May 3, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6027

In western Minnesota, WAPA provides

hydroelectric power at production

costs to rural electric cooperatives,

municipal utilities, hospitals, school

districts, and Federal facilities. Without this program, the energy bill for

people in greater Minnesota could rise

as much as $400 a year per customer—

could rise as much as $400 per year per

customer.

In this time of budget cutting, it is

important to point out that WAPA is

not an example of wasteful Government spending. In fact, through WAPA

we actually pay off a Government loan.

And more importantly, WAPA is a

Government program that recognizes

the unique needs of rural communities

that lack the access to affordable energy enjoyed by their metropolitan

neighbors.

Rural Minnesota is willing to do its

part as our country works to reduce

the Federal deficit, including selling

wasteful Government operations. But

eliminating a program that does not

cost money and actually contributes to

the health of the rural economy is an

example of cutting for cutting’s sake.

It makes neither economic sense nor

common sense, and that is why, as a

Senator from Minnesota, I put this battle at the very top of my list of priorities.

I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN and Ms. MOSELEYBRAUN addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have

been in the Chamber some while. It is

my intention to speak for 5 minutes on

the PMA matter and then claim the additional 3 minutes on the morning

business that was reserved.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized

for 8 minutes.

The Chair would advise the Senator

from Illinois that she does have reserved time to speak for up to 10 minutes and prior to taking the additional

5 minutes, we would recognize the Senator from North Dakota for the remaining 3 minutes and then the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would

ask if the allotted time for morning

business then allows for the full complement of time reserved for the Senator from Illinois; is that correct?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is

correct.

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Chair.

SALE OF THE PMA’S

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I should

like to add my voice to the thoughts

expressed today by the Senator from

South Dakota and the Senator from

Montana and others on the matter of

the sale of the Power Marketing Administrations, the PMA’s.

This does not mean much to a lot of

people because we hear the use of acronyms and titles of organizations with

which most people are not familiar.

But the power marketing administrations, along with WAPA, which is the

PMA that serves our region of the

country, provide a very important mission and role for our region of the

country and help provide, for a couple

hundred thousand North Dakotans,

reasonably low-cost power that has

been a Federal promise to them for a

long, long while.

We produce power through hydroelectric facilities that were built in

conjunction with the construction of

dams and reservoirs. Those projects

have many purposes, including flood

control and a range of other critical

needs.

Part of the promise in the construction of those dams and the public

works projects over time was the promise of being able to use the electricity

from the hydropower generators and

distribute it regionally at a reasonable

cost. That has been of enormous benefit to rural consumers in my State,

who, without this opportunity, would

see their electric rates skyrocket.

The President has proposed selling

the PMA’s. The leaders of the House

have proposed selling the PMA’s. It

does not make any sense, in my judgment, to do that. These are investments we have made. Payments have

been made under these investments, on

time and with interest. The PMA’s are

a $21 billion investment. The customers

of the electricity, the ratepayer in

rural America, have repaid $5.1 billion

in principle and have paid $8.8 billion

in interest.

For those in Washington to force the

sale of the PMA’s would be kind of like

a hostile takeover when somebody

comes along and says, ‘‘Well, it is true,

you made your payments. You bought

this. Now we are going to sell it out

from under you.’’

It is not the right thing to do. I do

not know why the President included it

in his budget recommendation. It was,

in my judgment, foolish to have done

so. It does not make good economic

sense. I think it breaks a Federal

promise, and I think it is actually moving in the wrong direction. I hope, on a

bipartisan basis, that we will find a

way here in the Senate to put the

blocks against these wheels and say,

‘‘No more. You are not going to move

this forward.’’

If someone happens to think that

selling the PMA’s is going to reduce

the Federal budget deficit, they should

understand that, according to our

budget law, you cannot sell assets and

claim that you have now reduced the

budget deficit. It does not do that

under our budget rules.

But, I hope that the Senator from

South Dakota, Senator PRESSLER, Senator BAUCUS, Senator CONRAD, Senator

WELLSTONE, myself, and so many others who care a great deal about this,

will be able to work together in a bipartisan way with the President and

the leadership in the U.S. House, to

show that that is an idea whose time

has never come and one that we must

defeat this year.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.

SANTORUM). The Senator’s time has expired.

The Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask

for the remaining 3 minutes of my time

under the order. When the Chair indicated that my time had expired, I assume the Chair was speaking of the 5

minutes under the PMA discussion.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator had 3 minutes remaining, and that

time has expired.

Mr. DORGAN. When I sought the

floor, I sought to use the 5 minutes

under the PMA discussion that was

under a previous unanimous-consent,

after which I had 3 minutes remaining

in morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There

was time for a list of speakers. My understanding is that you have used up

all of your time under that list.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there

was how much time reserved for Senator BAUCUS and Senator PRESSLER to

discuss PMA in morning business?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator

BAUCUS had no time, and spoke under

the normal 5-minute limit under Senate rules in morning business. Senator

PRESSLER had 30 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. How much of that

time was used?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator

PRESSLER had 20 minutes remaining.

Mr. DORGAN. My understanding is

that is available in 3-minute increments for those of us who wish to

speak about PMA’s.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Parliamentarian advises me that there was

no such order that allows that to be

done under Senator PRESSLER’s time.

Mr. DORGAN. I disagree with the

Parliamentarian.

Let me ask unanimous consent that I

be allowed to speak for 3 additional

minutes as per the previous agreement

in morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DORGAN. In the remaining 3

THE BUDGET

fminutes—and I appreciate the indulgence of the Senator from Illinois—I

just want to discuss the issue raised by

Senator CONRAD a few minutes ago.

We had, not very long ago, an urgency on the floor of the Senate to

amend the U.S. Constitution to require

a balanced budget, and the urgency was

people moving around the floor here

saying, ‘‘We must do this immediately.

The country’s future rests on it. It is

critically important for the future of

America. We must change the U.S.

Constitution to require a balanced

budget.’’

And, of course, almost everyone

knew that if the Constitution were

changed to require a balanced budget,

not one penny’s worth of difference in

the Federal deficit would have occurred, because you cannot reduce the
S6028 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 3, 1995

Federal deficit by changing the U.S.

Constitution.

How do you do it? By writing a budget and bringing it to the floor of the

Senate. What is the requirement there?

Well, the requirement is on April 1, a

budget is required by law to be brought

to the floor of the Senate. On April 15,

a conference report is to be passed on

the budget.

Now, the question that many of us

asks is: Where is the urgency today?

Where is the budget? Is there a budget?

Well, we expect there is a budget

somewhere. We cannot seem to see the

budget. We hope that those who

claimed the reduction of the deficit

was so urgent—and it is—just a month

or two ago would now understand that

urgency and meet their obligation to

bring a budget to the floor of the Senate and begin to really cut Federal

spending and really reduce the Federal

budget deficit.

I said then and I will say again today

that there is a difference between posing and lifting. There has been a lot of

posing in this Chamber in the last 3 or

4 months, but now it is time for some

lifting. I think the American public

and the Senate would be well served if

those who talked so much about changing the Constitution to eliminate the

Federal budget deficit would now be interested and willing to bring a budget

resolution to the floor of the Senate as

required by law and really start to dig

in and reduce the Federal budget deficit.

Why has that not yet occurred? Because they have ridden into a box canyon they call a middle-class tax cut

which really gives most of the benefits

to the wealthy in this country, and at

the same time they really want to go

ahead and cut about $300 billion out of

Medicare and Medicaid. They have ridden into a box canyon and discovered

they have dismounted, running for the

bushes, and now they cannot find any

plans. They do not seem to have any

notion at all about what to do about

Medicare and Medicaid. They do not

have a budget. They cannot bring it to

the floor.

We do know this: They do have a taxcut plan. It provides $11,200 a year in

tax cuts to families with over $200,000

in income and it provides $120 a year to

families with under $30,000 in income,

and they call it middle class. Middle

class on Rodeo Drive, I guess, but not

middle class anywhere else in this

country.

Most of us in this Chamber who want

to deal with the deficit honestly want

a budget and we want a budget that is

real and does honest things. We want

to cut Federal spending where we are

spending too much. We want some additional revenues, to close some loopholes, and we want to reduce the Federal budget deficit. And we would like

the majority party, while they are at

it, while they bring the budget resolution to the floor, to jettison this tax

cut and stop calling a tax cut for the

wealthy a middle-class tax cut. It does

not add up.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator’s time has expired.

The Senator from Illinois is recognized.

Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I thank the

Chair.

