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.
“UNITED STATES ENRICHMENT CORPORATION PRIVATIZATION ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Senate section on pages S6165-S6168 on May 4, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
UNITED STATES ENRICHMENT CORPORATION PRIVATIZATION ACT
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to speak about a bill I introduced yesterday and I did not get a chance to speak on it. It has been introduced and has been referred. It is now known as S. 755. It has a very uninteresting caption and name: United States Enrichment Corporation Privatization Act.
Actually, while that does not sound like much, we hear a lot these days about Russia, Iran, and Russian scientists having to find some way to earn a living. We hear a lot about the fact that Russia has a very significant amount of enriched uranium and that we have agreed, in a sense, to buy it.
Now we find ourselves kind of in a quagmire. Our own trade laws do not let us buy and resell the material because that is dumping. So we have a $4 billion commercial transaction going and the Russians are saying, ``Fine, we made a deal, let's do it.''
And so we have an entity here, the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, currently in existence. It is Government owned, and thus it is corporate only in the sense that we call it a corporation. The U.S. Enrichment Corporation, when we sell it--and what we propose here has been cleared by and looked at by a lot of marketplace people--we believe it will generate $1.5 billion for the Treasury of the United States, when we take the existing Government corporation and put it on the market, make it a corporation.
One of the most difficult issues facing this enrichment corporation and the uranium industry as a whole is how uranium from the Soviet Union is allowed to enter the United States market. Currently, the Department of Commerce enforces a suspension agreement that limits the amount of uranium we can import from the Soviet Union. The suspension agreement enforces U.S. trade laws. Obviously, a straight purchase and resale into the U.S. market would result in dumping. So it will not work.
In 1993, Russia and the United States signed an agreement under which the United States would purchase up to $4 billion worth of natural uranium derived from highly enriched uranium from Soviet nuclear weapons. However, as I indicated, the U.S. trade law prevents that natural uranium from being sold in the United States. The enrichment corporation is responsible, nonetheless, for implementing the Russian agreement. As a result, the $4 billion obligation falls squarely on the enrichment corporation, the one we now have, the Government corporation, because the enrichment corporation is prevented from selling the natural uranium into the U.S. market, which would be illegal since the material is below market price. As a result, the United States Enrichment Corporation cannot pay the Russians. In turn, the Russians argue that they are being shortchanged $4 billion. I do not think one can blame them for that. We have an agreement. But our enrichment corporation cannot buy it, because if they buy it, they cannot use it.
So this legislation solves that problem by enabling the creation of a futures market for natural uranium derived from the Russian agreement. The material could only enter the U.S. market in a controlled manner starting in 2002. Thus, it is not inconsistent with our trade laws.
So this proposal preserves the United States trade commitment, protects the United States uranium industry from unfair dumping, and encourages Russia's important work of dismantling nuclear weapons to continue. This proposal enables the Russians to be able to pay the people that are doing the dismantlement work that with some of the fruits of the disarmament, namely the revenue from the natural uranium. The money would provide the cash flow necessary to keep the Russian minatom employees working to dismantle the Russian nuclear capability and, in turn, the Russians might not be so adamant about selling reactors to Iran for a billion dollars.
So in a very real way, the notion of privatization, which is given sort of a rebirth because of the last election, finds itself settling in on this situation. I happen to have the privilege of chairing the Subcommittee on Energy Research and Development that has this as one of its responsibilities. So the idea of privatizing it fell on our subcommittee, and with the work of some experts and some really exciting ideas encapsulated in this bill, we may indeed retain the enrichment corporation, that is privately owned, privately run, that can indeed make money, and we will succesfully implement the Russian agreement using the futures approach. I do not think we have seen a nicer fit and match than this. In the meantime, we pick up $1.5 billion for the U.S. Treasury.
Now, obviously, there will be a lot of questions about this, and we are understanding of that. We hope that within a month, as soon as we get the budget behind us a little bit here, we can have some hearings on this and get it to the floor this year. We think it is an exciting idea of privatization which accomplishes so many good things at one time that we want to move full speed ahead and see if we cannot get it done. I have good cosponsors. I invite other Senators to take a look. Mr. Ford is a cosponsor. He is ranking member of the subcommittee. We have Senators Johnston, Campbell, Thomas, and Simpson.
I am sure we will have others as soon as they understand it. I look for some of those who work in foreign relations and are worried about Iran and the growing relationships of a monetary nature between Iran and Russia, I look to them to analyze this, and perhaps they can see fit to join us.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I come to the floor--and I listened with great interest earlier to the majority leader, the distinguished Senator from Kansas, talking about a letter that he and the Speaker of the House have written to the President asking for some bipartisan cooperation having to do with Medicare.
