From: lazarus@wixer.cactus.org (Michael Lax)
Subject: 1992 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (4/5)
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 04:22:28 GMT


           *Reforming Government and the Legal System*

     Two centuries ago, the American people created a miracle --
a system of government, founded on limited authority and the rule
of law, a system that made government the servant of the people. 
Today it is in shambles.  Citizens feel overwhelmed by vast
bureaucracies.  Congress insulates incumbents from public
judgment.  Huge problems get worse while committee chairmen play
partisan games.  The current legal system tends to breed delay,
cost, confusion, and jargon -- everything but justice.  Many of
our once-great cities are controlled by one-party machines that
promote and encourage corruption and incompetence.

     The Republic has not failed; the Democrat Party bosses
failed the Republic.

     The Republican Party, now as at its founding, challenges a
debased status quo.  In Congress, the states, our cities, our
courtrooms, we fight for the basics of self-government.

     We rely on what works, judging programs by how well they do
instead of how much they spend.  The Democrats believe in more
government.  Republicans believe in leaner, more effective
government.

     We decentralize authority, returning decisions to States,
localities, and private institutions.  The Democrat bosses want
to concentrate power on Capitol Hill.  Republicans place it in
town halls and the American home.

     Republicans favor the free-enterprise system.  We choose
market forces -- consumer rights -- over red tape.  The Democrats
argue that government must constantly override the market. 
Republicans regard the worst market failure as the failure to
have a market.

     We replace dependency with empowerment.  The Democrats see
an America filled with wards of the State.  Republicans see an
America peopled by citizens and consumers eager for the chance to
chart their own course.

     We make electoral systems understandable and accountable to
the voter.  The Democrats fear proposals that would limit the
tenure and hidden power of incumbent politicians.  Republicans
want the ballot box to prevail over the cloakroom.

*Cleaning up the Imperial Congress.*  The Democrats have
controlled the House of Representatives for 38 years -- five
years longer than Castro has held Cuba.  They have held the
Senate for 32 of those 38.  Their entrenched power has produced a
Congress arrogant, out of touch, hopelessly entangled in a web of
PACs, perks, privileges, partisanship, paralysis, and pork.   No
wonder they hid their congressional leaders during the Democrat
convention of 1992.  They didn't want Americans to remember who
has been running the Congress.

     The Democrats have transformed what the Framers of the
Constitution intended as the people's House into a pathological
institution.  They have grossly increased their staffing, their
payrolls, their allied bureaucracies in little-known
congressional agencies.  Congress has ballooned to 284
congressional committees and subcommittees, almost 40,000
legislative branch employees and staff, and $2.5 billion in
taxpayer financing, amounting to approximately $5 million per
lawmaker per year.  Incumbents have abused free mailing
privileges for personal political gain.  Twenty-two Democrats,
with a total of 585 years in power, rule over a committee system
that blocks every attempt at reform.

     The Democrats have trampled the traditions of the House,
rigging rules, forbidding votes on crucial amendments, denying
fair apportionment of committee seats and resources.  They have
stacked campaign laws to benefit themselves.  The Democrat
Leadership of the House has been tainted with scandal and has
resisted efforts to investigate scandals once disclosed.  Some in
their Leadership have resigned in well-earned disgrace.

     The Democrat Leadership of the Congress has turned the
healthy competition of constitutional separation of powers into
mean-spirited politics of innuendo and inquisition.   Committee
hearings are no longer for fact-finding; they are political
sideshows.  "Advise and consent" has been replaced by "slash and
burn."

     Republicans want to change all that.  We reaffirm our
support for a constitutional amendment to limit the number of
terms House Members and Senators may serve.  We want a citizens'
Congress, free of bloated pensions and perpetual perks.

     Congress must stop exempting itself from laws such as the
minimum wage and the civil rights statutes, as well as laws which
apply to the Executive Branch.  The Independent Counsel Act is a
case in point.  It has permitted rogue prosecutors to spend
tremendous amounts to hound some of the Nation's finest public
servants.  If that Act is reauthorized, it must be extended to
Congress as well.  Safety and health regulations, civil rights
and minimum wage laws are further examples of areas where
Congress has set itself apart from the people.  This practice
must end.

     Congress must slash its own bureaucracy.  Its employees
operate in a maze of overlapping jurisdictions.  A Republican
Congress will cut expenses by 25 percent, reduce the number of
committees and subcommittees, and assign staff in accurate
proportion to party strength.

     We will restore integrity to the House of Representatives,
reforming its rules, allowing open debate and amendment.  The
committee system, both in Congress and in Democrat-controlled
State legislatures, has been abused by chairpersons who have
arbitrarily killed legislation which would have passed. 
Committees are a place for open and free discussion, not a closet
for Democrats to stash Republican legislation.  Democracy itself
is endangered by these abuses, and Republicans condemn these
practices.  Both houses of Congress must guarantee protection to
whistle blowers to encourage employees to report illegality,
corruption, sexual harassment, and discrimination.

