[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11621-11650]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



      FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS 
                  APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2001--Continued

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this is a two front war--we need to 
advance on both fronts. Clearly, we can't continue the administration's 
pattern of ignoring this crisis.
  I agree that we should increase education, prevention, and treatment 
efforts, as well as local law enforcement efforts. But, will that 
effort pay off, if we do so at the expense of attacking the source 
country problem?
  It is pretty clear that after seven years of doing nothing, the 
administration is trying to play catch up in this crisis.
  If we look at trends and commitments, during the Reagan Just-Say-No 
years, drug production and use plummeted.
  This trend sharply reversed in 1992 which was exactly when Clinton 
was asked, ``If you had to do it over again, would you have inhaled?'' 
He answered, ``Sure, if I could have.''
  Since 1992, and this unfortunate remark, drug use has soared and 
production has tripled.
  We need to attack both fronts in this war--here, at home, and abroad.
  I think we have recommended a good balance for the battle abroad.
  Let me remind everyone it is a very different package than the 
request made by the administration--I have much more confidence in the 
bill before the Senate than I did in the request.
  The most important difference is our emphasis on a regional strategy. 
Just as we saw production spike in Colombia when pressure was applied 
to traffickers in Peru and Bolivia, I believe we would see the problem 
shift back to Peru, Bolivia, and to Ecuador if we don't increase our 
regional support.
  Without compromising vital support for Colombia, we provided $205 
million in support to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and other nations in the 
region. This more than doubles the administration's request of $76 
million.
  A second key difference between the bill and the request is the 
support we offer for human rights programs. As the tempo of operations 
against the traffickers pick up, I am concerned that abuses will also 
increase.
  Colombia's judicial system is weak and court officials are regularly 
threatened making investigations and prosecutions extremely difficult. 
Moreover, the military has undermined attempts by civilian courts to 
prosecute officers accused of human rights abuses even though Colombian 
law requires the transfer of these cases to civilian courts.
  To address these concerns we have required certification that the 
military is complying with their own laws and are cooperating in the 
pursuit of these cases in civilian court. We also substantially 
increase aid to government and non-government organizations involved in 
the protection of human rights.
  We paid for these increases by changing the helicopter package.
  Again, let me say, striking the right balance is the key to our 
success.
  This bill strikes the right balance between domestic and 
international law enforcement--the right balance between Colombia and 
the other countries in the region--and the right balance between our 
support for Colombian law enforcement and Colombian human rights 
advocate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. The 
Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have a copy of Senator Leahy's 
statement. I am going to read a little from Senator Leahy's statement. 
This is just a portion of his statement:

       I have repeatedly expressed concerns about the 
     administration's proposal, particularly the dramatic increase 
     in military assistance. I am troubled about what we may be 
     getting into. The administration has yet to give me 
     sufficient details about what it expects to achieve, in what 
     period of time, what the long-term costs are, or what the 
     risks are.

  That is, of course, part of the position that a number of us have 
taken today. I thank Senator Leahy, who has a tremendous amount of 
expertise in this area, for his statement. He goes on to say:

       I commend Senator Wellstone for his amendment. It would 
     provide $225 million for substance abuse prevention and 
     treatment programs in the United States.
       According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, 
     drug abuse kills 52,000 Americans each year. It costs our 
     society nearly $110 billion annually. It has strained the 
     capacity of our criminal justice system and our medical 
     facilities, and brought violence and tragedy to families, 
     schools, and communities throughout this country.

  I could not have said it better. Mr. President, 80 percent of 
adolescents who need treatment--those who will, if not provided 
treatment, sustain the demands for drugs in the future--today in our 
country cannot get it. Some 50 percent of adults in our country who are 
in need of a drug treatment program are not receiving it. Many 
treatment programs have lines out the door.
  And the conclusion of Senator Leahy's statement:

       We should help Colombia. I support President Pastrana's 
     efforts to combat the violence, corruption, and poverty which 
     plagues his country. But I am not convinced the 
     administration's request for ``Plan Colombia'' will 
     effectively address those problems, nor is it likely to 
     reduce the flow of drugs into our country or ameliorate the 
     drug problem here at home.
       We do know, however, that substance abuse treatment and 
     prevention programs work. A frequently cited Rand study 
     showed that, dollar for dollar, providing treatment for 
     cocaine users is 10 times more effective than drug 
     interdiction efforts, and 23 times more effective than 
     eradicating coca at its source. Scientific advances promise 
     to make treatment and prevention programs even better. 
     Ultimately, reducing the demand for drugs--which is what 
     these programs do--is the only long-term solution to reducing 
     the flow of illegal drugs from Colombia and elsewhere.
       Mr. President, I commend Senator Wellstone--

  Nice of him to say--

     for his leadership on this issue and I urge other Senators to 
     support his amendment.

  I urge other Senators to support this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, is all time yielded back?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has been yielded back.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we are going to have two votes shortly. 
The Senator from Alabama would like to modify his amendment and take 
just a few moments to describe it. Then the previous plan was to have 
two votes, back to back. I believe the Senator from Delaware will make 
a motion to table the Wellstone amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Is that a unanimous 
consent request?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Alabama be 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Alabama.


                    Amendment No. 3492, As Modified

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I send a modification to the desk. I 
would like to share a few thoughts about this situation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment will be 
modified.

[[Page 11622]]

  The amendment (No. 3492), as modified, is as follows:

       On page 155, between lines 18 and 19, insert the following:
       Sec. 6107. Declaration of Support. (a) Certification 
     Required.--Assistance may be made available for Colombia in 
     fiscal years 2000 and 2001 only if the Secretary of State 
     certifies to the appropriate congressional committees, before 
     the initial obligation of such assistance in each such fiscal 
     year, that the United States Government publicly supports the 
     military and political efforts of the Government of Colombia, 
     consistent with human rights, necessary to effectively 
     resolve the conflicts with the guerrillas and paramilitaries 
     that threaten the territorial integrity, economic prosperity, 
     and rule of law in Colombia.
       (b) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Appropriate committees of congress.--The term 
     ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means the following:
       (A) The Committees on Appropriations and Foreign Relations 
     of the Senate.
       (B) The Committees on Appropriations and International 
     Relations of the House of Representatives.
       (2) Assistance.--The term ``assistance'' means assistance 
     appropriated under this heading for fiscal years 2000 and 
     2001, and provided under the following provisions of law:
       (A) Section 1004 of the National Defense Authorization Act 
     for Fiscal Year 1991 (Public Law 101-510; relating to 
     counter-drug assistance).
       (B) Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act 
     for Fiscal Year 1998 (Public Law 105-85; relating to counter-
     drug assistance to Colombia and Peru).
       (C) Section 23 of the Arms Export Control Act (Public Law 
     90-629; relating to credit sales).
       (D) Section 481 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 
     (Public Law 87-195; relating to international narcotics 
     control).
       (E) Section 506 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 
     (Public Law 87-195; relating to emergency drawdown 
     authority).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the people of Colombia are good people. 
They maintained a democracy for a long time. There are 40 million 
people in Colombia. They are our fifth largest trading partner in Latin 
America. They are struggling with violence that has been going on for 
40 years. There are at least two major Marxist-oriented guerrilla 
groups who control nearly 50 percent of the territory of Colombia. They 
have attempted repeatedly, through President Pastrana, to negotiate 
with these guerrillas and have had very little success. In fact, the 
guerrillas have taken advantage of the good auspices of the people of 
Colombia and President Pastrana, and even strengthened their hold on 
the territory and strengthened their antidemocratic activities.
  There are paramilitary groups in the country also who are operating 
outside the law and are involved in drug trafficking.
  The guerrilla organizations sustain themselves through the most 
active kidnapping in the world. Colombia has the highest number of 
kidnappings in the world. Its murder rate is probably the highest in 
the world. The guerrilla groups sell protection for drug traffickers, 
and that is how they make their money to maintain their existence.
  I believe, as a former Federal prosecutor who has been involved in 
studying the drug issue and has prosecuted many cases in the district 
of Mobile, AL, involving quite a number of Colombian drug dealers and 
cartel members, we are going to have limited ability containing the 
drug problem in America through this money. But what we can do with 
this money and what is critical that we do with this money is 
strengthen the country of Colombia.
  We need to say to them: We support you; we believe in your democracy. 
The 97-plus percent, as Senator Biden said, of the people in that 
country support their government, not these guerrilla organizations. 
They want peace, they want unification, they want economic growth, they 
want human rights, and they want a rule of law. That cannot be done and 
we cannot expect Colombia to stop drug trafficking in their nation if 
40 percent of the territory is outside their control--50 percent 
perhaps.
  I am distressed that this administration in public statements, in 
testimony before committee hearings, has refused to say: We support 
Colombia in their efforts against these guerrillas. They suggest their 
only motive is to provide money to help knock down drug production in 
Colombia. That is distressing to me. Ambassador Pickering testified and 
I cross-examined him. He said: Our emphasis is drugs.
  That is not the basis of what we are doing. We want to help Colombia. 
We want Colombia to create a peaceful government to take control of its 
country. We want to encourage strong leadership, the kind of leadership 
that Abraham Lincoln provided when he unified this country. That is 
what needs to be done in Colombia to bring this matter to a conclusion 
once and for all.
  If we do not do so, we are pouring new wine in old wine bottles. We 
are pouring money down a dangerous rat hole.
  This amendment says: We support you, Colombia. We believe in you, 
Colombia. We explicitly endorse and support your efforts through peace 
negotiations or warfare, if necessary, to unify your country, to bring 
peace so you can then eliminate the drug trafficking that is occurring 
there.
  Drug trafficking is a major problem in Colombia. It is our No. 1 
supplier of cocaine. The cocaine production in Colombia has more than 
doubled in 5 years. Heroin is going up. Seventy percent of the heroin 
in the United States comes from Colombia. The main reason is the 
Government of Colombia does not control its territory. There are whole 
areas of territory outside the control of the government. We should 
support this country, and this amendment says so explicitly.
  Mr. President, do I still have a minute under the agreement?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator from Delaware be recognized to offer a tabling motion on the 
Wellstone amendment and that the vote on or in relation to the Sessions 
amendment occur immediately after the vote on the Wellstone amendment, 
and that the time on the Sessions amendment be----
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Reserving the right to object. What did the Senator 
ask for?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I will not ask unanimous consent that 
the time on the Sessions amendment be limited to 10 minutes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Reserving the right to object. What is the Senator 
asking for?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I asked unanimous consent that the Senator from 
Delaware be recognized to offer a tabling motion on the Wellstone 
amendment and that a vote on or in relation to the Sessions amendment 
occur immediately after the Wellstone vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I move to table the Wellstone amendment.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion to table amendment No. 
3518. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 89, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 138 Leg.]

                                YEAS--89

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Bunning
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee, L.
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords

[[Page 11623]]


     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--11

     Boxer
     Byrd
     Dorgan
     Feingold
     Grams
     Harkin
     Leahy
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Specter
     Wellstone
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Alabama, it is my 
understanding, would like to ask consent to further modify his 
amendment after a discussion we have had.


                Amendment No. 3492, As Further Modified

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have a further modified amendment 
consistent with the request of Senator Leahy to strengthen the language 
that says our support for the Colombian Government would be conditioned 
upon their following defined standards of human rights, as Senator 
Leahy placed in the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator asking unanimous consent?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 3492), as further modified, is as follows:

       On page 155, between lines 18 and 19, insert the following:
       Sec. 6107. Declaration of Support. (a) Certification 
     Required.--Assistance may be made available for Colombia in 
     fiscal years 2000 and 2001 only if the Secretary of State 
     certifies to the appropriate congressional committees, before 
     the initial obligation of such assistance in each such fiscal 
     year, that the United States Government publicly supports the 
     military and political efforts of the Government of Colombia, 
     consistent with human rights conditions in section 6101, 
     necessary to effectively resolve the conflicts with the 
     guerrillas and paramilitaries that threaten the territorial 
     integrity, economic prosperity, and rule of law in Colombia.
       (b) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Appropriate committees of congress.--The term 
     ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means the following:
       (A) The Committees on Appropriations and Foreign Relations 
     of the Senate.
       (B) The Committees on Appropriations and International 
     Relations of the House of Representatives.
       (2) Assistance.--The term ``assistance'' means assistance 
     appropriated under this heading for fiscal years 2000 and 
     2001, and provided under the following provisions of law:
       (A) Section 1004 of the National Defense Authorization Act 
     for Fiscal Year 1991 (Public Law 101-510; relating to 
     counter-drug assistance).
       (B) Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act 
     for Fiscal Year 1998 (Public Law 105-85; relating to counter-
     drug assistance to Colombia and Peru).
       (C) Section 23 of the Arms Export Control Act (Public Law 
     90-629; relating to credit sales).
       (D) Section 481 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 
     (Public Law 87-195; relating to international narcotics 
     control).
       (E) Section 506 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 
     (Public Law 87-195; relating to emergency drawdown 
     authority).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the underlying 
amendment.
  The amendment (No. 3492), as further modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, is there a pending amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Helms amendment, No. 3498, is pending.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent the Helms amendment be 
temporarily laid aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


             Amendments Nos. 3519, 3528, and 3532, en bloc

  Mr. McCONNELL. I call up amendment No. 3519 by Senator Stevens, 
amendment No. 3528 by Senator Inhofe, and amendment No. 3532 by Senator 
Leahy. These three amendments have been cleared on both sides of the 
aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendments, en bloc.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes 
     amendments Nos. 3519, 3528, and 3532, en bloc.

  The amendments are as follows:


                           Amendment No. 3519

       On page 38, on lien 12 after the world ``Appropriations'' 
     insert the following: ``Provided further, That foreign 
     military financing program funds estimated to be outlayed for 
     Egypt during fiscal year 2001 shall be transferred to an 
     interest bearing account for Egypt in the Federal Reserve 
     Bank of New York within 30 days of enactment of this Act or 
     by October 31, 2000, whichever is later: Provided further, 
     That withdrawal from the account shall be made only on 
     authenticated instructions from the Defense Finance and 
     Accounting Service: Provided further, That in the event the 
     interest bearing account is closed, the balance of the 
     account shall be transferred promptly to the current 
     appropriations account under this heading: Provider further, 
     That none of the interest accrued by the account shall be 
     obligated except as provided through the regular notification 
     procedures of the Committees on Appropriations''.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3528

 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding United States 
                   citizens held hostage in Colombia)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON UNITED STATES CITIZENS HELD 
                   HOSTAGE IN COLOMBIA.

       (a) The Senate finds that--
       (1) illegal paramilitary groups in Colombia pose a serious 
     obstacle to U.S. and Colombian counter-narcotics efforts;
       (2) abduction of innocent civilians is often used by such 
     groups to gain influence and recognition;
       (3) three US citizens, David Mankins, Mark Rich, and Rick 
     Tenenoff, who were engaged in humanitarian and religious work 
     were abducted by one such group and have been held hostage in 
     Colombia since January 31, 1993;
       (4) these 3 men have the distinction of being the longest-
     held American hostages;
       (5) their kidnappers are believed to be members of the FARC 
     narco-guerrilla organization in Colombia;
       (6) the families of these American citizens have not had 
     any word about their safety or welfare for 7 years; and
       (7) such acts against humanitarian workers are acts of 
     cowardice and are against basic human dignity and are 
     perpetrated by criminals and thus not deserving any form of 
     recognition.
       (b) The Senate--
       (1) in the strongest possible terms condemns the kidnaping 
     of these men;
       (2) appeals to all freedom loving nations to condemn these 
     actions;
       (3) urges members of the European Community to assist in 
     the safe return of these men by including in any dialogue 
     with FARC the objective of the release of all American 
     hostages;
       (4) appeals to the United Nations Commission on Human 
     Rights to condemn the kidnaping and to pressure the FARC into 
     resolving this situation; and
       (5) calls upon the President to raise the kidnaping of 
     these Americans to all relevant foreign governments and to 
     express his desire to see this tragic situation resolved.
                                  ____



                           amendment no. 3532

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

     SEC.  . INDOCHINESE PAROLEES.

       Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any national of 
     Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos who was paroled into the United 
     States before October 1, 1997 shall be eligible to make an 
     application for adjustment of status

[[Page 11624]]

     pursuant to section 599E of Public Law 101-167.


                           amendment no. 3519

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we received a request April 21 to allow 
fiscal year 2001 outlays--not budget authority--to be disbursed early 
into a Federal Reserve account. We have never structured accounts 
around outlays before, so we are looking at the scoring implications as 
well as what this will provide to Egypt in security assistance.
  I am not prepared to write a blank check to any government. It is 
possible that this request could generate an additional $35 to $40 
million for the Egyptians to spend on military equipment.
  I would like to know what they plan to spend these resources on and 
no one can tell me. I think we need to be better informed before 
signing off on this approach.
  Another problem with the proposal concerns actual control of the 
resources. The reason there are no scoring consideration is the entire 
amount is deemed obligated to Egypt once the funds are transferred into 
this account. That means the Egyptians could default or cancel a 
contract with an American company and we would have very little 
recourse because the money is already in their account. We must be sure 
that we will continue to have transparency and ongoing U.S. management 
of these resources, both the funds put into the account and the 
interest generated by the account.
  Let me add, separate and apart form concerns about the actual account 
structure, I am not sure we should be increasing U.S. security 
assistance to Egypt. A short while ago, President Mubarak paid a visit 
to Lebanon and issued a statement of support for Hezbollah's terrorist 
war against Israel. At this delicate juncture with rising concern about 
cross border violence against Israel, Mr. Mubarek's comments were and 
are extremely damaging to peace and stability, to say nothing of safety 
of Israeli civilians. I am not sure what signal it sends to increase 
military aid after such unfortunate remarks. After all, the aid is 
provided in recognition of Egypt's service to the peace process 
established at Camp David--the President's comments undermined those 
very principles and prospects.
  In the State Department briefing justifying the request, U.S. 
officials urged our support because of Mubarek's need to address the 
requirements of ``his key constituents, the military.'' Frankly, I 
think Mr. Mubarek needs to worry less about satisfying the military and 
spend more time and effort shoring up democratic institutions and civic 
society.
  Once again this year he demonstrated a heavy handed political style 
be extending for three more years the State of Emergency which grants 
him far reaching powers. He has granted and maintained this sweeping 
authority for nineteen years. Press censorship and restrictions on 
political parties and activities are among many authoritarian measures 
which are routinely enforced in Egypt--not characteristics of the most 
open democracy.
  In spite of my concerns about the trends in Egypt, I am prepared to 
consider this request fully and carefully in consultation with the 
chairman and others who I know are interested and expect we will have a 
recommendation by the time we get to conference.


                           amendment no. 3528

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, S. 2522 contains $934.1 million for Plan 
Colombia, a counternarcotics initiative. A portion of that is earmarked 
for the investigations of human rights abuses. Certainly a part of the 
drug culture that this bill is attempting to address is the abduction 
of individuals by paramilitary groups who either hold their hostages 
for ransom or use the abduction as a means of intimidation against law 
enforcement. Frequently we hear of witnesses, prosecutors and judges 
being taken from their homes, offices or off the street in broad 
daylight in an attempt to stop the prosecution of drug kingpins. 
However, innocent civilians, not involved in the war on drugs, are 
targets as well. The amendment I am introducing addresses the latter.
  My colleagues may not be aware but currently there are three American 
citizens who are being held hostage by FARC, a narco-guerilla group in 
Colombia. Many have been involved in obtaining their release but the 7 
plus years of their captivity has complicated those efforts.
  On the evening of January 31, 1993, a group of armed guerrillas 
entered the village of Pucuro Panama. Once control of the village had 
been secured, the guerrillas went to the homes of the Mankins, Riches, 
Tenenoffs, three missionary families with New Tribes Mission who were 
invited to live in Pucuro by village leaders to teach reading and 
writing and provide medical care to villagers. David Mankins, Mark Rich 
and Rick Tenenoff were tied up and their wives instructed to prepare 
small packages of clothing for them. The guerrillas then forced the men 
toward a trail that leads to the Colombian border.
  Shortly after the kidnaping, FARC made contact with New Tribes 
Mission, claimed credit for the abduction and demanded a $5 million 
ransom. The mission refused to pay the ransom and shortly thereafter 
contact ceased. Since then there has been many rumors and reports, but 
not proof on their whereabouts.
  David Mankins, Mark Rich and Rick Tenenoff have the dubious 
distinction of being the longest held American hostages. Their families 
have lived the last 7 years without knowing whether they are dead or 
alive.
  My amendment condemns the kidnaping; urges members of the European 
Community to assist in the safe return of these men by including in any 
dialogue with them the objectives of the safe return of these 
missionaries; and appeals to the United Nations Commission to pressure 
FARC to resolve this situation.
  I am proposing this amendment for a couple reasons: first, FARC has 
aggressively courted a dialogue with several in the European community. 
In fact, I understand that in the upcoming weeks there will be 
representatives of FARC in Europe looking for support of their 
``revolution.'' I fear any recognition would be viewed as legitimizing 
the illegal and cowardly activities of FARC and thereby compound 
efforts to either gain release of these Americans to learn of their 
fate.
  Secondly, Dr. Larry Maxwell of Patterson Baptist Church in Patterson, 
New York has begun a 240 mile walk to Washington, D.C. to bring 
attention to the tragic situation of these families. Dr. Maxwell will 
culminate his walk at the Capitol this coming Monday, June 26th, where 
he will be joined by the families of the kidnapped men.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment because these American 
citizens can easily be forgotten and we must not do that. Dave, Mark 
and Rick needs our prayers and their families need to know that their 
loved ones have not been abandoned. Finally, we need to encourage all 
those who have worked during the last 7 years to bring an end to this 
horrific ordeal to continue their effort.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendments 
en bloc.
  The amendments (Nos. 3519, 3528, and 3532) were agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I believe the distinguished Senator 
from Washington is here and ready to offer an amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.


                           Amendment No. 3517

   (Purpose: To reduce the amount of funds made available for South 
   American and Caribbean counternarcotics activities, and for other 
                               purposes)

  Mr. GORTON. I have an amendment at the desk and I ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton], proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3517.

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.

[[Page 11625]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Beginning page 141, line 9, strike ``$934,100,000'' and all 
     that follows through line 18 on page 155 and insert the 
     following: ``$200,000,000 to remain available until expended: 
     Provided, That the funds appropriated under this heading 
     shall be utilized in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and 
     other countries in South and Central America and the 
     Caribbean at the discretion of the Secretary of State.''.

