Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I hope we follow the advice of the Senator. We know this is the right thing to do. We know this is the right thing to do. We know it is, as a minimum, worthy of scientific study to determine whether this can be done with efficacy. And we also know--I do not fully understand, frankly--we also know there are certain interests that do not want that to happen. Because they are fearful--the only thing I can conclude, Senator, is they are fearful that the study will come forward and say, ``Guess what? You can do this without in any way diminishing the effectiveness of fertilizers used for agriculture.'' Because, obviously, if the study is going to come back and say you cannot do this without diminishing significantly the capacity of the fertilizer to function, that cannot worry them because if that is the case we are not going to do it. There is no way that would get done here. So I always am confused by this response. I was confused in 1973 about why people responded the way they did. I hope we will not let interests that I do not fully understand sidetrack even a study. I might point out, by the way, with regard to taggants, originally the people who are now opposing the Senator's language and the President's language were opposed to even a study before. Now they are for a study. I hope we can just bypass--not have to go through another 10 years before we get to the point where they see their way clear, suggesting we can even look at a study.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, we are trying to clear additional amendments. We are prepared to accept the Pressler amendment, renaming a Federal building in his State. We are seeing whether we can clear additional amendments. While I have the floor, let me ask, the Senator from California, Senator Boxer, was prepared to go with her amendment tonight, but since that was the last vote, I would like to ask whether or not the chairman would object to her being the first amendment tomorrow?

Mr. BIDEN. That is fine. Mr. President, I am delighted for the intervention. As I said at the outset of my discussion of this, the chairman was occupied with the staff for a moment. At the time, I said that I was confident he and I could work this out. I am confident we can work out most of this. The reason I raise this is an illustration of the larger point I am making; that is, there is no attempt to delay anything here. This provision was not included in the Republican bill. I think it is a very important provision.

Mr. BIDEN. I will be happy to.

Mr. BIDEN. I say to the Senator from California that is probably broader than we have to make it, but I would agree with her that that is worth doing to allay the concerns and fears of our friends who think somehow there is some nefarious objective here that is not obvious on its face. The Senator from----

Mr. BIDEN. Again, I would have no objection. But I suggest the Senator withhold modifying that because the Senator from Utah was required--he has been on the floor the whole day. He said he had to leave for 15 minutes. And would I not take any action in his absence. So I suggest, and maybe the Senator's staff has already done this, make that language available to Senator Hatch's staff. Hopefully he can agree to that. But I ask her to withhold modifying her amendment which would require unanimous consent until he returns to the floor and has had a chance to look at it. [[Page S7691]] Mr. President, while the Senator from California is doing that, I will repeat that in both instances, in the instance of requiring tracers and studying the capability of rendering products which do not have a destructive purpose but are able to be used for destructive purposes, to render them inert--that is incapable of being used for destructive purposes--that in both instances we are very concerned about safety. We do not want at any point here, in attempting to create, eliminate, diminish the possibility of one bad thing happening, to raise safety concerns. So for those explosives with potential--and I want to stress potential--safety concerns, the Secretary of Treasury can account for those concerns by establishing regulations. The point of this amendment is to improve the safety of Americans. But it will not be done by risking the safety of manufacturers or people who lawfully use explosives. This amendment accounts for those concerns and addresses the underlying concern with illicit use of explosives. I stress again the action just suggested by the Senator from California is further evidence of the fact that we are in no way suggesting an amendment that would diminish the safety of anyone, the manufacturer or the person who lawfully uses those materials. I further note as it relates to precursor chemicals, we are not in any way suggesting that any change be made prior to a full-blown study. And the purpose of that study is to determine whether or not we can be assured that we can render these precursor chemicals inert, without affecting their ability to be used effectively as designed for the purpose for which they are manufactured in the first instance. So I hope that when we get to this amendment that no one will be dissuaded from voting for it. And I say to representatives of the NRA who are listening that it is not our intention in any way to make anything unsafe for hunters, to in any way diminish or limit any right of any gun owner in America, to in any way put any gun owner in America in any jeopardy whatsoever. This is not a slippery slope. This is not the camel's nose under the tent. This is not all those other things that are always stated when in fact we do anything at all that impacts in any way upon firearms, ammunition, or explosive material. There is no subagenda here. It is very simple. We want to track down the bad guys who use explosives the wrong way for criminal purposes, and we want to take that material that is sold over the counter for purposes totally unrelated to criminal activity or for explosive capability and determine whether or not, after scientists study the issue, we can safely render that explosive capability inert, render it incapable being used in an explosive compound, and in doing so in no way diminish the purpose, the efficacy of the material for which it was manufactured in the first place.

