S6164 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE May 4, 1995 

So, yesterday afternoon, a letter 

from the Speaker and myself was delivered to the White House, and I ask 

unanimous consent that the text of 

that letter be placed in the RECORD following my remarks. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

(See exhibit 1.) 

Mr. DOLE. In this letter, we once 

again extend our invitation to the 

President, asking him to join us in a 

bipartisan effort to preserve, improve, 

and protect Medicare. It was precisely 

this type of bipartisan effort which 

saved Social Security in 1983, and it is 

what is needed today. 

And I know a little about the 1983 Social Security effort, because I was a 

member of that Commission, along 

with Democrats and members from the 

private sector, appointed by the then 

majority leader Howard Baker in the 

Senate, appointed by then Speaker 

O’Neill in the House, and President 

Reagan. And it worked. A lot of people 

felt at that time Social Security was in 

deep trouble, and it was in deep trouble. It was about to go broke. The 

trustees had warned us it was about to 

go broke. It warned us years ahead it 

was about to go broke. As often happens around this place, nobody really 

thought it was going to happen. 

When it finally became critical, we 

moved and we acted, and thanks to the 

efforts of our colleagues on both sides 

of the aisle, both sides of the Capitol 

and President Reagan’s effort, we were 

able to put together a compromise 

which, since 1983, has secured the solvency of the Social Security trust 

funds. In fact, Social Security is going 

to be in good shape for a fairly long 

time. Some day we will have to address 

it, but right now the 1983 Social Security fix has worked. 

It also appears to me that Treasury 

Secretary Rubin, Labor Secretary 

Reich, and Health and Human Services 

Secretary Shalala, all trustees, all of 

whom signed the report calling for action now have a great deal riding on 

the President’s response. 

The President’s inaction to this date 

suggests one of two things: Either he 

believes his trustees are incompetent 

and have reached an erroneous conclusion, or he accepts their conclusion and 

just does not believe it is the duty of 

his administration to solve the problem, in which case his trustees are irrelevant. Relevancy has been a matter 

of some debate around this town. 

If, however, he treats the recommendation of his trustees seriously, 

then he has only one choice: To stop 

searching for campaign issues and to 

join Congress in searching for solutions. 

I hope that the President, in the 

same spirit we have been working with 

the President on welfare reform, on 

antiterrorism legislation, on NAFTA, 

GATT, and other examples I can point 

out where Republicans provided the 

majority of the votes, working with a 

Democratic President, I hope the President of the United States will take a 

look at the trustees’ report. 

I know there is a conference on 

aging, and I know the temptation 

frightens people, scares people and 

they may pick up a few seniors’ votes 

for the President, but if we do not fix 

Medicare, as I have indicated, we are 

not going to be able to make the payments. 

The year 2002 seems like a long way 

off. Why worry about it in 1995? Let me 

just suggest, by the time you get it put 

together and by the time you start to 

implement it, the time will roll by 

more quickly than we think. 

I cannot speak for everyone on this 

side of the aisle, but I think most of 

my colleagues are ready and willing to 

make hard choices. We are not talking 

about cuts—the President says, ‘‘Oh, 

we can’t cut services, we can’t do this, 

we can’t do this.’’ We are suggesting 

every dollar saved in our efforts to protect, preserve and improve Medicare go 

back into Medicare; not to cut taxes 

for the rich—as we hear from time to 

time from our colleagues on the other 

side of the aisle—or not for budget purposes, except so far as Medicare is part 

of the unified budget. 

So I hope that the President has received our letter and that he will seriously consider it and that he will come 

to the Capitol, or we can go to the 

White House—it makes no difference—

or we can meet halfway, whatever, and 

talk about what we may do in a bipartisan way to begin working on what is 

a serious problem with Medicare. 

They are the President’s trustees. 

They are people of integrity, as far as 

I know; people of competence, as far as 

I know; people of good judgment, as far 

as I know. I assume this trustees’ report was based on the best information 

available and they said we should act 

now. Now means precisely what now 

means—now, 1995. 

So we are prepared to work with the 

President and members of this administration, we are prepared to work with 

our colleagues on both sides of the 

aisle, we are prepared to work with 

House Members, Democrats and Republicans, and my view is, if we are serious 

about this, we can do it in a very brief 

period of time. 

So I hope that we can have some response from the President. 

The other day I suggested we maybe 

have a bipartisan commission. That is 

how we made recommendations on Social Security in 1983. The President 

called that a gimmick. Well, it was not 

a gimmick. It was an idea that Speaker 

O’Neill had at the time and Majority 

Leader Baker and President Reagan 

had at the time, and it worked. It was 

not a gimmick. They made solid recommendations to Congress, and the 

Congress adopted the recommendations 

of the commission. I was proud to be a 

member of that commission, along 

with Claude Pepper, I might add, who 

was probably the seniors’ greatest representative and voice in Congress, a 

Democrat from the State of Florida. 

