FLAG DESECRATION CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT--MOTION TO PROCEED (Senate - December 06, 1995)
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Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to the consideration of Senate Joint Resolution 31.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there debate on the motion?
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I know there will be debate on the motion. I do not know how long the Senator from New Mexico wishes to debate. But I hope that we can go to the bill itself in the next couple of hours. This means we will have to be here longer this evening. We would like to complete action. We are going back to partial-birth abortion bill at 5 o'clock and will try to finish that tonight.
Hopefully, if there is some time or any requests for time on the amendments, we can continue that debate tonight and finish this bill by noon tomorrow.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I did object to proceeding with the debate on the flag amendment because I believe that we have neglected some other very important constitutional duties. Specifically, we have neglected to provide our advice and consent of ratification of START II and also on confirming the nomination of ambassadors to nations, which include over a third of the world's population. That has now been delayed many months.
I have been told this morning that a deal which would allow for the Foreign Relations Committee to meet tomorrow and report the treaty and these nominations, which will allow the Senate to approve them next week and deal with the State Department autho rization bill, as well, may be at hand. I would be delighted if that proves to be true, and I would gladly yield the floor and allow the Senate to proceed with debate on the flag amendment as soon as we can get some kind of unanimous-consent agreement to that effect.
But, for the moment, I think that I have no choice but to talk for a period here about the constitutional obligations we have to provide advice and consent on treaties and with regard to the appointment of ambassadors.
Mr. President, before we amend the Constitution, I hope we will not amend the first amendment, as proposed in the flag amendment, for the first time in the history of this Republic. I believe we should not go on to consider that before we get about the business of carrying out our current responsibilities under the Constitution.
Article II, section 2 of the Constitution deals with the powers of the President. The second paragraph says:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other p ublic Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States . . .
Mr. President, I have a couple of charts which I would like to refer to here just to make the points that need to be made. This first chart deals with the chronology of events related to the START II treaty. This treaty was signed by President Bush on January 3, 1993. It was submitted to the Senate by President Bush on January 15, 1993. That was almost 3 years ago.
Until last December when the issues were resolved that allowed the START I treaty to enter into course, perhaps it was appropriate not to proceed with the ratification of START II. Once that treaty was overcome, then everyone expected that the START II treaty would be dealt with by this body early this year--early in 1995.
The last hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the treaty took place on March 29 of this year.
Senator Lugar, at a conference the next day on March 30 said,
I chaired the final Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing in the Senate yesterday on the START II treaty. The committee will seek to mark up the treaty after the April recess. We will look to potential floor action during the middle of the month of Ma y. It is a good treaty, but it is one thing to have reached agreements and understandings, another to have fully implemented.
Mr. President, next week we will be in mid-December, fully 7 months behind the schedule that was outlined by the senior Senator from Indiana, whom I greatly respect for his leadership on our policy toward Russia. I wish we had held to the original time table. Obviously, we have not.
I fear the delay has only complicated the prospects for treaty ratification in the Russia Duma. We have provided an obvious excuse for inaction for 7 months now. We should not make that excuse, extend that excuse, for 8, 9, or 10 months.
As Senator Lugar went on to point out in his March 30 speech,
To reach the START II limits by the year 2000 or 2003 will require enormous effort and cost, particularly on the Russian side. This will be difficult in the best of times but it is particularly challenging given the political and economic revolution en gulfing Russia today.
The genius of the Nunn-Lugar cooperative reduction effort has been to face the facts squarely and try to help where we can in the Russian's effort to dismantle their nuclear stockpile. Months of inaction on our part cannot have improved the prospects f or ratification in the Duma.
In the elections in Russia in less than 2 weeks we are likely to see a more conservative Duma emerge, where one Start II ratification will be more difficult as a challenge for President Yeltsin.
Mr. President, I believe our delay in carrying out our constitutional duties on START II has consequences and they are potentially very bad consequences for our security and for our relations with Russia.
Similarly, I believe the delay in carrying out our constitutional duties on ambassadorial nominations has consequences.
I have a second chart here I want to go through. This is a list of the ambassadorial nominations that have been delayed. This is from the time that they were submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee. We have the names of the ambassadors whose papers are entirely in order and who could be confirmed rapidly if the Foreign Affairs Committee were to hold a business meeting. There are 18 names on the list. We can go into them in some detail later on in the morning or later in the day.
Together, we have also listed, of course, the countries that they would be ambassadors to and the date that the nomination was sent here to the Senate.
