 911. Congress 
should exercise the same restraint in using its emergency authority.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an 
additional 10 minutes be authorized for debate on this measure, and 
that 8 of those minutes be under the control of the Senator from West 
Virginia, Mr. Byrd, and 2 minutes be under the control of this Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.
  Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Iowa, Mr. Harkin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, let me just say that being for or against 
this bill is basically a tossup, as far as I am concerned. It is one of 
those 51-49 types of propositions. So that is how I am going to come 
down on the 51-percent side, and vote for the conference report.
  First of all, this is not a time to indicate anything less than full 
support for our troops in Kosovo and the surrounding areas.
  There is also in this conference report some much-needed farm 
assistance and disaster assistance for the United States and Central 
America. However, I must say there are parts of the bill to which I 
register my stiff opposition.
  First, this bill forfeits the opportunity to ensure that tobacco 
settlement money is used to fight smoking and to promote health--that 
is not in here. In fact, just the opposite.
  Second, the bill provides only a fraction of critically and urgently 
needed farm assistance. Let me just talk for a moment about that 
subject.
  This is an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. We take care 
of emergencies in Central America and other places. But one of the very 
biggest emergencies facing us today is the emergency in American 
agriculture. Export prospects are dismal. Exports for this year are 
projected to fall to $49 billion, which is a 19-percent decline from 
1996. Asia still hasn't recovered. Net farm income for major 
commodities could drop to $17 billion compared to an average of $23 
billion a year for the previous 5 years. Net farm income for major 
field crops will be 27 percent below what it was for the last 5 years.
  It is true that there is some farm assistance in this package, and I 
was pleased to work with my colleagues to get it in the bill. But it is 
not enough, and it is too late.
  The White House sent up the supplemental appropriations request for 
additional farm loan funds and Farm Service Agency funding on February 
26. Now here we are just getting to it, nearly three months later.
  This money was critically and urgently needed for the planting 
season. Now we are just getting around to it, even though the planting 
season is well over halfway past. The farm assistance that we have in 
the bill is good. Sure, an aspirin is good, if you have a major illness 
and you have some pain. But it doesn't get to the real root cause of 
it, and neither does the assistance in this bill. It falls far short of 
what is needed.
  I offered an amendment in the conference committee to address the 
deepening crisis in the farm economy. The amendment addressed a range 
of farm income problems in the crop, livestock and dairy sectors, and 
it dealt with agriculture's economic crisis around our nation, not just 
in one or two regions. Regrettably, that amendment failed on a 14-14 
tie vote of Senate conferees.
  The amendment lacked just one vote. So we will be back again on 
whatever measures we can get up on the floor this year to provide 
critically and urgently needed economic assistance to our farm families 
and our rural communities.
  All I can say is that when it came to the issue of Kosovo, we were 
willing to meet our obligations and respond to the emergency. In fact, 
the conferees had no trouble coming up with $5 billion more than what 
was asked for in military spending. But we couldn't come up with the 
money needed to help our beleaguered farmers and the rural economy.
  Finally, I also want to say a word about offsets for this bill. For 
the small portion of the bill that is offset, there was a beeline to go 
after programs that are vital to the most vulnerable in our society: 
food stamps and housing. Hunger and poverty remain persistent and 
pervasive problems in

[[Page 10376]]

our society. Now we know these rescissions are not genuine offsets, 
since there are not outlay reductions associated with them. So perhaps 
there is no harm, but clearly these offsets should not lay the 
groundwork or create a precedent for future rescissions that actually 
reduce program benefits.
  Again, on the whole, I will vote for the conference report.
  I just want to register my objections to two major portions of the 
conference report, farm assistance and tobacco, which I consider to be 
totally inadequate.
  I yield the floor and yield the remainder of my time.