So, Mr. President, I certainly hope 

the President will follow up. 

f 

SENATE SCHEDULE 

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me say 

with reference to the schedule, right 

now there are discussions going on so 

we can have a substitute offered by 

Senators ROCKEFELLER and GORTON, 

and then it would be my intent to file 

cloture so we can bring the debate on 

product liability to a close. We have 

been on this now last week and most of 

this week. I am not quite certain when 

they will have the product complete. 

I do not believe there will be any further votes today because, frankly, we 

wanted to move to another matter but 

it was objected to by my colleagues on 

the other side. So we will just have to 

wait and see what agreement can be 

reached, and then the substitute will 

be filed and then the cloture motion 

will be filed. 

It is my intent to have the first cloture vote on Monday and if cloture is 

not obtained, to have a second cloture 

vote on Tuesday. So I say to my colleagues, we are going to have a cloture 

vote on Monday. It is very important 

we be here. We have been on this bill 

for 2 weeks. I do not want to frighten 

anybody or discourage anybody, but I 

can see the August recess going out the 

window. As much time as we take on 

every piece of legislation in the Senate, it does not leave the leader any alternative than to say, well, August 

would have been a great month to be 

off; a lot of us would like to have done 

a lot of things. 

But the first thing we must do is 

complete our work, and as slowly as we 

are proceeding, I do not see how it can 

be done. Maybe there can be some 

agreements in the next few weeks, but 

we are behind schedule now and, I must 

say, unless we can catch up, I do not 

believe the American people expect us 

to be off for 30 days when a lot of the 

work is not done. 

So we will be right here catching up 

unless we can do so in the next—we 

have time if we work together, let me 

put it that way. 

I suggest the absence of a quorum. I 

withhold that request. 

Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico. 

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, what 

is the order of the Senate, morning 

business? 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business. Senators 

have up to 5 minutes each to speak. 

f 

A SERIOUS PROBLEM AND A 

SERIOUS SOLUTION 

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you, Mr. 

President. First, I just happened onto 

the floor while our leader was speaking. I compliment him for the subject 

matter and for what he said. It is obvious we have a very serious American 

problem, and that is Medicare, and a 

mmaher on MIKETEMP with SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS

May 4, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE S6165 

very serious solution recommended by 

trustees, four of whom were the President’s, two of whom are private citizens. I think our Republican leader has 

outlined an approach which might resolve this issue. 

On the other hand, I came for another purpose. Obviously, most of my 

time and attention these days is devoted to how we get a balanced budget 

by the year 2002. But I do not choose to 

speak about that today. 

f 

UNITED STATES ENRICHMENT 

CORPORATION PRIVATIZATION 

ACT 

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I 

want to speak about a bill I introduced 

yesterday and I did not get a chance to 

speak on it. It has been introduced and 

has been referred. It is now known as 

S. 755. It has a very uninteresting caption and name: United States Enrichment Corporation Privatization Act. 

Actually, while that does not sound 

like much, we hear a lot these days 

about Russia, Iran, and Russian scientists having to find some way to earn 

a living. We hear a lot about the fact 

that Russia has a very significant 

amount of enriched uranium and that 

we have agreed, in a sense, to buy it. 

Now we find ourselves kind of in a 

quagmire. Our own trade laws do not 

let us buy and resell the material because that is dumping. So we have a $4 

billion commercial transaction going 

and the Russians are saying, ‘‘Fine, we 

made a deal, let’s do it.’’ And so we 

have an entity here, the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, currently in existence. It is Government owned, and thus 

it is corporate only in the sense that 

we call it a corporation. The U.S. Enrichment Corporation, when we sell 

it—and what we propose here has been 

cleared by and looked at by a lot of 

marketplace people—we believe it will 

generate $1.5 billion for the Treasury of 

the United States, when we take the 

existing Government corporation and 

put it on the market, make it a corporation. 

One of the most difficult issues facing this enrichment corporation and 

the uranium industry as a whole is how 

uranium from the Soviet Union is allowed to enter the United States market. Currently, the Department of 

Commerce enforces a suspension agreement that limits the amount of uranium we can import from the Soviet 

Union. The suspension agreement enforces U.S. trade laws. Obviously, a 

straight purchase and resale into the 

U.S. market would result in dumping. 

So it will not work. 