Mr. BIDEN. Yes.

Mr. BIDEN. Not at all. Mr. President, I welcome--not interruptions--I welcome this colloquy and conversation. I know that there is an understanding that there will be no votes until 5 o'clock. So the likelihood of anybody other than the most stalwart of the Members of the Senate--I see the distinguished Senator from West Virginia and the distinguished Senator from North Carolina here--other than a few, there are going to be a lot of folks making their way back from the west coast and the Midwest on airplanes. So the likelihood of anything happening of consequence between now and the time that it was announced there would be a vote is de minimis. So I welcome the discussion. Let me just again, not by way of argumentation but illustration of the confusion surrounding the legislation--understandable confusion. Even if the Republican bill had not been introduced, had the President's bill been introduced and nothing else, there would be confusion surrounding it. I do not mean this in a pejorative way. The letter from the district attorney, as I understand it, from Oklahoma County, the county in which Oklahoma City is--I have not read it yet, but the fact of his rationale of why they need full habeas corpus, to have State habeas corpus included, is because there were non-Federal workers killed--understandably, he misunderstands the bill. It does not matter who is killed in the building. It is a Federal crime. That is what we are establishing. It is a Federal crime. A foreign national could be killed in the building, anyone, under current law, killed in a Federal building that is blown up, it is a Federal crime. It is also a State crime as well. It can be a State crime as well. But it is a Federal crime. So the point raised by the distinguished--again, I am not criticizing the district attorney or the prosecutor in that county. I doubt whether he has had a chance to review the existing Federal law. But at any rate, the larger point here is this: I am ready, willing, anxious and, hopefully will be able to demonstrate, ``able'' to debate this habeas corpus issue. The reason why I did not want habeas corpus introduced into this issue is because I did not want to also get into a debate on guns in this issue. I did not want to debate militia and NRA and ACLU and all of these things. Look, I am fearful that, although things have calmed down a little bit, if you listen to the rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans on these issues, you would assume that everyone who joined a militia--by the way, we should not use that phrase. They are not militia. There is no militia under the Constitution. But anyone who joins these groups who organize themselves and call themselves militia, on the one hand you have everybody making them patriots; on the other hand, all a bunch of thugs, depending on who speaks to it. The same with the NRA--the NRA puts out an ill-advised letter, and all of sudden everyone in the NRA is a ``thug'', a ``bum.'' The vast majority of NRA members in my State, the overwhelming number of NRA members are honest, decent citizens. They join the NRA because that is the outfit that taught them how to use a gun when they were a Boy Scout, how to fire their first rifle, took them to the firing range. I am going to oppose the amendment of Senator Lautenberg. I support the use of that $25 million in funds allowing ammunition to be made available to teach people how to learn to use weapons. That is a healthy thing. That is not a bad thing. Half of the people who join the NRA in my State join for the insurance that is offered by the NRA. The NRA, the members of the NRA, are good, God-fearing people; some of them probably good atheists; they are good everything. The fact they join the NRA is not because it is a bad organization. But what is going to happen here before this debate is over is we start talking about guns. They are either all going to be superpatriots or they are all going to be a bunch of thugs. I think that is a useless debate to have now when what the President says he needs, we all know he needs, is he needs more agents. He needs more money. He needs more authority. So to finish the point--and I will be happy to yield--before I finish my statement, my reluctance about getting into a debate on habeas corpus is that we who have been around here even a year all know that is what we refer to in the jargon as a ``hot-button issue.'' Once you mention habeas corpus, you bring out everything, left and right and center. It engages almost a religious debate. It takes on proportions like striker replacement. I mean it brings out everyone's deeply-held feelings. I predicted as soon as habeas corpus was put on this bill that there would be 1, 2, 5, 10 amendments on guns. I suspect my friends would acknowledge that, if the Democrats had decided to introduce a terrorism bill that was loaded up with gun amendments, they would say, ``Wait a minute. What are you doing that for? You are just trying to delay action on this thing. Are you just trying to raise everyone's hackles? Are you just trying to get into sort of a debate that has nothing to do with the added responsibility and authority that the President wants and has?'' That is the only point I am making about habeas corpus. But it is done. The reason I even mentioned it now is to explain what I think has been already demonstrated by the short colloquy we have had thus far that Senator Dole is wrong. This has nothing to do with the intent to delay. The introduction of habeas complicated--did not delay--complicated action on this bill. Deletion of more intrusive authority on the part of the FBI complicated what already was a difficult debate requiring additional amendments. Additions of some legislation I support, and some I do not relative to firearms complicated consideration of this core legislation. That is the only broad point I wish to make. That does not add up to delay. That adds up to an additional consumption of time out of necessity. It is necessary to use more time to resolve those complicated problems. I daresay that if, in fact, my Republican colleagues thought that any one of these gun amendments was likely to pass, there would be, as there was in the past, extended debate. Just like I worried and thought--but is not going to happen now--that, if they raised habeas corpus, there would be extended debate. Neither is going to happen. I presume the reason it is not going to happen is because they have the votes. It always makes things go quicker when you have the votes. I remember the good old days when we used to have the votes. We do not have the votes anymore, my team. So we understand the likely outcome on most of this. But this is not an attempt to delay. That is the only point I wish to make again to my distinguished friend, the Republican leader from Kansas, who on the Sunday talk show--I think it was Meet the Press, I am not certain which one it was--and today directly stated that this was a Democratic effort to delay. The other side of this is that I am going to have, as we say, ``clean hands'' in this matter. The administration is putting pressure on the