Posted on 07/13/2007 7:48:24 AM PDT by pissant
Fred Thompson is backing off his flat denial that he once lobbied for an abortion-rights group. He now says he doesn’t remember it, but does not dispute evidence to the contrary.
The climb-down could be a significant embarrassment for a prospective candidate with a plain-spoken appeal and who has courted the GOP’s anti-abortion base, although Thompson and his advisers had signaled for several days that it was coming.
Realizing that opponents in both parties are mining his legal career for damaging ammunition, Thompson also is engaging in a bit of preemption. He writes in a column posted Wednesday by the conservative Power Line blog: “[I]f a client has a legal and ethical right to take a position, then you may appropriately represent him as long as he does not lie or otherwise conduct himself improperly while you are representing him. In almost 30 years of practicing law I must have had hundreds of clients and thousands of conversations about legal matters. Like any good lawyer, I would always try to give my best, objective and professional opinion on any legal question presented to me.”
The abortion-rights issue arose when the Los Angeles Times reported last week that Thompson had “accepted a lobbying assignment” from the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which wanted the administration of President George H.W. Bush to relax a restriction on federal payments to clinics that offered abortion counseling.
Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo told the Times in an e-mail: “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period.” The Times said minutes from a board meeting of the group suggested otherwise.
On Thursday, Corallo offered a less sweeping comment about Thompson and the group: “He has no recollection of doing any work for this group. And since he was of counsel and not a member of the firm, it was not unusual for the firm’s partners to trot their clients in to meet him, get his views and even some advice.”
So the difference may boil down to how you define “lobbying.” It has been clear for several days that Thompson was not going to stick with a complete denial. When an Associated Press reporter asked him about the matter this weekend at the Young Republicans National Convention, he deflected with one of his folksy observations: “I’d just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing.”
Then in an interview with Sean Hannity that was reported by Thomas B. Edsall of The Huffington Post, Thompson was even more evasive: “You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself.”
The former “Law and Order” actor has an anti-abortion voting record as a U.S. senator from Tennessee, but some statements he made early in his political career have led some conservatives to question whether he once had favored abortion rights.
The lobbying controversy illustrates the harsh scrutiny that awaits Thompson when he formally kicks off his campaign, and shows the difficulty of trying to answer high-stakes questions without a full campaign infrastructure.
Thompson aides say they do not believe the brouhaha has hurt him with Republican voters. “Consider the source,” said one Thompson adviser. “Conservatives don’t pay much attention to liberal groups that say they want to help, and tell them why their guy isn’t as great as they think.”
The lobbying story is one of several recent pieces criticizing Thompson, and advisers are now considering pushing back his announcement even further. They had planned to schedule the announcement before an Aug. 5 debate in Des Moines, Iowa, but now are considering jumping in even later than that.
The advisers say they realize how searing the scrutiny will be and want to be ready. And they want to have more of their staff in place. Thompson has to convince skeptics he’s ready for the race and ready for the job, and hopes that a top-flight campaign operation will help make that case. The announcement date will be based on factors that include IRS regulations governing when Thompson will have to disclose the millions of dollars he has already raised.
Thompson says in the Power Line column that he had “half dozen or so lobbying clients.” His column concludes: ‘I’m certainly not surprised that such a diverse career is being mined by others. As we get further into this political season we will undoubtedly see the further intersection of law, politics and the mainstream media.”
I already answered that. Now you tapdance your way through what I posted to you.
LOL. Yeah, my support for the most conservative guy in the race is just a front.
You did no such thing.
Uh, see post 170. You may not like my answer, but that is the most feasible explanation. The only other alternative is that he was talking out of both sides of his mouth.
170 is something you pulled out of a hat. No dice.
That’s my answer. They supported him because he was going to vote for restrictions that his opponent would not. I’d hate to think it was the alternative.
I might just have to do that. We are getting stuck in a rut. I think I’ll leave Fred alone for a few weeks. LOL
Clara Lou,
The National Right to Life Committee is a great organization but it is a fairly pragmatic one. They are happy to support a candidate who is not entirely pro-life over a fully pro-choice candidate. They have also been known to endorse republican frontrunners in the primaries who appear more moderate on abortion over pro-life champions who have less chance of winning. To their credit, I will admit that Bush turned out to be much more strongly pro-life than many of us social conservatives thought at the time. So, in light of the NRLC’s history I would say that their support for Fred is positive but not definitive of his views.
But what we can’t have is an untruthful candidate.
If not, you need to back off on the implied smear.
If he has, please post the link to the video.
he now only trails Fred on FR 60-40
I did not say Thompsons was lying about this. I have no idea how his memory is. There’s a good chance that the LA Times is lying. My contention is that Thompson, or any cnadidate for that matter, must be honest.
Quit attacking Fred. I am confident that Fred had a perfectly good reason for supporting Aristide. Perhaps he needed some extra cash to send his kids through college....or buy a Lexus or something.
As compared to...?
I don’t see it that way. If a republican like Giuliani won, it would be even more disastrous than if a donk won in my view.
I’m a huge Thompson supporter, but I’m not going to accuse his detractors of supporting Hillary, any more than I accepted that accusation in my opposition to Giuliani.
Following are some of Thompson's remarks fighting for the balanced budget amendment. He passionately advocated it, and argued strongly for it over the course of senate consideration -- if you're interested, I recommend going to THOMAS.gov and reading all of his speeches on the matter.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, we continue down the road toward bankrupting our country. The fact that I keep repeating this, and that others keep repeating this and perhaps we get used to hearing this, does not make it any less true. It cannot be repeated often enough. And behind closed doors Democrats, Republicans, people in the Congress, people in the White House, all admit what has to be done to keep from turning this country into one that is second rate when we leave it to our kids.
The most frustrating part of the last year and a half that I have spent in the U.S. Senate is witnessing close up the fact that we do not have the ability or the willpower to do what we all know is necessary and what we all know is the right thing to do. That is why I believe that our last clear chance to do so is undoubtedly a constitutional amendment to require us to balance the budget.
We all know that Medicare is on its way to insolvency. We all know that Social Security is on its way to insolvency. We claim to have reached a consensus in this country that we need a balanced budget--not only that but that we need to balance it with real numbers and not phony numbers; and, not only that, that we need to do it in 7 years.
But with all of this knowledge and all of this consensus and agreement behind closed doors and all of this coming together in terms of what needs to be done, we cannot take the first step. We have spent the last year to year and a half proving to the American people that we cannot really take the first step toward doing what we know has to be done. And yet there are those among us who continue to say we do not need a balanced budget amendment. Of course, we need to balance the budget, but we do not need a balanced budget amendment to require us to do so. All we have to do is to do the right thing.
I challenge anyone to give any evidence over the last year, year and a half that we have shown any ability or will to do the right thing. It does not exist.
We talk about a 7-year balanced budget. The President has a proposal. We have a proposal. Under the best of circumstances, even if either of these proposals were adopted, it is doubtful that it would be carried out; the proposals are back-end loaded. The President has some 60 something billion of cuts in the last 2 years of that 7-year time period. It is extremely doubtful, to say the least, that those cuts would actually be made when the time came. It is a matter of rolling our sins forward for yet a few more years when most of us are out of office and do not have to face the consequences and under the assumption that future Congresses will have the courage that we do not have except we are making their job tougher than the one we have today.
Even if it does happen, even if we get everything we want, for example, on this side of the aisle, we are looking at the end of that road at a $6 trillion debt. We are looking at the end of that road at the imminent retirement of the baby boomers. And the people who keep up with the demographics point out to us what that is going to mean. By the year 2030, there will be twice as many people over the age of 65 as there were in 1990 and only 20 percent more workers, so those people paying in those FICA taxes for those retirement programs are going to be dwindling in number while the retirees are expanding. We all know what the results of that are going to be.
We all know we cannot continue down this road, and yet it is another election year and so the President vetoes our attempt to balance the budget. He opposes our attempt to pass a constitutional amendment, and our friends on the other side of the aisle fall in in lockstep.
Mr. President, this is not an esoteric economic issue. It is about the future of this country and the kind of America we are going to leave and what it is going to look like to our kids. What it is going to look like is astronomical tax rates they are going to be paying if we continue the spending pattern that we have had. It is going to mean astronomical interest rates that they are going to be paying. It is going to mean more and more reliance on foreign money and foreign investment coming into this country to help us pay the interest on the debt.
It is going to mean diminished savings. We already have the lowest savings rate in the industrialized world, the United States of America does, one of the lowest investment rates in the industrialized world in the United States of America. That is why we are looking at such low growth rates. You add to that the taxes that are going to be necessary to finance this astronomical debt as it goes out here, the interest rates that are going to come from that, and you are talking about economic disaster that is facing us. There is really not any serious debate about that. And all those people who complain about any kind of effort to balance the budget because they are looking out for the kids, they are looking out for the elderly, they are looking out for the young folks, what are you going to say to those young folks then when they cannot even go out and buy their first home when they start their families? What are you going to say when they cannot even buy a car because of the interest rates? And the tax rates they are going to pay. It will not make sense to work any more under those circumstances.
Yet we heard in the last couple days now the latest bid in the tax cut game from the President is to finance 2 years of college for people. I can only say we can debate that issue later, but we better be financing maybe 10 or 15 years of college for people because they better stay in college. There are not going to be any jobs out there for them at the rate we are going. Everybody cannot go to college and stay forever. There has to be a work force out there, and they have to have reasonable interest rates to pay when they go to buy the items to build their family. They will have no need to buy a home. We are making it so they will not be able to do that.
We are the first generation in our history that even considered borrowing against our kids and those yet unborn to finance our own consumption. That is shameful. That is what we are doing. And yet we continue to say we do not need a constitutional amendment; we just need to do the right thing, when today, even today, every man, woman, and child is paying $1,000 a year just to finance the interest on the debt.
Some say, well, we are making progress. We passed the largest tax increase in the history of the world, and we temporarily reduced the deficit, knowing that when the baby boomers start retiring in the next few years, it looks as if a rate that is slowing down is going to go off the charts in an upward direction.
We say, well, look at what we did last year: We cut $23 billion from the budget from the year before. A drop in the bucket, Mr. President. We did not touch any of those areas that are increasing, some at the rate of 10 percent a year, that are going to have to be reformed if there is any hope of saving them.
Yet now we hear all of the same old arguments against the balanced budget amendment--we should not be tinkering with the Constitution. And I certainly think we should not be tinkering with the Constitution. But the Founding Fathers assumed that changed circumstances required us to seriously address our Constitution from time to time.
I would say the circumstances have changed. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington never thought about the possibility of bankrupting the next generation before they were even born. Those are the changed circumstances we are looking at today.
I would also say, Mr. President, if we have an economic meltdown in this country, there are going to be changes in regulations, there are going to be changes in statutory law, and, yes, there are going to be changes in the Constitution that are worse than our worst nightmares right now about what those changes might be. So the answer to that is to make some reasonable changes to get us on a flight path that shows some possibility of saving ourselves from ourselves.
Is that a pitiful situation or not? Of course it is. It should not be that way. But we have given ourselves now ample opportunity under all kinds of circumstances to so-called do the right thing, and yet here we are a year, a year and a half later. Every time somebody makes a proposal, the other side goes on television with 30-second attack ads to make sure we do not do anything responsible, because this is an election year. And yet they say we do not need a constitutional amendment. I say we need to do whatever is necessary to keep from handing this country over to our kids in a way that we would certainly not want our parents to have handed it over to us, and they, in fact, did not.
The other argument we hear, of course, is one that the opponents of the balanced budget amendment want to protect Social Security. Mr. President, in my brief time here I have learned that if you want to stop something, if you want to throw a roadblock in the way of something being accomplished, you run out the old Social Security red herring and try your best to scare the elderly, because if you can scare the elderly, you can create enough temporary political confusion that you can prevent any kind of reform.
This is, of course, what has happened again. Six of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in 1994, when there was no chance of a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget passing, voted for the amendment. Last year, when we had a real good shot at getting it passed, we fell one vote short. One Senator switched back and voted against the constitutional amendment. And the reason for that is they discovered that it might have endangered Social Security in some way.
The argument goes that because we include the receipts that go into Social Security and the expenditures that go out of Social Security in the entire budget, in some way that is endangering that program, and if we somehow pulled it out and set it over here to the side, that in some way would protect it. Of course, it is an appeal to fear. It is an appeal to ignorance. It has no relationship to reality. It has been pointed out on this floor by my Republican and Democratic colleagues alike. Senator Simon of Illinois just the other day, of course, pointed it out as a fig leaf that some will try to hide behind because they do not want a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Time magazine called that argument `mendacious nonsense,' the idea that the constitutional amendment to balance the budget would somehow endanger Social Security.
