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Mm Oh, mhm. Mhm. Yeah, Something mhm. Yeah, yeah. Hi, I'm Senator Lawton Child's, and I want to welcome you to the Lawton Child's update. Today. We're going to look at one of Florida's most vigorous industries Citrus, and we'll find out how it's doing in the battle against the elements.

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I'll also answer some of the letters you sent me. But first, let's talk about another subject that's been in the news lately. The American Embassy in Moscow. The embassy is still under construction, which is a sore spot to begin with. But we also found that the complex is infested with bugs, electronic listening devices.

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The Soviets planted these high tech gadgets and the concrete walls and ceilings of the new building in an effort to compromise sensitive foreign policy. Work's been underway on the American Embassy in Moscow since 1969 some 18 years. By contrast, the Empire State Building was put up in less than 14 months.

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But beyond this, construction delays have been enormous cost overruns and a long chain of problem with the Soviets. On top of it all, the State Department's been slow and stubborn about facing up to the problems We knew in 1982 for instance, that there was a security problem with the building.

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But construction continued. In 1985 I sponsored legislation to deal with some of the safety and security problems of the embassy complex. The legislation, which was approved by the Senate, required the Soviet Union to reimburse the United States for all damages and costs incurred due to Soviet cause delays in the construction of our new embassy in Moscow.

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Legislation also prohibited the Soviets from occupying any new facilities in Washington, D. C. Until the United States had received compensation for these damages. The State Department called this legislation unnecessary and claimed the project was on track. Then last year, we discovered the problems in Moscow are even greater than we originally thought.

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These revelations led to a Second Amendment I proposed, along with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Senator Bennett Johnston of Louisiana. This amendment, which also passed, ordered the National Bureau of Standards to conduct an investigation of construction and security problems. The bureau's report confirmed a frightening array of significant structural problems, including defective concrete joints, open gaps between walls and columns, cracks on the south elevation of the building and more since then.

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The secretary of state, George Shultz, ordered another study to be conducted by Dr James Schlessinger, the former secretary of defense and the secretary of energy. Slesinger discussed the reported a hearing I call to investigate not only our embassy in Moscow, but many other State Department buildings under construction around the world.

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I opened that hearing by outlining a history of the Moscow Embassy complex. In 1963 negotiations began between the United States and the Soviet Union for relocating embassies 1969. Agreement was reached between the United States and the Soviet Union to provide for the exchange of sites to construct new complexes in Washington and in in the United States.

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The agreement gave the Soviets a property of one of the highest spots in Washington, a location ideal for intelligence collection. The Soviets, in turn, gave us a plot of one of the lowest points in Moscow. In 1972 agreement was reached between the United States and the Soviet Union's on a condition of construction of the new embassy complexes in 1977 there was a protocol with the Soviet Union signed call for a fixed place contract with the Soviet Union for a portion of the construction.

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And the United States agreed to accept Washington D C construction costs as the basis for unit costs for our complex in Mexico. In Moscow, the protocol call for construction to begin. So, uh, 0.1 is, uh, we allowed them to pick the high ground and give us the low ground point to we take Washington D.

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C construction costs rather than Moscow cost. In 1978 the Soviets completed construction of new apartments, schools and club houses in Washington before we completed our construction contract to begin our construction in Moscow. And the State Department allowed the Soviets to occupy their new Washington site in return for reducing their contract bid to the Washington D.

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C prices. That's what we already agreed on. That was a mistake we'd already made. But to get them to reduce their contract of what we'd already agreed on, we allowed them to occupy their site. The State Department maintained that the total cost of the project would be $75 million.

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Completion was projected as July of 1982 1979 contract with the Soviets were signed at that time are cumulative. Appropriations reached $91.5 million. The appropriations for the Moscow Embassy continued to increase well over the 1979 level, and targeted completion of the building has now been moved to late 1989.

