Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. I send it on behalf of Senators Kerry, Wellstone, Daschle, Lautenberg, Levin, and Mikulski.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the Senator from North Dakota for his generous comments about my role in this legislation. I must say, I knew of the Senator when he was a Congressman, and I, quite frankly, have been impressed at how dogged he has been in pursuing tougher approaches to crime. The Senator from Michigan spoke about frivolous lawsuits. He is correct, this is worthy of a debate at another time. I think his intention is positive. I think he may have the perverse effect of bringing about the exact opposite result he wants. Unfortunately, a lot of what he suggested is in the bill before us. I kind of find it fascinating. We had this debate. We had a hearing in the Judiciary Committee. We did not do much else. Starting at page 153 of the continuing resolution and continuing for, I do not know how many pages here, entitled section 802, ``Appropriate Remedies for Prison Conditions,'' we essentially rewrite the law. The fact of the matter is, nobody in this body even knows what is in this bill. Senator Hatch's staff knows. Senator Abraham's staff knows, Senator Abraham knows, Senator Biden knows. None of you, I will bet you a million bucks, has any notion what is in this bill. Zero. I am willing to bet you anything. But it will not be the first time I have or others have voted on things we do not know is contained in omnibus bills like this. Let me respond to the comments about my amendment to restore 100,000 cops. A couple of my colleagues have stood up and said, ``100,000 cops, just not true, never going to happen.'' There are 33,000 cops already, just from the time we passed the bill, after spending $1.6 billion of the $8.8 billion. Then we heard, of course, 100,000 cops are never going to, nor should it, fund 100 percent of the local police now or in the future. That is true. No one ever said this was going to support 100 percent. Guess what folks? The block grants do not either. The block grants do not do it either, nor should they. It is not the Federal Government's role to promise in perpetuity to the local communities to fund forever. This does fund 100,000 cops, and it does fund them for 5 years or so. The cops and the States are going to have to pick up the tab. Guess what? It funds 100 percent of what we give them in the block grant, but the block grant ends. I challenge any of my Republican colleagues to stand up and promise that this bill contains in perpetuity a commitment to continue to pay out of the Federal payroll for any cop hired under this bill. This is not going to happen. It is not supposed to happen. It was not designed to happen. So it is, what we used to call in law school, a red herring to suggest this fully funds the cops. Funds are in the trust fund. We heard funds are just not there. The funds are in the trust fund. Let us recall the Republicans cut $200 million from the $4.287 billion that is in the trust fund in 1996 in their budget resolution. So if they keep up their efforts, maybe they will be able to deplete the trust fund so there will not be any money in it. The money was there. They cut the trust fund in the Republican budget resolution. I also heard we have to end the Washington-knows-best philosophy. Well, that is what the 100,000 cops is all about. Local communities decide if they want to apply, local communities define local policing strategy for themselves and the Republicans call for a separate prison grant of $100 million that does not let them decide the same way that we allow them to decide, because communities have to pick up the costs for each cop after 3 years. ``One hundred thousand cops is a lie,'' one of my colleagues said. My response is, neither 100,000 cops nor a block grant is going to be or should be a permanent entitlement program, and we do not want to federalize local police. There is no difference. No difference, except you get fewer cops and less money under the block grant approach. Now we also heard New York City did not receive one new cop. New York City got $54 million to redeploy 2,175 cops through the COPS More Program. So we gave them that money, the Federal Government. They put up the rest, and they were able to redeploy from inside the precincts 2,175 cops. D.C. It was also said D.C. did not receive more cops. Response. D.C. got $6,076,163 to redeploy 626 cops under the COPS More Program. Also, it was said, the city should decide between cops and computers. My response is, the COPS More Program is exactly that --$217 million in 1996 that helped relocate and redeploy 13,000 cops by not having to go back to the station house. Also, I heard block grants give you the right to use the dollars to hire new cops. Well, my response is, it must be guaranteed, not an option to hire new cops or they will not be hired. I also heard it said on the floor by one of my respected colleagues, ``I have long said 100,000 cops is a phony idea.'' Well, in November 1993, a lot of people did not think it was such a bad idea, including the Senator who thought it was a phony idea. I will not go through it because I would hate everybody reading everything I said back to me in the Record. But, you know, it may be thought of as a phony idea now, but it was not in 1993 when we were doing it. The other criticism I heard is the continuing resolution level for 100,000 cops, $975 million, is sufficient to get us there. Well, $975 million is not enough for this year, 1996. The CR provided $407 million, and $276 million has already been spent, and $130 million will be spent on police technologies and police efforts to fight family violence and community policing efforts. The current CR would provide a total of $975 million for COPS. Subtract the $407 million, and that leaves $568 million for the rest of the year, if the Hatfield amendment becomes law. But $522 million has already been requested through March 6. In other words, that leaves $50 million for all other applications that come in from now through September 30. There is not enough. There is not enough. Just go back to your home States, ask them if they are going to stop applying. No. If the State of Oklahoma, if the State of Utah, if the other States, they do not want to apply for any more cops, God bless them. Wonderful, do not apply. But if they do apply and they qualify on the merits, there is no money for them. We already have something like--where is that chart-- 7,766 new cops requested so far this year--requested. Oklahoma wants 94 new ones. My colleague says, ``Wow.'' Well, go tell the Oklahoma folks they do not need them. I respect that. But the idea there is enough for those who qualify and are requesting simply is not true. We also heard Washington should not dictate local strategy. Well, my response is, we are not dictating local strategy. Nobody has to ask, and only big cities get COPS more dollars. That is also not true. You have got American Fork in Vermont, Carbon County, Duchesne County, Kane, Layton, Logan, Ogden, UT, Salt Lake, South Ogden--you know, the list goes on and on. I did not know they were big cities. Based on a salary of $65,000 to $70,000, this will not fund 100,000 cops. The truth is, the average salary is $40,000. I reserve the 20 seconds I may have left and yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the amendment I am proposing today would provide the first $20 million of a 5-year effort to add 1,000 new Boys & Girls Clubs--including 200 more clubs in housing projects--so that 1 million more children can participate in this vital program. This investment of $100 million in seed money--all to start new clubs--translates to only $100 per additional child who will be served by a Boys & Girls Club. The Federal Government's contribution is only 10 percent of the total funds needed to complete this project. This is only seed money. The remaining 90 percent of the funding for new clubs will come from private donations. That is a Federal contribution of only $100 per child to provide 1 million children with a safe, supervised, and challenging place to go after school rather than hanging out on street corners or returning to an empty home. Fully 40 percent of juvenile crime is committed between 3 and 9 p.m. These are the hours when many children are left unsupervised. In hundreds of public housing projects across the country, Boys & Girls Clubs give kids a safe place to hang out after school--a place with positive activities and positive role models. A 1992 evaluation conducted by Columbia University found that housing projects with Boys & Girls Clubs had 13 percent fewer juvenile crimes; 22 percent less drug activity; and 25 percent less presence of crack than housing projects without Boys & Girls Clubs. Those who study this issue agree that breaking the cycle of violence and crime requires an investment in the lives of our children with support and guidance to help them reject the violence and anarchy of the streets in favor of taking positive responsibility for their lives. And prevention of crime--particularly juvenile crime--is more important now than ever before. In 1994 more than 2.7 million children under the age of 18 were arrested. Half of these arrests--1.4 million--were children under the age of 16. There is a fairly simple answer to this problem--provide supervised activities for children during the high-crime hours of the late afternoon and early evening. The key is to keep children off the streets and out of trouble during the times they are most likely to get into trouble. This is not complicated. We can--indeed we must--recognize this fact and take all the actions necessary to fill the crime-likely hours with supervised activities. Constructive after-school prevention programs like Boys & Girls Clubs are the best way tool we have to stop juvenile crime, juvenile drug use, and juvenile victimization by other youth. We have a choice. We can work to prevent crime before it happens. If we don't, we are merely postponing the inevitable--dealing with juveniles after the shots are fired, after the children become addicted to drugs, after more lives are ruined. When a life about to go wrong is set back on the right track--that is a testament to hope. We build hope by showing children that they matter and by contrasting the dead end of violence with the opportunity for a constructive life. This amendment deserves full bipartisan support. This is crime prevention--as far as I know, the Boys & Girls Club is a program everyone on both sides of the aisle has claimed to support. I urge all of my colleagues to fund this proven prevention program and join me in helping to stem the tide of children who would otherwise be lost to drugs and violence.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will do something no one will believe--I yield back my time.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I have spoken with the White House, and the President agrees that the only course to be taken on the 100,000 COPS Program is an unequivocal and unwavering support for adding 100,000 cops to our streets. The irony of all ironies is, in my view, that after the years that Senator Kerry, Senator Wellstone, and others of us have fought for this program, we heard repeatedly--I mean, if I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times on this floor--``This isn't really going to be 100,000 cops.'' I watched Charlton Heston on TV in paid television advertisements. He would say, ``This is a phony thing. It is not 100,000 cops. This will not produce more than 20,000 additional police officers. It just simply is not''--and he went on and on and on and on. I heard repeatedly from my Republican colleagues that all this was about was adding welfare workers. This was adding welfare social workers and no hard police enforcement. We have only been doing this about a year, and we now have a total in the United States of America--and I will be repeating some of these numbers, because they warrant repeating--totally funded so far are 34,114 additional cops; direct hiring, 20,236; and the so-called COPS More Program, 12,678. Bottom line, Mr. President, is more than 33,000 police officers are on the streets who would not otherwise have been on the streets doing community policing and have already been funded. What is more, the results of the Community Policing Program, which all of my colleagues know now ad nauseam because the Senator from Massachusetts and I have been--for how many years now, I ask the Senator from Massachusetts, 5, 6 years we have been talking about community policing? Because of community policing, because of the requirement that in order to get a single additional federally paid local police officer your whole department has to be involved in community policing, the results of these additional 33,000 police officers have been leveraged in a way that was not imagined by many. It was by the Senator from Minnesota, and that is, if you had a police force of five cops in a small town and they are not involved in community policing, in order to get one additional cop that you need, you have to put the other five in community policing. We have leveraged six cops into community policing, where there was none before, by merely one additional police officer. Mr. President, there was only a total of about 525,000 local police officers before this began. There are those of us on this side, and I can speak for the President in this regard--and I seldom ever do that-- bottom line is we want to make sure there are an additional 100,000 cops on the street when this is over, so we end up with 600,000-plus local police officers. As a result of what we have already done so far, community policing speaks for itself. More cops means less crime. You know, there is not a lot we know about crime. We all think we know about it. We think we do not have to know the facts. I heard someone say--actually I heard Senator Simpson say it--everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not entitled to their own facts. He was talking about something other than this, but the facts are that there is not a lot we know for certain about law enforcement and the criminal psyche. But one thing we do know. If you have a cop standing on this corner and no cop on the adjacent corner and there is a crime that is going to be committed in that intersection, it will be committed on the corner where there is no cop. That is all we know. We think we know a lot of other things, but that we do know. So we need more cops. To cite just one specific example, look what is happening in New York City. More police devoted to community policing has proven to mean less crime. In the first 6 months of 1995, compared to the first 6 months of 1994, let me read the statistics: Murder is down by 30 percent, robbery is down by 22 percent, burglary is down by 18 percent, car theft is down by 25 percent. In the face of that success in fighting America's crime epidemic, it seems to me it would be folly to go back on our commitment of adding the remaining 67,000 cops called for under this crime law to the list. As a former President used to say, in a different context, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' Well, the COPS Program is working. It is not broke. It is fixing things. Why are we doing what this legislation calls for, backing off of that commitment in both dollars and numbers and the requirement that local officials use this money to hire cops? That, unfortunately, is exactly what this latest continuing resolution proposes to do. Instead of fully funding the President's request for the 100,000 COPS Program, this latest proposal would slash the 1996 request of the COPS Program to $975 million, about one-half of the $1.9 billion called for. Let me go back and review the bidding here just a little bit. That is that, unlike any other program, we set up a trust fund to fund these cops. We are not talking about new taxes here. We are talking about we made a commitment, with the help of the Senator from Texas, Senator Gramm, over 1\1/2\ years ago, that we were going to cut the size of the Federal Government work force instead of letting it continue to grow as it did under two Republican Presidents with the help of Democratic Congresses. What happened was we have kept that commitment. We have essentially taken a check that we were paying the Federal bureaucrat--I do not use that word in a derisive way, but in which we paid a Federal employee-- when that person left Federal employment, we did not hire one; we took that check and sent it back home for folks to hire cops. We traded bureaucrats for cops. Now, here we are, with money in the till under that program, and effectively defunding by $1 billion the request for money for cops. Not only is the 100,000 COPS Program subject to extreme cuts, but the latest continuing resolution also makes