May 16, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6735

United States, the Secretary of Commerce

may recommend to the President appropriate action against such person, which

may include modification of the authorization to export crude oil.

‘‘(6) Administrative action with respect to

an authorization under this subsection is not

subject to sections 551 and 553 through 559 of

title 5, United States Code.

‘‘SEC. 203. ANNUAL REPORT.

‘‘Section 103(f) of the Energy Policy and

Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6212(f)) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

‘‘In the first quarter report for each new

calendar year, the President shall indicate

whether independent refiners in Petroleum

Administration for Defense District V have

been unable to secure adequate supplies of

crude oil as a result of exports of Alaskan

North Slope crude oil in the prior calendar

year and shall make such recommendations

to the Congress as may be appropriate.’’.

‘‘SEC. 204. GAO REPORT.

‘‘The Comptroller General of the United

States shall conduct a review of energy production in California and Alaska and the effects of Alaskan North Slope crude oil exports, if any, on consumers, independent refiners, and shipbuilding and ship repair yards

on the West Coast. The Comptroller General

shall commence this review four years after

the date of enactment of this Act and, within

one year after commencing the review, shall

provide a report to the Committee on Energy

and Natural Resources in the Senate and the

Committee on Resources in the House of

Representatives. The report shall contain a

statement of the principal findings of the review and such recommendations for consideration by the Congress as may be appropriate.

‘‘SEC. 205. EFFECTIVE DATE.

‘‘This title and the amendments made by it

shall take effect on the date of enactment.’’.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I

suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the

roll.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I

ask unanimous consent that the order

for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

AMENDMENT NO. 1105 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1104

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I

send an amendment to the desk and

ask for its immediate consideration.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will report.

The assistant legislative clerk read

as follows:

The Senator from Alaska [Mr. MURKOWSKI], for Mr. HATFIELD, proposes an amendment numbered 1105 to amendment No. 1104.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I

ask unanimous consent that reading of

the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment is as follows:

At the end of the amendment add the following new section:

SEC. 206. RETIREMENT OF CERTAIN COSTS INCURRED FOR THE CONSTRUCTION

OF NON-FEDERAL PUBLICLY OWNED

SHIPYARDS.

(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Energy

shall—

(1) deposit proceeds of sales out of the

Naval Petroleum Reserve in a special account in amounts sufficient to make payments under subsections (b) and (c); and

(2) out of the account described in paragraph (1), provide, in accordance with subsections (b) and (c), financial assistance to a

port authority that—

(A) manages a non-Federal publicly owned

shipyard on the United States west coast

that is capable of handling very large crude

carrier tankers; and

(B) has obligations outstanding as of May

15, 1995, that were issued on June 1, 1977, and

are related to the acquisition of non-Federal

publicly owned dry docks that were originally financed through public bonds.

(b) ACQUISITION AND REFURBISHMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE.—The Secretary shall provide, for acquisition of infrastructure and refurbishment of existing infrastructure,

$10,000,000 in fiscal year 1996.

(c) RETIREMENT OF OBLIGATIONS.—The Secretary shall provide, for retirement of obligations outstanding as of May 15, 1995, that

were issued on June 1, 1977, and are related

to the acquisition of non-Federal publicly

owned dry docks that were originally financed through public bonds—

(1) $6,000,000 in fiscal year 1996;

(2) $13,000,000 in fiscal year 1997;

(3) $10,000,000 in fiscal year 1998;

(4) $8,000,000 in fiscal year 1999;

(5) $6,000,000 in fiscal year 2000;

(6) $3,500,000 in fiscal year 2001; and

(7) $3,500,000 in fiscal year 2002.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I

am offering this amendment on behalf

of Senator HATFIELD and respectfully

urge its adoption.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there

is no further debate, the question is on

agreeing to the amendment.

The amendment (No. 1105) was agreed

to.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion

on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was

agreed to.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I 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. DORGAN. Madam President, I

ask unanimous consent that the order

for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms.

SNOWE). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I

ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 10 minutes as in

morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DORGAN. In the next several

THE BUDGET RESOLUTION

fdays, we will have on the floor of the

Senate a budget resolution. This has

been much discussed and anticipated

because we have had substantial debate

here in the Senate and in the House of

Representatives and in the country as

a whole about the need to deal with

this country’s fiscal policy problems.