Mr. President, for 12 years when we had a Republican President, any time anyone would say, gee, how come Ronald Reagan does not submit a balanced budget, or George Bush does not, the standard response that would come is--mostly, I must say, from Republicans in defense of their Republican President--they would say, ``Gee, the President does not spend any money, Congress spends the money.'' I must say, the Republican defense is accurate. Congress does spend the money. For us to say, gee, the President has the responsibility for spending the money is inaccurate. It is the Congress of the United States of America that passes laws that determine how much money we are going to collect and in what manner we are going to collect it from the American people and how we are going to allocate that money across a whole range of programs.
In fact, the Budget Enforcement Act requires the Congress to produce a budget resolution by the 15th of April, which is several weeks past.
Mr. President, if the majority leader wants to get a bipartisan movement to do something about deficit reduction, there are a number of us on this side of the aisle who are all too willing to do exactly that. It seems to me that is what we need. If we are going to get movement, it ought to be movement inside of the U.S. Congress. There is a ferocious debate. There are ideological differences. The biggest task that faces us is that deficit reduction is tough. The problem with Medicare is not caused by mean and nasty Republicans or mean and liberal Democrats; it is caused by demographics and technology.
The good news is that we are living longer. The bad news is that it is getting more and more expensive for us to pay for the health care for those where we have made a commitment. If you think it is bad over the next 4, 5 years, you ought to see what the entitlement commission says this looks like when my generation begins to retire. This thing goes clear off the charts after the
[[Page S6166]] year 2008. So the insolvency of the year 2002 forecast by the trustees is only the tip of the iceberg, Mr. President.
Deficit reduction is difficult precisely because it forces us to make tough choices. This Congress needs to get about the business of doing that. I was disappointed when the President's budget did not address the issue of entitlements. Our Presidential commission worked for an entire year. We made recommendations to the President to try to do something. But I think the President made a calculated judgment. He has to say, I have a Republican Congress and I had a 1993 deficit reduction act and did not get a single Republican to vote for it. In fact, part of the Contract With America promises to take the increase in taxes on a small number of Social Security beneficiaries, about 15 percent, reduce that tax which reduces the flow in Medicare and
makes the problem worse. For that and other reasons, perhaps the President decided not to address the issue of entitlements. We know what we need to do in this Congress.
I am very much concerned that this thing is going to degenerate into merely an attempt by Republicans to say, ``No, we are right and the Democrats are wrong,'' or the Democrats saying, ``No, we are right and the Republicans are wrong.''
For Members to do that for very much longer, Mr. President, maybe we can survive for a week or two or three with partisan blasts back and forth across the bow, but at some point we have a lot of educating, a lot of explaining, and a lot of leading to do.
I spoke last week to the National Press Club and unfortunately the answers that I gave to some questions afterwards got most of the attention. But at the heart of my message is that in deficit reduction, there is not a free lunch. Deficit reduction is not something that we are doing just to seek political advantage or curry favor with the voters, because the voters want deficit reduction. Deficit reduction has a positive effect upon our economy because it increases savings.
The majority leader indicated we do not need to do anything with Social Security. With great respect, I disagree. I believe Social Security also needs to be reformed, because unlike the common perception of Social Security, Social Security itself is not a savings program.
I inform anyone who might be listening to this right now that Social Security is a commitment on the part of those generations that are in the work force to allow themselves to be taxed at a fixed percentage of their wages, the money going to those generations that are out of the work force, who are retired.
The program started off as a 1-percent tax on wages. The retirement age was 6 years after normal life expectancy when the program started. Today, it is 12 percent of our wages. And 12 percent of our wages, promised to pay beginning in the year 65, which is 11 years this side of normal life expectancy.
It is a demographic problem, Mr. President. I appreciate the majority leader saying we do not need to address it because we have enough money coming in, but do not tell that to a 20-year-old, a 30-year-old, or a 40-year-old.
We had Director Rivlin before the Treasury Postal Subcommittee on Appropriations this afternoon, and I asked her about the deletion of intergenerational accounting in last year's budget. She expects the report to come out.
My effective tax rate over the course of my lifetime is about 34 percent--my generation. But the generation right behind, if we do not take action with Social Security and with Medicare relatively quickly, they are looking at an effective tax rates in excess of 80 percent--in excess of 80 percent--in an economic environment where their lives are apt to be more difficult to begin with.
I believe what is needed is for Members of Congress to come and say, OK, we will fire a few shots across the bow here at Democrats, pointing out that Republicans, for 12 years when a Republican President was in the White House, said it was Congress' responsibility. Now that we have a Democrat in the White House they are not looking across the aisle and saying, as Congress we should fix it. They sent a letter to the President and said, ``How come you are not doing something about this?''