In 1993, Russia and the United States 

signed an agreement under which the 

United States would purchase up to $4 

billion worth of natural uranium derived from highly enriched uranium 

from Soviet nuclear weapons. However, 

as I indicated, the U.S. trade law prevents that natural uranium from being 

sold in the United States. The enrichment corporation is responsible, nonetheless, for implementing the Russian 

agreement. As a result, the $4 billion 

obligation falls squarely on the enrichment corporation, the one we now 

have, the Government corporation, because the enrichment corporation is 

prevented from selling the natural uranium into the U.S. market, which 

would be illegal since the material is 

below market price. As a result, the 

United States Enrichment Corporation 

cannot pay the Russians. In turn, the 

Russians argue that they are being 

shortchanged $4 billion. I do not think 

one can blame them for that. We have 

an agreement. But our enrichment corporation cannot buy it, because if they 

buy it, they cannot use it. 

So this legislation solves that problem by enabling the creation of a futures market for natural uranium derived from the Russian agreement. The 

material could only enter the U.S. 

market in a controlled manner starting 

in 2002. Thus, it is not inconsistent 

with our trade laws. 

So this proposal preserves the United 

States trade commitment, protects the 

United States uranium industry from 

unfair dumping, and encourages Russia’s important work of dismantling 

nuclear weapons to continue. This proposal enables the Russians to be able to 

pay the people that are doing the dismantlement work that with some of 

the fruits of the disarmament, namely 

the revenue from the natural uranium. 

The money would provide the cash flow 

necessary to keep the Russian 

minatom employees working to dismantle the Russian nuclear capability 

and, in turn, the Russians might not be 

so adamant about selling reactors to 

Iran for a billion dollars. 

So in a very real way, the notion of 

privatization, which is given sort of a 

rebirth because of the last election, 

finds itself settling in on this situation. I happen to have the privilege of 

chairing the Subcommittee on Energy 

Research and Development that has 

this as one of its responsibilities. So 

the idea of privatizing it fell on our 

subcommittee, and with the work of 

some experts and some really exciting 

ideas encapsulated in this bill, we may 

indeed retain the enrichment corporation, that is privately owned, privately 

run, that can indeed make money, and 

we will succesfully implement the Russian agreement using the futures approach. I do not think we have seen a 

nicer fit and match than this. In the 

meantime, we pick up $1.5 billion for 

the U.S. Treasury. 

Now, obviously, there will be a lot of 

questions about this, and we are understanding of that. We hope that within a 

month, as soon as we get the budget 

behind us a little bit here, we can have 

some hearings on this and get it to the 

floor this year. We think it is an exciting idea of privatization which accomplishes so many good things at one 

time that we want to move full speed 

ahead and see if we cannot get it done. 

I have good cosponsors. I invite other 

Senators to take a look. Mr. FORD is a 

cosponsor. He is ranking member of the 

subcommittee. We have Senators JOHNSTON, CAMPBELL, THOMAS, and SIMPSON. 

I am sure we will have others as soon 

as they understand it. I look for some 

of those who work in foreign relations 

and are worried about Iran and the 

growing relationships of a monetary 

nature between Iran and Russia, I look 

to them to analyze this, and perhaps 

they can see fit to join us. 

I yield the floor. 

Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized. 

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I come 

to the floor—and I listened with great 

interest earlier to the majority leader, 

the distinguished Senator from Kansas, 

talking about a letter that he and the 

Speaker of the House have written to 

the President asking for some bipartisan cooperation having to do with 

Medicare. 

Mr. President, for 12 years when we 

had a Republican President, any time 

anyone would say, gee, how come Ronald Reagan does not submit a balanced 

budget, or George Bush does not, the 

standard response that would come is—

mostly, I must say, from Republicans 

in defense of their Republican President—they would say, ‘‘Gee, the President does not spend any money, Congress spends the money.’’ I must say, 

the Republican defense is accurate. 

Congress does spend the money. For us 

to say, gee, the President has the responsibility for spending the money is 

inaccurate. It is the Congress of the 

United States of America that passes 

laws that determine how much money 

we are going to collect and in what 

manner we are going to collect it from 

the American people and how we are 

going to allocate that money across a 

whole range of programs. 

In fact, the Budget Enforcement Act 

requires the Congress to produce a 

budget resolution by the 15th of April, 

which is several weeks past. 

Mr. President, if the majority leader 

wants to get a bipartisan movement to 

do something about deficit reduction, 

there are a number of us on this side of 

the aisle who are all too willing to do 

exactly that. It seems to me that is 

what we need. If we are going to get 

movement, it ought to be movement 

inside of the U.S. Congress. There is a 

ferocious debate. There are ideological 

differences. The biggest task that faces 

us is that deficit reduction is tough. 

The problem with Medicare is not 

caused by mean and nasty Republicans 

or mean and liberal Democrats; it is 

caused by demographics and technology. 

The good news is that we are living 

longer. The bad news is that it is getting more and more expensive for us to 

pay for the health care for those where 

we have made a commitment. If you 

think it is bad over the next 4, 5 years, 

you ought to see what the entitlement 

commission says this looks like when 

my generation begins to retire. This 

thing goes clear off the charts after the 

mmaher on MIKETEMP with SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS