Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Right. I agree.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I listened with great interest to my friend from Wisconsin when he talked about showering money by special interests. Yesterday, he and I voted on a bill on ergonomics where the outfit that most wanted that bill not stripped away was the labor community which, if we take his definition broadly, showered money on everyone here. I don't even accept PAC money. Yet I did not hear anybody stand up yesterday and say the reason we voted for ergonomics was that labor showered money upon this body. I find it somewhat unusual that there is such selective judgment about how money is showered on this body. I wish the Senator was still here. I am also interested in what he constantly refers to as the arbitrary nature of this bill. It seems to me the definition of arbitrary is whatever the Senator from Wisconsin doesn't like, because such an arbitrary bill as this passed with 70 votes last year, and it has been improved even further than last year. It passed with 306 votes just a couple of days ago over in the House of Representatives. It must mean that two-thirds of the Senate last year-- and I realize it has changed by several votes on this side now--and 306 of 435 Members over there are obviously very arbitrary. This bill is supposedly so partisan that it has had broad bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. I also point out that, having been involved with President Clinton relative to his veto of the bill last year, the single most important thing the President wanted done through the help of Senator Schumer-- and, through the leadership of Senator Schumer, it was done in this bill--was that he was very concerned about a provision that possibly would allow someone who had violated the so-called FACE--that is, bomb an abortion clinic or do physical damage to the building or to persons working in there--to then come along and declare bankruptcy on the grounds that they should not have to pay the civil judgments against them. That meant a great deal to President Clinton, to me, and to a lot of other people. That was the primary reason President Clinton vetoed this bill last year. That provision is no longer exempted from this bill. It is part of the bill. One of the nondischargeable debts under bankruptcy in this legislation is for someone who has a judgment against them for violating the rule. That is called the FACE law, relating to intimidating or doing damage to abortion clinics or persons who work in them. I also find interesting one thing the Senator said. I think he is correct. He pointed out that mothers filing bankruptcy even though their husbands are gone must still count their husbands' income. That is not what was intended in the bill. I will give you an example. On the section from which the Senator from Wisconsin read, there was a drafting error here in all the provisions save one that I am aware of. It says: . . .if the current monthly income of the debtor, or in a joint case the debtor and the debtor's spouse. . . .'' That means that if the debtor is all by herself and has not filed for bankruptcy jointly, then you do not count the husband's income. That was not intended. But there is a section where it is written differently and could be read differently. That is in section (7), on page 17 of the bill. Section 7, in subsection (2) says: . . . if the current monthly income of the debtor and the debtor's spouse combined, as of the date of the order for relief when multiplied by 12, is equal less than. . . . It should read: if the current monthly income of the debtor, or in the case of a joint filing by the debtor and their spouse. . . . It is my intention, as one of the people who supports this bill, to see that it is changed in the managers' amendment, so it reads as it was intended. But after that, what I heard added up to an awful lot of--how can I say this--well, I will not characterize it. I do not think it was particularly accurate. So since this is the first time I have spoken to this bill on the floor, let me go into a little more detail. But I am going to go into a great deal of detail on each of these amendments that are about to be offered. First, the idea of a fresh start is absolutely fundamental to the American way of life. Bankruptcy must remain available for those who really need it. And it does. Let's put in perspective what we are talking about. If you listened to the critics of the bill on the floor, it would sound as if we are eliminating bankruptcy. The only issue at stake here is whether or not someone files bankruptcy in chapter 7 or chapter 13. Right now, I might point out to you, bankruptcy judges are supposed to lay out in chapter 7--chapter 7 is one of those places where you eliminate all your debt. Chapter 13 is where you say: I want to eliminate most of my debt, but I can pay back some of it. I can pay back some small percentage of it. And they set out a schedule to pay back some small percentage of it. What we are talking about is a situation where someone who files in chapter 7, who is able to pay some of their debt, and should be filing in chapter 13 right now--a bankruptcy judge or a master must, in fact, look at that circumstance and say: This is an abusive filing. He really should be filing in chapter 13. But guess what. There is no uniform standard nationwide. It is left up to every bankruptcy judge to determine what is abusive and what is not abusive. So what are do we doing here? The essence of what we are doing is laying out the standard at which a bankruptcy judge must look to determine whether or not the filer is abusing the system going into chapter 7 as opposed to chapter 13. Why are we doing that? We are doing that because a lot of the very people I represent, and that my friend from Wisconsin and others talk about all the time--working-class folks--are getting hurt by the way bankruptcy is abused now. Because what simply happens is, all those debts that they incur--and they never filed bankruptcy before--cost them more money. It costs them more money at Boscov's when they go buy a $100 item because people have declared bankruptcy who could be paying back something. It costs them more money. The average person in America, the person who really is in a crunch, is hurt the most because interest rates go up, the cost of financing, buying the new bed or refrigerator goes up. You don't have to just listen to me about this. Unnecessary and abusive bankruptcy costs everyone. The Clinton administration's own Justice Department concluded that our current system costs the economy $3 billion a year. And they