Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I truly am confused. I don't doubt what the Senator says. I don't fully understand it. It is a fleet average. Toyota makes an automobile--I am making this up--that gets 60 miles per gallon when people drive around in Tokyo that they will not sell here at all in order that they can make a giant Toyota truck that gets poorer mileage or as poor mileage as our truck, and they get to sell it here because they have averaged out their fleet. My question is, Why don't we just say, based on the weights of these vehicles, everybody has to meet the same standard, not an average, because people are not buying two-seater 60-mile-per-gallon vehicles here as they are in Europe where it is $4 a gallon. That is my question.

Mr. BIDEN. I think it is.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Idaho, let me, as we lawyers say, argue in the alternative. He may be accurate, but it is irrelevant. He is making an argument that was appropriate when we were debating Kyoto. We are not debating that. All my friends and I and Senator Lautenberg and others--and Senator Kerry has been the leader on this issue--are saying is that there are some basic facts about global warming. It is real simple. The science is real. The effects are profound. Inaction is not an option. We just finished passing, as my friend from Massachusetts said, a resolution, a sense of the Senate, saying domestically we have to take a look at this. That is a little bit like saying we can set up a firewall here where the impact on our health, the impact on our economy, the impact on our future is going to be able to be controlled somehow just by what we do here--the idea we are not going to reach out, particularly in the context of the inability of nations to meet the standards they signed on to Kyoto. This gives us another chance to do what we should have done in the first place: try to negotiate instead of walking away, try to negotiate something that is real. The resolution's findings declare principles on which we can reach a broad, if not unanimous, agreement. There is no need to revisit the decision that was made at Kyoto. Whatever you make of that decision, it should have been the first step toward a new phase of international negotiations, not a repudiation of the notion of negotiations. Let me conclude by saying one thing we know for sure: no agreement is going to work that does not include the United States. No agreement is going to work that does not include the United States, the largest current source; and the developing countries, such as China and India, Korea, Mexico, and Brazil, these countries will soon take over that dubious distinction. Here is our chance to get back on the right side of history and to put the Senate, with its constitutional power to ratify treaties, on record as favoring a serious effort under which the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by President Bush, can be negotiated. This resolution does not prejudge the outcome of those negotiations. We have to be creative, we have to recognize the many different ways we can begin to make real progress, to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of stabilizing the still-growing human impact on our climate. Rather than try to attack every aspect of this huge issue at once, we might consider approaches that looked at the transportation, or the power sector, as areas where regional or other multilateral agreements could put a real dent in business as usual. We are going to have to accelerate the discovery and deployment of new technologies, ramping up public investments in education and research, harnessing the creativity of private markets to bring new products on line. I ask my colleagues, what side of history will we be on? Should we cling to carbon until the last drop of fossil fuels is burned? Do we want our country to be the last one still dependent economically on 19th century combustion technologies, or the first one to dominate the energy technologies of the future? The most innovative American companies, the ones that operate in a competitive international environment, are pleading with us to move our country into the future, to give them the certainty they need to make investments for the long term in technologies and products that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The DuPont Company, from my own State of Delaware, is one of the best examples. By aggressively reducing their own greenhouse gas emission-- by over 70 percent from 1990 levels--they have saved $2 billion in energy costs, added to shareholder value, and shown the way for other companies. But they still wait for our Government to provide the predictable international system in which their early actions can get credit, in which market mechanisms such as emissions trading can have the best effect, in which they will not be undercut by less responsible competitors. DuPont, and General Electric, and many other major corporations, are putting themselves on the right side of history. We need to back them up, for the simple reason that we need American firms, and the jobs and products they provide, to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. Which side will we be on? Will we fear the future, or will we take charge of it? This resolution puts us on the right side. It puts this Senate on record in favor of a constructive, responsible, fair, and effective approach to climate change in our international negotiations. It is time for us to wake up to the realities of climate change to both the threat and the opportunity it presents. It is time for us return the United States to a leadership role in the international search for a solution to this international problem. Our children are watching.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Hazardous Materials Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2005. It is regretful that I am introducing this legislation, as the Department of Homeland Security has all of the legal authorities necessary to undertake the steps set out in this legislation. However, nearly 4 years after September 11, the Department of Homeland Security is still not doing its job. Quite frankly, officials at the Department of Homeland Security are either unaware, or even worse, they are purposely ignoring a grave threat to our cities. Hazardous materials being transported by 90-ton rail tankers has been described as a ``uniquely dangerous'' threat-- comparable only to a nuclear or biological attack. According to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation, these materials pose special risks during transportation because their uncontrolled release can endanger significant numbers of people. In addition, there have been countless reports of lax security along the urban area rail routes they travel. Nevertheless, the administration has done nothing to reduce this threat. The legislation that I am introducing today will require the Department of Homeland Security to develop a comprehensive, risk-based strategy for reducing the threat of a terrorist attack on extremely hazardous materials in our Nation's high-threat cities. The steps set out in this legislation should have been taken years ago, but it is clear that the Department of Homeland Security will not act. I hope that my colleagues will join me in passing this legislation to require them to act. Within just a few miles of where we stand right now, rail tankers carrying the world's most dangerous chemicals are being transported over tracks that are not sufficiently safeguarded or monitored. According to Richard A. Falkenrath, a former homeland security adviser to President Bush, this threat stands out ``as acutely vulnerable and almost uniquely dangerous.'' He is not alone in this opinion. The Homeland Security Council released a report in July 2004 indicating that an explosion, in an urban area, of a rail tanker carrying chlorine could kill up to 17,500 individuals and could require the hospitalization of nearly 100,000. An analysis by the Naval Research Laboratory depicted a more troubling scenario when it studied the potential for damage if an attack occurred while an event was being held on the National Mall, such as the annual Fourth of July celebration. According to this analysis, ``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half hour.'' Let me say that again, according to a study by the Naval Research Laboratory ``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or killed in the first half hour.'' Terrorist groups already understand the potential impact of such an attack. The FBI and CIA have uncovered evidence that terrorists have targeted chemical shipments, and just a few months ago during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, FBI Director Mueller indicated that threats to rail remain a key concern. This should not be a surprise. Rail systems are the most frequently attacked targets worldwide, and the wide open nature of their architecture makes them vulnerable at many points. In other words, rail systems present many soft targets. Incidentally, I have introduced separate legislation in the last three Congresses that would provide $1.2 billion to eliminate some of the vulnerabilities in our rail system; however, this legislation has not been supported by the Bush administration and it has not passed Congress. In fact, the administration has not asked for a single dime specifically for rail security. This is very troubling because we know that the modus operandi for many terrorist groups is to cause mass casualties and spectacular damage. According to the Chlorine Institute, an attack on a 90-ton tanker could create a toxic cloud 40 miles long and 10 miles wide. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in an urban area this toxic cloud could extend 14 miles. Can you imagine the psychological impact of a toxic cloud of poisonous gas expanding and moving slowly over one of our major metropolitan areas--leaving death and chaos in its path? Given the potential damage and the direct threat against chemical rail tankers, you would think that the Bush administration has been busy reducing or eliminating this threat. Unfortunately, as with so many other areas involving our homeland security this does not appear to be the case. In January testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Mr. Falkenrath stated that ``to date, the Federal Government has not made a material reduction in the inherent vulnerability of hazardous chemical targets inside the United States.'' He went on to say that this should be the highest priority for the Department of Homeland Security. A Wall Street Journal article written last year--``Graffiti Artists Put Their Mark on War Against Terrorism''--provides a chilling example of the exposure of these chemical tankers. The reporter followed a graffiti artist to a railroad tunnel along tracks that run near I-395 not far from where we stand. As he was conducting the interview, a tanker carrying dangerous chemicals rolled by on an adjacent track. The graffiti artist noted that ``it wouldn't be hard at all for someone like Al Qaeda to wait right here for the right poison and bang! Good-bye Washington.'' This threat and the lack of action by the Department of Homeland Security has led many city officials to consider local legislation to ban shipments of hazardous materials. Right now, a dispute between the District of Columbia and the transportation companies joined by the Bush administration is being litigated in Federal courts. Other cities, such as Philadelphia and Boston are considering similar action. As a former county executive, I am sympathetic to the plight of local officials, and they should certainly be allowed to exercise their police powers in appropriate situations. I believe, and I am sure most local officials would agree, that it would be better to have a national, comprehensive policy on this issue. This is simply too important to have a patchwork strategy. The Department of Homeland Security should have already done this. Unfortunately, they have not, and this legislation will require the Department to take some basic, fundamental steps to enhance safety for the American people. The legislation that I am introducing requires the Department of Homeland Security to issue regulations establishing a national policy for dealing with the transport of the world's most dangerous chemicals