The fact of the matter is, only if we get the reforms necessary to keep from bankrupting this country can we protect and preserve Social Security. So the contrary of that argument is the case. Not to mention the fact that all we are doing is treating it the way that we have been treating it for three decades in this country, Democrat and Republican administrations alike.
President Clinton's last budget kept it all together, just the way we have always done. We did not hear any cries from our friends on the other side of the aisle when that happened. They voted for it. They voted for that budget, to keep all Government revenues and all Government expenditures together. You are not looking at a realistic situation if you do not consider them together. We all agreed on that. So the Johnny-come-lately argument. Not to mention the fact that if, in some way, Social Security was sequestered from the entire budgetary process, that would make, of course, balancing the budget impossible because it would require $360 billion more cuts than what we have to make now. We have shown we cannot do what is necessary now, but if the income and the outflow of Social Security were taken out of it, we would have to cut programs another $360 billion. The opponents of the balanced budget amendment know this. They know it would make it absolutely impossible to be workable under those circumstances. We strained and fought for a year and a half. We got $23 billion in cuts--not $360 billion, but $23 billion.
But the point they make is that Social Security is now in surplus, so if you put it all together in the general budget, the general budget is getting the benefit of Social Security because it is in surplus and it makes the deficit look smaller. And it is true. It is true. That is the way the books are kept, and that is true, when you talk about for the next 15 years, for the general budget. You know, those are Americans, too, getting the benefit of the general budget. Many of the same people who get the benefit of Social Security get the benefit of the programs in the general budget. But for the next 15 years, the numbers on the Social Security side will assist on the general budget side. And that is true.
But typical of the way that we think in Washington, DC--which is, if we are lucky, a couple of inches past our nose--we are not looking down the road. We are not caring about anybody but ourselves. We are not even caring about our own children. Because look at 16 years out. Social Security is in surplus now, but along about 2011, Social Security goes into the red, and we will be paying out more in Social Security, at a steeper and steeper rate, than we are taking in. So, by being a part of the general budget, under those circumstances Social Security gets the benefit of that, because where is the money going to come from to make the Social Security payments if not from the general budget? Nobody, no opponent of this measure, is coming here and saying we need more Social Security taxes. Nobody wants to advocate this. So where is the money going to come from? The point is, approximately $850 billion annually will be needed by the year 2030 to fund Social Security, to pay current the liability over and above payroll tax receipts. So, by the year 2030, Social Security is going to need $850 billion from somewhere. We are in surplus now, but here is what it is going to look like starting about 2011. But by 2030, we have dug a real big deep ditch for ourselves. Nobody wants to talk about that.
Mr. President, just to repeat, the so-called saving Social Security by not going along with the bookkeeping entry that we have done for three decades, Democrats and Republicans, is a total red herring, a figleaf to hide behind by those who do not want to stop the culture of spend, spend, spend, and hopefully elect, elect, elect in a campaign year. Mr. President, in conclusion, I urge we take what I referred to earlier as this last clear chance that I believe we have this year to take that first step--it is not a solution; goodness knows we are a long, long way from a solution--but to take this first step toward doing something responsible so we can hand this country over to our kids and to our grandkids in halfway decent shape, the way our parents and forefathers did for us.
I yield the floor.
Source: Congressional Record, THOMAS.gov, June 5, 1996
S.2445: A bill to provide that the formulation and implementation of policies by Federal departments and agencies shall follow the principles of federalism, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Thompson, Fred [TN] (introduced 9/8/1998)
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Federalism Enforcement Act, a bill to promote the principles of federalism and to restore the proper respect for State and local governments and the communities they serve. I am pleased that Senators Nickles, Craig, Thurmond, and Hutchinson have joined me as cosponsors of this legislation.
Federalism is the cornerstone of our Democracy. It is the principle that the Federal Government has limited powers and that government closest to the people--States and localities--play a critical role in our governmental system. Our Founding Fathers had grave concerns about the tendency of a central government to aggrandize itself and thus encroach on State sovereignty, and ultimately, individual liberty. Federalism is our chief bulwark against Federal encroachment and individual liberty. Our Founders also knew that keeping decision making powers closer to home led to more accountable and effective government. Their federalist vision is clearly reflected in the 10th amendment, which states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The legislation I am introducing today requires agencies to respect this vision of federalism when formulating policies and implementing the laws passed by Congress. It will preserve the division of responsibilities between the States and the Federal Government envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution and established in Executive order by President Ronald Reagan.
The Reagan order on federalism had it right. It directed Federal departments and agencies to refrain from imposing one-size-fits-all regulation on the States. It held that the laws passed by Congress were not presumed to preempt State law unless done so explicitly. It required agencies to assess the impact of agency action on federalism. But the people running the executive branch today, from the top on down, do not seem to feel the Reagan order applies to them. They made this abundantly clear when they tried to revoke it with Clinton Executive Order 13083.
In May, President Clinton quietly signed Executive Order 13083, which by its terms claims to promote federalism. Ironically, this order that is supposed to promote better communication between Federal and local government was issued in secret--without even talking to State and local officials at all. Worse still, the order would seriously undermine federalism and effectively turn the 10th amendment on its head. The Reagan Executive Order 12612 promoted the 10th amendment and set a clear presumption against Federal meddling in local affairs. The new Clinton order would create, but not be limited to, nine new policy justifications for Federal meddling. The list is so ambiguous that it would give Federal bureaucrats free rein to trample on local matters. The new Clinton order also would revoke President Clinton's own 1993 Executive Order 12875 that directed Federal agencies not to impose unfunded mandates on the States.
Understandably, State and local officials were deeply offended by the Clinton order and the White House snub in drafting it. On July 17, the major groups representing State and local officials sent a remarkable letter to the President, urging him to withdraw the order and to restore the Reagan federalism order and the 1993 unfunded mandates order. On July 22, several of my colleagues and I supported State and local officials by sponsoring a resolution calling on President Clinton to repeal his new order. That resolution passed the Senate unanimously. The House also has voiced opposition to the Clinton order. Congressman McIntosh held a hearing, and joined with six of his colleagues to introduce a bill nullifying Executive Order 13083.