nearly $813 million of that money that is supposed to go to the 100,000 COPS Program to fund those cops into what we call down here--and we think everybody at home understands it--we call it a block grant. You know what a block grant is? A block grant for this is like the old LEAA program, Law Enforcement Assistance Act. When I first got here, one of the first things I did--I remember I had gotten in great trouble with a senior Democrat named John McClellan from the State of Arkansas. I had the temerity to come to the floor and introduce legislation doing away with LEAA because I had been a local official, and I know how it works. We would sit around the county council meetings in my State--which is the largest representative body in my State in this particular county I represented--and we would say, ``You know something? We can save the county taxpayers' money.'' And a guy named Doug Buck, he and the county administrator said, ``Here we have X number of firemen,'' or X number of policemen in this case, ``on the county payroll. We'll fire half of them, we'll fire them, cut the budget. We'll tell the local taxpayers we're cutting the budget. And we'll take that Federal money for cops, and we'll rehire them. We'll rehire them with Federal money.'' So what happened was all of us, as local officials, could go home and say, ``You know, we didn't raise your taxes. We cut your taxes, and you didn't lose any services.'' But what happened was you did not get one additional cop. No new cops. The community was not one whit safer, but, boy, we local officials, we loved it. We thought it was a great idea. That is what a block grant is. If you look at the language, I say to my Republican friends, if you look at the language closely under the block grant, the local officials can take this block grant money and they do not have to hire a cop with it, they can go out and use it for anything they think impacts on law enforcement. They can hire a public defender with it. They say, Who would do that? Well, the folks in Pennsylvania would do that. The folks in Delaware would do that. We both know it. You know why they do that? Because the local folks do not like telling the local taxpayers they are taking their tax money to hire a public defender. They do not want to do that. They know that is not a popular thing. But they know they have to have public defenders. They do not want to tell them they are taking the money to hire judges. They know that is not popular. So what do they do? They will take the Federal money and they will hire the public defender. I say to my friend presiding in the chair, if this prevails, I will make him a bet--and anyone else in here--Pittsburgh; Scranton; Wilmington, DE; my hometown of Scranton, PA, Democrat, Republican, Independent alike will find a way to make sure that locally they look like they are getting tough, but there will not be more cops. I support the public defender program. I think we need more judges. I think we need more protection. I think we need more social workers at the prisons. But let me tell you what I know I need: I need more cops. I need more cops in Delaware. Scranton, PA, needs more cops. Dagsboro, DE, needs more police protection. But that is not what will happen. So, $813 million that is supposed to go directly to hire new cops--do not pass go--go straight to hiring a cop, now can be used as a block grant. The approach just is not right. This so-called law enforcement block grant is written so broadly that money can be spent on everything from prosecutors to probation officers to traffic lights and parking meters, without having to hire a single cop. And that is not an exaggeration. I challenge anyone on this floor or back in their offices listening or Senator's staff who are listening, go in and tell your boss, ``Come to the floor and debate Biden.'' If you can prove to me that you cannot locally, with this block grant, go out and buy parking meters or get a probation officer, if you can come and tell me that, I will stand corrected. But until that, understand, all my tough colleagues, Democrat and Republican, who are getting tough on crime, you are sending money back home to hire probation officers. The same outfit that was worried that the Biden crime bill which became law would be soft and hire all these social workers, now apparently are concerned because you really are hiring cops. I guess you all want to hire those social workers. I guess that is what you all are about. That is what you want to be able to do. Now, if you do not want to do that, amend this on the floor and say the block grant cannot be used--cannot be used--for anything--and I will give you a list--from parking meters to probation officers, to courts, to judges. Did you ever ask yourself, those who are listening, why this block grant is so broad? Well, it is because, I guess, we do not like having all these extra cops. Second, the block grant has never been authorized by the Senate. My friends on the Appropriations Committee like to talk about how they follow the process. Well, let me tell you, we know the Judiciary Committee--to the best of my knowledge, neither House ever authorized this. Let us be clear about what is being done here. What this continuing resolution does is take the crime bill that has been passed by only one House, the House of Representatives, whose funds have been authorized only by the House, whose block grant ideas already have been rejected by the Senate. We have come at this a couple times in direct legislation. A couple of times I have come to the floor and we have debated it, and I have won. Not I have won, my position has won. Now we find it back in the appropriations bill. The block grant idea has already been rejected by the Senate and incorporated into an appropriations bill, so it is passed and funded all in one fell swoop, instead of people standing on the floor here saying, ``I don't want to fund COPS.'' Mr. President, we are going to legislate by fiat like this. If we are going to do that, then we might as well do away with the committees, with hearings, with subcommittee markups, with full committee markups, with careful consideration of authorizing legislation and with legislating in the sunshine. I understand why you put it in the bill this way. You put it in the bill this way, in an appropriations bill in a continuing resolution, because then you can say, ``I tell you what, I did not vote to cut those cops. Not me. I voted for that big continuing resolution, but I had no choice. We had to do that. We had to keep the Government going.'' ``It was not me, Charlie.'' ``Honest to God, Mabel, I know your store got held up three times. You did not get the four cops.'' Let me give you an idea here. I will not take the time to submit the chart, but I will just give you a list of the pending requests that exist. I will repeat this again: Already more than half a billion dollars is pending in requests. Remember Republicans said local officials would not want this money, they would not come and ask for it because they kick in their own money? I know my friend from Massachusetts, a former prosecutor, understands this one. What are the reasons we wrote it this way? We knew cops were more popular than mayors. So they go, and the chief of police would say, ``Mr. Mayor, got good news. We can get 75 grand from the Federal Government. The bad news is we have to come up with 50 or 60 or 70, depending on the cost and size of the jurisdiction.'' The mayor always said, ``I don't know. I don't want to do that.'' ``No problem. We will tell the folks we do not want the Federal money.'' It happened twice in my State already. Guess what? The city council, county council, could not take the heat when the public found out they could get the money and they were not asking for it. Well, guess what? Mr. President, 7,766 cops beyond the 33,000 are already requested and pending. That means the town councils, the city councils, the county councils have already sat down and made the hard decision that they will keep a commitment to hire a cop for another 5 years and have to pay half the freight in doing that. They did it. Take a look. In the State of Delaware, we already have something like 120 new cops already. We only have an entire police force, if you count every cop in the State, about 1,500 in the whole State. We have some pending. In the State of Massachusetts there are 276 cops asked for, formally requested, ready to be certified. In the State of Minnesota, 100 cops, 7 million bucks, an additional 100. The State of Pennsylvania, 280 cops. Say we turn this to a block grant. That will be like water going through your hands. You will not get 280 cops in Pennsylvania or 400-some cops in Massachusetts, and so on, because there will be other priorities. I, for one, happen to believe that is a terrible way to proceed, and that is through this block grant approach on COPS. That is reason enough for me to oppose the bill all by itself. If the Republicans want to change the crime bill, they have a right to try that, but we should do it the right way and have a vote on it. Wiping out a major piece of this most significant anticrime legislation to ever pass the Congress on an appropriations bill makes a mockery of the Senate process. The importance of the program we are considering, not to mention the perception of our institution, I think, demands better. Before turning to specific problems with the so-called law enforcement block grants, let me preview the specific success of the 100,000 COPS Program. I do not know a single responsible police leader, academic expert, or public official, who does not agree that putting more police officers on our streets is the single best, more effective, immediate way to fight crime. Community policing enables police to fight crime on two fronts at once: They are better positioned to respond and apprehend suspects when the crime occurs; but, more importantly, they are in a better position to keep crime from occurring in the first place. I have seen this work in my home State of Delaware where community policing in Wilmington, DE, taking the form of foot patrols aimed at breaking up street level drug dealing, is turning the city of Wellington and neighborhoods into a combat zone. The efforts successfully put a lid on drug activity, without displacing it to other parts of the city. In practice, community policing takes many forms. Regardless of the need of a particular community, the reports from the field are the same: It works, it works, it works, it works. I am delighted to debate anybody who wants to come and make the case that community policing does not work. I will stand here as long as anybody wants and come back after I yield to my friend from Massachusetts. I will hang around for anybody who wants to make the argument to me that community policing does not work. I would love to hear it. I would love to hear it. I suspect no one will come and make that argument, and no one will come to the floor and say we need fewer cops, and no one will come to the floor and tell me, no, they do not want more cops in their home State. No one will come to the floor and tell me that they want more of this COPS money to hire probation officers. No one, I suspect, will tell me that. That is what this all does. That is what it does. The 1994 crime law targets $8.8 billion for States and localities to train and hire 100,000 new police officers over 6 years. Now, we will all remember the criticism of last year's program, the COPS Program. Republicans in Congress got Charlton Heston to go and say there will never be more than 20,000 cops, and ``Moses'' Heston could not have been more wrong. As indicated, we already have 33,000 new local cops--not Federal cops, local cops--only after 1 year. Because of the way we set it up with the match requirement in spreading out the cost over a period of a year, the money will continue to work and keep working for cops on the beat well into the future. This is not just 1 year the cops have been at it. The progress will come to a screeching halt if my Republican colleagues have their way. The continuing resolution includes new enforcement block grants. They call it new enforcement block grants, which has loopholes so big that it would prevent all the money to be spent without hiring a single police officer--not one. Read the proposal. Money is sent not to the police, as it is now, but to the mayors. The money may be used not only for the cops but also for other types of law enforcement officers or anything that ``improves public safety.'' Moreover, the money can be used for other vaguely defined purposes such as ``equipment technology and other material.'' Now, look, I am not trying to pick on local officials. They know what they need. They do not have to ask for a single cop. They do not have to ask for any of this. Let me point out, we are emasculating local budgets. As the Federal share of local budgets go, we are throwing many of our cities and States into chaos by our unwillingness to come up with some rational plan. Now, you are sitting there as a mayor; you already lost a significant portion of what used to be Federal funding for other programs, and now you have to make some tough choices. You have to make these really tough choices because you have less money and no growing tax base. Do you think you will put all the money into cops like we required to be done? What do you think? I wonder what the citizens back home who might listen to this think will happen? I wonder whether or not the mayor and the county executive and others, Democrat and Republican, would conclude it is better for us to spend this money on improvements of public safety because we need new traffic lights, we need new parking meters, we need new lights in the local playground, all of which are legitimate. They do not put a single cop on the street. Let me repeat, under the Republican proposal, the dollars can be diverted to prosecutors, courts, public safety, and public safety officials. In addition, the block grants require any money spent for drug courts, crime prevention, law enforcement, educational expenses, security measures, or rural crime task forces be taken out of the money to hire new cops. I see my friend from Utah just walking on the floor. He and I worked awful hard to make sure the rural crime task forces were funded and rural crime money--as I know my friend from Minnesota knows better than most of us here, rural crime is growing faster than urban crime, with less resources and training and capability to deal with it. That is why it is growing. That is where the drug cartels are moving. That is why the drug operations are moving to those areas. What do we do here? Right now, in the crime law that exists, there is money separately for rural law enforcement, separately for the drug courts, separately for all these things. This is the pea in the shell game of all the block grant stuff that relates to the money part of it. We are going to give you a block grant, give you more flexibility, and that is the good news if you are a local official. Even they like the good news. Here comes the bad news: Add it all up and it is less money overall. Less money is going home. A lot less money is going home. So they may think they can hire prosecutors and put in street lights with assets of hiring cops. But they have to do everything else they were going to do with less money. Mr. President, look at the language of the bill. Not one new cop is required. All it says is--I am quoting--``Recipients are encouraged to use these funds to hire additional law enforcement officers.'' Encouraged to use these funds. That is a very strong directive, is it not? Encouraged. That is encourage, not require. Mr. President, American communities do not need our encouragement. They need our help. They need more cops. We should not encourage the States to keep the commitment this Congress made to the American people. We should keep our word. We should keep our word. Let me also point out that this block grant will also force American law enforcement to wait for these dollars. It will take the better part of a year to draft regulations, preparing application forms to get these dollars out the door. When we passed the crime bill last year, I did something that the Attorney General thought was a little strange. Two days after, I asked for a meeting with her in my office, and I said, ``General, I really appreciate all your support on this bill.'' She was supportive and for it. I said, ``Now, General, we have to make sure of one thing--that you are able to reduce this application to one page.'' They looked at me like I was nuts. My two colleagues here who know a lot about this know that the cops at home only have to fill out a one-page application. They do not have to go to the mayor, or to some grantsman, they do not have to go through the Governor, they do not have to go through the State legislature, they do not have to fill out forms in triplicate. One page. One. The cop sends it in. Guess who gets the answer? The cop. The cop. When I told the cops back home this was going to happen, they looked at me and said, ``Joe, I love you, you are always with us. But come on, we did not think you would get this passed, but do not overpromise now.'' Go back and ask your local law enforcement people how complicated this is. All my Republican friends are real interested in making sure we do away with redtape and regulations. Well, this is a prescription for redtape and regulation. This is a prescription for it. If you want to delay it all, pass this. The implementation of the 1994 crime law stands in stark contrast to the typical scenario where you will have to go through drafting regulations, preparing additional forms, getting the dollars out the door, getting them to the mayor's office before they get to the cop's office. It is a stark contrast. Instead of requiring the burdensome application often filled with entire binders, one-page applications were developed. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to disburse the funds, the money was awarded in batches beginning only weeks after the passage of this law. So let us not destroy the momentum. Let us not destroy our effort to add 100,000 additional cops to protect our sons and daughters. I make a recommendation with some timidity to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Go back home, find out every single cop that came to your State. You can get the names of the cops who were hired under the Biden crime law. You can get the names. And then just ask at the end of the year how many collars each of these cops made. Ask how many times the cop that was hired under that bill saved some young girl from being raped, arrested somebody who murdered somebody, broke up a drug ring working on the street. Look at the specific actions they took and then, after you do that, you come back and stand on the floor and you tell the people of your State and all of us here that it did not matter, that these additional cops did not matter. We down here talk in such broad strokes about things that sometimes we miss it. This is real simple stuff. If they hire John Doe or Jane Smith as a local cop in your town, your city, your county, just track them for a year. You tell me who would have arrested that person who burglarized your house or stopped it were it not for that cop. In a word, Mr. President, the law is working. The crime law is already paid by the trust fund, is already being paid that way. Let me just add that the $30 billion crime law trust fund that uses the savings from cutting 272,000 Federal bureaucrats pays for every cop, every prison cell, every shelter for a battered woman and her child. That is provided for in the crime law without adding a single penny to the deficit or requiring one new penny in taxes. The single-most important thing our communities need when it comes to fighting crime is more police. The current law guarantees that our money will be used for just that purpose. We should not abandon it, 1 year after enacting it, especially in light of the spectacular results that have already occurred. We must save the 100,000 COPS Program to ensure that the money for police is used only for police. We should not retreat now on this tough but smart crime package that is already hard at work preventing violent crime across the country. We should not retreat on the 100,000 COPS Program that we insisted on just a few months ago in this Chamber. In conclusion, Mr. President--and then I will yield to my friend from Massachusetts--I want to make it clear. It seems to me an absolute travesty that we are out here trying to dismantle a law that nobody even attempted to make a case that it is not working. Not one single person has come to the floor of the U.S. Senate to make the case that this law is not working. I am anxious to hear and debate anyone who has that point of view. Yet, we are dismantling, and instead of dismantling it, we should be building on it. We should be dealing with an issue my friend from Minnesota knows about: violence among youth and the growing trend of violent youthful behavior. The growing trend is that crime is down in every category. The Senator from Utah and I are involved in a project through his leadership to deal with youth violence in this country. We should be spending our time on that. I should be spending less time having to constantly defend a bill that nobody has made the argument that it is not working. I yield the floor. Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. I would like to thank my colleagues who supported this effort and say to my good friend, the majority leader, that I liked it better when he was on the campaign trail. We had won until he went back down in the well. This is a singular victory for the leadership. I compliment him, but I am just so sorry that he has now locked up the nomination and will not be out in the field more because it looked like I was winning there until three votes changed at the end. But I wish to congratulate the opposition and tell the cities they are not going to get their cops. I yield the floor. Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the best time to target a new drug with uncompromising enforcement pressure is before abuse of that drug has overwhelmed our communities. The advantages of doing so are clear--there are fewer pushers trafficking in the drug and, most important, fewer lives and fewer families will have suffered from the abuse of the drug. Today, we are tracking the arrival of two new drugs--rohypnol and what is called ``special K''--as they begin to show popularity in several States. So, today is the time for action against these drugs. Heightening this urgency is one stark fact--these new drugs are being used primarily by our children--our teens and young adults. One need not be unduly alarmist, but we must proceed with dispatch to do what we can to stop the spread of rohypnol and special K. That is why I am today introducing legislation to make both these drugs subject to much stricter regulation. This can be accomplished by moving these drugs to different schedules under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. This is not a step to be taken lightly, because there is a regulatory procedure in place for scheduling controlled substances. But, unfortunately, this regulatory procedure can take years to accomplish our goal, and what we need to do must be done in months, not years. In the past decade, Congress has taken legislative action to change schedules in at least two other instances. In 1984, in response to an alarming increase in illicit trafficking and nonmedical abuse of the drug, Congress enacted legislation to move quaaludes, a previously medically approved sedative, to schedule one of the Controlled Substances Act. In the decade since this legislation took effect, quaalude abuse has decreased significantly, with emergency room quaalude overdose reports down 80 percent from 1985 to 1994. And in legislation I sponsored, which was passed as part of the 1990 Crime Control Act, steroids were reclassified as a schedule three substance, subjecting them to more strict controls and penalties. This change was also in response to an explosion of abuse-- particularly by young athletes. The effects of this legislation has also been significant, with the rate of annual use of steroids down 42 percent in the first 2 years following the enactment of the legislation. It is now time to legislate stricter controls for rohypnol and special K. The record high drug abuse rates of the 1970's were accompanied by a unique drug culture signified by the presence of ``club'' drugs--drugs that were popular with youth and young adults who frequented dance clubs and often mixed drugs with alcohol and other substances. Recently, club drugs have made a resurgence in popularity, and they are often showing up at both bars and ``raves,'' all-night dance marathons popular with teens. Club drugs are typified by the way they suddenly gain popularity and become the drug of choice, becoming trendy among youth. Often these drugs are legally manufactured but are being used by youth in ways unintended by the manufacturer and unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration. Rohypnol and special K are two of the drugs which have recently hit the youth scene and quickly become popular. Both of these drugs are very dangerous drugs whose current legal status does not reflect the dangers inherent in their abuse. Rohypnol abuse was first documented in the United States in 1993. Although abuse was first noted in southern Florida, in the past 2 years abuse has spread rapidly, and rohypnol activity has now been reported in more than 30 States. Without rapid and strong Government action, abuse will continue to spread to uncontrollable levels. Teenagers find rohypnol attractive for a number of reasons. Frighteningly, one major reason is that youth do not see rohypnol as dangerous because it has a legitimate medical use in some areas of the world, and they mistakenly believe that if they are taking a drug which is in its original packaging from the manufacturer, it is both safe and unadulterated. In addition, there are few existing means for testing and prosecuting youth for rohypnol possession and intoxication. The combination of rohypnol and alcohol makes it possible for youth to feel very intoxicated while still remaining under the legal blood-alcohol level for driving. In addition to gaining attention for increasing rate of abuse, rohypnol has also been the focus of another social problem: crime, particularly date rape. In fact, in many areas and in a number of newspaper accounts, rohypnol has been referred to as a ``date rape drug.'' This connection between rohypnol and rape is due to the drug's disinhibitory effects and its likelihood of causing amnesia when combined with alcohol. Unfortunately, this amnesiac effect is one of the reasons many people who abuse rohypnol are attracted to it. It is commonly reported that people taking rohypnol in combination with alcohol typically have blackouts, or memory losses lasting 8 to 24 hours. The novelty of blackouts attract youth, particularly youth who are combining drugs with alcohol. This has led to rohypnol being referred to as the ``forget me pill'' or the ``forget pill.'' Even more frightening, many people are finding the drug attractive as a way of creating blackouts in others. The combination of disinhibition and memory loss caused by rohypnol mixed with alcohol makes women especially vulnerable to being victims of date rape by people who convince women to take rohypnol while drinking or put the drug in a woman's drink without her knowledge. Recently, in Florida and Texas, there have been a number of investigations into these types of victimizations. There have also been a number of reports of teens and young adults who have entered drug abuse treatment facilities in Florida, reporting rohypnol abuse and suicidal feelings they experienced while using rohypnol. The most famous example of rohypnol overdose made the news with the attempted suicide of Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the rock band Nirvana. Cobain ultimately succeeded in committing suicide on March 18, 1994, but the rock singer had attempted suicide earlier in the month when he fell into a coma following a near fatal mixture of champagne and rohypnol. Cobain remained comatose for nearly 2 days before regaining consciousness after this drug experience. Special K is also hitting the club scene at alarming rates. This drug is a hallucinogen very similar to PCP. Special K, or ketamine hydrochloride, has become popular as a new designer drug. Although this drug has been in existence for several years, its abuse has rapidly become more prevalent in recent years. Now many parties and raves at dance clubs are called bump parties, as a way of conveying special K is available. It is particularly attractive to kids at these types of events because along with its mind-altering effects, the drug gives a burst of energy, and it can be mixed with water so kids can take it in public without attracting attention. In fact, a club in New Jersey was recently closed by police after it was discovered that teens were attending raves there where club employees distributed bottled water for this purpose. In addition to seizures in New Jersey, recent newspaper articles have mentioned seizures in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, and Florida. Drug tracking experts have also cited the presence of special K in Georgia and the District of Columbia, and in my home State of Delaware. Special K is considered the successor to PCP--or angel dust, as it is known on the street--due to similarity of the two drugs' chemical compositions and mind-altering effects. There have also been reports of PCP being sold to people who think they are buying special K. Ketamine is primarily a veterinary anesthetic. Although it has some limited use for human medical treatment, its use in this manner is not extensive due to the unpleasant and often dangerous side effects that can accompany its use. It is clear that the current controls on rohypnol and ketamine do not reflect the dangers these drugs now pose to our society, particularly to women and children. In the United States rohypnol is classified under the Federal Controlled Substances Act as only a schedule four drug, and ketamine is not scheduled at all. Last week, the Treasury Department announced that custom officials would begin seizing all rohypnol which is brought across U.S. borders. This is a step in the right direction. But this ban on all rohypnol is only the first step. Further action is needed to make sure cracking down on the illegal trafficking of rohypnol is a high priority and that illegal traffickers of rohypnol are given tough sanctions. That is why I am introducing legislation to increase the restrictions on both special K and rohypnol. By moving rohypnol to schedule one of the Federal Controlled Substances Act and adding special K to schedule two of the act, this legislation will subject both drugs to tighter controls, increased penalties for unlawful activity involving the two drugs, and will increase the attention and enforcement efforts directed at the drugs by Federal, State, and local law and drug enforcement officials. In essence, these tighter regulations will mean that rohypnol will be subjected to the same restrictions and penalties as heroin, and special K will face the same controls as cocaine. I hope my colleagues will join me in seeing to speedy passage of this legislation--taking action to make these drugs less available to our youth now. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill appear in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the best time to target a new drug with uncompromising enforcement pressure is before abuse of that drug has overwhelmed our communities. The advantages of doing so are clear--there are fewer pushers trafficking in the drug and, most important, fewer lives and fewer families will have suffered from the abuse of the drug. Today, we are tracking the arrival of two new drugs--rohypnol and what is called ``special K''--as they begin to show popularity in several States. So, today is the time for action against these drugs. Heightening this urgency is one stark fact--these new drugs are being used primarily by our children--our teens and young adults. One need not be unduly alarmist, but we must proceed with dispatch to do what we can to stop the spread of rohypnol and special K. That is why I am today introducing legislation to make both these drugs subject to much stricter regulation. This can be accomplished by moving these drugs to different schedules under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. This is not a step to be taken lightly, because there is a regulatory procedure in place for scheduling controlled substances. But, unfortunately, this regulatory procedure can take years to accomplish our goal, and what we need to do must be done in months, not years. In the past decade, Congress has taken legislative action to change schedules in at least two other instances. In 1984, in response to an alarming increase in illicit trafficking and nonmedical abuse of the drug, Congress enacted legislation to move quaaludes, a previously medically approved sedative, to schedule one of the Controlled Substances Act. In the decade since this legislation took effect, quaalude abuse has decreased significantly, with emergency room quaalude overdose reports down 80 percent from 1985 to 1994. And in legislation I sponsored, which was passed as part of the 1990 Crime Control Act, steroids were reclassified as a schedule three substance, subjecting them to more strict controls and penalties. This change was also in response to an explosion of abuse-- particularly by young athletes. The effects of this legislation has also been significant, with the rate of annual use of steroids down 42 percent in the first 2 years following the enactment of the legislation. It is now time to legislate stricter controls for rohypnol and special K. The record high drug abuse rates of the 1970's were accompanied by a unique drug culture signified by the presence of ``club'' drugs--drugs that were popular with youth and young adults who frequented dance clubs and often mixed drugs with alcohol and other substances. Recently, club drugs have made a resurgence in popularity, and they are often showing up at both bars and ``raves,'' all-night dance marathons popular with teens. Club drugs are typified by the way they suddenly gain popularity and become the drug of choice, becoming trendy among youth. Often these drugs are legally manufactured but are being used by youth in ways unintended by the manufacturer and unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration. Rohypnol and special K are two of the drugs which have recently hit the youth scene and quickly become popular. Both of these drugs are very dangerous drugs whose current legal status does not reflect the dangers inherent in their abuse. Rohypnol abuse was first documented in the United States in 1993. Although abuse was first noted in southern Florida, in the past 2 years abuse has spread rapidly, and rohypnol activity has now been reported in more than 30 States. Without rapid and strong Government action, abuse will continue to spread to uncontrollable levels. Teenagers find rohypnol attractive for a number of reasons. Frighteningly, one major reason is that youth do not see rohypnol as dangerous because it has a legitimate medical use in some areas of the world, and they mistakenly believe that if they are taking a drug which is in its original packaging from the manufacturer, it is both safe and unadulterated. In addition, there are few existing means for testing and prosecuting youth for rohypnol possession and intoxication. The combination of rohypnol and alcohol makes it possible for youth to feel very intoxicated while still remaining under the legal blood-alcohol level for driving. In addition to gaining attention for increasing rate of abuse, rohypnol has also been the focus of another social problem: crime, particularly date rape. In fact, in many areas and in a number of newspaper accounts, rohypnol has been referred to as a ``date rape drug.'' This connection between rohypnol and rape is due to the drug's disinhibitory effects and its likelihood of causing amnesia when combined with alcohol. Unfortunately, this amnesiac effect is one of the reasons many people who abuse rohypnol are attracted to it. It is commonly reported that people taking rohypnol in combination with alcohol typically have blackouts, or memory losses lasting 8 to 24 hours. The novelty of blackouts attract youth, particularly youth who are combining drugs with alcohol. This has led to rohypnol being referred to as the ``forget me pill'' or the ``forget pill.'' Even more frightening, many people are finding the drug attractive as a way of creating blackouts in others. The combination of disinhibition and memory loss caused by rohypnol mixed with alcohol makes women especially vulnerable to being victims of date rape by people who convince women to take rohypnol while drinking or put the drug in a woman's drink without her knowledge. Recently, in Florida and Texas, there have been a number of investigations into these types of victimizations. There have also been a number of reports of teens and young adults who have entered drug abuse treatment facilities in Florida, reporting rohypnol abuse and suicidal feelings they experienced while using rohypnol. The most famous example of rohypnol overdose made the news with the attempted suicide of Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the rock band Nirvana. Cobain ultimately succeeded in committing suicide on March 18, 1994, but the rock singer had attempted suicide earlier in the month when he fell into a coma following a near fatal mixture of champagne and rohypnol. Cobain remained comatose for nearly 2 days before regaining consciousness after this drug experience. Special K is also hitting the club scene at alarming rates. This drug is a hallucinogen very similar to PCP. Special K, or ketamine hydrochloride, has become popular as a new designer drug. Although this drug has been in existence for several years, its abuse has rapidly become more prevalent in recent years. Now many parties and raves at dance clubs are called bump parties, as a way of conveying special K is available. It is particularly attractive to kids at these types of events because along with its mind-altering effects, the drug gives a burst of energy, and it can be mixed with water so kids can take it in public without attracting attention. In fact, a club in New Jersey was recently closed by police after it was discovered that teens were attending raves there where club employees distributed bottled water for this purpose. In addition to seizures in New Jersey, recent newspaper articles have mentioned seizures in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, and Florida. Drug tracking experts have also cited the presence of special K in Georgia and the District of Columbia, and in my home State of Delaware. Special K is considered the successor to PCP--or angel dust, as it is known on the street--due to similarity of the two drugs' chemical compositions and mind-altering effects. There have also been reports of PCP being sold to people who think they are buying special K. Ketamine is primarily a veterinary anesthetic. Although it has some limited use for human medical treatment, its use in this manner is not extensive due to the unpleasant and often dangerous side effects that can accompany its use. It is clear that the current controls on rohypnol and ketamine do not reflect the dangers these drugs now pose to our society, particularly to women and children. In the United States rohypnol is classified under the Federal Controlled Substances Act as only a schedule four drug, and ketamine is not scheduled at all. Last week, the Treasury Department announced that custom officials would begin seizing all rohypnol which is brought across U.S. borders. This is a step in the right direction. But this ban on all rohypnol is only the first step. Further action is needed to make sure cracking down on the illegal trafficking of rohypnol is a high priority and that illegal traffickers of rohypnol are given tough sanctions. That is why I am introducing legislation to increase the restrictions on both special K and rohypnol. By moving rohypnol to schedule one of the Federal Controlled Substances Act and adding special K to schedule two of the act, this legislation will subject both drugs to tighter controls, increased penalties for unlawful activity involving the two drugs, and will increase the attention and enforcement efforts directed at the drugs by Federal, State, and local law and drug enforcement officials. In essence, these tighter regulations will mean that rohypnol will be subjected to the same restrictions and penalties as heroin, and special K will face the same controls as cocaine. I hope my colleagues will join me in seeing to speedy passage of this legislation--taking action to make these drugs less available to our youth now. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill appear in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in a statement last week I condemned two terrorist bombings which took place in Jerusalem and Ashkelon 12 days ago. I did not think that it would be so soon that events would bring me once again to this floor to condemn another pair of cowardly attacks against innocent people, including young children. Today, Israelis are justifiably shocked, disgusted, and angry. To bring home just what Israel is experiencing, let me provide a vivid comparison. On a proportional basis, the number of people killed by terrorists in Israel over the past 12 days would be equivalent to over 3,000 Americans killed. Imagine what our reaction would be if over 3,000 Americans were murdered in terrorist attacks in such a short period. I dare say that our fundamental sense of stability and security as a nation would be shaken to its very core. That is what Israelis are feeling today. As difficult as it is in this moment of grief and anger, we have to recognize the motive of those behind these dastardly attacks. Their single-minded aim is to end the peace process cold. We cannot let them have the satisfaction of that kind of victory. We must resist the urge of our raw emotions in the wake of these outrageous attacks. We must not discard the remarkable achievements of the past 3 years, for that would play directly into the hands of the terrorists. Last week, I urged that the peace process continue. I believe that even more firmly now. The terrorists can be defeated through a two-pronged strategy. First, there must be intensified efforts to destroy the infrastructure and network that are ultimately behind terrorist actions. In that regard, I commend President Clinton for offering technical assistance to the Israelis and Palestinians in the war against terror. Second, we must prove to the terrorists that their actions are not producing the desired results. That means moving forward undaunted with the peace process. Last week, I appealed to the Palestinian majority that supports peace to join the battle against terror with renewed vigor because it is their future that is most at stake. I renew that call today. If these attacks continue, then the Palestinian experience with self-government could become a fleeting memory. Mr. President, in my remarks today I have used the term ``war''--the same term Prime Minister Shimon Peres has used to describe the state of affairs between Israel and Hamas. It is an appropriate term to use, and unlike many wars this one is a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. A victory by the pro-peace majority of Israelis and Palestinians could lead the way to a thriving, vibrant, and cooperative Middle East. A victory by Hamas and its extremist allies on both sides will mean conflict, bloodshed, and division long into the future. In this war, as in all of Israel's wars, the United States will stand by Israel and do whatever it takes to ensure victory. Mr. President, Israel has endured much suffering in its short history, and it has shown remarkable fortitude in the face of terrorism and other attempts to destroy it. The Israeli people have always thwarted the designs of those who have tried every means to eliminate their country. I have no doubt that they will prevail in their present struggle against those who have declared war against Israel, the peace process, and, indeed civilization itself.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to condemn in the strongest possible terms this past Sunday's heinous bombings in Israel. I also wish to convey my heart-felt condolences to the families of the 23 Israelis and the 2 young Americans who lost their lives in these despicable acts. Mr. President, many of us are asking the same questions that Israelis are asking in the wake of these attacks: why and for what end would someone commit such senseless acts of mass murder? We probably never will be able to penetrate the demented mind of a suicide-bomber to understand what causes that person to kill. But I think we all know the immediate aim of the bombers who struck on Sunday--it is to spread fear and terror in order to derail the peace process. As hard as it is to comprehend, peace in the Middle East is actually perceived as a threat in some quarters. Coexistence, friendship, cooperation--all of these concepts are anathema to a small, extremist minority on both sides. And Mr. President, I would submit that the vast majority of Palestinians--which does believe in these concepts--needs to stand up now to prevent its future from being stolen by the extremists. These extremists offer a version of the future that includes a return to the darkest days of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Indeed, they see renewed conflict as a necessary means to achieve their ultimate goal of destroying Israel. Mr. President, if the Palestinians want a brighter future for their children--as I know they do--then they will need to stop these extremists in their tracks. We stand ready, and I know that Israel stands ready, to provide whatever help the Palestinians need to win this fight. But they must be the ones to initiate a new all-out battle with the violent rejectionists. Israelis have rejected the message and methods of extremists in their midst. Their democratically chosen institutions have been acting to thwart the designs of Israeli extremists. Recently, the Palestinians have acquired their own democratically chosen institutions. It is time for those new institutions to be put to the test by employing their full might in a battle whose outcome will be historic for the Palestinian people and the middle east as a whole. Mr. President, we cannot let Sunday's attackers achieve their goals. The peace process must continue. The two young American victims, Matthew Eisenfeld and Sarah Duker, whose future life together was so cruelly taken from them on Sunday, were committed to peace. We can best honor their memory by staying on the path that they had chosen.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to draw a line--a line that divides our nation from those countries who have fallen prey to the obscene influence of international drug cartels. This week, the President will offer his decision--drawing his line-- about which countries have cooperated sufficiently with United States counter-narcotics efforts to justify all the benefits of a full partnership with our Nation. This year, some of our neighbors have crossed the line and should not be ``certified'' as fully cooperating with the U.S. drug enforcement effort. Others of our neighbors are coming perilously close to crossing this line. Before offering my specific views on which countries I believe have crossed this line, I want to offer my general views of this drug certification process. Foremost, the certification process does not seek to shift the full blame for the drug scourge solely to the drug- producing and transit countries. In fact, the comprehensive drug strategies I have offered call on the U.S. government and the U.S. people to remain vigilant and committed to attacking the drug problem at home. But, as I have always recognized, slowing the flow of drugs into the U.S. must be an integral part of a comprehensive drug strategy. And this effort to cut the literally hundreds of tons of drugs flowing toward American shores must be assisted by all countries if they are to continue as our full partners in the family of nations. Mr. President, let me make it real simple--any nation that wishes to enjoy the benefits of American friendship must do everything they can to help America fight the scourge of drugs. This is not an impossible task. We are not being unreasonable. We do not ask that the nations that have literally been held hostage by the drug cartels end the supply of drugs coming from their shores. That would be unreasonable-- many of these nations just cannot eliminate all drug cartels, just as we cannot eliminate all of the mafia here in the U.S. Still, America has the right to ask what is reasonable--no more but also no less. That has been my longstanding test, not only in the area of drug policy but also in other important questions of foreign policy, such as arms control. To be more specific, I have long believed that a United States policy of support and cooperation with our friends in Latin America is the best way to counter the drug threat. While it might make us feel better, isolation and incrimination of other countries rarely helps us meet our ultimate objectives. Particularly in the drug interdiction task, cooperation and shared intelligence are absolutely essential to an effective strategy because drugs can be hidden in any of the billions of legal containers that cross our border every year. And with no intelligence, we can never hope to stop these drugs. Nevertheless, despite the fact that cooperation is usually the best policy, there are grave circumstances where both morality and practicality require America to draw the line. I regret to conclude that for Colombia that line has been crossed. The United States should not certify that Colombia has done everything possible to curb the operations and influence of the illicit drug trade, primarily because of the corruption at the highest levels of the Colombian government. I also conclude that for Mexico, that line is close to being crossed. This requires the