May 12, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6581

CUTS IN MEDICARE

Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, earlier

this week House and Senate Republicans unveiled their respective 7-year

budget resolutions. The promise of the

House resolution—a balanced budget

by the year 2002 and tax cuts for

wealthy Americans—is being championed by several prominent Senate

Republicans. Although the Senate

budget resolution contains a Boxer

amendment that expresses the sense of

Congress that 90 percent of the benefits

of potential tax cuts go to the middle

class, I have every expectation that the

Republican bill will be a windfall for

the wealthy. Moreover, the details on

how the savings would be achieved are

sketchy and are left for authorizing

and appropriating committees.

The Senate Budget Committee resolution assumes a $256 billion cut in

Medicare spending over 7 years, but

provides no guidelines to the Senate

Finance Committee on how these savings will be achieved. This proposed cut

is by far the largest Medicare cut in

history, and the adverse impact on

beneficiaries and providers is clear.

If Medicare cuts of this magnitude

are approved, the Department of

Health and Human Services estimates

that senior citizens’ out-of-pocket expenses will increase by $900 a year or a

total of $3,500 over the 7 years. As 83

percent of Medicare benefits go to

beneficiaries with incomes of $25,000 or

less, it is obvious who will be hurt by

these cuts, yet the budget remains silent on how it will be done.

In addition, cuts to providers would

have serious ramifications on overall

health care costs as cuts in provider reimbursement are often passed along to

other payers. Provider cuts could also

have a potentially devastating impact

on urban safety-net hospitals which already bear a disproportionate share of

the Nation’s growing burden of uncompensated care. These reductions in

Medicare payments could also endanger access to care in rural areas. Nearly 10 million Medicare beneficiaries—25

percent of the total—live in rural

areas. There is often only a single hospital in their county. Significant cuts

in Medicare have the potential of causing rural hospitals to close or increase

the number of providers that refuse to

treat Medicare beneficiaries.

I was appalled to hear that during

markup of the resolution, the Senate

Budget Committee, on a party-line

vote, rejected two proposals to restore

funding to Medicare in lieu of providing tax cuts. Obviously, this massive

cut in Medicare funding would be unnecessary if Republicans did not have

to pay for a tax cut for wealthy citizens.

We must work to ensure that any effort to extend the solvency of the Medicare trust fund does not put Medicare

beneficiaries at risk. And we must protect the program for future enrollees. I

support President Clinton’s view that

the Medicare trust fund must be resolved in the context of health care reform.

Mr. President, without comprehensive health care reform, significant

cuts in Medicare and Medicaid will seriously harm beneficiaries and the

total health care system as costs will

be shifted onto families and businesses.

Only by focusing on the entire health

care delivery system will be able to address issues within Medicare and preserve access for Medicare beneficiaries

and underserved populations.

Let me close on this point. While we

have heard Members on the other side

of the aisle promise to protect Social

Security, the GOP budget reaches balance by the year 2002, only by including the Social Security trust funds in

the budget calculations.

While I fully recognize the critical

need to ensure long-term stability in

the Medicare Program and support efforts to balance our budget, I am opposed to using arbitrary cuts in the

Medicare Program to finance a tax

break for wealthy Americans. I look

forward to working with my colleagues

on addressing these important issues.

Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to

call the roll.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

INTERSTATE TRANSPORTATION OF

MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE ACT

fThe Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.

THE BOTTLE BILL AMENDMENT

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, as the

Senate discusses the difficult issue of

solid waste management, I would like

to point out to my colleagues that 10

States have achieved great success by

implementing some form of beverage

container deposit system. My home

State of Oregon, for example, has had

remarkable success with its own bottle

bill for over 20 years. Consequently, I

am offering the National Beverage

Container Reuse and Recycling Act as

an amendment to the interstate waste

bill.

So often, States serve as laboratories

for what later emerges as successful

national policies. The State of Oregon

and other bottle-bill States have proven that deposit programs are an effective method to deal with beverage containers, which make up the single largest component of waste systems. According to the General Accounting Office, deposit-law States, which account

for only 18 percent of the population,

recycle 65 percent of all glass and 98

percent of all PET plastic nationwide.

That means 82 percent of the population is recycling less than 25 percent

of our Nation’s beverage container

waste.

The amendment I have placed before

the Senate today will accomplish national objectives to meet our Nation’s

massive waste management difficulties. A national deposit system will reduce solid waste and litter, save natural resources and energy, and create a

much needed partnership between consumers, industry, and local governments for the betterment of our communities.

