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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 81 (Tuesday, May 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6728-S6730]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

       ALASKA POWER ADMINISTRATION ASSET SALE AND TERMINATION ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume the pending 
business, S. 395, which the clerk will report.

       A bill (S. 395) to authorize and direct the Secretary of 
     Energy to sell the Alaska Power Marketing Administration, and 
     for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.

       Pending:
       Murkowski amendment No. 1078, to authorize exports of 
     Alaskan North Slope crude oil.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate the Chair calling up the 
pending legislation. I have been in conversations with the Senator from 
Washington with regard to concerns that she has expressed, and I am 
told that there are some amendments that the Senator from Washington is 
interested in pursuing. I have not had an opportunity to review the 
amendments, but I intend to take this opportunity as soon as possible 
and have our staffs attempt to resolve the concerns of the Senator from 
Washington, and it would be my intent to attempt to do this with 
dispatch.
  Mr. President, currently the staffs are pursuing an evaluation. I 
want to ask the Chair the pending business before the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is S. 395 and the 
Senator's amendment No. 1078.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Not on the amendment.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair. I wonder if the Senator from 
Washington would entertain, for a moment, an opportunity, so that we 
may try to accommodate the amendments, and if there is any objection if 
I suggest the absence of a quorum, and after we have had a chance to 
talk, ask that the quorum call be rescinded so that we may move into 
the bill.
  I think there is one other Senator who is coming who wishes to speak 
with regard to an amendment that is pending on our side. I do not see 
that Senator here at this time. So rather than to take up this time 
that could be used in negotiating the amendments of the Senator from 
Washington, if there is no objection, I will suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I will not object. I want it to be noted that there are 
several Senators I need to check with, but we can go ahead and go into 
a quorum call and discuss this.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. 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. 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, I further ask unanimous consent that I be 
able to proceed as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator may proceed.
                      [[Page S6729]] A CRIME BILL