Most of these people, 14 of them to be precise, are Foreign Service officers. Four of them, Jim Sasser, Sandra Kristoff, James Joseph, and John Gevirtz are noncareer political appointments. Many of these nominations have been ready to move since July.
Mr. President, the lives of these people and their families have been disrupted by our inaction. Our ability to carry on our diplomatic efforts with these nations and in these parts of the world have been disrupted, as well.
The signal that we send to the rest of the world when we fail to have ambassadors in key capitals is not a good signal. Look at the list of nations that we have here, Mr. President: China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, o ur Ambassador to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization--APEC, which met recently, and we were not represented by an ambassador at that meeting. The Vice President attended in lieu of our President because of the difficulties here in getting a greement on a budget.
What sort of signal are we sending to Asia when we will not carry out our constitutional duties here in the Senate in a timely fashion? These nations include over a third of the world's population and some of the world's fastest growing economies. We h ave important and very critical interests in these nations, yet we cannot get around to confirming our ambassadors to them.
Many of the other nations listed are in Africa: South Africa, Cameroon, Rwanda, et cetera. Again, what sort of a signal are we sending? In the case of South Africa, again, the Vice President is there on a trip this week.
I am sure that our neglect of our responsibilities in the Senate is much bigger news in those nations than it is here, but what we are doing or failing to do in my view is wrong and my point this morning is that we need to get agreement in the Senate t o take action on these nominations and to take action on START II before we proceed with other less pressing business.
Mr. President, the proposal that the majority leader would like to move to today is the amendment to the Constitution dealing with flag burning. Whether a particular Senator opposes that amendment or favors it, I think all of us would have to agree that i t is not urgent for the Senate to act on that proposal.
We have survived as a nation now for about 206 years without that amendment being adopted. I am a fairly regular reader of the newspaper. I read the newspaper this morning. I could find nothing in there indicating that people are burning flags around t his country or around the world, in fact. Of course, the proposal is primarily aimed at those burning flags in this country.
The point is very simply, Mr. President, whether you favor or oppose the amendment, it is not urgent that we deal with it. We do not need to put aside other pressing important business in order to deal with the flag amendment today and tomorrow. I thin k it is much more important that we do the business of the Senate, and the business of the Senate very simply as set out in the Constitution which we are now talking about amending, the business of the Senate is to approve nominations--or disapprove.
I am not saying here I expect every Senator to come to the floor and vote for each of these Presidential nominees to be ambassador. It is possible that some of our colleagues would like to vote against them. That is fine. I am not insisting on a partic ular outcome.
I am saying that the Senate should have the chance to vote on these ambassadorial nominations and on the START II treaty before we conclude our business this year.
I understand that Senator Hatch is on the floor and he would like to speak for a period on the flag amendment. I certainly am willing to yield to him to do that since we will still be in a period debating whether or not to proceed to c onsideration of the bill.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. It was very gracious of him to do that, because I am concerned whether we are going to get to this amendment.
Let me, just for a moment, suggest the absence a quorum with the understanding I will be recognized as soon as we come out of the quorum call.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HATCH. 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. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for being willing to yield me this time, because we were supposed to start on the flag amendment at 10 this morning. I do deeply regret that we are now on a filibuster against a constitutional amendment to prevent the desecration of the American flag. I think the American people should know that this is a filibuster.
We have had a filibuster on virtually every bill this year. At the height of Republican irritation at Democratic control of the Senate in the past, I cannot remember any year on which there have been filibusters on virtually everything of substance in any given year. Selected filibusters, yes--and I am the first to say that should be done. I am the first to uphold the filibuster rule. But not on everything.
To prevent us from even considering, or at least trying to prevent us from considering an amendment to protect the flag, which most Americans, at least 80 percent, favor, it seems to me is something I hope my colleagues on the other side will think thr ough and change their ways, because this is not right. But I do appreciate my colleague allowing me this time to make a few comments about how important this amendment is.
It comes down to this. Will the Senate of the United States confuse liberty with license? Or will the Senate of the United States allow the people of the United States to have the right to protect their beloved national symbol, the American flag?
Our basic document is not a piece of legislation that can be amended at will. It requires a very long, arduous, difficult process. I am hopeful that we will have 66 votes on this amendment, or more; but if we do not, everybody here is going to be put on n otice right here and now that this will be brought back until we do.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague for allowing me to make this lengthy but important statement on this issue.
I yield the floor back to him.
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Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I understand that the Senator from Alabama, who is a cosponsor of the flag burning amendment, is somewhere nearby and wants to give a statement at some point here. Obviously, I will be glad to defer to him when he wants to make that statement.
