gait had lead to the conclusion that I was drunk. After 15 years of such treatment, I let such occurrences slide but my friend did not have as tough an attitude as I have developed an attitude I have developed to protect myself from the discrimination that seems to come upon head injured and other disabled persons from every side.

What does all this have to do with the ADA that is, the proposed Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989? The answer everything. There is no equal opportunity employment except in the mind of the person that thought up this three word phrase. In the 1980's, as this country was trying to recover economic backslide, the disabled people took it on the

from an chin and

lost not only opportunity to work but opportunity to even move about freely in our Society. Furthermore, many disabled have been been denied the freedom they deserve because of the lack of public accommodations and services.

In my many years as a disabled person in contrast with my non-disabled life, I have learned that the disabled when deprived of the opportunity of freedom of movement and adequate accommodations often lose the respect of our fellow citizens. They are prisoners in an otherwise free Society in practical terms as caged in as the criminal inmates in our highest security penal institutions.

Please reweave the safety net for disabled people by approving this legislation.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Sangmeister.

Mr. SANGMEISTER. I understand the provision to remove illegal drug users from the protection of the legislation. I have no doubt that you support that. Subsequently, I have been advised that an amendment was added that would grant protection to illegal drug users if they have some other recognized disability.

If the opportunity arises in the House to delete that language, would you support that?

Mr. THORNBURGH. I think and I hope I made clear in my statement that this administration does not want to see legislation designed to deal with persons with disabilities becoming a loophole for providing protection to persons who are using illegal drugs or illegally using legal drugs.

To the extent that any ambiguity in that regard can be removed, we would certainly support a technical amendment, addressing the point that you raised.

Mr. SANGMEISTER. Thank you.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. McCollum.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is good to see you, Mr. Attorney General. I think all of us support the basic premise of this act. The ADA has been long needed in this country to establish civil rights for those who are handicapped. There have been numerous cases raised over the last few weeks, especially since the Senate passed what I think were improvements which I congratulate you for achieving.

I want to ask about a couple of them. One of the things the business community has been particularly concerned with has been in the public accommodations section. They have been very concerned that there is no exemption for small business there, as there has for small business in the employment section.

In title III, in other words, if you have 14 or 25 or fewer employees, you still have to abide by it. They give examples and say, despite the fact of undue hardship language and that sort of thing, it is not a very practical matter for little businesses that have, oh, a stand with teeshirts like you see in stores in the malls or shopping areas, they have very limited square footage, and you and I could not walk between the aisles, let alone somebody who is handicapped.

They suggest there ought to be a small business exemption altogether for small enough businesses, either by size of employers or another determination, or there ought to be a provision that allows a clear-cut, not litigable way to go about doing this, to help the handicapped, such as providing a separate area within the small store that they have for all the samples to be, or something like that, so somebody could come to that area.

Has there been thought given to that? Is that of any concern to you at all?

Mr. THORNBURGH. There has been a great deal of thought given to that, Representative McCollum. Let me mention, first of all, one difficulty that was immediately encountered in talking about transporting the small business exemption in the employment section into the public accommodations section.

The small business exemption in the employment section, which we wholeheartedly support and which is consistent with title VII of

the Civil Rights Act of 1964, results in the exemption of about 20 percent of the employers who would otherwise be subject to the act without the exemption.

That is the best figure that we can come up with. To use that same exemption in the public accommodations section, however, would result in the exemption of well over 90 percent of the public accommodations, and in certain categories such as doctors' and dentists' offices, drugstores, laundry and cleaning services, the very mainstream-oriented types of public accommodation that we are most concerned about, close to 100 percent of the establishments would be exempt.

Accordingly, the requirements with regard to public accommodations have been drafted to provide for minimizing the burden on small businesses. The barriers are required to be removed in a very narrow area of cases where that removal is readily achievable and can be carried out without much difficult or expense.

That, it seems to me, would be a very, very limited area where retrofitting or removal might be called for on occasion and is in recognition of the very points that you raised with regard to a number of small businesses.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. May I interrupt and suggest that despite the fact that I agree with you, the problem with using the same definition, if you have that little store where you can envision all those teeshirts in just two racks on a narrow lane and you squeeze between the two, there is no barrier to be removed. They would have to take out some of their stock.

I realize by regulation we can maybe do something. But there are a lot of folks concerned about that kind of situation. That has been raised to me.

Mr. THORNBURGH. If it cannot be done easily or without difficulty or expense, it is not obliged to be done.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. There is expense, the cost to that little business. It may be that he takes out half his inventory, then.

Mr. THORNBURGH. It seems to me the requirement that it be done without much difficulty or expense, if you are going to have to sacrifice half the room devoted to your inventory, that would constitute to me a substantial cost or expense or difficulty.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. I want to at least put that on the record that that is your view, so we have a way to interpret that, because I have a great concern in that area.