               needed support for the pan am 103 families

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a significant provision in the 1999 
Kosovo supplemental appropriations bill will enable the Justice 
Department to pay for the travel expenses of the Pan Am 103 families 
who wish to attend the upcoming Lockerbie bombing trial in The 
Netherlands this summer. Existing law prevents the Department from 
using federal funds to pay for this travel.
  Under this provision, the Justice Department's Office of Victims of 
Crime will be able to use an existing reserve fund to pay for the 
transportation costs, lodging, and food at government per diem rates 
for immediate family members of the Pan Am 103 victims. The Department 
also plans to establish an 800 number and a web site to keep family 
members informed during the trial. In addition, the Department plans to 
establish a compassion center, staffed with counselors, at the base in 
The Netherlands where the trial will be held, in order to help the 
families cope with the emotional strains of the trial.
  The families of the victims of this terrorist atrocity have been 
waiting for more than ten years for justice. They have suffered the 
deep pain of losing their loved ones, and that pain has been compounded 
by the Libyan Government's refusal for many years to surrender the 
suspects accused of the bombing. Now the suspects are finally in 
custody and the trial will begin soon. We can never erase the pain of 
the loss that the families have suffered, but we can enable them to 
attend the trial and see that justice is finally done. I commend the 
House and Senate conferees for including this important provision to 
help these long-suffering families.
  Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, in the past, American presidents have 
argued that a congressional appropriation for U.S. military action 
abroad constitutes a congressional authorization for the military 
action. I will not vote for an authorization of money that may be 
construed as authorizing, or encouraging the expansion of, the 
President's military operations in Kosovo. I will oppose the 
appropriation of almost $11 billion for a war I have consistently 
spoken out against.
  On March 23, I voted against President Clinton's decision to launch 
the air campaign in Yugoslovia. On May 4, I voted against a resolution 
that would have given the President blanket authority to expand the 
operation. To date, I have not been convinced that this war is 
necessary to protect a vital national security interest, and I have 
opposed efforts to escalate the conflict.
  I have a number of secondary considerations with respect to this 
legislation. I am concerned, for one, about plundering the Social 
Security trust funds to pay for a war that involves no vital national 
security interest. If I believed that vital national security interests 
were at stake, I would consider the argument to fund the war from the 
Social Security trust fund surplus. But in the absence of a vital 
national security interest, I do not believe the Congress should pay 
for the war out of the Social Security trust funds.
  I am also concerned about some of the anti-environmental riders added 
to the emergency supplemental bill in conference. These provisions 
should have been fully debated, and should have gone through the normal 
legislative process, instead of being slipped into the bill in the dead 
of night.
  I am disappointed that I can't support this bill, because it contains 
funding for farmers hit by low commodity prices. Some of this is 
funding that I've argued for and, in fact, voted for in earlier 
instances, including S. 544. But my opposition to funding the military 
action in Kosovo is firm. I can endorse neither the authorization for 
the war, nor the appropriations process that is its genesis.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). Who yields time?
  Mr. BYRD. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Connecticut, Mr. Dodd.
  Mr. DODD. I thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. President, I rise to support the Conference Report of H.R. 1141--
the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill before us today. I do so 
reluctantly, however, because of the many special interest riders that 
have been attached to this emergency legislation. In the final analysis 
I will support the conference report because it provides critically 
important funds to assist American farmers, to support ongoing action 
against Yugoslavia, to relieve the suffering of Kosovar refugees, and 
to help Central America recover from the devastating effects of 
Hurricane Mitch.
  In light of all the other measures that have been added to this bill, 
many of dubious merit, I deeply regret, Mr. President, that the Speaker 
of the House refused to allow House conferees to accept a Senate 
amendment that would have freed up monies for payment of the United 
States debt to the United Nations. I find it somewhat puzzling that 
House Republicans are on record calling for a negotiated settlement of 
the Kosovo conflict, yet are not prepared to provide overdue payments 
to the organization that will likely play a central role in 
implementing any peace agreement. I would like to dwell on two major 
provisions of this bill which I support, namely the aid to help Central 
America recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Mitch and the funds 
to sustain our ongoing efforts in the Balkans.
  The funds aimed at helping Central America recover from Hurricane 
Mitch stem from an emergency request the President made back in 
February. It is extremely embarrassing that it has taken until May for 
the Congress to finally get around to passing the necessary legislation 
to provide relief for a natural disaster that occurred last fall.
  I cannot overstate the degree to which the storm ravaged Nicaragua, 
Honduras and other nearby nations. In less than a week, Hurricane Mitch 
claimed at least 10,000 lives--possibly as many as 20,000, left more 
than a million others without adequate food or shelter, and set the 
economies of Nicaragua and Honduras back as much as a generation. The 
need for long-term international assistance is great.
  In late October and early November 1998, Mitch carved a slow, 
meandering and deadly path through the Caribbean. At the hurricane's 
apex, Mitch's storm clouds stretched from Florida to Panama and wind 
gusts topped 200 miles per hour. Meteorologists labeled Mitch a 
``Category 5 Hurricane,'' the highest such designation.
  Unlike other hurricanes, Mr. President, it was not Mitch's winds 
which proved so deadly. By the time the storm crossed the Honduran 
Coast on October 29, 1998, its winds had slowed to 60 miles per hour 
and the storm's movement to a mere crawl. The torrential rain, however, 
did not abate. The storm's slow speed allowed it to continually pound 
the same area day after day. By the time the skies cleared, Mitch had 
dropped five feet of rain onto Honduras and Nicaragua.
  The massive flooding which followed claimed the lives of at least 
10,000 Central Americans. That number, Mr. President, is certainly 
shocking. Yet, sadly, it is probably an understatement of the actual 
loss of life. As many as twelve thousand other people in the region are 
still missing and presumed dead. The Honduran government has declared 
5,657 dead and 8,052 officially missing. In Nicaragua, at least 3,800 
died. Smaller numbers perished in El Salvador, Guatemala and other 
countries in the region.
  Mr. President, not since the Great Hurricane of 1780, nearly 220 
years ago, has a storm claimed so many lives in the eastern Caribbean.
  Mitch also destroyed or damaged 338 bridges, 170 in Honduras alone, 
leaving