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to continue my discussion of 
the crime bill that I intend to introduce tomorrow. As I pointed out, 
there are really two basic issues that we always need to address when 
we look at a crime bill. First, what is the proper role of the Federal 
Government in fighting crime in this country, understanding that over 
95 percent of all criminal prosecutions really are done at the local 
level? The second question we always have to ask is, what really works? 
What matters? What makes a difference?
  Last Wednesday I discussed these issues with specific reference to 
crime-fighting technology. We have an outstanding technology base in 
this country, a technology base that will do a great deal to help us 
catch criminals. But, quite frankly and candidly, we must expand this 
base. Technology does in fact matter, but we need the Federal 
Government to be more proactive in getting the States on line with this 
technology.
  Having a terrific national criminal record system or huge DNA data 
base, or an automated fingerprint data base in Washington, DC, is good. 
But it will not really do the job if the police officer in Henry 
County, Trumbull County, Greene County, Clark County, OH, cannot tap 
into it; if they cannot get into it, put their own information in and 
get the information back out.
  What my legislation does is drive the money down to the local 
community to help build this database system from the ground up. My 
legislation would help bring these local police departments on line. It 
would help them contribute to and benefit from this emerging nationwide 
crimefighting database.
  Mr. President, on Thursday I discussed another aspect of my bill. I 
discussed what we have to do to get armed career criminals off our 
streets, to get them locked up and away from our children and our 
families. I talked about a program called Project Trigger Lock that 
targeted criminals who use guns and targeted them in the Federal court 
and prosecuted them in Federal court. My legislation would bring back 
``Project Trigger Lock.'' Further, it would toughen the laws against 
criminals who use guns.
  We have to lock up armed career criminals. If we are trying to figure 
out what works and what does not work, if we are trying to figure out 
what is important and what is not important, what priority the U.S. 
Attorney General should place on different types of crime, what the 
priority of U.S. attorneys scattered throughout this country should be, 
I cannot think of anything more important than going after repeat 
violent offenders who use a gun in the commission of a felony.
  Mr. President, the third area of the bill that I talked about on 
Friday has to do with crime victims. Quite frankly, in too many ways 
our criminal justice system has treated criminals like they are victims 
and victims like they are criminals. My legislation contains a number 
of provisions that would make the system more receptive to the rights 
and claims of crime victims.
  Another area: On Monday I turned to another provision of my bill. I 
talked about what we had to do to get more police officers on the 
streets, and particularly how we had to get police officers into crime-
infested areas and how we had to target the finite tax dollars that we 
have so that we spend these dollars and that we put these police 
officers in areas where it would make the most difference, because the 
simple fact is when you put police officers on the street, when they 
are deployed correctly, crime does go down. My legislation reflects 
this plain fact. My bill over a 5-year period of time will spend $5 
billion on putting police officers on the street. But my bill would 
target the money to America's most crime-threatened communities.
  Further, my bill, unlike the bill that passed last year, unlike the 
President's bill, would pay the full cost of these police officers and 
would pay them for not just 3 years, not just put them out for 3 years, 
but would do that for 5 years. We target the money to the highest crime 
areas in the country, the 250 highest crime areas. We pay for the 
police officers to go in there, and we fully pay for them not at 75 
percent but at 100 percent a year and we do it for 5 years instead of 3 
years.
  Today I would like to discuss another part of my crime bill. That is 
the need for local flexibility in fighting crime. As I pointed out, 90 
to 95 percent of the criminal prosecutions in this country do not take 
place at the Federal level. Rather, they take place at the State and 
local level, in communities throughout this country. Crime is a local 
community problem. The late Speaker of the House, ``Tip'' O'Neill, used 
to say that all politics is local. It would not be too much of an 
exaggeration to say the same is true of crime, that all crime is 
local--just about anyway. I think that any Federal crime legislation to 
be truly effective has to take this basic fact into account.
  Mr. President, this is a historic year. From welfare to health care 
America today is conducting a fundamental debate on the issue of which 
level of government is in fact best suited to undertake which 
responsibilities. What we are frankly seeing this year is a thorough 
reexamination of the meaning of federalism. This historic debate offers 
a terrific opportunity to rethink the role of Government and to make 
our Government work better.
  Mr. President, I think in this historic year when we are having this 
fundamental debate about federalism, the proper role of the Federal 
Government, the State government and the local government, I think it 
would be a terrible shame if we did not extend this debate to the issue 
of crime. We will never have a better opportunity than the present to 
focus our national attention on crime as a fundamentally local problem; 
that is, the problem to be dealt with at the local level by local 
authorities. For this reason my crime legislation applies to the 
principle of local flexibility, local flexibility to this fight against 
crime.
  Yesterday I talked a little bit about my objections to some of the 
provisions of the President's plan to put police officers on the 
street. Specifically, I pointed out that the President's scattershot 
approach sent police officers, frankly, in too many directions. Some of 
