For that reason, we enthusiastically support the dismantling of corporate welfare whose voice in the cabinet has been the Commerce Department. The old established business groups fear the wrath of their members who enjoy corporate pork and therefore will not take a stand on this controversial issue. BLC, on the other hand, applauds your efforts to abolish unnecessary, duplicative, wasteful programs and save the taxpayers $7.8 billion over the next 5 years. In these times, when Congress is endeavoring to balance the budget and reduce the size and scope of the Federal Government, the business community must do its part. Sincerely, THOMAS L. PHILLIPS, Chairman of the Board of Governors. Hon. SPENCER ABRAHAM U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510 SMALL BUSINESS SURVIVAL COMMITTEE DEAR SENATOR ABRAHAM: Every so often, a piece of legislation crosses my desk that the Small Business Survival Committee (SBSC) can support without any reservations. "The Commerce Department Dismantling Act of 1995" is such a legislative act. First, let me compliment you on your four straightforward principles for evaluating the Commerce Department. They should serve as a guide for reviewing every Federal Government department: • terminating unnecessary and wasteful programs; • consolidating programs duplicative of other departments or agencies; ⚫ transferring valid programs to more appropriate agencies; • privatizing programs which can be better performed in the private sector. Federal Government spending has been out of control for decades. The Commerce Department with its myriad unnecessary and duplicative programs, serves as one of the most glaring examples of wasting taxpayer dollars. The elimination of the Department of Commerce will send a loud and clear message to the American people— business-as-usual, big-government politics is finished. Indeed, eliminating the Commerce Department would be an historic step toward bringing some sanity back to the Federal Government, while saving U.S. taxpayers an estimated $7.8 billion over 5 years. "The Commerce Department Dismantling Act of 1995" offers a sound plan for eliminating programs within the Commerce Department that government should not be undertaking in the first place (e.g., the United States Travel & Tourism Administration); for moving programs to more appropriate areas of the Federal Government (e.g., the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Economic Analysis); or for privatizing programs (e.g., the National Technical Information Service). Naturally, every federal department or program has a vocal special interest attached to it. The Commerce Department is no different. Indeed, a small part of the business community likely will oppose the termination of the Commerce Department. Please rest assured that any business voices raised in support of the Commerce Department will be a very small minority. America's entrepreneurs have little use, if any, for the U.S. Department of Commerce. The best agenda for entrepreneurs, business and the economy is clear: deregulation, tax reduction and smaller government. Eliminating the Department of Commerce has the full support of SBSC and our more than 40,000 small business members. The time has come to rein in Federal Government spending, and the Department of Commerce is a fine place to start. Sincerely, KAREN KERRIGAN, President. Chairman ROTH. Thank you very much, Senator Dole. We appreciate your being here with us today. At this time, I will call on Senator Cohen. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COHEN Senator COHEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think that when we use words like reinventing Government or reengineering Government processes or downsizing the Government, they are all catch words. They are all catch words to try to respond to the perception, and in some cases, the reality, that Government has simply grown too big and become too expensive. What we are all doing now is trying to examine exactly what the role of the Government should be in our lives. What should the Government do? How much should it cost? What level of Government should be doing it, if any? Those are questions that really do not invite any partisanship. I think those who are about to testify before us share the same basic questions of who should be doing what and how much it should cost or whether it should be done by the private sector. As has been pointed out, the Department of Commerce, it may resemble Fibber McGee's closet. I do not know. We have some people here who have had more experience in dealing with Commerce than I have. But before commenting on Commerce, I would like to say that I think Secretary Brown has done an outstanding job. I think he has been very, very aggressive in promoting U.S. interests abroad, to his credit and to our benefit. I hope that no one will take this particular inquiry as, in any way, an assault upon him personally or upon the way he has been trying to manage that Department. He does have a vast collection of programs. The Chairman has talked about them. Senator Dole referred to them. We go all the way from weather forecasting to export opportunities to facilitating the development of high-technology to economic development in rural areas, like Maine, to the management of fisheries. Maybe these various programs can be parceled out to other Committees or other agencies, I should say, but if all we are going to do is to simply pick and choose and put one set of responsibilities in another department and to shift personnel from one department to another, I am not sure exactly what the purpose of the exercise is. I favor, like everyone else here, a rationalization of our system. Maybe there are things that Commerce is doing now it should not be doing, and undoubtedly, Commerce can be cut down like any other department. We could start with Agriculture. It is probably as big now as when we had three or four times as many farmers in the program, but we still have the same size, more money being spent today than ever before. So I favor trying to get some kind of rationalization of responsibilities to take those programs that no longer serve their function out of various departments, but I think we should move with some care before we just take a wholesale assault and say, the Commerce Department ought to be abolished, or the Department of Education, which I did not vote in favor of creating, ought to be abolished, or any number of agencies ought to be abolished. We ought to look at what their functions are to see if there is duplication and overlap and simply nonessential services being provided at great expense to the taxpayer and eliminate those that we can. But I hope that we proceed in that fashion and not simply pick agencies out at random and say it is time for their being disman tled. That is the spirit I hope we can proceed with, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you. Chairman ROTH. Thank you. Senator Glenn? OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GLENN Senator GLENN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome today's witnesses and look forward to hearing their testimony on legislation that I do not particularly welcome, and that is dismantling, literally dismantling the Department of Com merce. For the first time in decades, both the Congress and the administration are actually streamlining and downsizing the Federal Government. We are considering serious proposals to balance the budget on a glide path that will require substantial cuts in Government spending. Federal employment is dropping, and before the turn of the century, we will have reduced the Civil Service by some 272,000 positions. We have already cut about 110,000 