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the effect of this amendment would be to 
strike the Colombian drug money appropriation of $934 million and 
substitute for that number $200 million. In other words, the passage of 
the amendment would result in savings--that is to say, not spending--
almost three-quarters of a billion dollars, and by implication using 
that money to pay down the national debt.
  Curiously enough, I think the justification for the amendment is as 
eloquently stated in the bill being managed by my friend from Kentucky 
and by the committee report--which I commend to my colleagues--that 
accompanies that amendment.
  I will read one paragraph now from the committee report:

       Historically, INL has provided support to the Colombian 
     National Police. The Supplemental anticipates a 7:1 shift in 
     funding from the Police to the Army. Given the past limited 
     role and resources provided for counter-narcotics activities 
     in Colombia and the region, the Committee is concerned about 
     the rapid, new, and unprecedented levels of spending 
     requested. The fiscal year 2000 program level of $50,000,000 
     for Colombia will now rise to nearly $1,000,000,000. The 
     Committee has grave reservations regarding the 
     Administration's ability to effectively manage the use of 
     these resources to achieve the expected results of reducing 
     production and supply of cocaine while protecting human 
     rights.

  I could hardly state my case better. We have a profound and dramatic 
shift in focus. We have a huge 19-1 increase in the amount of money in 
this bill focused on this particular problem, and we lack even a clue 
as to whether or not it will have any positive impact on drug 
trafficking between Colombia and the United States.
  I will read the language found on page 151 of the bill, section 6106:

   Limitations on Support for Plan Colombia and on the Assignment of 
                  United States Personnel in Colombia

       (a) Limitation on Support for Plan Colombia.--Except for 
     appropriations made by this Act and appropriations made by 
     the Military Construction Appropriations Act, 2001, for such 
     purpose, none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made 
     available by any Act (including unobligated balances of prior 
     appropriations) shall be available for support of Plan 
     Colombia unless and until--
       (1) the President submits a report to Congress requesting 
     the availability of such funds; and
       (2) Congress enacts a joint resolution approving the 
     request of the President under paragraph (1).

  In other words, let's spend $1 billion, and after it is spent, let's 
ask the President for a justification of why we were spending it and a 
plan for what we are going to do in the future.
  That is absolutely, totally, completely backwards. This is a major 
undertaking, a huge change in our relationship with Colombia, in what 
we sometimes fatuously denominate a war against drugs, with some kind 
of hope that it will have a positive impact. My guess is I will very 
shortly be asked to enter into a time agreement so we can vote on this 
amendment no later than 6 or 6:30 p.m. today. Time constraints will 
lead me to accept that time agreement. But is it not equally bizarre 
and irresponsible that we should put the United States into another 
military adventure on the basis of so short and superficial a debate 
about both means and ends in connection with this appropriation?
  The Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, just proposed an amendment 
that got very few votes, that superficially at least was aimed at the 
same goal. I say ``superficially'' because Senator Wellstone did not 
propose to save any of the money. He simply proposed to spend about 25 
percent of it with priorities that differed from those of the committee 
and those of the President of the United States. The war and all the 
equipment were still there under his amendment. We just had a quarter 
of a billion dollars spent on various social program purposes.
  His amendment, in other words, did not go to the heart of the 
question that is before us. That question is, Are we prepared casually, 
at this point, to take the first step in what has often in the past 
been an inevitable series of steps toward engaging in another shooting 
war?
  I grant you there is a limitation of no more than 250 American 
military personnel to accompany the equipment we will be selling to 
Colombia under the provisions of this bill. But isn't that almost 
always the way we begin an adventure of this nature, with pious 
declarations that our participation is limited; we are just helping 
some other country solve its own problems and challenges in some 
military fashion? I think so.
  But this is a shift from supporting a police force in a friendly 
country to supporting an army engaged in a civil war, a civil war that 
it has not been winning, a civil war in which the other side is very 
well financed--indirectly, at least, in large part by Americans who 
purchase cocaine--but without the slightest real control over the use 
of the equipment that the Colombian Army will be receiving pursuant to 
this bill.
  How long will it be until we read the first news story about some of 
this equipment showing up in the hands of the rebels, by capture or, 
for that matter, by purchase? I don't know, but that is what has 
constantly happened in the past in almost each of the other adventures 
of this nature in which the United States has found itself.
  But my fundamental point with respect to this amendment is that we 
are voting money first and asking for the justification later. We 
should get the justification first and make the determination as to 
whether to spend this amount of money or how much we ought to spend 
after we know exactly what the plan is and how the plan promises to 
lead to any kind of successful conclusion.
  But the bill says, right here on pages 151 and 152, we will spend the 
$934 million and then the President will tell us how he is going to 
spend future money, and we will get a joint resolution.
  At a later stage in a similar adventure, we went through an almost 
identical debate just a couple of weeks ago on Kosovo. We voted the 
money and lacked, by a small margin, the courage even to say that it 
had to be justified and authorized by Congress a year from now. I hope 
we may have learned something from that experience. Should we not 
seriously debate this matter first--not just in a couple of hearings in 
an Appropriations Committee and essentially a rider on an 
appropriations bill but seriously and extensively? Is this the single 
best way in which to spend the almost three-quarters of a billion 
dollars that is the subject of this amendment, even on drug 
interdiction, much less on any other potential program in the United 
States? Will it help Colombia? Does it really address drug problems in 
the United States? Is there an exit strategy?
  We know there was not any in Bosnia. We know there is not any in 
Kosovo. And we sure are not told what it is here. One consequence of 
passing this appropriations bill in its present form, however, is 
certain. It will not be a one-time appropriation. It will not be the 
only request we are asked to respond to, to deal with the Colombian 
military, almost $1 billion in this appropriation--a downpayment. But 
it isn't a downpayment we make on a home or an automobile. It is a 
downpayment on which we don't know the schedule of future payments; we 
don't know the total amount of future payments; we don't know how we 
will measure success if, indeed, any success exists. It is simply the 
beginning of an open-ended commitment, with the pious statement that 
the President must come back a year from now and justify future 
appropriations and get a joint resolution of Congress.
  I don't think those lines are worth the paper they are printed on 
because next year's foreign operations appropriations bill can just 
appropriate another $1 billion, and its passage will be that joint 
resolution, without any more justification than we have today.

[[Page 11626]]

  In one respect, at least, I must interject with this comment: I have 
been overly critical. In comparison with the way in which this problem 
has been treated in the House of Representatives, this appropriation is 
a model of responsibility. It includes considerably fewer dollars and 
considerably more in the way of conditions--future conditions though 
they may be. That means, unfortunately, the conference committee will 
end up spending more money than we are spending here and probably with 
fewer and less responsible requirements imposed on the administration 
in the way in which the money is spent.
  But my points in this amendment are simple. We are asked to engage in 
another civil war. I repeat that. We are asked to engage in another 
civil war with a major commitment to equipment and training for the 
Colombian Army. Very rarely does this kind of commitment get made 
without escalating into something more, in money or in personnel or the 
like. Very rarely are insurgencies such as the one in Colombia 
successfully met when those insurgencies have as large a source of 
monetary support as this one seems to have.
  In any event, I suppose one can even say that this is a good, 
thoughtful, and responsible idea, but we do not know that. We have not 
had any kind of national debate on the subject. We have not had 
anything more than the most superficial justification for it by an 
administration whose foreign policy guesses so far during the last few 
years do not lend a great degree of confidence to most of us with 
respect to the responsibility of this adventure.
  In the relatively short period of time we have available, I ask my 
colleagues to ask themselves the simple question: Do you know enough 
about this idea to risk $1 billion on it in an open-ended commitment to 
an entirely new adventure in a campaign which has rather spectacularly 
lacked in success for the last 10 or 20 years? Wouldn't you like a 
little bit more advanced justification? Wouldn't you like a little bit 
more time to thoughtfully consider whether we want to involve ourselves 
in this particular civil war? Isn't there somewhere that you can think 
of that $700 million would be spent more wisely, even in connection 
with our struggle against illegal drug usage in the United States or 
for some other program entirely or for the reduction in the national 
debt to which we all give so much lipservice, except when it comes up 
against a new spending program?
  What I offer is an amendment that will still have us spending four 
times as much money in Colombia than we are spending during the course 
of the current year--four times as much money, $50 million to $200 
million--but one that will require the President to come up to us with 
the very requirements that are set out on pages 151 and 152 of this 
bill but with a difference. He will have to come up and justify it 
before we give him the money rather than after it is over.
  Next year, this request will be a very simple one: Oh, gosh, we have 
already spent $1 billion. We can't stop now; it is just beginning to 
show results; the helicopters have only been down there for 2 months; 
we are only asking another $1.5 billion, or whatever the request; we 
can't quit now; we won't show constancy; we won't show purpose. The 
time to show constancy and purpose is right now.
  This spending program, even with the restrictions and limitations 
included in this bill, is not responsible. It is not the right way to 
spend money. It is almost impossible to conceive that it will be 
successful, and we should deal with it today, here and now, by very 
simply saying: No; no, Mr. President, not until there is a far greater 
justification than any that you have presented so far.
  We should heed in our votes as well as in our words the very words of 
the committee and show ``grave reservations regarding the 
administration's ability to effectively manage the use of these 
resources.'' If we have grave reservations, we should not be spending 
the money until those reservations are met and we have a far greater 
degree of confidence than any of us can show today that this spending 
will be effective.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I have a hard time remembering the last 
time I disagreed with my friend from Washington on an issue, but on 
this one, regretfully, I do. We had a vote a few moments ago to reduce 
the Colombian drug war money by $225 million. That was defeated 89-11. 
Now my colleague from Washington would take it all the way down to a 
mere $100 million for this effort. He would be the first one to agree 
that, in effect, eliminates this effort. I think that is a mistake.
  I will make the motion to table the Gorton amendment which I would 
like to schedule for 4 p.m., if that is agreeable with Senator Gorton.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am sorry, I did not hear.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I was saying to my friend from Washington, I am 
planning on making a motion to table at 4 p.m. and that would give us a 
time certain for the vote. We can lay the amendment of the Senator from 
Washington aside and go on to Senator Dodd who has an amendment as 
well.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, has the unanimous consent request been 
propounded?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Not yet.
  Mr. DODD. I am going to make a suggestion before my colleague makes 
it. There are at least two other people who I know want to speak on the 
amendment I am going to offer. I am worried about the timing. If we 
schedule a vote at 4 p.m. and I presume a vote on my amendment to 
follow immediately thereafter----
  Mr. McCONNELL. I was not going to propound that.
  Mr. GORTON. Will the Senator from Kentucky yield?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. This Senator has made his case. He will need 5 minutes at 
the most to repeat it. As the Senator from Kentucky knows, however, a 
somewhat more drastic version of this amendment received 11 votes on 
the Appropriations Committee, and there may very well be other Members 
who do wish to speak on it.
  While I am perfectly happy at this point to grant unanimous consent 
to go on to another amendment, I would like the two Cloakrooms to be 
able to circulate the thought that this amendment is before the body, 
and if other Members want to come, that they be given an opportunity to 
speak. I hope he defers his motion to table until that opportunity has 
been presented.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will be happy to defer. As a fellow chairman of a 
subcommittee on Appropriations, the Senator is sympathetic, I am sure, 
of my goal to finish the bill. I was trying to move this along. 
Obviously, I will defer to my friend from Washington if he is not 
prepared to have that vote.
  Mr. GORTON. If other people wish to speak, I want them to have that 
opportunity. I am perfectly happy to vote before we leave this evening.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Washington, is there further 
debate on the amendment? Does the Senator from Connecticut wish to 
speak to the Gorton amendment?
  Mr. DODD. Briefly. I will not take a lot of time. I know the chairman 
wants to move this bill along.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will be proposing another amendment 
briefly. I did not speak during the consideration of the Wellstone 
amendment but, in effect, the amendment offered by our friend and 
colleague from Washington is tantamount to the same conclusion as the 
Wellstone amendment. This amount will be reduced, as I understand the 
amendment, to some $200 million, in effect gutting the program. An 
amendment that says we not spend the money would have the same effect, 
in my view.
  This is a complicated and difficult issue. I say to my friend from 
Washington, for whom I have the highest regard and respect, and I 
listen to him carefully when he speaks on any issue, I am deeply 
concerned. This is not a perfect package by any stretch of the 
imagination. If I were crafting this

[[Page 11627]]

alone, it would be somewhat different than the package before us. I 
understand with 535 Members of Congress and a Defense Department and a 
State Department and dealing with regional governments as well in the 
hemisphere who are as concerned about this issue as we are, we cannot 
craft a package that reflects necessarily the views of every single 
person. We have to put together a package that seems to make the most 
sense from a variety of perspectives.
  I did not speak on the Wellstone amendment, but my feelings are very 
strong when it comes to this issue of Colombia.
  Colombia is the oldest continuous democracy in Latin America.
  I do not engage in hyperbole when I suggest to my colleagues that 
this nation of Colombia is very much, in my view, on the brink of being 
disintegrated by narcotraffickers and guerrilla forces operating in 
that country.
  The narcotraffickers are accumulating a fortune, a vast fortune, 
significant parts of which are being used to finance the guerrilla 
operations. The major source of funding for the narcotraffickers, 
regretfully, comes from right here in the United States. We lose about 
50,000 people a year in the United States to drug-related deaths. We 
are the largest market for illegal Colombian drugs.
  Just in the last 2 years, Colombia's coca production has grown by 40 
percent. In 1999, the United States estimated the street value of 
cocaine processed from Colombia's coca fields and sold on the streets 
of this country was in excess of $6 billion.
  Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in the conflict in 
Colombia. Because of events in that country and because of our own 
habits in this Nation, people are dying in the streets of America. This 
is not some distant conflict without any ramifications here at home.
  I do not believe this issue is necessarily going to be resolved 
because we have a military aid package going to Colombia. It is going 
to be resolved through a variety of measures and means. I, frankly, 
have been terribly disappointed; we are now almost in July--this is a 
request for help from our neighbor, from President Pastrana, from a 
democratic government, where 1 million people are now displaced because 
of the conflict in Colombia. And 100,000 people leave that country 
every 6 months because of the war there, many of them coming to our 
shores and many of them going to other nations.
  Colombia is greatly distressed. Politicians, journalists, judges, and 
innocent civilians are being gunned down. We think we put ourselves at 
great risk when we run for political office if someone slams a screen 
door in our face. In Colombia, if you run for high office, you run the 
risk of being killed. That is not an exaggeration.
  Literally dozens and dozens of people who have had the temerity to 
stand up to the narcotraffickers and to some of these paramilitary 
forces, and others, have lost their lives. President Pastrana, the 
President of the country, was actually taken hostage and kept in the 
trunk of a car not that many years ago as a victim of this conflict.
  My point is this. This package may not be perfect, but our delay in 
responding to a neighbor's call for help is getting too long. Every day 
we wait, every day we delay, means more lives lost, means greater 
strength for these narcotraffickers, who respect no one, not 
sovereignty, not governments, certainly not democratically elected 
governments, and will use whatever means available to them in order to 
secure their position and gain resources through their illegal trade in 
death, a trade in death which costs the lives of people in this 
country.
  Obviously, we have to do a lot here at home. We can't blame the 
Colombians because we have illegal drug habits in this country that 
exceed anywhere else in the world. But part of the answer is going 
after the source. So when we step up to offer the Colombian democracy a 
chance to fight back, we are not only doing it for them; we are doing 
it for ourselves.
  So with all due respect to my friend from Washington, and others, 
this may not be a perfect plan, but every day we delay in stepping up 
to help our neighbor, we cause more hardship, more death and 
destruction in our own country, and greater is the proximity of 
Colombia losing its democratic government, losing its sovereignty.
  So I hope that this amendment will be rejected, as was the previous 
amendment, and that we will get about the business of passing this 
legislation, and giving these people a chance to fight back, and also 
giving ourselves an opportunity to reduce the hardship in our own 
streets as a result of the narcotrafficking problem.
  I do not claim to be any deep expert on the issue of antinarcotics 
efforts, but I respect those who are. From General McCaffrey to our 
colleagues in this Chamber, and in the other House, who work on this 
issue every single day, almost without exception, they say this is a 
must-pass program; that if we back away from our responsibility, if we 
back away from an ally and a friend and a neighbor in trouble, then our 
credibility, when it comes to fighting back on this issue, will be 
severely damaged, if not lost entirely, in this part of the world.
  President Pastrana deserves the admiration, support, and respect of 
the American people and this Congress. From the first days he was 
elected to office, he has sought to resolve the conflict in his country 
with a major guerrilla group in his nation that has operated for 40-
some years, by sitting down with them to try to resolve their 
differences. He even turned over a sizable portion of Colombia, his own 
nation--a small percentage of the population resides in this area of 
Colombia.
  I have here a partial map of Colombia. It is not clearly shown on the 
map, but a substantial portion of Colombia is in an area called the 
llanos, a Spanish word for lowlands, wetlands. When you come out of the 
Andes in Colombia, and come down into the llanos areas, the flat areas, 
there is a large section of this piece of territory which President 
Pastrana and his government conceded--in effect, an autonomous region--
as part of the effort to try to resolve this 40-year-old conflict with 
the major guerrilla group called the FARC. As I said, a small 
percentage of the Colombian population actually lives there. But that 
was part of his concession to try to resolve this dispute. Just 
recently, he also made a concession of some additional property.
  I show you a better map of Colombia. It is a little clearer. On the 
map you can see the darker area. Here is the Andean ridge that runs 
from Venezuela down through Ecuador and through Colombia. There are 
major population centers in the northern sections of Colombia around 
Bogota.
  This area over here is the least populated area of Colombia. It is in 
this shaded area shown here where this concession was made. There have 
also been concessions made in the north.
  President Pastrana has desperately tried to bring this conflict with 
this age-old guerrilla operation to a conclusion. But the problem is, 
the major cocaine and major coca productions occur in areas very 
similar--in fact, this is the darkened area, the DMZ area, in an area 
called Caqueta and Putumayo. The Putumayo region is along the border of 
Ecuador. And the Caqueta region is very similar to it. This is the 
largest region from which these killer drugs come that end up on our 
streets.
  It is estimated, by the way, these narcotraffickers have profits in 
excess of $1 million a day--some would suggest three times that 
number--daily profits made in the streets of the United States to fund 
their operations and to support guerrilla activities. They cannot 
handle this alone. If it is left entirely up to Colombia to solve this 
problem, it gets worse every hour.
  I know it is a lot of money, $1 billion. It is not cheap. But every 
day we delay, every day we refuse to step up, this problem becomes 
worse and the narcotraffickers get stronger. They are already now in 
Ecuador. They moved into this region, where they moved the product up 
through Ecuador to the chemistry laboratories and then back down 
through Ecuador and either back into Colombia or out to the United 
States. It is a serious issue.

[[Page 11628]]

  Their government has pleaded with us for some help for over a year. 
We are now almost finished with this session of Congress, and we still 
have not addressed this issue.
  Again, I respect my colleague from Washington. But there was another 
time, a half a century ago, when neighbors in another part of the world 
asked for our help--not our direct involvement--in something called the 
Lend-Lease Program. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in a national address to 
the country, described it to the American public in terms of a house 
being on fire and neighbors asking for some help.
  In a sense, today, that is what we are being asked to do. We have 
here a democratic neighbor, the oldest democracy in Latin America, one 
of our best allies in the world, a group of people who have supported 
us and have been through hell over the last 20 years as judges and 
presidential candidates, prosecutors, state legislators. Anyone who had 
the guts to stand up to narcotraffickers has gotten gunned down or 
their families kidnapped and put through a reign of terror by these 
people, and now they ask us for a little help. All of those drugs come 
here. They end up on our streets. They kill our kids. They want to know 
if we will help to put an end to it. I think it is very little to ask, 
considering the magnitude of the problem, how precarious it is for us 
here at home and for this good neighbor and friend to our south.
  Regardless of party, political persuasion, or ideology, this is a 
time when we need to say to democratic countries in this hemisphere, we 
stand with you, particularly when the fight involves us very directly. 
I hope this amendment will be resoundingly defeated and a strong 
message sent that this Congress, despite its demands for attention and 
time and resources, is not going to turn its back on the people of 
Colombia. Rather we will be saying that we will, in an expeditious 
fashion, provide the resources necessary so these people have a chance 
to fight back against a crowd who wants to take their sovereignty and 
simultaneously add to the carnage on our own streets.
  For those reasons, I urge rejection of this amendment. When the 
tabling motion is offered, I hope my colleagues will support it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to bring my colleagues attention 
to the importance of what we are trying to do with emergency aid to 
Colombia. Why is this aid important? And why is now an emergency?
  Illegal drugs pose a direct, immediate threat to the health and 
safety of the citizens of the United States. Today, a majority of the 
cocaine and heroin consumed in the United States, is grown, processed, 
and smuggled from Colombia.
  The Senate, today, has the opportunity to act. We have the 
opportunity to provide a needed boost to the Government of Colombia and 
their efforts to halt illegal drug production in their country. They 
have a plan, and they have asked the U.S. for support. We should 
provide it.
  That said, I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking this is 
either the perfect or final assistance package that will come before 
the Senate for Colombia. However, it is a good start. It will 
strengthen the Colombian military while emphasizing the importance of 
human rights. It will provide additional resources for the Colombian 
National Police, and strengthen U.S. Colombian, and other nations in 
regional interdiction capabilities in and around Colombia. Personally, 
I would like to see more money for intelligence collection, and more 
emphasis on coordination of activities between the Military and 
National Police, and more assistance to Colombia to strengthen the rule 
of law. However, these are all things that can be addressed in future 
appropriations. We also need to address economic and trade issues to 
help the legal economies in the region. This package provides important 
assistance needed now to a government with the will and ability to act.
  The drug problem is not going to be solved overnight. To confront 
this threat, we must work locally, as well as internationally. We must 
provide assistance so those who have been seduced by drug use can get 
help, but we also--and I would say this has to be our first focus--we 
also must keep people from becoming addicts in the first place. This 
means education and prevention. It means using the law to punish those 
who break it, providing the resources to help those who become 
addicted, and it also means focused programs to stop drugs at the 
source. That means that it is in both the moral and strategic interest 
of the United States to support the Government of Colombia in its 
efforts to rid the country of drug production. We should not squander 
this opportunity.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I think it might be appropriate to lay 
the Gorton amendment aside temporarily and go forward. Is the Senator 
from Connecticut ready to offer his amendment?
  Mr. DODD. I am.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Gorton 
amendment be temporarily laid aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3524