Let me just state again what I said at the beginning of this discussion. That is, my objection to proceeding with the amendment is not because I think the Senate should not be able to vote on this issue. I do not support the amendment; I did not suppor t it when it came up before. But I do not object to us going ahead and getting a vote. But I do believe that before we move to amend the Constitution, as is proposed here, we need to tend to the business of carrying out our duties as they are set out in t he Constitution. Those duties are pretty clear, and we in the Senate have some very specific duties to carry out. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution says:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur . . .
So we have a responsibility to pass on treaties.
. . . and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States . . .
So my position is, Mr. President, we ought to go about doing that which the Constitution requires of us before we proceed to amend the Constitution. Or we should at least get agreement as to a date when we are going to do that which the Constitution re quires of us; that is, passing on the President's nomination for these ambassadorial posts.
I have this list here. It is a long list, which I referred to earlier. I think it is one that clearly deserves our attention. As I pointed out in my earlier statement, it represents the people in the countries that these ambassadors will serve in, whic h represent about a third of the world's population. Why should we in the Senate be able to, day after day, week after week, look the other way and say it is not our responsibility, it is not our problem? It is our responsibility under the Constitution, M r. President; it is our problem, and we need to get about the business of dealing with it.
Mr. President, I think it is interesting that this is coming up in this context. We are constantly hearing about the respect that we all have for the Constitution. I do not doubt that respect. I think, clearly, anyone who devotes his life to public ser vice is demonstrating a real commitment to this country.
We all swear to an oath of office when we are sworn in here in the Senate, and it is an interesting oath, which I would like to read for people, just to refresh people's memory. The question which the Presiding Officer asks each of us is:
Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that you take this obligation freely without any mental re servation or purpose of evasion . . .
Mr. President, well and faithfully discharging the duties of the office of a U.S. Senator today includes voting on the Ambassadors that the President has nominated to serve in these countries. Well and faithfully discharging the duties of the office of a U.S. Senator today means voting on the START II treaty, which has been here languishing in the Senate now for many months. So that is the point that I am trying to make.
Since the Senator from Alabama is not here wishing to speak, let me go ahead and make a few other points about, first of all, the START II treaty. START II is the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It was signed by President Bush on January 3, 199 3, shortly before he left office. It is a landmark agreement. It will reduce nuclear arsenals in both the United States and the former Soviet Union by close to two-thirds.
This is not a minor item, Mr. President. This is not some detail that we have not gotten around to dealing with. This will reduce the nuclear arsenals in both the United States and the former Soviet Union by close to two-thirds.
START II is a vital successor to the first START Treaty, which was negotiated by President Ronald Reagan. Not only does START II reduce nuclear stockpiles in both Russia and the United States to between 3,000 to 3,500 warheads each, it also eliminates multiple independent reentry vehicles, MIRV's. Policymakers and military officials in both parties agree that START II is vital to U.S. strategic interests.
Mr. President, I know we are in a very major discussion and debate, nationally, about whether the United States should be involved in the NATO activity in Bosnia. I think that is important. I think it is a very important military initiative, diplomatic initiative that this administration is involved in. But I would say that at least as important is following through and ratifying START II and then seeing that it is properly implemented.
When the history of this century is written, Mr. President, our ability to move from the cold war down to a period where there is less threat and to a situation where less nuclear threat is going to be a determining factor in whether or not we have car ried out our stewardship properly, I think it is the height of folly for us to lose sight of that important need and constantly be focusing on other matters here that are not time sensitive.
As I said earlier in the discussion, whether you believe that we ought to have a flag burning amendment or whether you disagree about the flag burning amendment, everyone has to concede that this is not an urgent matter.
We have been a nation now for 206 years. We have never had a flag burning amendment to the Constitution. There is not an epidemic of flag burning going on in this country, Mr. President.
I have scoured the newspapers to try to find examples of people out there burning flags. In our history there have been some examples. Clearly, it is not something that is urgent and that needs dealing with this week here in the U.S. Senate.
These other matters in my opinion do have some urgency about them. I will get into that in more detail later in the discussion.
Let me give some quotations about the START II treaty from various leaders in this country, former leaders, present leaders. President George Bush made the statement, `The START II treaty is clearly in the interests of the United States and represents a watershed in our efforts to stabilize the nuclear balance further reduce strategic offensive arms.'
Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee said, on February 3 of this year, `I am persuaded that the 3,000 to 3,500 nuclear weapons allowed Russia and the United States in this START treaty does meet reasonable standards of safety.'
