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[Page: S9879] GPO's PDF
Listen to what Wesley Clark has said. He headed our NATO troops.
Unilateral U.S. action today would disrupt the war against al-Qaida.
Despite statements by staff to the contrary, the President appears to want to go it alone in war when we are already in a war. According to the President, we are in a war, one that will require all of our wits and lots of our treasure, both in human capital and in tax dollars.
I do not think it is enough to be critical of this blank check resolution the President is supporting. I want to say how I would approach this question. Iraq must be held to its word, as expressed in U.N. resolutions, that it will submit to thorough inspections and dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction, period.
Let's repeat that. Iraq must be held to its word that it will submit to thorough inspections, unfettered inspections, and dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction, period. That is what they agreed to. They signed on the dotted line to do it. And that is what must happen. Those were United Nations resolutions, and we must work for an updated resolution ensuring that such unfettered inspections do take place or there will be consequences. These weapons are a threat to the world, and the world must respond. I believe if we handle this right, the world will respond.
But if our allies believe we have not made the case, if they believe this is a political issue here, or if they believe it is a grudge match here, or if they believe that the whole thing is being manipulated for domestic political reasons, I believe that will hurt our Nation. I believe that will isolate us. I do not think that is a good path for our country.
Can we rule the world with our weapons and our guns and our might? I am sure we can. I know we can.
Can we win every military confrontation that anyone could ever imagine? Yes. We can.
But I believe the greatness of our Nation has been built on other things: The power of our persuasion, not the power of our arsenal; the power of our ideals, not the power of our threats; the power and greatness of our people, not the power and the greatness of our machines.
America at her best has been seen as a beacon of hope, not fear; an example not of ``Might makes right,'' but ``Might backing right.'' What is right at a time like this? I believe it is laying out a path for peace, not just a path for war; trying everything we can to avoid chaos and devastation to our own and to innocent civilians who may well be used as pawns in urban warfare.
I believed that Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State under President Clinton, and Dr. Henry Kissinger laid out a path for peace when they spoke before the Foreign Relations Committee. They talked about unfettered inspections and dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction. As they said, and I agree, it will not be easy. Maybe it will be impossible. But there is no doubt in my mind that we should lay out that path and try for complete, unfettered inspections, with nothing off limits, to be followed by dismantlement of those weapons.
For those who say it will never work, maybe they are right. But we have never pulled the massive trigger of our weapons on a nation that has not attacked us first. At the least--at the least--we should see if we can exhaust all other options.
That is why I support the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator CARL LEVIN, and his resolution that will be introduced. This is what it does:
No. 1, it urges the United Nations Security Council to quickly adopt a resolution that demands immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access for U.N. inspectors so that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and prohibited missiles will be destroyed.
No. 2, it urges this new U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize the use of necessary and appropriate force by U.N. member states to enforce the resolution if Iraq refuses to comply.
No. 3, it reaffirms that, under international law and the U.N. Charter, the United States has the inherent right to self-defense.
No. 4, it authorizes the use U.S. Armed Forces pursuant to the new U.N. Security Council resolution that deals with weapons of mass destruction.
In closing, let me say very clearly that I will not vote for a blank check for unilateral action. I also will not vote for a resolution that is dressed up to look like Congress has powers when, in fact, all the words really call for are consultations and determinations.
That is when Senator Byrd said ``pretty'' words. He said, ``Pretty, pretty, pretty words.'' Sounds good--consultations and determinations. What does it really mean? Nothing. It means the administration tells us what they think. We already know what they think.
To me, consultations and determinations without a vote by Congress are like a computer that is not plugged in. It looks good, it looks powerful, it looks impressive, but it does nothing.
I didn't come to the Senate for the title. I didn't come to the Senate to debate meaninglessly on the Senate floor. I didn't come to the Senate to do nothing. I didn't come to the Senate to run away from a hard vote. I came to uphold the duties of my office. I came to represent the people of California.
In the past 4 years, I have voted to use force twice--once against Milosevic to stop a genocide and once after September 11 when we suffered a barbarous attack. But, in this case, if any President wants to go to war alone or outside the type of coalitions we have built for the war on terror , or the last Persian Gulf war, then let him come to the American people, through the Congress for another debate and a vote.
