S6800 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 17, 1995

The PRESIDING OFFICER. No, there

is not.

Mr. GORTON. Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT’S INTENTION TO

VETO THE RESCISSIONS BILL

fMr. GORTON. This morning, Mr.

President, the President of the United

States, Bill Clinton, announced that he

intended to veto the rescissions bill, a

proposal to save some $16 billion of already appropriated money as a modest

down payment on the tremendous fiscal crisis facing the United States

today.

This announcement was both a surprise and, I believe, almost unprecedented because, Mr. President, I am informed by the chairman of the Senate

Appropriations Committee, and can

speak from my own personal knowledge as the chairman of one of the subcommittees of the Appropriations

Committee, that there was no communication emanating from the White

House and directed at the conference

committee which has been in almost

continuous session for some 2 weeks on

this rescissions bill about the President’s desires or about his bottom line.

Mr. President, this is in dramatic

contrast with conference committees

on appropriations bills in the past, in

either the Reagan administration or

the Bush administration, in which that

contact between the White House and

the Congress was constant and in

which the bottom line of the President

was always well and clearly known to

members of the conference.

Here, by contrast, we had a situation

in which the White House was almost

totally silent with respect to its request about rescissions. The President

still pays lip service to a $16 billion

goal which must be seven or eight

times larger than the goal of his original rescissions bill itself. But only

after the deed is done, only when all

that remains for the Congress is the

formality of the approval of this conference committee report, do we hear,

first, that it does not cut enough dollars from what the President describes

as pork, and takes too much out of proposals which are of greater interest to

him.

Mr. President, a few general remarks.

The President attacks spending on

Federal courthouses, on the building of

U.S. courthouses in various parts of

the country.

Mr. President, I have no dog in this

fight. Earlier, there was a courthouse

in Seattle in one of these appropriations bills, but it is rescinded in this

bill. So none of the so-called pork exists in my State.

And there is also criticism of a number of highway projects that were not

rescinded. But note, Mr. President, I

said ‘‘not rescinded.’’ Every one of

these projects which the President of

the United States now describes as

pork, he signed into law less than a

year ago. Last year’s appropriations

bill for transportation, for the Treasury Department, for GSA, for the Post

Office, was signed and hailed by the

President. Those bills had every one of

these projects contained in them and

more besides, a significant number

that are rescinded in this bill. So today

we have described as pork proposals

which the President hailed last year

and proposals which spent more last

year when he signed them than this

year when some but not all have been

rescinded.

What in the world could have happened to have changed the President’s

mind about specific projects in the

course of 6 months, he does not tell us.

Mr. President, as recently as about 2

months ago, when the original rescissions debate had been completed in

both the House of Representatives and

here in the U.S. Senate, the President

said of the Senate proposal,

The bill passed 99 to 0 in the Senate, and I

will sign the Senate bill if the House and

Senate will send it to me. That’s how we

should be doing the business of America.

Mr. President, I think it is more than

safe to say that the bill the President

attacked today is considerably closer

to the proposal passed by the Senate

just a few weeks ago than those passed

by the House of Representatives. In

many of the very education and job

training areas which the President now

uses as an excuse to veto this bill, the

Senate provision prevailed, lock, stock,

and barrel, was accepted by the conferees. In several others, the compromise is considerably closer to the

Senate provision than it is to the

House provision, in some, it is 50–50,

and maybe, in one or two, it is closer

to the House provision.

But, Mr. President, a tiny handful—2,

3, 4 percent—of the dollar amount of

rescissions fall into the categories

which the President now criticizes.

And, Mr. President, one more repetition of my first point. Not a word

about this 1, 2, 3, 4 percent of these rescissions being deal busters, being entirely unacceptable to the President,

was communicated to the conference

committee while it was in being.

Mr. President, is it not safe to say,

overwhelmingly safe to say, that the

President of the United States wanted

to have something in this bill that

could give him a political excuse for a

veto? I regret to say that I believe that

to be the case.

And one more not incidental point,

Mr. President: there is a part of this

bill that the President of the United

States mentioned today which comes

very close to home. I know the Presiding Officer will remember the debate

on the floor of the Senate here on socalled timber language. That vote was

very close in language, of which I was

the author, and was substituted for

much more stringent House language

in the course of the debate here in the

Senate. But even our milder language

passed only by a narrow margin.