The White House had a chance to extinguish the firestorm of protest from Governors, State legislators, mayors, county executives, and other local officials around the country by permanently revoking Executive Order 13083. Instead, the White House chose to preserve some wiggle room by `suspending' the order on August 5, leading some to ask if that action is permanent or just an effort to delay the order until the opposition dies down. If the President can admit that he made a mistake in signing his federalism order, he should permanently revoke it, plain and simple. Unfortunately, the White House has yet to correct its insult to State and local officials and the communities they serve. Instead of revoking the Clinton order, the administration is preparing for belated consultations with State and local government representatives. This effort at damage control does not hide the fact that the Clinton order is an open invitation for Federal interference in local affairs, and in the administration's eyes, it is still on the table.
In light of this threat to the tenth amendment principle of a limited Federal Government, Congress must stand ready to act. The Federalism Enforcement Act is necessary to ensure that the current administration exercises some restraint when regulating in areas that affect our States and communities, and respects the principles of State sovereignty and limited Federal Government on which our Nation was founded.
First, the bill directs Federal agencies to adhere to constitutional principles and not to encroach on the constitutional authority of the States. The Clinton federalism order would have shifted the presumption against Federal intervention to provide new policy justifications for Federal interference in State and local affairs. My bill returns us to the language of the Reagan order. Second, the bill would restore the preemption standards established in the Reagan order. The Clinton order would have encouraged Federal agencies to intrude into State affairs and deleted the Reagan preemption principle that, when in doubt, agencies should err on the side of State sovereignty.
Third, the bill would direct agencies to prepare a federalism assessment of certain agency actions, such as regulations that have significant federalism implications. The Clinton order would have deleted this requirement. Finally, the Federalism Enforcement Act would express the sense of the Congress that Federal agencies should not propose legislation that would regulate the States in ways that would interfere with their separate and independent functions, attach conditions to Federal grants which are unrelated to the purposes of the grant, or preempt State law in ways inconsistent with the act. Because only the President can enforce this requirement using his article II constitutional powers, it is expressed as a resolution urging him to do so.
The principles of federalism rightly are being reinvigorated. Much of the innovation that has improved this country began at the State and local level. People want important decisions that affect their daily lives to be made in their community--not dictated on high from Washington. And federalism is blossoming in recent constitutional interpretations of the Supreme Court. The Federalism Enforcement Act I am introducing today will continue this restoration of the balance between national and State power as conceived by the Framers of the Constitution.
Do you want me to re-post all of his past pro-choice statements again?
***Someone just posted a thread on Fred & Abortion as a compilation of his past quotes, and the thread got pulled.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I would like to address S. 149. I believe my colleagues who have spoken are correct in that they have substantial support for this legislation. I do not doubt they have a majority of the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans. I do not doubt they have the support of the administration. My understanding was that the President made a campaign statement or commitment with regard to this issue during the last campaign. President Clinton made the same commitment during his campaign for President.
The President had a group of high-tech executives to the White House, just as President Clinton did, to promote this sort of legislation. My colleagues are correct in that the President now supports essentially a continuation of the Clinton policy with regard to the liberalization or loosening of our export controls law. I disagreed with it when President Clinton was President. I disagree with it now.
While we need an Export Administration Act and while we need to take into consideration commercial circumstances and changes in the world, I think the balance between our national security interests and our commerce interests is not there.
This is not really a bill, as I think about it, that is supposed to balance as such. It is a bill that has very specific purposes. It is consistent with our export administration process that we have had for decades in this country. It is based on the notion that there are some items we need to try to keep out of the hands of some people for as long as we can. The most ardent proponents of liberalized trade restrictions, of course, would acknowledge that. We have the so-called rogue nations, and so forth, to which, we all acknowledge, we should not let any of this high-tech stuff get through. If we were really in a world where the technology genie were totally out of the bottle, I suppose we would not bother ever making the distinctions between really bad countries and pretty bad countries and friends because it would be out there for all to have. This is based on the proposition that is not the case, that there are some things controllable and that we should try to keep these things out of the hands of some entities and some countries for as long as we can.
When you look at the purpose of the act we are dealing with today, I think it correctly states that the purpose is about national security export controls, it is not about enhancing exports. In fact, you might say it is kind of anti-export. I think the norm is and should be that this country is for free trade. I certainly have tried to be one of the leaders in that area. I think the President ought to have trade promotion authority. I think we need to do more in that area. I think it is the basis for a large segment of our economic security and prosperity in this country. We had a debate with regard to a section of NAFTA recently. I think most of us are very committed to the process. But the fact that we have an export administration process and an Export Administration Act acknowledges that, be that as it may, there are some things that bring in extremely serious national security considerations.
I refer to S. 149. It says the purposes of this act are to restrict the export of items that would contribute to the military potential of countries so as to prove detrimental to the national security of the United States. It further says the purpose is to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It doesn't really talk about a balance of those grave and primary considerations that we all must acknowledge are, more than anything else, against some commercial considerations. Here we are talking about I think our total exports to these control countries, which are about 3 percent of our exports. So we are talking about a small fraction--3 percent of our exports as balanced against what I just described in the act.
I am not for some kind of equipoise, or some kind of a balance, when it comes to these things. We shouldn't control things that are uncontrollable. We shouldn't be foolish about it. But we ought to have a very careful process that is not weighted or prejudiced in any way by those whose interest it is to get things out the door, whose interest is to export, whose interest is to come to the White House and come to the Congress and lobby on behalf of more and more exports for economic reasons. You don't have the average man on the street with a lobbying team coming up here saying be very, very careful about how you liberalize our export control laws because we are concerned about what we read about what is going on in the world in terms of proliferation.
The world has changed a lot. We should look at these matters from time to time to see whether or not we are operating in the right century. We don't have the old Soviet Union anymore. We don't have the threat that posed. But in its place are several new threats which, in many cases, are more dangerous than the ones we had. We know, for example, that with the development of technology, weapons of mass destruction can now kill many, many more people than they otherwise could. There are ways of delivering weapons of mass destruction that did not exist a short time ago to countries such as the United States.
We have biological weapons that stagger the imagination with the description of the devastation that just a small amount of it can wreak, again, accompanying that with the means to deliver them, the means that did not exist a short time ago. That is the other side of the technological coin, the technology that has helped us in so many ways and has made the world a better place. That is the other side of that coin. It is real.
Of course, the world has changed in another way. My colleagues are correct when they say that more of this technology is available around the world. In some cases, to some extent perhaps, there is nothing we can do about it. But in some cases, to some extent, there is something we can do about it.