The Heritage Foundation has a briefing book they provide to new Members of Congress. That briefing book for this 104th Congress had in it a statement that said, `The START II treaty should serve U.S. interests and should be approved for ratification.' That is the Heritage Foundation, one of the more conservative think tanks here in our Nation's Capital.
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, said, `With a U.S. force structure of about 3,500 nuclear weapons we have the capability to deter any actor in the other capital no matter what he has at his disposal.' That was in July 1992.
The present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is testifying at this very moment in the Armed Services Committee, as the Presiding Officer well knows, said on May 25 of this year, `I strongly urge prompt Senate advice and consent on the ratifica tion of START II.'
Senator Richard Lugar on October of 1992 said, `If new unfriendly regimes come to power, we want those regimes to be legally obligated to observe START limits.'
Senator John McCain, who serves with us here and with great distinction on the Armed Services Committee, said on January 2, 1993, `With the conclusion of START II, the threat of nuclear war has been greatly reduced and our relationship with the former Soviet Union reestablished on a more secure basis.'
Now, obviously, Senator McCain was assuming we would ratify that treaty. If we fail to do so I think he may want to rethink that statement.
The former Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, made the following statement on June 17 of 1993:
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No relationship is more important to the long-term security of the United States than our strategic relationship with Russia. Despite the new spirit of cooperation between us, Russia remains the only nation on Earth with the capability to devastate the United States. Any arms control agreement, even one as sweeping at START II, represents only one element of that relationship. While arms control is only one element of our relationship it remains an important one. START II, along with the initial START treaty remains overwhelmingly in our interest as we move into the post-cold war era. It offers enhanced stability, fosters transparency and openness and sounds the death knell for the first-strike strategies of a bygone era.
That is a quotation by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.
Finally, let me give a quotation by Lynton Brooks who was the chief negotiator of START II. He said on May 18, 1993--and I point out that was shortly after the first hearing on START II by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on this chronology. This i s 1993 I am talking about, 2 1/2 years ago, Mr. President. Lynton Brooks, our chief negotiator of START II said:
START II completes the work begun by START I. Building on the 9-year effort that led to the first START treaty, START II drastically reduced strategic defensive arms and restructures the remaining forces in a stabilizing manner appropriate for the post -cold war world. Along with its predecessor companion, START II represents a codification of the new nonconfrontational relationship between the United States and the Russian federation. In short, START II is another major step toward a 21st century chara cterized by reduced threat and increased stability.
That is an indication, Mr. President, that there is very strong bipartisan support for the ratification of this treaty. If this was an issue that there was great division on I would probably not be here today urging that we get a time certain to vote o n START II.
Leaders on both sides of the aisle have indicated the importance of moving ahead. I can see no justification for us continuing to deal with matters that are less time sensitive such as the proposed constitutional amendment while this matter and the con firmation of these ambassadorial nominations continues to be delayed.
Let me also put a few more things in the Record or call then to the attention of my colleagues here, Mr. President. We have a letter here from Jennifer Weeks who is the Arms Control and International Security Program Director of the Un ion of Concerned Scientists. This is a letter dated November 9 of this year to Senators. I am sure that the Presiding Officer and each Senator received a similar letter. It says:
I am writing to bring to your attention the article by Russian ambassador Yuri K. Nazarkin on the START II nuclear reduction treaty which is printed on the reverse side of this page. START II currently pending in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee an d the Russian Duma would reduce Russia's deployed strategic nuclear arsenal by 5,000 warheads. It also would eliminate all of Russia's 10 warhead SS-18 missiles , a longstanding U.S. policy goal.
But as Nazarkin points out, if the Senate does not act promptly to ratify START II, there is little hope that Russia will approve the treaty. START II was submitted to the Senate by President Bush. It has strong bipartisan support and the Union of Conc erned Scientists strongly support START II and urges the Senate to move swiftly to ratify this crucial treaty.
I will not read the full text of that article, Mr. President, but let me just quote from Ambassador Nazarkin a couple of statements he made:
START II represents a real opportunity to lower the nuclear danger that plagued our sense of security during the cold war. Once the agreement is ratified and enters into force American and Russian strategic nuclear forces are to be reduced by about 70 percent from their cold war peaks. It is certain that further delay on the American side will be used in Russia as an argument to defer ratification.