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Dr. Schlessinger told us of his investigation. The solution to our problems will be neither easy nor cheap. It will require major changes at the embassy complex. Some might say radical changes. Now, Mr Chairman, I go back to my recommendations. I will read them first. Responsibility for carrying out the remedial action necessary be vested in one individual with the authority to treat all issues connected with the Chancery Project, including renovations to the present chancery and the mandate to develop and implement coherent US government policy in this respect.

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Two. The dismantling of the upper three floors of the new office building and their replacement using modern modular steel construction techniques. Three. The retention without significant reconstruction of the lower fire flaws after having made every effort to neutralise Soviet intrusions, Uh, the retention of those flaws has unclassified the restricted access space.

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Four. The construction in the forecourt of a new 27,000 to 38,000 square foot addition, the annex to house the most sensitive operations of the embassy. Gentlemen, you will note the diagram on the right to which I will come later on fifth. The elaboration of a strategy of defense in depth not only for the Moscow Embassy, by the way, but for our embassies, behind the Iron Curtain and generally throughout the world in order better to protect the more sensitive elements.

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One of his proposals called for dismantling the top three fours of the new chancery building and then building a new high security annex. I wanted to know if the replacement floors to the chancery could be made secure and if they could, why would we need to build a new annex?

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Do believe that we can make the three top, uh, stories secure on the provision that I mentioned before that the materials going into those top three floors and the construction activities take place with American personnel. This will be modular construction. This is intended to be modular construction, and it is in this way that we would hope to have an early occupancy date.

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Now if they can be made secure. Why do we need to build a new enemy? The original notion was that classified activities were going to take place. Uh, on floors four and five as well as 67 and eight for four and five will not have an adequate degree of security to conduct secure conversations.

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We intend, or it is at least recommended that we go in and clear out those systems that we have detected. But as I pointed out in my earlier comments at this stage, we do not fully understand what the Soviets have done in terms of their strategy or their technology.

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And therefore, we will not be assured that even after the intended neutralization of the bottom five floors that those will be appropriate for classified, highly classified discussions, The Moscow project has been an expensive embarrassment. So far, the State Department has spent $192 million for a building we can't use.

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That's more than twice the original estimate of $75 million. I wanted to know how much more would be needed to correct the problem and finish the project well, we we started off with the building. It was going to cost $75 million. We've now appropriated $192 million.

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Uh, what's the price ticket? Can you give us any price ticket on what you're talking about? I do not want to give you any hard and firm number. The estimate is an additional $40 million in appropriations from this committee. Now, let me make a comment, if I may, Mr.

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Chairman, on that. I referred in my earlier remarks to the move and counter move that it goes on in the game of embassy security and embassy penetration. The General Accounting Office has criticized State Department management procedures, which is said led to the problems with the Moscow Embassy.

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There's another reason why I recommended the Army Corps of Engineers be given some role in the construction of our embassies. The State Department should do what it does best, conduct foreign policy and leave construction to the corps of Engineers. I'll be right back. Mhm. No Children are born learners.

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They love to discover things, and that's where reading comes in. When kids read, they think they learn look a gastro partnership. But when they don't read a lot of their natural curiosity goes untapped, which puts them at a real disadvantage both in school today and the world tomorrow.

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That's why there's risks are I am reading is fundamental. That's right. Riff is a nationwide nonprofit program that gets kids into reading, not by making it something they have to do by making it something you want to do. You see, with the right encouragement kids do like to read, and kids who grew up to be adults would read.

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Find out how you can help bring refer to your community or if your kids not reading, find out how we can help you in your own home, right? Right are I F. That's what a kid starts to read The world. An open book. Welcome back. When you think of Florida, you think of Citrus, and last year alone we provided more than 70% of the nation's supply.

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Citrus was introduced in the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 14 93 and was under cultivation around Saint Augustine by the late 15 hundreds. Since then, our state's harvest has grown to where we produce 119 million boxes of oranges during the season, which ended last month and we set a new record by shipping almost 16 million boxes of fresh grapefruit last year.