by rail through our high threat cities. It will require the Department to develop protocols for the notification of State and local officials, and it will require the Department to study and report to Congress regarding security enhancing measures such as secondary containment technologies, GPS tracking of shipments, and the feasibility of smaller, more secure tankers. The bill also includes a provision requiring the Department of Homeland Security to work with State and local officials, the rail industry and other stakeholders to develop a strategy for rerouting a small fraction of the most dangerous materials around our most threatened city. It is estimated that only 5 percent of all hazardous materials shipped by rail will be subjected to this regulation. Finally, the bill will provide $100 million to State and local governments and rail operators to purchase safety equipment and provide training to first responders and rail workers who are likely to discover and respond to an incident involving hazardous materials. An additional $10 million will be made available to the National Labor College to provide further training for rail workers. I realize that the rail industry has invested considerable amounts of its own money to enhance security since September 11, and this legislation is not an indictment of their efforts. I have been pushing to get more Federal funding for rail security for years, but this plea has fallen on deaf ears within the administration. I realize that we cannot eliminate every conceivable risk, but at a time when we have troops overseas fighting the war on terror and our Nation's law enforcement agencies are on high alert, the least that we should do is ensure that we have a national strategy for handling a threat that is comparable in scope to a nuclear or biological attack. I will close by again referring to the grave warning set out in the study by the Naval Research Laboratory--``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half hour'' of an attack. The danger is simply too great to ignore, and I ask my colleagues to join me in passing this critical legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record my statement on the nomination of Thomas Griffith.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Hazardous Materials Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2005. It is regretful that I am introducing this legislation, as the Department of Homeland Security has all of the legal authorities necessary to undertake the steps set out in this legislation. However, nearly 4 years after September 11, the Department of Homeland Security is still not doing its job. Quite frankly, officials at the Department of Homeland Security are either unaware, or even worse, they are purposely ignoring a grave threat to our cities. Hazardous materials being transported by 90-ton rail tankers has been described as a ``uniquely dangerous'' threat-- comparable only to a nuclear or biological attack. According to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation, these materials pose special risks during transportation because their uncontrolled release can endanger significant numbers of people. In addition, there have been countless reports of lax security along the urban area rail routes they travel. Nevertheless, the administration has done nothing to reduce this threat. The legislation that I am introducing today will require the Department of Homeland Security to develop a comprehensive, risk-based strategy for reducing the threat of a terrorist attack on extremely hazardous materials in our Nation's high-threat cities. The steps set out in this legislation should have been taken years ago, but it is clear that the Department of Homeland Security will not act. I hope that my colleagues will join me in passing this legislation to require them to act. Within just a few miles of where we stand right now, rail tankers carrying the world's most dangerous chemicals are being transported over tracks that are not sufficiently safeguarded or monitored. According to Richard A. Falkenrath, a former homeland security adviser to President Bush, this threat stands out ``as acutely vulnerable and almost uniquely dangerous.'' He is not alone in this opinion. The Homeland Security Council released a report in July 2004 indicating that an explosion, in an urban area, of a rail tanker carrying chlorine could kill up to 17,500 individuals and could require the hospitalization of nearly 100,000. An analysis by the Naval Research Laboratory depicted a more troubling scenario when it studied the potential for damage if an attack occurred while an event was being held on the National Mall, such as the annual Fourth of July celebration. According to this analysis, ``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half hour.'' Let me say that again, according to a study by the Naval Research Laboratory ``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or killed in the first half hour.'' Terrorist groups already understand the potential impact of such an attack. The FBI and CIA have uncovered evidence that terrorists have targeted chemical shipments, and just a few months ago during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, FBI Director Mueller indicated that threats to rail remain a key concern. This should not be a surprise. Rail systems are the most frequently attacked targets worldwide, and the wide open nature of their architecture makes them vulnerable at many points. In other words, rail systems present many soft targets. Incidentally, I have introduced separate legislation in the last three Congresses that would provide $1.2 billion to eliminate some of the vulnerabilities in our rail system; however, this legislation has not been supported by the Bush administration and it has not passed Congress. In fact, the administration has not asked for a single dime specifically for rail security. This is very troubling because we know that the modus operandi for many terrorist groups is to cause mass casualties and spectacular damage. According to the Chlorine Institute, an attack on a 90-ton tanker could create a toxic cloud 40 miles long and 10 miles wide. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in an urban area this toxic cloud could extend 14 miles. Can you imagine the psychological impact of a toxic cloud of poisonous gas expanding and moving slowly over one of our major metropolitan areas--leaving death and chaos in its path? Given the potential damage and the direct threat against chemical rail tankers, you would think that the Bush administration has been busy reducing or eliminating this threat. Unfortunately, as with so many other areas involving our homeland security this does not appear to be the case. In January testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Mr. Falkenrath stated that ``to date, the Federal Government has not made a material reduction in the inherent vulnerability of hazardous chemical targets inside the United States.'' He went on to say that this should be the highest priority for the Department of Homeland Security. A Wall Street Journal article written last year--``Graffiti Artists Put Their Mark on War Against Terrorism''--provides a chilling example of the exposure of these chemical tankers. The reporter followed a graffiti artist to a railroad tunnel along tracks that run near I-395 not far from where we stand. As he was conducting the interview, a tanker carrying dangerous chemicals rolled by on an adjacent track. The graffiti artist noted that ``it wouldn't be hard at all for someone like Al Qaeda to wait right here for the right poison and bang! Good-bye Washington.'' This threat and the lack of action by the Department of Homeland Security has led many city officials to consider local legislation to ban shipments of hazardous materials. Right now, a dispute between the District of Columbia and the transportation companies joined by the Bush administration is being litigated in Federal courts. Other cities, such as Philadelphia and Boston are considering similar action. As a former county executive, I am sympathetic to the plight of local officials, and they should certainly be allowed to exercise their police powers in appropriate situations. I believe, and I am sure most local officials would agree, that it would be better to have a national, comprehensive policy on this issue. This is simply too important to have a patchwork strategy. The Department of Homeland Security should have already done this. Unfortunately, they have not, and this legislation will require the Department to take some basic, fundamental steps to enhance safety for the American people. The legislation that I am introducing requires the Department of Homeland Security to issue regulations establishing a national policy for dealing with the transport of the world's most dangerous chemicals by rail through our high threat cities. It will require the Department to develop protocols for the notification of State and local officials, and it will require the Department to study and report to Congress regarding security enhancing measures such as secondary containment technologies, GPS tracking of shipments, and the feasibility of smaller, more secure tankers. The bill also includes a provision requiring the Department of Homeland Security to work with State and local officials, the rail industry and other stakeholders to develop a strategy for rerouting a small fraction of the most dangerous materials around our most threatened city. It is estimated that only 5 percent of all hazardous materials shipped by rail will be subjected to this regulation. Finally, the bill will provide $100 million to State and local governments and rail operators to purchase safety equipment and provide training to first responders and rail workers who are likely to discover and respond to an incident involving hazardous materials. An additional $10 million will be made available to the National Labor College to provide further training for rail workers. I realize that the rail industry has invested considerable amounts of its own money to enhance security since September 11, and this legislation is not an indictment of their efforts. I have been pushing to get more Federal funding for rail security for years, but this plea has fallen on deaf ears within the administration. I realize that we cannot eliminate every conceivable risk, but at a time when we have troops overseas fighting the war on terror and our Nation's law enforcement agencies are on high alert, the least that we should do is ensure that we have a national strategy for handling a threat that is comparable in scope to a nuclear or biological attack. I will close by again referring to the grave warning set out in the study by the Naval Research Laboratory--``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half hour'' of an attack. The danger is simply too great to ignore, and I ask my colleagues to join me in passing this critical legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to announce today the introduction of the Biden/Hatch/Specter Violence Against Women Act of 2005. Many in this chamber are well aware that I consider the Violence Against Women Act the single most significant legislation that I've crafted during my 32-year tenure in the Senate. This law is my baby, so to speak, and I take very seriously my responsibilities to ensure that it is adequately funded and renewed. What was once an infant statute seeking legitimacy in the public eye and in the halls of government is now a feisty ten-year law that has made its presence known from Long Beach, CA to Dover, DE. But in September 2005, the Act will expire. Congress and the President must act quickly in the next three months to renew the backbone of our country's fight to end domestic violence and sexual assault, the Violence Against Women Act. We simply cannot let the Act lapse or become buried in partisan bickering. The enactment of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 was the beginning of a national and historic commitment to women and children victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault. Thus far, our commitment has yielded extraordinary progress. Since the Act's passage, domestic violence has dropped by almost 50 percent. Incidents of rape are down by 60 percent. The number of women killed by an abusive husband or boyfriend is down by 