Mr. BARTLETT. So if the Federal law were to define a drug user as a person with a disability per se, you just do not see that as a disability.

Mr. MOSBACHER. Not a particular, yes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Ms. Comfort?

Ms. COMFORT. Right now at Southwestern Bell we require a drug testing before hiring a person. And if a person would fail to pass that, then he would not, obviously, be hired.

We do have a policy that if an employee is found to be taking illegal drugs, then we would certainly work with that employee with rehabilitation, but we would not tolerate that.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Wolf?

Mr. WOLF. Well, what we are dealing here with, Mr. Bartlett, is a statute which has to do with control, control of your own life, and independence. And I would say that someone who is using drugs, and I realize this may be a simplistic approach to this problem, but I would say that someone who is using drugs made a choice. And if we are ever going to get control of that issue in this country, we have to make people responsible for their own conduct.

The people that this statute is designed are things that are beyond their control, and they are trying to get control of their lives. And I would just support very strongly what Mr. Lanier said. I would say someone who is using drugs and who come through this statute, they should not be employed.

Mr. OWENS. Will the gentlemen yield for a moment?
Mr. BARTLETT. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. OWENS. For clarification, let me just give you an example. A young man graduated from law school, worked in the U.S. Attorney General's office in New York, and was found guilty of using cocaine. He has gone before a judge and was mandated to enter a treatment program. He is in the treatment program and it is publicly known that he is a drug user.

Are you saying that this individual does not have a chance anymore in the work place?

Mr. WOLF. No. I am saying that someone who has been rehabilitated.

Mr. OWENS. Someone who is in a rehabilitation program, who otherwise would be an illegal drug user. We should not have people doing illegal things in the work place. I agree 100 percent. But here is a drug user who is in a rehabilitation program mandated by the

court.

Are you saying that this person should not be allowed to--
Mr. WOLF. No, I am not saying that. No.

Mr. OWENS. Thank you very much.

Mr. WOLF. Not at all.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Bartlett.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you for your help on that. I think as Congress considers the bill, I think that that the area of alcohol abuse will in fact become increasingly clear and will come down on the side of the drug-free work place, and I think the legislation is moving in that direction.

Let me ask Ms. Comfort two additional questions.

First of all, in your employment policy now with Section 503, which I think you stated you have an affirmative action policy for the employment of persons with disabilities.

What kind of remedy system do you have built into that if someone believes they have been denied employment at Southwestern Bell based on their disability? What are their remedies?

Ms. COMFORT. Well, it would be the same remedies as one who might feel that she has been discriminated against who are a minority. It is the same process. At least I believe that is the case. We have our internal 800 number or hotline number where an employee can seek some remedies internally before going to a more official body. But I am not an expert in the labor field, so I cannot go any further than that. But it would be the same as any other discrimination.

Mr. BARTLETT. You do not have then a separate system which a person with a disability could appeal back to the personnel department, or back to someone in Southwestern Bell?

Ms. COMFORT. It is all part of the affirmative action program, and we do have an employee, for instance, here in Houston whose job is to work with those who have declared themselves as having a handicap or a disability. So we really handle it as part of the affirmative action process.

Maybe legally there is some differences, but internally we handle it all pretty much the same. Of course, a person with a disability might need some special things that a person who feels that they are discriminated another way such as accommodations and flexibility in work hours and that sort of thing. So we work very hard to make those accommodations.

Mr. BARTLETT. It might be helpful, Ms. Comfort, for this committee, if you could, if Southwestern Bell could provide for the committee subsequently both some sort of indication of which kind of appeals have been used and what the results were, so a description from the person here in Houston who is doing it, of the types of accommodations that you made in specific instances. It would be very helpful for us to be able to look at it.

[The requested information will be available in the office of the Subcommittee on Select Education.]

And one last question. And this comes to a section of the bill that can be as yet unresolved I think in the minds of Congress, and that is, in the relay system itself, the bill as passed now in the Senate is still somewhat ambiguous, not as to whether a relay system would be required for a handicapped person to be able to talk over the telephone to a non-hearing impaired person. The question that is still somewhat ambiguous is who pays for that system.

In Southwestern Bell's practice, how is the payment structured? Obviously, an operator-assisted phone call throughout the conversation is an expensive proposition. And how does Southwestern Bell charge for that service now? And in your opinion, what should the Federal law say about it?

Ms. COMFORT. Well, right now we are not involved in the direct delivery of message relay service. We have operator assistance in terms of placing a call and that sort of thing, but not being an interpreter in the sense of message relay.

In Texas, such a program will be started in 1990, in September of 1990, and some entity will bid to have that function, and it will be funded 55 percent by the local exchange companies and 45 percent by the long-distance carriers for the time period, I believe, of one year until we can see how the service is really used in terms of local versus long distance. And we will recover our dollars for that by the surcharge on the phone bill. So that is kind of how that is working.

And the Public Utility commission

Mr. BARTLETT. Surcharge for all users or for users of the service? Ms. COMFORT. For all users. That is the mechanism in place for the recovery of the expenses.

Mr. BARTLETT. So with or without Federal, law Southwestern Bell is going to provide the service and are going to charge all users for the service?

Ms. COMFORT. We might not provide it. Whoever wins the competitive bidding process. It could be General Telephone. It could be AT&T. It could be another related telecommunications company. But the funding mechanism would be through our phone bill.

Mr. BARTLETT. But the funding is going to be provided and the funding is going to be a surcharge on all users.

Mr. Mosbacher, I would like to say I very much appreciate your testimony in support for this legislation. As you correctly noted, there is a fellow Texan, George Bush, he had a good deal to do with getting legislation to the point where it is today and likely to pass this session.