positions. We are closing obsolete military bases, with more to come. We are in the process of shutting hundreds of field offices at the Department of Agriculture. Under the leadership of the Vice President's National Performance Review, we are consolidating and simplifying hundreds of grant programs at the Departments of HUD, HHS, and Labor. Finally, we are pruning back unnecessary regulations. Since last September, the administration has initiated reforms in the administrative process to cut back thousands of pages of regulations already announced. It did not get that much attention, but they are doing it. We in the Congress have reauthorized the Paperwork Reduction Act and are in the process of deliberating comprehensive regulatory reform legislation. Now we are beginning the process of examining the need for whole cabinet departments, and today we will be focusing on the Department of Commerce. The Secretary of Commerce has a broad array of responsibilities, ranging from promoting U.S. exports, to licensing patents, to running the National Weather Service, to managing census counts. He has a real hodgepodge of programs underneath him, each with disparate missions and responsibilities. So I commend my Republican colleagues for wanting to take a fresh look at any and all departments. Čommerce is clearly in need of some reorganization. In past Congresses, about 5 years ago, as a matter of fact, I proposed legislation to reorganize the Department, not to weaken it but in order to strengthen and elevate what I believe to be its two most important missions, and those are trade promotion and technology development. My bill would have reorganized and strengthened the Federal Government's functions in these areas and placed them under a renamed Department of Industry and Technology. I would say that almost every other industrialized nation in the world has a Department of Science and Technology or Trade and Technology or something of that name. We are the only one that does not. The functions that normally would come under that, the main functions, are in the Department of Commerce. Non-mission-related agencies, though, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under my proposal, would have been transferred out of the Department. Unfortunately, the Republican administration and then-Secretary of Commerce Mosbacher had little interest in reorganization so we were not able to move the legislation. However, the bill before us deals with more than just reorganization. Note the word "dismantling" in its title. Take NOAA, for instance. Under the Abraham-Dole bill, it gets broken up into many pieces, tossed overboard, and set adrift to different places in the bureaucratic ocean. Also, the bill waives the budget-cutting wand over most of the Department's trade and technology promotion programs. Poof, they are gone, zeroed out, just like that. Perhaps the bill's sponsors believe that our Nation's competitiveness woes will magically disappear as well but I just do not think that will be the case. At a time when we are under increasing pressure, international competition, at a time when one out of every eight jobs-in my home State of Ohio, one out of every eight manufacturing jobs depends on export of the product-we are talking about cutting down any help to our people as though it is some sort of unfair advantage. It is labeled corporate welfare, but I just do not see it that way. I think there are some things the Federal Government can do better than private industry can do themselves, and in these areas where we are all in this together, there is no reason why the Government cannot do some of these things. In previous administrations, the Commerce Department had the reputation of being a bureaucratic backwater that served as a holding pen for political appointees with nowhere else to go, but not now. Secretary Brown and his people have shown real leadership in reinvigorating the Department and working to aggressively promote the interests of U.S. industry at home and abroad. Industry groups have given the Secretary and his team high marks for their efforts. As we enter the global economy of the 21st century, I agree, we should reorganize the Department-I do not quarrel with that a bit but with the goal of actually strengthening the Secretary's hand in promoting U.S. trade and technology, not weakening it. We should bring agencies such as OPIC, the Ex-Im Bank, and the Trade and Development Agency into the Department so as to bring together the full force of the Federal Government's trade promotion efforts. While we should transfer those agencies and programs that belong elsewhere, as well as cut out the deadwood at the Department in this time of downsizing, let us be careful not to chop off the live limbs in the process. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing the testimony, Mr. Chairman. Chairman ROTH. Thank you, Senator. Senator Thompson? Senator THOMPSON. I have no statement, Mr. Chairman. Chairman ROTH. Senator Smith? OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SMITH Senator SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just ask unanimous consent to enter a statement into the record. Watching my colleagues sit there, it is amazing, even though we have been on both sides of the table, both testifying and being up here, it never seems to stop us from giving long opening statements and holding each other up. I just want to say that I essentially am in support of S. 929. I am a cosponsor. But I do look forward to the testimony. It is very difficult to change the status quo. The candle makers fought Edison with great gusto when he invented the electric light, and so when you try to change things, you meet with resistance. I understand that, but this is part of our budget resolution and I think the burden of proof should be on those who feel that there is justification for maintaining the agency. With that, I will yield back any time that I may have, Mr. Chair man. Chairman ROTH. Thank you, Senator Smith. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR Senator PRYOR. Yes, Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would like to ask unanimous consent that my full statement be placed in the record. Chairman ROTH. Without objection. Senator PRYOR. I would like to make a comment about the Economic Development Administration. Mr. Chairman, all of us know here that we have in the past 4 years closed some 250 military bases. We are probably going to close some more. Every day for the next 5 years, 1,000 people in this country are going to be losing their jobs because of military cutbacks, either at bases or at defense-related activities in this country. I think that EDA has really played an integral role in economic development. I think that we have found a special role, I should say, for the EDA because of what they are doing now in the field of defense base closing, as EDA has moved in and helped the communities and worked with the private sector in creating jobs. I want to applaud EDA for that and I want to say that I am very hopeful that we will not zero EDA out. EDA has a very splendid mission. I look forward to hearing from Secretary Brown and others as we pursue this hearing this afternoon. Thank you. Chairman ROTH. Senator Dorgan? OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DORGAN Senator DORGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have, as they say, minimum high regard for S. 929. In other words, I think it is a crazy idea. In agricultural terms, this is sort of like selling your seed corn. This, it seems to me, is the pro-business and the growth agency. It has accomplished an enormous amount, and I am most anxious to hear from the witnesses today on this subject. |