Therein lies what we are trying to deal with here with regard to our export administration policy; that is, being very careful in making sure, with regard to the things we can have some control over, even if it is just to slow down the bad actors that wish our country and our national security ill, that it is a good thing to do. If we are not willing and committed to doing that, regardless of what it does to trade in a certain segment of exports, then we should not have any export policy at all; we should not have any export restrictions at all. I do not think we are there. I do not think that anyone would advocate that. But it concerns me to hear that my colleagues think by passing this bill we are in some way enhancing our security. We are not. You can make a case that it is out of balance the other way, that we are trying to control things that are uncontrollable, and it is hurting our exports to the extent we need a new balance. I disagree with that strongly, but you can make that case. But I do not think you can have your cake and eat it, too.
I do not think you can liberalize trade so people do not have to have licenses anymore for some of this dangerous stuff while at the same time claiming you are enhancing national security. It is just not the case. And it is not as if I have the answer as to where to draw the line. It is not as if my colleagues have the answer as to where to draw the line. Reasonable export controls that do not do any more harm than is necessary but protect us to the extent possible: It is very difficult to draw that line.
What is important is that we have a process because that line has to be drawn every day. There are thousands of applications--15,000 to 20,000 applications--for exports on an annual basis. We must have a very carefully thought-out process where responsible people, in all objectivity, with requisite expertise, have an opportunity to pass on these things and make those judgments. That is what this is all about: whether or not we are setting up the right responsible framework, not to be so irresponsible that we shut things down, but, on the other hand, that we recognize that the world is a much more dangerous place, that countries have the ability to harm us and harm our allies, which would directly involve us immediately, more so than ever before, and that we must do what is reasonably necessary to keep these things out of the hands--as the world's leading manufacturer in the creative genius behind most of the advanced technology that is going on in the world in so many areas now, that we have a stewardship, we have a responsibility to use that in a proper and correct way.
As I said, it may be difficult to draw that line, but we must have a procedure that errs, if it is to err, on the side of national security. Because even the bill, as drafted, points out that this is the purpose of the Export Administration Act. This is the fundamental purpose of an Export Administration Act.
So does this act take into consideration sufficiently the matters of national security? And does it take into consideration sufficiently the matters of commerce and exports?
If we are going to talk about balance, let's talk for a minute about the side where we have our concern, the things that we are trying to address. In many different ways this is just a part of an overall policy of recognizing we live in a more dangerous world. But while realizing that genie is out of the bottle, we are trying to--through our policies, through our diplomacy, and through our policies--mitigate somewhat the danger that we see.
As I have stated, because of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the world is a more dangerous place in many respects than ever before. Numerous reports have confirmed that a ballistic missile strike on the United States is not a distant but an imminent threat.
The Rumsfeld report, published in July of 1998, concluded that emerging ballistic missile powers such as Iran and North Korea could strike the United States within 5 years of deciding to acquire missile capability.
Shortly after that, North Korea surprised our intelligence agencies by successfully launching a three-stage rocket over Japan, essentially confirming the Rumsfeld conclusions. Certainly they, along with Iraq, Syria, Libya, and others, can strike our allies and our troops stationed abroad today.
In September of 1999, the national intelligence estimate of the ballistic missile threat concluded that the United States would ``most likely'' face ICBM threats from Russia, China, North Korea, and possibly from Iran and Iraq over the next 15 years, and that North Korea could deliver a light payload sufficient for biological or chemical weapons to the United States right now. It has also said that some rogue states may have some ICBMs much sooner than previously thought, and those missiles would be more sophisticated and dangerous than previously estimated. The classified briefings are even more disconcerting. Perhaps the most alarming report from these commissions and intelligence sources is that, despite the urgency of this problem, the United States' lax export controls are contributing to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by global bad actors--our own export policies. The Cox commission concluded that U.S. export control policies have facilitated, rather than impeded, China's ability to acquire military-useful technology. The Rumsfeld commission has said the U.S. export control policies make it a major, albeit unintentional, contributor to the proliferation of ballistic missiles and associated weapons of mass destruction.
There you have it. I do not know how it can be stated much plainer than that and with more authority than that; that we have a serious problem on our hands and that our own policies are contributing to that problem.
Nowhere is it more clear than in the case of China, which is really the country that stands to benefit from changes to our export control laws the most, and, ironically, is also the country of greatest proliferation concern. China was described by the Rumsfeld commission as a significant proliferator of ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction, and enabling technologies. The PRC has sold missiles to Pakistan, missile parts to Libya, cruise missiles to Iran, and shared sensitive technologies with North Korea. All these actions have occurred despite the PRC's public assurances and commitments to several international proliferation regimes.
Within the last few days, this Government sanctioned a Chinese company again for transferring missile components to Pakistan. Even more disturbing is that many of the items that China is proliferating to rogue nations around the world may have been legally acquired from the United States. The Cox commission notes that China has deliberately taken advantage of our lax export enforcement policies to further its proliferation efforts.
China has illegally diverted or misused many sensitive dual-use technologies or items to further their military modernization. In January of 2000, the licensing threshold for high-performance computers was 2,000 MTOPS. In January of 2001, the licensing threshold was 75,000 MTOPS, a fortyfold increase in a 12-month period.
As the Cox committee points out, no threat assessment was ever conducted. As we have seen the rapid decontrol of supercomputers in this country to countries such as China, under the notion that, well, MTOP is not a valid criteria anymore and they will get it from somebody else anyway, the defense authorization bill in 1998 required that if we are going to do this rapid decontrol of our computers, that we do a national security assessment as a part of that, because the real bottom line is, we don't know what the effects of this rapid decontrol are. We don't know what the significance to national security is.
We operated for a long time under the notion that it was very important--and the Cox committee will bear this out--to try to keep the supercomputers at a certain level out of the hands of Russia and China and countries such as that because they use them for nuclear simulation, their stockpile enhancement programs, things of that nature. We have totally changed our view about that based on no study, based on anecdotal comments by people who come and testify before these committees who have a direct or indirect interest in companies or represent companies that are interested in exporting in many cases--not all of them, but many--time after time. We have not really had any in-depth study or analysis by this Government as to what the effect of this substantial change in our policy is to our national security.