[[Page 10377]]

much of Honduras and Nicaragua accessible only by helicopter. The lack 
of helicopters in the region and their limited capacity left thousands 
without adequate food and water for weeks while some of the food 
provided by international aid organizations rotted at the airport.
  Those who survived face the task of piecing the economy and mangled 
infrastructure back together. Meanwhile, more than a million people 
throughout the region, including one out of every five Hondurans, had 
to rebuild their homes and replace their personal possessions.
  Honduran and Nicaraguan agriculture--a vital component of both 
economies--was decimated. Hurricane Mitch destroyed a quarter of 
Honduras's coffee plantations and 90 percent of the country's banana 
plants. The entire shrimp farming industry was destroyed. Damage to 
sugar and citrus crops was similarly heavy. The factories and farms of 
Honduras's Sula Valley, which normally contribute 60 percent of the 
country's GDP, were all flooded. While Nicaragua was not as badly 
damaged, the effects are still staggering: 20 percent of the nation's 
coffee plantations were destroyed. Newer crops such as citrus were 
completely annihilated.
  The process of rebuilding the shattered lives, infrastructure and 
economies of Honduras and Nicaragua will be long and expensive. The 
World Bank and the United Nations Development Program estimate the 
total damage to the region at more than $5.3 billion. While these 
numbers are difficult to comprehend, they are even more daunting given 
that the GDP of Nicaragua is only $9.3 billion and that of Honduras 
only $12.7 billion.
  I commend my colleagues for finding the resources to assist our 
neighbors to the south who have called upon the international community 
in their hour of need. It is not only in their interest, it is in our 
interest to assist them. It deserves our strong backing.
  The original intent of the President's request for emergency 
appropriations from the Congress was to provide our men and women in 
uniform with the equipment and materiel they need to effectively strike 
the Yugoslav military. While I am heartened by recent reports of a 
possible diplomatic solution, we must remain prepared to continue our 
military efforts in the absence of an enforceable diplomatic solution 
which meets NATO's conditions.
  Mr. President, we must never take the decision to send our service 
men and women into harm's way lightly. If a situation which is such an 
anathema to the United States that it calls for military action 
presents itself to us, however, we must vigorously support our 
soldiers, sailors and airmen through both word and deed.
  As I just mentioned, the decision to send our military into battle is 
one of the most solemn that this body or this nation ever faces. And 
so, before I go on, let me reiterate why the situation in Kosovo 
justifies, in fact demands, American military involvement.
  Slobodan Milosevic has carved a place for himself amongst history's 
most despicable tyrants. Serb forces have murdered least 5,000 ethnic-
Albanian civilians and burned six hundred villages. To date, 
approximately 80 percent of Kosovar Albanians--more than 1.3 million 
innocent men, women and children--have fled their homes in a desperate 
attempt to outrun Serb military and police forces. Nearly 750,000 
Kosovar Albanians have made it to the relative safety of neighboring 
countries and are now living under the most difficult of conditions.
  These numbers, however horrific, tell only part of the story. They 
cannot express the pain of a family torn apart by blood-thirsty 
paramilitary policemen or the pain of a young woman gang-raped by Serb 
soldiers. They do not express the tears of a young child who spends 
each day wandering between the tents of a Macedonian refugee camp 
searching for his or her missing parents. They do not describe the 
pain, both physical and psychological, the victims of torture feel each 
day.
  Many members of Congress, myself included, have traveled to the 
region and visited the refugee camps. We have seen the pain in the eyes 
of the refugees fortunate enough to have made it out of the killing 
fields of Kosovo. Mr. President, the look in the eyes of these refugees 
defies description.
  The ongoing genocide in Kosovo is antithetical to the most basic 
principles on which the United States stands. By acting to preserve the 
fundamental rights of Kosovar Albanians, the United States is 