(The remarks of Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN

pertaining to the introduction of S. 746

are located in today’s RECORD under

‘‘Statements on Introduced Bills and

Joint Resolutions.’’)

Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. PresiTHE NEAS YEARS

fdent, tonight the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, one of the

country’s leading civil rights organizations, will take time to honor its executive director, Ralph Neas, as he leaves

his position after a 14-year tenure. I

would like to take a few moments to

pay a brief tribute to this extraordinary individual, as he embarks on a

new career after devoting the past 20-

plus years to public service.

There is an old African proverb which

says ‘‘God made the world round so we

could not see too far down the road.’’ I

think it is fitting to mention that

proverb here, as I first met Ralph Neas

years ago, when we were both students

at the University of Chicago Law

School. I do not think that either of us

could have imagined then that, some 20

years later, I would be a U.S. Senator

saluting my former classmate as one of

our Nation’s foremost civil rights leaders. But I always knew that Ralph Neas

would make a real difference, and I

take great pride in his accomplishments, and I feel very lucky to be able

to call him my friend.

Mr. President, when Ralph Neas finished law school, the world was his oyster. As one of the top graduates of the

Chicago Law School, he could have

been hired by any of the major law

firms, and he could have made a great

deal of money in the process. Instead,

he chose to devote his life to public

service. He joined the Congressional

Research Service as a legislative attorney on civil rights, but was soon hired

to a legislative assistant to Republican

Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, eventually becoming the Senator’s chief legislative adviser. He

stayed with Senator Brooke until his

defeat in 1978, at which time he accepted a job as chief legislative assistant to

Senator Durenberger of Minnesota. It

was shortly after accepting the job

with Senator Durenberger that Ralph

was stricken with Guillian-Barre syndrome. Within weeks of contracting

the illness in February 1979, he had

been placed on a respirator and was

paralyzed from the neck down. For

nearly 100 days, he lay in the hospital,

kept alive by machines, unable to even

speak. At one point, he was administered the last rites. When he recovered,

he took an 8-month sabbatical, spending time touring Europe, drafting a

book about his Guillian-Barre experience, and helping to establish the

Guillian-Barre Syndrome Foundation,

now entitled the GBS Foundation

International, which now has 15,000

members and 130 chapters throughout

the world.

In the spring of 1981, Ralph was offered the job as executive director of

the leadership conference. It was not

the ideal time to take a job as head of

a civil rights organization. The Republicans had just captured the presidency

and control of the Senate, and many of

Ralph’s friends questioned why he

would want to take such a demanding

job after the experience he had endured. But as he stated later when

asked about his decision:

I certainly had more than a few moments

[while in the hospital] to think about my

life. Here I just came through an experience

where I had been a disabled individual, and

here [I was offered] a job that dealt with

equal opportunity for disabled people, and

victims of discrimination. Whatever happened in 1979 was not only important but

there were some reasons for it happening. I

learned a lot of lessons and I took the job.

Given the fact that the majority of

Ralph Neas’ tenure at the leadership

conference was spent under Republican

Presidents and Republican Senates, it

might be understandable if little was

achieved. But the Neas years were actually among the most productive that

the leadership conference has ever had,

a fact that is a tribute to his leadership. Ralph Neas was able to reach out

to individuals on both sides of the

aisle, and truly make civil rights a bipartisan issue.

But you do not have to take my word

for it, Mr. President. All you have to

do is consider just a few of the civil

rights victories that have been

achieved during the Neas years. First

and foremost, of course, is passage of

the Civil Rights Act of 1991, a bill that

overturned a series of Supreme Court

decisions that made it harder for victims of discrimination to have their

day in court. This legislation codified

the ‘‘disparate impact’’ standard, allowing plaintiffs to present statistical

evidence of the composition of a workplace in order to help prove their discrimination claims, and for the first

time provided monetary damages to

women, persons with disabilities, and

certain religious minorities who were

the victim of intentional job discrimination.

In addition, consider the passage of

the Americans With Disabilities Act,

one of the most significant and dramatic improvements in civil rights law

in two decades. This bill extended civil

rights protection in employment,

transportation, communications, and

public accommodations, and greatly

improved the quality of life for 49 million Americans with disabilities. During the Neas years, the leadership conference played a critical role in defeating repeated attempts to weaken or repeal Executive Order 11246, the Federal

Executive order on affirmative action.

I could go on, Mr. President, for there