The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“NO NEW WAVE OF ISOLATIONISM” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S13345-S13348 on Oct. 28, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NO NEW WAVE OF ISOLATIONISM
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I am going to speak in a moment on the trade bill, but first I want to repudiate, or at least take issue with, some of the comments that have been made by the President and those of his National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, when he made comments about the Senate becoming the new isolationists.
I looked at his speech he made before the Council on Foreign Relations just a couple of days ago. He blasted the Senate, blasted Republicans, or that was the implication. I will quote:
It's tempting to say the isolationist right in Congress has no foreign policy, that it is driven only by partisanship. But that understates it. I believe there is a coherence to its convictions, a vision of America's role in the world. Let me tell you what I think they are in simple terms; First: any treaty others embrace, we won't join. The new isolationists are convinced that treaties--pretty much all treaties--are a threat to our sovereignty and continued superiority.
I could go on, but I am very offended by that statement. I am very offended the National Security Adviser of this President would make such a statement about Members of this Senate. He is factually incorrect. He is making statements that send bad signals throughout the world that are unfounded, and he should be ashamed, and he should apologize for this speech he made before the Council on Foreign Relations.
He implies this new isolationism is against all treaties, and he is implying maybe Republicans don't like treaties. Let me just take issue with that.
In 1988, we passed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. It passed by an overwhelming margin. We passed the START treaty, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START I in 1992, START II in 1996, by overwhelming majorities.
We worked and had a bipartisan arms control group that monitored arms control. I might mention, that started under President Reagan and President Bush. It has been discontinued, to my knowledge, under President Clinton, and maybe that is to his loss. One of the reasons that group was put together was that another arms control treaty, the SALT II treaty, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty proposed by President Carter, was defeated.
I am amazed, when people said the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was the first treaty defeated in the Senate, they don't count SALT II. SALT II was defeated. We didn't have an up-or-down vote, but President Carter had the treaty withdrawn. He could count votes and he didn't have 67 votes. It was not going to be ratified, so he withdrew the treaty. And he was correct in doing so. That treaty had fatal flaws.
So subsequent administrations, President Reagan and President Bush, said let's have a bipartisan arms control group in the Senate that will help monitor, discuss, give advice and consent. So we had good dialog on treaties as they evolved, and this Senate was quite successful in ratifying those treaties. I mentioned the fact we ratified INF, START I, START II, Conventional Forces in Europe--we did that in the 1990s--
the Chemical Weapons Convention.
I might mention, I did not support the Chemical Weapons Convention, but it still passed by an overwhelming majority. I have my reasons. I don't think it is verifiable. I think somebody can build chemical weapons in a closet and no one will ever know. But my point is, that happened just a year or so ago.
This Senate also passed NATO expansion. We passed it overwhelmingly.
So, again, for the President's National Security Adviser to say we are isolationist I think is absolutely wrong. To say we oppose all treaties is absolutely wrong.
I might go ahead and mention that if the President submits the Kyoto treaty, the Global Climate Change Protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, it will be defeated. This Senate passed a resolution prior to their signing that treaty with 90-some votes saying we will not ratify something that leaves out major players worldwide, players such as China, Mexico and India, who did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, didn't sign the treaty--that we would not sign it. It has several other fatal flaws. The President went ahead and signed it anyway. If the President submits that treaty for ratification, it will go down in defeat.
Is it our fault the President went ahead and submitted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty? Didn't he read the Constitution? The Constitution says it takes two-thirds to ratify a treaty. He never had two-thirds. He didn't even have a majority. Was that the Republican Members' fault when we had Members of the Senate, day after day, saying
``We want a vote on the treaty''? The President said, ``We want a vote on the treaty.'' We had ranking members, the ranking minority Member of the Senate and several others saying, ``We want to vote on the treaty.'' So we did what we often do around here; we entered into a unanimous consent agreement that could have been objected to by any Senator and scheduled a vote.
Then people wanted to get out of the vote because, oops, we counted and we don't have 67 votes. There were not even 50 votes. All it would have taken was a unanimous consent to defer the vote and that attempt was not made. Senator Lott tried to offer the President an escape route, but he wouldn't take it. The President didn't even call Senator Lott until an hour, maybe 2 hours, before the vote. That is the President's fault.