No one, I think, will deny that our

country is off track in fiscal policy. We

spend more than we have. We routinely

charge the balance to our children and

grandchildren, and we must change priorities and fiscal policy to balance the

Federal budget.

The Federal budget that we deal with

and the budget resolution coming from

the Budget Committee is a critically

important document. A hundred years

from now, if historians then could look

back 100 years and view us, they could

evaluate our priorities by what we

spent our money on. They can look at

our Federal Government and look at a

$1.5 trillion budget and determine what

was important to us by how we spent

our money. What did we hold dear?

What did we treasure, value, and what

kind of investments did we think were

important? That is what they will be

able to tell about us. That is what is in

the budget resolution. It represents our

priorities, values, and what we think is

important for our country.

A lot of people view this as just politics, just the same old thing, Republican versus Democrat. It is not that at

all. It is much, much more important

than that. It is the establishment of a

set of principles by which we determine

how we spend the public’s money. I recall a story in the Washington Post, I

believe, once where two people were

quoted from Congress and one said—

speaking of some other dispute—‘‘This

has degenerated into an argument

about principle.’’ I thought to myself, I

hope so. That is what this is all about.

That is what the budget resolution

ought to be about.

I was at the White House this morning with a group of my colleagues

meeting with President Clinton. He

made a point about the budget resolution that I happen to agree with, which

is that his problem with the budget

resolution that is going to come to the

floor of the Senate is that the priorities in that budget resolution do not

match the needs of the country.

The budget resolution from the

House of Representatives calls for a

very large tax cut. The benefits of the

tax cut will largely go to the wealthiest in America. If you take a look at

who benefits from the tax break by the

House of Representatives, the numbers

show up like this: If you are a family

earning under $30,000 a year, you get a

tax break of $120. If you are a family

over $200,000 a year in income, you get

a tax break of around $11,000. It is pretty clear who benefits from that kind of

policy.

In order to pay for a very expensive

tax break, the bulk of which goes to

the most affluent Americans, what do

you have to cut in spending to do it?

Well, they cut Medicare. They make it

more expensive for someone to go to

college. They cut education. They

make it more difficult for the elderly

to get health care. They cut earned-income tax benefits for the working poor,

which means higher taxes for the working poor.

I happen to think those priorities do

not match what our needs are. My own

view is we ought not at this point have
S6736 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 16, 1995

a tax cut. I would like to see everybody

pay far less taxes than they now pay.

But the first obligation, I think, for

our country, is to balance the Federal

budget.

I give credit to the budget resolution

and those who framed it because it includes some recommendations that I

support. There is a part of the budget

recommendation that comes to the

floor of the Senate that I think makes

eminent good sense, and I support it. I

say congratulations. I sent 800 billion

dollars’ worth of spending cut recommendations to the Budget Committee. I believe in this. We need to balance the Federal budget, and not with

smoke and mirrors but with real spending cuts in real ways. And, yes, also in

some areas with real revenue. But I believe in some areas you must balance

the Federal budget.

I do not believe, however, with the

kind of deficits we have, the way to

start balancing the Federal budget is

to first start talking about tax cuts. I

understand the Senate budget resolution does not specifically prescribe tax

cuts, but I also understand it specifically sets aside $170 billion to be sent

to the Finance Committee specifically

for cuts. So this budget resolution, like

the House resolution, will accomplish

the same things. It will cut taxes. And

it will pay for that tax cut by providing less for Medicare, by cutting the

earned-income tax credit and therefore

raising taxes on low-income working

families, and by slashing spending for

education, especially the education

money available to help young people

go to college.

I think those priorities are wrong.

There must be spending cuts in a whole

range of areas. Will we have to limit

the rate of growth in Medicare and

Medicaid? Yes, I believe we will, in the

context of reforming the whole health

care system in some reasonable way,

without limiting people’s choice. But

the fact is you cannot continue seeing

skyrocketing health care costs across

the country without some interruption. The Federal budget cannot stand

that, the family budget cannot stand

that, nor can a business budget stand

that. So we must respond to that problem.

But we ought not, under any condition, decide to take several hundreds of

billions of dollars out of Medicare and

Medicaid, both of them, and do that at

least in part so we can give a very big

tax cut to some of the wealthiest

Americans. That makes no sense at all.

I would say, on the issue of education, to the extent anything is important in our country, we must decide

as a country to invest so our kids can

go to school. Investing in education for

our children is an investment in this

country’s future. It yields dividends of

enormous importance to the future of

this country.