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I call up amendment 3524.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd], for himself and 
     Mr. Lieberman, proposes an amendment numbered 3524.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 142, on lines 3-5, strike the words ``procurement, 
     refurbishing, and support for UH-1H Huey II helicopters:'' 
     and insert in lieu thereof the following: ``procurement and 
     support for helicopters determined by the U.S. Department of 
     Defense, in consultation with the Colombian military, to be 
     the most effective aircraft to support missions by elite 
     Colombian counter narcotics battalions in eradicating the 
     expanding cultivation and processing of illicit drugs in 
     remote areas of Colombia:''.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself 
and my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, and others who 
may wish to join us. I will read the substance of the amendment; then I 
will go into the language. The substance of the amendment is as 
follows: We would strike the words ``procurement, refurbishing, and 
support for UH-1H Huey II helicopters'' and insert in lieu thereof the 
following: ``procurement and support for helicopters determined by the 
U.S. Department of Defense, in consultation with the Colombian 
military, to be the most effective aircraft to support missions by 
elite Colombian counter narcotics battalions in eradicating the 
expanding cultivation and processing of illicit drugs in remote areas 
of Colombia.''
  I begin these remarks by stating what was perhaps obvious to my 
colleagues but may not be obvious to all who are following this debate. 
My colleague and I from Connecticut represent a division of United 
Technologies known Sikorsky Aircraft which produces Blackhawk 
helicopters. I am not proposing an amendment that mandates that the 
Blackhawk helicopter be the helicopter of choice. I am sure that may 
disappoint some of my constituents that I am not fighting on behalf of 
a particular helicopter. Rather, my amendment provides for the 
helicopter to be selected on its relative merits.
  As I said a moment ago, when it comes to narcotics issues, I don't 
claim great expertise. I don't claim to be a military expert when it 
comes to making decisions about which helicopters may be the best to 
use in a given situation. Rather than offer an amendment, which my 
colleague from Connecticut and I might have done, to say we replace the 
language here, which does call for a specific helicopter, with the one 
that is produced in our home State, our amendment says, let the people 
who have to make the assessment about what would work best in Colombia 
decide, not what the Senators from Connecticut want or the Senators 
from Texas or some other

[[Page 11629]]

place. My amendment would allow our military experts to say what makes 
the most sense, in consultation with the people who will be receiving 
this military equipment.
  Even if Senators disagree with this package in its entirety, I hope 
they will support this amendment so that at least Colombia will be 
receiving the kinds of equipment that will be necessary to get the job 
done.
  The questions raised by our colleague from the State of Washington 
about whether or not this policy can work are not illegitimate. None of 
us have a crystal ball to determine whether or not this particular 
program is going to produce the desired results of those of us who 
support it. One way we can almost guarantee it won't is to insist that 
the Colombian Government accept only the hardware which we want to give 
them, not which may be the best in order to deal with the problem but 
that which we think they ought to have because of some parochial 
interest.
  I don't want to be in a position of demanding that the Colombian 
Government take a helicopter made in my State. Nor should anyone else 
be demanding they take one from theirs. Let us let the experts decide 
on what works best. That is the reason I am offering this amendment 
with a number of my other colleagues.
  The administration's primary rationale in proposing the $1.2 billion 
supplemental aid package in support of what is called Plan Colombia was 
to assist the Colombian Government in stemming the massive growth in 
coca cultivation in southern Colombia. Again, it is the area I 
described in the shaded green around the Caqueta and Putumayo region. 
It is not limited to those areas. There are other areas as well where 
the products are grown. Those are the principal ones.
  In the last 2 years, Colombia's coca production has grown by 40 
percent. In 1999, the estimated street value in the United States was 
in excess of $6 billion coming out of this region, just in a year 
alone. We are talking about a billion-dollar program to deal with a 
supply in coca alone, in 1 year, 2 years, in excess of $6 billion.
  The Colombian Government has proposed to address the explosion in 
coca production by going to the source, the coca-producing regions of 
Putumayo and Caqueta in southern Colombia. However, these coca growing 
areas are also strongholds of the FARC guerrilla organizations--
frankly, there is a relationship between the drug cultivators and the 
guerrillas in these two areas. There are also right-wing paramilitary 
organizations which operate in these areas, but the paramilitary groups 
are more extensive in the northern part of the country.
  To address these threat levels and logistical difficulties in 
mounting substantial counter narcotics programs, President Pastrana has 
made a central feature of his plan the so-called push into southern 
Colombia, where the bulk of the problem resides. The key components of 
the push into southern Colombia are to equip and train two additional 
Colombian counter narcotics battalions, the training and deployment of 
the first battalion having already occurred in December of last year, 
and to provide tactical mobility, which is airlift capacity, to these 
newly trained battalions so that the Colombian national police will 
have sufficient area security to carry out eradication and other drug 
law enforcement operations in southern Colombia.
  The Clinton administration specifically requested almost $600 million 
to support that component of Plan Colombia, a request essentially met 
in the House-passed emergency supplemental bill. The success or failure 
of push into southern Colombia depends in no small measure not only on 
the effectiveness of these battalions but also on the effectiveness and 
the capacity and capability of the equipment with which we provide 
them. It is going to be critically important that we not jam down the 
throats of this government equipment that is not going to meet the 
test, not going to help get the job done. That is why I offer this 
amendment today.
  President Pastrana and U.S. defense experts spent a number of months 
discussing how best to ensure the maximum effectiveness of these 
operations. Contrary to the assertion of my colleague from Washington, 
a lot of time has been spent discussing this issue. There has not been 
a lack of discussion about what is going on in Colombia. There has been 
a lot of discussion, a lot of hearings.
  Our Pentagon and other experts have determined that the ability to 
transport substantial numbers of elite Army troops together with 
members of the national police quickly and safely to remote areas of 
Colombia would be absolutely critical to the overall success of the 
larger strategy. After reviewing a number of different options, 
including the possibility of non-U.S. aircraft, the Colombian Army 
selected the Blackhawk helicopter as their equipment of choice in 
dealing with this issue. According to Gen. Charles Wilhelm, Commander 
in Chief of the Southern Command, our top military person in the 
region, the ultimate decision to select the Blackhawk over other 
options was based on its superiority in the following areas: range, 
payload, survivability, versatility, service ceiling, and other 
technical considerations.
  Let me share a chart with you that makes the point more clearly than 
anything I could have just said, in very specific terms. I have here a 
chart that shows a comparison between the Huey II, presently demanded 
in this bill, and the Blackhawk. Let me go down each one of the 
critical areas identified by our top military people in the Southern 
Command.
  What is the maximum cruise speed of the Huey II? It is 100 knots. The 
Blackhawk is 155 knots. The maximum number of passengers at sea level 
is 11 persons for the Huey and 24 for the Blackhawk. The maximum 
passengers at 9,000 feet is 8 persons the Huey and 18 persons for the 
Blackhawk.
  On this other chart, when you are based here in northern Colombia and 
you have to get to southern Colombia, you have to fly over the Andes. 
This is not at ground level or sea level. For those people who may be 
familiar with the geography of this area, to suggest somehow you are 
going to have an effective quick-response team, taking 8 people in a 
Huey helicopter over the Andes, as opposed to a Blackhawk, which can 
carry 18 at 9,000 feet, is to put this program in serious jeopardy.
  The maximum flight time is 1.5 hours for the Huey; its 2.5 for the 
Blackhawk. The range of a Huey is 196 nautical miles. It is 300 
nautical miles for the Blackhawk. The ceiling--how high they can go--is 
16,000 feet for a Huey and 20,000 feet in a Blackhawk. The weight the 
Huey can carry is 10,500 pounds; the Blackhawk can carry 22,000 pounds. 
Fuel consumption for a Huey is 600 pounds an hour. For the Blackhawk, 
it is 700 pounds an hour. The sling load is 5,000 pounds for the Huey 
and 9,000 pounds--almost double--for the Blackhawk. The payload at 
4,000 feet again is more than double for the Blackhawk as opposed to a 
Huey.
  Mr. President, in virtually every category that our top military 
people have said is important, the Blackhawk outperforms the Huey. I am 
not offering an amendment that demands that we write in Blackhawk 
instead of Huey. My amendment says let our military people decide which 
is best. If you are going to vote for this program, then you ought to 
let the military people decide what is going to give it the greatest 
chance of success, and not have a bunch of Congressmen and Senators 
tell you what is going to have the greatest chance of success. We 
should give significant weight to what our military people think will 
work in this area.
  If you want to condemn the Plan Colombia program to failure at the 
outset, then provide them with inferior equipment so that they can't 
get the job done. I suggest that is what is happening with the present 
language in this bill. In virtually every operational category--speed, 
maximum passengers, flight time, ceiling, weight-carrying capacity--the 
Blackhawk outperforms the Huey. That is not at all surprising,

[[Page 11630]]

since the Huey is a Vietnam war vintage aircraft, which first went into 
production in 1959--40 years ago. The production of Hueys ended in 
1976, a quarter of a century ago. The Blackhawk is newer; in fact, it 
is still being manufactured. Moreover, the Blackhawk was engineered 
specifically to address the deficiencies experienced with the Huey 
during the Vietnam conflict.
  The so-called Huey II is a retrofitted Huey. The upgrade package that 
the Committee mark would fund was only developed 4 years ago and sold 
to the Colombian armed forces to improve the performance of Hueys 
currently in operation in that country. None of the U.S. services have 
chosen to upgrade Huey inventories using the kits the Appropriations 
Committee proposes to provide Colombia. In fact, the U.S. Armed Forces 
are in the process of phasing out current inventories of the 800 Huey 
aircraft and replacing them entirely with the newer model aircraft, 
including Blackhawks. Hueys are no longer used in combat missions by 
any of the U.S. Armed Forces.
  The Appropriations Committee has indirectly acknowledged the 
differences in capability of the two aircraft by recommending a 2-for-1 
substitute of Hueys for Blackhawks--60 Huey II's, instead of 30 
Blackhawks. That also means that the significant cost advantages that 
the proponents of the Huey II have pointed to as a justification for 
the substitution is significantly reduced. It is even further reduced 
because U.S. military experts who are familiar with the conditions in 
Colombia in which the aircraft will be operating have stated it will 
actually take two-plus Hueys to accomplish what one Blackhawk could do. 
If that is the case, then the cost advantage argument goes out the 
window. The mission cost for a typical mission of transporting 88 
troops from a base, at a distance of 98 miles or less, would cost 
essentially the same.
  The committee has asserted in it's committee report that one of the 
rationales for substituting Hueys for Blackhawks was the more immediate 
availability of Huey II's. I think that is disputable, in light of the 
fact that the 60 Hueys would require major refurbishing. There is 
currently a limited capacity in the United States, or Colombia for that 
matter, to do that in a time frame that is much faster than the 
delivery schedule that Sikorsky has proposed for the 30 Blackhawks. 
However, setting that point aside for the moment, there is another more 
fundamental flaw, with all due respect, in the committee's argument. It 
assumes the Colombian army has trained pilots available to fly in the 
60 Hueys once they arrive. Mr. President, that simply is not the case.
  The expectation is that it will take between 6 to 9 months to train a 
pilot to fly those Hueys, or the Blackhawks for that matter. In the 
case of Hueys, at least double the number of pilots will need to be 
trained to enable the Colombian Army to have an equivalent air mobility 
for its elite battalions. You will need at least double the number of 
pilots trained to carry out the missions. Frankly, the serious 
questions as to whether or not that many individuals can be identified 
on short notice in Colombia to undergo such training in order to 
actually produce the necessary pilots to operate that many Hueys safely 
and with the capacity and efficiency that is necessary.
  Again, I don't claim to be an expert on this, conversant in all the 
nuances of various helicopter technologies. For that reason, my 
amendment does not demand that the Huey be the choice. I have made a 
case for it here, but I have tried to point out the fallacies in the 
demanding choice in the bill.
  Again, whether or not you agree with this policy overall, I hope you 
will support this amendment. In fact, if you will oppose the policy 
because you think it is not likely to work well, then you ought to be 
for this because at least this increases the chance of success of this 
program. So my amendment simply says let the pros make the choices--not 
Senators or Congressmen for a specific State, but those who are 
knowledgeable about this issue, the defense experts in our own country, 
and those in Colombia who know this terrain.
  Last, I will put up a chart that shows the relative ranges of the two 
helicopters. If you look at the colored circles on the chart, the red 
line is the range of a Huey. The black line is the range of a 
Blackhawk. Look at the difference in terms of range capacity of these 
two pieces of equipment.
  With that, I hope that my colleagues will support this amendment when 
a vote is called for on it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. At the outset, neither of these helicopters were made 
in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. My good friend from Connecticut has 
done, as usual, a very effective job of representing his position. Were 
I the Senator from Connecticut, I am confident I would be making a very 
similar speech. Even though the amendment of the Senator from 
Connecticut doesn't specify the particular kind of helicopter, as a 
practical matter, if you leave that decision entirely to the Pentagon, 
I think the Senator would agree that they are likely to prefer the 
Blackhawk.
  Let me just point out to my colleagues why the committee made the 
decision that it did. First, this is primarily a cost decision. While 
we didn't want to compromise on safety or capability, we had to 
consider the fact that over the next several years of use, this 
subcommittee will have to provide financial support to maintain and 
operate whatever aircraft is selected to move Colombian troops. Mr. 
President, this is not a one-time procurement decision. We will be 
dealing with this in future years. According to the Defense Security 
Cooperation Agency, the Blackhawks will cost about $12 million each and 
then at least $1,200 an hour to operate. Counternarcotics aircraft are 
expected to average 25 hours of flying time a month year-round. To 
cover these costs, the administration has requested $388 million to 
procure, maintain, and operate the 30 Blackhawks.
  In comparison, the Huey II will cost $1.8 million to refurbish, and 
then roughly $500 an hour for fuel, spare parts, and other operational 
costs.
  Frankly, the strongest argument the administration made for 
Blackhawks over Hueys was that the former had twice the troop-carrying 
capability, as Senator Dodd pointed out. While the Huey manufacturer 
challenged this argument, I decided it was better safe than sorry. So 
to address the issue, we doubled the number of aircraft we are funding 
to 60. Even doubling the number of helicopters, the cost of the Huey 
program stays under $120 million.
  Supporters of the Huey have also argued that they can be made 
available sooner than the delivery schedule of the end of the year for 
the Blackhawk. Given the pilot shortages and the time it will take to 
``train up'' either Blackhawk or Huey pilots, I don't see this aspect 
as particularly decisive.
  I think we have assured the Colombians that they can successfully 
achieve their mission by taking the approach we recommended in the 
bill.
  I think we have assured the Colombians that they can successfully 
achieve their mission at a lower cost, not only now but, very 
importantly, to the budget here in the United States, and lower it in 
the future for the United States.
  With the savings we achieved by taking the approach we recommended in 
the bill, we have been able to increase the regional support for the 
Colombian police, increase support for human rights programs, and 
sustain requested levels for equipment, training, and related support 
for counternarcotics battalions.
  Senator Dodd's chart points out the precise reason we chose to fund 
60 Huey IIs rather than 30 Blackhawks. His chart points out that the 
cost to operate the Huey is $617 per hour compared with the Blackhawk 
cost of $1,675 per hour.
  The foreign operations account has to pay for these operational costs 
this year, next year, and every year after that. Those are years in 
which we will probably not have $1 billion in emergency funds for 
Colombia. That means we will have to cut into other accounts to keep 
these helicopters flying in future years. Which accounts do we cut?

[[Page 11631]]

Refugees, UNICEF, funds for Armenia, and Russia, demining, or health? 
What accounts will pay the price to fly Blackhawks in the future years 
when Hueys would do?
  These are U.S. units, which do not have Blackhawks, which will have 
to wait while the production line produces Colombia's inventory. Given 
the short- and long-term costs, and given the impact on the 
availability for U.S. troops, the committee decided to provide twice 
the number of refurbished Hueys which will meet all the troop transport 
requirements in Colombia.
  Those are the arguments for the approach the committee has chosen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I am impressed with Senator Dodd's logic and wisdom in 
drafting legislation which does not direct the purchase but, rather, 
makes the purchase subject to the decisions of the DOD, which will 
ultimately be responsible for the training and military support for the 
Colombian Army.
  I am here today principally because I was fortunate enough last week 
to be in Colombia and in the field with a narcotics battalion, to get 
the opinions of those Colombian soldiers who actually have to fight 
these missions, and to get the observations of the American special 
forces troops who are training the Colombians. I think their 
observations will be very useful and informative to my colleagues. I 
believe I have an obligation to speak to those observations.
  These are both excellent systems. But the question of what system do 
you purchase and deploy is a function of the mission that the platform, 
the helicopter, the system must execute.
  Senator Dodd did a very good job of providing the context for the 
proposed operation. Let me add a bit of detail, if I may.
  The use of Plan Colombia from a military standpoint is to create a 
counternarcotics battalion which will push into the South from the 
provinces of Putumayo and Caqueta. This is part of the Amazon jungle. 
It is all jungle. The last road ends at Tres Esquinas. All military 
supplies for the core operation of that base must be done by air. The 
context of the operation that is proposed is that they operate from 
Tres Esquinas, which is about 150 nautical miles from the operating 
base. That is their zone of operation.
  The mission these counternarcotics troops will perform is to airlift 
out of Tres Esquinas, to move into landing zones that are close to 
either final laboratories or other significant assets of the 
narcoterrorists, and to deliver, at a minimum, two platoons. Those 2 
platoons have about 70 personnel. The ultimate lift will be a full 
company of about 360 personnel.
  It has been pointed out before that the range of the Huey II, Super 
Huey, is about 196 nautical miles carrying 11 troops, and the Huey II 
can range only half the target area, half of the 150 nautical miles, 
without expensive refueling operations.
  So the first tactical decision a commander would have to make if in 
fact he were deploying Super Hueys would be to operate in the full 
range of the area of operations. You would have to go ahead and 
establish, at least temporarily, four refueling points so the Hueys 
could come in and refuel. This is in some respects a tactical hindrance 
to the operation.
  First of all, you have to defend these positions in the field--in a 
jungle area that is literally infested with guerrillas.
  Second, the element of surprise would be at least somewhat vitiated 
if in fact they were able to see you come in, refuel, and then lift 
off, and go again to a target area.
  In contrast to the range of the Huey II and the necessary-for-
refueling bases to cover the whole area, the Blackhawk has a range of 
about 300 nautical miles and can carry 18 troops. This disparity 
between range and capacity of troop lift also goes to the issue of cost 
because obviously, in order to conduct these tactical operations, you 
will need more of the Super Hueys than you would Blackhawk helicopters. 
That doesn't completely equate the force, but it in a significant way 
narrows operational forces.
  The military personnel on the ground, the Colombian National Army, 
and the special forces advisers suggest that to put two platoons into 
an LZ someplace in this area of operations would require seven Hueys as 
compared to four Blackhawks. Again, tactically, four Blackhawk aircraft 
flying at higher speeds and moving in without the necessity to refuel 
gives them more operational capabilities, and it gives them more 
capability to amass their forces, strike quickly, and pull back 
quickly.
  There is something else that has to be mentioned. They are flying 
against military forces that potentially have fairly sophisticated 
defense systems, which again puts a premium on speed and surprise--
being able to get in and out--and also the survivability of the 
helicopters. That is again an issue that requires capital military 
judgments about what system is most capable to operate and survive in 
this type of environment.
  There is another aspect to this. The lift capacity of the Blackhawk, 
according to the people to whom I spoke, gives it an advantage when 
they operate closely in the highlands of the Andes where you need lift 
simply because of the altitude. It also gives the Blackhawks some 
respect.
  Also, this was suggested to me while I was in the field. If you are 
going to do fast-rope rappelling operations, you have to come in, hover 
over the objective, and get your troops out. Many places in this area 
of operation will not be landing zones. You will have to require 
rappelling operations to get your troops on the ground and get them out 
again.
  Another aspect that was alluded to by Senator Dodd is the aspect of 
the ability of the Colombian forces to absorb a number of helicopters. 
Right now, the State Department has managed to procure for the use of 
the Colombians, at least temporarily, 18 Huey helicopters from Canada. 
These are ``1-November'' models. Already, that has increased the 
aviation capacity potentially of the Colombians by substantial amounts. 
They are out finding pilots; they are finding logistical support.
  If we give them 30 Blackhawks, that will stress their logistical 
ability to train pilots, to provide mechanics, to provide crews, to 
provide the kind of logistic base they need. If we double that by 
providing twice as many Hueys, we will put additional pressure on the 
logistical base of the Colombian military forces to do the job. That is 
something, practically, that we have to consider with respect to this 
issue.
  What Senator Dodd has suggested is very thoughtful and appropriate, 
to make this military decision subject to military judgment and not our 
particular judgment.
  I was compelled to speak today because I had the chance, 
gratuitously, to be at Tres Esquinas and Larandia on Sunday to talk to 
the Colombian soldiers who will fly the missions and jump into this 
difficult area. I talked to our special forces troops and our military 
forces who are advising. They provided information, and it is important 
my colleagues understand this information. It is appropriate we should 
be considering this amendment, not to direct that the aircraft be one 
variety or the other but to ensure that the Department of Defense make 
a very careful review based upon some of the issues we have all talked 
about, including range, lift capability, the nature of the operations, 
the nature of the Colombian military forces, and their capacity to 
integrate these platforms quickly into their operations.
  I hope this debate accomplishes those missions. I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I urge the Senate to support the 
committee's position on this issue.
  Mr. DODD. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. STEVENS. Yes, but I have to leave quickly.
  Mr. DODD. I would like to attend the ceremony, as well. Perhaps the 
leadership could provide a window for those who want to attend that 
ceremony.
  Mr. STEVENS. It is above my pay grade. I will speak for 2 minutes and 
express my position. If the vote occurs while I am gone, people will 
see an old bull scratch the ground very hard.