U.S. to send a clear warning--just as we did last year to Colombia. Let me also point out that totally cutting off cooperation could make a bad situation very much worse, and it is simply not in our national interest to do so. Therefore, I recommend that a vital national interest waiver or similarly strong, unambiguous warning be sent to the Mexican government. Even as I call for our nation to decertify Colombia, I recognize the immense challenges that the drug trade poses in that country. I admire the courage of the men and women in Colombian law enforcement--leaders such as the National Police Chief, General Serrano--who endure violent threats and even actual assaults on their Government institutions. Hundreds of honest, hard-working Colombians sacrificed their lives last year in the struggle against drug traffickers. But, how can we assured of the Government's commitment against drug trafficking when the President himself almost surely benefited from the drug trade? The extent and level of official drug corruption in Colombia is the single most glaring failure --and the overriding reason I must recommend decertification. President Ernesto Samper has been charged with accepting $6 million in campaign funds from the Cali cartel-- and may soon be impeached because of it. In addition, at least 20 members of congress are also under investigation for accepting drug funds. I have long stated that such official corruption cannot be tolerated. Even if a nation is overwhelmed by the horrible powers of international drug cartels, as long as their leaders remain committed to fighting these cartels they deserve our support. But, once a nation's leaders have fallen under the corrupt influence of the drug cartels, morality and practicality require that they cannot be given our support. This has been my test for certification for years. In 1989, I voted to overrule President Bush's decision to certify the Bahamas. I believed then that the Bahamas should have been decertified because drug corruption had permeated the highest levels of their Government. Let me also point out that the current leadership of Colombia has already been given the benefit of the doubt--given chances--given tests--but, ultimately, their leaders have failed. The Senate was first faced with reports of the Samper campaign's alleged connection to the Cali cartel during the summer of 1994. I and every Senator voted to condition U.S. aid on progress in fighting drug operations and corruption. But, with no clear evidence of corruption against Mr. Samper available at the time, this provision was dropped when the final foreign operations bill was negotiated with the House of Representatives. At the time of President Samper's inauguration in August 1994, I and the majority of Senators voted against a measure to place further counter narcotics conditions on United States aid to Colombia. We voted, in effect, to give the new President time to demonstrate his commitment to fighting the drug cartels. President Samper personally assured me that he would remain faithful to the struggle against drugs. The evidence is clearer every day that he has not lived up to his word. Last year's certification of Colombia on vital national interest grounds was the clearest possible--and first ever--official United States warning that the leaders of Colombia must remain absolutely free from the corrupt influence of the drug cartels. In response to this warning, we did see an unprecedented series of raids--Colombian authorities, cooperating with the of DEA, captured six leaders of the Cali cartel. But just last month, one of those key traffickers walked out of prison and reliable reports indicate that the cartel kingpins who stayed in prison continue to run their drug operations from their plush prison cells. Finally, and unpardonably, charges of corruption have coincided with a marked diminution of efforts to slow the drug trade--as last year Colombian seizures of cocaine decreased by 24 percent last year. And, supplies of Colombian heroin are also on the rise--becoming more pure, less expensive, and taking over the streets of America. Even as I recommend decertification, I recognize that this issue can--under the law--be revisited during the coming year. The Samper government may soon be replaced. It may even prove that the charges of corruption are groundless. So, let me be crystal clear. If a new Colombian Government demonstrates a commitment to fighting the drug cartels and an absolute freedom from corrupt influence of the drug cartels, then the United States should revisit the decertification decision. The Foreign Assistance Act allows the President to reconsider a decertification decision if there has been a fundamental change of government or a fundamental change in the reasons for decertification. A new government--free of the corrupt influence of the drug cartels--would be such a fundamental change. But, until then, I cannot recommend to the President that he do anything other than decertify Colombia. The story for Mexico is different than Colombia's--at least so far. The key difference is the antinarcotics leadership of the current Mexican administration. Still, the growing threat to the United States of drugs grown, produced, or traveling through Mexico is too serious for Mexico to be granted full certification. Therefore, the correct course to take this year with Mexico is the step we took last year with Colombia. In other words, we must send a warning--such as granting a national interest waiver. Let me point out, Mexico's problems are in some ways the result of successes in interdiction in the transit zone--the Caribbean. Our success at pushing the drug traffickers out of the transit zone means that the drug cartels needed a new route--the natural choice is the overland route that passes directly through Mexico. This has been the key opportunity for Mexican traffickers to gain control more phases of cocaine operations. Reports from the field indicate that Mexican drug kingpins actually accept payments in the form of cocaine--1 free kilo from the Colombian kingpins for every kilo the Mexican traffickers smuggle to the United States. This 2-for-1 sale has had such a severe impact that now more than two-thirds of all the cocaine in this country now comes through Mexico. And, it means that Mexican drug cartels are poised to become much richer, more powerful and more deadly than ever before. What is worse, all this is on top of longstanding Mexican trafficking in heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and one of the newest drugs of abuse-- rohypnol. Let me also point out that Mexico's large geographic size and their limited resources mean that fighting the drug traffic is simply an overwhelming task. Last year, for example, we heard that traffickers landed fast-flying jumbo jets with multi-ton shipments of cocaine in rural Mexico. Sometimes using dry riverbeds or dirt roads as landing strips, obviously ruining these planes--literally abandoning planes worth upwards of $10 million . Of course, it's worth it to the drug cartels-- these tons of cocaine are worth literally hundreds of millions of dollars. Such tactics seriously test the capacity of Mexico's anti-drug personnel and resources. But with all these problems, I believe Mexico has a President who is on our side. President Zedillo has taken sincere and important steps on the drug front, including judicial reforms and the appointment of an attorney general who is from the opposition party dedicated to weeding out corruption. The recent arrest of Juan Abrego--leader of the Mexican gulf cartel--was an example of United States-Mexican cooperation. Mexico's demonstrated leadership amidst the growing drug threat is the fundamental reason I do not propose decertification for Mexico. Frankly, if we destroy Mexico's moral, political or practical resolve against the drug traffickers we will only have succeeded in making a bad situation very much worse. Still, in rejecting no-strings-attached full certification for Mexico, we must send a clear and strong warning that the Mexican drug trade must be a priority in our bilateral relations and that we expect results. Nevertheless, continued cooperation between the United States and Mexico on drugs is critical with such a close and important neighbor. Last year, we sent a warning to the Colombian government-- they did not heed this warning--and this year I call for them to pay the price. This year, we must send a warning to the Mexican government--and if they do not heed it, they will pay the price. We cannot expect a quick fix to the drug problem in Mexico. But we must be clear about areas where we think a strong, honest government can make a difference--starting with reforms in the institutions and laws that are both governable by their national leadership and vulnerable to the narcotics industry. For example, more can and must be done to curb the problem of money laundering in Mexico's financial sector. More can and must be done to control precursor chemicals of methamphetamine, as Mexican traffickers become key players in the manufacturing and distribution of this drug. And, more can and must be done to work together to control the new challenge posed by the flow of rohypnol across the border. In 1993, I supported the North American Free Trade Agreement--and vowed to monitor carefully how the agreement with Mexico was functioning. And last year, I did not protest when President Clinton decided to lend Mexico money to help alleviate the peso crisis. My call to end the full no-strings-attached certification for Mexico means that my continued support for NAFTA will depend in great measure on an aggressive Mexican response to the growing drug threat. In doing so, I am following the same prudent course I followed for Colombia--a clear warning, a chance to comply, with failure to comply resulting in action. Mr. President, I understand that both Mexico and Colombia are making efforts in counter-narcotics--but the standard for certification is full cooperation. Given the massive scourge of drugs confronting us, it is in the interest of the United States to raise the level of expectations and attention given to the drug trade by our southern neighbors. This is what the certification process allows, and this is what our Nation must do.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to address a recent trade dispute which threatens tens of thousands of American jobs and hundreds of millions in American exports. On February 19, the Russian Government notified us that it will soon stop importing poultry products if its complaints about American food safety standards are not met. On top of this, what little will enter Russia these next few weeks will be subject to a sharp increase in their taxes on imported poultry. American poultry exports to Russia--our largest poultry export customer--total more than $700 million a year and represent over 20 percent of all American exports to Russia. Mr. President, the Delmarva Peninsula is home to 21,000 poultry workers, produces more than 600 million birds per year, and is a major supplier to the Russian poultry market. Last summer, for example, Allen's Family Food, of Seaford, DE, exported 1,300 tons of frozen poultry to Russia. At one time or another, I have probably met with every poultry grower and processor in my State of Delaware. I've seen every step in the process, from the poultry house to the packaging plant to the freezers at the Port of Wilmington. I'll put the Delaware poultry industry up against any foreign or domestic challenger in terms of sanitary standards, particularly any Russian plant. But teams of Russian inspectors have come into our country, into our poultry processing facilities--including plants such as Manor Farms and Allen's Foods in my own State of Delaware--and have failed each and every operation. Literally a 100 percent failure rate. I find this simply unbelievable. This tells me that their real agenda is not health and safety. We demand the same standards for the poultry we ship to Russia as we do for poultry which shows up in American supermarkets and on our kitchen tables every day. That's why in recent years, Russia's consumers, particularly in the great urban centers such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, have bought more and more poultry products from America. They recognize a good value when they see it. We can produce better tasting, more nutritious, less expensive poultry in America, and ship it to Russia, for a lower price than the current Russian poultry industry can. They are still struggling to get out from under the inefficiencies of the old economic system. If this ban goes into effect, Mr. President, the Russian people will lose a major high-quality supplier for a popular staple of their diet, and their food bills will go up. The last thing that the Russian economy needs now is an increase in the price of an important food commodity. It is largely because of inflation that the ruble, and with it the Russian economy, is in so much trouble already. And if this ban goes into effect, Mr. President, American poultry growers and processors, in Delaware and in the rest of the country, will be denied access to an important market. They have earned their place on the shelves of Russian stores through their hard work, know- how, and efficiency. They should not be shut out by some bureaucrats' arbitrary ruling. Now, Mr. President, I understand that there are a lot of things going on behind the decision to ban American poultry exports. There is the still powerful pull of the old bureaucratic ways--old habits are hard to break, especially when it comes to protecting domestic industries from the new experience of foreign competition. Here is a good example of how our domestic industry, which has grown up in a highly competitive environment, can do well in international markets. It's no wonder the Russian domestic poultry industry wants some protection, even if it means higher costs and lower quality for Russian consumers. Mr. President, here in the United States, arguably the freest market in the world, we are in the midst of a heated national debate on international trade and competition. Just imagine what they are going through in the states of the former Soviet Union, where competition on the basis of quality and price is a new concept. And this is a Presidential election year over there, too. I know that I don't have to explain how the elimination of a major foreign competitor could fit into an election year agricultural policy. But that is no excuse for the Russian Government's action against American poultry producers. We cannot allow this decision to stand. I have spoken to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman directly, and I applaud the effort he and his negotiating team have made to resolve this dispute. The Russian Government must be made to understand that these steps against the United States poultry industry are steps away from the international economic community they tell us they are eager to join. The IMF has just announced another loan to Russia, worth $10.2 billion. This money is intended to smooth the transition from the old Communist command economy to a more efficient, open, market economy. The terms of the loan include requirements that the Russians continue to reform their economy. And as the Russians are well aware, the terms of the loan provide for monthly installments over those 3 years. Evidence of backsliding, of reneging on commitments to open the Russian economy, could be grounds for terminating the loan at any point. Russia tells us that they want to join the World Trade Organization and America has supported their application to join the WTO. As a matter of fact, right now the United States has a representative on the WTO working group that must approve Russia's trade practices. Our representative must make crystal clear to the Russians that actions like the bogus ban on American poultry imports violates the spirit and the letter of international agreements, such as the WTO. I can't imagine they would want this stain on their record when they come to argue that they are ready to undertake the responsibilities of full participation in the international trading system. But, because this review process could take up to a year, I am asking President Clinton to appoint an interagency working group to investigate immediate retaliatory trade actions against the Russians. I sincerely hope that before any such retaliation becomes necessary, we can convince the Russian Government to turn back from the course that they have announced.