reaffirming our belief that all people are endowed with certain 
inalienable rights, including the rights to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness. If, however, the United States chose to stand 
idly by in the face of such grotesque evil, we would draw into question 
our dedication to human rights and our resolve to oppose dictators 
around the globe.
  Our military, however, cannot effectively combat this evil if we in 
the Congress fail to offer them our support. One month ago, President 
Clinton sent a request to Congress for $6 billion in order to fund our 
military operations through the end of the fiscal year. That money is 
included in this bill.
  As we debate this issue, people far beyond the walls of this chamber 
are listening to our words and watching our actions. Our men and women 
in uniform throughout the region who are putting their lives on the 
line each day want to know whether we in the Congress will seize this 
opportunity to support them. They need and they deserve the very finest 
equipment our nation can muster--the type of equipment the President's 
original request will pay for.
  In capitals across Europe, our allies are listening and looking to 
the United States for leadership. They want to know whether the United 
States will maintain its commitment to NATO and to this important 
operation.
  In refugee camps in Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and elsewhere, 
hundreds of thousands of Milosevic's innocent victims are listening; 
hoping that we will reaffirm our commitment to them.
  In the hills and forests of Kosovo, men, women and children who are 
hiding from soldiers and policemen are listening to American radio 
broadcasts on portable radios. They are looking to the United States 
for hope and support in their most desperate hour.
  And finally, tyrants around the world, but especially in Belgrade, 
are judging our dedication to human rights and freedom.
  Mr. President, we must send the same message to all: The United 
States will not back down in the face of unspeakable evil.
  Just a moment ago, I mentioned that the President requested $6 
billion for the ongoing operation in the Balkans. In just one month, 
however, that $6 billion bill has ballooned into a $14.9 billion 
monstrosity. The President's original request now represents well under 
half of the total bill.
  Regretfully, the majority of the new spending is for non-emergency 
programs which fall far outside the original intention of the 
legislation. Such programs should rightfully be left to the regular 
appropriations process. The issues this bill was intended to address 
are simply too important to be embroiled in political spending. Thus, 
while I continue to support strongly the President's original request, 
I support the legislation before us with reluctance due to the 
expensive, non-emergency riders that were added during the House/Senate 
conference on this measure.
  Mr. President, the provisions of this bill relating to Kosovo and 
Central America deserve our immediate attention and support. The 
victims of mother nature's fury in our own hemisphere and of Slobodan 
Milosevic's genocide in Europe, as well as the brave American men and 
women fighting under the American flag, need and deserve America's 
support. For that reason I intend to vote to support passage of this 
conference report despite its imperfections.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from North 
Carolina, Mr. Helms, has a very distinguished guest whom he wishes to 
present. I therefore yield for that purpose.
  I ask unanimous consent that no time be charged to the remaining 
speakers because of that fact, and I ask unanimous consent following 
the introduction by Senator Helms, there be a

[[Page 10378]]

recess of 3 minutes so Senators may personally greet the distinguished 
guest.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

            VISIT TO THE SENATE BY KING ABDALLAH BIN HUSSEIN

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from West 
Virginia, as always, is gracious, and I thank him very much. As he 
indicated, we have today a distinguished son of a distinguished father 
who has visited many times. His Majesty, King Abdallah bin Hussein of 
Jordan.
  He has been visiting with the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and I 
present him to the Senate.

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