[[Page 11632]]

  As a practical matter, this position that we have taken is the best 
one for Colombia. We looked at this very seriously. This account is 
under attack now. Does anyone think year after year after year after 
year we will be able to declare an emergency on this account?
  We provided the Hueys. They can have two or more times the number of 
Hueys for the cost of what the administration wants to do with 
Blackhawks. The Blackhawks are fighting machines. They will be the tip 
of a sword going into another Vietnam, if we are not careful. What they 
need are the Hueys. They need to transport these people. They need to 
be able to fight against the drug people. They do not need to get these 
so they can fight against the insurgents.
  I urge the Senate to realize what we are doing. We are doing our 
utmost to increase the tremendous pressure upon the drug operations in 
Colombia. We want to do that in a way that Colombia can sustain the 
cost without coming back to this Congress year after year after year to 
ask for money to maintain what we provided.
  Others have spoken about the costs. The Huey is a good machine. We 
are upgrading the Huey and providing our own troops for them. There is 
no reason for anyone to be ashamed of flying a Huey in combat. But it 
is not the type of situation that calls for Blackhawks to be a part of 
our operation against the drug lords. What we need to do is provide the 
assistance they need and to give them the ability, if they want to 
continue this, to operate these machines.
  I cannot see why we should start this precedent. I assume Senator 
McConnell made the same comments. We have similar situations all over 
the world. We are going to be faced in the next decade with trying to 
suppress the supply of drugs coming literally from all over the globe. 
This is no time to take the frontline item that we have for war-
fighting machines and provide it as assistance to people trying to 
suppress drug producers.
  I wish I had more time to deal with this because I believe very 
strongly that if we go to the Blackhawks--with the cost of operation 
per hour, the high maintenance cost, the high cost of continued 
operation--we will start a trendline that this budget cannot sustain 
into the future. We have to think about this not only in terms of what 
we will do now but what it will do in terms of outyear costs to 
continue this assistance. It is not a 1-year operation. We will not be 
able to stop this drug operation in Colombia in 1 year.
  We have done our best. In fact, we have not done it yet. If this 
account gets overloaded, I seriously question even surviving the 
Senate. We have been warned about that in terms of the level of 
support. I believe Senator McConnell and his committee have brought to 
us a bill that meets the needs, gives them the assistance, and gives 
them the support to carry out their operations against the drug lords 
without getting the U.S. in the position of building up a military 
force in Colombia to deal with the other problems they face internally.
  I hope the Senate agrees with our position.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will join my good friend from Alaska 
shortly, but this amendment I have offered says to let the people we 
are going to get into the situation decide. Some people think we ought 
not be involved with this. I respect their position, but I disagree. If 
we are going to get involved with narcotraffickers who are as well 
heeled and financed as any military group in the world, if we are going 
to do the job right and properly, we ought to let the military people 
decide what they need. My amendment says to let the military people 
decide what works best.
  Let me read what 24 of our aviation experts sent to Colombia 
specifically for the purpose of trying to determine what equipment 
would work best had to say on the impact of substituting 60 Hueys for 
30 Blackhawks, as originally proposed:
  The superior troop-carrying capacity and range of the Blackhawk 
versus the Huey, coupled with the combat nature of the operations, the 
requirement to operate at high altitude areas and the increased 
survivability of both aircrew and troops, clearly indicate that the 
Blackhawk is the helicopter that should be fielded to Colombia in 
supporting the counterdrug effort.
  Additionally, the number of acquired pilots, crew chiefs, gunners, 
and mechanics to operate and maintain the Hueys is twice that of the 
Blackhawks. Infrastructure requirements, maintenance, building, 
parking, and refueling areas, as well as other associated building 
requirements, are essentially double to support the 60 Hueys as opposed 
to the 30 Blackhawks.
  If this issue were to be decided strictly on dollars and cents--put 
aside the issue of whether or not one piece of equipment is better than 
the next--the 18 Hueys that are there, plus the 60 they talk about 
sending, those numbers exceed what it would cost in order to have the 
equipment that the military says they need to do the job. These are the 
numbers from the military.
  I am not suggesting you blindly follow the military in every case. 
But my amendment says at least let them make a recommendation as to 
what they think is right. It doesn't say you have to take the 
Blackhawk. It says make the proper, intelligent decision.
  We heard from my colleague from Rhode Island, a graduate of West 
Point Academy, who served with distinction in the U.S. military for a 
career. He was just in Colombia, along with others, going down to 
assess what makes the best sense. He comes back with the same 
conclusion: We ought to let the military people decide.
  I have been to Colombia many times. I know that terrain, where the 
flatlands are, where most of this problem exists. If I can get that 
chart here which shows the map of Colombia? Let me make the point 
again.
  When you get down to the area where most of the narcotraffickers 
operate, that is jungle. That is down along that Ecuadorian border, the 
Putumayo River. There are no roads here at all. The roads end up here 
in the highlands.
  The idea that you are going to have the capacity to handle 90 
helicopters--they do not have the personnel in Colombia to do that. If 
you want to condemn this program to failure, then demand this language 
be in this amendment. The change we are offering at least offers this 
program a much higher chance of success down the road by allowing 60 
Blackhawks, which every military expert who has looked at this says is 
what you ought to have to deal with the altitude of the Andes because 
of its lift capacity, personnel capacity to be able to move into this 
area, and the speed to move in and out.
  Again, it seems to me, if you look at the charts, on all the 
comparisons here, using 1976 equipment--the last year the Huey was 
made--as opposed to a modern piece of equipment is wrong. Unless you 
think this is not an issue worth fighting over, if you think you want 
to have these narcotraffickers control this country and take over this 
place and ship on an hourly basis to this country the drugs that are 
killing 50,000 people a year, we ought not support it at all. But if 
you are going to do it and you think it is worthy of doing, then do it 
right. Do it with the kind of equipment that will guarantee at least a 
higher possibility of success, or we will end up doing it ourselves 
down the road, which I don't welcome at all.
  We now have Colombians who can fly these helicopters or can be 
trained to do so. Let them do the job. If we send in inferior equipment 
that can't get the job done, the problem gets worse, the situation gets 
worse, and then we will be regretting the day we made a political 
decision about the Hueys rather than a military decision about what 
works best.
  I urge colleagues, regardless of their position on whether or not 
this is a program they want to support, to support this amendment which 
says this decision ought to be left to the people who make the 
calculated determinations of what works best. That is all this 
amendment does. It does not demand a Blackhawk. It just says make the 
decision about what makes the best sense. I will live with whatever 
decision that is. But I don't want to have a

[[Page 11633]]

political decision, I don't want to be told I have to accept 60 or 90 
Hueys, when I know in Colombia you don't have the personnel to support 
it. It will take too long, you will never get it done, and you don't 
have the capacity to get the job accomplished.
  I urge my colleagues to support the amendment when it comes to a 
vote. I think my colleague from Connecticut wants to be heard on this 
issue.
  I don't know how the chairman of the committee wants to handle this. 
I would like to be excused for about an hour to attend a very important 
medal ceremony for one of our colleagues.
  Mr. McCONNELL. We are not ready to schedule a vote yet, I am told.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there are United States units that 
don't have Blackhawks yet, that will have to wait while Blackhawks are 
produced to send to Colombia, which could get by on Hueys. My good 
friend from Connecticut has made a good case for a home State product, 
the Blackhawk helicopter. The Blackhawk is not made in Kentucky. The 
Huey is not made in Kentucky. What I am concerned about, as chairman of 
this subcommittee, is two things: No. 1, the fact that even U.S. units 
don't have Blackhawks yet and will have to wait, as I just said, while 
these are sent to Colombia. And, No. 2 is the cost of operation.
  We are not going to have $1 billion to spend on Colombia every year. 
This is a unique year in which we are debating whether to spend $1 
billion on the drug war in Colombia--an unusual year. But the cost of 
operating these Blackhawks, if we go in that direction, is going to 
come back every year and that is $1,000 an hour more than operating the 
Huey--$1,000 an hour more than operating the Huey.
  As the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee just 
pointed out, and also the chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of the 
Appropriations Committee, the Huey will get the job done for a lower 
cost to the United States. The foreign operations account is going to 
have to pay for these operational costs, as I just pointed out, not 
just this year but the year after that and the year after that and the 
year after that. That means we will have to cut into other accounts to 
keep these helicopters flying.
  That is the reason the subcommittee decided to go with the Huey 
because we think the Huey will get the job done at less cost this year, 
next year, and in years down the road, which is not to say I am sure 
the Colombians would not like to have Blackhawks; I am sure they would. 
All of our U.S. units that need them would like to have them, too, and 
they don't have them yet. So that is the reason for the recommendation 
of the subcommittee.
  I hope when we subsequently vote on the Dodd amendment it will be 
defeated. Mr. President, with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes 
occur in relation to the pending Dodd amendment and the Gorton 
amendment beginning at 6:10 p.m., with the first vote in relation to 
the Gorton amendment, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Dodd 
amendment, with the time between now and 6:10 p.m. to be equally 
divided for debate on both amendments, and no second-degree amendments 
be in order prior to the votes just described, with 2 minutes between 
the two votes for explanation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from 
Kentucky, does he have a feeling whether there will be votes after 
those votes?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am told the majority leader wants to continue and 
try to wrap the bill up tonight.
  Mr. LEAHY. I am for that. There may be some difficulty with some of 
the amendments coming down. I urge Senators who have amendments, even 
if we have to put a couple aside, that they come down and start 
debating their amendments.
  I think I can speak for both the distinguished chairman and myself on 
the pending amendment. There will be no difficulty in having it set 
aside for the moment if somebody wants to start debate on another 
amendment, especially if it is going to require a rollcall vote. I can 
see a situation where it can easily be sequenced following these other 
two amendments.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Vermont, as we speak, staff on 
both sides are going over the amendments that were filed prior to the 
deadline of 3 p.m. Hopefully, we will be able to process some of those 
by agreement during this period between now and 6:10 p.m. I agree with 
the Senator from Vermont, we want to make progress. If anybody wants to 
come down and offer an amendment that might be contentious and debate 
it, we will certainly be glad to see them.
  Mr. LEAHY. The point is, we will jointly move to set something aside 
so they can debate an amendment, if they wish. I urge that. It will 
save us from having debate quite late this evening. In the meantime, we 
will try to clear some amendments. Even in that regard, if there are 
Senators who have amendments they wish cleared, we can try to do that.
  I see the distinguished Senator from Virginia on the floor, one of my 
Senators when I am away from home. I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my distinguished colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I very much want to make a statement in 
support of the subcommittee's efforts on the funding for the Colombia 
operation. Our committee had a hearing on the subject. We looked into 
it very carefully. At the appropriate time, I want to be recognized by 
the Chair. I need a few more minutes to collect my documents, but I 
judge from the managers, I would not be disruptive to what they are 
engaged in were I to seek the floor in the near future.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Virginia, there is no time 
like the present or the near present. Seeing no one else on the floor 
at the moment, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


       Amendments Nos. 3529, 3536, 3540, 3544, And 3568, En Bloc

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we have some more amendments that have 
been cleared on both sides. Therefore, en bloc, I call up amendments 
Nos. 3529, 3536, 3540, 3544, and 3568.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendments will be 
considered en bloc.
  The amendments are as follows:


                           AMENDMENT NO. 3529

  (Purpose: To allocate development assistance funds for Habitat for 
                        Humanity International)

       On page 12, line 14, before the period insert the 
     following: ``: Provided further, That of the amount 
     appropriated or otherwise made available under this heading, 
     $1,500,000 shall be available only for Habitat for Humanity 
     International, to be used to purchase 14 acres of land on 
     behalf of Tibetan refugees living in northern India and for 
     the construction of a multiunit development for Tibetan 
     families''.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3536

    (Purpose: Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the 
Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining, and Related Programs (NADR) 
                                budget)

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following 
     section:

     SEC. __. NONPROLIFERATION AND ANTI-TERRORISM PROGRAMS.

       It is the sense of Congress that--
       (1) the programs contained in the Department of State's 
     Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining, and Related 
     Programs (NADR) budget line are vital to the national 
     security of the United States; and
       (2) funding for those programs should be restored in any 
     conference report with respect to this Act to the levels 
     requested in the President's budget.

[[Page 11634]]

     
                                  ____
                           amendment no. 3540

   (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate on the importance of 
   combating mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan 
                                Africa)

       At the appropriate place, add the following:
       Sec.   . (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--
       (1) According to the World Health Organization, in 1999, 
     there were 5.6 million new cases of HIV/AIDS throughout the 
     world, and two-thirds of those (3.8 million) were in sub-
     Saharan Africa.
       (2) Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world 
     where a majority of those with HIV/AIDS--55 percent--are 
     women.
       (3) When women get the disease, they often pass it along to 
     their children, and over 2 million children in sub-Saharan 
     Africa are living with HIV/AIDS.
       (4) New investments and treatments hold out promise of 
     making progress against mother-to-child transmission of HIV/
     AIDS. For example--
       (A) a study in Uganda demonstrated that a new drug could 
     prevent almost one-half of the HIV transmissions from mothers 
     to infants, at a fraction of the cost of other treatments; 
     and
       (B) a study of South Africa's population estimated that if 
     all pregnant women in that country took an antiviral 
     medication during labor, as many as 110,000 new cases of HIV/
     AIDS could be prevented over the next five years in South 
     Africa alone.
       (5) The Technical Assistance, Trade Promotion, and Anti-
     Corruption Act of 2000, as approved by the Senate Foreign 
     Relations Committee on March 23, 2000, ensures that not less 
     than 8.3 percent of USAID's HIV/AIDS funding is used to 
     combat mother-to-child transmission.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that of the funds provided in this Act, the USAID should 
     place a high priority on efforts, including providing 
     medications, to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/
     AIDS.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3544

     (Purpose: To require a report on the delivery of humanitarian 
              assistance to Sudan, and for other purposes)

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

     SEC. __. REPORTING REQUIREMENT ON SUDAN.

       One hundred and twenty days after the date of enactment of 
     this Act, the President shall submit a report to the 
     appropriate congressional committees--
       (1) describing--
       (A) the areas of Sudan open to the delivery of humanitarian 
     or other assistance through or from Operation Lifeline Sudan 
     (in this section referred to as ``OLS''), both in the 
     Northern and Southern sectors;
       (B) the extent of actual deliveries of assistance through 
     or from OLS to those areas from January 1997 through the 
     present;
       (C) areas of Sudan which cannot or do not receive 
     assistance through or from OLS, and the specific reasons for 
     lack or absence of coverage, including--
       (i) denial of access by the government of Sudan on a 
     periodic basis (``flight bans''), including specific times 
     and duration of denials from January 1997 through the 
     present;
       (ii) denial of access by the government of Sudan on an 
     historic basis (``no-go'' areas) since 1989 and the reason 
     for such denials;
       (iii) exclusion of areas from the original agreements which 
     defined the limitations of OLS;
       (iv) a determination by OLS of a lack of need in an area of 
     no coverage;
       (v) no request has been made to the government of Sudan for 
     coverage or deliveries to those areas by OLS or any 
     participating organization within OLS; or
       (vi) any other reason for exclusion from or denial of 
     coverage by OLS;
       (D) areas of Sudan where the United States has provided 
     assistance outside of OLS since January 1997, and the amount, 
     extent and nature of that assistance;
       (E) areas affected by the withdrawal of international 
     relief organizations, or their sponsors, or both, due to the 
     disagreement over terms of the ``Agreement for Coordination 
     of Humanitarian, Relief and Rehabilitation Activities in the 
     SPLM Administered Areas'' memorandum of 1999, including 
     specific locations and programs affected; and
       (2) containing a comprehensive assessment of the 
     humanitarian needs in areas of Sudan not covered or served by 
     OLS, including but not limited to the Nuba Mountains, Red Sea 
     Hills, and Blue Nile regions.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3568

     (Purpose: To allocate funds to combat trafficking in persons)

       On page 20, line 18, before the period insert the 
     following: ``: Provided further, That of the funds 
     appropriated under this heading and made available to support 
     training of local Kosovo police and the temporary 
     International Police Force (IPF), not less than $250,000 
     shall be available only to assist law enforcement officials 
     better identify and respond to cases of trafficking in 
     persons''.
       On page 24, line 14, before the period insert the 
     following: ``: Provided further, That of the funds 
     appropriated under this heading, not less than $1,500,000 
     shall be available only to meet the health and other 
     assistance needs of victims of trafficking in persons''.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, they have been cleared on both sides of 
the aisle. I ask unanimous consent the amendments be agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendments are agreed 
to.
  The amendments (Nos. 3529, 3536, 3540, 3544, and 3568) were agreed 
to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


        Amendments Nos. 3521, As Modified, And 3584, As Modified

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send to the desk modifications to 
amendments Nos. 3521 and 3584.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], for Mr. 
     Coverdell, for himself and Mr. Leahy, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 3521, as modified.

  The amendment, as modified, is as follows:

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

     SEC.  . PERU.

       (a) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that:
       (1) the Organization of American States (OAS) Electoral 
     Observer Mission, led by Eduardo Stein, deserves the 
     recognition and gratitude of the United States for having 
     performed an extarodinary service in promoting representative 
     democracy in the Americas by working to ensure free and fair 
     elections in Peru and exposing efforts of the Government of 
     Peru to manipulate the national elections in April and May of 
     2000 to benefit the president in power.
       (2) the Government of Peru failed to establish the 
     conditions for free and fair elections--both for the April 9 
     election as well as the May 28 run-off--by not taking 
     effective steps to correct the ``insufficiencies, 
     irregularities, inconsistencies, and inequities'' documented 
     by the OAS Electoral Observation Mission.
       (3) the United States Government should support the work of 
     the OAS high-level mission, and that such mission should base 
     its specific recommendations on the views of civil society in 
     Peru regarding commitments by their government to respect 
     human rights, the rule of law, the independence and 
     constitutional role of the judiciary and national congress, 
     and freedom of expression and journalism.
       (4) in accordance with P.L. 106-186, the United States must 
     review and modify as appropriate its political, economic, and 
     military relations with Peru and work with other democracies 
     in this hemisphere and elsewhere toward a restoration of 
     democracy in Peru.
       (b) Report.--Not later than 30 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit to 
     the appropriate committees of Congress a report evaluating 
     United States political, economic, and military relations 
     with Peru, in accordance with P.L. 106-186. Such report 
     should review, but not be limited to, the following.
       (1) The effectiveness of providing United States assistance 
     to Peru only through independent non-governmental 
     organizations or international organizations;
       (2) Scrutiny of all United States anti-narcotics assistance 
     to Peru and the effectiveness of providing such assistance 
     through legitimate civilian agencies and the appropriateness 
     of providing this assistance to any military or intelligence 
     units that are known to have violated human rights, 
     suppressed freedom of expression or undermined free and fair 
     elections.
       (3) The need to increase support to Peru through 
     independent non-governmental organizations and international 
     organizations to promote the rule of law, separation of 
     powers, political pluralism, and respect to human rights, and 
     to evaluate termination of support for entities that have 
     cooperated with the undemocratic maneuvers of the executive 
     branch; and
       (4) The effectiveness of United States policy of supporting 
     loans or other assistance for Peru through international 
     financial institutions (such as the World Bank and Inter-
     American Development Bank), and an evaluation of terminating 
     support to entities of the Government of Peru that have 
     willfully violated human rights, suppressed freedom of 
     expression, or undermined free and fair elections.
       (5) The extent to which Peru benefits from the Andean Trade 
     Preferences Act and the ramifications of conditioning 
     participation in that program on respect for the rule of law 
     and representative democracy.
       (c) Determination.--Not later than 90 days after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act, the President shall determine 
     and report to the appropriate committees of Congress whether 
     the Government of Peru has made substantial progress in 
     improving its respect

[[Page 11635]]

     for human rights, the rule of law (including fair trials of 
     civilians), the independence and constitutional role of the 
     judiciary and national congress, and freedom of expression 
     and independent journalism.
       (d) Prohibition.--If the President determines and reports 
     pursuant to subsection (c) that the Government of Peru has 
     not made substantial progress, no funds appropriated by this 
     Act may be made available for assistance for the Government 
     of Peru, and the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the 
     United States executive directors to the international 
     financial institutions to use the voice and vote of the 
     United States to oppose loans to the Government of Peru, 
     except loans to support basic human needs.
       (e) Exception.--The prohibition in subsection (d) shall not 
     apply to humanitarian assistance, democracy assistance, anti-
     narcotics assistance, assistance to support binational peace 
     activities involving Peru and Ecuador, assistance provided by 
     the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or assistance 
     provided by the Trade and Development Agency.
       (f) Waiver.--The President may waive subsection (d) for 
     periods not to exceed 90 days if he certifies to the 
     appropriate committees of Congress that doing so is important 
     to the national interests of the United States and will 
     promote the respect for human rights and the rule of law in 
     Peru.
       (g) Definition.--For the purposes of this section, 
     ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means the Committee on 
     Appropriations and the Committee on Foreign Relations in the 
     Senate and the Committee on Appropriations and Committee on 
     International Relations in the House of Representatives. For 
     the purposes of this section, ``humanitarian assistance'' 
     includes but is not limited to assistance to support health 
     and basic education.

  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] for Mr. Abraham, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 3584, as modified.

  The amendment, as further modified, is as follows:

       On page 14, line 4, strike ``$15,000,000'' and insert 
     $8,000,000, of which $3,000,000 shall be made available from 
     Economic Support Fund assistance fun assistance''.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, these amendments that have been 
modified have been approved by both sides. I ask unanimous consent that 
the amendments be agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
amendments are agreed to.
  The amendments (Nos. 3521 and 3584), as modified, were agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if the Senator would withhold.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I withhold.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank the managers for their efforts on 
this very important piece of legislation. They will have my support.
  Mr. President, I have been associated with this very important piece 
of legislation providing aid to Colombia since it was first recommended 
to the Congress of the United States.
  I commend the administration and, in particular, General McCaffrey. I 
have had an opportunity, as chairman of the Committee on Armed Services 
and, indeed, for some 22 years to work with General McCaffrey, 
particularly during the period of the Gulf War in 1991 when he showed 
extraordinary leadership as a troop commander in that decisive battle 
to turn back Saddam Hussein's threats.
  Now he has volunteered, once again, as an American patriot, to take 
on this somewhat thankless task of dealing with the almost insoluble 
problems of the importing into this country of drugs. This is one 
effort by the general--indeed, the administration, and others--to try 
to curtail this illegal importation of drugs.
  I heard a colleague earlier today concerned about: Well, we are not 
spending enough money here at home. My quick research and consultation 
with other colleagues indicates that I think some $500 million in 
taxpayers' money has been added by this Congress to the 
Administration's budget requests for domestic programs over the past 3 
years. This money has been expended in an effort to educate and to, in 
every other way, help Americans, first, avoid the use of drugs and 
then, if misfortune does strike an individual and their families, to 
try to deal with the tragic consequences.
  So I rise to speak in support of the U.S. counternarcotics activities 
in the Andean ridge and neighboring countries, as provided for in this 
bill, and to address the impact of drug trafficking on the stability of 
the region.
  The importance of this region to the United States cannot be 
overestimated. I will give you one example. The region provides the 
United States with almost 20 percent of the supply of foreign oil. The 
number is likely to increase with the recent discovery, in Colombia's 
eastern plains, of reserves estimated at 2 million barrels. The ongoing 
controversy over the price of gas by the American motorists at this 
very moment is reason to help Colombia fight this problem.
  When I say help this nation, I have been privileged to meet with 
their President in the course of his visits here, and also meet with 
the Foreign Minister, the Ambassador--the very courageous Ambassador 
from Colombia to the United States--and many others from that nation. 
And, indeed, I have met with private citizens here in America who have 
had their origin and background in Colombia. So I have talked to a wide 
range of individuals.
  This legislation is the right thing. I commend all those, certainly 
here in the Senate, and particularly those in the current Government of 
Colombia, as well as the citizens who have worked to foster this 
legislation.
  Mr. President, to reiterate I rise to speak in support of United 
States counter-narcotics activities in the Andean Ridge and neighboring 
countries as provided for in this bill, and the impact of drug 
trafficking on the stability of the region. The importance of this 
region to the United States cannot be overstated.
  This region provides the United States with almost 20 percent of its 
supply of foreign oil--a number that is likely to increase with the 
recent discovery in Colombia's eastern plains of reserves that are 
estimated at two billion barrels. The ongoing controversy over the 
price of gasoline that the American motorist is paying only serves to 
reinforce the importance of this commodity in our everyday life and 
economy.
  In sharp and tragic contrast is the threat from this same region 
posed by illegal drugs to American citizens on the streets of our 
cities and in the playgrounds of our schools. An estimated 80 percent 
of the cocaine and 90 percent of the heroin smuggled out of Colombia is 
destined for the United States. Sadly these drugs have caused, directly 
and indirectly the death of 50,000 Americans each year and the loss of 
billions of dollars from America's economy.
  I am also very concerned about the impact that narco-trafficking in 
Colombia is having on the democratically elected governments in the 
region. Many of these countries have only recently transitioned from 
military dictatorships to democracies--and as recent events have 
demonstrated--these democracies are fragile. The ``spill over'' effect 
from the narco-trafficking in Colombia could prove enormously 
destabilizing to the surrounding nations.
  Additionally, this region is home to the Panama Canal, a waterway of 
significant importance to America. With the United States no longer 
maintaining a permanent military presence in Panama, it is crucial that 
we be vigilant against any threat as a consequence of drug trafficking 
our friends in the Panamanian Government and the Canal itself.
  The President's recent request for a $1.6 billion supplemental aid 
package to assist Colombia and its neighbors in their counter-narcotics 
efforts, and the funding which will be appropriated through this and 
other acts for that purpose, represents an increased U.S. role in the 
region's difficulties. The rampant violent criminal activities of the 
various terrorist organizations and paramilitary groups involved in 
narco-trafficking, including kidnaping and murder, continue to 
undermine the stability of the democratically elected governments of 
the region. This is particularly true in Colombia.