Let's go back to treaties. Is this Senate willing to ratify and consider treaties?
What about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? That is a treaty we have ratified, but we also know it has not been enforced. We know Russia has been selling nuclear weapons and materials to Iran, and this administration has done almost nil about it. The fact is the last Congress passed legislation to increase penalties for firms that, through Russia, are selling to Iran. The President did not want to sign it. He eventually signed it.
He has been lax in the enforcement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with respect to Iran. The administration has been looking the other way with China, who has been selling arms, missiles, and equipment to Pakistan. China signed that treaty. Russia signed the treaty. Iraq signed the treaty. And the administration turns its back on Iraq. North Korea signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and they have not complied with it. They have not come close to complying. As a matter of fact, we have uncovered evidence that they are pretty active in their nuclear program.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says there will be onsite visits. North Korea said: No, there will be no onsite visits; we are turning off the cameras. The administration said: We are going to reward your noncompliance and build you a couple of nuclear powerplants and we will give you millions of dollars of oil every year if you promise not to do this anymore.
What was North Korea's response? Thank you very much; we will take your money, your powerplants and, incidentally, we will lob missiles over South Korea, over Japan, and maybe hit the west coast of the United States, certainly Alaska.
The administration has rewarded noncompliance of the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty by North Korea. They have done the same thing with Iraq. My colleagues might remember we had a war. We had a war in Iraq in 1991--actually, in 1990, we had a significant buildup. In 1991, we had a war.
At the conclusion of that war, we said: Before we are going to allow Iraq to sell oil, we are going to have international arms control inspectors to make sure they are not building nuclear weapons and that they were not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty--to make sure they are not building chemical weapons, not building biological weapons; so we are going to have an arms control group monitor Iraq to make sure they are not building weapons of mass destruction. Unless they complied with that, we were not going to let them sell oil. That was in 1991. That was after we won the war with Iraq.
Guess what has happened since then. Since this President has been elected, gradually over time, we have allowed Iraq to sell more oil year by year. We have zero inspectors in Iraq today. Zero. So they are able to build their nuclear weapons, chemicals weapons, and biological weapons. We do not have anybody on the ground. We may have satellites flying around, but they cannot pick that up. They can be built in small rooms.
This administration's record on proliferation is poor. Their record on enforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is pathetic. Again, to have this administration lecturing Members of the Senate and saying we are new isolationists is totally unfounded.
They rewarded Iraq for their noncompliance. They did not comply with the regime imposed on them by the United States and, frankly, the entire world--the United Nations. They did not comply with it.
What did we do? We rewarded them and said: You can sell all the oil you want. And the administration ratified that by a unanimous vote in the Security Council 3 weeks ago which said to Iraq: You can sell all the oil you want and, incidentally, you do not have to have any arms control inspectors whatsoever in Iraq; none, zero.
Great. That is a great policy.
Speaking of nonproliferation, the whole idea of nonproliferation is we do not want a lot of nuclear weapons primarily, but we also do not want chemical and biological weapons spreading around the world. We do not want them expanding.
Maybe the administration better give us some answers, including the Vice President of the United States, when we have evidence turned in by the intelligence agencies--actually, it was done by a Chinese agent--
that shows us they have copied or they have multitudes of information on our nuclear weapons, including our missile designs, our latest warheads, and a whole variety of things. We found out about that.
When did the President find out about it? His National Security Adviser found out about it in the fall of 1995. Sandy Berger, who is Assistant National Security Adviser, at least was briefed about it by the Department of Energy in April of 1996. According to Mr. Berger's statement, he did not brief the President until July of 1997. Mr. Berger, why didn't you brief the President?
Somehow, I do not believe that. He should resign. If the National Security Adviser finds out that China has access to our latest technology or designs on nuclear weapons in April of 1996 and does not brief the President until July of 1997, he should be replaced. These are weapons that threaten the security of the United States. These are weapons that threaten the security of the world. And he did not find time to brief the President of the United States? I do not believe that.