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That's up from the previous high of 11 million boxes. Hard freezes the last few years have hurt some growers, but their determination to replant has ensured that we will continue as a major Citrus producer. It's estimated that the industry annually pumps almost $8 billion into Florida's economy, while Citrus has only grown 10 months out of the year.

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Frozen concentrate is sold all year long. A national consumer study conducted for the Florida Citrus Commission shows that American consumers believe orange juice is healthier and better than any beverage available in the supermarket. I recently visited Winter Garden and talked with Jerry Shaiken, Billy Arrington and Fred Saunders about the Citrus industry.

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Jerry is an independent grower in Orange County, Billy's with the South Lake of Popular Growers Association, and Fred represents the 80 Keen trust. They're all involved in Citrus production in central Florida. One of the things on my mind concerned the trade problems with Brazil. I asked them about the dumping of Brazilian Citrus into our markets.

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Well, it's good to see how many people are replanting Jerry, I know you're replanting some of your stuff at the same time. Uh huh. With the competition from Brazil and all you know, uh, do you think we can continue to compete? I don't know the answer to that.

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I know that the people in Florida want the Citrus industry to continue. I know that they're an awful lot of small, independent, centrist growers that it means that it's their whole way of life. And we've got to be careful of the imports in Brazil. We really do.

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What? What's the primary reason that you know the problems that we have with Brazil and why, uh, where are we concerned about that we in Florida have to go by all the rules and regulations. The minimum wage is the press decide regulation. We follow everything. Brazil.

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Nobody knows what they do and so they can dump their product in the United States much cheaper than we can even grow it. And it would be terrible if we have the American consumer dependent upon a foreign source for their vitamin C. Well, in this trade ruling that we just had come out this tariff ruling, what does that really say?

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I mean, what's the basis of that ruling now, as I understand it, it says that, yes, Brazil, you are guilty of dumping, and it does penalize them to a small degree. Uh, competitive this. We hear a lot about competitiveness now, and we want to be competitive.

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We want to compete. We want to survive. Just a question of how much Brazil has the advantage over us. Yeah, well, now, when we say dumping for a lot of our people out there to try to understand what that means, we're saying that in effect, that they're they're selling it cheaper in this country than they can actually grow it, uh, themselves right after.

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That's the definition of dumping. That's good. Well, we thought originally that they were that we were asking for about 8% tariff on the basis of that, and we ended up with about 2%. Right? So we won the war, but are we won the battle, but we didn't win the war yet.

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The war still continues. So we at this stage we've sort of proved they were guilty. We think they were more guilty than that. We'll have to go back and try to show that there was more dumping than you've done a good job up to now. But your message is still ahead of you, Senator Billy, you're working with another co op.

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Uh, are your people a number of them beginning to replant? And there were in an area that which the freeze hit south of Lake Apopka understand? Right. We have a lot more interest this spring than what we had in the last couple of years, mainly because we had a had a warm winter and, uh, things that are looking pretty good.

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We like Apopka did save a lot of our trees. And if we had not been behind that lake, it would have. We have been in the same situation. A lot of the Lake County people where we just, uh we would have been frozen out altogether. And the lake has helped.

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And we do have a lot of interest to get back into business. Fred Saunders, like many other growers, has been in the business all of his life. Fred, I noticed that this grove is located right here on a chain of lakes and Arnold bombers. Golf courses right next to us.

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Tell me that houses are selling in there. The lots are selling for $350,000. Why would Why would you go back and plan a Citrus grove here when it looks like probably, you know, highest use for this land would be to build houses on right now. Unfortunately, the folks that own it or dedicated remaining in the Citrus business and they want to just as long as they can.

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So they're not interested just in the fast buck or what they can make all this land. It happens to be, uh I'm working for the third generation of owners for this, this property. So they want to remain on and pass it on to the fourth generation.

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Jerry, you were telling me that there are a lot of small owners that are still out there trying to replant where they might could put a trailer park on their, uh, 15 or 20 acres. You know, Citrus growing in Florida is is a way of life, and it provides our green belt.