22 percent. More than half of all rape victims are stepping forward to report the crime. Over a million women have found justice in our courtrooms and obtained domestic violence protective orders. The Violence Against Women Act provides critical resources so that our communities may implement big and small improvements that can make all the difference in the world. For instance, in my home State of Delaware, the Act's rural grant program helped the Delaware State Police establish fully-equipped, dedicated domestic violence units in two counties. The STOP program provided a Hispanic shelter with funding to purchase a van to pick up battered women and their children who have nowhere else to turn. Today, we uphold our commitment to America's families. Despite the incredible strides made, far too many women remain afraid to go home or afraid to tell anyone about the rape that happened at last night's party. We cannot let the Violence Against Women Act become a victim of its own success. Instead, we need to usher the Act into the 21st century and implement it with the next generation--recent police academy graduates who want to be trained on handling family violence, newly elected State legislators who want to update State laws on sexual assault, and the next generation of children who must be taught that abuse will not be tolerated. Today's achievement--introduction of a bipartisan, compromise bill that both reinvigorates existing programs and creates bold initiatives to tackle new issues--has been a year in the making. As I drafted this next iteration of the Violence Against Women Act, I listened closely to the recommendations of those on the front lines to end the violence-- police, emergency room nurses, victim advocates, shelter directors, and prosecutors--and made targeted improvements to existing grant programs and tightened up criminal laws. A wide variety of groups worked hard with Senator Specter, Senator Hatch and I to create this bill, including the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Legal Momentum, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the National Center for Victims for Crime, the American Bar Association, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Council on Family and Juvenile Court Judges, the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association and many others. Before previewing the particulars of today's bill, I want to explain a few of my principles guiding the drafting of the Violence Against Women Act of 2005. First, I remain dedicated to the cornerstone programs in the Act such as the STOP grant program, the Rural Grant program and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. These are enormously successful initiatives that are the scaffolding of the Act. These foundations must be strengthened, not neglected. Second, ending domestic violence and sexual assault has, and will continue to cost money. This is simply not a goal that can be accomplished on the cheap. Our success in ending family violence is not a signal to reduce funding; rather the opposite is so. We can't afford to lose the gains that we have made. We've found a winning combination, and Congress should continue to spend its money so effectively. Third, today's bill is an ambitious, but reasoned, effort to solve the next level of challenges for battered women and their children. We've made tremendous strides in treating domestic violence and sexual assaults as public crimes with accountable offenders and creating coordinated community responses to help victims. Our next task is to look beyond the immediate crisis and provide long-term solutions for victims, as well as redouble our prevention efforts. Therefore, this bill includes important efforts to ease the housing crisis for victims fleeing their homes, provide more economic security for victims by preserving their employment stability, engage boys and men in initiatives to prevent domestic violence from occurring in the first place, and enlist the healthcare community in identifying and treating victims. My final principle is that ending violence against women is truly a shared goal--one that is held by Democrats and Republicans, one that is upheld by men and women, and one that is desired by both government and by the private sector. The continued success of the Violence Against Women Act depends upon bipartisanship commitment. Today's bill includes the following components. Title I on the criminal justice system includes provisions to: 1. Renew and increase funding to over $400 million a year for existing fundamental grant programs for law enforcement, lawyers, judges and advocates; 2. stiffen existing criminal penalties for repeat Federal domestic violence offenders; and 3. update the criminal law on stalking to incorporate new surveillance technology like Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Title II on critical victim services will: 1. Create a new, dedicated grant program for sexual assault victims that will strengthen the 1,300 rape crisis centers across the country; 2. reinvigorate programs to help older and disabled victims of domestic violence; 3. strengthen existing programs for rural victims and victims in underserved areas; and 4. increase funding to $5 million annually for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Reports indicate that up to ten million children experience domestic violence in their homes each year. Experts agree that domestic violence affects children in multiple, complicated and long-lasting ways. Every risk, every injury, and every disruption that a battered woman endures is one that her children experiences as well. The complex impact of domestic violence--fear for one's safety at home, depression, loss of income, moving from the family home, school disruptions and grieving for a father--are complicated and traumatic for children. Treating children who witness domestic violence, dealing effectively with violent teenage relationships and teaching prevention strategies to children are keys to ending the violence. Title III includes measures to: 1. Promote collaboration between domestic violence experts and child welfare agencies; and 2. enhance to $15 million a year, grants to reduce violence against women on college campuses. Title IV focuses on prevention strategies and includes programs supporting home visitations and specifically engaging men and boys in efforts to end domestic and sexual violence. Doctors and nurses, like police officers on the beat, are often the first witnesses of the devastating aftermath of abuse. As first responders, they must be fully engaged in the effort to end the violence and possess the tools they need to faithfully screen, treat, and study family violence. Title V strengthens the health care system's response to family violence with programs to train and educate health care professionals on domestic and sexual violence, foster family violence screening for patients, and more studies on the health ramifications of family violence. In some instances, women face the untenable choice of returning to their abuser or becoming homeless. Indeed, 44 percent of the Nation's mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. Efforts to ease the housing problems for battered women are contained in Title VI, including: 1. Collaborative grant programs between domestic violence organizations and housing providers; 2. programs to combat family violence in public and assisted housing; and 3. enhancements to transitional housing resources. Leaving a violent partner often requires battered women to achieve a level of economic security. Title VII seeks to help abused women maintain secure employment by permitting battered women to take limited employment leave to address domestic violence, such as attend court proceedings, or move to a shelter. This is an issue long championed by the late Senator Wellstone and Senator Murray, and I glad that we are able to include this provision in today's bill. Despite the historic immigration law changes made in the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 that opened new and safe routes to immigration status, battered immigrant women often have a very difficult time escaping abuse because of immigration laws, language barriers, and social isolation. Title VIII's immigration provisions go a long way toward wresting immigration control away from the batterer and pave the way for the victim to leave a violent home. In addition, it would ensure that victims of trafficking are supported with measures such as permitting their families to join them in certain circumstances, expanding the duration of a T-visa, and providing resources to victims who assist in investigations or prosecutions of trafficking cases brought by State or Federal authorities. In an effort to focus more closely on violence against Indian women, Title IX creates a new tribal Deputy Director in the Office on Violence Against Women dedicated to coordinating Federal tribal policy. In addition, Title IX authorizes tribal governments to access and upload domestic violence and protection order data on criminal databases, as well as create tribal sex offender registries. I am proud to introduce with Senators Hatch and Specter this comprehensive bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. I want to thank Senator Hatch, a longstanding champion on this issue, for diligently working on this bill with Senator Specter and me. Since 1990, Senator Hatch and I have worked together to end family violence in this country, so it is no great surprise that once again he worked side-by-side with us to craft today's bill. I am also deeply indebted to Senator Kennedy for his unwavering commitment to battered immigrant women and his work on the bill's immigration provisions. I also thank Senator Leahy who has long-supported the Violence Against Women Act and in particular, has worked on the rural programs and transitional housing provisions. Finally, I thank my very good friend from Pennsylvania for his commitment and leadership on this bill. It is a pleasure to work with Senator Specter. I know that he will adeptly and expeditiously move the Violence Against Women Act through his Committee. In closing, I urge my colleagues to review today's Violence Against Women Act of 2005 and add their support. I understand that there are other proposals that should be considered before the full Senate debates this legislation. Refinements will certainly be made to improve what is currently in this bill. I welcome any suggestions that you may have, and look forward to coming back to the floor to urge final passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 2005.