Republican leader asking, ``Why did you not get my bill?'' Why did you not get it done? Why do we not have this done? I think part of that also is done for political reasons. And so I just hope that we in this body, once folks fly back into town here and we start debating on the amendments, can agree where we can agree, as the Senator from Utah and I at least think we can agree on the so-called multipoint wiretapping that the President wants made available to him, or made available to Federal agencies, and I hope we can even go back and revisit the, I think, ill-advised vote defeating the Lieberman amendment on wiretapping because I think once people took a closer look at it and took off our sort of political blinders here, they would see what was being asked for had nothing to do with anything other than what we now allow under our law and have to deal with the Mafia. Why [[Page S7677]] should the terrorist organizations have any more protection than the Mafia? I do not understand that. And I do not think, in fairness to those who voted against it, they fully understood what the amendment meant. Again, terrorism is no trivial matter. If it takes a week, then it is time well spent, in my view, to arrive at a serious, significant piece of legislation that gives additional tools to the Government without infringing upon any of the civil liberties of the American people and diminishes the prospects that domestic or foreign terrorists will be able to succeed in repeating what was done at the World Trade Center and what was done in Oklahoma City. So I do not consider this a waste of time. The telecommunications bill is an important bill, but I imagine, if you said to the American people, we can do one of two things for you: We can pass a bill that will enhance and make better the way in which the telecommunications industry functions in America and we can do that right away, or we can pass a bill that significantly strengthens the United States ability to deal with terrorists and to prevent terrorist acts, which do you want? My guess is they would pick--I do not know what they would pick. I would pick doing something about terrorism. So in my view, even if it takes the remainder of the week to work our way through these amendments--and I predict it will not, but even if it did, it would not be wrong nor unreasonable. The goal here is we must get the best possible bill that we can. We owe no less to the American people. We owe no less to the people in Oklahoma City. We owe no less to ourselves. We owe more, much more, to the memory of those who have lost their lives at the hands of a madman or mad men and women in the unthinkable moment of insanity that we witnessed now well over a month ago. And so I look forward, once we have a quorum assembled here in Washington--and again, I am not being critical of anyone who is not here now. If you represent the State of Utah or the State of California or the State of Washington and you went home over the recess, it is difficult to get back here early in the day and still meet your commitments without leaving a day earlier. And so I am confident we can move with some dispatch once we get underway. I just plead with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the various issues that will be raised here that we should not make the same mistake the authors of the NRA letter made. They figured out they made a mistake and they retracted what they said. We are going to have a tendency, as this debate heats up, to say some fairly outrageous things, some of which may even be true. But I do not think this is the circumstance under which we should do it. I say to the Presiding Officer, I really do believe that we owe it to the people who have been victimized thus far by a foreign and a domestic terrorist act to act with dispatch, in a slightly dispassionate way, to come up with hardnosed, serious efforts to enable the Federal Government to legitimately fulfill its primary role of protecting the American people under these circumstances from these kinds of actions. So I will try my best to follow my own advice as this debate goes forward and suggest that to vilify any organization, right or left, to vilify individuals will not get us very far. What we should be doing is vindicating, vindicating those who have already suffered greatly in an attempt to make sure that we do not have to stand on the floor of the Senate again and deal with a similar circumstance. The President has basically asked for two things. The first thing he said was give me more people. Give me more FBI agents. Give me more people to do this job. We should do that. We should do that, A, because he is right and, B, because even those who might want to point out that the last President and this President cut people for a while, they did not add as rapidly as they should have--well, for whatever the reason, let us not argue about that. He wants more people. We should give him more people--him and whomever follow-on Presidents will be. Second, he said I need some additional authority. The authority I would like to have as the chief law enforcement officer for the United States of America, as the Chief Executive to give to the law enforcement agencies in this country the ability to do some things other nations have done with great success, that have diminished the ability to make these god-awful bombs, give the authority to tag the elements of these explosives so that when they blow up, you can identify from whence they came, where they were purchased and, hopefully, who purchased them to solve the crime. They are called taggants. We will debate that. There are legitimate reasons to debate it. But I think it is a legitimate request on the part of the President. The President also says I need some additional authority to deal with this new emerging problem of terrorism on American soil, and it is authority that I want expanded for wiretapping in certain circumstances under which they are expanded. I think he should be given that authority, or at least we should debate it and make that decision as a body. I think we should focus on the expanded authority he says he needs, and we should focus on the expanded resources he is requesting, and do our job for the American people and do it, as I said, hopefully-- hopefully--by demonstrating to them that we can do something of consequence that is not rooted in political motivation, something of consequence on which we can agree. And, my Lord, if we cannot agree as a body, Democrats and Republicans, that we should give more authority to deal with terrorists in this country, then I am not sure on what we are likely to agree. So I look forward to a reasoned, a serious, and hopefully an unemotional debate on these issues, and a resolution in the near term so that we can send to the President of the United States, after a conference with the House, a piece of legislation that is worthy of his signature. I thank the Senate for listening, and I see that Senator Exon and others are in the Chamber. I would be happy to yield the floor for the time being. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for 30 seconds?