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I think it is outrageous that, of all things to choose, this latest temporary spending bill cuts spending for the 100,000 Cops on the Beat Program under the 1994 crime law. I want to make clear that the only reason I'm voting for this continuing resolution is because it is a compromise and would allow States and localities to continue hiring cops for the next 49 days. The alternative is no cops. But this is a terrible way to implement public policy. This continuing resolution would, if extended over a full year, cut the Cops on the Beat Program by over one-half--over $1 billion promised to the American people for cops on the street. That means that communities across the Nation would lose over 13,000 police officers. That is totally unacceptable. This continuing resolution funds the Cops Program at 75 percent of the 1995 level for outlays, which was $1.187 billion. Seventy-five percent of that would be $890 million for the year. In contrast, full funding for the 100,000 Cops Program for 1996 is $1.9 billion. That is what we agreed on in the 1994 crime law. That is what was requested by the President. So this resolution would actually cut over $1 billion from the Cops on the Beat Program--over one-half-- if it continued for the full year. Let no one be fooled. This continuing resolution is a back door attempt by Republicans to reverse the gains of the 100,000 Cops Program and the American people will not stand for this the next time around. We all know the Republicans want to change the crime law now at work. They said so in their Contract With America. We all know the Republicans want to eliminate the 100,000 Cops on the Beat Program. They would rather see the money squandered away in a block grant that funds virtually anything under the sun than to send the money directly to COPS for the one anticrime measure we know works--community policing. Cops on the Beat. The Cops on the Beat Program is overwhelmingly supported by the American public as well as every major law enforcement group in the country. I don't know a single responsible police leader, academic expert, or public official who does not agree that putting more police officers on our streets and in our neighborhoods is the best way to fight crime. Community policing enables police to fight crime on two fronts at once--they are better positioned to respond and apprehend suspects when crime occurs, but even more importantly, they are also better positioned to keep crime from occurring in the first place. The reports from the field all across the Nation are the same-- community policing works. When it comes to anticrime efforts, the one thing we know is that more community police officers means less crime. And we should keep our word to the American people. The 1994 crime law targets $8.8 billion for States and localities to train and hire 100,000 new community police officers over 6 years. And as we pass the 1-year mark, it is already clear that the Cops Program is working even beyond expectations. Already, more than 33,000 out of 100,000 cops are funded in every State in the Nation. And because of the way we've set it up--with a match requirement and spreading out the cost over a period of years--the money will continue to work, keeping these cops on the beat and preventing crime in our communities far into the future. In a word, the law is working. But that progress will come to a screeching halt if my Republican colleagues get their way--either through drastic spending cuts as under this continuing resolution or through block grants with loopholes you could drive a truck through. What is one to conclude from the efforts of the Republicans to gut the 100,000 Cops on the Beat Program? Is it that tax cuts to a few are more important than protecting the safety of average Americans? Apparently my Republican colleagues in Washington just don't seem to get the message. So let me make this crystal clear. If they think that they will use their new targeted appropriations strategy to kill the Cops on the Beat Program--to cut $1 billion and thousands of cops--they are sorely mistaken. I will do everything in my power to prevent the Republicans from further undermining the 100,000 Cops Program. So, although this continuing resolution funds cops at 75 percent of last year's outlays for the next 49 days, this indirect ambush on the 100,000 Cops on the Beat Program--a program demanded by the American people--will not be tolerated for the full year.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I too appreciate my colleague's efforts and forbearance. I believe many of his proposals are interesting and innovative, although I have reservations about some of them. I look forward to working with him and others to see to it that we make our enforcement mechanisms as simple and effective as possible, while maintaining a commitment to ensure due process. Mr. McCain. Mr. President, I want to thank the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, as well as Senator Dole and Senator Nickles, for their hard work and leadership in bringing this bill to the floor. The bill would amend the Federal criminal code to require that criminals compensate their victims--an initiative that is long overdue. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics 2 million people in the United States are injured each year as a result of violent crime. The cost of personal and household crime is estimated to exceed $20 billion per year--a sum that does not include the incalculable cost in human terms. In relatively few cases are victims made whole for their losses by those who preyed upon them. Mr. President, one needs only to read the morning paper or watch the evening news to know that violence and crime plague our Nation. We have become inured to the ghastly statistics. But, Mr. President, victims are not statistics. They are real people. They are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons, daughters and neighbors. They deserve our compassion and assistance. It's time that our criminal justice system no longer treat crime victims as second class citizens. Passage of this bill will help achieve that goal by ensuring that victims are compensated as part of the criminal sentencing process rather than forcing the aggrieved to seek remedy through time consuming, costly and at times degrading and agonizing civil action. I want to express my gratitude to Senator Hatch and Senator Biden for including a number of provisions I requested to improve the bill. I would like to review those provisions. First, the committee included a provision to double the fine assessed to Federal felons from $50 to $100 and for criminal organizations from $200 to $400. This provision achieves the primary goal of a bill, S. 841, which I introduced earlier this year. The revenues from the increased assessment will be placed into the Crime Victim Fund to increase support for State and local victim assistance programs. Second, the committee included language to require offenders to pay their criminal fines, assessments, and restitution orders in full and immediately if they have the resources to do so. If they cannot pay immediately, then the court will be required to impose a reasonable and enforceable payment plan that ensures full payment within the shortest time possible. Third, language was inserted to ensure that when a criminal debtor becomes delinquent, a hearing can be held to determine the reason. If the offender has no resources with which to pay, then the payment schedule can be amended. If the delinquency is willful, however, penalties can be imposed, including an outright prohibition on criminal debtors receiving moneys from the Crime Victim Fund. Fourth, the committee added a provision I requested to require offenders to notify the court of any change in their economic circumstances which might affect the offender's ability to pay their debt so that the applicable payment schedule can be appropriately modified. A Federal criminal whose financial circumstances improve should not be able to duck his or her responsibility to the victim because they are subject to an insufficient or outdated payment plan. Fifth, the bill will make procedures for assessing and enforcing criminal debt uniform among the three major categories: mandatory assessments, discretionary fines and restitution which after passage of this bill will be mandatory. Finally, the bill includes a provision to see that crime victim assistance will no longer be counted against a recipient as revenue in determining eligibility for Federal assistance programs. Again, I want to thank the committee for their hard work. This is an important bill which I believe will not only assist victims but will prove to be a formidable deterrent to crime. Mr. President, having said that, I must mention that the bill does not include all the provisions I would like to see. I had intended to offer several amendments, but the committee has requested that Senators withhold to ensure speedy consideration and passage of this vital bill this year. I certainly want to cooperate in that effort and given assurances from the committee that the initiatives I was going to offer will be considered next year, I have decided to withhold. The first amendment I had intended to offer would have privatized the collection of delinquent criminal debt. Mr. President, outstanding Federal criminal debt totals over $4 billion. A portion of that amount may be uncollectible because in many cases court assessments exceed the ability of the offenders to pay, but, I know of no one who disagrees that hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding debt are quite collectible. It's a simple reality that U.S. attorneys who are responsible for investigating and prosecuting Federal crimes assign a lower priority to the collection of delinquent debt. Privatizing such debt will ensure that more assessments and restitution orders are enforced, collected and deposited into the Crime Victim Fund or provided to the victim. The second amendment I planned to offer was to declare offenders who willfully avoid their financial obligations, ineligible for Federal grants, contracts, licenses, or other nonmandatory Government assistance. Willful delinquency should be dealt with firmly. We should not provide Federal benefits to those who purposely evade their responsibilities. Third, I had intended to offer an amendment to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act [ERISA] which would allow pension income to be garnished to pay outstanding restitution or criminal debt orders. Under current law, retirement benefits can only be attached to pay delinquent child support. The collection of victim compensation and criminal debt should be priorities as well. The final amendment I had intended to offer would have increased the amount that the Federal Government is legally able to contribute to State victim compensation programs from the Crime Victim Fund. Currently, Federal payments are restricted to 40 percent of the amount that the State provides to its victim compensation fund. The pending bill will increase the Crime Victim Fund by doubling the special assessment against felons. We should increase the 40-percent ceiling so that the direct compensation programs can benefit from these increased resources. Senator Hatch has informed me that the committee intends to take up a criminal debt enforcement bill next year, and that these four proposals will receive consideration at that time. I would like to ask the Senator if that is the committee's plan.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, one of the measures in last year's crime law that I am most proud of is the provision mandating restitution for victims of sexual abuse and child abuse. This was part of the larger piece of legislation closest to my heart: The Violence Against Women Act. The mandatory restitution provisions in that act sent out a strong and unequivocal message: we stand with the victims of family violence and sexual assault, and we will not stand for them being ignored by our criminal justice system any longer. Today, we are considering similar provisions to provide mandatory restitution for all crime victims. As we fight to make our neighborhoods safe and our communities secure, we must not forget the often faceless and voiceless statistics of crime--its victims. Millions of Americans each year must bear the unbearable--in 1993 alone, over 35 million people were victimized by crime in this country. For many victims, the crime only marks the beginning of the ordeal-- there is the investigation, maybe a plea bargain, a trial that often puts the victim's truth and character on the stand, busy prosecutors, aggressive defense lawyers, harried court officers. And in the end, even if the defendant is convicted, the victim's losses--emotional, physical, and financial losses--often go completely uncompensated. It hasn't always been this way. During the colonial period, victims played a central role in our criminal justice system. They apprehended their own wrongdoers--either by making the arrests themselves or by hiring the local sheriff--and they hired their own lawyers to prosecute their cases. In those days, victims were allowed to collect damages from criminals, bind them into servitude, or pay the State to incarcerate those who had wronged them. In the 19th century, our concept of criminal offenses began to change. Primarily to ensure that all citizens were protected--not just the rich who could afford to hire the marshal--the State became the surrogate for the victim, and undertook the prosecution of the crime. What was once seen as a private dispute--the violation of one person by another--came to be seen as a crime against the State. Restitution gave way to incarceration as the chief form of punishment--and fines were exacted by the State and paid to the State. But this evolution in our thinking about crime gradually led to a de- evolution in our concern for victims. Compassion and humanity dictate that we now try to restore to victims the rights, the respect, and the protection that they deserve. In this spirit, Congress enacted the Victim and Witness Protection Act, which, among other provisions, gave courts the discretion to provide restitution to victims. I was also proud to coauthor the Victims of Crime Act in 1984, which established a crime victims fund financed by fines levied against convicted Federal criminals. The Crime Victims Fund pays compensation to specific victims when the criminal can't pay--and it also underwrites general victims assistance programs, like courtroom victim advocates, and victims' counselors. Still, however, there is much to be done. And this bill--which makes restitution mandatory in Federal criminal cases--does something very important. It says to victims: You are not alone. We will demand accountability from your wrongdoers, and we understand that criminals owe a debt not only to society but to you. This bill also sends an important message to criminals--you must take responsibility for our actions, and you will pay for the pain you have caused. Our Constitution is not a zero sum game. We do not diminish the rights of defendants by recognizing and defending the rights of victims. I defend the rights of criminal defendants because I am deeply concerned about the rights of all Americans. And for that same reason, I defend the rights of victims--there is no contradiction, in my mind, between the two. In our efforts to crack down on crime, we must never forget its victims. And we must do all in our power to help, in what little way we can, to ease their suffering. I am proud to cosponsor this bill with Senator Hatch and I urge all my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, last September I voted for a tough welfare reform bill. I supported--and I still strongly support--a comprehensive overhaul of the welfare system. Too many welfare recipients spend far too long on welfare and do far too little in exchange for their benefits. Many of those who manage to get off the welfare rolls only end up back on them after a short period of time. And, for some, generations have made welfare their way of life. This is unacceptable. And, the American people rightly are demanding reform. Last September, I outlined how I think we should reform the welfare system. Welfare recipients would be required to work in exchange for their benefits. The time a person could spend on welfare would be limited. Child care would be provided so that children would not be left home alone. A safety net would be retained for the innocent children. And, we would be as tough on the deadbeat dads who did not pay child support as we would be on the welfare mothers who did not work. That is what I supported last September. And, that is what I voted for last September. But, Mr. President, I did not vote to dismantle the child protection system. I did not vote to cut foster care. I did not vote to gut the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. I did not vote to end the Federal Government's effort to help States prevent child abuse. I did not vote to cut the school lunch program. I did not vote to cut child nutrition programs. I did not vote to take away health care for pregnant women and children. And, I did not vote to eliminate the health and safety protections for kids in day care. I voted for welfare reform. I did not vote for this bill. I am reminded of the children's fable where the lesson was: beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing. Mr. President, this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This bill uses welfare reform as a mask for an all-out assault on the most vulnerable of America's children--many of whom are not on welfare. This bill uses welfare reform as a cover for the extreme, mean-spirited policies emanating from the House. Look behind the so-called welfare reform. Strip away the wool of the sheep, Mr. President, and you are left with an awfully extreme wolf. It did not have to be this way. When I voted for the original welfare bill last September, I noted at the time that I had some reservations. But, the final product was a good-faith effort at a bipartisan compromise. And, despite the fact that I thought it could have been both tougher on work and more compassionate toward innocent children, I was not going to undermine the bipartisan compromise. Working out differences and coming to an agreement is what the American people sent us here to do. But, what happened? The Senator from New York has pointed out that the House-Senate conference met once--for opening statements. Everything else was done behind closed doors without any participation by Democrats. The bipartisan compromise left the Senate and became the victim of House Speaker Gingrich's extremism. So, Mr. President, while I was willing to overlook a few reservations last September for the sake of a bipartisan compromise on welfare reform, I am not willing to sacrifice my principles for the sake of one party's extremists--just because they call it welfare reform. I urge my colleagues to reject this conference report and demand that we take up and pass real welfare reform.