     The Democrat rulers of Congress have blocked or stalled
Presidential initiatives in many areas, including education,
housing, crime control, economic recovery, job creation, and
budget reform.  They care more about scoring petty partisan
points for themselves and their Party than about achieving real
progress for the Nation.  To accomplish change, we need a change
in Congress.

*Reforming the Congressional Budget Process.*  At the heart of
the Democrats' corruption of Congress is a fraudulent budget
process.  They do not want the public to understand how they
spend the public's money.  At a time when the Nation's future
depends on reduction of deficits, the lords of the Capitol still
play the old shell game.

     Republicans vigorously support a balanced budget, a Balanced
Budget Constitutional Amendment, and a line-item veto for the
President.

     Republicans believe this balancing of the budget should be
achieved, not by increasing taxes to match spending, but by
cutting spending to current levels of revenue.  We prefer a
Balanced Budget Amendment which contains a super-majority
requirement to raise taxes.

     We also propose procedural reforms.  We support legislation
that would require Congress to pass a legally binding budget
before it can consider spending bills.  The budget's spending
ceilings shall not be exceeded without a super-majority vote of
both chambers.  If Congress fails to pass any appropriation bill,
funding for its programs will automatically be frozen at the
previous year's level.  The key to prosperity for the rest of
this century and for the next generation of Americans is a budget
strategy that restores sanity to the budget process and checks
the growth of government.

     Congress should be forced to confront basic arithmetic
through Truth in Counting.  The Democrats measure all changes in
funding against a "current services baseline," with built-in
increases for inflation and other factors.  If they want a $1
million program to grow to $2 million, they then count an
increase to $1.5 million as a half-million dollar cut.  This is
the accounting system of Wonderland, where words mean exactly
what the Democrat Speaker says they mean.  The double-talk must
end with zero-based budgeting.  We also support "sunset laws"
that require government agencies to be reviewed periodically and
reauthorized only if they can be rejustified.

*Cleaning Up Politics:  The Gerrymander.*  After more than a
half-century of distortion by power-hungry Democrats, the
political system is increasingly rigged.

     Throughout the 1980s, voters were cheated out of dozens of
seats in the House of Representatives and in State legislatures
because districts were oddly shaped to guarantee elections of
Democrats.  It was swindle by law.  We support State-level
appointment of non-partisan redistricting commissions to apply
clear standards for compactness of districts, competitiveness
between the parties, and protection of community interests.

*Cleaning Up Politics:  Campaign Reform.*  We crusade for clean
elections.  We support State efforts to increase voter
participation but condemn Democrat attempts to perpetrate vote
fraud through schemes that override the States' safeguard of
orderly voter registration.  And it is critical that the States
retain the authority to tailor voter registration procedures to
unique local circumstances.

     Most of all, we condemn the Democrats' shameless plots to
make taxpayers foot the bills for their campaigns.  Their
campaign finance bill would have given $1 billion, over six
years, in subsidies to candidates.  President Bush vetoed that
bill.  Campaign financing does need reform.  It does not need a
hand in the public's pocketbook.

     We will require congressional candidates to raise most of
their funds from individuals within their home constituencies. 
This will limit outside special-interest money and result in less
expensive campaigns, with less padding for incumbents.  To the
same end, we will strengthen the role of political parties to
remove pressure on candidates to spend so much time soliciting
funds.  We will eliminate political action committees supported
by corporations, unions, or trade associations, and restrict the
practice of bundling.

     To restore competition in elections by attacking the unfair
advantages of incumbency, we will stop incumbents from warding
off challengers merely by amassing huge war chests. 
Congressional candidates will be forbidden from carrying campaign
funds from one election to the next.  We will oppose arbitrary
spending limits -- cynical devices which hobble challengers to
keep politicians in office.

     We will fully implement the Supreme Court's decision in the
_Beck_ case, ensuring that workers have the right to stop the use
of their union dues for political or other non-collective
bargaining purposes.

*Managing Government in the Public Interest.*  The focus of
government must shift from quantity to quality, from spending to
service.  Americans should expect measurable, published standards
for services provided by government at all levels.  Performance
standards and rules, commonplace in the private sector, must be
applied to government activities as well.  Because federal
government employees should not be a privileged caste, we will
remove the bar to garnishing their wages to ensure payment of
their debts.

     The Quality Revolution in American business has quietly but
profoundly transformed American culture over the past decade. 
Millions of American workers have benefited from the more
cooperative spirit the Quality Revolution has brought to tens of
thousands of workplaces; and every American has benefited from
the lower costs, higher quality service, and greater level of
competitiveness it has produced.  Republicans are proud to have
played a leading role in this transformation, especially through
the annual Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, which
recognizes companies that best represent the principles of
Quality.