When did the President find out they had stolen these weapons or they have the designs for these weapons? What is our National Security Adviser there for? To make partisan speeches in New York calling Republicans new isolationists? He does not find time to brief the President, but he has time to sit in on campaign meetings throughout the year and at the same time we have Chinese arms merchants coming to the White House writing big checks? This thing smells. It is despicable. Yet he has time to make partisan speeches that are totally, completely unfounded.
I have gone over a few treaties, and I have mentioned several the Senate has ratified when Republicans have been in control and when the Democrats have been in control. We had bipartisan ratification for every treaty I mentioned.
I mentioned the Kyoto treaty earlier. It has bipartisan opposition, and if the President submits it, it will not be ratified.
I mentioned the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty about which the President is so upset. It was not ratified because it is a treaty in perpetuity. It is a treaty that says 100 years from now or 40 years from now, no matter what China does, no matter what Russia does or what Iraq does or any other country, if we find out they have an aggressive nuclear program, we still cannot test because we will abide by the treaty in spite of the fact that other countries may not.
The Senate, by a majority vote, said it is not going to ratify a treaty that has zero test limits. Every President in the past has said if we have a treaty, it should be temporary, a moratorium, and not a permanent ban; it should allow for some small amount of testing. Frankly, we think some countries which have signed it are already cheating, but we cannot detect it because it is not verifiable.
Many think this is not a treaty on which we should bind the United States for the next 40 years. Mr. President, you have to submit a better treaty. You have to consult with Congress. You have to get some advice and consent. You cannot rail and make partisan statements that you want a vote and you get a vote, but then you say: Wait, I didn't know. I thought we were guaranteed to win. That is not in the Constitution. Congress fulfilled its constitutional duty. Maybe the President should read the Constitution. It takes two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty. It is not our fault he did not have the votes. He did not even come close to having the votes.
What about this new military isolationism about which Mr. Berger is talking, implying the Republicans do not want to get involved in a foreign war? Maybe he is alluding to this Senator.
In January of 1991, we voted in the Senate whether to authorize the use of military power in Iraq. And we did. We passed it by a vote of 52 to 47. We had some bipartisan support. Vice President Gore supported that resolution.
Most Democrats opposed it, including the majority leader, including some very respected Senators whom I know and think the world of: Senator Nunn, Senator Boren, for example. They were saying let's give sanctions a little more of a chance before we initiate the war. I respected that. I didn't agree with it, but I respected it. I did not question them or call them isolationists. I did not question their patriotism. But yet when some of us had some reservations or opposition to the bombing campaign in Kosovo, we are now called isolationists. I disagree with that.
In the Rambouillet accords, the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, basically said: Mr. Milosevic, you need to sign this treaty we have put together or we're going to bomb you. I have made several speeches on the floor that have those transcripts. Those were statements that she made: We're going to bomb if you don't sign.
I was opposed to that. I stated at the time I thought it might make matters worse. And, frankly, it did.
If you are concerned about the humanitarian loss, things were a lot worse after the bombing was initiated. After we pulled out the observers, the monitors, things really got bad. Thousands of people lost their lives. Is it unpatriotic to question that action? Does it make you an isolationist because you don't think we have used all the diplomatic tools at our disposal before we start trying to bomb somebody into submission?
This administration has bombed four countries in the last 13 months. They have bombed in Serbia; they have bombed in Sudan; they bombed in Afghanistan; they bombed in Iraq--most all of which have not been effective. In Serbia, particularly Kosovo, for a long time it made matters a much worse.
I don't question people's integrity or their patriotism or whether they are new isolationists. I question that policy. The same thing in Bosnia. I thought we should have given the Bosnians a chance to defend themselves. This administration did not. There was a difference of opinion. I met with Bosnian leaders who came in and said: We don't want your troops to be stationed in Bosnia. We want to have arms so we can defend ourselves. I happen to agree with that policy and also said: If we go this route, we are going to be stuck in Bosnia forever. We are. I visited the camps in Bosnia. We are going to have U.S. soldiers there for a long time. Now we are going to have United States soldiers occupying Kosovo, probably for decades, at a cost of billions of dollars.
So my point is, this administration seems quick to bomb, and if you question their rhetoric or if you question the issue, well, maybe you are a new isolationist. I just disagree with that.