It is one thing to go with a coalition. It is one thing to determine that we will be part of a multinational force. It is another thing to do it alone, without a specific vote of the Congress before the President has decided to do so. As I have said, his aides keep telling us he has not made the decision. So why do we have to give him a blank check today? If he wants to go it alone, if he wants to send my people to a place where we don't even know if chemical or biological weapons will be used, we don't even know what the estimates of casualties are, we don't even know what it is going to cost, we don't even know how long we are going to have to stay there, we don't know what will happen if Israel responds--we don't know so many things--I don't think it is asking too much to ask my colleagues to support a resolution by Senator Levin. He said that if he wants to go it alone, then the President has to come back.
In the CARL LEVIN resolution, it is implicit that he must come back if he wants to go it alone. CARL LEVIN's resolution authorizes force as part of the U.N. enforcement action to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But again, if the President wants to go it alone, he must come back to us.
I believe the people of my State expect me, on their behalf, to get my questions and their questions answered, not to engage in guesswork, and, above all, not to abdicate my responsibility as a Senator to anyone else. If our Founders wanted the President--or any President--to have the power to go to war without our consent, they would have said so. But, again, this is what our Founders said in article I, section 8: Congress shall have power to declare war.
Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
WEST COAST PORT CLOSURE
Mr. BOND. Madam President, we have talked some about our fragile economy and the problems we are facing. Growth, which began slowing in 1999, coupled with the tragic impact of September 11, has resulted in hardship for many. We have seen unemployment, reduced value of market securities, more problems with health care, and other difficulties.
There are measures pending in this body I believe would do a great deal to help the economy. They are such things as passing a terrorism risk reinsurance bill, which could get our building trades back to work; passing an energy bill, which has the potential of employing more than three-quarters of
[Page: S9880] GPO's PDF
But now we face a further challenge, which is a self-inflicted attack on our economy by our own people; and that is the contract dispute which has closed the West Coast docks, providing a terrible bottleneck for crucial exports and imports.
This is the line of commerce: Trade going out, agricultural products being sold; inputs, goods coming into the United States; and it is shut down by this dispute.
Many Missouri constituents are asking us what can be done. Retailers are asking where their goods are for them to be able to make sales and continue to employ their people. Agricultural producers, who have meat for export rotting on their docks, are saying something must be done.
According to the Wall Street Journal, goods valued at more than $300 billion move annually through these ports. According to the New York Times, these ports handle half the Nation's imports and exports. Further estimates are that this shutdown could cost our economy $1 billion per day and grow further as the shutdown continues to $2 billion per day. The longer it goes, the worse it gets. Regrettably, the State of Missouri has the highest unemployment growth rate in the Nation, and we cannot afford economic homicide of this nature.
This affects jobs upstream and downstream throughout the entire economy. It affects truckers and railroad workers and farm workers and retail clerks and consumers and others. These are real workers who are real people and have real families. They are hurting.
I am not an expert on the specific grievances of these several hundred workers and their unions and the employers at the docks, but this major facility is nothing to toy with. I don't care if the grievances are moderate or petty, it is not worth the harm that could be done to thousands of other working people and our economy. The parties have to be brought together. One would think that workers reportedly earning $106,000 per year for less than 40 hours a week could resolve the grievances on the job without hurting other workers in my State who earn far less. While they sit on their chairs at the docks, people around the country are the ones suffering. This power play will have too much collateral damage to be allowed to continue.
One company, National Cart Company, in St. Charles, MO is a manufacturer that employs 140 people. They manufacture material handling equipment and rely on some components from Asia. This is the busiest time of their year because their customers need their products to stock shelves for Christmas. Unless this is resolved, they will be laying off workers in 2 weeks or slightly more.
Another company, TRG, located in St. Louis, with 80 employees, can't stock their shelves with recreation and travel accessories that they sell. When they shut down, their employees are out of work.
Another St. Louis company, Donelly and Associates, manufactures telecommunications products. They only have seven employees, but if they do not get supplies in a week to 10 days, they will shut down, and those workers will be laid off. The president of that firm told my office that for every day the supply is disrupted it takes as many as 5 days to get it back on line. He told us that the airlines have already stopped taking bookings out of Asia.
Another plant manager from Magnet LLC in Washington, MO said they are unable to get supply, and he predicts that if this is not resolved, they may be forced to lay off workers in 2 to 3 weeks. They have 375 employees and are urgently trying to make product to satisfy Christmas demand.