made the pursuit and prosecution of bankruptcy abuse a high priority. This is not an imaginary problem. It is not going away. This week we are taking up a bill that is identical to the conference report that enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the House and the Senate--70 in the Senate and 308 in the House. During the debate, we have already heard from some of my colleagues who claim that they support the general idea of eliminating abuse in bankruptcy, but they oppose the particulars. Now, again, this costs every single solitary consumer. If you are making $300,000 a year, you don't have to buy your sofa bed on time. If you are making $300,000 a year, you don't have to buy your refrigerator on time. Where I come from--my family --you buy them on time. And it costs them money. It costs them money--a lot more money--because these folks do not write off this debt and say: I didn't get paid. I didn't get paid back for all that was owed me here, so forget it. I will just take it out of my bottom profit line. They say: No. I have to make it up. So what do they do? They charge my mother and father more money to buy the refrigerator because they can't buy it other than buying it on time. So I am having it about up to here with how this is hurting so many poor people. I will get to that in just a minute. During this debate, we have had raised many charges against the legislation. I think it is fair to say that the concerns I have heard so far--and over the last 4 years that we have been dealing with this legislation--I find it fascinating my friend from Wisconsin and others have said that we were going to bring this bill right to the floor. The reason it did not get brought to the floor is yours truly, me. I made it clear they would get none of my support, no one would get my support on this bill if, in fact, it did not go back through the committee system, if it did not go back to the Judiciary Committee, if it did not go through the normal procedure. As I said, this is the same bill, by and large, with a couple improvements, that passed with 70 votes last year. The biggest charge you hear is this is antiwoman and antichildren who depend on child support, and that it is unfair to low-income families which need the full protection of chapter 7 or straight bankruptcy. I want to briefly address both of these concerns. And I will go into more detail when my colleagues want to come and debate this issue. First, I want to point out a significant achievement reached in the Judiciary Committee on the question of those who have tried to hide in bankruptcy from the penalties imposed on them for violating the Fair Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Senator Schumer, as I mentioned earlier, first brought this issue to our attention. We finally reached an agreement in the committee with this major step forward. The compromise that we put forward is part of the bill that no one--no one--who violates the FACE Act, the Fair Access to Clinic Entrances Act, can, in fact, avoid their responsibility in bankruptcy. Now as to those specific charges of unfairness. First, there is the claim that the bill will leave women and children who depend on child support worse off than they are today. This is perhaps the easiest charge to refute because the legislation before us today has the endorsement of the National Child Support Enforcement Association. The National Child Support Enforcement Association--they are all the folks in all of our States who sit there behind counters, working for the State, who are trying to collect support payments and child support from deadbeat husbands. These are people on the side of the women and children who need their support payments made to them. They support this bill. The National District Attorneys Association--and specifically because of the important new protection for women and children who depend on family support payments--and other professionals whose job it is to enforce family support payments every day, from the California Family Support Council to the Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, have endorsed these new protections as well. That is because there are new specific protections for family support payments in this bill. Let's go through how it currently works. One thing the Senator said is correct: Bankruptcy is a complicated issue. Hopefully, the vast majority of Americans will never have to become acquainted with it. Under current law, we tell creditors they can't collect debts owed them starting right away, as soon as someone files bankruptcy. Put another way, I go in and file bankruptcy. I owe child support and support payments. I file for bankruptcy. In the vast majority of States, immediately all creditors have to back off, including mom and the kids. That means a woman owed alimony or child support can't collect either. I am one of the authors of the deadbeat dad legislation to put more pressure on States to go after deadbeat dads. All of a sudden, once somebody files bankruptcy, in most States in America now, mom is out, the kids are out. Bankruptcy stays the proceeding. All those hard-working folks in the family court in Delaware trying to see to it that Johnny and Mary and Alice get something to eat and mom gets a support payment, they can do nothing. They have to stand back, instead of bringing that deadbeat dad in and arresting him and garnishing his wages. That is why the national child support agencies support this bill. That is why they want it. It improves the plight of women and children who, by the way, can't wait 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 10 weeks, 5 months while the bankruptcy is proceeding, as they have to now. This bill gives child support and alimony the first and highest priority among any claim able to be made in bankruptcy. Do you know where they are under present law, the law my friend seems to love so much? They rank No. 7, S-E-V-E-N. This bill says you have to be fully paid up on child support and alimony before you can be released from bankruptcy. You have to be fully paid up or you don't get out of anything via bankruptcy. A woman collecting child support or alimony must, under section 219 of this bill, be notified of the full array of family support enforcement rights and available options to her under Federal law, including the kind of wage attachments that will trump every other claim in and out of bankruptcy. So there is an affirmative requirement under this bill. If a woman did not know she had additional rights, she is required, under this law, if we pass it--and I am confident we will--to be notified by the bankruptcy court: By the way, you have