I might also say, and I appreciate the kinds words you had to say about me, but I have to say that I am quite a fan, as I know that many people in this audience are, of Rob Mosbacher, Jr., and the work that you have done at the department.

You have indeed been a voice and a real force and a champion for independent living, for covering so many of our programs, of our government programs from the state of dependency into independency, and I think you have helped to propel to the forefront the independent living issues. And in that regard, our compliments to you and the work that you do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just like to commend all the panelists, particularly Mr. Lanier, for the outstanding job that you have done. We need to have not only the mini and microbuses, but also full-service buses.

I think many people fail to be as thorough as it relates to the psychological aspect of separate and equal, which I think is probably one of the most important aspects, and I think that what we are doing here is really going in the right direction, and I wish that more local agencies would do that.

Ms. Comfort, you indicated Judge Greene said that what Bell Atlantic was doing was prohibited under the MFJ, but that he would not be in opposition.

Is there any action, to your knowledge, on whether that decision has been made, do you know whether Bell Atlantic will be leaning towards making a request for the MFJ prohibiting to be reconsidered as to all the waiver?

Ms. COMFORT. First of all, our request went to the Department of Justice. It is declared for a ruling from Judge Mercer, and there the agency or the department said that a waiver would be required. We have not approached Judge Greene yet. But I guess in Bell Atlantic's request for a ruling, we did ask for a waiver and the process to be started. So we will be pursuing that certainly. And we are very optimistic that a waiver will be granted.

Mr. PAYNE. That certainly makes sense. As you may know, Bell Atlantic is housed in my State of New Jersey, and we really are very pleased with the outstanding work that the organization is doing there.

We have noted some of the points that you have raised, and I am sure that the committee will follow up with the chairman on these issues.

Thank you very much.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Bartlett has one additional question he wanted to raise.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the additional time. I neglected to ask a specific question to Mr. Lanier. You are our transit expert in this hearing so I need to get your opinion.

First of all, I understood your testimony to say that Houston is now going to provide both the lifts on the mainstream buses and the para-transit.

My question goes to that issue and it is, do you believe that this Federal law should-the Federal law, as proposed out in the Senate, would require both of all transit systems in the country, both the para-transit and the mainline lifts on buses.

Do you think that's what Federal law should provide, or do you think it should be somewhat different?

Mr. LANIER. Let me say, first of all, that a number, maybe even most of the people in the transit industry think it should not. I would disagree with that. I think you need to provide both. And one reason is if you are going to provide the lifts, if you don't provide the van service. You take a blind person, the lift is of no benefit to them.

[Applause.]

A retarded person, a retarded person is not helped by the lift. And the lifts reach a particular portion of the handicapped community. But if you pass a law that simply says "lifts", and then if there is sort of a general obligation for the remainder of the handicapped community, my feeling is that the dollars spent in the one area would perhaps crowd out service in the other.

You run next into the question of total dollars that an agency can spend serving this particular area. And the question is, would the lifts and the van service, as a combination, be an excessive burden. I really, given the way-I will say this tactfully-given the way the transit agencies spend their money, I do not think that this is below the cut line in terms of the priority of decisions.

In terms, for example, I would rather myself spend the money to serve the handicapped than I would building new rail systems.

They speak of image. I would rather have the image of being an agency that services all its people. So my notion would be that we ought to do both, because if you do not, there will be an equally significant segment of the handicapped community, perhaps they

are not represented here, but they will be there, for whom the lifts are not appropriate.

The question I think you will have to consider is what is the total burden. In the case of Houston, this total burden will end up running between $5 and $10 million a year. Well, we are $6 million now; probably $7 or $8 million a year.

We have got about 20 million a year of formula money from the Federal Government. We occasionally have discretionary grants we get from the government. We have overall over a $200 million a year budget. I would not make this item that I would cut.

Mr. BARTLETT. There is one proposal that is at least being discussed that would place a cap on what the Federal requirement is, not the cap on total expenditures, but at least that a cap of 2 percent of the operating budget

Mr. LANIER. A what?

Mr. BARTLETT. A cap?

Mr. LANIER. Of what?

Mr. BARTLETT. A cap of the operating budget.

Mr. LANIER. No, but what is the percentage?

Mr. BARTLETT. At 2 percent. They say that the Federal law would require―would have a requirement no more than 2 percent of the operating budget.

Mr. LANIER. Just a point there on the curve. A 2 percent cap will be absorbed in a normal transit agency if you include depreciation as an expense, which it is, but the use of the lift. And if you both mandate the lifts and have a 2 percent requirement, it will leave an agency, and that may be your judgment, it will leave the agency free to decide whether or not it will have vans. But the mathematical results-

Mr. BARTLETT. So a 2 percent cap is underestimated here.

Mr. LANIER. Well, they presently have a 3 percent cap, and that's a regulation. But that was struck down by, as I understand it from Lex Frieden, that was struck down in the Philadelphia court. But 3 percent is just about the van cost.

Mr. BARTLETT. And do you think that technology is going to be dramatically improved for lifts on buses over the course of the next 10 years, or do you think it will be about where we are today?

Mr. LANIER. Of course, I do not know. I would be inclined to-I have thought a little bit about this, and I do not quite know the language to suggest. But I would try to leave some room in a section for developing technology.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OWENS. I want to thank all the witnesses. It has been very informative and inspiring testimony. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

Our final panel consists of the Honorable Ashley Smith of the Texas House of Representatives, and the Honorable Chet Brooks of the Texas State Senate.

I understand Mr. Brooks has not arrived yet. We will start with the Honorable Ashley Smith.