[[Page 11636]]

  The proposed aid package, much of which will be provided to Colombia 
in order to fund portions of the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, represents 
one of the most aggressive foreign policy actions of the United States 
in Latin America in recent history. However, the funding contained in 
this package is only a small part of our overall commitment to this 
problem. We already spend hundreds of millions of dollars and deploy 
hundreds of military personnel to the region every year. In addition to 
the proposed increase in funding, our support for Plan Colombia will 
require us to deploy many more military personnel in order to train 
Colombia law enforcement and military personnel. This is a matter of 
grave concern for the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has as its 
primary focus the safety and well-being of the men and women who 
proudly serve in the Armed Forces.
  The decision by the Congress to support Plan Colombia and an 
increased American involvement in the region was not to be an easy one 
to make. Some have compared the situation in Colombia to Vietnam, and 
warn against such a U.S. military involvement in an internal matter. 
Others believe that such involvement is in our vital interest and warn 
of the consequences if we refuse to engage.
  On April 4th of this year, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a 
hearing on this issue in order to explore the problem and determine 
what, if any, assistance was appropriate. Our witnesses at that hearing 
included Brian Sheridan, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special 
Operations and Low Intensity Conflict; Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary 
of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs; 
General Charles Wilhelm, Commander-in-Chief, United States Southern 
Command; and Mr. Peter Romero, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for 
Western Hemisphere Affairs.
  Mr. President, at that hearing I asked our witnesses five questions I 
believe to be essential in making a decision regarding what role the 
United States should play in this effort:
  (1) Is it in our vital national security interest to become involved?
  (2) Will the American people support this involvement?
  (3) Can we make a difference if we become involved?
  (4) Will American involvement create a reaction amongst the people of 
the region that is counter to our interest? and
  (5) Are those we propose to help committed to achieving the same 
goals we support?
  These are not easy questions but the testimony of the witnesses left 
me to conclude that it is in our interest, that we can make a 
difference, and that we will have the support of the people of the 
United States and the people of the region if we take appropriate and 
effective action to help the democratically elected governments of this 
region regain control of their sovereign territory.
  Mr. President, this bill represents that appropriate action and I 
believe that our Armed Forces will ensure that it is effective.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the time in the 
quorum call be divided equally to both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time come 
off of the time of the Senator from Kentucky.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, we will be voting in just a few moments in 
regard to the Gorton amendment. I rise to talk about the bill but also 
to oppose, with due respect, the Gorton amendment.
  What is at the heart of this debate on the emergency aid package to 
Colombia, the very essence of why we need to help restore stability in 
Colombia and help combat the violent insurgents, is the urgent need to 
keep drugs off our streets in the United States and out of the hands of 
our children. That is what this debate is all about; that is what this 
vote on the amendment is all about.
  As my colleagues know, this emergency package would provide $934 
million to support Colombian efforts to eliminate drugs at the source, 
improve human rights programs, improve rule of law programs, and 
increase economic development. The fact is, there is an emergency in 
our neighbor to the south, in the country of Colombia. This country, 
this democracy, is embroiled in a destabilizing and brutal civil war, a 
civil war that has gone on for decades with a death toll reaching at 
least 35,000.
  Today, we have heard a lot of speeches about human rights abuses in 
Colombia and what has taken place in the past. In that context, I 
remind my colleagues of the fact the current aid package that the 
Senator from Kentucky has put together is based on legislation Senators 
Coverdell, Grassley, Graham, and I introduced last fall, which was 
developed with the protection of human rights in mind. It is an 
integral part of this bill. Our colleagues have a right to be concerned 
with past human rights abuses. The way to deal with this is through the 
conditions that are written all through this bill.
  My office met with numerous human rights organizations. We worked 
closely with Senator Leahy's office, and many others, to ensure that 
safeguards were put in place to prevent U.S. assistance from being used 
by those in Colombia who do not respect human rights.
  Many of those original provisions have been incorporated into the 
package before us, such as funds to monitor the use of U.S. assistance 
by the Colombian armed forces and Colombian national police; funds to 
support efforts to investigate and prosecute members of both the armed 
forces and the paramilitary organizations involved in human rights 
abuses. It also contains funds to address the social and economic needs 
of the displaced population in Colombia.
  Our provisions were not only developed to punish human rights abuses 
in Colombia but, more importantly, they were developed to prevent those 
abuses.
  The fact is that this Congress places such a strong emphasis on the 
protection of human rights that the legislation before us today would 
provide more funding for human rights--$25 million to be exact--than 
was in the President's requested budget. It is more than the President 
requested.
  This Congress is committed to the protection of human rights and will 
continue to monitor the assistance we provide to ensure that every 
penny is used for its intended purpose, which is the respect for and 
protection of human rights.
  Many of us on the floor today, and those watching in their offices, 
have spent a lot of time and energy to expel communism and bring 
democracy to this hemisphere and to bring a rule of law and human 
rights protection to this hemisphere. The 1980s were a true success 
story for the ideals we believe in and for our attempt to spread those 
ideals and beliefs in democracy throughout this great hemisphere. The 
people of this hemisphere paid a very heavy price, but I think that 
price was worth paying to achieve the spread of democracy throughout 
the hemisphere. We brought democracy and we brought opportunity to our 
neighbors.

[[Page 11637]]

  Today, the drug trade--not communism--is now the dominant threat to 
peace and freedom in the Americas. It threatens the sovereignty of the 
Colombian democracy and the continued prosperity and security of our 
entire hemisphere. Tragically, our own drug habit--America's drug 
habit--is what is fueling this threat in our hemisphere. It is our own 
country's drug use that is causing the instability and violence in 
Colombia and in the Andean region.
  The sad fact is that the cultivation of coca in Colombia has doubled, 
from over 126,000 acres in 1995 to 300,000 in 1999. Poppy cultivation 
also has grown to such an extent that it is now the source of the 
majority of heroin consumed in the United States. Not surprisingly, as 
drug availability has increased in the United States, drug use among 
adolescents has also increased. To make matters worse, the Colombian 
insurgents see the drug traffickers as a financial partner who will 
sustain their illicit cause, which only makes the FARC and ELN--these 
guerrillas--grow stronger and stronger day by day. So the sale of drugs 
in the United States today not only promotes the drug business, but it 
also fuels the antidemocratic insurgents in Colombia.
  Some may ask, why does Colombia matter? Why are we taking good tax 
dollars to help our neighbors to the south? I think the answer is 
simple. It matters because Colombia is shipping their drugs into the 
United States. It matters because the drug trade is a source of rampant 
lawlessness and violence within Colombia itself--violence and 
lawlessness, which has destabilized that country and now threatens the 
entire Andean region.
  Fortunately, in the last few years, Congress has had the foresight to 
recognize the escalating threats, and we have been working to restore 
our drug-fighting capability beyond our shores. Many of us who have 
worked very tirelessly on the Colombian assistance package this year 
also worked together just a few short years ago to pass the Western 
Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, which is now the law of the land. This 
3-year plan is designed to restore international eradication, 
interdiction, and crop alternative development funding. With this law, 
which we passed on a bipartisan basis, we have already made a $800 
million downpayment--$200 million of which represents the first 
substantial investment in Colombia for counternarcotics activities.
  The emergency assistance package that we have before us this 
afternoon is based on a blueprint that Senator Coverdell and I 
developed and introduced last October--3 months before the 
administration unveiled its proposal. As our plan, the emergency 
assistance package the Senator from Kentucky has crafted goes beyond 
counternarcotics assistance and crop alternative development programs 
in Colombia. It goes beyond Colombia and targets other Latin-American 
countries, including Bolivia, Peru, Panama, and Ecuador.
  This regional approach is the only approach, it is the right 
approach, and it is critical. Both Peru and Bolivia have made enormous 
progress in reducing drug cultivation in their respective countries, 
and they have done it with the help, candidly, of our assistance, and 
it has worked. Now, an emphasis only on the Colombian drug problems 
risks the obvious ``spillover'' effect of Colombia's drug trade 
shifting to adjacent countries in the region.
  Some of my colleagues have taken the floor today to express hesitancy 
and reluctance and opposition to this assistance package. I wish to 
take a moment to direct my comments specifically to them and 
specifically to some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle.
  Our Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act was an attempt to change 
the direction of our national drug policy--a drug policy that clearly 
was not working. We took that first step. Today, we must take the 
second step. We passed that very important legislation because we had 
to; we had to because the current administration, unfortunately, had 
presided over the literal dismantling of our international drug-
fighting capability.
  Let me explain. When President George Bush left the White House, we 
were spending approximately one-quarter of our total Federal antidrug 
budget on international drug interdiction, either on law enforcement in 
other countries, on our own Customs, on the DEA, and on crop 
eradication. Basically, it was taking that huge chunk of the Federal 
antidrug budget and spending it to try to stop drugs from ever reaching 
our shores. It was a balanced approach and it made sense.
  After 6 years of the Clinton Presidency, that percentage of our 
budget--that one-quarter of our total budget--was reduced to 13 to 14 
percent, which is a dramatic reduction in the percentage of money we 
are spending on international drug interdiction.
  That is why many of us in this body--on a bipartisan basis, in both 
the House and here in the Senate--worked to pass the Western Hemisphere 
Drug Elimination Act. Speaker Hastert, before he was Speaker, played a 
major role in working on the House version of this bill, as did many, 
many others.
  We passed that bill. It became law. It has made a difference. We have 
begun to at least reverse the direction of our foreign policy. We need 
to get back to that balanced approach, where we spend money on 
international interdiction, domestic law enforcement, treatment, and 
education. It has to be a balanced approach.
  We passed the bill, it became law, and we started to reverse that 
policy. The initiative for that came, quite candidly, from this side of 
the aisle, with support from the other side of the aisle. We saw what 
the administration was doing and we said that the policy had to change. 
We said we needed to put more money into interdiction, and that is 
exactly what we did. We said, candidly, we needed a balanced policy and 
we began to move in that direction. Now, today, we need to build on 
that effort.
  We need to build on that effort, which today is focused primarily on 
the current crisis that we see in Colombia. Senators Coverdell, 
Grassley, Feinstein, and others worked with me to put together a 
package specifically dealing with the situation in Colombia.
  I ask my colleagues to look at the big picture. Step back from the 
debate about this amendment and look at where we are going as a 
country. Think about what is in the best interest not of Colombia, but 
of the United States. This assistance package before us, which my 
colleague from Kentucky has put together, was put together because 
Colombia is our neighbor, and what affects our neighbor to the south 
affects us. We have a very real interest in helping to stabilize 
Colombia and keeping it democratic, keeping it as our friend, keeping 
it as our trading partner, and keeping its drugs off our streets.
  Colombia faces a crisis that is different than any crisis that any 
country has ever faced before in the history of the world. Many 
countries have faced guerrilla movements in the past few decades, but 
no country has ever faced guerrillas with as much money as the 
Colombian guerrillas have. I don't know of any country that has ever 
faced a guerrilla movement supported by so much illegal drug money. A 
synergistic relationship is involved between the drug dealers and the 
guerrillas; each one benefits from the other; each one takes care of 
the other. While this is a crisis that Colombia faces, it is a crisis 
driven by those who consume drugs in our country, and we must admit 
that it is a crisis that directly impacts all of us in the United 
States. It directly impacts you; it directly impacts me, our children, 
and our grandchildren.
  I ask my colleagues to really consider the great human tragedy that 
Colombia is today. I ask my colleagues to remember how we got here, and 
to remember what role this side of the aisle, with help from the other 
side, played in trying to deal with the Colombian problem, and what 
role we played in trying to increase the money we were spending and the 
resources we were providing to stop drugs from ever coming into to our 
country.
  The emergency aid package before us today is in the best interests of 
the Colombian-Andean region. There is no doubt about that. But, more 
importantly, and more significantly for this

[[Page 11638]]

body and for the vote we are about to cast, it is in the best interest 
of the United States.
  It is clearly something we have to do. It may be tempting on the 
Gorton amendment to say: Look. Why don't we just take that money? We 
don't need to send it to Colombia. We don't need to send it down there. 
What do we care about what goes on in Colombia? Let's keep it here, 
spend it here, and apply it to the national debt.
  I understand how people may come to the floor and say that. I 
understand how people may come to the floor and think that and maybe 
even vote that way. But I think in the long run it would be a tragic 
mistake.
  If we are trying to make an analogy, let me be quite candid. The 
analogy isn't any long-term involvement in the United States. The 
analogy shouldn't be to Bosnia; it shouldn't be to Vietnam; It 
shouldn't even be Kosovo. The analogy is what happened in the Central 
Americas in the 1980s.
  Quite candidly, many people on this side of the aisle and on the 
other side were directly involved in trying to make sure democracy 
triumphed in Central America. We were successful because people took 
chances. People cast tough votes. People said we care. Today, when you 
travel through Central America, you find democracies. I have had the 
opportunity within the last several years to do that, and to travel to 
most every Central American country. No, things are not perfect. But 
each of those countries is moving towards more democracy. Each of those 
countries is moving towards more market-driven economies. Each of those 
countries has a chance to develop a middle class.
  That is the analogy. The United States cared. We were involved. The 
people there got the job done.
  Colombia faces a very difficult challenge. Will this be the only time 
Members of the Senate are asked to vote on this and to send money to 
deal with this? Of course not. We all know that. This is a commitment, 
and it is probably going to be somewhat of a long commitment. But I 
think it is clearly in our national interest.
  We vote today not to assist Colombia. We vote today really to assist 
ourselves because what happens in Colombia directly impacts the United 
States--whether it is trade, whether it is illegal immigration, or 
whether it is drugs coming into this country. What happens in that 
region of the world has a direct impact on people in Cleveland, on 
people in Cincinnati, or any other State, or any city in the United 
States. We vote in our self-interest today for this package. We vote in 
our national self-interest, I believe, to vote down the Gorton 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to express my serious 
concerns about the foreign operations bill that is before us. I am 
concerned, and I believe that many of my colleagues will be concerned, 
about what is in this bill. And I am even more concerned about what is 
not in it.
  What is here in this bill, is an extremely expensive package of 
support to the Colombian military, designated, of course, as emergency 
spending. I recognize that Colombia is a country in crisis. I believe 
that it is in the national interest of the United States to help 
Colombia emerge from that crisis and into an era in which basic human 
rights and the rule of law are firmly entrenched in the fabric of 
Colombian society.
  I recognize that we all share an interest in fighting the terrible 
impact that illegal drugs have on our own society and in our own 
communities. So I have made a very serious effort to evaluate this 
initiative over a number of months. I have heard the perspectives of my 
constituents, of the business community, of human rights activists, and 
of the administration. I have also heard from Colombian civic groups 
and labor unions and from the Colombian government itself. In the end, 
I remain deeply skeptical about the wisdom of this undertaking.
  My primary concerns about the proposed package of assistance to 
Colombia are two-fold. First, I am concerned about the degree to which 
this package involves the United States in a counter-insurgency 
campaign in Colombia. The aim of our assistance to the Colombian 
military would be to combat narcotics traffickers, I have no doubt--but 
its primary use would be to wage war against the rebels who control the 
south. Our country's history teaches us something about how easy it is 
to get stuck in such situations, about how seductive arguments to 
increase our involvement might become after we invest massive resources 
in this phase of the counter-insurgency campaign. It troubles me that, 
because of the drug-related elements of the Colombia issue, we in this 
body are not, perhaps, walking into this scheme with our eyes wide open 
to these dangers.
  But my primary concern, Mr. President, is the impact that Plan 
Colombia could have on the human rights of Colombians. The Colombian 
military, which this package of assistance would directly support, has 
been involved in serious human rights abuses and has a record of 
collaborating with the murderous paramilitary forces that terrorize 
Colombian citizens. The package in the foreign operations 
appropriations bill seems, in the words of the Economist magazine, to 
``merely bolt three shiny new antidrugs battalions on to an abusive and 
unreformed military force.'' That action would escalate a war in which 
civilians bear the brunt of the violence. I know that Senator Leahy has 
worked hard to establish human rights conditions for the use of this 
assistance. But I am not at all certain that it is appropriate for the 
United States to engage the Colombian military to this degree at this 
time.
  I note that the Senator from Vermont has a point when he questions 
the emergency designation for this spending package. Colombia has been 
in crisis for some time. But of course, the emergency designation frees 
this body from fiscal discipline--discipline, Mr. President, that we 
badly need.
  In contrast, for a genuine emergency, for the devastating flooding in 
southern Africa, this bill provides only one-eighth, one eighth, of the 
administration's request. It was not so long ago, that the entire 
country was moved by video and photographs of the people of 
southeastern Africa, clinging to life in trees and rooftops as flood 
waters rushed past them. These floods were particularly tragic because 
the country most seriously affected by them, Mozambique, has made 
significant strides toward recovery from its long and brutal civil war. 
Though the country is still affected by extreme poverty, in recent 
years Mozambique has enjoyed exceptional rates of economic growth. 
While more needs to be done, the country has improved its record with 
regard to basic human rights. Mr. President, the people of Mozambique 
have been fighting for a better future. This kind of disaster comes at 
a terrible time, and it will require the assistance of the 
international community to help the people of Mozambique to hold to the 
opportunities that lay before them before the waters rose.
  And an appropriate level of funding for the communities ravaged by 
flooding in southern Africa is just the beginning. Even a cursory 
glance will indicate that there is a great deal that is not in this 
appropriations bill.
  The news is not entirely bad. I applaud the increased funding levels 
to combat the global HIV/AIDS crisis, which I believe is one of the 
most important international issues that this country faces in this new 
millennium, although I would still like to see that level increase.
  And I am pleased to see provisions linking the resumption of certain 
military and security assistance programs for Indonesia to key 
conditions--conditions which bolster the position of reformers in the 
new government by requiring real accountability for human rights abuses 
and real cooperation with

[[Page 11639]]

the international community on matters relating to East Timorese 
refugees. On this note, I would point out to my colleagues the fact 
that UNHCR personnel recently suspended activities in three refugee 
camps in West Timor because the security situation in these camps, 
where military-backed militias continue their campaign of intimidation 
and destabilization, has made it impossible to for humanitarian workers 
to continue to do their jobs. Provisions like those included in this 
bill are still critically important as are the more comprehensive 
provisions of a bill that I have introduced, S. 2621, the East Timor 
Repatriation and Security Act of 2000.
  Despite the laudable elements, this bill funds only $75 million of 
the administration's $262 million debt relief request--and that's 
excluding the $210 million supplemental request, which also goes 
unfunded. This bill barely addresses the crushing debt burden that 
stands as an obstacle to growth and development throughout much of the 
developing world.
  This bill allocates only $85 million for peacekeeping operations. 
That is a sizable cut. It is likely to threaten one of the most logical 
and far-sighted initiatives that we have in this area, Mr. President, 
the African Crisis Response Initiative, or ACRI, which trains African 
militaries to help them to become more effective in working to secure 
stability and share the global burden of peacekeeping.
  This bill cuts two of the most important accounts for international 
development aid, the ESF account and the World Bank IDA account, below 
fiscal year 2000 levels.
  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has found that the U.S., 
when compared to twenty other donor nations worldwide devotes the 
smallest portion of its national resources to development aid--the 
smallest portion by far. The typical donor country in the study 
contributed more than three times the share of national resources that 
the U.S. contributes. In fact, the U.S. fails--and fails miserably--to 
contribute the U.N. target level of even point-seven-percent--not seven 
percent, but seven-tenths of one percent--in aid to the developing 
world. The Center found that, using a number of different sources, the 
level of U.S. development aid in fiscal year 2001 would be equal to its 
lowest level since the end of World War II, measured as a share of the 
economy. That conclusion refers to the Administration's request, a 
request that this bill falls $1.7 billion below the President's 
request. I believe that we must exercise more foresight and that we 
must re-think our priorities to make more room for the world around us 
and for the global context in which our great nation will operate in 
this new century.
  I believe strongly in fiscal discipline. I believe in governing 
within our means. I know that means tough choices. But I also know some 
of the appropriations bills we have just passed and no doubt will see 
more of the same as we consider spending in fiscal year 2001. Yet we 
continue the disturbing trend, a trend that I believe runs counter to 
our national interest and counter to our national identity, of turning 
our back on the rest of the world.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3517

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to speak in opposition to the 
amendment offered by the Senator from Washington. Is there time 
remaining on that issue?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont controls the time, 
and there are 17 minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am sorry. I was distracted. What is the 
Senator from Florida asking?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Is the Senator controlling the time in opposition to the 
amendment of the Senator from Washington?
  Mr. LEAHY. Well, by default I am. Would the Senator like some time?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Yes. I request 8 minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. I yield 8 minutes to my good friend, the senior Senator 
from Florida.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have spoken earlier this afternoon on 
the issue of Colombia in the context of the amendment offered by the 
Senator from Minnesota. But now that we have another amendment relative 
to this provision within the foreign operations appropriations bill, I 
am pleased to have been afforded this opportunity to speak a second 
time.
  I believe that the fundamental thrust of the amendment offered by the 
Senator from Washington, which would cut all but $200 million of the 
recommended appropriations for the United States share of the financing 
plan in Colombia, would essentially eviscerate not only the U.S. 
participation but would probably eliminate the prospects of other 
nations, that see themselves looking to the United States for 
leadership in terms of dealing with the crisis in Colombia, and would 
probably have a very destabilizing effect on Colombia's stated 
intention to provide more than half of the $7.5 billion cost of the 
comprehensive plan in Colombia.
  Essentially, what we would be saying, by adopting this amendment, is 
that we are prepared to see Colombia continue in the almost death 
spiral of downward direction in which it has been in for the past many 
months.
  I would like to first point out what are some of the national 
interests of the United States that would be sacrificed if we were to 
allow that to occur. Of course, the most fundamental sacrifice would be 
the loss of an effective democratic partner in the efforts to build 
stability within the Western Hemisphere. Colombia is the longest 
continuous democracy on the continent of South America. It is a country 
that other countries, which are relatively new democracies, look to for 
leadership and example.
  What a horrendous consequence it would be if, by our lack of 
responding to the call for help at this critical time, we were to be 
the principal agent of converting this nation of over half a century of 
democracy into a failed state.
  There are also consequences to the region, particularly the Andean 
region. That is a region that is already in trouble, as I know the 
Presiding Officer is well aware.
  There is a new and untested government in Venezuela. We have, in 
Ecuador, the first successful military coup in Latin America in almost 
two decades. Peru is in the midst of a very contentious election 
aftermath which in many quarters has been called incredible in the 
sense of not being a credible election.
  Even Bolivia, which has been a source of stability, had to impose 
essentially a period of martial law. And on the north side, we have 
Panama, which has recently been given full control of the Panama Canal, 
and where there are great concerns about the stability of that country, 
and particularly its vulnerability to drug traffickers.
  So here Colombia sits, in the middle of this very vulnerable, 
fractious part of our hemisphere. If it goes down, it will have 
enormous spillover effects, and the consequences will be dire for U.S. 
interests.
  What we most think about when we hear the word ``Colombia'' is drugs. 
Colombia has become an even greater source of drugs due, in part, to 
the success of our efforts in Peru and Bolivia in reducing coca 
production, but also, unfortunately, due, in large part, to the fact 
that we now have a marriage between the narcotraffickers, the 
guerrillas, and the paramilitaries who are all working together in 
various places in Colombia, particularly in the southern most regions, 
to have contributed to a doubling, maybe soon a tripling, of drug 
production in that nation over the last decade.
  Colombia is also an important economic partner of the United States. 
It has one of the larger economies in