Now Ambassador Nazarkin headed the Soviet delegation to the conference on disarmament in 1987 through 1989 and the nuclear and space talks including START from 1989 to 1991 and participated in the preparation of START II. He is the senior adviser to th e Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. President, let me just be a little more precise about how we get the reductions or what reductions are called for in START II. The START II treaty will eliminate, according to this information I have here--he cited a figure of 5,000. This informati on is that it will eliminate around 4,000 strategic nuclear weapons from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union. This includes the centerpiece of the Russian arsenal which is the SS-18. Any intercontinental ballistic missile which carries more tha n a single warhead will be eliminated under the treaty.
The following is a list of delivery systems and their payloads, which are expected to be destroyed under the treaty. Let me go through this list very briefly so people understand what we are discussing here.
The SS-18. I think those who have followed defense issues and our arms competition with Russia over the last several decades know the importance of the SS-18 as part of the threat that we face. This treaty would eliminate 188 launchers and 1,880 warhea ds of that type.
The SS-19. This treaty would eliminate 170 launchers and 1,020 warheads of that type.
The SS-24, 46 launchers, 460 warheads.
SLBM's, sea-launched ballistic missiles . We would see 600 of those eliminated.
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles . As I understand it, the limit there is 1,750 submarine-launched ballistic missiles . The current Russian arsenal is estimated at about 2,350.
So, it is time, in my view, that we proceed to ratify this treaty. It is time, certainly, that we at least get a chance to vote on it. Some of my colleagues here, who are not on the floor at this moment, have spoken out recently in favor of action on S TART II. Let me just quote some of them, because I have been quoting a great many others who are not here in the Senate. Let me just quote some of those who are here and indicate my agreement with their statements.
Senator Lugar, on October 31 of this year, talked about both the Chemical Weapons Convention and START II.
Senator Nunn, on October 31, said, `We must also make maximum use of arms control agreements such as START II and the international treaties and conventions such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, and t he Chemical Weapons Convention.'
Mr. President, I should clarify, for anybody who is interested, that I am not here insisting that we get a time certain to vote on the Chemical Weapons Convention. I do believe it would be advisable for us to move quickly to consider that, but there are s ome questions that have been raised. I understand the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee wishes to have additional hearings and explore those questions, and I certainly wish to defer to his judgment on that and do not, at this time, believe it is essential that the Senate try to get to this issue. My concern on START II is that the hearings have concluded. They concluded 7 months ago and we still have not been able to get the issue before the Senate for a vote.
On October 31 of this year, Senator Sarbanes made the following statement. He said, referring to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee:
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The chairman is refusing to take action on a number of other very important matters before the committee, a number of very significant treaties. We have completed hearings on the START II treaty. Agreement has been reached on all the substantive issues related to that treaty. No business meeting has been scheduled to consider it.
Senator Feinstein spoke on the 1st of November this last month and said:
The START II treaty, signed by the Bush administration and not yet ratified by the Congress, is the farthest reaching arms reduction treaty ever signed in the history of this Nation. I know of no significant opposition to the ratification of the START II treaty. Nonetheless, the committee is unable to begin consideration of it. This is wrong.
There is a group that calls themselves the U.S. START II Committee. They have sent a letter, dated November 13, to all Senators. Let me just read that letter into the Record in case some Senators have not had a chance to see that. It s ays:
Dear Senator: The United States Senate is about to adjourn without addressing the single most important issue of international affairs. Worse, a lost opportunity now may mean that the chance for nuclear arms control could be postponed for a decade.
The Senate needs to ratify START II. This is why what we believe to be a distinguished group of citizens, experts in arms control, with both military and foreign policy experience, has joined together to urge Senate action yet this fall.
We all know the history of START II and what it does: the single most dramatic reduction in the nuclear arsenals of both the United States and the Russian Federation. Another significant step back from the history of the relations between the two count ries for the last forty-five years.
Equally important, potentially, the treaty serves as an example to other countries seeking to acquire this nuclear capability that there is an alternative to ownership of weapons of mass destruction: disarmament.
Our conversations with Russian leaders have made it plain that if we fail to ratify this year, there is a significant reduction in the likelihood that Russia will act on this treaty next year. Years of work that have spanned both Republican and Democra tic Administrations, years of a genuinely bi-partisan effort, will be lost.
The last speech that then Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave to the House of Commons foresaw this day. The Prime Minister, confronting a cold and hostile Soviet Union, with both worlds then confronting each other with missiles and bombs, sta ted that `someday we will be allowed to emerge from the terrible era in which we are required to reside.'
We urge the Senate and you, individually, to take up START II before adjournment and ratify the treaty.
Sincerely,
U.S. Committee for START II
DAVE NAGLE,
Chair, Freedom Support Coalition.