these places did not need extra police nearly as much as some other 
communities. The result of this approach, the Clinton approach, is to 
put too few police officers where the police are the most needed. That 
is why in my crime legislation we spend $5 billion for police but we 
target that money. Whereas the Clinton administration spends $8.8 
billion, we spend only $5 billion, but we target that money and we 
target it into the 250 communities in this country where the crime rate 
is the highest. We do it on a statistical basis, and we do it on a 
basis that I think makes eminent common sense.
  I am convinced that by targeting the extra police only to extremely 
high-crime areas, we can accomplish a lot more with this $5 billion 
over 5 years than the President can accomplish with his $8.8 billion 
over a 5-year period.
  The $3.8 billion that is left over, along with an additional $3.2 
billion in uncommitted funds provided under my legislation, would be 
turned over to local communities to use as they see fit. Let me stop at 
this point and make a point that I hope is clear. But I want to make 
sure that my colleagues understand this. Our bill does not spend any 
more money. Our bill takes the basic $30 billion that we have been 
debating now for the last several years and spends it differently, 
spends it, I think, more appropriately.
  The dollar figures I am talking about to my colleagues in the Senate 
today I indicate is not one penny more than was indicated under any of 
the other bills that have been introduced or indicated under the 
President's plan.
  Let me talk a little bit about this discretionary money that we are 
talking about.
  I have worked at the local level. I have worked as an assistant 
county prosecutor. I have worked as the elected county prosecutor of my 
home county, worked at the Federal level as a Member of the House of 
Representatives and as a Member of the U.S. Senate. I have been in the 
Ohio State Senate, and I have served as Lieutenant Governor. I have had 
occasion to compare the efficiency and effectiveness at all levels of 
government. To be honest, a sheriff or county prosecutor, chief of 
police, or county commissioner in my home county or your home county, 
Mr. President, and many of the home counties of our other colleagues 
know a lot more about how crime money should be 
[[Page S6730]] spent than does the President of the United States, the 
U.S. Attorney General or this Senator or this body.
  Under the proposal contained in my crime legislation, local 
government officials will get Federal money, and what they do with it 
will be up to them. They will be able to spend that money based on 
local needs, local concerns, local priorities.
  Yesterday, I discussed my proposal to pay for extra police officers 
in the highest crime areas in America. The 250 most crime-infested 
areas in America are eligible under my bill for police funding. Other 
areas, areas that are not included in the list of the 250 worst crime 
areas, may decide, if they wish, that they need extra police officers. 
If that is the case, they may choose to spend the dollars they get from 
this $7 billion local flexibility fund to pay for the extra police 
officers. My bill allows them that flexibility. They can use the money 
to hire, train, and employ these police officers, maybe put them out on 
the street. They can use it to pay overtime for police officers that 
they already have which, frankly, may, depending on the jurisdiction 
and the economics involved, be the best use of the funds. Or they can 
use it to buy extra technology that is already covered in this bill. 
They can use it to beef up school security, either by deploying extra 
police or adding measures like metal detectors. They can use it to 
establish and run crime-prevention programs like Neighborhood Watch and 
citizen patrol programs and programs to combat domestic violence and 
juvenile crime. They can use it to establish early intervention and 
prevention programs for juveniles to reduce or eliminate crime.
  There was a vigorous debate last year about the issue of crime 
prevention. One thing I have learned in my years in local law 
enforcement is that even more than most programs crime prevention 
programs really have to be grown locally to be effective.
  When you travel Ohio, as I have done, or Minnesota, or Wisconsin, and 
you look at crime prevention programs, I suspect in other States you 
find what I have found in Ohio, and that is the quality of those 
programs depends upon the local people. It depends on who is running 
the program, the dedication of that particular individual. This is not 
something that Washington can take a cookie cutter and duplicate, 
replicate across the country. They have to be grown locally.
  It is clear that we have to go after those also who have chosen a 
life of crime. We have to apprehend them. We have to convict them. But 
we also have to reach out to the young people who are at risk in this 
country. We have to reach out to them before--before--they embark on a 
life of crime.
  The best ideas on how to do this are not in Washington, DC, 
surprisingly. It is not with Government bureaucrats, in Washington. It 
is, rather, locally. Government bureaucrats in Washington, Mr. 
President, do not know the kids in Greene County, OH. Do you know who 
does? The people in Greene County--Jerry Irwin, our county sheriff; the 
county prosecuting attorney, Bill Schenck. I could go on and on. That 
is why I wish to empower people such as County Sheriff Jerry Irwin, or 
County Prosecutor Bill Schenck through this proposal.
  Mr. President, to mandate a prevention program from Washington, DC, 
is absurd. Let us trust the people on the ground, the local law 
enforcers who know the young people in their communities.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, let me say there is a basic insight 
that the American people imparted to all of us last November. I hope we 
heard the message. That message was fairly simple and basic, that 
Government is best which is closest to the people.
  I have worked to incorporate this basic principle into the 
legislation that I will be introducing tomorrow.
  At this time, I yield the floor.

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