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the START II Treaty which has finally been brought to the floor of the Senate after a long, unnecessary, and perhaps fatal delay. I will elaborate on that last point in a moment. But first, let me say that START II represents an unprecedented opportunity to dismantle the Soviet nuclear arsenal. I say ``Soviet,'' Mr. President, because START II would, if implemented, eliminate the most devastating nuclear missiles built by the Soviet Union in the 1970's and 1980's: Hundreds of multi-warhead missiles of cataclysmic destructive power--among them, the infamous SS-18, which became the very symbol of the Soviet threat. Even as we speak today, these missiles remain deployed in launching silos scattered across a Russian nation undergoing enormous political turmoil. They could at a moment's notice be targeted on the United States of America. For the American people, the future of those missiles is a fundamental, compelling national security question. The salient feature of START II is its planned elimination of every land-based multi-warhead missile in the Soviet-now-Russian arsenal. These were the weapons that, for years, so worried our defense establishment that we expended hundreds of billions of dollars to counter their first-strike potential. Mr. President, that apocalyptic potential remains today. As matters now stand, this threat carries with it considerable irony. For months, the Senate has engaged in yet another round of controversy over whether to build an anti-missile system intended to protect the United States from missile attack. Earlier this week, this body passed a defense authorization confernece report that would require deployment of such a system by 2003, putting us on a collision course with the ABM Treaty, which has been the basis for all strategic arms controls agreements over the past two decades. Any such system, if built, would be monumentally expensive, of highly uncertain reliability, likely to provoke additional offensive deployments, and available, at best, only sometime in the next century. Yet, the START II Treaty during that same period would eliminate with verifiable certainty the one serious missile threat the United States has ever faced. The effort over the past several months to eviscerate the ABM Treaty has been driven by those who do not favor the limits in START II, and, correspondingly, never much cared for the ABM Treaty. They believe that the ABM Treaty prevents us from constructing an impenetrable shield against all types of ballistic missiles. I admit--a ballistic missile shield is a comforting image. But, as our experience with star wars in the 1980's demonstrated, it is not grounded in reality. Unfortunately, that ballistic missile shield, if it could ever overcome awesome technical and financial barriers--and I doubt it would, would provide a false sense of security. That is because it would not alleviate a much greater threat--a terrorist transporting a nuclear device or its components into the United States through very conventional means, and detonating that device near an important landmark. Our focus ought to be in preventing that possibility by improving our capabilities to tract terrorists and securing the many tons of fissile material spread across the territory of the former Soviet Union. My colleagues know that last Sunday, the Russian people went to the polls and decided to elect a Duma apparently dominated by Communists and nationalists who are skeptical about START II and suspicious about American motives on the ABM treaty. They do not regard as a mere coincidence that 2003 is the year established for final compliance with the central limits in START II, as well as the target date for deployment of a national missile defense system in the Republican plan. From their perspective, START II will take away their most effective means of countering a national missile defense--overwhelming it with offensive missiles. While Russian concerns alone should not determine our policy decisions, it would be shortsighted, to say the least, to ignore them altogether when Russian behavior and Russian missiles can have a direct bearing on our national security. If the Russians decide that we are intent on abrogating the ABM Treaty, then they will likely refuse to ratify START II, halt START I implementation, and begin a strategic build-up. We would have to follow suit and waste vast sums of money on deploying more offensive missiles and developing more missile defenses. How ironic that would be--in the post-cold war era when we are on the verge of ratifying a historic reduction in strategic nuclear weapons-- to set off an offense-defense spiral that the ABM Treaty was designed to prevent, and did prevent for over 20 years. For the past several months many here saw the Communist and nationalist clouds building in Russia, and for that reason we repeatedly called for early United States ratification of START II in order to encourage similar action by the Duma. That could have locked in the gains promised by START II. Unfortunately, we did not act. Now, some reports suggest that the new Duma may wait to see the results of our presidential election before approving START II. I hope that is not the case, because between now and then Russia will hold its own presidential election. That election has the potential to rearrange Russian politics in ways we cannot predict. Our action today can send a clear signal that we are serious about implementing START II, and provide the incentive for quick action by the Duma. It is my hope that the Senate's advice and consent to START II will encourage the Duma to act in kind prior to the G-7 Nuclear Safety Summit in Moscow next April. Due to the crowded political calendar in both countries later in the year, the summit would be the ideal, and maybe last, opportunity for Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin to exchange instruments of ratification. I would also hope that the two leaders can at that time agree to begin negotiations toward a new agreement on even further reductions. I would just like to add here that I am concerned with some of the hortatory language that is contained both within the committee report and the proposed managers' amendment. In particular, I find the language on missile defenses and nuclear testing to be particularly problematic. However, I have decided not to object at this time because I believe it is absolutely critical that we act quickly and favorably on START II. I think it is also important to emphasize for all concerned that the language to which I and many of my colleagues object is non-binding. Mr. President, the ultimate entry into force of the START II Treaty may well depend on a choice we must make in the months ahead: Do we pursue a technically questionable and prohibitively expensive national missile defense which would doom START II, or do we pursue a path that promises with greater certainty and less cost to eliminate the very missiles such a system would defend against? In my view, there is not much of a choice. Star Wars technology is uncertain, costly, and likely to undermine our national security. On the other hand, arms control agreements like START II are proven, cost- effective, and will reduce the nuclear threat to the United States. The American people, having sent us here to protect the security of their homes and children, are entitled to the only rational choice: We should ratify START II and abandon the reckless plans for an ABM Treaty-busting national missile defense system.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to yield 2 minutes.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to register my opposition to S. 908, the State Department authorization and reorganization bill. Before I begin briefly to state my reasons, let me compliment both the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, and the chairman of the full committee. I compliment the chairman, my friend from North Carolina, for being a consummate legislative craftsman. He held us hostage very effectively for a long time. I do not think we would even be talking about this compromise bill were it not for the fact that the START Treaty was held up, that all the ambassadorial nominations were held up, and that we asked Senator Kerry on our behalf to see if he could free them up. It reminds me of those buttons we used to have around here when we would have long sessions, ``Free The 89th Congress'' or free this or free that. Well, this was ``free the Ambassadors'' and ``free our national security'' so we could have the ability to continue to destroy Soviet nuclear weapons and continue the rational arms control regime that was begun with President Nixon and went straight through the administration of President Reagan. This is not a backhanded compliment. I think one of the most fierce and effective legislative foes one could have in this body is the distinguished Senator from North Carolina. I do think, however, that the way my friend from North Carolina went about this one was unprecedented, and I hope it is not repeated. On that score, I wish to make it clear to my friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, why, after all his hard work, I am still opposed to this bill. He did a great job. We are going to have a START II Treaty, God willing and the creek not rising, and we are actually going to put ambassadors out there after the rest of the world wondered where the devil they were. Let me say at the outset that I admire the skill of both the gentlemen who have brought us this agreement. I do not, however, admire the product that has been brought. No one disputes the need to constantly scrutinize our Federal bureaucracy to look for overlaps and redundancies and opportunities for streamlining. In this case, though, the three agencies that I will now mention will, in my view, be emasculated by this bill. The Agency for International Development and the United States Information Agency effectively are mandated for closing. Most important in my view is the supreme irony that just as we finally are allowed by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to free up the START II Treaty, this bill would severely cut the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. All of the three agencies I have just mentioned have been streamlining themselves and cutting overlapping functions. All three of them have already been taking a good, hard look at their missions and have been responding to changing circumstances. The Agency for International Development, for example, has pioneered enterprise funds, which have created partnerships between the private sector and the Government. USIA has attempted to utilize modern information technologies to spread the message of the United States to the rest of the world. It has also entered into local partnerships whenever possible to conserve funds. Perhaps the biggest mystery to me is why the advocates of this bill think that the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency has outlived its usefulness. In the confusion of the current post-cold-war era, the danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons has dramatically increased, not decreased--I repeat, dramatically increased. Now more than ever, the critical independence of ACDA is needed to counter the natural tendency of the State Department to defer to bilateral relationships in sticky situations. Another irony is that those proposing the cuts are the very ones who have been most critical of the State Department for allegedly having an instinct to become captives of the countries with which we deal. ACDA has a proven track record of nonpolitical expertise, which we can ill-afford to lose at this time. The situation at the State Department, which would absorb the agencies whose independence is to be sacrificed, is hardly any better. Mr. President, the Department of State, the principal vehicle for carrying out American foreign policy, has already been forced into debilitating reductions. The international affairs budget is now 45 percent lower in real terms than it was in 1984. Altogether it represents only 1.3 percent of Federal spending. Over the past 3 years alone, the State Department's budget has been decreased in real terms by 15 percent at the same time the Department's responsibilities have increased with the emergence of new countries in the wake of the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Moreover, since 1993 there has been a 30-percent increase in passport issuances to U.S. citizens to travel abroad. What has the result been? The State Department has taken the following actions to reduce the cost of conducting U.S. diplomatic and consular relations. First, it has cut its total work force by 1,700 persons. It has downsized the Senior Foreign Service by 19 percent. And here, Mr. President, I submit that we are wasting a precious national resource, the kind of expertise built up over the decades that in the short term simply cannot be replicated. It has also reduced overseas allowances. It has cut its administrative expenses by almost $100 million. It has reduced expenditures on diplomatic security by 15 percent. And, Mr. President, I doubt anyone would claim that we live in a safer international environment. It has had to cancel, which I find astounding, the 1995 Foreign Service examinations--I repeat, has had to cancel the 1995 Foreign Service examinations. That means, of course, that our country is cutting off any chance of attracting the best and the brightest of our college and university graduates into the diplomatic service this year. Talk about being penny-wise and pound-foolish. My goodness. The State Department has been forced to slate 19 overseas posts for closure in fiscal year 1996. The list of these posts makes the hair of any internationally minded American stand on end. Permit me to elaborate a bit on this point, using Zurich, Switzerland, as an illustrative example of the folly that congressionally induced budget slashing has wrought. Zurich is, of course, Switzerland's largest city and its economic and financial center. In fact, it ranks as the world's fourth largest financial center. Many American multinational corporations have their regional headquarters there, including Dow, Kraft, General Motors, and many others. In the other direction, Switzerland was the second largest foreign direct investor in the United States in 1994. So, Mr. President, what do we do? We close the consulate in Zurich, Switzerland, which does not make a lot of sense. I do not think it is a stretch to say that Zurich is a rather important city to American business. Apparently other countries also perceive Zurich's central position in international finance and trade; 59 other countries have consulates there. As one might expect, all of the other leading powers in the world have representation in Zurich, but smaller nations also consider