     The Quality Revolution in the private sector, with its
concepts of Continuous Improvement, Profound Knowledge, and
"Doing the Right Thing Right the First Time," stands in stark
contrast to the outmoded practices, insensitivity and outright
waste, abuse, and corruption endemic in the bureaucratic welfare
state.  The Republican Party is firmly committed to bringing the
Quality Revolution into government at every level by creating a
"Quality Workers for a Quality America" coalition whose aim will
be to transform the bureaucratic welfare state into a government
that is customer-friendly, cost-effective, and improving
constantly.

     Privatization is an important alternative to higher taxes
and reduced services.  If private enterprise can perform better
and more cheaply than government, let it do so.  This is
especially true of properties now decaying under government
control, such as public housing, where residents should have the
option to manage their own projects.  These citizens should have
the chance to become stockholders and managers of government
enterprises and to run them more efficiently as private
enterprises.  We applaud President Bush's initiative to allow
States and localities to privatize facilities built with federal
aid.

     Where it advances both efficiency and safety, we will
advocate privatization of airport operation and management.

     We deplore the blatant political bias of the government-
sponsored radio and television networks.  It is especially
outrageous that taxpayers are now forced to underwrite this
biased broadcasting through the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB).  We call for sweeping reform of CPB,
including greater accountability through application of the
Freedom of Information Act, a one-year funding cycle, and
enforcement of rigorous fairness standards for all CPB-supported
programming.  We look forward to the day when public broadcasting
is self-sufficient.

     Always trusting the initiative of the American people over
the ways of government, we will not initiate production of goods
or delivery of services by the federal government if they can be
procured from the private sector.

     _We will not initiate any federal activity that can be
conducted better on the State or local level._  In doing so, we
reassert the crucial importance of the Tenth Amendment.  We
oppose costly federal mandates that stifle innovation and force
tax hikes upon States and localities.  We require that Congress
calculate the cost of mandated initiatives upon communities
affected and provide adequate financial support for mandates
invoked.  We will continue the process of returning power to
local voters by replacing federal programs with block grants.

*Reforming the Legal System.*  The United States, with five
percent of the world's population, has two-thirds of the world's
lawyers.  Litigation has become an industry, an end in itself. 
The number of civil cases in federal district courts has more
than tripled in the past thirty years.  It now takes more than a
year to resolve the average lawsuit.  Delays of three to five
years are commonplace.

     The current legal system forces consumers to pay higher
prices for everything from basic goods to medical treatment. 
Direct litigation and inflated insurance premiums sock American
consumers for an estimated $80 billion a year.  All told, our
legal system costs, directly and indirectly, $300 billion a year. 
What it costs us in the world marketplace, by hindering our
competitiveness, is beyond calculation.

     We therefore endorse the President's proposals for legal
reform as developed by Vice President Quayle, and we salute his
principled challenge to the American Bar Association to clean up
its own house.  We support the Fairness Rule, to allow the
winning party to a lawsuit to recover the costs of litigation
from the losing party.  This will discourage needless suits,
freeing legal resources for people with genuine cases.

     We believe complainants should have a choice of ways to
settle problems through alternative dispute programs that will
permit parties to pursue less costly and less complicated ways to
resolve conflicts.  We also call for greater use of judicial
sanctions to stop frivolous lawsuits.  We call for changes to the
federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law
to limit its use in civil litigation by requiring proof of all
elements by clear and convincing proof.

     We seek to restore fairness and predictability to punitive
damages by placing appropriate limits on them, dividing trials
into two phases to determine liability separately from damages,
and requiring clear proof of wrongdoing.  This will go a long way
to reduce insurance premiums for professional and product
liability and for all malpractice including medical, thereby
lowering costs for consumers throughout the economy, while
preserving the ability of injured persons to obtain damages.  It
will also foster the creation of new products for the American
marketplace, perhaps cures for the diseases we most fear.

     The Republican Party commends President Bush and Vice
President Quayle for their continued leadership in helping
volunteers overcome their concern that their good acts and
voluntary donations of time on behalf of civic groups, community
organizations, and churches will result in civil liability and
lawsuits.  We encourage the State legislatures to pass the
Administration's model bill, "The Volunteerism Act."

     We will throw out "junk science" by requiring courts to
verify the legitimacy of persons called as expert witnesses.  To
restore integrity to court testimony, we will ban the practice of
paying fees to experts only if a successful verdict is obtained. 
We will maintain diversity jurisdiction for citizens of different
States to ensure access to the federal courts when appropriate.

     Because four-fifths of the time and cost of a lawsuit
involves discovery -- pre-trial investigation of the facts -- we
will require automatic disclosure, by both sides, of basic
information.  We will ban abuses of the discovery process used to
intimidate opponents and drive up their costs.

