S6486 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE May 11, 1995 

with the lower end of the handrail is 

attached to the lower area of the 

stepped wall. When you pull the device 

toward the outside of the school bus 

through the crevice, if the tool gets 

caught the bus is rejected and then not 

allowed onto the road until this is 

fixed. 

As I point out, fixing these buses is 

relatively easy. For around $20 you can 

put a safe new handrail on the bus, a 

whole new handrail, or for even less 

money than that you can modify the 

handrail by inserting a special wood or 

rubber spacer between the bottom attachment point of the handrail and the 

bus wall itself. The process is cheap, 

simple and will save lives. 

Mr. President, I urge that all States 

that are not currently following this 

inspection policy and are not looking 

for this problem start doing this as 

soon as possible. Ohio certainly does 

not have a monopoly on these potentially unsafe buses. These unsafe buses 

can probably and I am sure can be 

found in any State in the Union. 

Mr. President, this week just happens 

to be National Safe Kids Week. There 

is no better time than the present during this week to focus our attention on 

the real dangers to schoolchildren who 

travel by schoolbus. 

The goals of National Safe Kids Week 

are fourfold, but they are quite simple. 

First, raise awareness of the problem 

of childhood injuries. 

Second, build grassroots coalitions to 

implement prevention strategies. 

Third, stimulate changes in behavior 

and products to reduce the occurrence 

of injuries. 

Fourth, make childhood injuries a 

public policy priority. 

Mr. President, these four goals 

should set our agenda for safety for 

children and specifically should set our 

agenda for school bus safety. I will in 

the weeks ahead again return to the 

floor to revisit this entire issue, but at 

this time I think it is important that 

we get about the business of dealing 

with this handrail problem. 

In conclusion, I should like to alert 

my colleagues and other concerned 

Americans to an important satellite 

feed about this issue of school bus safety. Later today and tomorrow, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will be showing a TV program 

on this very issue. This program will be 

available by satellite, and I would urge 

those who are interested in this vital 

issue to contact NHTSA about the details. 

Again, Mr. President, I thank all the 

concerned parents and the educators 

and others who are contributing to the 

success of National Safe Kids Week. To 

them I simply say thank you, thank 

you for caring, and, believe me, you are 

in fact making a difference. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the 

Senator suggest the absence of a 

quorum? 

Mr. DEWINE. Mr. President, I do suggest at this time the absence of a 

quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The bill clerk proceeded to call the 

roll. 

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

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

ABRAHAM). Without objection, it is so 

ordered. 

f 

INTERSTATE TRANSPORTATION OF 

MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE ACT 

The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill. 

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, while I was 

presiding, the Senator from New Hampshire made some comments relative to 

the amendment I had just introduced 

and spoken on. I regret he is not here, 

but I would like to respond to those remarks. They were well put, and I appreciate the cooperative spirit in which 

he gently opposed my amendment. I 

wish to respond to the points he made 

to illustrate why I still think my 

amendment should be adopted. 

As you will recall, my amendment 

provides very simply that the 

grandfathering of monopoly status 

that these facilities need because the 

Supreme Court has declared them unconstitutional ought to be limited to 

the period of time that it takes for 

these facilities to repay the bonds; that 

beyond that time there is no rationale, 

at least no rationale that the Senate 

ought to be a party to, that once the 

bonds are paid off, the investor’s 

money has been returned in full, there 

is no rationale for protecting the municipality from competition in the handling of garbage. 

That is why my amendment would 

cut it off at that point and not allow 

the remaining exceptions, which include expanding the life of the plant, or 

the useful life of the plant to some unknown length of time with a 30-year 

time limit or for contracts that are in 

existence. 

It would limit the grandfathering to 

that which is necessary or required but 

not beyond. 

Mr. President, the Senator from New 

Hampshire made the point that investors believed that they would have the 

protection of the law and we ought to 

give it to them, and that is precisely 

what my amendment does—no less but 

no more. It says to those investors, you 

get your money back when the bonds 

are fully paid off; that then but only 

then does this exemption from the U.S. 

Constitution apply. So we give them 

that grace period. That is point No. 1. 

Point No. 2. The Senator from New 

Hampshire said, well, there is a provision in this carefully crafted compromise for upgrades of facilities. And 

my response to that is, yes, that is 

there, but it is not needed and certainly not deserved. It creates a giant 

loophole which in effect means that all 

that the owners of these plants have to 

do is to provide some kind of upgrade 

to their facility—I presume that is 

anything beyond usual maintenance—

and up to a 30-year period they can 

foreclose all competition. 