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to announce today the introduction of the Biden/Hatch/Specter Violence Against Women Act of 2005. Many in this chamber are well aware that I consider the Violence Against Women Act the single most significant legislation that I've crafted during my 32-year tenure in the Senate. This law is my baby, so to speak, and I take very seriously my responsibilities to ensure that it is adequately funded and renewed. What was once an infant statute seeking legitimacy in the public eye and in the halls of government is now a feisty ten-year law that has made its presence known from Long Beach, CA to Dover, DE. But in September 2005, the Act will expire. Congress and the President must act quickly in the next three months to renew the backbone of our country's fight to end domestic violence and sexual assault, the Violence Against Women Act. We simply cannot let the Act lapse or become buried in partisan bickering. The enactment of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 was the beginning of a national and historic commitment to women and children victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault. Thus far, our commitment has yielded extraordinary progress. Since the Act's passage, domestic violence has dropped by almost 50 percent. Incidents of rape are down by 60 percent. The number of women killed by an abusive husband or boyfriend is down by 22 percent. More than half of all rape victims are stepping forward to report the crime. Over a million women have found justice in our courtrooms and obtained domestic violence protective orders. The Violence Against Women Act provides critical resources so that our communities may implement big and small improvements that can make all the difference in the world. For instance, in my home State of Delaware, the Act's rural grant program helped the Delaware State Police establish fully-equipped, dedicated domestic violence units in two counties. The STOP program provided a Hispanic shelter with funding to purchase a van to pick up battered women and their children who have nowhere else to turn. Today, we uphold our commitment to America's families. Despite the incredible strides made, far too many women remain afraid to go home or afraid to tell anyone about the rape that happened at last night's party. We cannot let the Violence Against Women Act become a victim of its own success. Instead, we need to usher the Act into the 21st century and implement it with the next generation--recent police academy graduates who want to be trained on handling family violence, newly elected State legislators who want to update State laws on sexual assault, and the next generation of children who must be taught that abuse will not be tolerated. Today's achievement--introduction of a bipartisan, compromise bill that both reinvigorates existing programs and creates bold initiatives to tackle new issues--has been a year in the making. As I drafted this next iteration of the Violence Against Women Act, I listened closely to the recommendations of those on the front lines to end the violence-- police, emergency room nurses, victim advocates, shelter directors, and prosecutors--and made targeted improvements to existing grant programs and tightened up criminal laws. A wide variety of groups worked hard with Senator Specter, Senator Hatch and I to create this bill, including the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Legal Momentum, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the National Center for Victims for Crime, the American Bar Association, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Council on Family and Juvenile Court Judges, the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association and many others. Before previewing the particulars of today's bill, I want to explain a few of my principles guiding the drafting of the Violence Against Women Act of 2005. First, I remain dedicated to the cornerstone programs in the Act such as the STOP grant program, the Rural Grant program and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. These are enormously successful initiatives that are the scaffolding of the Act. These foundations must be strengthened, not neglected. Second, ending domestic violence and sexual assault has, and will continue to cost money. This is simply not a goal that can be accomplished on the cheap. Our success in ending family violence is not a signal to reduce funding; rather the opposite is so. We can't afford to lose the gains that we have made. We've found a winning combination, and Congress should continue to spend its money so effectively. Third, today's bill is an ambitious, but reasoned, effort to solve the next level of challenges for battered women and their children. We've made tremendous strides in treating domestic violence and sexual assaults as public crimes with accountable offenders and creating coordinated community responses to help victims. Our next task is to look beyond the immediate crisis and provide long-term solutions for victims, as well as redouble our prevention efforts. Therefore, this bill includes important efforts to ease the housing crisis for victims fleeing their homes, provide more economic security for victims by preserving their employment stability, engage boys and men in initiatives to prevent domestic violence from occurring in the first place, and enlist the healthcare community in identifying and treating victims. My final principle is that ending violence against women is truly a shared goal--one that is held by Democrats and Republicans, one that is upheld by men and women, and one that is desired by both government and by the private sector. The continued success of the Violence Against Women Act depends upon bipartisanship commitment. Today's bill includes the following components. Title I on the criminal justice system includes provisions to: 1. Renew and increase funding to over $400 million a year for existing fundamental grant programs for law enforcement, lawyers, judges and advocates; 2. stiffen existing criminal penalties for repeat Federal domestic violence offenders; and 3. update the criminal law on stalking to incorporate new surveillance technology like Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Title II on critical victim services will: 1. Create a new, dedicated grant program for sexual assault victims that will strengthen the 1,300 rape crisis centers across the country; 2. reinvigorate programs to help older and disabled victims of domestic violence; 3. strengthen existing programs for rural victims and victims in underserved areas; and 4. increase funding to $5 million annually for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Reports indicate that up to ten million children experience domestic violence in their homes each year. Experts agree that domestic violence affects children in multiple, complicated and long-lasting ways. Every risk, every injury, and every disruption that a battered woman endures is one that her children experiences as well. The complex impact of domestic violence--fear for one's safety at home, depression, loss of income, moving from the family home, school disruptions and grieving for a father--are complicated and traumatic for children. Treating children who witness domestic violence, dealing effectively with violent teenage relationships and teaching prevention strategies to children are keys to ending the violence. Title III includes measures to: 1. Promote collaboration between domestic violence experts and child welfare agencies; and 2. enhance to $15 million a year, grants to reduce violence against women on college campuses. Title IV focuses on prevention strategies and includes programs supporting home visitations and specifically engaging men and boys in efforts to end domestic and sexual violence. Doctors and nurses, like police officers on the beat, are often the first witnesses of the devastating aftermath of abuse. As first responders, they must be fully engaged in the effort to end the violence and possess the tools they need to faithfully screen, treat, and study family violence. Title V strengthens the health care system's response to family violence with programs to train and educate health care professionals on domestic and sexual violence, foster family violence screening for patients, and more studies on the health ramifications of family violence. In some instances, women face the untenable choice of returning to their abuser or becoming homeless. Indeed, 44 percent of the Nation's mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. Efforts to ease the housing problems for battered women are contained in Title VI, including: 1. Collaborative grant programs between domestic violence organizations and housing providers; 2. programs to combat family violence in public and assisted housing; and 3. enhancements to transitional housing resources. Leaving a violent partner often requires battered women to achieve a level of economic security. Title VII seeks to help abused women maintain secure employment by permitting battered women to take limited employment leave to address domestic violence, such as attend court proceedings, or move to a shelter. This is an issue long championed by the late Senator Wellstone and Senator Murray, and I glad that we are able to include this provision in today's bill. Despite the historic immigration law changes made in the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 that opened new and safe routes to immigration status, battered immigrant women often have a very difficult time escaping abuse because of immigration laws, language barriers, and social isolation. Title VIII's immigration provisions go a long way toward wresting immigration control away from the batterer and pave the way for the victim to leave a violent home. In addition, it would ensure that victims of trafficking are supported with measures such as permitting their families to join them in certain circumstances, expanding the duration of a T-visa, and providing resources to victims who assist in investigations or prosecutions of trafficking cases brought by State or Federal authorities. In an effort to focus more closely on violence against Indian women, Title IX creates a new tribal Deputy Director in the Office on Violence Against Women dedicated to coordinating Federal tribal policy. In addition, Title IX authorizes tribal governments to access and upload domestic violence and protection order data on criminal databases, as well as create tribal sex offender registries. I am proud to introduce with Senators Hatch and Specter this comprehensive bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. I want to thank Senator Hatch, a longstanding champion on this issue, for diligently working on this bill with Senator Specter and me. Since 1990, Senator Hatch and I have worked together to end family violence in this country, so it is no great surprise that once again he worked side-by-side with us to craft today's bill. I am also deeply indebted to Senator Kennedy for his unwavering commitment to battered immigrant women and his work on the bill's immigration provisions. I also thank Senator Leahy who has long-supported the Violence Against Women Act and in particular, has worked on the rural programs and transitional housing provisions. Finally, I thank my very good friend from Pennsylvania for his commitment and leadership on this bill. It is a pleasure to work with Senator Specter. I know that he will adeptly and expeditiously move the Violence Against Women Act through his Committee. In closing, I urge my colleagues to review today's Violence Against Women Act of 2005 and add their support. I understand that there are other proposals that should be considered before the full Senate debates this legislation. Refinements will certainly be made to improve what is currently in this bill. I welcome any suggestions that you may have, and look forward to coming back to the floor to urge final passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 2005.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I introduce a bill to remedy a small gap in our passport laws. The change that I propose could be important to family members of servicemembers who lose their lives in service of their country. Under current law, the State Department may not charge a fee to issue a passport to relatives of a deceased member of the Armed Forces who are proceeding abroad to visit the grave of such a member. But the law as applied requires that the family be visiting an official gravesite overseas. The law does not, however, allow the waiver of passport fees if the family is attending a funeral or memorial service for a servicemember killed in action, but who is buried or memorialized overseas. The need for such a waiver probably does not occur often, but it happens. Last year, a servicemember from my home State of Delaware was killed in action in Iraq. The servicemember was stationed in Germany and his wife was German. She wished for him to be buried in Germany. So all of his relatives in the United States needed to travel quickly, and many of them did not have passports. At a time of such grieving for a lost servicemember, the family of the fallen hero should not have to worry about paying passport fees, which can add up quickly for a family, Waiving the fee in such cases is the least that we can do. I hope we can approve such a minor change in the law quickly. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I introduce a bill to remedy a small gap in our passport laws. The change that I propose could be important to family members of servicemembers who lose their lives in service of their country. Under current law, the State Department may not charge a fee to issue a passport to relatives of a deceased member of the Armed Forces who are proceeding abroad to visit the grave of such a member. But the law as applied requires that the family be visiting an official gravesite overseas. The law does not, however, allow the waiver of passport fees if the family is attending a funeral or memorial service for a servicemember killed in action, but who is buried or memorialized overseas. The need for such a waiver probably does not occur often, but it happens. Last year, a servicemember from my home State of Delaware was killed in action in Iraq. The servicemember was stationed in Germany and his wife was German. She wished for him to be buried in Germany. So all of his relatives in the United States needed to travel quickly, and many of them did not have passports. At a time of such grieving for a lost servicemember, the family of the fallen hero should not have to worry about paying passport fees, which can add up quickly for a family, Waiving the fee in such cases is the least that we can do. I hope we can approve such a minor change in the law quickly. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the vote we will be casting at 6 o'clock today, the cloture vote. I had some opportunity to speak on the merits and demerits of the Bolton nomination yesterday and had an opportunity to discuss this issue with my colleague, Senator Lugar, and others who were on the Senate floor at the time. Today, I rise to focus on what the vote that may take place at 6 o'clock today is about. We are about to vote on a genuine constitutional option. The vote we are about to cast on cloture, if it takes place, is about whether we are going to stand up for this coequal branch of Government's rights to review relevant information in the exercise of our constitutional responsibility and our constitutional power to advise and consent to nominations put forward by the President or whether we are going to let the executive branch define for us what information is necessary in the exercise of our constitutional responsibility. The President has his constitutional responsibilities, defined in article II. We have our constitutional responsibilities, defined in article I. Our responsibility is to advise and consent as it relates to any nomination for an appointive office, above a certain level, that the President of the United States makes. It is the President's obligation to propose; it is our obligation to dispose of the nominee. The State Department has denied the request completely, stating that to fulfill it would chill the deliberative process and that it ``does not believe the requests to be specifically tied to issues being deliberated by the Committee.'' The department's assertion about deliberative process is not trivial. That concern did not stop the Department and the CIA, however, from already turning over numerous materials to the committee that involve the very same type of deliberative process--preparation of speeches and testimony. And the department has made no effort to justify why it is drawing the line here. The Department's second assertion--that the Syria material is not relevant to the committee's inquiry--is nothing less than an outrageous attempt by the executive branch to tell the Senate how it may exercise its constitutional power. For several weeks, the Committee on Foreign Relations has been requesting two types of information which have been denied to it. The first relates to preparation for testimony on Syria and weapons of mass destruction that Mr. Bolton was to give in 2003. The State Department has denied the request completely, stating that to fulfill it would chill the deliberative process and that it ``does not believe the requests to be specifically tied to issues being deliberated by the Committee.'' The Constitution says that the Senate shall advise and consent to nominations. The appointments clause does not limit the Senate's power to review nominations to those matters the executive branch deems relevant. Our Founding Fathers designed a system of checks and balances, not a system of blank checks. We must defend the Senate's constitutional powers, however, or we shall surely lose them. The second type of information the committee has not received relates to Mr. Bolton's requests to obtain the identity of U.S. persons cited in NSA intercept reports. We are told that Mr. Bolton did this on 10 occasions, involving 19 U.S. person identities. The chairman and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee have been shown these intercepts, but Senator Lugar and I have not. Even Senators Roberts and Rockefeller were not told the identities of the U.S. persons, moreover, information that was readily shared with Mr. Bolton and even with his staff. No one in the executive branch has explained why an Under Secretary of State--and a staff member not holding any Senate-confirmed position--may see this information, but the chairman and ranking members of the relevant Senate oversight committees may not. Senator Roberts tells us that after reviewing the contents of each report, it is apparent that it is: not necessary to know the actual names [of the U.S. persons] to determine whether the requests were proper. With all respect, I believe my friend has it wrong. Learning the actual names is the key to the inquiry--and it is impossible to make any judgment about the propriety of Mr. Bolton's requests without knowing the names. I am inclined to think there is nothing improper in Mr. Bolton's requests for this NSA information. But the longer the executive branch withholds this material, the more I start to wonder. If Mr. Bolton did nothing wrong, then why won't the administration let us confirm that? Senator Rockefeller reported to our committee yesterday that Mr. Bolton, upon learning from NSA the identity of a U.S. official who had delivered a message just the way that Bolton wanted it to be delivered, sought out that U.S. official and congratulated him. That action may have violated the restrictions that NSA imposes on further dissemination of its information. More importantly, if Mr. Bolton used U.S. person identities in an NSA intercept to congratulate officials who did what he wanted, might he also have used such U.S. person identities to attack officials with whom he did not agree? That has been suggested in the press, and while I doubt that Mr. Bolton would do that, Senator Rockefeller's report urges the Foreign Relations Committee to seek: . . . a more complete understanding of the extent to which he may have shared with others the nineteen U.S. person identities he requested and received from the NSA. All Members of the Senate should understand: both the integrity of the nomination process, and the Senate's constitutional role, are being challenged today. The failure of the administration to cooperate with the committee, and one of the rationales offered for this failure--that the: Department does not believe these requests to be specifically tied to the issues being deliberated by the Committee --has no constitutional justification. The administration has asserted neither executive privilege nor any other constitutionally-based rationale for not cooperating with this committee. It has no right under past practice or under constitutional theory to deny us information on a nomination based on its own belief that the request is not specifically tied to the issues being deliberated by the Committee. Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the Senate is a co-equal branch of Government. It is within our power--and ours alone--to decide what we think is relevant to our deliberations in the exercise of the advice and consent power. To acquiesce in the administration's remarkable assertion would undermine the Senate's power. If we vote on this nomination without getting all the facts first, that it is a step that we will all come to regret. The request for this cloture vote is not a filibuster. If there were a filibuster, we would have demanded the use of 30 hours of debate time post-cloture. This vote is a vote about the Senate's constitutional power. It is a vote to tell the executive branch it must turn over information the Senate has requested. I urge my colleagues to reject cloture. The Constitution, to paraphrase Hamilton in Federalist 76, is designed to make sure that nobody becomes an appointed official at the executive level, the Cabinet level, whom the President does not want. That is a guarantee. But it does not guarantee the President gets the first person he asks for, or the second person. It guarantees that the Senate will use due diligence in determining whether the person the President of the United States nominates to fill a position--in this case, ambassador to the United Nations--whether that appointment is in the interest of the United States of America. That is our job. We are not filibustering. This is not about whether we will vote on Mr. Bolton's nomination. The Senator from Connecticut and I and others have said, we are ready to vote on Mr. Bolton's nomination, if you give us information that we have requested and are entitled to in assessing whether Mr. Bolton should go to the U.N. representing the United States of America. The President has an option under the Constitution. He can say, Senate, what you are asking for is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine; you are not entitled to the information you seek because it falls into the purview of what we call executive privilege. In order for me as President--or for any President--to be able to conduct my job I must be able to have conversations with my key people that are wide ranging and open with the sure knowledge they will never get beyond this Oval Office; otherwise, the President couldn't do his job. That is what executive privilege is all about. As the Executive, I have the privilege to have confidential discussions with my subordinates. Or, the information you are seeking infringes upon the power of the executive in such a way that you are usurping article II powers, or attempting to yield them, like Estrada, to the third branch of Government in article III. They do not assert any of that. They just say the information we have asked for, in their opinion, is not relevant to our legitimate inquiry. That is a new one for all the years I have been here. I thank the majority leader of the Senate, Senator Frist, for trying what I believe has been his level best to get the information. He and I had a call today. He has talked about this. I am sure I am not revealing anything I shouldn't. He contacted the National Security Agency. He said, Why can't we see the so-called intercepts we are talking about? Give me, the majority leader, the same information you gave to Mr. Bolton and his staff. The majority leader was surprised when he was told by a general running the National Security Agency, No, I won't give you that. I will give you the same thing I gave to the Intelligence Committee which is a redacted document. That is a fancy phrase for saying, the document without the names. I said, Mr. Leader, I think that is not good enough. I think he knows it is not good enough. This is strong-arming. They are making no argument as to why we are not entitled to it. I remind Members, the information we are seeking is information Mr. Bolton's staff got. Mr. Bolton, as important as an under secretary is, is not the majority leader of the Senate; he is not the Senator from Connecticut. Mr. Bolton's staff got this information. I asked the leader why they wouldn't release the information, and he said because it is highly secret. Translate that. Got that? They are not going to give information to the leader of the Senate because it is secret. In the neighborhood I come from, that means, you don't trust me. The nerve of this outfit to say they are not going to give the information. With regard to Syria--and my time is about up--we have asked for information relating to whether Mr. Bolton was lying to us and whether Mr. Bolton was trying to get us into war with Syria in the summer of 2003 when a lot of people wanted to go to war. Remember the argument? The argument was that all the weapons of mass destruction--that turned out never to have existed--were smuggled to Syria. Syria has them, plus a nuclear program, and we better do something about it. And what the intelligence community said to Mr. Bolton was, you cannot say that--or whatever it was that he proposed to say. The facts do not sustain it. He pushed and pushed and pushed. But he told the Foreign Relations Committee he had nothing to do with that draft testimony, he was not pushing. All we want to see is the draft texts of the speech and the material on the clearance process. I hope the Senate will stand up for itself today at 6 o'clock.

Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I wish to make it clear to all my colleagues, speaking for myself, that I have absolutely no intention to prevent an up-or-down vote on Mr. Bolton. The issue here is about whether the executive branch will provide information which the majority leader tried yesterday and today to get, and which I think almost every Senator here would acknowledge the institution is entitled to get. We are prepared to not even ask that the ranking member and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee see the information we have sought. I implore the administration to provide the information, and-- speaking for myself, and I can speak for no one else, but I believe my colleagues on my side would agree with me--we are willing to vote 10 minutes after we come back into session if, in fact, they provide the information--information to which Mr. Bolton's staff had access but which they will not give to the majority leader of the Senate. There is no reason offered. I want to make it clear, we are ready to vote the day we get back, the moment we get back. We are ready to vote immediately if they would come forward, meeting us halfway on providing the information. That is all. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to state what is obvious to the Chair and my colleagues, that I will oppose the nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. representative to the United Nations. I regret, frankly, we are even debating this nomination while the administration continues to withhold relevant material about Mr. Bolton that the committee has requested, and for which no reasonable explanation has been given as to why it has not been provided other than they do not think the information is ``relevant'' to our inquiry. I will return to that issue later today. The job to which Mr. Bolton has been nominated is one of the most important ambassadorships the President fills. It is, in fact, the most important one. In the past, it has often held Cabinet rank. Leading figures of their day have held that job, people such as Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Democrat Adlai Stevenson, President George Herbert Walker Bush, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Holbrooke, Senator Jack Danforth. Aside from the President and the Secretary of State, the U.N. ambassador is the best known face of American diplomacy. It is a job that in my view requires a person with diplomatic temperament, a person willing to listen to other points of view, and blessed with the power to be able to persuade, such as President Bush's father George Herbert Walker Bush was. It is a job that requires a person of great credibility, such as Governor Adlai Stevenson. It is a job that requires a person who is not an ideologue, such as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who served a Republican President as ambassador to the United Nations. And it is a job, in my view, that requires a person who has the complete confidence of the President of the United States and Secretary of State, such as Jeane Kirkpatrick did. Mr. Bolton is not that person. He is no diplomat, as evidenced by his contempt for opposing views and his inability or unwillingness to listen. His credibility is in grave doubt, as evidenced by his repeated efforts to distort facts to fit preformed views. He is an ideologue--a bright ideologue, but nonetheless an ideologue, as evidenced by his long record both in and out of Government. And he lacks the trust and confidence of his superiors, as evidenced by the fact that the Secretary of State has felt the need to assure Senators in this Chamber that Mr. Bolton will be ``closely supervised.'' As one of our colleagues said, why in the Lord's name would you send someone to the United Nations who had to be ``closely supervised?'' The job of U.N. ambassador is important, to state the obvious, because of the many challenges the United States confronts in the year 2005. I would argue it is a more important post than at any time since 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis. We confront a monumental threat by radical Islamic fundamentalists bent on destroying America and our allies. We confront a radical regime in North Korea and a theocracy in Iran that seek nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. We confront the challenge of building democratic states in Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries that have known mostly dictatorship and suffering for generations. We confront the challenges of the AIDS pandemic, war and humanitarian catastrophes across the African continent, and the threat of instability in every continent. Despite our vast economic and military power we cannot--or I should say more appropriately, we need not--face these challenges alone. America's security is enhanced when we work with our allies, and the United Nations is one of the places we can find them. Our security is enhanced when even those who are not considered our allies understand that the threat that we are concerned about is common to all of us, to them as well as us, to almost all nation states. For better or worse, the United Nations is an essential forum for the advancement of U.S. foreign policy and national security interests in the year 2005--a troublesome forum but in fact a necessary forum. For better or worse, the U.N. Security Council makes decisions that affect international security and stability. Granted, they cannot make any decision without the United States signing off--we can veto it--but they have the ability to isolate us instead of isolating those who should be isolated. For better or worse, the United Nations provides a means for the United States to gain international support for difficult missions it seeks to undertake, not only in our interest but in the interest of others, allowing us to share the cost and burdens with others and not put it all on the back of the American taxpayer. The United Nations is not perfect, as the Presiding Officer well knows--far from it. It needs significant reform--again as the Presiding Officer knows. But let's not equate reform of the United Nations with John Bolton, as some of our colleagues have attempted to do. We have, under the leadership of Jesse Helms and with my help, passed the Helms- Biden legislation reforming portions of the United Nations. Much more needs to be done. I would note that when we had John Danforth, an incredibly well respected ambassador, up until a couple of months ago, and before him Mr. Negroponte, there was not all this talk about the primary responsibility being reform. They were fully capable of dealing with reform. I would point out that not even the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, believes John Bolton is necessary for reforming the United Nations. Four days after the Bolton nomination was announced, Dr. Rice appointed another person, Dr. Shirin Tahir-Kheli, ``to serve as the Secretary's senior advisor and chief interlocutor on United Nations reform.'' The State Department press release announcing the appointment made no mention of Mr. Bolton. Mr. Bolton was not picked because his job was United Nations reform. That is the job of every U.S. ambassador to the U.N., or part of the job. No, this debate is not about U.N. reform or U.N. interests; it is about whether the appointment of Mr. Bolton is in the national interests of the United States of America. I firmly believe, as my friend from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich, does, that it is not in the U.S. interests. There are four reasons to vote no on Mr. Bolton. Each, standing alone, in my view, would justify a negative vote, but taken together they provide an overwhelming case. What is even more extraordinary is that much of the evidence for this case comes from senior officials in the Bush administration who worked with Mr. Bolton. The bulk of the evidence to make the cases I am about to make came from senior Republican administration officials who worked with Mr. Bolton. They had nothing to gain and a good deal to lose by appearing before our committee, but everyone came voluntarily. No one had to be subpoenaed. We asked and they came. The first reason Mr. Bolton should, in my view, be denied the ambassadorship to the United Nations is that Mr. Bolton repeatedly sought to remove intelligence analysts who disagreed with him. Mr. Bolton was not content to fight the normal policy battles. He had to crush people, even if they were just doing their jobs. One analyst was Christian Westermann, an expert on biological and chemical weapons with a 20-year career in the U.S. Navy who worked in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research after retiring from the U.S. military. In February of 2002, Mr. Westermann was asked by Mr. Bolton's staff, which is standard operating procedure, to begin the intelligence community clearance process for three sentences that Mr. Bolton wanted to put in a speech about the biological weapons effort of Cuba. The speech was not made yet; the speech was in the making. What is a normal operating procedure in this State Department, the last State Department, and the ones before that, is that when a policymaker wishes to include in a speech intelligence data or assertions that the U.S. government or the intelligence community believes thus and so, it has to be cleared first by the intelligence community. Mr. Westermann, the State Department's intelligence analyst for biological weapons, had two roles in this process of clearing these three sentences. One was to transmit the material to a clearance coordinator at the CIA who would then seek clearance from all the other intelligence agencies in the Government--Defense Intelligence, et cetera, a whole panoply of the intelligence community. The second function Mr. Westermann had as the intelligence officer at the State Department for biological weapons was to provide the substantive comments of his Bureau--that is, INR--on Mr. Bolton's text to this clearance coordinator; in other words, in addition to what the other intelligence agencies thought about these three sentences, to say what the intelligence analysts in the State Department thought about these three sentences. In performing that latter function, Mr. Westermann proposed alternative language to the three sentences submitted by Mr. Bolton's staff, a standard means of trying to help a policymaker say something about classified matters so that the sources and methods are not compromised and so that the statement is consistent with the intelligence community's judgments on that point being spoken to. When Mr. Bolton found out that Mr. Westermann suggested alternative language, he hit the roof. He summoned Mr. Westermann to his office and gave him a tongue lashing. Look, Mr. Westermann does not work directly for Mr. Bolton. There is within the State Department Mr. Bolton's operation, the people who work directly for him, and then there is the intelligence operation, INR, headed at the