     We will fight rising health care costs -- and equally
important, help dedicated doctors to keep practicing in critical
areas like obstetrics -- by providing incentives for States to
reform their liability laws.  This will reduce the practice of
"defensive medicine," requiring patients to be tested for every
conceivable ailment at their own enormous expense to guard
against the mere possibility of a lawsuit.

     Recognizing that legal reform can solve only parts of the
larger problem, we support a federal product liability law.  The
cost of product liability protection is a great expense to the
American consumer and seriously impedes our international
competitiveness.  For example, a consumer pays an additional 17
percent to cover the liability insurance of an ordinary
stepladder.  If thirteen European nations can enact uniform
product liability laws to give them a competitive edge against
the United States, we can do it here too -- once we break the
Democrat hold on the Congress so Republicans can put the
interests of workers and consumers ahead of trial lawyers.

     Some of the problems in our legal system are rooted in a
declining sense of, and respect for, individual responsibility. 
We reaffirm that all Americans are first and finally responsible
for their own behavior.


*The Nation's Capital.*  We call for closer and responsible
Congressional scrutiny of the city, federal oversight of its law
enforcement and courts, and tighter fiscal restraints over its
expenditures.  We oppose statehood as inconsistent with the
original intent of the Framers of the Constitution and with the
need for a federal city belonging to all the people as our
Nation's Capital.

*A New Era for the Territories.*  We welcome greater
participation in all aspects of the political process by
Americans residing in Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa,
the Northern Marianas, and Puerto Rico.  Because territorial
America is far-flung and divergent, we know that any single
approach to the future will not necessarily meet the needs of
all.  Republicans therefore emphasize respect for the wishes of
those who reside in the territories regarding the relationship to
the rest of the Union.

     We affirm the right of American citizens in the United
States territories to seek the full extension of the Constitution
with the accompanying rights and responsibilities, and we support
all necessary legislation to permit them to do so.

     The Republican Party supports the right of the United States
citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully
sovereign State after they freely so determine.

     We recognize that the people of Guam have voted for a closer
relationship with the United States of America, and we reaffirm
our support of their right to mutually improve their political
relationship through commonwealth.

     We support American Samoa's efforts to advance toward
economic self-reliance through a multi-year plan, while ensuring
the protection afforded to the people of American Samoa by the
original treaty of cession.

     We support the full extension of rights and responsibilities
under the U.S. Constitution to American citizens of the Virgin
Islands.

     We commend President Bush for the successful development of
self-government in Micronesia and the Marshall Islands and for
efforts to conclude the United Nations' last trusteeship in Palau
consistent with the people's right of self-determination.

                 *Our Land, Food, and Resources*

     We hold the resources of our country in stewardship.  Our
heritage from the past must be our legacy to generations to come. 
Our people have always known that, as they cherished their land
and turned earth and rock into food, fiber, and power.  In the
process, they built the world's most formidable economy,
sustained by its raw materials, driven by its energy resources. 
They brought comfort to the home, transformed the Nation, and fed
the world.

     Agriculture and energy remain building blocks of modern
life.  Their vitality is crucial to the Nation's growth.  Indeed,
to its survival.  While supporting conservation, we reject the
notion that there are limits to growth.  Human ingenuity is the
ultimate resource, and it knows no limits.  The true measure of
America's economic success is not whether austerity can be shared
by many, but whether prosperity can be achieved for all.

     We advocate privatizing those government agencies and assets
that would be more productive and better maintained in private
ownership.  We support efforts to decentralize government
monopolies that poorly serve the public and waste taxpayers'
dollars.

*Agriculture.*  The Republican Party is the home of the farmer,
rancher, and forester.  We have long championed their right to
pursue growth, efficiency, and competitiveness through market
incentives, diversification, and personal ingenuity.  And for
good reason.  Their industry provides consumers with the highest
quality food and fiber for the smallest percentage of disposable
income of any nation in the history of the world.

     They have been pioneer environmentalists.  They have turned
over to their children and grandchildren land that has been
nurtured to expand its productivity while conserving this vital
resource.  Even more important, they have cultivated in their
homes strong family life and moral virtues.  We endorse American
Samoa's time-honored land tenure system which fosters self-
reliance and strong extended family values.  When we lose
farmers, we lose much more than agriculture.  We are committed to
bringing our farm families the full benefit of a growing and
diversified rural economy.

     Our rural families also deserve to be brought into the
mainstream of health care, with tax policies that provide all who
are self-employed full deductibility of their health insurance
premiums.

     We stand with farmers against attempts by liberal Democrats
to repeal the laws of economics by dictating price levels and
restricting production.  We stand with them against agricultural
embargoes.  We reject the notion that elected officials and
bureaucrats make better farm managers than farmers themselves.