LINDSAY MATTISON,
Director, International Center
Mr. President, one of the things we always look at here in the Congress, perhaps too much in my view, is to see what the public reaction is. So we do have some indication of what the public thinks about the whole notion of START II. Mr. President, 68.4 percent of the public that was polled by a national security news service poll of over 1,000 Americans, which was conducted between April 21 and 25 of this year--68 percent thought that the U.S. Senate should ratify START II, 20.1 percent opposed ratific ation, another 11 percent expressed no opinion.
A similar question that was asked in that same poll showed that 82.3 percent of Americans believe that the United States and Russia should agree to negotiate deep reductions in their nuclear weapons. Only 11 percent opposed doing so, while 6 percent expre ssed no opinion on that subject.
So this is not just a group of academics who think we should get on with the business of reducing the nuclear arsenal in Russia as well as here. I would say, the START II treaty is very well designed to bring about major reductions on the Russian side. This is not a unilateral disarmament kind of treaty. There is nobody, Republican or Democrat, that I have heard, who argues that this treaty is unbalanced in that regard. This is a treaty that is very much in our interest and very much in the Soviet inte rest as well.
Mr. President, let me also just refer to some of the editorials that have been written on this subject around the country in recent weeks. There is an editorial in the Friday, November 3, edition of the Boston Globe. It is entitled `Two Treaties Held H ostage.' I will just read portions of that for Members.
During their Presidential terms, Ronald Reagan and George Bush had the good sense to negotiate two arms control treaties crucial to U.S. national security--the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START II, and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Bush and Bor is Yeltsin signed the treaty on chemical weapons January 3, and Bush submitted it to the Senate as one of his final acts of statesmanship. It is sad to say that ratification of these two badly needed treaties is being sabotaged by Republican Senators Jess e Helms of North Carolina and Bob Dole of Kansas. Their deliberate thwarting of the ratification process is perverse, not merely because they are undoing the wise work of Republican Commanders in Chief but because their motives seem to be petty and person al and political.
That is a statement in the editorial, Mr. President, which I do not necessarily subscribe to. But I do think it gives the flavor for the editorial comment which is out there.
The Washington Post wrote on the 16th of November `Poison Gas and Sen. Helms' is the name of their editorial. It goes on with:
Nearly three years ago, under President Bush, the United States signed a treaty banning chemical weapons, the most powerful comprehensive arms control agreement ever negotiated. It is making no progress toward ratification by this country because the c hairman of the Foreign Relations Committee does not like it. Although it was written under American and Republican leadership, there is now a real chance that it could go into operation without American participation.
They are talking about the Chemical Weapons Convention in that case.
There is a New York Times editorial dated the 8th of November entitled `Jesse Helms' Hostages.'
It says:
Because of the obstinacy of Senator Helms of North Carolina, the United States does not have an Ambassador in Beijing at this time.
That is an issue I want to address in a few minutes.
* * * the United States does not have an Ambassador in Beijing at this time and relations with China have reached their most delicate and dangerous point in more than 20 years.
I will at this point go ahead and talk some about the importance of getting these ambassadors appointed, Mr. President.
I had the good fortune to travel to China, to Korea, and to Japan earlier this year. I did so on a trip under the auspices of the Armed Services Committee, and I did so at a time when relations between the United States and China were clearly strained. Some of that strain remains in that relationship, but some of it, hopefully, has been reduced. But one thing I was struck with on the trip to Beijing and to China was that this Nation, which is, of course, the most populous Nation in the world, has a ver y fast growing economy, has a tremendous influence over everything that happens in the Far East and, of course, much that happens in other parts of the world as well. We have no Ambassador. When you go to our Embassy there, the personnel there do their be st to accommodate your needs, to keep the doors open, and to keep business going as usual. But the simple fact is we have no spokesman there representing our administration, our Government, our country, our President. That is a detriment to us. It has bee n a detriment to us for several months now.
I think it is particularly unfortunate myself--this is just a personal view of mine--that we are not going ahead and voting on the ambassadorship for China, because one of our former colleagues was nominated by the President to serve in that capacity. He has had hearings. I believe he has strong bipartisan support for serving in that position, as he should have because he had a very distinguished career here in the Senate. But I can tell you that the issues that we tried to address there could much better be addressed if we had a Presidential appointee representing us in our Embassy in Beijing. This is too important a job and too important a position for us to just leave vacant month after month, week after week, on the assumption that it does not really matter. It needs to matter to us. It matters very much, I believe, to the executive branch of our Government. I believe it matters a great deal to the Government officials that might be in Beijing.
