Senator Michael B. Enzi Monday Interview

March 8, 1999

Jim Morgan, Wyoming Public Radio in Laramie and

Erin Hottenstein, Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne

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Mike Enzi(ME) --School funding of course is one of the most important issues facing Wyoming and every state. Right now we are debating Educational Flexibility bill or the Ed-Flex bill. It will give states more flexibility to use federal money where the state and local districts need it most without all of the federal paperwork. State governments, local school boards, teachers and parents have to be the ones that set the agenda for education. It shouldn't be the federal government designating where every single dollar will be spent. The federal government bureaucracy is wasteful. The federal government only provides seven percent of the local school funding but it demands half of the school paperwork. The paperwork burden requires 25,000 full time people who work on paper not students. It takes six times as many employees to administer a federal dollar as it does a state dollar. Paperwork doesn't teach kids. The Ed-Flex bill has the support of the states' governors. It's sponsored by about half of the senators and that's bipartisan -- both sides of the aisle. It came out of the Committee 17-1. That's almost unanimous. We are stalled right now because the Democrats want to tack on their whole educational vision to this bill. We haven't had the hearings on these visions. We'll have the elementary and secondary education bill coming up that they could also be attached to. They want to amend a good bill by adding a slew of sound-good new federal programs. These programs will not be funded indefinitely. If they happen like the police programs, it's some initial funding and then it's gone and then the local government is stuck providing the service that they've been providing with federal dollars. This can happen with the teacher dollars too. They're talking about some new teachers. They haven't answered what happens when the money runs out. Who is protected, the federal hire, or the local hire? They haven't talked about giving increased salaries to the existing teachers if that's what the school districts would rather do than have an additional school person. We need to get this bill passed. We need to stop this demagoguery. We need to get on to the elementary and secondary education bill. We need to fund the programs we've already promised. We can't have more unfunded promises that cut education. With that, which was rather lengthy, I'll go ahead with your questions on any topic.

Erin Hottenstein (EH) -- Is this the Ed-Flex bill then, is just for elementary education?

ME -- It's elementary and secondary education. It deals with giving the school boards the right to make their own decisions. To take the money from the federal government and have the flexibility to use it as it could best be used instead of within the whole paper regulation that's presently happening. This is a tested program. We tried it as a pilot program in twelve states. It worked extremely well. Wyoming has kind of been on the cutting edge of this. They've been asking for waivers. But the waivers take a long time and a lot of difficulty and more paperwork to get them approved. This would allow that to happen quicker and easier.

Jim Morgan -- It sounds to me like we've lost somebody.

ME -- We were in the middle of a question when we realized you weren't on any more so we stopped and got ahold of you so let's go back to the other question.

EH -- You were saying something about you need to wrap up something so that you could move on to secondary education. That's why I asked my question about if this Ed-Flex bill was for both elementary and secondary education?

ME -- Yes, it is and I did give an answer on that. We will get the transcript to you right away on it too.

JM -- Following up on Ed-Flex, do you have some examples of some of the kinds of things that local school boards might be able to free up and not have to put up with federal ____ because a lot of federal dollars do have strings attached and I gather that this would...it expands a 12-state pilot program that does that. Any specific examples?

ME -- Yes. Education money for the disadvantaged. It goes into just about all of the types of grant monies that the federal government has. These grants have strings attached to them, which may not allow them to serve the public that they were designed to in a given state because that public may not exist or may not exist in proportion to the numbers that the grant covers. It would allow some of the grant money to shift over into something where the numbers do show up instead of having some money for the states that can't be spent at all. It includes innovative strategies, the Perkins money, some Eisenhower professional development money. It even deals with the safe and drug free schools and how much regulation there ought to be on it and also immigrant education.

JM -- I'll just follow up here with a question. The Independent Counsel law, what are your thoughts on that? Should it be renewed? Should it be amended? Should it be allowed to go off into the sunset?

ME -- They are holding hearings on it now and I'm following those hearings to see what changes I think ought to be made. The Committee is covering it pretty extensively. It was actually the Democrats that put that law into effect. There are some constraints on it but at the moment it's been demagoged quite a bit too. There have been a lot of rumors come out about how it works and how it doesn't work. I'm glad the committee is taking a calm approach at looking at it to see how it might work better or if it's needed at all. I haven't made up my mind on it yet.

JM -- You've had some first hand experience with how some of that has worked. Any impressions of how well it's worked or how well it hasn't worked?