     We remain strong in our support of livestock agriculture. 
We believe in the humane treatment of animals, but we oppose
attempts by animal rights extremists to impose excessive
restrictions on animal husbandry practices.

     Our Omnibus Farm Bills of 1985 and 1990 gave farmers greater
flexibility in decisions concerning management of their farms and
marketing of their commodities.  We have reduced government
control and ownership of commodity inventories.  Export sales and
profitability have improved significantly.  Agricultural debt has
fallen by 30 percent.  Under this President and sound Republican
policies, net farm income has reached record levels.

     At the same time, we cut by two-thirds the cost of
government commodity programs.  Only one-half of one percent of
the federal budget is now spent on those programs.  By reducing
dependency on government, we have created a healthier
agricultural sector.  We will build upon our 1985 and 1990
legislation and repeal obsolete or unworkable statutes while
continuing to provide a viable base of support for U.S. farmers.

     Agriculture prosperity is essential to the Nations's global
competitiveness.  We will continue to expand the growth of
American agriculture through exports, development of new
products, and new markets.  Commodity exports this year will hit
$40 billion, a 50 percent increase over the levels of five years
ago.  There has never been an annual deficit in our balance of
agricultural trade, and the positive balance this year will be
$18 billion.

     We pledge to fight unfair competition and to bring down the
walls of protectionism around the world that unfairly inhibit
competitiveness of U.S. farm exports.  We pledge continued
pressure to open world markets through the Uruguay Round, the
North American Free Trade Agreement, and bilateral negotiations. 
We affirm that there will be no GATT agreement unless it improves
opportunities for U.S. farmers to compete in world markets.  We
repeat our demand for cutbacks in export subsidies by the
European Community and elsewhere, and we will fight the use of
arbitrary health and sanitation standards to sabotage U.S.
exports.

     New markets for agricultural products will also be created
as producers translate technological breakthroughs into new uses,
such as soy oil diesel and biodegradable plastics.  We support
the widest possible use of ethanol in the U.S. motor fuel market,
including in oxygenated fuels programs and as ethanol blends in
reformulated gasolines.  In addition, the Republican Party
supports increased research and development to reduce ethanol
production costs and expand its use in motor fuel markets.  Such
use will greatly help American farmers, improve the rural
economy, and reduce our dependence on imported oil.

     Building our farm economy requires meeting our farmers'
financing needs.  Critical to these needs are competitive,
reasonable interest rates for U.S. producers.  Under George Bush,
interest rates have been dramatically reduced, thereby
contributing substantially to improving the net income of
American farm and ranch families.  We will continue working to
ensure that farmers have access to credit, with particular
consideration to the needs of young and beginning farmers.

     We recognize the importance of efficient, equitable
transportation systems to the economic viability of agricultural
exports; and we will work to achieve greater efficiencies within
the U.S. maritime industry and to decrease the cost to
agriculture of shipping services.

     We support farm conservation efforts, both those pioneered
in our 1985 Farm Bill and entirely voluntary undertakings, which
result in three times as much erosion control as those mandated
by law.  We support the Conservation Reserve, with more than 35
million acres now enrolled.  It shows what farmers can do through
incentives rather than government controls.

     We value our Nation's real wetlands habitat and the
diversity of our native animal and plant life.  We oppose,
however, bureaucratic harassment of farm, ranch, and timber
families under statutes regarding endangered species and
wetlands.  When actions are required to protect an endangered
species, we recognize that jobs can be lost, communities
displaced, and economic progress for all denied.  Accordingly,
prior to the implementation of a recovery plan for a species
declared to be endangered, we will require the Congress to affirm
the priority of the species on the endangered list and the
specific measures to be taken in any recovery plan.  These acts
should not rest with the rubber stamp of a bureaucrat.

     With regard to wetlands, following our principle that
environmental protection be reasonable, land that is not truly
wet should not be classified as a wetland.  Protection of
environmentally sensitive wetlands must not come at the price of
disparaging landowners' property rights.  Thus, we endorse, as
President Bush has done, legislation to discourage government
activities that ignore property rights.  We also find intolerable
the use of taxpayer funds, through the Legal Services
Corporation, to attack the agricultural community.

*Power for Progress.*  Energy sustains life as we know it:  our
standard of living, the prospect for economic growth, the way our
children will live in the century ahead.  Republican energy
policy, now as in the past, reflects the commonsense aspirations
of the American people.

     Our goals address our fundamental needs:  an energy supply,
available to all, that remains reasonably priced, secure, and
clean, produced by strong energy industries on which the country
can rely, operating in an environmentally responsible manner and
producing from domestically available energy resources to the
maximum extent practicable.