Briefly, the House of Representatives

mandated a certain harvest level of

salvage timber in all of the national

forests of the United States. The Senate, in language which I wrote, did not

mandate any harvest at all but simply

freed this administration to carry out

its own plans for salvage timber and its

own plans for harvest in the forests of

the Pacific Northwest under option 9.

In no way did the House language require President Clinton and his administration to do anything that it had not

planned to do. It simply freed what the

administration wants to do, consistent

with its views of all the environmental

laws from the constant blizzard of litigation to which it has been subjected

over the last several years.

And in fact, as recently as a week

ago, the new Secretary of Agriculture,

who, of course, has the Forest Service

under his jurisdiction, wrote a letter to

the chairman of this conference committee, one of the few interventions by

anyone in the administration with the

work of the conference committee, and

said, and I am quoting him:

We believe that the Senate provision which

directs the Secretary, acting through the

Chief of the Forest Service, to ‘‘prepare,

offer and award salvage timber sale contracts to the maximum extent feasible to reduce the backlog volume of salvage timber

in the interior’’ offers a more responsible approach than was adopted by the House.

So a week ago this Senate timber

provision was evidently acceptable to

the administration. Now, Mr. President, the timber provision which is denominated by the President of the

United States today as being a giveaway to big timber companies is the

original Senate language amended only

in minor details in a way that the administration itself asked us to amend

it.

I repeat, Mr. President, what Mr.

Clinton now criticizes is a set of provisions his own Secretary of Agriculture

approved of by this language a week

ago with minor changes that they suggested themselves. It is not the original House language.

Now, our Chief Executive is either ignorant of the rules which govern timber sales in the Forest Service or deliberately disingenuous when he begins,

once again, the class warfare of big

timber companies. Most of the big timber companies in the Pacific Northwest

at least are not eligible to harvest Forest Service timber because they export

some of the logs that they own from

their own lands—the Plum Creeks, the

Weyerhaeusers of this world are not a

part of this process at all.

Who are these so-called big timber

companies that will benefit from this?

Let me read you a couple of letters

that I have received in the course of

the last month.

The first one is from Tom Mayr, of

the Mayr Bros. Co. in Hoquiam, WA, a

local mill in that community. I am

quoting:

Slade, you must realize that this amendment is the single most important piece of

legislation in over 5 years to Mayr Brothers

and many independent sawmills like ours.

Congress and President Clinton have said
May 17, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6801

that they would get us timber, but there

hasn’t been any significance sold since 1990

on the Olympic National Forest. Your

amendment would realize four of our 318 timber sales with enough log volume to run the

large log mill two shifts for 1 year. This

would put 50 people back to work immediately.

Or another one from one of what apparently are these huge timber conglomerates, the Hurn Shingle Co. in

Concrete, WA, and I quote:

It is nice to see that there is some hope for

our shake and shingle mill. We have not operated our mill, due to lack of raw materials,

since December 1993. We only operated 12

weeks in 1993. So, as you and I both know,

any help you can give us would be encouraging. These amendments are very important

for our company, as a wood supply would be

something that we have not had for a very

long time.

These are typical responses, Mr.

President, and it is that kind of smalltown, independently owned company

providing employment where it is not

otherwise available that will be modest

beneficiaries of the President’s inadequate, in my view, option 9 and of the

opportunity to harvest timber which

has been partly destroyed by forest

fires or by bug infestation all across

the country and which, within a relatively short period of time, will rot to

the point at which it is not worth anything from a commercial point of view

but becomes magnificent kindling

wood for future forest fires, fires like

that which devastated the Northwest

last summer.

So, Mr. President, we have a Chief

Executive who criticizes timber provisions his own Secretary of Agriculture

previously approved, who criticizes as

pork spending on public buildings that

he approved by his signature on appropriations bills last year, and who criticizes modest reductions in programs he

likes about which he was entirely silent during the deliberations of the

conference committee.

Mr. President, that is not the way in

which a Chief Executive of this country

should act. It is not responsible to the

affected people. It is not responsive to

his duty to help us to begin to work toward a balanced budget. It is not responsive in his relationships with this

body or with the House of Representatives.

I regret this politicization of the

process, and I have every hope that if

we must begin this process over again,

we say to the President, what we said

this time we mean next time and if you

want cooperation, if you want the additional money you have asked for for

other programs, you need to be willing

to work with the Congress and stick to

your own word in the future.

This is an extremely disappointing

message, not just to the Members of

this body who have worked so hard on

coming up with an important bill, but

because of its destructive impact on a

drive toward responsibility, fiscal prudence, and a change in the way in

which politics is practiced in the United States.