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, I think we have about 20 amendments left. I expect that by midday tomorrow we will have fewer than that left. I might point out to the majority leader that two of the four amendments accepted, when we met last, there was no possibility of them being accepted. They were two of the six major amendments that the Democratic side felt were essential to be included in the Republican core bill. Although we did accept them and they turned out to be overwhelming votes--taggants--when I spoke this time before we adjourned, I said the taggant amendment and the amendment that the Senator from California had regarding the distribution of material on how to build explosive devices were two of the most contentious amendments, and they were so advertised at the time. They had been worked out through the cooperation of Senator Hatch and the Republican side. So I do not want the Senator, the leader, to think we have only been dealing with those things, with the easiest things on the list. The big items left on the list are some gun-related amendments and the habeas corpus amendments. We are ready to go at those starting first thing in the morning. I imagine we will be joined, for example, by the Senator from New Jersey, who has an amendment on doing away with the $25 million program the Defense Department makes available for ammunition for target practice. He is willing to agree to a half-hour on that amendment. I do not think we are going to take very much time on the remaining very controversial amendments. I cannot say to the Senator what one or two people on either side may do based on what the final outcome of the habeas corpus vote is, or a gun vote is. I do not know. But I think disposing of the amendments will go relatively quickly and I think we will be able to get time agreements on almost all of them. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I had asked that a quorum call be put into effect to determine whether or not I could agree with the unanimous consent request by the Senator from Colorado. I would just ask the Senator from California, when we conclude that, if I would be able to interrupt her to allow the Senator from Colorado to amend his amendment. I do not seek that now, but I would like that so the Senator from Colorado does not think I have put this off for a couple hours.