As someone who grew up during the

Great Depression, I am constantly reminded of the throw-away ethic that

has emerged so prominently in this

country. In this regard, Oregon’s deposit system serves as a much greater

role than merely cleaning up littered

highways, saving energy and resources,

or reducing the waste flowing into our

teeming landfills. The bottle bill acts

as a tutor. It is a constant reminder of

the conservation ethic that is an essential component of any plan to see this

country out of its various crises. Each

time a consumer returns a can for deposit, the conservation ethic is

reaffirmed, and hopefully the consumer

will then reapply this ethic in other

areas.

As many of my colleagues know, I

have a 20-year history on this issue and

have been greatly enthused by developments in recent years in promoting the

establishment of a national bottle bill.

The amendment I filed today is identical to the legislation I introduced

last Congress. Although this bill has

historically been referred to the Senate

Commerce Committee, in recent years

significant actions on this measure

have come in the Senate Environment

and Public Works Committee and the

Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Senator JEFFORDS offered the bill as

an amendment to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act [RCRA] in

the Environment and Public Works

Committee during the 102d Congress.

Even though this attempt failed by a

vote of 6 to 10 it was a monumental

step forward. Additionally, during that

same Congress a hearing was held in

the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the energy conservation implications of beverage container recycling as outlined in that session’s bottle bill, S. 2335.

I regret that I continually have come

to the Senate floor to force the Senate

to take action on this matter, but that

seems to be the only effective procedure for moving forward on this bill.

For example, during the 1992 Presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton declared his support for a national

bottle bill. However, once he took office he and a Democratic-controlled

Congress were surprisingly silent on

the issue in the 103d Congress. Consequently, here I am again offering the

Beverage Container Reuse and Recycling Act as an amendment on the Senate floor.
S6582 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 12, 1995

Mr. President, this is an active approach to dealing with solid waste before it becomes waste. It is widely acknowledged that recycling is the wave

of the future and this amendment will

facilitate the recycling of beverage

containers. I firmly believe the time

has come for Congress to follow the

wise lead of these States and encourage

deposit systems on a national level. I

strongly urge my colleagues to fully

examine the benefits of a national beverage container deposit system and to

adopt this amendment.

BOTTLE BILL

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, a national deposit law is a commonsense,

proven method to increase recycling,

to save energy, to create jobs, and to

decrease waste generation. The experience of 10 States, including Oregon and

Vermont, attest to the success of a deposit law or a bottle bill as it is commonly called.

Bottle bills work. These laws have

been successful in every State that has

one. Recycling rates of over 70 percent

have been achieved for beverage containers in the bottle bill States. The

rate is over 90 percent in Vermont.

Furthermore, jobs have been created

by this legislation, not lost, and a majority of Americans support a national

deposit law.

There is a misconception in some

people’s minds that deposit legislation

is not compatible with curbside recycling programs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nine of the 10

States with deposit laws have vibrant

curbside recycling programs.

Mr. President, both Senator HATFIELD and I have been working on this

issue for more than 20 years. In both of

our States, curbside recycling programs are working in tandem with beverage container deposit systems. In today’s world, we must make every effort

to conserve precious natural resources

and reduce our use of energy. I ask my

colleagues to support this measure and

thank the managers for considering

our amendment.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I

have an amendment at the desk I

would like to make a few remarks

about. For over two decades, my State

of Oregon, and about the same period

of time the State of Vermont, have had

on the books and in practice what we

call the bottle bill. When you buy soft

drinks and beer in my State, whether

they are in the can or the bottle, you

pay a deposit. That deposit becomes an

incentive for people to return those

bottles and cans rather than dumping

them in the garbage and adding to the

problem of trash and refuse in this

country.

We have found it to be highly successful. At first there was a great deal

of concern expressed by merchants

about the additional costs of administering this program. There was a

great deal of discussion about the possibility of labor being impacted. We

have demonstrated, along with a modification or variation on a theme in a

few other States, an effective measure

to reduce litter and to recycle the glass

from the bottles and the metal from

the cans.

I have offered this at a national level

for over 20 years and it is very interesting that the beer industry opposes it

very strongly. My good friend, the

former Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, was the founder of Earth

Day. However, every time I introduced

the bottle bill, this great environmentalist would be the first to stand

and oppose it because it was the beer

industry that opposed it in his State.

We had the same thing from the soft

drink industry; they opposed it.

Now we find there is no longer solid

opposition. Joe Coors, of the Coors

Breweries, has swung around. I think

Hamm’s beer—of course BlitzWeinhard, in our State—is supportive

of the proposal. Now one of the largest

growing beer producers in the State of

Oregon are microbreweries. There is no

longer the solid phalanx of opposition.

I have asked, I suppose 100 times, for

a hearing. And I have not been able to

get a hearing on this bill.

