BOND RESISTS COMMERCE ELIMINATION

One of Missouri's U.S. Senators expects to butt heads with other Republican party members as he tries to keep divisions of the U.S. Department of Commerce intact or create a U.S. Department of International Trade.

Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Missouri, said his biggest opposition will be fellow Republican and presidential hopeful Bob Dole, R-Kansas, also the Senate majority leader.

Dole is expected to introduce legislation in the next few days that would disband the Commerce Department, but Bond is making a case for keeping the divisions within the department that deal with international trade. And if he can't stop his colleagues' momentum to get rid of the department, he said he would amend the legislation to create a U.S. Department of International Trade.

"Medium and small businesses have to have some of these services to get them into world markets," Bond said from his Capitol office Wednesday. "Government needs to be trimmed, but we need to cut government with a scalpel not a hatchet."

Bond said services like the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export and Trade were important in trade negotiations and policing and in tracking information on countries using unfair trade practices.

"I would prefer to keep the existing Department of Commerce, trim it and strengthen the international trade aspects," he said, "but we need to scale back government."

Bond said other departments at the federal level needed to be eliminated. He said federal departments of education and energy shouldn't exist. But the Commerce Department provides vital services to Missourians and others in the United States that only the federal government can accomplish, he said.

A spokeswoman for Dole's Capitol office said the senator didn't have a response to Bond's proposals. She wasn't aware that Dole knew about Bond's intentions to oppose eliminating the Department of Commerce or create a new Department of International Trade.

Bond admits that he might be alone in supporting the preservation of the department or the creation of a new department.

"That's why I have announced this now to let people know where I stand and to bring people my way," Bond said. "With Senator Dole supporting this, it won't be long before we see it on the floor."