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Are ambience. Uh, it's great to have fresh air to breathe. We don't want wall to wall people in Florida. We want some of the old Florida to remain and being able to make a profit. And on an orange grove is a lifelong dream for an awful lot of people.

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Awful lot of schoolteachers, shopkeepers, small people have them and we want to keep it. Make that profit continue on. I know you're at least second generation, right, my sons and it also sons. So that's three generations. Well, my, uh, my great grandparents came to or been Dale and planted the first grove in that area and settled all and named all the first Lakes there.

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So I know something about that heritage that comes from those people. Modern technology continues to have a big impact on the Citrus industry, and the use of personal computers may now add a whole new dimension to weather forecasting. I'm continuing to say that one of our problems in our country is that what we're finding time after time we develop.

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We come up with the technology of the research and we're allowing the Japanese or the Brazilians or others to take our basic research and get to the market before we do. You know, we've got to do a better job and getting that out where we can use it.

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I totally agree. I think sometimes they spend more time at our experiment stations than we do. Weather information also is vital to us. That's another area where the federal government certainly can help us. We're now finding that we've got the potential with the weather information if we can hook people's own personal computers up to it.

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One of the girls is telling me now that he's finding that that weather isn't just for freeze. Uh, he says he saved a lot of money recently. He looked at his computer and it told him that the rain was getting ready to come. And he called his son.

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And he said, Don't put that $6000 a fertilizer out. It's gonna all be washed away. His son, you know, sort of dubious about that. But the next day they had a tremendous storm, and they save that money. Uh, so I think it's more than just to freeze.

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I understand. Others are looking at it about trying to determine where there how much fruit will be able to be picked, depending on what the crews can do in regard to rain. So there's all kind of potential for that, especially as we can hook up those computers.

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A lot of information, in addition to whether you know that we can put on that computer to, And I think lot of that information is just is there. We've just got to get the distribution system and get people tied into it. There's a lot of technology that, oh, we're not gonna be able to to wing it anymore.

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We're going to have to get more use more technology. So the old days of where the the Grove owner just sort of worked out of the seat of his britches and worked on his intuition. It's just not quite the same now. Those days are gone. Those days are gone.

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Research has led the way to new advances in biotechnology. New disease and freeze resistant root stocks are now under development. Do you all see any potential for really being able to develop a root stock that's going to be more freeze resistant? I know the University of Florida trying to do a lot of work on that.

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They tell me they, uh they now have a Filipino box Citrus tree that they scrambled with a Hamlin and instead of each one of those trees, normally have 18 chromosomes. And they started instead of ending up something with 18 chromosomes, they end up something with 36.

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So they have all of the chromosomes of both of the the trees. Do you see any potential for that in the future? To have something that's really freeze resistant is that Filipino tree? Seems to be it's gotta Sorry, orange. Uh, but it has a freeze resistant rootstock, so certainly would be a help for us.

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But I'm afraid, uh, for those of us who are trying to replant now, it's another generation off replanting. Gonna take several more years of work before it has anything that could be released for actual Grove youth. But, you know, Senator, research is extremely important to us in agriculture, and, uh, we really probably take the attitude that we don't want government to do too much for us.

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But research is somewhere that really counts. What the government does do with us in conjunction with the state. There are more than 14 Citrus growers with well over half a million acres in production in our state. Florida Citrus is an expanding industry. I hope that removing international trade barriers will be able to export more Citrus and in turn, give everyone a chance to taste the good Florida orange.

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We'll be right back. Oh, boy, do I need help? I have a kid Can't afford to. It's a new program that pays up to 50% of on the job training salaries and gives a tax credits to small operators like me. It's run by local business for local needs.

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Boy, do I have a local needs The call of private Industry Council. Hey, uh, I hear you're looking for help. I sure am. For information, right, The National Alliance of Business, Box 7 to 7, Washington, D. C. There are 35 million people with disabilities in America.