[[Page 11640]]

Latin America, and it has been a significant trading partner for the 
United States.
  Colombia has had a long period not only of democracy but also of 
sustained economic growth. It was not until 3 or 4 years ago that the 
record of every year being better than the last was broken in terms of 
the economy of Colombia. It was able to avoid a series of economic 
crises in South America and be a solid bastion of economic stability. 
That pattern is now broken, with 20 percent unemployment, a 3- to 5-
percent drop in gross domestic product, and an outflow of investment.
  Finally, we have a national interest in terms of the people of 
Colombia believing that their future and their hope is in Colombia, and 
that they do not have to flee and become another diaspora in the United 
States.
  There has been substantial out-migration, oftentimes of the people 
with the very skills that are going to be necessary to restore the 
democracy and economy in Colombia.
  When I was in Bogota, in December of last year, I was told that if 
you wanted to apply for a visa to leave Colombia, even as a tourist or 
for one of the standard visas, it took 10 months to get an appointment 
to meet with the U.S. consulate official to apply to get a visa. That 
is how backlogged they are because of the number of people who are 
trying to legally leave the country. One can imagine if these 
conditions of violence and economic turmoil continue how many people 
will be leaving illegally from Colombia with the United States as their 
primary destination.
  We have a lot at stake. This is not a trivial issue with which we are 
dealing. I hope just as we, by a very strong vote, rejected previous 
propositions that would have diluted our capacity to be a good neighbor 
on this critical issue, that we will do so again in defeating the 
amendment offered by the Senator from Washington.
  Once we have acted, we still will have some work to do, in particular 
work to do in terms of internationalizing the friends of Colombia to be 
a strong support group to continue this effort, remembering that 30 
percent of Plan Colombia is going to be paid by other than the United 
States or Colombia--the Colombians have yet to identify who will pick 
up that 30 percent of the cost--and that we must put greater emphasis 
on the economic recovery of Colombia, which I hope will include items 
such as bringing parity to the Andean pact nations vis-a-vis the 
recently adopted increase in trade preferences for the Caribbean Basin 
and extending the Andean trade preference to the year 2008 in order to 
give investors greater confidence.
  There is important work to do today, important work to do tomorrow. 
The goal is to be a good neighbor and contribute to the salvation of a 
very good friend of the United States, Colombia, at a time of dire 
need.


                           Amendment No. 369

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The Senator from 
Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the 
first vote begin at 6:15, with the time between now and 6:15 divided 
equally between the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from 
Washington.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and my friend and colleague from 
Kentucky.
  Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment offered by my friend 
and colleague from Connecticut. I am proud to be a cosponsor of that 
amendment. I respectfully oppose the amendment offered by my friend and 
colleague from the State of Washington.
  As has been amply testified to here on the floor today, Colombia is 
in a crisis that includes a flourishing drug trade emanating from that 
country, an aggressive guerrilla movement spreading within it, right-
wing paramilitary operations, and human rights abuses on all sides. All 
of this represents a fundamental threat to democratic government, the 
rule of law and economic prosperity in Colombia, and undermines 
stability in the region. It also, closer to home, results in the sad 
reality of a continued massive drug flow into these United States. 
There has been literally an explosion of cocaine and heroin production 
in Colombia, and too much of it ends up in our country.
  The democratically elected leader of Colombia, President Pastrana, 
has urgently asked for our assistance and has shown strong leadership 
in developing a long-term comprehensive strategy for dealing with the 
multifaceted crisis his country faces.
  The United States is not pushing its way into this situation, nor are 
we attempting to impose an outside solution. The Colombian Government 
quite simply cannot carry out these constructive plans it has without 
substantial help from its friends abroad. Our Government has quite 
responsibly pledged that the United States will make a major 
contribution to this critical effort, and I am convinced that is in our 
national interest to do so. The administration's budget request for 
what has become known as Plan Colombia seeks to help that country and 
other nations in the region tackle the issues of the drug trade, 
guerrilla and paramilitary violence, human rights abuses, internally 
displaced people, and economic deterioration.
  This assistance package would allow for the purchase of 30 Blackhawk 
helicopters to do the essential job of transporting counter narcotics 
battalions into southern Colombia. These Blackhawks are fast, they have 
tremendous capacity, and they are well suited for long-range 
operations. Unfortunately, the Senate version of the foreign operations 
appropriations bill eliminates the funding for the Blackhawks and 
replaces them with twice as many of the slower, less capable Huey II 
helicopters. While the Huey II is an improvement over the 1960s vintage 
Huey helicopter, it does not have the same performance capabilities, 
including range, speed, lift, or survivability, at any altitude as does 
the Blackhawk.
  The Colombian Army itself chose the Blackhawk to meet its long-term 
requirements for all of its forces and believes it is the best solution 
for providing helicopter support to the newly formed counternarcotics 
battalions. The Blackhawk would allow the Colombians to put more troops 
on the ground, more quickly and from greater distances, allowing for a 
higher initial entry of the battalions and for more rapid 
reinforcement, all necessary to achieve success against opponents on 
the ground. For some missions in the mountains at high altitudes, the 
Huey II simply will not work at all.
  In sum, the Colombians have concluded that the Blackhawks best suit 
their need for counter drug missions, which is at the heart of our 
American interest in this aid package. Both General McCaffrey and 
General Wilhelm have strongly concurred.
  In addition, in May, a team of 24 U.S. Army aviation experts was sent 
to Colombia to conduct an assessment of the operational effectiveness 
and support requirements of the Blackhawks versus the Huey IIs in 
Colombia. In a preliminary report on its finding, the team said:

       The superior troop carrying capacity and range of the UH-
     60L, or Blackhawk, versus the Huey II, coupled with the 
     combat nature of operation, limited size of landing and pick 
     up zones within the area of operations, the requirement to 
     operate in high altitude areas and the increased 
     survivability to both aircrew and troops, clearly indicated 
     that the Blackhawk is the helicopter that should be fielded 
     to Colombia in support of a counter drug effort.

  That was from a U.S. Army report.
  Senator Dodd and I have offered an amendment that says the U.S. 
Department of Defense, in consultation with the Colombian military, 
will determine what kind of helicopters will be most effective to 
support the purposes for which we are spending this money, which are 
counternarcotics in Colombia. The Senate ought not to micromanage the 
decision on which helicopters will be used. It is a decision that ought 
to be left to those who are the experts.
  We cannot pretend this overall emergency aid package is a perfect 
solution to all the problems confronting Colombia or any of the other 
countries in the

[[Page 11641]]

region. Neither is this assistance a panacea to the problems of drug 
abuse and addiction in the United States. It is a strong and credible 
step forward.
  For these reasons, I support the underlying package, oppose the 
Gorton amendment, and proudly support and cosponsor the Dodd amendment.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the capacity of this body for self-
delusion seems to this Senator to be unlimited. Time after time, we 
permit this administration to involve us in some new armed conflict 
without seriously examining the consequences of that involvement, the 
cost of the involvement, the length of the involvement, or even the 
possibility that we will attain the goals of that involvement.
  Mark my words, we are on the verge of doing exactly the same thing 
here that we have done so frequently in the last 7 or 8 years. This 
bill includes almost $1 billion for an entirely new, and almost totally 
military, involvement in a civil war in Latin America, without the 
slightest promise that our intervention will be a success, and it does 
it in a totally backward fashion.
  The very committee report that recommends spending this almost $1 
billion says that the committee ``has grave reservations regarding the 
administration's ability to effectively manage the use of these 
resources to achieve the expected results.''
  Well, if we have grave reservations, why are we doing it before those 
reservations have been met?
  The bill is a paradox. It says to the administration, spend $934 
million, and then come to us and tell us what you have done and why it 
should go on. But if Kosovo and Bosnia are any indication, when the 
administration comes back next year, the answer will be: Well, we are 
already in it; we can't quit now.
  That is what we have been told for 6 or 7 years in Bosnia and 2 or 3 
in Kosovo, with no end in sight. And there will be no end in sight here 
either, Mr. President. This bill says let's get in a war now and 
justify it later. My amendment says let's hear the justification first; 
let's seriously consider what we are getting into and then maybe vote 
the money.
  This amendment takes $700 million of the $934 million and says, for 
now, let's pay down the debt with it. Let's expand our present help to 
Colombia and its police forces, rather substantially, but let's not get 
into a new armed conflict until we have far greater justification than 
we have received to this point.
  It just seems impossible to me to believe that in the absence of the 
debate of the whole country, with all of the lessons we must have 
learned not just in this administration, but in previous 
administrations, about how easy it is to get in and how hard it is to 
get out, we will blithely make this downpayment--and this is a 
downpayment only. Next year, maybe we will need a lot more money if 
they are not doing very well down there. And how much of the equipment 
is going to end up in the hands of rebels by sale or capture or 
otherwise? We have no way of controlling that without a presence on the 
ground.
  I urge this body to say to the administration: No, we are not going 
to do this until you first come to us with a formal overall plan with a 
beginning, middle, and an end, and a plan for how we are going to 
achieve our goals. Get the authority first and then fund it. It is 10 
times better for this society to put that $700 million on our debt and 
not get in a civil war in South America. That is what this debate is 
all about--not that we don't like the Colombians or that we don't want 
them to be successful, but we don't want a part of their war.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me remind my colleagues that the 
Wellstone amendment was defeated 89-7. That would have taken $225 
million out of the committee's proposal to fight the war on drugs in 
Colombia. The amendment of the Senator from Washington, my good friend, 
would leave only $200 million. It would, in fact, completely terminate 
this effort, as he candidly admits would be his desire. I hope the 
Gorton amendment will not be approved.
  Mr. President, there are several amendments cleared on both sides 
which I would like to get out of the way at this point. Temporarily, I 
ask unanimous consent to lay aside the two amendments upon which we are 
about to vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


       Amendments Nos. 3495, 3491 and 3539, As Modified, En Bloc

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send amendments Nos. 3495, 3491, and 
3539, as modified, to the desk en bloc and ask for their immediate 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes 
     amendments en bloc numbered 3495, 3491, and 3539, as 
     modified.

  The amendments are as follows:


                           AMENDMENT NO. 3495

 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate concerning the violence, 
   breakdown of rule of law, and troubled pre-election period in the 
                         Republic of Zimbabwe)

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:

     SEC. __. SENSE OF SENATE REGARDING ZIMBABWE.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--
       (1) people around the world supported the Republic of 
     Zimbabwe's quest for independence, majority rule, and the 
     protection of human rights and the rule of law;
       (2) Zimbabwe, at the time of independence in 1980, showed 
     bright prospects for democracy, economic development, and 
     racial reconciliation;
       (3) the people of Zimbabwe are now suffering the 
     destabilizing effects of a serious, government-sanctioned 
     breakdown in the rule of law, which is critical to economic 
     development as well as domestic tranquility;
       (4) a free and fair national referendum was held in 
     Zimbabwe in February 2000 in which voters rejected proposed 
     constitutional amendments to increase the president's 
     authorities to expropriate land without payment;
       (5) the President of Zimbabwe has defied two high court 
     decisions declaring land seizures to be illegal;
       (6) previous land reform efforts have been ineffective 
     largely due to corrupt practices and inefficiencies within 
     the Government of Zimbabwe;
       (7) recent violence in Zimbabwe has resulted in several 
     murders and brutal attacks on innocent individuals, including 
     the murder of farm workers and owners;
       (8) violence has been directed toward individuals of all 
     races;
       (9) the ruling party and its supporters have specifically 
     directed violence at democratic reform activists seeking to 
     prepare for upcoming parliamentary elections;
       (10) the offices of a leading independent newspaper in 
     Zimbabwe have been bombed;
       (11) the Government of Zimbabwe has not yet publicly 
     condemned the recent violence;
       (12) President Mugabe's statement that thousands of law-
     abiding citizens are enemies of the state has further incited 
     violence;
       (13) 147 out of 150 members of the Parliament in Zimbabwe 
     (98 percent) belong to the same political party;
       (14) the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe now exceeds 60 
     percent and political turmoil is on the brink of destroying 
     Zimbabwe's economy;
       (15) the economy is being further damaged by the Government 
     of Zimbabwe's ongoing involvement in the war in the 
     Democratic Republic of the Congo;
       (16) the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization 
     has issued a warning that Zimbabwe faces a food emergency due 
     to shortages caused by violence against farmers and farm 
     workers; and
       (17) events in Zimbabwe could threaten stability and 
     economic development in the entire region.
       (18) the Goverment of Zimbabwe has rejected international 
     election observation delegation accreditation for United 
     States-based nongovernmental organizations, including the 
     International Republican Institute and National Democratic 
     Institute, and is also denying accreditation for other 
     nongovernmental organizations and election observers of 
     certain specified nationalities.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--The Senate--
       (1) extends its support to the vast majority of citizens of 
     the Republic of Zimbabwe who are committed to peace, economic 
     prosperity, and an open, transparent parliamentary election 
     process;
       (2) strongly urges the Government of Zimbabwe to enforce 
     the rule of law and fulfill its responsibility to protect the 
     political and civil rights of all citizens;
       (3) supports those international efforts to assist with 
     land reform which are consistent with accepted principles of 
     international law and which take place after the holding of 
     free and fair parliamentary elections;

[[Page 11642]]

       (4) condemns government-directed violence against farm 
     workers, farmers, and opposition party members;
       (5) encourages the local media, civil society, and all 
     political parties to work together toward a campaign 
     environment conducive to free, transparent and fair elections 
     within the legally prescribed period;
       (6) recommends international support for voter education, 
     domestic and international election monitoring, and violence 
     monitoring activities;
       (7) urges the United States to continue to monitor violence 
     and condemn brutality against law abiding citizens;
       (8) congratulates all the democratic reform activists in 
     Zimbabwe for their resolve to bring about political change 
     peacefully, even in the face of violence and intimidation; 
     and
       (9) desires a lasting, warm, and mutually beneficial 
     relationship between the United States and a democratic, 
     peaceful Zimbabwe.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3491

(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding the significance 
of the availability of certain funds under this Act for an acceleration 
    of the accession of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the North 
                  Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO))

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:
       Sec. 591. It is the sense of the Senate that nothing in 
     this Act regarding the assistance provided to Estonia, 
     Latvia, and Lithuania under the heading ``Foreign Military 
     Financing Program'' should be interpreted as expressing the 
     sense of the Senate regarding an acceleration of the 
     accession of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania to the North 
     Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
                                  ____



                    amendment no. 3539, as modified

   (Purpose: To authorize non-lethal, material assistance to protect 
 civilians in Sudan from attacks, slave raids, and aerial bombardment)

       On Page 20, line 2, after the word ``Development'', insert 
     the following: ``Provided further, That up to $10,000,000 of 
     the funds appropriated under this heading, should be used, 
     notwithstanding any other provision of law, to provide 
     assistance to the National Democratic Alliance of Sudan to 
     strengthen its ability to protect civilians from attacks, 
     slave raids, and aerial bombardment by the Sudanese 
     government forces and its militia allies: Provided further, 
     That in the previous proviso, the term `assistance' includes 
     non-lethal, non-food aid such as blankets, medicine, fuel, 
     mobile clinics, water drilling equipment, communications 
     equipment to notify civilians of aerial bombardment, non-
     military vehicles, tents, and shoes.''

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, these amendments have been cleared on 
both sides of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendments?
  Without objection, the amendments are agreed to.
  The amendments (Nos. 3495, 3491, and 3539, as modified) were agreed 
to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Feinstein be added as a cosponsor to amendment No. 3476 and that 
Senator Bennett be added as a cosponsor to amendment No. 3519.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time having expired, the question is on 
agreeing to the Gorton amendment No. 3517.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the 
Gorton amendment and the Dodd amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from 
Washington, Mr. Gorton.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. 
Domenici) is necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?--
  The result was announced--yeas 19, nays 79, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 139 Leg.]

                                YEAS--19

     Allard
     Boxer
     Collins
     Craig
     Crapo
     Enzi
     Fitzgerald
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hutchinson
     Kohl
     Leahy
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Specter
     Thomas

                                NAYS--79

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee, L.
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Domenici
     Inouye
       
  The amendment (No. 3517) was rejected.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may we have order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will come to order. Senators will 
please clear the well.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I wish the Senators would respect the Chair. 
The chair has asked for order.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, may we have order in the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order. The Senate will 
be in order.
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would say we are down to just a 
handful of amendments we are trying to work out now and should be able 
to give some more information as soon as the next vote is completed.
  Mr. LEAHY. Several Senators have been very helpful, saying they are 
going to withdraw amendments or look to another piece of legislation. I 
appreciate that. It is possible to finish this bill this evening if we 
continue to have the cooperation we have had on both sides of the 
aisle.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the Senator from Vermont.


                           Amendment No. 3524

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes equally divided on the 
Dodd amendment.
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  The Senate will be in order. Senators will take their conversations 
to the Cloakroom, please. If Senators will give their attention to the 
Senator from Connecticut, we can begin.
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, in one minute: The amendment I am proposing 
along with my colleague from Connecticut and others merely says the 
decision on which type of equipment will be used in the Colombian 
effort ought to be determined by the U.S. military in conjunction with 
the Colombian military. The present language requires specifically a 
Huey helicopter. I do not think that decision ought to be made by 
Members of Congress, necessarily.
  The military categorically, in a 24-member review of what was needed 
to make the program in Colombia successful, requests that it be the 
Blackhawk helicopter.
  In a letter from the Colombian Ministry of Defense they specifically 
request it. They would have to change their entire infrastructure to 
handle a Huey helicopter. The cost is excessive--more than the 
Blackhawk. The amendment doesn't say buy Blackhawks, it says let the 
military make the decision. Congress ought not be mandating the kind of 
equipment that is going to help best to make this work. Our amendment 
allows for the experts to make the decision, not Members of Congress.
  I urge adoption of the amendment and ask unanimous consent the letter 
be printed in the Record.

[[Page 11643]]

  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                            Republica De Colombia,


                               Ministerio De Defensa Nacional,

                                Santa Fe De Bogota, June 21, 2000.
     Hon. Ted Stevens,
     Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
     Hon. C.W. Young,
     Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of 
         Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairmen: We wish to thank the U.S. Congress for its 
     support of Plan Colombia and the U.S. Administration's aid 
     package to assist the people of Colombia in our fight against 
     the explosive cultivation of coca. With your support, this 
     aid will reverse the trend of increased drug production, 
     violence and instability that we are all too familiar with.
       While we are grateful for your consideration of the aid 
     package, we are concerned with the Senate's proposal to 
     replace the 30 UH-60L, Blackhawks with 60 ``Huey II'' 
     helicopters. The decision to provide the Colombian Military 
     with UH-60 helicopters was determined jointly by Colombian 
     and US Military experts to be the best aircraft for the 
     mission.
       The Blackhawk is our clear choice given the austere 
     environment in which our security forces must operate. First, 
     it has redundant systems and protections that not only make 
     it much more difficult to shoot down, but more importantly, 
     affords our soldiers and crew increased survivability in a 
     crash. Second, the Blackhawk is 50% faster than the Huey II 
     allowing a quicker response time for our security forces to 
     reach remote, inaccessible drug producing areas. Third, it 
     has much greater range. Therefore, the need for forward 
     arming and refueling stations is significantly reduced. 
     Fourth, the Blackhawk flies and operates better at higher 
     altitudes, an important consideration given that the Andes 
     mountain range runs the entire length of Colombia. Lastly, it 
     carries three times the number of soldiers at high altitudes 
     and twice as much at sea level, inserting more troops and 
     security forces on the ground sooner. Optimal maneuverability 
     at high altitudes and troop carrying capacity is crucial in 
     counter narcotics operations, specially taking in 
     consideration the areas where poppy cultivation takes place.
       While the Huey II helicopter may be less expensive to 
     purchase and operate, there are considerable indirect 
     expenses not being factored in by the Huey II advocates. For 
     example, 60 Huey IIs require twice the number of trained 
     pilots as 30 Blackhawks. In addition to more trained pilots, 
     they require more trained mechanics, maintenance facilities, 
     spare parts, equipment, force protection, and hangar space at 
     airfields. Any initial savings in acquiring the Huey II's 
     would be offset by these associated logistics and support 
     costs.
       Blackhawk is the backbone of our military's helicopter 
     combat fleet. Therefore our infrastructure is being 
     standardized around it and more important, our force 
     structure planning for the future is based in this type of 
     aircraft. As for today, our government has already acquired 
     Blackhawks with our own resources and has the appropriate 
     logistic facilities to operate and maintain up to 30 
     additional UH-60L Blackhawks.
       Some members of the US Congress have proposed a combination 
     of Blackhawks and Huey's. Given our force structure planning 
     stated above, introducing new Huey II's into our fleet would 
     require separate pilot training, spare parts and 
     supplementary maintenance facilities, not to mention the 
     delays or changes in the projection of the force. This will 
     pose a major logistic problem and extra efforts, since the 
     fleet must be jointly operated increasing tactical, technical 
     and administrative costs. The Ministry does believe that the 
     UH-1Ns will be vitally important for a successful transition 
     to the more advanced UH-60 Blackhawk. We also believe there 
     will be a continuing need to retain some of the UH-INs after 
     the integration of the UH-60 fleet into the Colombian 
     counternarcotics program.
       If the Congress of the United States considers that 
     additionally to the 30 Blackhawks initially requested, based 
     on our needs and operative and logistical capabilities, the 
     government of Colombia should receive a number of Bell 
     helicopters, we suggest that the U.S. Government give 
     consideration on? supporting our extensive pilot training 
     requirements by starting a program to acquire 20 Bell 206 
     training helicopters. These aircraft would enable our armed 
     forces to establish a joint pilot training school that would 
     meet our existing and future pilot training requirements.
       We appreciate the efforts and kind support you have given 
     the aid pack in this process. Thank you for your 
     consideration.
       Sincerely,
     Mayor General Luis Ernesto Gilbert Vargas,
       Director of National Police.
     General Fabio Velasco Chavez,
       Commander in Chief of the Air Force.
     Admiral Sergio Garcia Torres,
       Commander in Chief of the Navy.
     General Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel,
       Commander in Chief of the Army.
     General Fernando Tapias Stahelin,
       Commander in Chief of the Military Forces.
     Luis Fernando Ramirez Acuna,
       Minister of National Defense.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  The Senate will be in order.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the issue is this. We do not have 
enough Blackhawks for our own troops, much less the Colombian troops. 
The Blackhawks are much more expensive, about $1,000 an hour more 
expensive to operate. The Huey II will get the job done. We ought to do 
that in the most efficient way, looking not only at this year's 
appropriation but down the road. We will have to pick up the operation 
and maintenance cost on the Blackhawk in subsequent years. The Huey II 
will do the job.
  The Senator from Connecticut has done his usual articulate job of 
arguing for a home State interest. The Blackhawk is made in 
Connecticut. I would probably be making the same speech if I were from 
Connecticut. But the least expensive alternative is the Huey II. That 
is why the committee recommended what it did.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is there any time left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The yeas and nays have 
been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. 
Domenici) is necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). Are there any other Senators 
in the Chamber who desire to vote?
  The result was announced, yeas 47, nays 51, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 140 Leg.]