I am not saying I know the answer. I rest assured that no one else, even in this body, has the answer. It is extremely complex, but it is extremely important. I know of no other change of that importance in that short period of time that has undergone less assessment. That is one of the things we should address.
The PRC diverted and used these American supercomputers to improve their nuclear weapons. The Cox commission notes that in 1992, U.S. satellite manufacturers transferred missile design information to the PRC without obtaining the legally required license, and China used that information to improve the reliability of its rockets.
We are all familiar with the Hughes-Loral problem. I noticed the report in the Wall Street Journal the other day that Loral apparently is about to cut a deal with the State Department and Justice to pay a fine and still be allowed to go ahead and launch Chinese rockets in the future, going back to their business. I will be interested in comparing the amount of that civil fine with the profit they make over the subsequent launches that they have in their deals with the Chinese.
In 1993, China diverted six high-precision machine tools it obtained from McDonnell-Douglas and used them to manufacture military aircraft and cruise missile components. Just months ago we learned that Chinese technicians were installing fiber optic cable for Iraqi air defense in violation of U.N. sanctions. This fiber optic system is based on U.S. technology sold to China in the mid-1990s.
According to published reports, we have discovered twice that companies in China were assisting Saddam Hussein with regard to his antiaircraft capability, which is what this fiber optic cable is used for, in order to help him shoot down our aircraft in the no-fly zone. There have been over 300 incidents where Saddam's troops have shot at our aircraft over that no-fly zone. I hope and pray they never hit one. I hope and pray that if they do, we don't discover that the technology used to shoot that airplane down did not originally emanate from the United States of America. I would not want to be the one to try to tell the mother of that pilot who was shot down: Ma'am, we are sorry about your son, but they probably could have gotten this ability from someone else if we hadn't given it to them. The Cox commission informs us that China pursues a deliberate policy of using commercial contacts to advance its efforts to obtain U.S. military technology. The commission states that China uses access to its markets to induce U.S. businesses to provide military-related technology and to lobby on behalf of liberalized export standards, a policy that has had significant success. We see from the Rumsfeld report, the Deutch commission, the biennial CIA reports, the nature of this threat and the fact that it is based on technology, technology in some cases where we are certainly the leader. We know that a lot of this proliferation activity from these rogue nations, a lot of their assistance comes from China. We claim we need a missile defense system. I believe we do because of the threats these rogue nations present to us. They, in turn, are getting their capability in significant part from countries such as China and Russia. We simultaneously, with all of that liberalizing of our export laws, make it easier to sell high tech items and equipment to China and Russia. That does not make sense.
Where is the balance? What do we balance that threat against? What is the concern--that our export licensing procedure is too onerous? It is not like we are stopping these exports. As was said, 99 percent of them are approved. It is just the ones that are disapproved that are really important, important to our national security. It is not like we are trying to stop a great many exports because we are not. We are trying to have a procedure where we are more likely to not let something important slip through the cracks.
Let's be clear about how much business is at stake. The total value of goods subject to export controls in 1998 was approximately $20 billion, less than 3 percent of U.S. exports. The fact that an item is controlled does not mean that it can't be exported. It only means that it has to go through a review process. The overwhelming majority of them are approved.
But what this legislation does is take certain categories, incorporated parts, mass marketing, foreign availability, and says, with regard to those items, with regard to those matters, if someone within the bowels of the Department of Commerce essentially decides that they fit into these categories, you don't have to have a license at all. You don't have to go through that process. It decontrols those matters and takes them outside of the regulatory process altogether.
They say the President can stop it. We will talk about that in a minute.
First of all, let's understand what we are doing here. In the past there was no such animal as the one I just described. In the past, foreign availability was legitimate as a consideration, and it ought to be. When the licensers looked at the matter, if there was foreign availability, that was something they could take into consideration in issuing the license. Now it is taken out of their hands. If someone in commerce, their technical evaluation team, decides that there is foreign availability, it doesn't even come through the process anymore.
Mass marketing is a whole new concept. Mass marketing was not even used, that concept was not even used in prior administrations.
Now I am sad to say that the embedded component was, but it makes less sense of all. If an item is controlled and deemed to be significant from a potential national security purpose, under this bill if it constitutes 25 percent or less of the item that it is incorporated in, then it is decontrolled.
So if you have a controlled item and it is put into an item that is bigger and worth more, that is not controlled, that makes the item that is controlled decontrolled. Of course, all an importer has to do, in some cases, is to buy the larger item and take out the item that perhaps he wants, which is the embedded part.
If it is significant from a national security standpoint before it goes into the larger item, it is significant from a national security standpoint after it is put into it. What does money have to do with it? What is the fact that it is or is not 25 percent of the price of a larger item? Of what significance is that? Especially from a national security standpoint. That makes no sense whatsoever.
So when we talk about building higher walls around fewer things, point out the higher walls to me. When we talk about making it more difficult to export some things, making it easier for some and harder for others, somebody point out to me the things that this bill makes it more difficult to export.
This legislation provides broad and sometimes exclusive authority to the Secretary of Commerce on important procedural issues such as commodity classifications, license and dispute referrals, license exemptions, and development of export administration regulations.
I have a lot of faith in our new Secretary of Commerce. I think he is a fine man, excellent choice, and is doing a great job. But the fact remains that the mission of the Department of Commerce is to promote exports. We used to criticize Secretary Ron Brown for his export policies and getting items changed from one list to another to make it easier to export, and things of that nature. The Commerce Department simply doesn't have the personnel and expertise to protect national security. It should not have to. That is not their job. Somehow we have set it up this way.
We are letting the tail wag the dog. If national security concerns ought to be given adequate consideration in an export decision, the Departments of State and Defense must be given greater authority and a greater role in this process. This legislation doesn't do that. Really, to the contrary, it increases the authority of the Department of Commerce.
Let me go over a few things here, and keep in mind, first of all, the purposes of this bill, the stated purposes of this bill. I didn't hear it discussed much Let me go over a few things here, and keep in mind, first of all, the purposes of this bill, the stated purposes of this bill. I didn't hear it discussed much when we were talking about the details of it. I think it is probably the most important part:
To restrict the export of items that would contribute to the military potential of countries so as to prove detrimental to the national security of the United States.
And also: To stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.......
That is the stated purpose. Whose job is it to do that? Well, we are going to give it to the guy who is in charge of commercial activities.
