As chairman of the Subcommittee on Arms Control of the Foreign Relations Committee. I can assure you that international understanding is oftentimes a commodity in short supply. In specific terms. what we are talking about when we speak of a visa waiver is a program which would permit travelers from lowrisk countries. such as Western Europe. to travel to the United States without a visa. In other words. they would be permitted to travel solely on their passports as is the case in almost every other nation. Our current visa system requires all foreign travelers to obtain a visa from the U.S. Embassy in their country before coming to the United States. Due to the explosive growth of travel to this country over the past decade. this has resulted in our embassies being flooded with visa applications. The backlog in some embassies. most notably that in Great Britain. has resulted in delays of 4 to 6 weeks for visa applications to be processed. As you can imagine. this is very disruptive to the travel plans of British tourists and business people. There is also evidence that it is sometimes such a discouraging factor that it results in a loss of foreign tourists. During hearings which I conducted on this issue we received testimony that we could be losing several hundred million dollars in foreign trade income annually because of the negative influence of the visa requirement. In response to this problem. Senator SIMPSON has proposed. in S. 2222. that a visa waiver pilot program be conducted for 3 years in order to determine the potential benefits and problems of eliminating the visa requirement. This pilot program would be used to determine whether or not it would be feasible to expand future visa waiver eligibility to a major portion of our allies and trading partners. As I have indicated. I strongly support the concept of the visa waiver. and I am supportive of the pilot program Senator SIMPSON is proposing. However. there are a few changes which I have suggested and which Senator SIMPSON has agreed to adopt. Let me take a moment now to outline these.