So, when we decide we are going to

make a trade here and we are going to

do classic trickle-down economics, and

that means we do not have enough

money to provide for financial help for

somebody going to college, that is a

trade that in my judgment injures our

country’s economy.

Some people say this is new, that

this is reform. This is not new. There is

nothing new about this. This is 15 years

old and it is 50 years old. It is: run an

election, win, write a contract, give tax

breaks for the rich, and have the rest

of us pay for it somehow, with less

medical care and less help for their

kids to go to school and higher taxes

for the working poor. That is not new.

That is Herbert Hoover.

We have been through this before.

Trickle-down economics—that is the

notion where you pour the money in at

the top somehow and, if you make the

top generous enough or affluent

enough, somehow it all trickles down

and rains on everybody else in America.

Another Member who served in this

body many, many years ago described

trickle-down economics. He said it is

the concept that if you feed the horse

some hay, sometime down the road the

sparrows will have something to eat—

trickle-down economics. That is not a

notion that I think makes sense for the

economy engine of this country. Our

goal is not to make the comfortable

more comfortable. It is to provide

working people in this country with

something to make a good living: jobs,

opportunities, education. That is what

drives the American economy. It is not

trickle-down economics, it is percolate-up economics.

I think what we ought to do when we

bring this budget resolution to the

floor of the Senate, I would like to see

on a bipartisan basis for all of us to do

something very serious and very quickly. I would like to see us decide immediately. The first test is to decide to

balance the budget using spending

cuts. Do that. Debate about the priorities, what are the values here, what

are the things we hold dear, what

should we invest in, what about our

children—go through that debate. Set

the tax cuts aside and say, let us not do

tax cuts. Let us just deep six all that

stuff. And then let us do honest, real

spending cuts and balance the Federal

budget.

Then, when we have done that, we

have rolled up our sleeves and done the

honest work, then we can turn to the

other issues. But I think it is wrong to

engage in a political exercise and balance the budget by beginning with a

very large tax cut for the affluent,

which means we must take more from

Medicare for the elderly, more from

programs to help those who want to go

to school, more from the working poor

by scaling back the earned-income tax

credit, and so on. That, in my judgment, is not the right way for this

country to proceed.

I noted some columnists have said

the Democrats in the Chamber do not

seem to be as ambitious in dealing with

the budget deficit as some others. I do

not think we need to take great instruction from columnists about our

interest in deficit reduction. Those of

us who, in 1993, voted on the floor of

this Senate for $500 billion of deficit reduction, some of which was very unpopular, all of which was pretty controversial—those of us who were willing to do that without any help at all,

not even one accidental vote from the

other side of the aisle, do not need lectures about deficit reduction.

I believe in deficit reduction. I am

glad I voted for it in 1993. I will vote for

much more deficit reduction offered by

either side of the aisle. If it is responsible cutting of what represents excesses in the Federal budget, count me

in and sign me up because I am willing

to do it.

Also, as I said, I sent $800 billion in

deficit reduction recommendations to

the Budget Committee, mostly spending cuts, some additional revenue increases, saying: Here is a jump start on

how we ought to do this.

Much of that is in the mark that will

come to the floor by Senator DOMENICI.

And I will support those portions of the

budget. But I do believe the broader

priorities, especially the priorities

these days in something called the

Contract With America, are priorities

that I do not share. We must, it seems

to me, understand how to provide decent health care for our elderly in this

country and we must understand and

make a commitment to provide health

care for those in America who are disadvantaged and who are poor.

That is not something we ought to

debate much about. Yes, we can debate

about how to control costs or how to

bring down the rate of increase. But we

ought not trade off the health care

needs of the elderly or the health care

needs of the American poor with tax

cuts for the most affluent Americans.

That is not a trade that makes sense

for this country.

I hope in the coming week, when we

resolve this budget issue, that we will

on a bipartisan basis decide, in a serious, sober, thoughtful, reflective way,

to honestly cut Federal spending where

we are spending too much; honestly

put this country back on track toward

a balanced budget, and do that first by

spending cuts and not talk about,

again, tax cuts for the most affluent

Americans.

Madam President, I yield the floor

and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the

roll.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.

INHOFE). Without objection, it is so orALASKA POWER ADMINISTRATION

dered.

ASSET SALE AND TERMINATION

fACT

The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.