Look at some of these areas. The Secretaries of Commerce and Defense must concur in order to add items to the control list. While this is an improvement over the previous draft of S. 149, which left sole discretion to the Department of Commerce, S. 149 still gives the Department of Commerce a veto over the Department of Defense if the Secretary of Defense believes an item should be controlled on the national security control list.
Secondly, on commodity classification, the Secretary of Commerce has sole discretion over classifying items when exporters make commodity classification requests. These classifications determine whether items will require license or not and are particularly critical for new technologies. Commerce must notify Defense, but it is not required to solicit any input.
What about the interagency dispute resolution process? Well, S. 149 gives the Secretary of Commerce sole authority to select a chairperson of, and determine procedures for, the interagency committee to review license applications. The chairperson considers the positions of all the reviewing agencies but then makes the final decision on the license application. The only role of the Department of Defense is to provide a position, and additional levels of review are resolved by a majority vote.
What about foreign availability and mass marketing? The Secretary of Commerce has sole authority to determine whether items are foreign available or mass marketed. He must consult with other agencies, including the Department of Defense. Since items determined to be foreign available and mass marketed are automatically removed from the national control list and decontrolled, this authority to Commerce essentially creates a loophole around the Department of Defense veto over removing items from the national security control list.
What about issuing regulations? The Department of Commerce and the President have the authority to issue regulations. These regulations must be submitted for review to any department or agency the President considers appropriate, but the legislation explicitly notes that the requirement to submit the regulations for review doesn't require the concurrence or approval of any reviewing department. Finally, the catch-all provision in S. 149 provides that unless otherwise reserved to the President or department or agency in the United States, all power, authority, and discretion conferred by this act shall be exercised by the Secretary of Commerce.
Mr. President, that is substantial authority and control by the Office of the Secretary of Commerce. Regarding matters of national security, they should not have to bear that much responsibility. So now in the act here, we are not really building higher walls around anything. We are not trying to come up with a procedure to determine the national security implications of what we are about to do. We recognize that there is more dangerous technology out there than ever before, and we are providing it to people who are misusing it, but we want to continue to do that at a more efficient rate.
With regard to the increased penalties on exporters, I think by and large that is an improvement. But the act totally decontrols large segments of exports. So if you are decontrolled, how are you going to get in trouble? If I were an exporter, I would make that tradeoff, too. Give me a penalty on something that there is no way I could ever be accused of violating if it falls under one of these items that don't even require a license. How do you violate something like that? We are going to make a higher, more onerous penalty on you for violating this, but we are going to amend the law so it doesn't apply to you.
The Presidential override: It is true that there is a section here that, as the proponents indicate, really does override both the incorporated parts provision and the mass marketing and foreign availability provisions. In other words, the President can step in regardless of any of those provisions. To me, it is inconsistent with and renders a nullity many of the provisions in the foreign availability section, for example, because that section says the President must jump through all these hoops and go negotiate with all these countries and report back to Congress.
In other words, Mr. President, if you are going to step in on behalf of national security, we are going to make it awfully tough on you; you have to jump through all these hoops. They are saying: Enhanced control provisions, no, no; the President, if he wants to use this section, does not have to do all that; in other words, if there is a significant threat, not just a threat to national security but a significant threat to national security.
I am not sure how all that operates. I think it bears more studying. I think we are going to have to look at those sections together. If it does what is suggested, I still think we need to ask ourselves: Do we want to create whole new categories that are essentially determined by the Secretary of Commerce to decontrol and then say to our President: Catch me if you can?
If we have made a mistake out of these thousands of applications we get every year--another section says the President cannot delegate this authority, so let's make it as tough on him as we can; he does not have many other responsibilities; let's create these whole new avenues of decontrol and then say to the President: You have the authority if you can come up with something.
I do not know how much longer he is going to sit over there with a skeletal staff in some of these departments. Some people are estimating it will be 14 months before he gets his full team together, as far as his government is concerned.
Assuming the President does have the authority ultimately to step in, is that a wise idea? We are not just giving him new authority to step in with regard to an old situation. We are creating a whole new situation, a much more decontrolled situation, and giving him the invitation without delegating any authority. If he personally wants to step into one of these situations, he has the authority to do that. He did not need this authority before because we did not have a concept such as foreign availability except as something to be considered. We did not have a concept of decontrol based on foreign availability or mass marketing up until this bill.
Under those sections, if a company can persuade the Department of Commerce that it ought to be decontrolled, then it is decontrolled; there is no license requirement. We cannot even keep up with the number of computers we are sending to China or anywhere else. We do not even have a list to make some cumulative effect assessment if we wanted to.
The business community ought to have their say. I get the top rankings from the businesses and small businesses. I do pretty good by them. But I must say, when it comes to matters of export controls based on national security in a world where we are being threatened as we speak by weapons of mass destruction, it irritates me somewhat when I see in this export bill ``the Secretary shall permit the widest possible participation by the business community on the export control advisory committees.''
This bill allows the Secretary to appoint advisory committees to advise the Secretary on these matters--quite objectively, I am sure. It also says the Secretary has to disclose to them information consistent with national security and intelligence sources and methods pertaining to the reasons for the export controls which are in effect or contemplated.
If you want to impose any export controls for national security purposes, you have to go to these business entities and explain what you are doing and why you are doing it. Not only is that unnecessary, I am afraid it gives an indication or it belies the purposes of this act. This bill is going to pass, and we all know that. The forces behind it are strong. When you have the administration and probably the majority of both parties supporting it, that is a pretty fair indicator. I understand that. But for some time now, starting back a couple of years ago, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, and the chairman of the Commerce Committee, along with Senator Kyl, who is an expert in these matters, have had grave concerns about the balance we are striking; that we are continuing a policy based upon the tremendous pressures that are being brought to bear and based on campaign commitments that were made. It is not in the best long-term interests of this Nation. I do not think any of us can say for sure to what extent it is not or in what way our security might be harmed, but we are concerned that the process is not properly weighted. We are concerned that if we are going to err, we err on the part of national security; that when we are willing to engage in such debate to take on our European allies, to take on Russia and China all for the sake of a national missile defense system, based on the concept of tremendous threats this country faces--and I believe in the system--we must move forward on it because I believe in the threats, but we are refusing to acknowledge and recognize what is right before us and that we are helping to create the threat.