I believe it is our responsibility under the Budget Enforcement Act to deal with this budget problem, and it is going to be tough. I note with great alarm a poll--in fact it has been distributed not just to Democrats but to Republicans as well, and may, in fact, have contributed not just to the President's address to his Conference on Aging, but to a remarkable address on the part of the Speaker of the House, going to the seniors coalition. He got several standing ovations, I might point out.
Why would he not? He made it sound like the Medicare solution is easy. ``We will give seniors choices. We will let you keep the savings of 10 percent. If you find waste, fraud and abuse, it will be easy. We do not have it get Medicare all tied up in that nasty old budget deficit debate, we will move it aside, and it is all going to get real easy.''
It is not easy. We either ask Americans to pay more or we give them less, or some combination of the two. Or we turn and honestly say to our kids that their effective tax rates will be higher. It will not be 15 percent of wages. That is what it is today. But if we do not take action in the next couple of years, that tax rate will be 20 percent. Or they will have to look to their parents and cut their benefits enormously. Time is on our side right now, Mr. President, but it is not going to be on our side for very much longer.
I genuinely hope that after we fired our few little political rounds here that the Democrats and the Republicans can, in fact, get together. We are the ones that by law have the responsibility for passing not only authorizing legislation but appropriation legislation and we have to change our laws.
I was very alarmed to read in the newspaper this polling data that shows that 45 percent of the American people would not vote for any representative who voted to reduce the increases in Medicare. Fifteen percent would vote for them, if they did.
I note again in Gerald Seib's piece in the Wall Street Journal, I believe yesterday, saying that a full 48 percent of the American people think that we are not spending enough on seniors, 48 percent.
If we think that is greedy seniors, it is not. Only 34 percent of the people over 65 say we are not spending enough. It is people 18 to 34, by over 50 percent. Less than 5 percent say we spend too much.
That is not what our budget shows, Mr. President, whether it is at the State or Federal level. No one who seriously examines our budget believes that the problem is we are not spending enough on people over the age of 65. That is not the problem we face.
I sincerely hope--I must say it may require me to do more than hope. I may have to raise my voice and do a lot of praying before we can bridge the rhetorical gap that divides the Republicans and Democrats on the Senate floor. I think there is a bipartisan group that is willing to come to the American people and begin by simply saying ``This is the truth,'' not hyperventilate and say things that sound like we are on the side of the angels and the other side is on the side of devil, but just say, ``This is the truth.''
Look at the numbers. We do not fix this thing by getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. We will not fix this thing by sort of tinkering at the edge and say, ``I will give you choice. We will put it off into managed care.'' That is not going to work.
We either accept responsibilities that we have as citizens to say that if we ask for something we will pay for it. And we are not going to ask for any subsidy that we neither need or deserve. That is part of the problem now.
We have an awful lot of people in America, whether corporations or individuals, that do not need subsidies and we are giving them subsidies. They make a good case for it for social or economic reasons, and we shovel the money out and find ourselves when it comes time to taking care of people who need it, we are woefully short of either the resources of trying to do anything.
I am down here right now to offer a constructive engagement to the majority leader saying that this is not the President's problem. This is not his
[[Page S6167]] fault. The President of the United States submits his budget. I was critical of it for leaving entitlements out and not doing the intergenerational accounting, but by law it is the Congress of the United States of America that must make these decisions.
We are now almost 4 weeks late, according to the Budget Enforcement Act, of coming up with a budget resolution. I trust that when the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico comes up with a budget, that he will need Democrats on this Senate floor to come with him and say, ``We will join to make an effort to go out and explain it to the American people.''
I will say what my price is, Mr. President, so it can be clear. I do not want anybody saying, ``I wonder what Kerrey wants?'' We will not do a $300 billion, 7-year tax cut. That is for openers. That is my price. Want to negotiate a bipartisan fashion? Have to give the $300 billion tax cut? That is nonsense. What kind of nonsense is that? Give up $300 billion?
Only yourself to blame when people get up and say, ``Gee, $300 billion tax cut and $300 billion Medicare cut. Aren't you paying with Medicare for the tax breaks to individuals?'' It looks that way. We do not have to do much in the way of pumping hot air into that argument. It looks like that is what is going on.
Republicans have to take that $300 billion tax cut and forget it. Democrats on the other hand, will have to say we will give on entitlements. We will tell the truth on entitlements. We will inform the American people.
I believe Republicans as well will have to say, OK, maybe we scored some great political point in last year's election by alleging that when Democrats voted for the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act without a single Republican voting for it in the House or the Senate, we took a little political advantage by saying that every Social Security beneficiary had a tax increase.