That is un-American, it is unconstitutional, and it is not something that 

the Senate should be a party to, Mr. 

President. That is why my amendment 

specifically would not permit this special monopoly to exist beyond the time 

that it takes to repay the bonds. You 

cannot just fix your facility up and say 

we have extended its useful life and we 

want to continue to have a monopoly 

during the useful life of the plant. 

That would not be a justifiable reason, and I know of no reason which justifies that particular exemption. None 

has been suggested. 

Third, our colleague from New Hampshire made the point that innocent 

people were impacted as a result of the 

Supreme Court decision, and that is 

true. My guess is that most of the people who invested in these bonds had no 

idea that the Supreme Court would declare the whole practice unconstitutional. 

Agreeing with the principle that 

those innocent people should be protected, my amendment does precisely 

that. It protects them. It says that 

until those bonds are paid off, the monopoly status of the facility is protected. So, in other words, the bonds 

get paid off, the investors get made 

whole, all of those innocent people 

have their investment returned, and 

they lose nothing as a result of my 

amendment. 

Mr. President, there are other innocent people involved in this as well. 

These are the people who are required 

to pay the higher taxes because of the 

unreasonably high prices extracted by 

virtue of the fact that this is a monopoly. That is why we have antitrust 

laws. That is why our Constitution 

contains a clause that says that States 

cannot interfere with interstate commerce. 

But that is what has been done in 

this case. That is what the Supreme 

Court outlawed. And the U.S. Senate 

ought to pay attention not only to the 

innocent people who invested, who are 

totally protected under my amendment, but also the totally innocent 

people of the State who are having to 

pay two, three, four times as much; the 

EPA estimates 40 percent more than 

they would otherwise have to pay as a 

result of this monopoly status that is 

being granted. So if the argument is 

that we should protect innocent people, 

then the Senate should adopt my 

amendment. 

Finally, and the real reason why I 

think there is an objection to my 

amendment is that it might unravel a 

carefully crafted compromise. 

Mr. President, that is the unprincipled but very pragmatic reason frequently given to opposing amendments 

in this Chamber and in the other body. 

We have all been a party to those. It is 

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May 11, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE S6487 

necessary to craft legislation that is 

required to make compromises and no 

one argues against that practice. 

But there are certain situations 

where there are fundamental principles 

involved. And where fundamental principles are involved, we need to be very, 

very careful about justifying opposition to principles on the basis of compromise. In other words, Mr. President, 

there are some things that ought not 

to be compromised. One of them is the 

United States Constitution. 

When the Supreme Court says that a 

practice is unconstitutional, we ought 

to be very, very careful how we override that decision. We ought to do it in 

the narrowest possible way. That is 

what my amendment does. It says, 

until the bonds are repaid, we will 

grant these municipalities a monopoly 

power that nobody else can get, that 

the United States Supreme Court says 

is unconstitutional but, recognizing 

that investment decisions were made 

based upon the previous existing law, 

we will acknowledge that that exemption should last at least until the 

bonds are paid off. But my amendment 

says, at that point, no further. We do 

not need to go any further. No one else 

needs protection here. 

All we are doing at that point is creating a monopoly protection which creates higher prices and prevents the free 

market from operating. Now it may be 

true that standing on that principle 

will cause a bill to unravel; that if my 

amendment were to pass, there is insufficient support then for the legislation to get it passed. My response to 

that is that we do much better politically in this body when we do what is 

right and that, if we will stick to principles, in the end we will get the kind 

of legislation that is necessary; that we 

make mistakes when we compromise 

principle for the sake of getting something through rather than for the sake 

of doing what is right. 

This is a constitutional issue. I would 

perhaps suggest an analogy here. 

Mr. President, what if a municipality 

had passed an ordinance declaring that 

certain speech could no longer be engaged in in the community, and everyone rose up in arms and said, ‘‘Why 

that is unconstitutional’’? A lawsuit 

was brought and the Supreme Court 

says, ‘‘That is correct. You cannot impede free speech. Municipality, your 

actions are unconstitutional.’’ And the 

municipality said, ‘‘But we have a real 

need to impede free speech in this particular area.’’

Do you not think that the U.S. Senate would be very, very careful about 

granting an exemption from the Constitution, in effect, here; would be 

very, very careful? Obviously, we could 

not constitutionally do that, but we 

would want to be as limited as possible 

in crafting legislation that would meet 

the constitutional standards the Court 

laid down. 