                                YEAS--47

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Byrd
     Cleland
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Grams
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mack
     McCain
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Torricelli
     Wellstone

                                NAYS--51

     Abraham
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee, L.
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Dorgan
     Enzi
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Roth
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Domenici
     Inouye
       
  The amendment was rejected.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I know Senators are anxious to get a feel 
for what the proceedings will be for the remainder of the evening and 
in the morning. I commend the managers for the work they have been 
doing and commend Members for the help we have been receiving from them 
on both sides in terms of disposing of amendments one way or another.
  I believe we are very close to getting an agreement that would get 
the remaining amendments done tonight.

[[Page 11644]]

Then, in the morning, we could turn to the Labor-HHS appropriations 
bill and have stacked votes at 2 o'clock, both on any amendments and 
final passage of the foreign operations appropriations bill and any 
amendments that might be ready to be voted on and put in that staked 
sequence at 2 o'clock tomorrow.
  We do not quite have that agreement yet. But for all Senators who are 
still working on it, I hope they will work with us to get it completed 
momentarily. If that cannot be done, I will be calling up the Kyl 
amendment No. 3558, and getting a second so we can have a rollcall vote 
on that, and other amendments, tonight.
  I think we can get this bill done without having to have that 
recorded vote. But if we can't get an agreement as to how we are going 
to complete our work, then we will be having more votes tonight.
  So for the Senators who are waiting to get final information, just 
give us a few more minutes. I think we are about to the point where we 
can enter this agreement, and then we would have a feel for the 
remainder of the night.
  Mr. LEAHY. If the Senator from Mississippi will yield, Senators have 
been working very hard on both sides to clear things.
  I suggest this as an alternative to some of my colleagues. A number 
of matters are things that could just as well be handled in report 
language.
  The Senator from Kentucky and I, in some of those instances, have 
been able to work that out. With the help of both the Republican 
leadership and the Democratic leadership, we have been able to get rid 
of many of these amendments. I think we are so close to working out the 
suggestion the distinguished Senator from Mississippi has made, that 
Senators should look at that. It is one that is strongly supported by 
the managers of this bill. I hope we might make it possible to do it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in cooperation with the manager on our side, 
we have worked very hard to move this legislation along. On the 
proposed unanimous consent request that would be propounded by the 
majority leader, we would complete debate on all amendments tonight and 
vote, as the leader indicated, tomorrow after 12 o'clock. We have one 
outstanding objection on that. We are in the process of working to have 
that resolved. We hope to have that done in the near future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.


Amendments Nos. 3553, 3537, 3515, 3546, As Modified, 3547, As Modified, 
 3549, As Modified, 3545, As Modified, 3172, As Modified, and 3522, As 
                           Modified, En Bloc

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we have some more amendments that have 
been cleared on both sides. I call up amendment No. 3553 by myself; 
amendment No. 3537, Senator Byrd; amendment No. 3515, Senator Shelby. 
Then the following amendments, Mr. President, I call up and send 
modifications to those amendments to the desk: Senator Reid, No. 3546; 
Senator Reid, No. 3547; Senator Reid, No. 3549, Senator Chafee, 
amendment No. 3545; Senator Helms, amendment No. 3172; Senator 
Landrieu, amendment No. 3522.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I believe there 
is still a question on the amendment by the distinguished Senator from 
Rhode Island that we are trying to work out. I wonder if that could be 
withheld for the moment.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator says there is a question about the Chafee 
amendment?
  Mr. LEAHY. Yes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will withhold the Chafee amendment No. 3545. These 
are the modifications which I send to the desk.
  Mr. LEAHY. I will continue to work with my friend from Rhode Island 
to see if we can work out whatever the problem is.


                           Amendment No. 3527

 (Purpose: To transfer $24 million from elsewhere in the bill to Peace 
          Corps to bring FY 2001 funding up to FY 2000 levels)

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a Dodd amendment to the desk and 
ask for its consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] for Mr. Dodd, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 3527.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 28, line 4 strike all after the first comma thru 
     the word ``Provided,'' on line 7, and insert in lieu thereof 
     the following: ``$244,000,000, including the purchase of not 
     to exceed five passenger motor vehicles for administrative 
     purposes for use outside the United States: Provided, That 
     $24,000,000 of such sums be made available from funds already 
     appropriated by the Act, that are not otherwise earmarked for 
     specific purposes: Provided further,''.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, the amendment I have offered would restore 
the FY 2001 appropriations for Peace Corps programs to FY 2000 
appropriations levels.
  Today, approximately 7000 Americans are Peace Corps volunteers. They 
are recent college graduates, mid-career professionals, and retired 
seniors. They live and work in the far corners of the globe--in Africa, 
Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific. 
As we consider this matter, American volunteers are diligently working 
to improve the lives of citizens in 77 countries throughout the world.
  Mr. President, the President has requested $275 million in 
appropriations for FY 2001. While I would like to see this Senate 
approve an amendment to increase funding in this bill to meet the 
administration's request, I am simply asking that the Senate restore 
funding to the FY 2000 levels.
  My request of my colleagues is a modest one--their support for an 
amendment to raise funding in this bill for the Peace Corps by $24 
million--from $220 million to $244 million--to bring the FY 2001 
appropriations for this agency up to this fiscal year's appropriations. 
This amendment does not add any new money to the bill, but rather 
allows the Clinton administration to use unearmarked funds already 
appropriated in this bill.
  Absent adoption of this amendment, the Appropriations Committee mark 
will reduce funding for the upcoming fiscal year by 10 percent over the 
current fiscal year's funding for the Peace Corps.
  What are the consequences of such reductions in funding?
  Peace Corps posts will have to be shut down in as many as eleven 
countries;
  The number of new volunteers accepted by the agency will have to be 
cut by 16 percent, some 1,250 fewer individuals will have the honor of 
serving their country;
  Plans for new initiatives to enable Peace Corps volunteers to bring 
the benefits of information technology to underserved communities 
throughout the world and to bolster HIV/AIDS prevention priorities in 
Africa and elsewhere will fall by the wayside;
  New country programs will remain unfunded;
  The agency's ability to provide future emergency assistance through 
its newly established Crisis Corps of returned volunteers to respond to 
the devastation of unanticipated disasters such as those experienced in 
Central America following the 1998 devastation of Hurricane Mitch will 
be severely impaired.
  Finally it will undermine the Agency's ability to replace outdated 
computer systems in order to meet government financial management 
requirements, not terribly exciting but very important to the overall 
functioning of the Peace Corps as an organization.
  The funding level in the bill is totally inconsistent with what the 
Congress did in 1999. Last year the Congress went on record in support 
of increased funding for the Peace Corps for FY 2001 to $298 million--
beyond the Administration's request--in order to support an increase in 
Peace Corps volunteers.
  I am not asking the Senate to vote on an increase of that magnitude 
today. I am simply asking support for a steady state budget.

[[Page 11645]]

  Mr. President, thirty-four years ago, I was a Peace Corps volunteer 
in the Dominican Republic. My two years as a volunteer had a profound 
impact on my life. I will treasure my Peace Corps experience forever--
as will nearly every returned Peace Corps volunteer one meets.
  Next year the Peace Corps will celebrate its 40th anniversary. It is 
important that we insure that the agency is sufficiently funded to live 
up to the expectations that its success has engendered throughout the 
world.
  For these reasons I strongly urge my colleagues to support this 
amendment and the restoration of funding for the Peace Corps.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 3527) was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we have the block of amendments that 
have been cleared on both sides at the desk, some of them as modified.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendments are agreed 
to.
  The amendments (Nos. 3553; 3537; 3515; 3546, as modified; 3547, as 
modified; 3549, as modified; 3172, as modified; and 3522, as modified), 
en bloc, were agreed to as follows:


                           amendment no. 3553

       On page 33, line 18, insert, ``: Provided further, That 
     funds made available as a U.S. contribution to the Heavily 
     Indebted Poor Countries Trust Fund shall be subject to the 
     regular notification procedures of the Committees on 
     Appropriations''.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3537

(Purpose: To make technical amendments to language limiting support for 
                             Plan Colombia)

       Beginning on page 151, line 21, strike ``(a)'' and all that 
     follows through line 7 on page 152 and insert the following:
       (a) Limitation on Support for Plan Colombia.--
       (1) Limitation.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), none 
     of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by any 
     Act shall be available for support of Plan Colombia unless 
     and until--
       (A) the President submits a report to Congress requesting 
     the availability of such funds; and
       (B) Congress enacts a joint resolution approving the 
     request of the President under subparagraph (A).
       (2) Exceptions.--The limitation in paragraph (1) does not 
     apply to--
       (A) appropriations made by this Act, the Military 
     Construction Appropriations Act, 2001, or the Department of 
     Defense Appropriations Act, 2001, for the purpose of support 
     of Plan Colombia; or
       (B) the unobligated balances from any other program used 
     for their originally appropriated purpose to combat drug 
     production and trafficking, foster peace, increase the rule 
     of law, improve human rights, expand economic development, 
     and institute justice reform in the countries covered by Plan 
     Colombia.
       On page 152, line 17, insert ``in connection with support 
     of Plan Colombia'' after ``Colombia''.
       On page 152, line 19, strike ``250'' and insert ``500''.
       On page 152, strike lines 20 and 21.
       On page 153, line 1, insert ``United States'' after ``of''.
       On page 153, line 4, strike ``100'' and insert``300''.
       On page 153, between lines 18 and 19, insert the following:
       (d) Statutory Construction.--Nothing in this section may be 
     construed to affect the authority of the President to carry 
     out any emergency evacuation of United States citizens or any 
     search or rescue operation for United States military 
     personnel or other United States citizens.
       (e) Report on Support for Plan Colombia.--Not later than 
     June 1, 2001, and not later than June 1 and December 1 of 
     each of the succeeding four fiscal years, the President shall 
     submit a report to Congress setting forth any costs 
     (including incremental costs incurred by the Department of 
     Defense) incurred by any department, agency, or other entity 
     of the Executive branch of Government during the two previous 
     fiscal quarters in support of Plan Colombia. Each such report 
     shall provide an itemization of expenditures by each such 
     department, agency, or entity.
       On page 153, line 19, strike ``(d) Monthly Reports.--'', 
     and insert ``(f) Bimonthly Reports.--''.
       On page 153, line 21, strike ``30'' and insert ``60''.
       On page 154, line 1, insert ``United States'' after 
     ``and''.
       On page 154, line 3, strike ``(e)'' and insert ``(g)''.
       On page 154, line 5, strike ``subsection (a)(2)'' and 
     insert ``subsection (a)(1)(B)''.
       On page 154, line 9, strike ``subsection (a)(1)'' and 
     insert ``subsection (a)(1)(A)''.
       On page 154, line 12, strike ``subsection (a)(1)'' and 
     insert ``subsection (a)(1)(A)''.
       On page 155, line 12, strike ``(f)'' and insert ``(h)''.
                                  ____



                           AMENDMENT NO. 3515

    (Purpose: To make the limitation on assignment of United States 
    personnel in Colombia inapplicable to certain intelligence and 
    intelligence-related activities of the United States Government)

       On page 155, between lines 18 and 19, insert the following:
       (g) National Security Exemption.--The limitation contained 
     in subsection (b)(1) shall not apply with respect to any 
     activity subject to reporting under title V of the National 
     Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 413 et seq.).
                                  ____



                    AMENDMENT NO. 3546, As Modified

  (Purpose: To allocate funds for the Secretary of State to meet with 
 representatives of countries with a high incidence of the practice of 
  dowry deaths or honor killings to develop a strategy for ending the 
                   practices, and for other purposes)

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:

     SEC. __. ELIMINATION OF DOWRY DEATHS AND HONOR KILLINGS.

       (a) In General.--The Secretary of State should meet with 
     representatives from countries that have a high incidence of 
     the practice of dowry deaths or honor killings with a view 
     toward working with the representatives to increase awareness 
     of the practices, to develop strategies to end the practices, 
     and to determine the scope of the problem within the refugee 
     population.
       (b) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Dowry death.--The term ``dowry death'' means the 
     killing of a woman because of a dowry dispute.
       (2) Honor killing.--The term ``honor killing'' means the 
     murder of a woman suspected of dishonoring her family.
                                  ____



                    AMENDMENT NO. 3547, As Modified

  (Purpose: To require that funding for the United States Agency for 
   International Development be used to develop and integrate, where 
appropriate, educational programs aimed at eliminating the practice of 
                       female genital mutilation)

       On page 12, line 14, strike ``loans.'' and insert the 
     following: ``loans: Provided further, That of the funds 
     appropriated under this heading, up to $1,500,000 may be used 
     to develop and integrate, where appropriate, educational 
     programs aimed at eliminating the practice of female genital 
     mutilation.''.
                                  ____



                    AMENDMENT NO. 3549, As Modified

    (Purpose: To authorize the Secretary of State to determine the 
    prevalence of the practice of female genital mutilation and to 
       development recommendations for eliminating the practice)

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:

     SEC. __. ELIMINATION OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION.

       The Secretary of State shall conduct a study to determine 
     the prevalence of the practice of female genital mutilation. 
     The study shall include the existence and enforcement of laws 
     prohibiting the practice. The Secretary shall submit the 
     findings of the study and recommendations on how the United 
     States can best work to eliminate the practice of female 
     genital mutilation, to the appropriate congressional 
     committees by June 1, 2001.
                                  ____



                    AMENDMENT NO. 3172, As Modified

  (Purpose: Relating to support by the Russian Federation for Serbia)

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:

     SEC. __. SUPPORT BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION FOR SERBIA.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
       (1) General Dragolub Ojdanic, Minister of Defense of the 
     Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and an 
     indicted war criminal, visited Moscow from May 7 through May 
     12, 2000, as a guest of the Government of the Russian 
     Federation, attended the inauguration of President Vladimir 
     Putin, and held talks with Russian Defense Minister Igor 
     Sergeyev and Army Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin;
       (2) General Ojdanic was military Chief of Staff of the 
     Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war and has 
     been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the 
     Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for crimes against humanity and 
     violations of the laws and customs of war for alleged 
     atrocities against Albanians in Kosovo;
       (3) international warrants have been issued by the 
     International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for 
     General Ojdanic's arrest and extradition to the Hague;
       (4) the Government of the Russian Federation, a permanent 
     member of the United Nations Security Council which 
     established the International Criminal Tribunal for the 
     Former Yugoslavia, has an obligation to arrest General 
     Ojdanic and extradite him to the Hague;
       (5) on May 16, 2000, Russian Minister of Economics Andrei 
     Shapovalyants announced

[[Page 11646]]

     that his government has provided the Serbian regime of 
     Slobodan Milosevic $102,000,000 of a $150,000,000 loan it had 
     reactivated and will sell the Government of Serbia 
     $32,000,000 of oil despite the fact that the international 
     community has imposed economic sanctions against the 
     Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the 
     Government of Serbia;
       (6) the Government of the Russian Federation is providing 
     the Milosevic regime such assistance while it is seeking debt 
     relief from the international community and loans from the 
     International Monetary Fund, and while it is receiving corn 
     and grain as food aid from the United States;
       (7) the hospitality provided to General Ojdanic 
     demonstrates that the Government of the Russian Federation 
     rejects the indictments brought by the International Criminal 
     Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia against him and other 
     officials, including Slobodan Milosevic, for alleged 
     atrocities committed during the Kosovo war; and
       (8) the relationship between the Government of the Russian 
     Federation and the Governments of the Federal Republic of 
     Yugoslavia and Serbia only encourages the regime of Slobodan 
     Milosevic to foment instability in the Balkans and thereby 
     jeopardizes the safety and security of American military and 
     civilian personnel and raises questions about Russia's 
     commitment to its responsibilities as a member of the North 
     American Treaty Organization-led peacekeeping mission in 
     Kosovo.
       (b) Actions.--
       (1) Fifteen days after the date of enactment of this Act, 
     the President shall submit a report to Congress detailing all 
     loans, financial assistance, and energy sales the Government 
     of the Russian Federation or entities acting on its behalf 
     has provided since June 1999, and intends to provide to the 
     Government of Serbia or the Government of the Federal 
     Republic of Yugoslavia or any entities under the control of 
     the Governments of Serbia or the Federal Republic of 
     Yugoslavia.
       (2) If that report determines that the Government of the 
     Russian Federation or other entities acting on its behalf has 
     provided or intends to provide the governments of Serbia or 
     the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or any entity under their 
     control any loans or economic assistance and oil sales, then 
     the following shall apply:
       (A) The Secretary of State shall reduce assistance 
     obligated to the Russian Federation by an amount equal in 
     value to the loans, financial assistance, and energy sales 
     the Government of the Russian Federation has provided and 
     intends to provide to the Governments of Serbia and the 
     Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
       (B)(i) The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the 
     United States executive directors of the international 
     financial institutions to oppose, and vote against, any 
     extension by those institutions of any financial assistance 
     (including any technical assistance or grant) of any kind to 
     the Government of the Russian Federation except for loans and 
     assistance that serve basic human needs.
       (ii) In this subparagraph, the term ``international 
     financial institution'' includes the International Monetary 
     Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and 
     Development, the International Development Association, the 
     International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral 
     Investment Guaranty Agency, and the European Bank for 
     Reconstruction and Development.
       (C) The United States shall suspend existing programs to 
     the Russia Federation provided by the Export-Import Bank and 
     the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and any 
     consideration of any new loans, guarantees, and other forms 
     of assistance by the Export-Import Bank or the Overseas 
     Private Investment Corporation to Russia.
       (D) The President may waive the actions described in 
     subsections 2A, 2B, and 2C if he determines and reports to 
     Congress that it is in the national interests of the United 
     States of America.
       (3) It is the sense of the Senate that--The President of 
     the United States should instruct his representatives to 
     negotiations on Russia's international debt to oppose further 
     forgiveness, restructuring, and rescheduling of that debt, 
     including that being considered under the ``Comprehensive'' 
     Paris Club negotiations.
                                  ____



                     AMENDMENT NO. 3522 As Modified

   (Purpose: To provide for the rehabilitation of the transportation 
                infrastructure of Bulgaria and Romania)

       At the appropriate place, insert:
       Of the funds appropriated under the heading ``Support for 
     East European Democracy'' rehabilitation and remediation of 
     damage done to the Romanian and Bulgarian economies as a 
     result of the Kosovo conflict should be given priority 
     especially to those projects that are associated with the 
     Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, done at Cologne June 
     10, 1999 (commonly known as the ``Balkan Stability Pact''), 
     particularly those projects that encourage bilateral 
     cooperation between Romania and Bulgaria, and that seek to 
     offset the difficulties associated with the closure of the 
     Danube River.

  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we previously agreed to amendment No. 3536. 
I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished senior Senator from 
Michigan, Mr. Levin, be added as a cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Senator Helms 
be added as a cosponsor to the Coverdell amendment on Peru.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Lautenberg be added as a cosponsor to Senator Edwards' and Senator 
Torricelli's amendment No. 3589.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 3584, As further Modified

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, amendment No. 3584 was accepted earlier. 
The sponsor of that amendment, the distinguished Senator from Michigan, 
Mr. Abraham, has agreed to a modification of his amendment. I ask 
unanimous consent to send the modification to the desk and ask that it 
be accepted in lieu of the earlier amendment No. 3584.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment, as further 
modified, is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 3584, as further modified) was agreed to, as 
follows:

       In lieu of amendment No. 3584, insert the following:
       On page 14, line 4, strike ``$15,000,000'' and insert: 
     ``$18,000,000''.
       On page 14, line 7, after ``Lebanon'' insert: ``: Provided, 
     That not less than $15,000,000 of the funds made available 
     under the previous proviso shall be made available from funds 
     appropriated under the Economic Support Fund.''

  Mr. LEAHY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3568

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I don't know whether we have reached 
agreement or not or whether there will be time for discussion tomorrow.
  I thank my colleagues. I believe amendment No. 3568 has been 
accepted. This is an amendment I have offered with Senator Brownback, 
who is in the chair. I point out to colleagues that this amendment 
would use $250,000 of the funds appropriated to Kosovo to help police 
better identify and respond to cases of trafficking. It also would 
provide some help for those who live in the Newly Independent States of 
the former Soviet Union who have been victims of trafficking. I thank 
both the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Vermont for 
accepting this amendment.
  I especially thank Senator Brownback for the work I have been able to 
do with him dealing with the awful aspect of this new global economy: 
the trafficking of women forced into prostitution, and terrible labor 
conditions. We have a great piece of legislation. Both of us hope it 
will pass soon. This amendment to this piece of legislation is a good 
step in the right direction. I thank my colleague, Senator Brownback, 
for his support. I thank Senators for supporting this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.


                           Amendment No. 3588

 (Purpose: To make available up to $1,000,000 to fund the Secretary of 
     Defense to work with the appropriate authorities of the Cuban 
government to provide for greater cooperation, coordination, and other 
     mutual assistance in the interdiction of illicit drugs being 
               transported over Cuba airspace and waters)

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have an amendment which has been 
cleared on both sides. I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.

[[Page 11647]]

  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3588.

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:

     SEC.   . UNITED STATES-CUBAN MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN THE 
                   INTERDICTION OF ILLICIT DRUGS.