We had a sponsor at one time many

years ago, not the Senator from Massachusetts but a Congressman from Massachusetts, and he was urged and persuaded to get off the bill because of the

opposition of organized labor in his

State. That has been true across this

country. There is a lot of misunderstanding on the part of organized labor

and others, that this is somehow going

to add to their costs or, that it is a

beautification issue, not a recycling,

refuse, or trash issue. It is all of them.

I had intended to raise the bottle bill

as an amendment to this bill from the

floor. I rarely raise amendments that

have not had hearings. I am a traditionalist, and believe that issues of this

kind should go through a hearing process through the committees of jurisdiction. However, I have had private conversation with the chairman of this

committee, Senator CHAFEE. I wanted

to say to Senator CHAFEE I am not trying to hold up this bill. I support it and

I would like to see it enacted into law.

Nevertheless, I feel just as strongly

about trying to get some kind of a

hearing to move the bottle bill through

the Congress at some point during my

lifetime.

So I would yield to the chairman of

the committee at this moment, if he

would like to make any comment or

give me some assurance of a hearing?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

Chair recognizes the Senator from

Rhode Island.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I want

to pay tribute to the senior Senator

from Oregon. He has been persistent in

this measure. I do not recall that we

ever had a hearing in the committee.

But I do recall we had a vote in the

committee. As I recall, Senator JEFFORDS, then a member of the committee, raised it so we did have a vote in

the committee on it.

Mr. HATFIELD. Right.

Mr. CHAFEE. The vote failed. However, the Senator has been very gracious in his handling of this subject. I

would be glad to arrange a hearing for

his legislation in our committee.

I just say this, if he could give us a

little time? We are chock-a-block in

that committee right now. But in due

course I certainly will work in a hearing.

Mr. HATFIELD. I appreciate the Senator’s commitment and that satisfies

my request.

Mr. CHAFEE. Let me say briefly,

this. In my State I have always been a

supporter of the bottle bill.

But then it turns out that in our recycling efforts, the thing that makes

the recycling effort go is the fact that

the recycling center is able to earn

money from the aluminum cans. It is

the big money earner for the recycling

center and helps carry everything else.

So in our State, we will not want a

bottle bill where you would make a deposit and bring it back to the central

place and get your refund because that

would deprive our recycling centers of

this constant flow of very valuable income. But that may be a unique situation.

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, if the

Senator will yield, this was a valid

issue, as the Senator described it in his

State. However, concerns expressed by

other States that there is competition

between deposits and other recycling

programs have been shown to be overstated. We have had studies, and I will

be very happy to produce the records of

those studies, indicating that this is

not a valid concern, and that instead of

being a possible deterrent to the ongoing efforts of recycling, it has become

an incentive.

So there should not be this sense of

competition between a bill of this kind,

in which an individual can return a

beverage container to the grocery store

and get a refund, or other programs

where container are returned to recycling centers. We have recycling centers in our State, as well as this deposit law. I would be happy to refer to

those studies in more detail at a hearing.

Mr. President, with that assurance, I

see the Senator from Massachusetts. I

do not know if he wants to get the floor

on this issue. If not, Mr. President, I

will not call up my amendment on the

desk. I thank the Senator for his assurance and look forward to a hearing on

this subject.

Mr. CHAFEE. I thank the Senator

very much.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, unless

somebody is about to propose an

amendment or wants to proceed, I

would like to proceed as if in morning

business for a few minutes.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator will withhold. We

have a couple of amendments we can

accept. We can dispose of them. They

will take very little time.
May 12, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6583

AMENDMENT NO. 1070

(Purpose: To include in the definition of

‘‘out-of-State municipal waste’’ waste that

is generated outside the United States)

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator LEVIN and Senator

ABRAHAM, I send an amendment to the

desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will report.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr.

CHAFEE], for Mr. LEVIN, for himself, and Mr.

ABRAHAM, proposes an amendment numbered

1070.

Mr. CHAFEE. 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:

On page 49, strike lines 1 through 8 and insert:

(3) The term ‘‘out-of-State municipal solid

waste’’ means, with respect to any State,

municipal solid waste generated outside of

the State. Unless the President determines it

is inconsistent with the North American

Free Trade Agreement and the General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the term

shall include municipal solid waste generated outside of the United States. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, generators of municipal solid waste outside the

United States shall possess no greater right

of access to disposal facilities in a State

than United States generators of municipal

solid waste outside of that State.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, our side

has reviewed this amendment and we

find it acceptable.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there

further debate on the amendment? If

not, the question is on agreeing to the

amendment.