When we are exporting high-tech items to countries that have already shown that they will take them legally or illegally, that they will divert them for military purposes, that they will send them to rogue nations, and we come up with a concept to make it even easier because it takes 40 days to go through a licensing process--we do not want our companies to have to wait 40 days for people take an adequate look at this before they do that--I do not think we have our values in the right place; I do not think we are looking at what is right before us.
I am not suggesting we not reauthorize the Export Administration Act. I am not suggesting we build a wall around our technology. We know we cannot do that. But we must have a procedure that is not dominated by commercial interests, either outside Government or inside Government. And those in the Department of Commerce who are rightfully concerned about our commercial interests, that is their job. It cannot be dominated that way. We have to have a fair shot. All this is weighted too heavily on the side of people who have vested interests in foreign commercial relationships.
We have a $100 billion trade deficit with China today. I just got back from China with the distinguished chairman of the Banking Committee. The biggest meeting we had was with the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. We have tremendous foreign investment over there. That is fine. That is well and good. But surely to goodness we are not going to let that cause us, when we are considering matters of this nature, to come down too heavily on making the process more efficient for exports of potentially sensitive materials.
Again, we are not even talking about stopping exports. What we are talking about is a procedure where, more likely than not, we can stop from making one substantial mistake. We should not back end load this process and put all that responsibility on the President, if he or his people are fortunate enough to catch something on which those who, with good intentions, just simply do not have the expertise to make a call.
That is what we are concerned about. So I hope in the rush to get this bill approved and passed, which will eventually happen, we will have an opportunity to get some fair considerations for some amendments. I would overhaul this whole bill if it were left up to me, but it is not, and I do not have the votes. I am not going to stand in the way any longer. We have held this up now for a couple of years, and we cannot do it any longer. The votes are too great, and I see that. We could not filibuster it successfully if we wanted.
Surely we can consider some amendments that just as an example might give a little bit more time to an agency to review a complicated export request based on the potential impact of the export on national security. An agency now only has 30 days. If they do not get back within 30 days, it is deemed to be approved. Thirty days is fine for most things, but they ought to be able to have 60 days, if they need it, for the complexity of the analysis or if the reviewing agency requires additional time based on the potential impact of export on national security, a bit of additional time under those circumstances.
I hope we consider an amendment requiring the Secretary of Commerce to refer commodity classification requests to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. The current draft of the bill requires the Secretary of Commerce to notify the Secretary of Defense of commodity classification requests, but there is no referral, and the Secretary of State is not even required to be notified. That is a prudent addition, an improvement. We should have unanimous consent of all the reviewing agencies on a license application. The Cox committee recommended that. It can still be taken up and ultimately approved if need be, but if the Department of Defense, for example, objects and no one else does, or the CIA or whoever, should that not require their sign-off?
As to postshipment verification, S. 149 says the Secretary of Commerce may deny licenses to countries that deny postshipment verification, although it says the Secretary shall deny licenses to particular end users. I suggest we add to that language that the Secretary of Commerce shall deny licenses to countries. Why do we mandate denying a license to an end user that will not let you verify it but leave it discretionary with the Secretary of Commerce to deny to a country that will not let you verify, when in many, if not all, of these cases it is a country policy? We have an agreement, for example, with the country of China. If we are being denied the right to go in and do our postshipment verification, it makes no sense to blame it on a company. It is the country that is denying us. So why should we make it mandatory on a company but discretionary with the country that is calling the shots?
As to foreign availability, the definition of ``foreign availability'' requires only that an item or substantially identical or directly competitive item be available to control countries from sources outside the United States in sufficient quantities at a price not reasonably excessive. This definition does not speak to relative quality. In other words, if it is out there, if other countries can supply it but if it is not the same quality as that of the United States, and it is potentially dangerous and it is something that can potentially be used for military purposes to a country of some concern, would we not want to take into consideration the fact we are liberalizing or loosening our standards because they have access to a similar item even though it is not of the same quality as our item? We ought to consider that carefully.
The deemed export issue, the definition of ``exports'' in S. 149 includes transfers of items out of the country or transfers of items within the country with the knowledge and intent that a person will take the item out of the country, but it does not cover any transfer of technology to a foreign national.
We have had a concept of deemed exports in this country for a long time, and that is if you give a foreign national the same kind of controlled information that is sent abroad, it ought to operate under the same rules if it is the same information because of the potentiality of it getting back, and we know that happens.
Under the current definition of the statute, the Secretary of Commerce has discretion over whether to control deemed exports. I do not think the Secretary of Commerce ought to have that discretion.
Now my concern here is that there has been pressure from the business community to eliminate the deemed export requirement altogether, and S. 149 includes language stating it is the committee's understanding that the administration will be reviewing the deemed export process with a view toward clarifying its application. I do not have any idea what that means. What I think it means is that we are going to work to get rid of this sucker, but we need a deemed export rule and we need it to be mandatory.
We had hearings and heard countless hours of testimony about what was happening in our National Laboratories when we were concerned about the information was getting out, and we saw the thousands of hours and thousands of people who were coming in from other countries who had access to information. Private industry was doing much better than the Government, but our own Government people were not submitting the necessary documentation for deemed exports to tell our people what information these folks had access to. It was common sense. We do not want to cut off foreign students. We do not want to cut off foreign experts, the technology; it benefits our own economy; we need that interplay. But it is common sense to protect yourself a little bit. We need to do that.
There are others we might consider, but those are some I hope within the next couple of days we have the opportunity to consider in some detail with an idea toward tightening it up some, and making it so when we leave this, having passed it, we have not unwittingly done something that made it more difficult in the operation of this process. It all sounds pristine when we describe it.
It goes here and here and here, and then someone has this right and the other fellow has the other right and these thousands of things that come rushing through, but in actual application it is not always quite that smooth. This bill, thank goodness, devotes some additional funding for this licensing process, which I think is a good thing. Let us make sure that in all of this we do what we can, at least around the edges, is the way I would look at it, to make sure we give enough time to properly consider these things, and we have them considered by the entities that ought to be looking at it and not being totally weighted or unduly weighted toward the commercial side.
So I look forward to the discussion. I congratulate my colleagues on their perseverance to get this bill this far. We have been arguing and discussing this bill for a long time. It is one of those cases where people have strong feelings on both sides and make valid points on both sides. Everyone is trying to strive for the right thing and the proper balance, and hopefully at the end of the day we will have something that will not produce grave concern among the American people.
I yield the floor. Source: Congressional Record, THOMAS.gov, Sept. 4, 2001
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