     Anyone older than a teenager can remember the energy
upheavals of the bad old days, when political games threw the
Nation into a tailspin.  Stranded in gasoline lines, shocked by
home heating bills, shutting down factory operations, America's
motorists, homeowners, and workers rightly blamed official
Washington for wrecking something which had always worked so
efficiently that it was taken for granted.

     Today, after 12 years of Republican reform, we can again
have confidence in our energy policies.  The average household
spends 11 percent less on energy, as adjusted for inflation, than
it did in 1980, because of both conservation and lower costs.

     We broke the shackles of bureaucratic regulation by ending
petroleum price and allocation controls, deregulating natural gas
wellhead prices, and repealing restrictions on the use of clean-
burning natural gas by industry and utilities.  We repealed the
Windfall Profit Tax on crude oil that penalized investment in
domestic oil production.  We promoted free competition in an open
marketplace and ended the public subsidy to the "synthetic fuels"
program.  And we broke the back of OPEC, the international energy
cartel.

     And, equally important, we undertook a reevaluation of
estimates of our domestic energy resource base, which the Carter
Administration had determined to be inadequate.  The Republican
Administration correctly found that we can indeed continue to
supply a significant amount of our domestically available energy
resources, including natural gas and coal, for all energy
consumption needs well into the next century.

     When Iraq's dictator moved to seize the world's energy
lifeline by controlling the Persian Gulf, George Bush did more
than liberate Kuwait.  He prevented energy crisis and economic
shutdown in America.  Now his National Energy Strategy leads
toward continued growth in the century ahead.  It provides the
Nation with a comprehensive and balanced strategy for America's
energy future.  Specifically, it promotes adequate energy
supplies and reduces consumer costs by relying on market forces,
diversifying domestic energy sources, and improving the
efficiency and flexibility of energy consumption.  We seek to
foster greater competition and increased output, in the interest
of producers and consumers alike.

     The domestic oil and gas industry saves us from total
dependence on unreliable foreign imports.  But over the past
decade, it has lost more than 300,000 jobs.  Drilling rigs are
still.  Crippled by environmental rules and taxes, independent
producers have been devastated and major companies are moving
operations overseas.  We will reverse that situation by allowing
access, under environmental safeguards, to the Coastal Plain of
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, possibly one of the largest
petroleum reserves in our country, and to selected areas of the
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).  We support incentives to
encourage domestic investment for onshore and OCS oil and gas
exploration and development, including relief from the
alternative minimum tax, credits for enhanced oil recovery and
geological exploration under known geological oil fields and
producing geological structures, and modified percentage
depletion rules to benefit marginal production.  We will ensure
that royalty payments on federal lands remain consistent with
changing economic conditions.

     Most important, unlike Democrat no-growth fanatics, we know
what is most at stake in the energy debate:  the family's
standard of living, including job opportunities, household
income, and the environment in which we live.

     That is why we have been supporting complete decontrol of
wellhead prices for clean natural gas, which have already
declined ten percent in the last four years while consumption
increased by the same amount.  We support replacing government
controls with the power of the market to determine transactions
between buyers and sellers of natural gas.  We encourage the use
of natural gas for both vehicles and electricity generation, and
the expansion of research, development, and demonstration for
end-use natural gas technologies.  We will foster more public-
private partnerships to advance use of natural gas.

     The Republican Party has a deep and abiding commitment to
America's mining industry.  We support the original intent of the
Mining Law of 1872:  to provide the security necessary for miners
to risk capital investment on federal lands, thus preserving jobs
and bolstering the domestic economy.

     We support clean-coal technologies to allow greater use of
America's most abundant fossil fuel within standards required by
the Clean Air Act.  We encourage the export of U.S. coal.  We
support acceleration of the international transfer of coal-
related technologies to boost exports for U.S. coal, in order o
capitalize on America's leadership in these technologies.

     We oppose any attempt to impose a carbon tax as proposed by
liberal Democrats.

     We endorse major national projects, like the Super
Conducting Super Collider, which offer the promise of developing
more efficient ways to store, transport, and use energy.

     We will hasten development of the next generation of nuclear
power plants -- one of the cleanest, safest energy sources of
all.  Republicans back reform of the nuclear licensing process. 
We will site and license a permanent waste depository and a
monitored retrievable storage facility.  We reject the scare
tactics used against nuclear power by those who want to shut down
this essential contributor to the American future.

     We endorse development of renewable energy sources and
research on fuel cells, conservation, hydro, solar, hydrogen, and
wind power as components of our overall plan for energy security
and environmental quality.

*Public Lands.*  The millions of acres that constitute this
Nation's public lands must continue to provide for a number of
uses.  We are committed to the multiple use of our public lands. 
We believe that recreation, forestry, ranching, mining, oil and
gas exploration, and production on our public lands can be
conducted in a way compatible with their conservation.  The
United States has some of the richest mineral resources in the
world.  Our public lands should not be arbitrarily locked up and
put off limits to responsible uses.