ME -- Actually most of what we saw were comments about the Independent Counsel that on followup were simply not true. It was a perspective put out by the White House in defense of the President rather than true information on it. For instance, Congress did not pick Ken Starr. The Justice Department in cooperation with three judges from the justice system picked Ken Starr. One of the reasons they picked him is because he was a bright and shining star from the investigation of Senator Packwood. There are letters and comments and all sorts of things made in his favor about the outstanding tenacious job he did working that Republican over. They wanted him on this particular case and he even had special authorization from Janet Reno to pursue it because she believed the president when he said something like, 'These are ludicrous lies about me and I want this investigated.' So she made that happen. Then the White House turned around and put out a lot of information about what a terrible job Ken Starr did. In looking into it he did what he was supposed to do. He didn't necessarily do what Congress would have liked him to do, but that's what an independent counsel is. It's independent. If we want more direction involved in it, we have to put more direction in the law. But when you get more direction in the law you have a chance for conflict. Is it going to be independent or isn't it? Or are we going to have one at all?

EH -- Jim did you have a follow up question on that?

JM -- No. Go ahead.

EH -- One of the things I was wondering about senator is there is some talk about the tobacco settlement and whether the states are going to get all of the money or part of the money or how that all is going to come down. I was just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what's going on with that and what your position is on that please?

ME -- I'm a cosponsor on the bill that lets the states keep the money that they've negotiated to get. If the federal government is going to be a part of it then the federal government needs to take its own action. The states acted responsibly, went after the money themselves, got the money and now it's not right for the federal government to turn around and say, "You did such a good job we are going take it away from you." But that would be a normal federal process.

EH -- So you support the States getting all the money?

ME -- Yes I do. Yes.

EH -- Do you know what that amount looks like right now?

ME -- Each state has their own amounts that they've negotiated for on it. I really can't remember what Wyoming negotiated for. I really didn't follow the state legislation because that's state process. I wanted to make sure that state decisions are made by states and those of us here in Washington are not the source of all great ideas so we really need to let those people have the right to determine the use of the money themselves.

EH -- When do you suppose there will be a decision on that? I mean when do you suppose that bill will make it through and then the money will either come this way or not?

ME -- It will all be involved in the budget process because that is where the president's emphasis is to take some of the money from the states. Part of it will be defeating it in the budget process and the other part will be passing a bill if it's necessary that says "No the federal government isn't going to take the money."

EH -- Okay. Thanks.

JM -- Senator, turning now to Social Security, I know that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was not too keen I suppose we can say on the Clinton Administration's plan for saving Social Security. What are your thoughts with shoring up and saving Social Security and let's throw Medicare in there too?

ME -- I think the President's backed off on most of his proposal the way he had planned to do it. He was going to take federal money and put it into the treasury to pay off the Social Security money, but there's no alternative except to go ahead and loan it out again. When he loaned it out again he was going to take that money and put it back in, which is a real pyramid scheme because you can't loan circularly. He was even going to loan the interest circularly. What we have is a trust fund that has IOUs in it. You can't spend IOUs. You can't even transfer them to another account. That's what he's talking about doing is transferring some of the money. If you think about it when you transfer your own bank account, they won't let you transfer an overdraft. That's what that is. That's only a promise to pay the money. We need to find some other mechanisms for shoring it up. There are about five main plans that are circulating out there. Three of them I know are sponsored by people from both sides of the aisle. They are incorporating some of the ideas from the others. At the moment it's kind of a free form process that's going on, which I'm really pleased with. The more open the possibilities are for making changes in the draft rather than spending our time cutting each other's legs out from under us, the more capability there is to have a protection for Social Security. All of the points that are being done need to be done and the sooner they are done the less pain there is for everybody. There will be a system that will absolutely protect those who are on Social Security now. They will not see any decrease in benefits. They will continue to see the cost of living increase and that's for everybody probably over the age of 55. Those below will have some changes made as they've been made in the past. But if we make those changes now when they retire they will be able to get more money than had the Social Security system continued as it is. The people going into the job market right now are paying 12 percent in. They won't get two percent benefits back if any. Right now it's a pretty big "if any." They think there is more chance of seeing Elvis Presley alive again, than seeing a dollar of their Social Security money. That kind of system can't go on. We have a potential for some changes which do include some private investments for those people who are just entering the job market and allowing those investments to provide their retirement but using most of the money they are putting in to continue to pay the benefits. We have to make sure that those people who are retired and who will shortly be retired get what they were promised. That's the primary concern of everybody. We are trying to find the solution so that those who are coming up will get money too.

EH -- I also had a question on some issues that have come up in the last two weeks about satellite TV and the court case that shut off ABC and Fox anyway two of the networks from satellite TVs. I know there was some federal action going on with that issue. Can you tell me more about what you are doing with that if anything?