That is what we should be doing in 

this case, because the Court has already spoken. The Court has said that 

States that have this flow control do so 

in violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

So, in trying to figure out a way 

around that, we ought to be as careful 

and as limited as possible, not as expansive as we can think of. And that is 

why my amendment, I submit, is the 

only constitutional, commonsense 

course of action that the Senate can 

take to protect those situations where 

there has been an investment made 

until the investment is paid off. But, 

after that, no more monopoly. 

And if that should cause the compromise to break apart, then it would 

be necessary, as the Senator from New 

Hampshire said, to go back to the 

drawing board and redo it. And I think 

that would be a good thing. But my 

hope would be, Mr. President, that it 

would not cause the compromise to fall 

apart; that we would all recognize that 

a limited exemption is all right to pass, 

we should pass it, but that we should 

not do more than that simply because 

some Senators might want to, in effect, 

overreach beyond what is really necessary or appropriate given the Supreme Court’s decision. 

So with all due respect to my friend 

and colleague from New Hampshire, 

who really helped to make the argument in principle to what I am saying 

but found it necessary to object nonetheless because of the position he finds 

himself in, I suggest the best way to a 

deal with this issue is to adopt my 

amendment, provide full protection for 

all those who need protection, but to 

limit the exemption to that point. 

Mr. President, we are going to be voting on the Kyl amendment at 2:30 and, 

unless our colleagues, who have not 

been here on the floor, are watching 

from wherever they may be, it is going 

to be very confusing what this is all 

about, because this was not part of the 

committee action. I just urge my colleagues to consider this, to ask questions about this, come to the floor to 

engage me in a colloquy if that is their 

desire. I would be happy to answer any 

questions I can. 

No one—no one—has made the case 

why we should extend to the useful life 

of a project a special exemption after 

the bonds have already been paid off; 

how it is that an operator cannot simply add something to the plant and say 

they have extended the useful life, 

thereby going to the full 30-year limit 

of this legislation. No one has made the 

case of why that should be the law. And 

until that case is made, if it can be 

made, we should not accept that proposition in dealing with something as sacred as a constitutional principle here. 

Mr. President, I will ask my colleagues, again, to support the Kyl 

amendment when we vote on it at 2:30. 

At this time, I suggest the absence of 

a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum having been suggested, the clerk will call the roll. 

Mr. DEWINE. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. DEWINE. Mr. President, Mr. 

President, I ask unanimous consent to 

proceed as if in morning business. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

TRIGGERLOCK 

Mr. DEWINE. Mr. President, yesterday I came to the floor to begin a discussion about the crime bill that within the next several days I will be introducing. I would like today to continue 

to talk about other provisions of that 

crime bill. 

As I indicated yesterday, I believe 

that there are really two truly fundamental issues that we always need to 

address when we are looking at the validity or the merits of any particular 

crime bill. First, what is the proper 

role of the Federal Government in 

fighting crime in this country? Second, 

despite all the rhetoric, what really 

works in law enforcement; what matters and what does not matter? 

It has been my experience, Mr. President, as someone who does not pretend 

to be an expert in this area but someone who has spent the better part of 20 

years in different capacities dealing 

with this, beginning in the early 1970’s 

as a county prosecuting attorney, it 

has been my experience that many 

times the rhetoric does not square very 

closely with the reality, and that really, if we are serious about dealing with 

crime, the people that we ought to talk 

to are the men and women who are on 

the front lines every single day—the 

police officers, the tens of thousands of 

police officers around this country who 

really are the experts and who know 

what works and what does not work. 

The bill that I will introduce is based 

upon my own experience, but it is also 

based on hundreds and hundreds of discussions that I have had over the years 

with the people who, literally, are on 

the front line. 

Yesterday, I discussed these issues 

with specific reference to crime-fighting technology. The conclusion I have 

reached is that we have an outstanding 

technology base in this country that 

will do a great deal to catch criminals. 

Technology does, in fact, matter, and 

it clearly matters in the area of law enforcement. But we need the Federal 

Government to be more proactive in 

this area, more proactive in helping 

the States get on line with their own 

technology. 

Having a terrific national criminal 

record system or a huge DNA data base 

for convicted sex offenders in Washington, DC, is great, but it will not 

really do much good if the police officer in Lucas County, OH, or Greene 

County or Clark County or Hamilton 

County cannot tap into it. It will not 

do any good if we cannot get the information, the primary source of this information, from them and get it into 

the system. 

Crimes occur locally. Ninety-five percent of all criminal prosecution, of all 

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