     Approximately 50 percent of the lands in the West are owned
by the federal government.  These lands are a deeply intermingled
patchwork quilt of public and private ownership.  In order to
provide an economic base for the people of the West, a public-
private cooperative partnership on these lands for multiple use
in an environmentally sound manner is imperative.

*Transportation.*  From its founding, the Republican Party has
considered the Nation's transportation system crucial to economic
opportunity for all.  That is why our 1860 Platform endorsed the
Transcontinental Railroad.  It is why President Eisenhower signed
the Interstate and Defense Highway Act, bringing America closer
together and launching a lengthy economic expansion.

     Today, America's transportation system is safer, more
efficient, more reliable than that of any other country.  It
employs one of every ten workers and accounts for $800 billion in
spending.  It enables us to compete in the world market and gives
us more choices in our daily lives.

     Under President Bush, that system has been strengthened by
revolutionary legislation to pave the way into the century ahead. 
Providing $151 billion for highways and transit systems, it is
the most extensive transportation improvement project in our
Nation's history -- and a tremendous jobs program as well.

     Highway death rates have dropped to an all-time low, largely
due to better road design and stronger safety programs.  This
progress would be wiped out by the Democrats' draconian plan for
higher Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.  Their
national nominees want to require a 45 miles-per-gallon standard. 
That means unsafe vehicles, reduced consumer choice, higher car
costs, and a loss of 300,000 jobs in the auto industry here at
home.

     To reduce the congestion that still chokes urban areas, we
established a National Highway System of 155,000 miles, giving
States and localities greater voice in decisions about projects. 
It will improve connections between ports and highways, airports
and railways; spur development of new airports and reduce their
environmental impact; promote private investment in
transportation; and foster high-tech solutions to congestion.

     To keep America on the move, we assert the same principle
that guides us in all other sectors of the economy:  consumers
benefit through competition within the private sector.  That is
why we will complete the job of trucking deregulation.  We will
also abolish the Interstate Commerce Commission, finally freeing
shippers and consumers from horse-and-buggy regulation.  We
applaud the President's executive order that will assist
communities to privatize government-controlled ventures, such as
airports and toll roads.

     Our tough trade campaign, along with regulatory reforms,
will assure U.S. air carriers fair access to international routes
and allow the U.S. merchant marine to sail over foreign
protectionism.  The President has proposed and will aggressively
pursue a comprehensive revision of existing maritime policy.

     Regulatory reform of airlines now allows more people to fly
more safely, at better prices.  Tough laws for drug and alcohol
testing are making all modes of transportation safer than ever. 
Disabled persons will have greater access to the entire
transportation network under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

     Wherever possible, the market should allocate investment in
transportation, steering the development of passenger rail, mass
transit, and highways to best suit consumers.  States and
localities should have discretion in using Highway Trust Fund
revenues to construct new roads, expand existing ones, or invest
in mass transit facilities, as they see fit.  We advocate
development of high-speed rail systems, through private
investment, to serve inter-city travel.  We also advocate
development of short-haul aircraft with vertical take-off and
landing capability, to bring commerce and jobs to communities
large and small.

     We will continue aggressively to support development of
intelligent highway systems, an efficient battery for electric
cars, perfected natural gas vehicles, greater private investment
in space travel, and removal of regulatory impediments to
intermodal transport.

     Because Republicans advocate personal responsibility, we
salute groups, organizations, and individuals that take direct
action to improve safe driving and street safety.

*Environment.*  Cleaning up America is a labor of love for
family, neighborhood, and Nation.  In the Republican tradition of
conserving the past to enrich the future, we have made the United
States the world's leader in environmental progress.

     We spend more than any other country on environmental
protection.  Over the last 20 years, our country has spent $1
trillion to clean its air, water, and land.  We increased GNP by
70 percent while cutting lead in the air by 97 percent.  Our
rivers run cleaner than ever in memory.  We've preserved parks,
wilderness, and wildlife.  The price of progress is now about
$115 billion a year, almost two percent of GNP; and that will
grow to three percent by 2000.

     Clearly we have led the world in investment in environmental
protection.  We have taught the world three vital lessons. 
First, environmental progress is integrally related to economic
advancement.  Second, economic growth generates the capital to
pay for environmental gains.  Third, private ownership and
economic freedom are the best security against environmental
degradation.  The ghastly truth about state socialism is no
exposed in what used to be the Soviet Union:  dead rivers and
seas, poisoned land, dying people.

     Liberal Democrats think people are the problem.  We know
people are the solution.  Respecting the people's rights and
views, we applied market-based solutions to environmental
problems.  President Bush's landmark Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990, the toughest environmental law ever enacted, uses and
innovative system emission credits to achieve its dramatic
reductions.  This will save $1 billion over the Democrats'
command-and-control approach.  Other provisions of that law will
cut acid rain emissions in half, reduce toxic pollutants by 90
percent, reduce smog, and speed the use of cleaner fuels.