There is a story in the Washington Post this morning about how people in Hawaii are stockpiling goods, and perishable food products are at risk of rotting on the docks. The retailers are trying to get winter and Christmas goods inventoried. Over 60 percent of beef exports and 50 percent of pork exports and one quarter of our chicken exports travel through these ports. Meat is rotting on the docks. Many freezers in the country are at capacity and inventories will become further backed up and prices will be depressed below levels that are already low.
Yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times, ``picketers tried to prevent a banana-carrying ship from leaving the dock, provoking a confrontation that brought out police in riot gear.''
The Los Angeles Times has another story about how ``the labor dispute is putting a strain on independent truckers who move port-related cargo.'' They quote a truck driver named Jose Louis Martinez who ``doesn't care whether labor or management is to blame in the dispute *.*.* he cared only that the wallet he would bring home to his wife and two daughters would be empty for the third time in four days.''
There are over 10,000 truckers--the majority of them independent--who normally make as many as three visits a day to the ports, according to the California Trucking Association. Burlington Northern-Santa Fe said it has suspended shipments of marine containers to all West Coast ports and grain to ports to Washington and Oregon.
I can't speak to the fairness of the labor negotiations, but I can speak to the unfairness of a few people being willing to injure many people to get their own way and to destroy a vital sector of our economy. I can't see how a dispute about bar code readers--they are objecting to bringing in bar code readers, things that they use in every supermarket I have been in, and most retail stores--should cost the economy billions of dollars and intentionally throw people out of work. Frankly, my constituents don't understand the approach being taken, which seems to be: We will tear down everyone we can until we get our own way. I think it is outrageous. I think these matters should be resolved immediately. They should be resolved with the docks open for business.
This is extortion, where the hostages are ordinary working families, many of whom will never earn in any year as much as the dock workers earn in three-quarters of a year. If they were only hurting themselves, I would advise that we stay out of it and have at it. But they are dragging everyone else with them. Since when is the economic leader of the world closed for business? This is an outrage.
Here our President and his team are working vigorously to open foreign markets. We gave them the power. But why? So labor disputes can have export products rot on the docks? We can all have disagreements about whether raising taxes or lowering taxes will help our economy. I have some strong views on that. People in this body disagree with me. But one thing we certainly ought to be able to agree on is that a tactic of this nature is bad for the economy, bad for working families, and should be resolved yesterday.
I have asked the President--and sent a letter to him--to use his authority to intervene. I hope he will do that. I have read that some in this body object to his intervening. I know the President has agreed these people should get back to work. He expressed that view in strong terms and made mediation services available.
Working families in my State cannot wait. It is a terrible shame it would come to this. It is a shame that people haven't worked this out on their own, as they should. But our economy is too fragile for self-interested, shortsighted, and self-inflicted wounds of this nature.
I urge the President to take further steps to stop this dispute, to get commerce flowing, and to get people back to work. Whether it be truckers and railroad workers in California or retail clerks throughout the Nation or agricultural producers in our heartland or other industrial workers who are making products for export to the Southeast Asian market, they are being denied a livelihood because of a dispute over bar code readers, something that is not really that advanced a technology but is in use every day in stores we visit.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak as in morning business for 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I thank my good friend from Missouri
[Page: S9881] GPO's PDF
Today I sent a letter to the White House and the President asking him to intervene in this slowdown and lockout, however you want to interpret it, of west coast ports. Today, 29 west coast ports, representing about half of our Nation's seaborne commerce, remain closed. Furthermore, we have another situation that complicates it. Weather conditions have temporarily limited the seaborne and other modes of commerce on the gulf coast due to Hurricane Lili. Our ability to export our goods or import our goods is quickly becoming paralyzed.
The latest attempt at renegotiation between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Unions has stalled, and they have stalled based on protocol and the presence of security personnel.
Isn't that something? While they are arguing that in those negotiations, we are just coming through a crop year in my State of Montana, and already that is having an effect on us. I am also a little bit disturbed about the negotiations on salaries of $110,000 to $140,000 a year; they are on the table also. I want to give you a little comparison on why we are a little out of kilter here.
According to the USDA, the average farm operator household income is $65,000 a year. I don't like averages. That is on-farm and off-farm income. I don't like to deal in averages because I know there are exceptions to the rule. Averages are like: If you have one foot in a bucket of ice and the other foot in the oven, on average, you ought to feel pretty good. That doesn't always work. The average farmer in my State makes around $30,000 to $40,000 a year. That is net. And they are forced--after we make the investment, put in our labors--they are forced to watch their yearly harvest sit while the longshoremen and management squabble about salaries that are sometimes two to three times the amount of their gross.
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