time by a guy named Carl Ford. At the bottom of the food chain is the guy in charge of biological weapons as an intelligence analyst; that is, Mr. Westermann. Mr. Bolton summoned Mr. Westermann into his office and, according to Mr. Westermann, Bolton was ``red faced'' and yelling at him. When Mr. Westermann tried to explain what he had done, Mr. Bolton threw him out of his office. Then, over the course of the next 6 months, Mr. Bolton tried on three separate occasions to have Mr. Westermann removed from his position. During the committee hearing, Mr. Bolton grudgingly conceded that he sought to remove Mr. Westermann from his portfolio, but he tried to minimize his involvement. Mr. Bolton suggested that he asked one of Mr. Westermann's supervisors to give Mr. Westermann a new portfolio, but then, he said, ``I shrugged my shoulders and moved on.'' But the evidence is clear that Mr. Bolton did not, as he said, ``move on.'' He tried twice more to remove Mr. Westermann, the biological weapons expert. A few days later, he tried to remove him, and then several months later. My friend from Indiana--and as we say here, he is my friend--argues this does not matter. Mr. Westermann kept his job, no harm, no foul--my words. But the system had to work overtime to counteract the harmful effects of this episode. Don't take my word for it. Listen to Carl Ford, the former Assistant Secretary of State for INR, who says he supports the President and, in his words, is a huge fan of Vice President Cheney, and not anyone who has ever been accused of being a liberal Democrat. Mr. Ford testified that the analysts in his Bureau were ``very negatively affected by this incident--they were scared.'' Ford said that after the Westermann incident, he tried to make the best of a bad situation by using the incident as a training vehicle to explain to his people how to handle similar situations if they came up. At Ford's request, Secretary Powell made a special trip to speak to the INR analysts, where Mr. Powell singled out Mr. Westermann and told the analysts they should continue to ``speak truth to power.'' They had to do this because Mr. Bolton was allergic to people delivering news that his proposed language was not supported by the evidence. As one of Mr. Westermann's supervisors recounted, Mr. Bolton declared ``he wasn't going to be told what he could say by a mid-level munchkin analyst.'' At the U.N., the special representative has to listen to a lot of people who disagree with him and then report back faithfully on what they are saying. Is Mr. Bolton capable of doing that? The second analyst Mr. Bolton tried to remove from his position is a more remarkable case for two reasons: The analyst worked in another agency; and his portfolio did not involve Mr. Bolton's area of responsibility, which was arms control and weapons of mass destruction. The analyst was the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America. He disputed language on Cuba that was used in a speech Mr. Bolton had given, and that he then wanted to give again in congressional testimony. During the committee hearing, Mr. Bolton again tried to minimize his actions, stating that his effort to remove this individual was ``one part of one conversation with one person, one time . . . and that was it, I let it go.'' The evidence shows that he did not let it go but, rather, that he and his staff actively discussed the removal of this National Intelligence Officer over the course of 4 months. In early June of 2002, an aide to Mr. Bolton circulated a draft letter from Mr. Bolton and Ambassador Otto Reich, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America. The draft was addressed to Director of Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. George Tenet. The draft letter urged the immediate replacement of the National Intelligence Officer and indicated that Bolton and Reich would take several measures on their own, including banning the National Intelligence Officer from official meetings at the State Department and from official travel in the Western Hemisphere. A response to the e-mail from a colleague reported that he discussed the same matter with Mr. Bolton, whom he said ``would prefer at this point to handle this in person with [Mr.] Tenet.'' The following month--again, going to the issue of whether he tried to get this guy removed--Mr. Bolton traveled to the CIA headquarters to meet with Mr. Stuart Cohen, the Acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, where he asked that the National Intelligence Officer be removed from his position. Mr. Cohen, the Acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said he did not remember many details about the meeting with Mr. Bolton other than Mr. Bolton's intent was clear: He wanted the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America removed. Later that month--again, remember, Mr. Bolton said: I did not try to get this guy. I let it alone--a senior aide to Mr. Bolton told a senior aide to Mr. Reich that Bolton wanted to meet Reich to ``discuss the draft letter to CIA on our favorite subject'' and said that ``John doesn't want this to slip any further.'' The next day, the same aide to Mr. Bolton e-mailed Secretary Reich and his aide and had a new draft to the letter. He said that the draft ``relies on John's tough talk with [Mr.] Cohen ``about the national intelligence officers. So much for not trying to get him removed. Two months later, in September, another draft letter urging the removal of the National Intelligence Officer was exchanged between Mr. Bolton's office and Mr. Reich's office. Now, does that sound like he ``let it go,'' as he said he did? Remember, his staff said Mr. Bolton said he doesn't want to let this matter ``slip any further.'' If you ask me, this was more than ``one part of one conversation . . . one time,'' as Mr. Bolton said. It was a campaign, a vendetta, against a person Mr. Bolton had never met and whose work Mr. Bolton acknowledges he cannot recall ever reading, all because he questioned Mr. Bolton. If this is how Mr. Bolton reacts to someone he has never met, how will he control himself in New York? Secretary Rice, the Secretary of State, told the Senator from Ohio that Mr. Bolton will be ``closely supervised.'' How much energy at the State Department will be diverted to supervising Mr. Bolton? Thankfully, senior management at CIA had the good sense to rebuff Mr. Bolton's attempts to remove the National Intelligence Officer. The former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, John McLaughlin, remembers that when the issue was raised with him, he adamantly rejected it. Here is what the Deputy Director of the CIA said: Well, we're not going to do that, absolutely not. No way. End of story. Mr. McLaughlin, at the CIA, explained why he so strongly opposed Mr. Bolton's proposal to get rid of this national intelligence officer. And I quote from Mr. McLaughlin, formerly at the CIA: It's perfectly all right for a policymaker to express disagreement with an . . . analyst, and it's perfectly all right for them to . . . challenge their work vigorously. But I think it's different to then request, because of the disagreement, that the person be transferred. And . . . unless there is malfeasance involved here--and, in this case, I had high regard for the individual's work; therefore, I had a strong negative reaction to the suggestion about moving him. He is speaking of the National Intelligence Officer. That, all by itself, is reason to vote against Mr. Bolton--thoroughly outrageous conduct as it related to two intelligence officers who disagreed with him. A second reason to oppose Mr. Bolton is that he frequently sought to stretch the intelligence--the available intelligence--to say things in speeches and in testimony that the intelligence community would not support. The committee report lays out this allegation in extensive detail, and it is there for every Senator to see. There is ample evidence that Mr. Bolton sought to cherry-pick, as one analyst said, cherry-pick intelligence; sought to game the system, to get the clearances he wanted, or simply sought to intimidate intelligence analysts to get them to say what he wanted. Again, don't take my word for it. Take the word of an administration appointee, Mr. Robert Hutchings, the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2004. Chairman Hutchings said, in the summer of 2003, that Mr. Bolton prepared a speech on Syria and weapons of mass destruction that ``struck me as going well beyond . . . where the evidence would legitimately take us. And that was the judgment of the experts on my staff, as well.'' Now, remember, this is 2003. We had 160,000 troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan. There was all kinds of talk on the floor of the Senate and in the Nation about whether we would invade Syria next. There was all kinds of discussion and supposition that the weapons of mass destruction that were never found in Iraq--and we later learned had not existed after 1991 or 1995--had been smuggled, for hiding, into Syria. It was a very delicate moment, in which if, in fact, a senior administration official came forward and said there was evidence that there was a nuclear weapons program in Syria, we might have had a war. Mr. Bolton wanted to make a speech about that, and here is the guy who headed up the National Intelligence Council, the chairman. He said that what Bolton wanted to say ``struck me as going well beyond . . . where the evidence would legitimately take us. And that was the judgment of the experts on my staff, as well.'' This is not minor stuff. I remind the American people and my colleagues that an awful lot of Senators voted to go to war in Iraq on the assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which now the administration itself acknowledges they did not have. Mr. Bolton, according to the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, wanted to say things about Syria and weapons of mass destruction that struck him and his experts as going beyond what could legitimately be stated. Chairman Hutchings said that Bolton took ``isolated facts and made much more of them to build a case than I thought the intelligence warranted.'' Does that sound familiar to you? Remember aluminum tubes, offered by the Vice President as evidence that Iraq had a gas centrifuge system, had reconstituted their nuclear capability, when, in fact, the most informed elements of the intelligence community said those tubes-- because they were anodized--couldn't be used for a gas centrifuge system? Facts taken out of context to make a case that didn't exist got us into war prematurely. Here we now have Mr. Bolton, when people are talking about going to war with Syria, and the head of the National Intelligence Council says Mr. Bolton took ``isolated facts and made much more of them to build a case than I thought the intelligence warranted. It was a sort of cherry-picking of little factoids and little isolated bits that were drawn out to present the starkest-possible