Dick Lugar: “there has been a remarkable degree of bipartisan cooperation in moving this bill forward. I would like to thank Senator…”

“there has been a remarkable degree of bipartisan cooperation in moving this bill forward. I would like to thank Senator Biden, Senator Chafee, and Senator Leahy for their help in drafting the Senate bill, which is a companion to H.R. 2870, introduced by Representatives Portman, Kasich and Hamilton. I would also like to thank my twenty nine additional Senate cosponsors from both sides of the aisle for their important support. I would especially like to thank Senator Helms for cosponsoring the bill and moving it expeditiously through the Committee on Foreign Relations, which approved it by voice vote on May 19, 1998. Senator Biden and I have worked together on international environmental issues for many years. The original debt-for-nature bill was the Biden-Lugar Global Environmental Protection Assistance Act of 1989. This was followed by President Bush's Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (EAI), which also linked debt reduction and environmental protection in the developing nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. S. 1758, the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, allows lower and middle income developing countries to reduce certain debts owed to the U.S. Government under the Foreign Assistance Act and the Agricultural Trade and Development Assistance Act. In return, they must place local currencies in a tropical forest fund to protect outstanding tropical forests in their own country.”