Do not tell me that Republicans were not saying that. I have heard it. I have seen it in advertisements. It worked. If I was a Republican and I had not voted for that, I would have done the same thing. It is an effective way to score political points.
For gosh sakes, we cannot take that tax, I think, fairly applied at 85 percent of income, reduce it to 50 percent, that takes money out of the Medicare part A fund.
That makes the problem worse, not better. That is my two opening steps.
I also think, by the way, that those of us who worked in the mainstream group last year, Republicans and Democrats, led by the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island--who worked so very hard to hold that mainstream group together--were pretty close to being on target when it came to health care. We did ask people to pay the full bill. We did ask people to share the cost of health care. We did not say there is a free lunch here.
We had a reasonable plan, it seems to me, that was in the middle. Today, of course, health care reform is not very fashionable. But we had a bipartisan group of Republicans and Democrats who worked long and hard and got very close to a piece of legislation that I think, frankly, had we had a little more time, we might have been able to pass and we might not be in this fix we are in right now, trying to figure out what we are going to do about Medicare.
If we treat Medicare only as a budget issue and not as a health care issue, we are going to find ourselves doing what none of us wants to do, in my judgment, and that is taking that couple out there who is working really hard, that American couple out there, where you have both the husband and wife--and we all know who we are talking about here--working for $5 and $6 and $7 an hour each and by the time they pay their payroll taxes and income taxes they have precious little money left; those individuals are, right now, if we treat Medicare only as a budget issue, going to find themselves paying a lot more money than they already are for health insurance. We are going to make their lives more miserable. Those Americans who say: I do not want to be on welfare; who say I do not want the Government of the United States of America to give me food stamps; I do not want to be on AFDC; I am willing to work at McDonald's; I am willing to work at Radio Shack; I am willing to work wherever I have to, but I am going to earn my own way-- those are the individuals in the United States of America today that are in the greatest amount of trouble, the ones who are not asking us for anything. Those individuals are going to suffer, in my judgment, if we treat Medicare only as a budget issue.
So I say, here is one Democrat who is willing to work with Republicans. I have worked with the Senator from New Mexico on budget issues before and was pleased to be able to join with him on his U.S.A. Tax, an item that I believe in fact will generate more money for the U.S. Treasury by allowing people not to pay taxes on their savings and businesses expense off their investments that they made.
We have to look not just at how much money we are generating, we have to look at ways to generate tax money that encourage economic growth, because in the end that is going to determine whether or not we are able to pay for anything, whether it is defense, or Medicare, or Social Security, or whatever it is.
So I hope in the end of perhaps the next 3 weeks, after we have all had a little political fun here and scored our political points, that Democrats come and say: Here are our values. I am a Democrat and I believe the laws of the United States of America ought to say every single American has an opportunity to move up the economic ladder. I am willing to say you have to make an effort. There is no free lunch here. You have to work hard to do it.
But I understand, if you are making $5, $6, $7 an hour, you have a tough time paying for health insurance; that retirement does not mean much for you; you are having a difficult time with child care because it is $500 or $600 a month for a couple of kids. I understand you are frustrated because you read in the newspaper and see there is an 80-
percent differential between what you can earn with a college degree and what you can earn with a high school degree, and yet you are not setting enough money aside for your kids. Then, when it comes time for you to get a college loan, you are told you are maybe making too much money; you are no longer eligible.
So I am prepared to come and say: Here are my Democratic values. Here is what I believe in as a Democrat. I will bring those arguments to the table. But when it comes to deficit reduction, we are going to have to act like Americans. At some point, I am going to have to be willing to give. I am willing to give on entitlements. I am willing to go out on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and say to the American people: Here is the truth.
This is not the time, it seems to me, for us merely to hope we can score political points over the other party. This is the time for us to surprise the marketplace--and it would be a surprise if the Congress of the United States of America, in spite of the fact that we have a budget recommendation that calls for $200 billion deficits and no action on entitlements, can somehow manage to get together, Republicans and Democrats who care about deficit reduction, and surprise the marketplace and enact this year a 5- or 6- or 7-year deficit reduction plan that would get us to a balanced budget.
I think the American people would not only be pleased--they may not like some of the cuts we put in place--but I think they would be pleased because the economy of the United States of America would grow, long-term interest rates would go down, the dollar would strengthen, and we would be creating more jobs again.
I hope and pray in fact that this Congress does what the laws and the Constitution say we are supposed to do, and that is do the hard work of budgeting; make the hard choices that are required in budgeting. Then, once we have produced a budget resolution with both Republicans and Democrats on board, then it is time for us to challenge the executive branch, the President, to pony up and share some responsibility by going to the American people and saying he believes Congress has finally got it right.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will please call the roll.
[[Page S6168]] The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