I urged them to return their Ambassador. Relations in August when I was in Beijing were strained to such an extent that the Chinese Government had withdrawn their American Ambassador, asked their Ambassador to come back to China for a period of time. M y urging to the Foreign Minister and to other Chinese officials I spoke to was that they return their Ambassador to Washington and that they signal to our Government as quickly as possible that they would like us to move ahead with the appointment and the confirmation of Jim Sasser as our Government's representative and Ambassador in Beijing.
I would say to their credit--I do not know; I am sure they had urgings from a great many other sources and a great many other individuals--but to their credit, in response to whatever set of circumstances, they went ahead and did exactly what I was urg ing them to do and what I am sure others were urging them to do; that is, they returned their Ambassador to Washington in order to improve the lines of communication, and they signaled to our administration that they would like the administration to go ah ead and appoint Senator Sasser to this important position.
The administration, of course, followed through quickly indicating that Senator Sasser was their nominee. The hearings were held. We now wait. We now wait for some additional action presumably.
According to the chart which I have here, Mr. President, the nomination was sent to the Senate on the 25th of September. The reason I think it is important we raise this issue this morning is that the Congress is approaching the end of its actions in t he first session of the 104th Congress. When we do adjourn that first session of the 104th Congress, it will be clearly several weeks before we begin again in the new year to transact business here in the Senate. If we do not get this matter dealt with no w, if we do not get a ratification of not only Senator Sasser as the nominee to serve in China, but if we do not get a ratification of each of these, if we do not go ahead and approve the nominations for each of these important countries, it will clearly be next spring before any action will be taken by the Senate.
I think that is in derogation of our duties, Mr. President. I think we have a duty by virtue of our position as Senators to go ahead and pass judgment on the nominees that the President sends forward. If people want to vote no, I have no problem with t hat. Everyone gets elected to vote his or her conscience. If people want to come on the Senate floor and vote against any of these nominees, I think they should clearly do that. My only point is we need to have an opportunity to express the will of the Se nate and get on with it. If these nominees are acceptable to a majority of Senators, we should approve them. If these nominees are not acceptable to a majority of Senators, we should disapprove them and allow the administration to appoint an alternative t o serve in these important positions.
Let me talk a little about this trip to Asia which I did take earlier this year and which I felt was a very instructive and informative trip. We had three major themes that we were trying to learn about. One was regional security issues. There has been great concern raised about nuclear tests, about possible missile technology exports from China, about concerns about China's defense expenditures and weapons modernization and potential threats to other countries in that region.
There were this summer live ammo military tests in the Taiwan Straits. There have been some aggressive behavior in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
Those were all the very real national security issues, regional security issues that we wanted to explore, and we did have a chance to do that with several governmental officials.
We also wanted to explore trade because we have an enormous problem in our trade relations with China. Anyone who has not paid attention to our trade relations with China cannot be adequately informed about our trade situation today in the world.
In 1994, the United States, according to our Government's figures, had a trade deficit with China of $29 billion. The anticipated trade deficit for this year, 1995, is $36 billion, and the expectation is that in 1996, the trade deficit could rise to as high as $50 billion.
So what we see is that China is fast replacing Japan as the No. 1 trade problem that the United States has. We had a $60 billion trade deficit last year with Japan. Everyone recognizes that that is a serious problem. We have had various initiatives to try to deal with it. Unfortunately, in the case of China, we are just now beginning to awake to the fact that trade is a serious problem. So that was another issue we wanted to look at and did get a chance to look at very seriously.
Technology development, that is another area where the policies of the Chinese Government I think are ones that we need to be aware of and concerned about. Clearly, their Government policy is to target particular technologies and develop those technolo gies, to trade market access for technology transfer. That is, if a United States company wants access to the Chinese market, they are required to give up technology, their rights to technology to get that access.
Obviously, electro property rights are another major part of the technology development issue.
But let me just talk a little more about the trade problem, Mr. President, because I think that perhaps highlights it as much as anything.
I have a good friend who is a co-owner of a company in my home State which produces wallets, leather wallets, and they employ about 250 people in the southern and west mesa side of Albuquerque to make these wallets. These jobs are decent paying jobs. T hey are primarily jobs held by women and many of the employees, many of the employees of this company are single women who are trying to raise families at the same time that they hold these jobs.
I received a press clipping about 2 or 3 weeks ago indicating that that plant in Albuquerque employing those 250 people was about to close, that they had announced they would close the plant and those 250 people, primarily women, who work in that plant --I have visited the plant several times--would be out of work, those jobs would be gone.