The amendment (No. 1070) was agreed

to.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I move

to reconsider the vote by which the

amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BAUCUS. I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was

agreed to.

AMENDMENT NO. 1071

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I send

an amendment to the desk and ask for

its immediate consideration.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will report.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr.

CHAFEE], for Mr. WARNER, proposes an

amendment numbered 1071.

Mr. CHAFEE. 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:

On page 65, line 6, insert ‘‘or related landfill reclamation’’ after ‘‘services.’’

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we have

reviewed this amendment, as well, and

also urge its adoption.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there

further debate on the amendment? If

not, the question is on agreeing to the

amendment.

The amendment (No. 1071) was agreed

to.

Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I move

to reconsider the vote by which the

amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BAUCUS. I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was

agreed to.

Mr. CHAFEE. I thank the Senator

from Massachusetts. If he wants to proceed, this is a good time to do it.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask

ORDER OF PROCEDURE

funanimous consent to proceed as if in

morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.

CRAIG). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, last

THE BUDGET RESOLUTION

fnight the Budget Committee, in the

wee hours, passed the budget resolution for the U.S. Senate on which we

will shortly go to work. There are

many, many questionable choices within that resolution. There will be a

time, a very fixed time obviously, a

minimum number of hours that we

have to debate it here on the floor,

with a finality for that debate, and it is

predetermined. But I would like to just

talk for a moment, if I can, about a

couple of aspects of that budget as we

frame the debate about where we are

going in this country.

First, I would like to call the attention of my colleagues to one provision

that is in this budget that this Senator

finds profoundly disturbing, and that I

hope other colleagues will think hard

about before we ratify it in the course

of the budget process.

A lot of things are being proposed in

America today under the banner of deficit reduction. I think there is a unanimity here that we obviously have to

reduce the deficit. We are going to be

bankrupt if we do not. We cannot continue down the road that we are going

on. But there also ought to be an application of common sense to the choices

that we make as we do that. Reducing

the deficit does not predicate that we

simply come in with a machete or a

pickax and chop away at things that

make sense, while simultaneously leaving out there the things that do not

make sense.

One of the items that has fallen

under the budget committee’s ideological approach to this issue is the Presidential campaign fund. For whatever

reasons—I can give you the descriptions that are given, but I think the

agenda is considerably different—the

committee has chosen to eliminate the

mechanism by which Americans for the

years since Watergate have funded

Presidential elections. That method is

to have a checkoff on your tax form

with which you decide to give money

to the Presidential election fund. It is

a voluntary mechanism in America.

But it has been a most important

mechanism by which we have freed

Presidential politics from the demeaning process of requiring our candidates

to raise hundreds of millions of dollars

from special interests all across this

country.

It has worked, Mr. President. The

system has worked. President Ronald

Reagan used it. President George Bush

used it. I believe President Bush in the

course of his career as a Vice President

and as a President, used something in

the order of $200 million in order to run

for the highest Federal office in this

land.

The majority leader, ROBERT DOLE,

has used it in the past. Other Presidential candidates in this Senate have

used it, Republican and Democrat

alike. No one has suggested that system is wrong, corrupt, not working, or

not freeing the Presidential process

from the rather terrifying money chase

that we in the U.S. Senate have to go

through. Yet, this Budget Committee,

in an effort to try to whack away at

the deficit, is going to do away with

this campaign financing mechanism.

Mr. President, for the life of me I

don’t understand why—but I understand the argument that will be made.

The argument will be the soft, easy,

political sloganeering arguments that,

‘‘Gee, politicians should not be getting

welfare.’’ It sounds really catchy. And

the American taxpayer should not necessarily be paying. That is the argument you are going to hear. But I will

bet you that four members of the Republican caucus who are running for

President are prepared, in a matter of

weeks, to ask for that money and will

take it and will use it.

Now, it seems to me, Mr. President,

if we cannot remember the lessons of

Watergate and remember the degree to

which this country felt a revulsion at

what happened during that period of

time, when stacks of cash and enormous sums of money were changing

hands in an effort to try to curry favor

and votes in America, if we do not remember that lesson, then we have not

learned much about what was wrong

with American politics in the course of

the last years.

So I hope that before we just accept

what the Budget Committee has done,

Members will think hard about what is

really good for this country in the context of political campaign finance reform. This Senate has twice passed

campaign finance reform in the last

years. We passed it in 1992, and the

House passed it, but President Bush vetoed it. We then passed it again in 1994,

but it died mostly because the House of

Representatives did not want to take it

up.

The bottom line, I think all colleagues will agree, is that we saw a period of scandal in America that

brought reform, and it would be irrational now in the face of the extraordinary impact of money in American