I don't like name calling and there seems to be a lot of it lately. I am personally offended. Somebody made the implication that, well, somebody was a racist because we didn't confirm a judicial nomination. I am very offended by that comment. I am upset about that comment and the implication from the President and from a couple Members of this body. That does not add to the debate. That is not right. It is inaccurate.
In that particular case, the judge was opposed by the National Sheriffs Organization and opposed by the State chief of police. For that reason, I voted no. It did not have anything to do with his race.
I just think name calling--whether you are calling somebody a new isolationist or whether you are saying somebody has racial motives--is very offensive.
Let me just touch on a couple other issues. Mr. Berger alludes to the fact that we are isolationists. We have a trade bill before the Senate today, the African trade bill. We are trying to pass that. We are trying to include the Caribbean Basin Initiative. We are trying to pass that as well.
There are some Members on the Democrat side who are opposing that. They have a right to do it. My guess is, an overwhelming majority of the Senate will vote to pass this. And I do not question the integrity of one of my colleagues who is opposing it. He has the right to do that. They are entitled to their opinion. They are entitled to offer their amendments. They are entitled to have discussion and debate on the issue.
But if you look at trade over the last 10 or 15 years, this Congress passed NAFTA by a bipartisan vote. We passed GATT. NAFTA, we passed in 1993; GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in 1994.
This Senate is more than willing to pass fast track. The President did not call for fast track to be reauthorized because he was running for reelection in 1996. Some of the leaders of organized labor did not want it, so he didn't call for it to be done in 1996. He waited until after his reelection and then he sent it to us.
He was the first President, going all the way back to President Ford, I believe, who didn't have fast-track authority. After he was reelected, he said: Hey, Congress, pass this. The Senate wanted to pass it, but the House couldn't. A lot of House Democrats said: You didn't want to take a tough vote before the election, so we do not need to do it now either. He could hardly get any votes from Democrats in the House to pass fast track. So he is the first President in decades who has not had that authority. It is not the Republicans' fault. That is not new isolationism.
Is the President catering to protectionist forces within his own party and within the organized labor agenda? He could not get it through the House; but it was not the House Republicans, it was the House Democrats that presented the problem. And those are just the facts.
Another issue at hand is the World Trade Organization. There is going to be a meeting of the WTO in Seattle. Most Republicans support the idea of reducing trade barriers throughout the world. There are negotiations with the People's Republic of China in the WTO. They were so close, and the President would not say yes. A Chinese delegate came to the United States and made a lot of trade concessions. Frankly, it was a pretty good deal. My compliments to the President's Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky, who negotiated a good deal. And then the President would not say yes.
Why? Because maybe a few people in organized labor did not want him to say yes. Regardless, he did not say yes. So now he has called, I guess, the Chinese Premier and said: Well, we really want to do WTO. He had them here a few months ago, and he said no. Whose fault is that? Who is the new isolationist? Most of us realize we need to develop and encourage growing markets with China.
So I mention a few of those things to just repudiate, in the strongest words I possibly can, Sandy Berger's comments talking about the new isolationist fever that is running through Congress. Maybe there are some people running for President who have that philosophy. They don't represent the Republican Party. As a matter of fact, the primary person espousing that belief left the Republican Party.
In the Senate, I serve on the Finance Committee with Senator Roth and Senator Moynihan, and others on that committee, who have jurisdiction over trade issues, who have jurisdiction over tax issues. There is not an isolationist trend coming out of that committee or from the Senate.
If the President wants to get treaties ratified, he needs to consult with the Senate. He could have found out from the Senate he had some flaws in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and did not have the votes. He could have found that out before asking for the vote and saved himself some embarrassment. Hopefully, he will come to that realization with the Kyoto Treaty.
We had a resolution in the Senate with, I believe, 94 votes that said Kyoto was fatally flawed, don't bring it to the Senate in this form or it will not be ratified. So maybe he is taking that as a hint he doesn't have the necessary 67 votes.
I hope the President and his National Security Adviser will move away from this rhetoric of ``new isolationism'' because, frankly, they are fomenting something that is not there. It is very much to the disadvantage of our country, our reputation worldwide, and it does not do them service because it is not true.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). The Senator from South Carolina.
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