ME -- Yes, there is a bill proceeding back here that I think has the potential to clear up the problem. What we are trying to do is make sure that the situation the people of Wyoming are in is understood. It's a special education task that we have to get them (legislators from more populous areas) to understand how Wyoming is a little bit different than the rest of the nation. We don't have the access to television without using cable and satellite that some of the other places have. What we want to do is make sure that people have access. We are also trying to make sure that the people who produce the programs particularly the small local stations get the revenue they deserve for the work they are putting out. I think there is a solution in the works that will make sure that people in Wyoming are not cut off from the major networks, and that they are not cut off from their local news.

EH -- Have you been getting calls or letters on that issue?

ME -- Yes, I've been getting a lot of them. I think everybody who is on satellite TV in Wyoming has probably written. All of our delegation has been working on it. We meet as a delegation regularly and divide up the work so we are not all working on the same point at the same time. We figure that more than doubles the capability and the power of our delegation back here. All of us are deeply involved in that.

EH -- Right now, Senator, is that a House bill or a Senate bill or...?

ME -- There's a House bill and a Senate bill.

EH -- Oh, both?

ME -- Yes. On most of the bills we start them through from both sides then after it passes both sides, the two sides get together and iron out any difficulties between them. On this one there seems to be some coordination between the sides so there'll probably be fewer difficulties than there normally would be. There are solutions there and the Committee is progressing on it.

JM -- Last week Senator Thomas joined some other Senators in asking Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to de-list the Grizzly Bear. What are your thoughts on that?

ME -- Our whole delegation I think is in favor of de-listing the grizzly bear. We think the numbers are greater than any of the levels that were originally prescribed. We think they are getting to be a problem in the towns surrounding Yellowstone Park. Yes, we want to make sure the grizzly is protected but we think that it's time to change the protection capability so that it's managed as a species that has survived. We are trying to provide both the incentive for it and the ability for it.

JM -- Part of that appears to be protecting habitat as well. How do we go about doing that because a species has to have habitat?

ME -- Yes, absolutely. A species does have to have habitat. One of the big discussions on the endangered species is why doesn't anybody take a look at the science on what the habitat ought to be first? Obviously they are looking at that as they decide how a species is going to survive. There ought to be a plan at the beginning of a listing and there wasn't on the grizzly bear, but there was a plan later. All aspects including habitat of that plan have been met. The bar has been raised. It's been met. The bar has been raised again. It's been met again. But there's been no scientific justification for raising the bar any of the times that it's been done. They wanted a plan that would get the grizzlies to reproduce and to be self sustaining and it appears they have reached that. In fact there are numbers that are outside the area that they even count now. The population has expanded more than they had anticipated, but there is still no de-listing. There is no process in the present Endangered Species Act that provides a reasonable plan, review by the people, then when the goal is met de-listing the animal. They stay on forever and they become a continuing expense.

EH -- I guess we heard a little bit last week about the Know Your Customer bill. I was just wondering did that get killed? Or, what's going on with that?

(Please note: "executive order" or "presidential executive order" is not the correct terminology in this instance. This is through a rule proposed by an agency under the president's administration.)

ME -- That was a little rule put into play by an Executive Order. I have some objection to Presidential Executive Orders. This one is particularly objectionable because it requires your bank to go to extra work to check up on you, to invade your privacy to see if you are making any changes in the way that you do business. If those changes show up (your financial institution must) report them to the federal government so that the federal government can then check to see if you are involved in any illicit activities. It's a huge invasion of privacy. I'm positive that it's unconstitutional and we're trying to reverse the proposed rule. We've tried a number of approaches. We consider it, those that are cosponsoring my amendment, consider it to be an emergency. We are attaching that to things as they come up and debating them and recognizing that some of them will have to be tabled. The easiest thing of course would be for the administration to just reverse it's position, remove the proposed rule, remove people from this onerous unconstitutional situation and get on with business. Until the administration does we'll be proposing that amendment. I think we'll get it passed because on the bill that I did it on last week, it wasn't appropriate to be on there. We got to debate it for just a little bit and then of course the motion was to table it. Eighty-seven Senators said they didn't want to table it but recognized that it would be. So 87 to 7, I think it was, was a pretty good margin. I'll have to check on what those numbers were. I know we had at least 87 people who did not want to table it.

EH -- So, basically you are treating it as an amendment to tack on to another bill until you get it passed?

ME -- Yes, there is a bill that's been submitted but we are doing it as an amendment to raise the emergency aspect of this thing so that banks don't have to go forward making all of the arrangements, meeting all of the regulations, preparing to report on something that shouldn't be done to begin with. If it's not worth doing at all it's not worth doing well.