    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [July 23, 1996]
    [Pages 1190-1192]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the McClellan Air Force Base Local Redevelopment Authority
    and an Exchange With Reporters in Sacramento
    July 23, 1996

        The President. Thank you. Please sit down, everybody. Well, thank
    you. I know you've been meeting, and I don't want to take a lot of time
    because I want to spend most of my time just listening to you. But I've
    had a chance to talk to Congressman Fazio and Congressman Matsui, and
    Leon and I were visiting with them earlier. I know that this last year
    has not been easy for you and I have--frankly, it has not been easy for
    me to try to help you because Congress has fiercely opposed my efforts
    to try to privatize more of the maintenance operations more easily, as
    I'm sure you all know.
        But we are still committed to making this work, and I am convinced
    we can make it work. I believe that the potential of this base is very
    great. I feel as strongly about that as I did when we decided to
    undertake this course, and we will do everything we can under the law to
    help you. My main purpose in being here today is to find out if there
    are things that you think we can do that we haven't done, and we're
    anxious to get after it and do more.
        I know that you know all this, but I think that it's worth
    recounting that we have taken some steps in the last few weeks that I
    believe will help: say that the DOD will maintain the microelectronic
    center, keeping the commissary and the base exchange open, providing
    about $4\1/2\ million to retrain 1,500 civilian workers, providing some
    more money for the casting emission reduction program, which I'm very
    interested in because of the idea of developing environmentally friendly
    ways of providing for casting metal parts I think is a very important
    thing. It has enormous potential for a significant sector of our
    economy. And of course, I know that you know that the Department of
    Energy is going to provide $800,000 for your nuclear reactor facility
    for research on treatment for inoperable brain tumors, which is
    something that's acquired a lot more interest in the last couple of
    years because there seemed to be so many of them.
        And there are other things that we can do, I'm sure. I'm committed
    to doing them. I just wanted to come here and kind of get an update from
    you, tell you that I understand some of your frustrations, particularly
    on putting up more business for this privatization in place. We have
    worked very hard for it, and we have been, frankly, frustrated that
    people who say they believe we ought to privatize everything don't seem
    to be interested in helping us on this. But I'm not discouraged, and I'm
    prepared to go on and do everything I can. And as I said, I mostly just
    want to hear from you and get whatever ideas you have. And I thank you
    for giving me the chance to be here.

    TWA Flight 800

        Q. Mr. President, can we ask you for just a second to give us an
    update on TWA 800?
        The President. Yes. I got a report already, one report from James
    Lee Witt whom I asked to go up there and try to kind of coordinate
    things and make sure that we were doing everything we could be doing for
    the families as well as make sure that all of our group was working
    together with the State and local people.

    [[Page 1191]]

        I think it's important to say that I believe progress is being made
    in the investigation, progress is being made in identification and
    recovery. But again I would say--I read the news reports this morning,
    and the important thing I want to emphasize at this moment is that we
    must not draw a conclusion until we're sure that the conclusion is
    supported by the facts. And I cannot say that I've learned anything
    today which enables me to give you a definite conclusion about the cause
    of the accident.
        But right now I'm very concerned about just getting all the evidence
    we can collected and dealing with these families and making sure that
    they're treated in the most humane way and that they get their answers
    as quickly as possible. So those are our priorities. We're working on
    them. I do not have a definite answer at this moment.
        Q. Mr. President, there seems to be some confusion about whether or
    not chemical residue of some kind was found on remains or on debris
    removed from the aircraft. Can you clear up that confusion, sir?
        The President. Well, I think the confusion would be what the
    evidence supports. There is some--traces of some chemicals have been
    identified, but in the way that they were identified, though, I
    believe--the stories that I read implied, I think, more than the
    evidence supported at the moment. And I'm not criticizing anybody
    because we're all desperate to find an answer to this.
        But based on the reports that I have read, and I'm getting regular
    reports on this both orally and in writing, I cannot tell you that the
    evidence establishes a cause of the accident. So finding various traces
    of things may indicate that something happened, and it may not. But
    right now, the people we have looking at this have not drawn a firm
    conclusion that's been relayed to any of us.
        Q. How long do you think it will take to make an analysis of it?
        The President. Well, I don't know, but they're working very hard on
    it. I mean, believe me, we don't have another priority. So as quick as
    we can find something out, you'll know it.

    Welfare Reform

        Q. [Inaudible]--Senate on welfare--[inaudible].
        The President. What did you say?
        Q. [Inaudible]--Senate on welfare--[inaudible].
        The President. Well, I think they adopted two good amendments today.
    But I think the question that you ought to ask yourself in evaluating
    that bill, including the amendments that were adopted, which I favor, is
    does this weaken the protections we give to children in our country?
    That's the major issue to me.
        A lot of the savings in the welfare bill actually have nothing
    whatever to do with welfare. They're just part of the budgetary calculus
    of the overall balanced budget plan. They're necessary to finance the
    tax cuts and the other things in their plan. And so I just don't want to
    do anything that hurts kids.
        They adopted two good amendments. I applaud them for doing it. The
    bill's going to go to conference. I'm going to keep working with them,
    and we'll see if we can all agree on something that is acceptable. The
    actual provisions of the bill that apply to welfare per se are much
    better and basically pretty good, including putting several billion
    dollars more for child care.
        The savings in the bill that I don't agree with, except for the
    voucher--the absence of giving the States the option to provide some
    assistance for people who run out of their time limits are for their
    children. That's the only welfare issue that I'm aware of that's still
    hanging out there. The rest of the issues basically relate to budget
    cuts that will affect poor working people, as much as anything else, and
    their children.
        A lot of these food stamp cuts will affect poor working mothers,
    minimum-wage mothers and their children. Or the cuts to legal immigrants
    are likely to affect people who come to this country and may be middle
    class, may be even upper middle class, but then through no fault of
    their own, after paying taxes here for years, something happens to them
    that affects their children, they get in a car wreck, they get cancer,
    they get mugged. These are things that happen to people who live
    anywhere in the world, and they can happen to people here.
        So I'm concerned about the impact of some of the provisions of this
    on children. But I still believe--since it's getting better, I'm
    optimistic we can make it even better in the conference, and I'll just
    keep working at it and try to get it done.

    [[Page 1192]]

    Note: The President spoke at 3 p.m. in the Commanders' Air Room at
    McClellan Air Force Base. In his remarks, he referred to Chief of Staff
    Leon E. Panetta.