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We want the same things out of life you do to use our abilities to the fullest. And because this is the decade of disabled persons, the National Organization on disability urges us all to lend a hand right in our own communities. Let's put our abilities to work so that all America and Americans gain.

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Call this number now. 1 802 48 Able, I get about 25,000 letters each month, and I'd like to share some of them with you. A letter from Orlando says. Dear Senator Child. A recent automobile trip on Interstate four from here to Tampa convinced me of the need for the bullet train.

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What's holding it up? Well, I frequently make the Orlando to Tampa drive, and it's heavy traffic all the way, even at non rush hour. So I'm also hopeful that the bullet train is getting closer to a reality. We're making some progress in Congress. I've just introduced legislation in the Senate to put high speed rail projects on the same tax footing as other kinds of transportation.

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My bill would allow the use of tax free bonds to develop high speed rail or bullet train systems, just as these bonds are now available for ports and airports and mass transit projects. I believe the bill will encourage the private development of the bullet train. As a matter of fact, if the plan developed by the Florida High Speed Rail Commission works out, all this will be done by private enterprise.

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Government will not have to spend one dime and direct investment in the project. Potential builders of a high speed rail system are now developing proposals, and the state hopes to award a franchise for construction in the early 19 nineties. The basic system in Florida would connect Tampa and Orlando and Miami.

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Later editions would link to Tona in Jacksonville in southwest Florida. Cities along these routes have expressed great interest. Several have already offered land for stations and development right away and development rights for commercial areas around the stations that would partially finance the project. But let's not fool ourselves.

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There's still a lot of hurdles before we see the bullet train in Florida. But when these are overcome, high speed rail will help our state meet its transportation needs in a way that's friendly to the environment. High speed rail would mean Floridians can travel from downtown to downtown and less time than traveling by airplane.

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And development of this new technology in Florida will provide jobs and long term economic benefits. Our second letter comes from a high school teacher in Jacksonville. She says she understands the importance of education but is having trouble convincing some of her students of it. She wonders if the federal government shouldn't get involved in persuading students to stay in school.

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Well, she's right. We've all got to get involved if we're gonna solve the dropout problem in Florida, the situations particularly bad. With our state ranking 49th in the nation and the percentage of students who graduate from high school, only 61% of Florida's eligible high school students graduated in 1986.

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That means that one out of three high school seniors didn't finish the 12th grade last year. Those are frightening and discouraging statistics. I'm holding town meetings across the state to encourage our young people to stay in school. The meetings will be with teachers and administrators and students to talk about what we can do to prevent drop out.

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We'll try to show high school students at just getting a diploma will mean $80 more a week in a job, and with technology changing as fast as it does, a lot of unskilled jobs are gone forever. So it's important that we encourage our young people to stay in school.

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Education will ensure that our Children will be able to experience a higher quality of life. I want to thank all of those view that have written me with questions and ideas. Your letters are one great way for me to hear what's on your mind. The only thing is, I can't respond to some of your letters because they don't have return addresses on them.

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When you're right, please remember to include your name and your city. You're straight and zip code. Well, that's all we have time for today. I hope you'll join me again next time for the Lord and Child's update. Mm mhm. What's wrong? Mhm. Mhm. Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah mhm.

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A Senate Budget Committee hearing raised more questions over the security and safety of the American Embassy in Moscow. The building has been infested with bugs, electronic listening devices planted into the walls and ceilings of the building by Soviet contractors. We'll also be in central Florida with an update on our largest agricultural business, Citrus.

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I'm Senator Lawton Child's. I hope you'll join me for the Lawton Child's update. After a couple of hard freezes, Florida's $8 billion Citrus industry is back on track. This past season, our state exported a record breaking 15 million boxes of grapefruit. We'll talk to some central Florida growers about the future of our state's largest agricultural crop and the competition which confronts it.

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And we'll also hear from former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger on the status of the American Embassy in Moscow. I'm Senator Lawton Child's. I hope you'll join me for the Lawton Child's Update.