       Allocation of Funds.--Of the amount appropriated under the 
     heading ``Department of State, International Narcotics 
     Control and Law Enforcement'', up to $1,000,000 shall be 
     available to the Secretary of Defense, on behalf of the 
     United States Coast Guard, the United States Customs Service, 
     and other bodies, to work with the appropriate authorities of 
     the Cuban government to provide for greater cooperation, 
     coordination, and other mutual assistance in the interdiction 
     of illicit drugs being transported over Cuban airspace and 
     waters, provided that such assistance may only be provided 
     after the President determines and certifies to Congress 
     that:
       (a) Cuba has appropriate procedures in place to protect 
     against innocent loss of life in the air and on the ground in 
     connection with interdiction of illegal drugs; and
       (b) that there is no evidence of the involvement of the 
     government of Cuba in drug trafficking.

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the essence of this amendment is that up 
to $1 million shall be made available to the Secretary of Defense on 
behalf of the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Customs Service, and other 
bodies to work with the appropriate authorities of the Cuban Government 
to provide for greater cooperation, coordination, and other mutual 
assistance in the interdiction of illegal drugs being transported over 
Cuban airspace and waters, provided that such assistance may be 
provided after the President determines and certifies to Congress that 
Cuba has appropriate procedures in place to protect against innocent 
loss of life in the air and that there is no evidence of the 
involvement of the Government of Cuba in drug trafficking.
  The Government of Cuba has been prepared for some time to provide 
further assistance to the United States through the use of their 
airspace and coastal waters on drug interdiction.
  In June of 1999, I had occasion to visit Cuba and I had a long 
meeting with their President, Fidel Castro. We covered a wide variety 
of subjects. One of them was the issue of drug interdiction.
  I believe this is a measure which our officials in all branches of 
the Federal Government favor to try to cut down on the flow of drugs. 
There is, obviously, a sharp disagreement as to what our policy should 
be toward Cuba with respect to the embargo. But whatever anybody may 
think about those subjects, it is my view that there is no doubt that 
we ought to take up the availability of assistance from Cuba on drug 
interdiction. That is what this amendment will do.
  There is a real issue about U.S. policy toward Cuba. I voted against 
the Dodd amendment, which would create a commission to make 
recommendations on that policy, because I think that the issue of 
policy really ought to be decided by the next President of the United 
States in conjunction with the Congress. The times have certainly 
changed, so that Castro no longer presents a threat to export communism 
to Latin America. I believe that the consideration of change in policy 
really ought not to be entrusted to a commission at the present time, 
which would report after January 20 of next year, when the issue really 
is for the President of the United States--whoever may be elected.
  I supported the Gorton amendment, which would strike the funds for 
Colombia, although I knew at the time that the funding for Colombia 
would pass by a large number. I have visited Colombia on a number of 
occasions over the past decade. I am very much in favor of assisting 
Colombia in restoring law and order to that nation, to try to avoid the 
destabilizing effect of the drug cartels. But I do not believe that it 
is appropriate to spend hundreds of millions of dollars--almost a 
billion dollars in the Senate appropriations and $1.4 billion in the 
House. I believe there is currently an imbalance in the $18 billion a 
year spent on drugs, with about two-thirds of that--or $12 billion--
going to the so-called supply side, and some $6 billion going to the 
so-called demand side.
  My view is that we would be doing better to spend money on 
rehabilitation and education to try to eliminate the demand for drugs. 
I was an original sponsor of legislation many years ago to bring in the 
military on interdiction, and I think that it is a good policy. But no 
matter how strong our interdiction is, drugs will come into the United 
States as long as there is a demand for drugs. My experience as 
district attorney of Philadelphia shows that a great deal can be done 
to prosecute drug dealers and street crime and move up the chain to 
drug kingpins. But, again, as long as there is a demand for drugs, 
there will be a supply. So it is my view that the wiser course of 
action is to spend more money on education and rehabilitation through 
the drug courts, which are now part of the crime bill of 1994. It is 
because of my view that funds are better spent on rehabilitation and 
education and the demand side that I supported the Wellstone amendment.
  I thank my many colleagues who have worked with me to clear this 
amendment. As with most Senators, I would like to have a rollcall vote. 
We are trying to bring this matter to a conclusion. Tomorrow, we are 
going to start on the appropriations bill of Labor, Health, Human 
Services, and Education, which comes from the subcommittee I chair. So 
I appreciate the acceptance of this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 3588) was agreed to.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LOTT. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           amendment no. 3569

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3569.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Nickles] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3569.

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 142, line 11 after the word ``purposes:'' insert 
     the following: ``Provided further, That of the funds made 
     available under this heading, not less than $100,000,000 
     shall be made available by the Department of State to the 
     Department of Justice for counter narcotic activity 
     initiatives specifically policing initiatives to combat 
     methamphetamine production and trafficking and to enhance 
     policing initiatives in drug `hot spots' ''.

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, just briefly, this amendment would 
transfer $100 million away from the Colombian aid into the Department 
of Justice to be used for drug interdiction, for counternarcotic 
activities including and especially to combat methamphetamine 
production and trafficking, which is rampant throughout the United 
states, and also to use this money to enhance policing initiatives 
throughout the country in drug hotspots.
  I appreciate the cooperation of my colleagues and hope we will have 
an affirmative vote on that.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we may need a moment more to have a chance 
to review the unanimous consent proposal. I believe we have one worked 
out that is fair and acceptable to Senators on both sides of the aisle. 
If we can get this agreement entered into, then there would be no 
further votes tonight, nor in the morning. Then we would begin the 
final debate at 1:30, with the votes that are necessary stacked at 2 
p.m., and final passage at that time.
  In the morning, though, we would go to Labor-HHS Appropriations at 
9:30. Any votes relative to that bill would also be put in a stacked 
sequence beginning at 2 p.m., if any are ready. We certainly hope good 
progress can be

[[Page 11648]]

made on that bill tomorrow. We look forward to working with the 
managers of that legislation.
  I see Senator Reid is looking over the consent request. If he has any 
questions, I will be glad to respond.


                      unanimous consent agreement

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining 
first-degree amendments in order to the pending bill be offered and 
debated tonight, along with any relevant second-degree amendments, and 
the votes occur in relation to those amendments beginning at 2 p.m. on 
Thursday, with 4 minutes prior to each vote for explanation.
  I further ask consent that at 1:20 p.m. on Thursday, the Senate 
resume consideration of the pending bill, and Senator Feingold be 
recognized to offer his filed amendment regarding Mozambique, and that 
amendment be voted on in the voting sequence under the same terms as 
outlined above.
  I further ask consent that following the introduction of the Feingold 
amendment, it be laid aside and Senator Boxer be recognized to call up 
her two filed amendments, Nos. 3541 and 3542, and there be 40 minutes 
total for debate on both amendments, with the votes occurring in the 
voting sequence as outlined above.
  I ask unanimous consent that following the disposition of the 
amendments, the bill be advanced to third reading and the Senate 
proceed to vote on that motion. I further ask consent that following 
that vote, the bill then be placed back on the calendar awaiting the 
House companion bill.
  I further ask consent that at 9:30 a.m., the Senate begin 
consideration of the House Labor-HHS and Education appropriations bill 
and any votes ordered relative to that bill, following the concurrence 
of the two leaders, occur at the end of the voting sequence scheduled 
at 2 p.m. on Thursday, with the same 4 minutes allocated for 
explanation prior to those votes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask the 
majority leader, with regard to the amendment I intend to offer, I hope 
the agreement contemplates the possibility that we can work out 
something on the amendment so a vote would not be required.
  Mr. LOTT. Certainly. That is always the case. If the Senator gets it 
worked out, or something changes his mind, he obviously would have that 
opportunity. The managers, I am sure, would be glad to work with him 
this evening to work out some satisfactory way. I don't know the 
substance of the amendment, other than it is on Mozambique. Certainly, 
that would be contemplated.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if the 
Senator will yield, the conversation Senator Leahy and I had with the 
manager of the bill is that we have talked about their reviewing that 
very closely to see if something can be worked out. Today, there was a 
very emotional event at the White House. Senator Inouye was awarded the 
Congressional Medal of Honor. It was one of the most dramatic events I 
have ever attended. Senator Akaka is calling and he desires some 
morning business to talk about this. There are lots of people in from 
Hawaii and from around the country. We are coming in at 9:30 a.m. to 
begin Labor-HHS.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, why don't we amend the request to say that 
we come in at 9:30, and after the opening and the prayer, we go to 
Senator Akaka for 30 minutes, and we will begin Labor-HHS bill at 10 
o'clock. We are all certainly very proud of Senator Inouye and how he 
and the men of his unit served this country. For it to be appropriately 
memorialized in this Chamber by his colleague from Hawaii is more than 
appropriate. I am pleased to make that addition.
  Mr. REID. Further reserving the right to object, when Senator 
McConnell finishes his business tonight--and that should be shortly--I 
ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Rhode Island be recognized 
for 30 minutes, and that the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid, be able to 
speak. I have amendments that the committee has worked on during the 
day, and I would like to speak on those after Senator Reed from Rhode 
Island speaks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to 
further clarify that there would be no prohibition in this unanimous 
consent agreement if it would be necessary to withdraw the amendment 
which I propose.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I certainly know of no reason the Senate 
wouldn't agree to the Senator's amendment being withdrawn if the 
Senator desires to do so.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, will the majority leader simply have 
that reflected in the agreement?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I include in the unanimous consent request 
that if Senator Feingold wishes to withdraw his amendment, that would 
be in order.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in light of this agreement, there will be no 
further votes tonight, and the next series of votes will occur at 2 
p.m. on Thursday.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I would simply like to thank the majority 
leader. Much of this was done to accommodate my daughter's graduation 
tomorrow morning. He went out of his way. I thank him, as well as the 
minority leader and the minority whip, for doing that for me. It shows 
the comity of the Senate, as well. I thank all of the leaders for that.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank Senator Schumer. I thank all of my 
colleagues and the managers for the work they are doing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority 
leader for helping us wrap up this matter in due time.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator yield before the majority 
leader leaves?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from Nevada.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, when we were riding up here together, I told 
the Senator we couldn't finish tonight.
  Mr. LOTT. The Senator was right.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.


                           Amendment No. 3589

 (Purpose: To provide emergency funding to the Department of Commerce 
  and the Department of Agriculture to assist communities affected by 
         Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Dennis, or Hurricane Irene)

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk that 
has been cleared on both sides by Senator Edwards on behalf of himself, 
and Senator Torricelli, and Senator Robb.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), for Mr. Edwards, 
     Mr. Torricelli, and Mr. Robb, proposes an amendment numbered 
     3589.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:


 emergency funding to assist communities affected by hurricane floyd, 
                  hurricane dennis, or hurricane irene

       Sec. 5__. (a) Economic Development Assistance.--
       (1) In general.--There is appropriated, out of any money in 
     the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for fiscal year 
     2000, for an additional amount for ``Economic Development 
     Assistance Programs'', $125,000,000, to remain available 
     until expended, for planning assistance, public works grants, 
     and revolving loan funds to assist communities affected by 
     Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Dennis, or Hurricane Irene.
       (2) Emergency designation.--The $125,000,000--
       (A) shall be available only to the extent that the 
     President submits to Congress an official budget request for 
     a specific dollar amount that includes designation of the 
     entire amount of the request as an emergency

[[Page 11649]]

     requirement for the purposes of the Balanced Budget and 
     Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 900 et seq.); 
     and
       (B) is designated by Congress as an emergency requirement 
     under section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and 
     Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 
     901(b)(2)(A)).
       (b) Community Facilities Grants.--
       (1) In general.--There is appropriated, out of any money in 
     the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for fiscal year 
     2000, for an additional amount for the rural community 
     advancement program under subtitle E of the Consolidated Farm 
     and Rural Development Act (7 U.S.C. 2009 et seq.), 
     $125,000,000, to remain available until expended, to provide 
     grants under the community facilities grant program under 
     section 306(a)(19) of that Act (7 U.S.C. 1926(a)(19)) with 
     respect to areas subject to a declaration of a major disaster 
     under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency 
     Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.) as a result of 
     Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Dennis, or Hurricane Irene.
       (2) Emergency designation.--The $125,000,000 is designated 
     by Congress as an emergency requirement under section 
     251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit 
     Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 901(b)(2)(A)).

  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senators 
Stevens, Lott, McConnell, Leahy, and Byrd for accepting this amendment, 
No. 3582. Throughout the process of dealing with Hurricane Floyd and 
its impact on my State they have been unstinting in their help and 
deserve the thanks and deep appreciation of the people of North 
Carolina. I've also had the honor of working with Senators Torricelli 
and Robb on this amendment. They have fought hard for their States.
  This amendment would provide $125 million in funding to the Economic 
Development Administration this year. It would also provide $125 
million in funding this year for USDA's Community Facilities program.
  Mr. President, this money is desperately needed. Although 9 months 
have passed since Hurricane Floyd struck North Carolina, the people of 
eastern Carolina are still struggling to rebuild. Thousands still live 
in FEMA trailers. Hundreds of businesses still haven't reopened. 
Several cities are still operating under sewage and water moratoria.
  This amendment will mean the difference between businesses reopening 
and businesses closing, people working and people not working, cities 
thriving and cities withering.
  I believe this amendment will make a real difference, and will put us 
on the road to recovery. Let me submit a list of possible $100 million 
in EDA projects that has been prepared by the State. This list is by no 
means exhaustive, but it illustrates the extent of the need and how 
much good this money can be used for.
  I am enormously pleased that this amendment has been accepted. We 
have a lot more work to do in order to enact it into law. I hope this 
provision will be incorporated into the final supplemental 
appropriations package that is being negotiated as part of the Military 
Construction appropriations conference. The innocent victims of 
Hurricane Floyd deserve no less.
  Indeed, the Federal Government has consistently provided this type of 
aid to disaster victims. I ask unanimous consent that a list of 
previous assistance packages be printed in the Record. It is only fair 
to treat this disaster in the same manner.
  I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be printed in the Record 
following the amendment.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     EXAMPLES OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS THAT REQUESTED EDA FUNDS COULD FUND (50% MAXIMUM PARTICIPATION UNLESS WAIVED)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                        Total project
        District and county                             Applicant                           cost                      Project description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7--Brunswick......................  Brunswick County.................................      $6,600,000  Construct 1.65 mgd WWTP that will immediately
                                                                                                        serve a new industry creating 300 jobs.
5--Alamance.......................  Burlington.......................................       5,000,000  Upgrade existing 12.0 mgd East Burlington
                                                                                                        facilities to meet effluent limits (400 jobs).
7--Duplin.........................  Duplin County/Beulaville.........................       2,500,000  Water improvements to serve three existing
                                                                                                        industries retaining/saving 350 jobs and the
                                                                                                        construction of a multi-tenant building.
1--Edgecombe......................  Edgecombe W/S Districts No. 1&2..................       4,242,000  Water and sewer improvements to serve a new
                                                                                                        industry that will create 800 jobs.
4--Chatham........................  Goldston-Gulf Sanitary District..................         227,389  Water improvements (50 jobs).
2--Harnett........................  Harnett County/Fuquay-Varina.....................       4,000,000  Regional water transmission main and municipal
                                                                                                        sewer improvements to serve an expanding
                                                                                                        industry (400 jobs) and industrial development.
3--Lenoir.........................  Lenoir County....................................       3,512,700  Upgrade and expand the city's 4.08 mgd plant to
                                                                                                        6.0 mgd. The expansion requires upgrades to more
                                                                                                        stringent effluent limits. (300 jobs).
 --Nash...........................  Rocky Mount......................................      10,000,000  Infrastructure for new subdivisions of affordable
                                                                                                        housing.
4--Chatham........................  Siler City.......................................       2,050,000  Collection system rehabilitation to eliminate
                                                                                                        inflow/infiltration adversely impacting WWTP's
                                                                                                        treatment capacity. (125).
5--Rockingham.....................  Town of Reidsville...............................       2,537,512  Water, sewer and street construction to develop
                                                                                                        phase I of the Town of Reidsville's 300 acre
                                                                                                        industrial part (800 jobs).
1--Warren.........................  Warren County....................................       2,943,999  Sanitary sewer replacement to eliminate inflow
                                                                                                        and infiltration that is reducing the WWTP's
                                                                                                        treatment capacity that will create 600 jobs.
3--Wayne..........................  Wayne County.....................................       2,080,000  Sewer improvements that will serve industries
                                                                                                        creating 700 jobs.
2--Wilson.........................  Wilson County....................................       1,751,065  Replacement of a major sewer interceptor to
                                                                                                        correct inflow/infiltration resulting in WWTP
                                                                                                        operating under a moratorium and SOC (400 jobs).
                                                                                      ----------------
    Total.........................  .................................................      47,444,665
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                                      POTENTIAL EDA PROJECTS--FY 2000 SUPPLEMENTAL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                        Total project
        District and county                             Applicant                           cost                      Project description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1--Edgecombe......................  Tarboro..........................................      $3,000,000  Water and sewer improvements in Kingsboro
                                                                                                        corridor to retain commerce and support
                                                                                                        industrial growth in non flood-prone areas.
1--Edgecombe......................  Pinetops.........................................       1,500,000  Waste water treatment plant flooded during
                                                                                                        Hurricane Floyd. Funds would allow for expansion
                                                                                                        of industrial and residential capacity of
                                                                                                        facility.
1--Edgecombe......................  Tarboro..........................................         600,000  Water and sewer lines to accommodate the
                                                                                                        expansion of commerce and the development of 2
                                                                                                        low to moderate income subdivisions.
1--Edgecombe......................  Tarboro Area Development Corporation/NC                   350,000  As part of NC ``Main Street'' project,
                                     Department of Commerce, Division of Community                      rehabilitate Royster-Clark Building. This
                                     Assistance.                                                        project will increase utilization of downtown
                                                                                                        properties, including mixed-use development;
                                                                                                        increase tax base in Tarboro area, including
                                                                                                        property and sales tax; create employment
                                                                                                        opportunities through an enhanced commercial
                                                                                                        district; and encourage private sector
                                                                                                        development in real property; related
                                                                                                        improvements, and job creation. $300,000 for
                                                                                                        construction/renovation; $50,000 for planning
                                                                                                        and technical assistance.
2--Nash...........................  Rocky Mount......................................       4,000,000  Water and sewer and natural gas improvements to
                                                                                                        Whitakers industrial park to accommodate the
                                                                                                        relocation of businesses to non flood-prone
                                                                                                        areas.
3--Lenior.........................  Coastal Community College........................       1,300,000  Acquire and renovate existing building to
                                                                                                        accommodate the relocation of businesses located
                                                                                                        in flood-prone areas (business incubator).
3--Lenior.........................  La Grange........................................       3,000,000  Expansion of water and sewer capacity will
                                                                                                        support the relocation of existing businesses
                                                                                                        and residents to non flood-prone areas.
3--Onslow.........................  Onslow County....................................       3,000,000  Water and sewer extensions to county owned
                                                                                                        industrial park to support the relocation of
                                                                                                        commercial activities to non flood-prone areas.
7--Duplin.........................  Duplin County/Beulaville.........................       2,500,000  Water improvements to serve existing industries
                                                                                                        (retaining more than 300 jobs) and the
                                                                                                        construction of multi-tenant commercial building
                                                                                                        to serve flood-displaced businesses.
7--Pender.........................  Pender County....................................       1,400,000  Berming and drainage improvements to save more
                                                                                                        than 600 jobs at industrial sites severely
                                                                                                        impacted by Hurricane Floyd.
1 and 8--Pitt.....................  Farmville........................................       1,500,000  Provide sewer pump stations and extensions to
                                                                                                        serve new ethanol facility that will create 1000
                                                                                                        jobs--replenishing the 450 jobs lost after
                                                                                                        hurricanes.
1 and 8--Beaufort.................  Beaufort EDC.....................................       1,500,000  Construct industrial building for lease to flood-
                                                                                                        displaced businesses.
1 and 3--Pitt.....................  Greenville.......................................       3,000,000  Water and sewer extensions to serve business and
                                                                                                        housing relocations to non flood-prone areas.
1 and 3--Pitt.....................  Farmville........................................       1,000,000  Provide water and sewer pump station to serve US
                                                                                                        258/US 264 interchange area to provide for the
                                                                                                        expansion of commerce and the development of
                                                                                                        subdivisions/housing.

[[Page 11650]]

 
  Multiple........................  NC Department of Commerce, Division of Community        1,400,000  The ``Main Street'' program is an ongoing,
                                     Assistance.                                                        successful State initiative to revitalize
                                                                                                        commercial districts in North Carolina
                                                                                                        communities. Targeting vacant or abandoned
                                                                                                        buildings for rehabilitation, the program
                                                                                                        infuses new activity into commercial districts
                                                                                                        by reclaiming and renovating structures for
                                                                                                        commercial and mixed-use. Building renovation is
                                                                                                        an important part of comprehensive projects that
                                                                                                        enhance quality of life and commerce for North
                                                                                                        Carolina towns. Planning and technical
                                                                                                        assistance and construction funds for ``Main
                                                                                                        Street'' program in disaster impacted
                                                                                                        communities (Clinton, Elizabeth, Wilson,
                                                                                                        Farmville, Goldsboro, Kinston, Lumberton, New
                                                                                                        Bern, Smithfield, Southport, Tarboro, and
                                                                                                        Washington). $400,000 in planning and technical
                                                                                                        assistance funds would support economic
                                                                                                        improvement feasibility analyses of ``Main
                                                                                                        Street'' projects, including use of appropriate
                                                                                                        hazard mitigation technologies. $1 million in
                                                                                                        construction funds would facilitate the
                                                                                                        implementation of project/rehabilitation of
                                                                                                        buildings--supporting new jobs and the
                                                                                                        revitalization of towns and commercial areas.
  Multiple........................  Multiple Counties................................      20,000,000  2 urban and 5 rural communities were under water/
                                                                                                        sewer moratoriums due to capacity prior to the
                                                                                                        1999 hurricane season (Wilson, Bethel, Fremont,
                                                                                                        Mount Olive, Snow Hill, Kinston, and Ahoskie).
                                                                                                        $300 in RM alone--4 additional rural facilities
                                                                                                        are now operating under moratorium due to flood
                                                                                                        damage (Fountain, Winton, Aulander, and
                                                                                                        Pikeville). As a critical component of the
                                                                                                        repair and recovery and reconstruction process,
                                                                                                        especially regarding the reconstruction of
                                                                                                        affordable housing and relocation of commercial
                                                                                                        activities, the capacity of these facilities
                                                                                                        must be addressed.
                                                                                      ----------------
    Total.........................  .................................................      49,050,000  .................................................
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Unless waived, EDA projects require a 50% cost-share.

  In past disasters, EDA funding, combined with Community Development 
Block Grants, has been a critical tool in helping towns and cities 
recover: Midwest Floods in 1993--$200 million for EDA plus $200 million 
for CDBG; Northridge Earthquake in 1994--$55 million for EDA plus more 
than $225 million for CDBG; Tropical Storm Alberto in 1994--$50 million 
for EDA plus $180 million for CDBG; Red River Valley Floods in 1997--
$52 million in EDA plus $500 million for CDBG; and in the Agriculture 
Appropriations, there is no EDA or CDBG funding allocated for Hurricane 
Floyd affected states. None.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared on both 
sides of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 3589) was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I 
move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

                          ____________________