Mr. BIDEN. I note that no one else is seeking recognition. The hour of 6 o'clock is approaching. Parliamentary inquiry: Is there a time set for the first vote at this moment?

Mr. BIDEN. The first vote will be on what issue, Mr. President?

Mr. BIDEN. I beg your pardon. It is ``l'', and not ``1.'' So it will read, the following new section ``l'', ``It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or demonstrate the making of explosive material or to distribute by any means information pertaining to'', et cetera. Then at the bottom paragraph, it reads ``Any person who violates subsection l of this section.'' Then that is how it reads, Mr. President?

Mr. BIDEN. Amendment 1202 is the taggant amendment of the Senator from California.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the first amendment tomorrow be the amendment of the Senator from California, Senator Boxer.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am sorry to do this to you. But also in the third paragraph, it reads: Section (a) as subsection (a)(l) and by adding the following new subsection. So, in other words, the three places where I thought it was a ``1'' it is not a ``1.'' It is an ``l.'' So that being the case, that is the only correction of me, not of the amendment, I have no objection. We accept the amendment as well.

Mr. BIDEN. I would like to suggest maybe we could have a short quorum call. I do not want to object. I do not think I will object, but if the Senator would allow----

Mr. BIDEN. I suggest that would put it in line with what she intends and what the court found.

Mr. BIDEN. I compliment the Senator for that.

Mr. BIDEN. Please.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in over 20 years in the Senate I do not think I have done this twice, but I will say, to be safe, I do not think I have done it a half dozen times. I would like to read into the Record a letter that I received yesterday from a woman who is graduating from high school in my State, a woman I have never met. Her name is Mrs. Judi Robinson. She lives in old New Castle, DE, which is a community over 350 years old, a beautiful place, in a place called Penn Acres. I would like to read it, if I may. Dear Senator Biden, I am a 48-year-old night student at William Penn High School in New Castle. I'm one of many students who recently wrote to you concerning adult education. Thank you for your letter. It helped me a little more to understand what it concerns. I have been in the program since September 1994 and received my G.E.D. that June. Now I'm at Penn doing very well and will [[Page S7599]] graduate this June. It took me 31 years to get to this point in my life, so I thank God that there was a program available to me. Although my circumstances are different than some of my classmates, we're all there for the same reasons, to get our G.E.D. or better yet our diploma. Senator as far as I'm concerned, I wanted this very badly, but I have been married 27 years, have two children one of which also graduates this year from Penn. I never had to work so my education wasn't the top on my list. Because my husband worked and took care of us and the house. But most of the kids in the program need this educational program to continue to grow into productive adults. Our counselors and teachers are the best, they work very hard to keep things going well at school. These programs need to keep going and I know that you will do your best to keep it going. Now to get to the second reason I'm writing to you. I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to my graduation on June 14 at 7:30 p.m. It will take place at Newark High School. Myself and I know all the other students and staff would be honored to have you there. I know you are a very, very busy man but if you could find it in your heart and schedule to make it, I would be happy to have you there. Sincerely, Mrs. Judi Robinson. Mr. President, the reason I read that into the Record is I do not think we should lose sight of the fact that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of women and men like Judi Robinson who are going back to try to get the basic education that for whatever reasons they did not get when they were children. I think our reluctance to put as much emphasis on the educational needs in this country and the Federal responsibility to participate in that is a serious mistake. I am sure all of my colleagues, and I know the Senator in the chair, the Senator from Colorado, like everyone else in here, shares a sense of pride when there is someone in their State like Judi Robinson who goes through that effort. I remember discussing with my friend from Colorado how his mother went back and her significant educational accomplishments and what she has done. I just thought it worthwhile to let people know that there are a lot of people like Judi Robinson still fighting hard, who still have faith in this operation, still have faith in the system, and still think they can better themselves through education. I thank the Chair for this time and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Fifty or sixty, Mr. President, I am sure we could, if we work extra hard. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter and testimony regarding this bill be printed in the Record.