We were selected last year, Mr. President—I know this is particularly true

with respect to the Presiding Officer—

because we were going to do things differently and keep our commitments.

We have done so, and we are now frustrated in carrying out the people’s will

by this action.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and

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. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the

quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

TRIBUTE TO KAY RIORDAN

STEUERWALD

fMr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I

wish to pay tribute to Kay Riordan

Steuerwald, who passed away earlier

this week in Rapid City after a lengthy

battle with cancer. South Dakota has

lost an outstanding citizen.

Kay was one of South Dakota’s premier leaders in the tourism industry

for many years. To her many friends in

South Dakota and throughout the Nation, Kay’s name always will be associated with Mount Rushmore. As president of the Mount Rushmore Mountain

Co., Inc., Kay ran a first-rate, visitorfriendly concession operation at our

Nation’s shrine to democracy for 42

years until 1993. She attributed her

success to an emphasis on good service

and reasonable prices.

Kay also was a leader on the national

level in tourism and national park concession circles. In the early 1980’s, I

recommended Kay’s appointment to

the U.S. Senate National Travel and

Tourism Advisory Council. Through

her position on that council and her

leadership in numerous other organizations, Kay was an outspoken advocate

for the tourism industry, which has

tremendous economic impact in all

States.

Kay provided an excellent role model

for women seeking to become small

business owners. This is a reflection of

her business acumen and her adherence

to the work ethic. She succeeded as a

businesswoman during a period when

for many years business was traditionally considered a man’s world. Her first

job was in the South Dakota Transportation Department in Pierre during the

administration of Democratic Gov.

Tom Berry in the 1930’s. Her career as

a business owner began with her purchase of a coffeeshop and subsequently

a hotel in Martin, SD. In 1941, she left

Martin to become manager of the State

Game Lodge in Custer State Park. Ten

years later, she began operating the

concession at Mount Rushmore.

Over the years, Kay touched the lives

either directly or indirectly of literally

millions of visitors to Mount Rushmore. Countless individuals have fond

memories of a wonderful dinner—

topped off by a piece of the Mountain

Co.’s famous strawberry pie—in the

Buffalo Dining Room gazing out the

windows at the priceless view of our

four great Presidents on Mount Rushmore.

Kay was very active in many organizations and community activities. Too

numerous to mention all of them, her

civic involvement included the National Park Concessionaires, National

Federation of Independent Businesses,

South Dakota Tourism Advisory

Board, National Park Foundation,

South Dakota Historical Society,

American Council of the Arts, South

Dakota Cultural Heritage Center,

South Dakota 4–H Foundation, and executive board of A Christian Ministry

in the National Parks.

Having led a life full of accomplishments, Kay also received numerous

awards over the years. She was one of

the few women ever to be named an

Honorary Park Ranger by the National

Park Service. She was the first woman

to receive the South Dakotan of the

Year Distinguished Service Award from

the University of South Dakota and

was named South Dakota Small Business Person of the Year by the Small

Business Administration in 1980. May 5,

1982, was designated as Kay Riordan

Day by Gov. Bill Janklow. In 1985, Kay

received South Dakota’s prestigious

Ben Black Elk Award for Tourism.

In addition to her philanthropic contributions to numerous civic projects,

Kay also helped many people privately

on an individual basis. She frequently

took young people under her wings and

assisted them with furthering their

education or getting started in business. Kay was a strong patron of the

arts, particularly for native American

artists.

Those of us who knew Kay can recall

our own special encounters with her. I

recall Kay’s gracious hospitality when

my wife, Harriet, and I spent our honeymoon in the Black Hills in the early

1980’s. Kay always made visitors feel

welcome whenever they stopped by her

business or her second-story office with

the beautiful view of Mount Rushmore.

Many lessons can be learned from

Kay’s perseverance in the business

world, her strongly held personal convictions, and her courageous struggle

with cancer these past few years.

South Dakota has lost a true pioneer.

In business, in her community, and in

her heart, Kay was a trailblazer. Harriet and I extend our sympathies to her

husband, Charlie; her nephew, Jack;

and all her family and friends.

RECOGNIZING RECIPIENTS OF THE

GIRL SCOUT GOLD AWARD FROM

fTHE STATE OF MARYLAND

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, each

year an elite group of young women

rise above the ranks of their peers and

confront the challenge of attaining the

Girl Scouts of the United States of

America’s highest rank in scouting,

the Girl Scout Gold Award.