     The President's leadership has doubled spending for real
wetlands and targeted one million acres for a wetlands reserve
through his Farm Bill of 1990.  We have collected more civil
penalties from polluters in two years than in the previous
twenty, begun the phase-out of substances that harm the ozone
layer, and launched a long-term campaign to expand and improve
national parks, forests, and recreation areas, adding 1.5 million
acres.  President Bush has dramatically increased spending for
cleaning up past environmental damage caused by federal
facilities.

     Our reforestation drive will plant one billion trees a year
across America.  Our moratorium on offshore drilling in sensitive
offshore areas has bought time for technology to master
environmental challenges.  Our farm policies have begun a new era
in sound agricultural environmentalism.

     Because the environment knows no boundaries, President Bush
has accelerated U.S. research on global climate change, spending
$2.7 billion in the last three years and requesting $1.4 billion
for 1993, more than the rest of the world put together.  Under
his leadership, we have assisted nations from the Third World to
Eastern Europe in correcting the environmental damage inflicted
by socialism.  We proposed a worldwide forestry convention and
gave almost half a billion dollars to forest conservation.  We
won debt-for-nature swaps and environmental trust funds in Latin
American and the Caribbean.  We secured prohibitions against
unilateral export or dumping of hazardous waste.  We led the
international ban on trade in ivory, persuaded Japan to end
driftnet fishing, streamlined response to oil spills, and
increased environmental protection for Antarctica.

     Adverse changes in climate must be the common concern of
mankind.  At the same time, we applaud our President for
personally confronting the international bureaucrats at the Rio
Conference.  He refused to accept their anti-American demands for
income redistribution and won instead a global climate treaty
that relies on real action plans rather than arbitrary targets
hostile to U.S. growth and workers.

     Following his example, a Republican Senate will not ratify
any treaty that moves environmental decisions beyond our
democratic process or transfers beyond our shores authority over
U.S. property.  The Democrats' national candidates, on the other
hand, insist that U.S. must do what our foreign competitors
refuse to do:  abolish 300,000 to 1,000,000 jobs to get a modest
reduction in "greenhouse gases."

     Environmental progress must continue in tandem with economic
growth.  Crippling an industry is no solution at all.  Bankrupt
facilities only worsen environmental situations.  Unemployment is
a form of pollution too, poisoning families and contaminating
whole communities.

     Some in our own country still refuse to face those facts. 
They try to hijack environmentalism, making it anti-growth and
anti-jobs.  Although the average family of four now pays $1,000 a
year for environmental controls, liberal Democrats want to
tighten the squeeze.  They use junk science to foster hysteria
instead of reason, demanding rigid controls, more taxes, and less
resource production.

     However, with billions of dollars at stake in national
production and jobs, not to mention our quality of life, our
decisions to spend on environmental protection must not be
determined by the politics of the moment.  We will use
scientifically respectable risk-benefit assessments to settle
environmental controversies.  It is time to replace knee-jerk
reactions with the kind of scientific analysis that helps
businesses, individuals, and communities contribute to economic
and environmental progress through flexible application of laws. 
We must base our environmental policies on real risks to human
health, determined by sound, peer-reviewed science, including
procedures for what is an acceptable risk.

     We will require federal agencies to promptly compensate,
from their own budgets, for any taking of private property,
including the denial of use.

     We will legislatively overhaul the Superfund program to
speed the clean up of hazardous waste and more efficiently use
Superfund dollars.  We will develop greenways of parks and open
space in urban areas to further improve the quality of life in
our cities.  We will work with U.S. industry and labor to
identify promising markets abroad where America's environmental
know-how can carry our success story to the rest of planet earth.

*Private Property Rights.*  We reaffirm our commitment to the
Fifth Amendment to the Constitution:  "No person shall
be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use,
without just compensation."  We support strong enforcement of
this Taking clause to keep citizens secure in the use and
development of their property.

     The right to own, use, and dispose of property inheres in
mankind by nature and is a fundamental political tenet of all
free nations.  We applaud the wisdom of the First Congress for
incorporating this guarantee of individual liberty in the Bill of
Rights.  We remind all government officials that property rights
are not granted by government; rather, government is directed by
the governed to protect the rights of private property owners.

     The vigilant protection of private property rights
safeguards for citizens everything of value, including their
right to contract to produce and sell the fruits of their labor. 
The historic collapse of Communism and other command and control
economies is absolute evidence of the failure of economic systems
that lack a recognition of the natural rights of property owners.

     We also seek to reduce the amount of land owned or
controlled by the government, especially in the western states. 
We insist upon prompt payment for private lands certified as
critical for preserving essential parks and preserves.