case.'' Let me take you back to aluminum tubes, out of context, an isolated fact, drawn out to present the starkest possible case that Iraq had ``reconstituted its nuclear capability.'' There used to be an expression my dad used to say in World War II: Loose lips sink ships. Cherry-picking little factoids and little isolated bits drawn out to present the starkest-possible case can cause wars. Listen to Larry Wilkinson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff, a military man himself. He told us that because of the problems that the State Department was having with Mr. Bolton's speeches not always being properly cleared by the State Department offices and officials--think of this now, the Chief of Staff, a military man himself, I think a colonel, working for the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then Secretary of State, said that because Mr. Bolton didn't properly clear his speeches with the appropriate authorities and experts within the State Department-- the Deputy Secretary of State, the No. 2 man, Secretary Armitage ``made a decision that John Bolton would not give any testimony, nor would he give any speech that wasn't cleared first by Rich [Armitage].'' Think of that. Here is the guy, head of the arms control and nonproliferation piece of the President's operation at the State Department who needs, as much as anyone, classified information and accurate intelligence, and he has to be told by the No. 2 man at the State Department that he is no longer authorized to make any speech without it first being cleared by the No. 2 man at the State Department. I don't do that with my senior staff. I don't have to. It is truly remarkable. This may have occurred with one of the six other Presidents with whom I have served since I have been here, but if it has, I am unaware of it, and I would like to know. Powell's Chief of Staff later told the New York Times, referring to what I just talked about--restrictions that Mr. Bolton could not make a speech without it being cleared by the No. 2 man at the State Department--that ``if anything, the [restrictions] got more stringent'' as time went on. ``No one else''--I assume he means in the entire State Department--``was subjected to these tight restrictions.'' Consider this: we have the chairman of the National Intelligence Organization, the Chief of Staff for the President, Secretary of State, the former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, the former head of an office within the CIA named Mr. Cohen, and the former head of the intelligence apparatus at the State Department--all of them, nary a Democratic appointee in the crowd, pointing out how Mr. Bolton overreached, cherry-picked, had to be disciplined, had to be overruled, had to be supervised. And here Mr. Bolton was, an Assistant Secretary of State, and we want to send him now to the No. 2 job in diplomacy after the Secretary of State? Listen to Mr. Bolton's own loyal staff. After being told that the intelligence community could not support a statement Mr. Bolton wanted to make on Cuba, a member of Mr. Bolton's staff wrote to a CIA official and said that ``several heavy hitters are involved in this one, and they may choose to push ahead over the objections of the CIA and INR . . . unless there is a serious source and methods concern.'' We have all been around here. Let's translate that. This is Mr. Bolton's staff writing to a CIA official, when CIA is telling Mr. Bolton that he cannot say what he wants to say. Mr. Bolton's staff writes to the CIA official who said Mr. Bolton could not do that: ``Several heavy hitters are involved in this one.'' I am sure no staff on the floor of the Senate could possibly be intimidated to maybe reconsider a recommendation they made if, in fact, the Chief of Staff of the majority leader or the minority leader, or chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, or the ranking member sent out an e-mail or a letter to them saying: Look, Jack, I know what you said, but let me tell you something, there are several heavy hitters here who may go beyond you. Translated: Are you sure you want to say he cannot do this? You would have had to have your head in a rain barrel for the past 20 years not to understand what the message was that was being communicated. Mr. Bolton's staff was saying that Mr. Bolton might make statements in the name of the Government, or at least with the claim that they were supported by U.S. intelligence, despite the analysts' views that these statements were not justifiably based on the evidence. That is more than mere arrogance. It suggests a willingness to defraud the American people, and it suggests that there is a price that will be paid by you, you not-so-senior person, if you raise a ruckus about this. That e-mail I described was not a one-time event. Mr. Bolton's staff later informed the intelligence community that they wanted to change the rules for reviewing proposed speeches to limit their objections to only those objections related to sources and method. Let me translate that. I see my friend from Maryland on the floor. If he were an intelligence officer in the United States government who found out that another country was supporting an al-Qaida undertaking and my friend from Maryland was a CIA operative in that other country, if I were to expose the fact that that country was cooperating with the CIA, I might inadvertently disclose who the source of that intelligence is and, by doing so, maybe get my friend killed. Or if that information is picked up by a bugging device placed in a meeting room, if I were to say on the floor that we have a recording saying that Official A of Country A met with al-Qaida, clearly, they might be able to figure out how we knew that, what the method of picking up the information was. So we are very fastidious in this Senate--those of us who deal with intelligence matters--not to ever reveal a source or a method, and even though the information revealed may not be so classified that we are told by the Agency you cannot say this for fear of revealing a source or a method of picking up this information, we do not disclose it. There is a second type of intelligence, and that is the intelligence analysis that says: Syria does not have nuclear weapons. That is an analysis by experts in our intelligence community who reached the conclusion, from all kinds of sources and methods, that Syria doesn't have nuclear weapons, if that were the conclusion. Now, Mr. Bolton had been stopped repeatedly by various intelligence agencies from saying things that the intelligence did not support. I am making this up. Let's assume Mr. Bolton wanted to say that Syria has nuclear weapons and the CIA analysis says it doesn't. Under the present rules, CIA can say to Mr. Bolton that he cannot say that. So what does Mr. Bolton do? He goes back and says to the intelligence community, through his staff, we want to change the rule. You cannot tell me, I say to my friend from Maryland, what I can say about whether or not they have nuclear weapons. I can say they do, even though you say they don't.

Mr. BIDEN. First, let me finish this point. But, his staff says, you can tell Mr. Bolton he cannot say it only if it will reveal a source or a method. In other words, his staff was seeking carte blanche to allow Mr. Bolton to cherry-pick, as the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council said, factoids in isolation to make a case that didn't exist. I will yield to my friend for a question.

Mr. BIDEN. That is absolutely correct.

Mr. BIDEN. If I may interrupt the Senator, any administration official who wishes to purport that he speaks for the administration, which includes the intelligence community, has to have his or her statement cleared on that specific point, yes. That is standard operating procedure.

Mr. BIDEN. That is absolutely right. When an intelligence analyst said to him, on two occasions--Mr. Westermann being one--no, Mr. Secretary, you cannot say that because the intelligence community doesn't believe that, the intelligence community doesn't think what you are about to say is accurate, you cannot say it, what did Mr. Bolton do? He tried to get that intelligence analyst fired for doing nothing but his job and telling him, no, boss, you cannot say that; that is not what the intelligence community believes. That is different than if Mr. Bolton had said: I am going to go out and say, You know, the intelligence community doesn't agree with me, but I, John Bolton, I believe these are the facts. He probably would get fired by the President for doing that, but that is not a violation of any procedure. He is not purporting to speak for the intelligence community when he does that.

Mr. BIDEN. At least in 10 instances. On 10 different occasions, when he got access to an NSA intercept that mentioned ``an American,'' Mr. Bolton went back to NSA, and, as I understand it--and I ask to be corrected by my staff--but as I understand it, Mr. Bolton has to say to the head of NSA: I want to know more about this intercept, and I want to know the name of the American in order to better understand the intercept. He did that 10 times.

Mr. BIDEN. To the best of our knowledge, he got the name of the American.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, while my friend from Maryland is here, I want to point out, first of all, the request is very limited. We are looking for the names in 10 reports. It is totally circumscribed, the request as relates to this issue which you so painstakingly went through, explaining what it was that worried everybody--and worries everybody--about Mr. Bolton and the use of intelligence information, even after he has been proscribed, prevented, from being able to speak without clearance, which is--you and I have been here a long time-- fairly remarkable. That may have happened to other people in the State Department. I can't recall it happening.

Mr. BIDEN. That's right. Now, after that occurs, or in the process of this occurring, Mr. Bolton's Chief of Staff contacts the CIA on a disputed issue about what can be said, and says--I don't know if you were here when I said this. To tell you the truth, I thought I knew all this, but I was surprised when my staff pointed this out. Mr. Bolton's acting Chief of Staff said Mr. Bolton wanted to make a statement on Cuba, and they didn't want to let him make that statement. Mr. Bolton's staff gets back to the CIA and says: Several heavy hitters are involved in this one, and they may choose to push ahead over your objections and the objections of INR, unless there is serious source and method concerned. Remember, going back to our discussions?

Mr. BIDEN. Then he, this staff member, goes and contacts the CIA and says: You know, we would like to change the ground rules. We can say the intelligence community thinks the following, even if you disagree. We don't have to clear it with you. The only thing we have to clear with you is whether or not we are exposing a source or a method. Let's have that new deal.