Mr. THORNBURGH. You are grappling with the same types of problems we looked at in fashioning the legislation on the Senate side. It may deserve some study, but I think we felt that having found the transportation from one section to another of the exemption relating to employment, the number of employees was not a workable feature, so we tried to agree upon a way to otherwise minimize any prospective burden on these very small businesses.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. I realize my time has expired. I hope we will have a second round on this.

Mr. FRANK. I will take my question now.

General, I want to express my very deep appreciation to the President and to yourself for taking such an active role on this legislation. I think it is extremely important. I think we ought to be very clear about what we are saying.

It is important to be honest about it. There will be, obviously when this is actually implemented, some slight additional cost, and what we are saying is that that additional cost distributed across the entire population will have, we believe, disproportionate benefits for a small number of our fellow citizens who have been in some ways unfortunately affected.

I think that is what we are talking about. I think it is a mark of social maturity of which we ought to be proud, that we accept that principle. I think your answers have helped make it clear that that is the principle that is going to guide you; that we are not going to be unreasonable and there is not going to be excess.

I think we have to be explicit about one other thing here. We are often told by the private sector that they want certainty. I understand that. We don't want to be subjected to arbitrariness. I think what we are saying in this case is that we are in a new area.

Although we have legislated here in the Fair Housing Act and in the immigration bill, we are talking about some areas that are somewhat new to us. It is important to have discretion.

I think what we are saying, I am hoping the majority of my colleagues will recognize the good faith and the intelligence with which you and your colleagues are prepared to administer that.

I think what you have said so far, and what you have done helps bear that out. We are often told that we should resist micromanagement. I think this is an important example of where we ought to be resisting micromanagement, that we ought to be accepting the fact that this is a difficult and socially very important task, we ought to accept the bona fides of yourself and the people working with you, and I think everything that has been done to date shows that.

The experience has been that people who have raised legitimate concerns have had them dealt with, going back to the Fair Housing Act, where many of us worked with homebuilders and worked out a set of rules which seem to be OK now.

I don't think there is any way not to give discretion. If we did not give a great deal of discretion, we would more likely overlegislate. Congress is not going away. People who are administering it, Congress says, well, we have confidence in the people administering, but what about the future group?

Congress is not going away. The people most concerned about this bill, the people who are themselves suffering from disabilities and the people who expect most to benefit from the broadening of opportunity here I think understand on the whole that it is to their interest to make sure that this is reasonably done.

The worst thing you can do from the standpoint of meeting the very legitimate request of people who are disabled in some way is to overdo this in ways that would impose a cost for too little benefit. Everything I have seen so far suggests that we have that kind of understanding.

I would hope that you would comment on that and tell me that in this case, I have got it right. If we are not prepared to legislate in that fashion, then I think we are going to have a very hard time. Mr. THORNBURGH. Let me add two additional comments in that regard, Mr. Chairman. One is that as I noted, there are lagtimes provided in certain sections of this bill that are designed to take

into account what careful study and consideration of the more vexatious provisions, potentially vexatious provisions that can be dealt with.

Second, we propose to, as I indicated, carry forward an aggressive program of technical assistance, which will enable us to work hand in glove with those persons who are affected both in terms of their rights and their responsibilities to ensure that our administration is, in fact, sensible, reasonable, and consistent with the notion of balancing the cost imposed for compliance with the full recognition of the rights of the persons who are sought to be benefited. Mr. FRANK. Thank you.

I have one specific question which I have been asked by some groups. I had some requests from some people in the construction field. Are we sure that this legislation fits in well with preexisting legislation, for instance, Grove City and fair housing? Are there any possibilities that people are going to be subjected to conflicting mandates or different timetables?

Mr. THORNBURGH. I hesitate to give you absolute assurance, but I think those have been attended to. If there are areas where that is not the case

Mr. FRANK. That is a better way to phrase it, which is, namely, it would be our intention if there were any glitches, that it would be our intention that no one would be subjected to conflicting or confusing, substantive or chronologically

Mr. THORNBURGH. I would certainly raise them.

Mr. FRANK. We would invite any groups who feel there are any such conflicts to let us know about it, because it is important for us to work those out and have nobody subjected to that.

Mr. DeWine.

Mr. DEWINE. Thank you.

Can you tell us the administration's position about the use of a tax credit for small business that has to comply with the requirements for this law?

Mr. THORNBURGH. That has been suggested and asked in the course of the framing of the legislation before you for consideration, but because of-well, it has, I must acknowledge, an equitable appeal, but because of the fiscal situation and restraints, the administration at this time does not support any such provision.

Mr. DEWINE. One could make the argument that the goals of this bill certainly are laudable and certainly I would hope are shared by all Americans, and that the question then is, who is going to pay for it?

It seems to me that the choice when you are dealing with a tax credit issue, the choice is between spreading the cost among everybody in this country or having the small businessmen and women in the country pay for it.

Can you react to that? Is that a fair characterization or not?

Mr. THORNBURGH. I think that is a fair characterization, and from a point of view of simple equity, that may recommend itself for consideration. There is, under section 190 of the IRS Code, presently a deduction of up to $35,000 per year for taxpayers for expenses associated with removal of qualified architectural and trans