it in their interest to be represented in Zurich--The Gambia, Lesotho, Mongolia, Nepal, Rwanda, the Republic of the Seychelles, Swaziland, Vanuatu. The list goes on. Mr. President, with all due respect to our friends in The Gambia, Lesotho, Mongolia, Nepal, Rwanda, and so on, I find it rather incredible to believe that their governments can somehow find the funding that they need to keep consulates open in Zurich, and the United States of America, the world's only superpower and largest economic engine in the world, cannot. We cannot find the money to keep a consulate open in the vitally important city of Zurich, a consulate, I might add, that I have never visited. But let me not be too Eurocentric, Mr. President. Another post slated for closing, thanks to congressional budgetary wisdom, is Medan, Indonesia. As you know, Indonesia, with a population of over 200 million people, is the fourth largest country in the world. It is also the largest Moslem-majority nation on Earth. Its economy offers numerous opportunities for foreign investment. And Medan, after the capital Jakarta, is Indonesia's most important commercial center. Other countries with consular offices in Medan include Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, the Russia Federation, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Thailand. Why are they there? To do business. So, Mr. President, after we take down the Stars and Stripes and close our consulate in Medan, what will happen when an American corporation eager to break into the Indonesian market goes to Medan? Our American corporate representative can walk down to the the Japanese consulate where the nice Japanese attache will undoubtedly be happy to help out with business contacts and other valuable information that the American corporation needs. Although this bill is largely a creation of the majority party, there is plenty of blame to spread around. I regret to say that the administration, in its zeal to reinvent Government, has aided and abetted the feeding frenzy of the small Government ideologues. To be fair, this bill can be viewed as but the logical culmination of a decade of denigrating the nonmilitary component of American foreign policy. Most of us, this Senator included, have voted for reductions in one area of foreign policy or another to spare what we deem to be more important programs. But, Mr. President, this goes overboard. This bill goes far beyond what we have seen before. Previous cuts in the budget for carrying out our foreign policy, whether they were proven correct or not, were at least undertaken with a view toward strengthening the international role of the United States of America. As I have demonstrated earlier, the agencies charged with executing our foreign policy have not been ``fat cats'' of the Federal budget, unwilling to change. On the contrary, Mr. President, they have absorbed massive cuts up to this point. I repeat, the international affairs budget is already, before we pass this bill, 45 percent in real terms below what it was in 1984. And as I have said, the State Department, USIA, ACDA, and AID have already implemented severe staff reductions. Moreover, we are talking about only 1.3 percent of Federal spending here. So, Mr. President, I think it is totally false to assert either that our foreign policy agencies have not reformed themselves or that the very carrying out of our foreign policy is a ``big ticket'' item in the Federal budget. No, Mr. President, the impetus for this proposed legislation is not rooted in demonstrated need. On the contrary, I am sorry to say, the bill has its genesis in a strain of isolationist thought that harkens back to the 1920's and 1930's, which many of us thought was but an unpleasant memory. By imposing crippling budget cuts on three foreign affairs agencies that have served this country well for decades: the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Information Agency, I think this bill virtually assures their demise. That is part of the bill's purpose. Moreover, Mr. President, the State Department, which would inherit the remains of those agencies, would itself be forced into yet another round of devastating cuts. Some of those consequences, as I have earlier indicated, would be absurdly funny were they not so tragic. Mr. President, this bill represents backdoor isolationism pure and simple. At a time when international affairs has become more complex, its passage would signal to the world an American desire to simplify what cannot be simplified. Combined with Republican-mandated cuts in the already meager foreign assistance budget, this bill would lead ineluctably in a few years to a situation in which the American President would have little choice in an international crisis between doing nothing and sending in the military. This bill, I believe, is the worst kind of ideologically- driven false economy. It is a dressed-up isolationist exercise. It is not worthy of a country that claims the mantle of world leadership. I know that many of my colleagues share my deep misgivings about this Congress' evident desire to shrink America's international role. Opposition to this bill offers an opportunity to reassert the centrality of America's involvement in the world. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against S. 908. I yield the floor. Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I do not want to get into a debate with my friend, and there is nothing personal about what I said. Let me reiterate what I actually said. My criticism and compliment to my friend from North Carolina was not that he was original in what he has done, in the sense that he had support from like-minded former Secretaries, or even, at one time, from the present Secretary, or perhaps even from the President. My comments related not to him--it is not what he proposed but the fact that he denied us our ability to dispose of ambassadorial nominations and the START II Treaty. My disagreement is not only with him on this legislation. I also mentioned the Secretary of State when we were referring to the State Department and the President of the United States. I think, with all due respect, all the supporters of this effort are being shortsighted. So the chairman is not alone in what I characterize as ``shortsightedness'' as it relates to what our policy should be. My reference to him was explicitly for his unique ability to fashion a way to get his point across in this case, which was by denying us the ability to dispose of the START II T treaty and dispose of ambassadorial nominations, all of which were ready to go. I complimented him on his ingenuity. I have tried to learn from him. We have been here together since January 1973, and I have watched him, and Democratic predecessors, like the deceased Senator Jim Allen, and others, use their great skills to be able to get the results that they sought. I compliment him on it, but I think it is the wrong way to do it. I think it was a high price to be paid in order to get agreement. So I want to be clear. He was not original in his notion that we should cut these consulates. He joined other, I think, wrong-headed proposals to close them. My reference to him was explicitly that I hope we do not have a repetition of shutting down the business of the committee while we arrive at a conclusion that is satisfactory to whoever the chairman is then. The distinguished Senator from Rhode Island has announced his retirement. The Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from Delaware are seeking reelection. The Lord only knows, and our constituents know, whether both of us will be back, and the odds are that he may be back as chairman. But it is also possible that the Senator from Delaware may be back as chairman of the committee. That is the only reference that I was making. It seems to me that what he did was legal use, in a senatorial sense, of the power of chairmanship, but I think unprecedented and, I hope, not to be repeated. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I listened with interest in the Cloakroom to my friend from North Carolina and what he had to say in response to the Senator from Maryland. The Senator from Maryland can surely take care of himself and respond in any way he thinks is appropriate, but at one point we all say things that we sort of slip and say and do not mean. He made reference to our nominee to China, former Senator Sasser as ``needing a job.'' I inform the Senator that not only does Senator Sasser not need a job, he is doing financially much better now than he did when he was here. He needs no job. This is a public service to which he has agreed to return, and I am sure the Senator did not mean to imply anything by what he said, but I want the Record to make it clear. Senator Sasser does not need a job--it is for those of us, including the President, who think we need Senator Sasser to come back to public service. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President I rise in opposition to this bill, which I feel represents yet another attack on our Nation's resources and our environmental protection laws. Our greatest legacy to our children and our grandchildren is the world which we leave to them. Simply put, this bill shortchanges future generations of Americans. I want to commend my colleagues, particularly Senator Gorton and Senator Byrd, who have made some progress toward improving this bill. First, and foremost, I want to acknowledge that the outcry from the taxpayers of this country has been heard: After months of wrangling, this bill finally restores the moratorium on the processing of mining claims, contained in last year's bill. Without this freeze, gigantic, foreign-owned mining companies would be permitted to purchase Federal land, loaded with gold, silver, and other precious metals, for as little as $2.50, due to an outdated 1872 law still in effect. Only $2.50 for an acre of land and all the gold underneath it is an outrageous ripoff for the taxpayers of this country. Though the bill's language will still permit the processing of hundreds of applications which are now pending, this freeze will prevent even more companies from receiving this golden giveaway. I also support the funding contained in this bill for the North American wetlands conservation fund. This valuable public-private partnership, has enabled Federal and State wildlife officials, and conservationists in my home State of Delaware, to develop dozens of wetlands and wildlife habitat protection plans. It is cost-effective, matching funds are required, and it deserves our support. Despite these few bright spots, much in this bill troubles me. This legislation cuts our efforts to move away from fossil fuels, toward cleaner, renewable fuels, such as solar energy. Energy efficiency standards are also relaxed. The end result: a continuation of our growing dependence on foreign oil. This conference report also prohibits listing additional species as threatened or endangered and prohibits designating and protecting critical wildlife habitat. Delaware has 9 animal species, and 16 plant species, which are candidates for Endangered Species Act listing, and I am concerned that this provision will hasten their extinction. An unsustainable amount of logging will also be permitted in the Tongass National Forest, a great temperate rainforest in southeastern Alaska. With Christmas fast approaching I can understand a certain amount of sentiment for expedited logging. But we are not talking about a few Christmas trees here. Under this bill, up to 418 million board feet of timber will be sold in 1996 and 1997--an allowable logging level which is 44 percent higher than the cutting average over the previous 10 years. This plan is locked in, and no changes are permitted. The conference report also contains a legislative rider which allows the construction of a telescope on Mt. Graham, near Tucson, AZ, despite the fact that this development will likely harm an endangered species. Putting the merits of the proposal aside, an appropriations bill is not the right location for reforming the Endangered Species Act. Lastly, this bill expands the number of recreational activities permitted in the new Mojave preserve in California. If you plan to go hiking in the Mojave this summer, be forewarned, the Park Service may be forced to open this wilderness to motorized vehicles and aircraft. In sum, Mr. President, this bill falls far short of adequately protecting our natural resources. Under this legislation, our dependency on foreign oil grows, endangered species are threatened, our environmental laws are disregarded, and Americans are left poorer. President Clinton has announced his intention to veto this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today the Senate is holding a memorial service to remember Rev. Richard C. Halverson, our friend and our Chaplain from 1981 to March of this year, who passed away two weeks ago after a long illness. To each of us, whatever our individual religious beliefs, Reverend Halverson was someone special. To some of us, he was a confidant; to others, a counselor; and to still others, a pastor in the more traditional sense of the word. To each of us, he was a friend. The Senate is, in many ways, a small community with many of the same dynamics inherent in small communities across our Nation. We work in close quarters and all know each other very well. Each of us have forged great friendships here, and each of us has seen great rivalries develop among colleagues. We are all public figures whose lives are all too often an open book. We come from widely different backgrounds, and each of us brings to the Senate a different set of values we hold dearly and ideals to which we are firmly and determinedly committed. And out of all of that, out of all the differing backgrounds and competing philosophies, out of the individual strengths and weaknesses, and out of the personal friendships and political rivalries, this community of one hundred men and women must produce public policy that ensures the well-being of more than two hundred and fifty million of our fellow Americans. That is an awesome responsibility. As much as any of us, Reverend Halverson understood both the sense of community and the awesome responsibility of the Senate. Each morning, in his opening prayer, he would try to remind us that the sense of community, collegiality, and comity that has always been the trademark of this body is vitally important to carrying out the tasks that are demanded of us. He would remind us that the Senator on the other side of a heated debate is just as committed a public servant as we are. That no political party has a monopoly on compassion, or patriotism, or integrity. That the American Dream is neither conservative nor liberal. And that at the end of the day that sense of community, as Senators and as Americans, must prevail if we are to meet the responsibilities that have been entrusted to us. Reverend Halverson understood that as Senators, our lives--official and often personal--are open to more scrutiny than most Americans would tolerate. He understood that not only our votes and our speeches, but our families and our lifestyles are often open to public review. As public officials we have accepted that. Nonetheless, Reverend Halverson understood that that scrutiny does take a human toll, reminding us that as we would like to be treated with understanding, so we must be understanding ourselves. And reminding us that for all of the public scrutiny of our lives and our conduct, for all of the public criticism that we sometimes receive for our votes and our political and philosophical beliefs, for all of the questioning of our motives that we must sometimes endure, the work that we do is so important to so many people that we must persevere. Reverend Halverson always understood that election to public office does not take away the pressures that face every other American man and woman; work-related stress, family concerns, health concerns, or the self-questioning that every individual faces from time to time throughout their lives. Similarly, he understood that election to public office does not bestow skills or talents that we did not possess before; nor does it eradicate any personal weaknesses we possessed before our election. But Reverend Halverson was always there to remind us that deep within each of us is the ability to meet every challenge that our careers and our lives present. A few years ago, I was quite ill. I left here one February night with a headache and did not return until late in the summer. During those months, as he was during all of his 14 years here, Reverend Halverson was there for me. I have never forgotten that, and my family has never forgotten that. Throughout his 14 years as the Senate Chaplain Rev. Richard C. Halverson was a committed public servant and a friend to each of us. We shall miss him.