So I called my friend and said, what is the problem? Why are we having to close the plant in Albuquerque and put 250 women out of work? The answer was, we are no longer cost competitive, or part of the answer at least was that we are no longer cost com petitive with China. In China, they will do the work much cheaper. There is no limitation on their ability to import into this country the finished products, and from just looking at the bottom line there are great incentives provided by the Chinese Gover nment for us to locate more and more manufacturing there, and those manufacturing jobs there are displacing United States manufacturing jobs.
That is an old story. That is a story that many people have told in one form or another around this Senate ever since I have been here over the last decade or so.
We have to find some solutions to that. Part of the solution to that is to get serious about our trade deficit with China. We need to recognize that this deficit cannot be allowed to grow from $29 to $36 to $50 billion year after year after year, indef initely. At the rate of growth that is now involved, we are clearly by the end of this decade going to have a bigger trade deficit with China than we have with Japan. It is not a trade deficit that will go away quickly because they are manufacturing, they are displacing manufacturing that goes on today in this country. They are manufacturing and selling into this country. And we are not able to sell into that country to near the extent we should.
That is a problem that needs to be on the front burner of our U.S. Trade Representative's office, on the front burner of the Department of Commerce. It is to some extent, but I believe very strongly that it would be on the front burner to an even greater extent if we had an Ambassador in Beijing who could make the point that this issue is important to us, who could represent our Government in meetings in that capital, and clearly we do ourselves a disservice by not going ahead and approving that nominatio n.
Mr. President, I have not visited the other countries on this list. I believe it is fair to say I visited none of the other countries on this list. But there are some very important trading partners and very important allies that are also represented. Let me just point out some of those.
In Malaysia, we have a nominee there whose nomination was sent to the Senate on June 13. I know of no objection that has been raised to that nomination. Here it is nearly December 13, and yet no action. We have not been given a chance to vote. If there is an objection, we should hear it; we should debate it; and we should vote our conscience one way or another. I have not heard of any.
In Cambodia, we have a nominee there which was sent to the Senate for consideration again on June 13. Again, I know of no reason why that nominee is not an acceptable nominee. Everything I have heard would indicate to me that he is an acceptable nomine e, but we have not been given a chance to vote.
In the case of Thailand, again on June 21, a nominee was sent to us for the Ambassador to Thailand. I know of no objection that has been raised to that nominee being appointed, but we are not doing our duty and voting on the issue.
In the case of Indonesia, there I do want to just make a very short statement about our nominee. The President's nominee is Stapleton Roy, who I am sure is well known to many Members of this Senate. He was formerly the Ambassador representing our count ry in Beijing. He did a superb job. He is eminently respected by everybody in diplomatic circles, and I think he is a superb appointment for that position.
Again, his nomination was sent up on June 28. No action. I have heard of no complaints about his appropriateness for the position. In fact, everything I have heard is praiseworthy. I had the good fortune to meet with Stapleton Roy before we took our tr ip to China. I say to colleagues, he was extremely helpful in pointing out issues that we needed to explore with Chinese officials because of his great knowledge of United States-China policy and his great experience in that regard.
In the case of Pakistan, Pakistan is a very important country in the world today. We have a great many sensitive issues that we are dealing with. We have votes here on the Senate floor. In the case when the defense bill was on the floor, I remember sev eral votes about our policy toward Pakistan. I think everyone recognizes the importance of having an ambassador representing this Government in Pakistan.
Oman. That is another very important ally of this country in the Persian Gulf area. And clearly we need to have an ambassador there. That ambassadorial nomination, again, was sent on June 28.
Lebanon. Our country has a proud and longstanding relationship with Lebanon. Many of the outstanding people in my State, leaders in the business community, leaders in all the important communities in my State have great pride in their Lebanese heritage . We should clearly have an ambassador to Lebanon. I have heard nobody suggest that this was not the proper ambassador.
I could go on down the list. Many of these countries are in Africa. Again, I have not visited them, but I believe that it is important for us to have ambassadors there. South Africa is a clear example. It is important enough that our Vice President is there this week on a trip. I have had the good fortune, as I know many Senators have, of hearing Nelson Mandela speak to joint meetings of the Congress. I believe I have heard him now twice on trips that he has taken to this country. That relationship bet ween the United States and South Africa is a very important relationship during these important years as that nation moves out of and renounces apartheid, moves on to an open society. Clearly we need to have someone there representing U.S. interests.
Mr. President, there are many other issues that I could go into, and I am glad to as the day proceeds, because I think these are important issues that we need to have before us. But at this point I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
[Page: S18048]
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