these additional rights, and we will help you attach this deadbeat's wages. All other parties to bankruptcy, from her spouse's creditors to the court that monitors the bankruptcy plan, are notified that the full force of the Federal support enforcement law is part of the bankruptcy proceeding, which it is not now. Under this bill, the fact that other creditors with perhaps deeper pockets might be looking for repayment from her spouse is an asset, not a liability. Those other creditors must provide her and the support enforcement officials this bill recruits, by the way, to assist her with the last known address of her spouse who owes her the support and payments. I used to be a family court lawyer. Do you know how it works now? The court can't find where Charlie Smith is. The woman is going into court day after day. Charlie Smith has a job. Everybody knows Charlie Smith has a job, but they can't find him. So Charlie Smith files bankruptcy in another State, another place, another time. What happens now? Nothing. What happens under this bill? The creditors who go in saying, I want to repossess Charlie's car, I am going to take Charlie's house, I am going after Charlie's bank account because he owes me money, have to notify the spouse. Give me a break. No protections? It doesn't exist in present law. These are concrete, positive steps from start to finish, and even beyond bankruptcy, to assure that payments are made to those who need them. These are real, tangible improvements over the current bankruptcy and child support laws. My friends who talk so much about child support ought to go practice it as I did. They ought to go back home and check, go sit in that family court and find out how it works right now. Against them we will hear the vague assertion that those payments will compete with ``more powerful creditors.'' The fact is, in actual practice now, and more certainly under this bill, those payments will be accomplished by wage attachments and could not be reached by any other creditor during or after bankruptcy, no matter how powerful or how devious the creditor is. I heard a little flip on this. I may hear from my friend from Wisconsin and others: Even though that is true, even though in this bankruptcy proceeding you can go out and attach the wages of this deadbeat father, what is going to happen is the devious creditor will still win. Do you know why? Because the deadbeat father will quit his job to spite payment. Then the creditor that repossesses the automobile or goes after whatever debt he has will be ahead of the mother because bankruptcy is over. Come on. If a father is going to do that, he ``ain't'' paying anybody anything. Those payments come out of the deadbeat dad's paycheck before he even sees it. He cannot be forced to choose between child support and other debts. He doesn't have the choice. Those payments are made automatically, straight from the employer to the woman and children who need them. Those who claim otherwise are simply ignorant of the way Federal family support law currently operates. Some of them simply misrepresent the way this legislation protects family support payments in bankruptcy. Next, we have the assertion that this legislation unfairly locks the door of chapter 7--liquidation or so-called straight bankruptcy--for those low-income families that need it the most. Let's get a few things straight about how the current code operates. Today, bankruptcy judges are required as a matter of Federal law to dismiss petitions for chapter 7--that is straight bankruptcy--for substantial abuse, particularly if the debtor really has the ability to pay his bills. This reform legislation will provide those judges with specific criteria for determining if the debtor can, in fact, pay some of the bills he or she is asking to be forgiven. If the debtor can pay some of those bills, at least $10,000 or 25 percent of those debts-- that is the threshold--then asking for chapter 7 is presumed to be an abuse of the system and you get bumped into chapter 13. I will bet that most Americans would be very surprised that there is no systematic way for asking the basic question about the ability to pay, no actual means test that exists now under the current code, and it is up to every different bankruptcy judge to decide how he or she wants to make that judgment. That is how our sentencing laws used to be until I wrote and we passed the Sentencing Reform Act. Every judge could have a different sentence. What did we find out there? We found out that black folks who committed the same crime that white folks committed went to jail longer because there was no standard. We have national sentencing guidelines and other standards that guide the decisions of judges. This bill simply tells judges how they should go about making the decision that current law requires them to make. But won't that means test disadvantage those of limited means who truly need and deserve to fully get a chapter 7 liquidation? Look at the facts. First, this bill will affect, at most, 10 percent of the people who currently file under chapter 7, and only those who have a demonstrable ability to pay. One of the main reasons for that small number--10 percent--is the means test in this bill would not even apply to anyone who earns less than the median income in his or her State, and for those with less than 150 percent of the median income, there is only a cursory calculation on the ability to pay. Let's go through what that means. Mr. President, in my State of Delaware, a family with a $46,000 income would not even be subject to the means test--you got that?--not even subject to the means test. They are out. They can immediately go to chapter 7, no questions asked, nothing--even if they had the ability to pay. That is exactly as it is today. In California, a family with a $43,000 income will have the exact same access. In Massachusetts, a family with $44,000 in income will have no change in access to chapter 7; Illinois, $46,000; in Wisconsin, $45,000, no change. That is because this legislation, I might add, at my insistence and that of Senator Torricelli, contains a safe harbor for those people. Only if you have more than 1\1/2\ times the median income in your State will you be subject to a serious examination about your ability to pay. And even then, if you face what the bill calls ``special circumstances,'' that reduces your income or increases your regular expenses. You will still enjoy the full protection of chapter 7. Specifically--I don't know how many times I have heard this on the floor--if you have ongoing medical expenses, that means you don't have any money left over to pay creditors, you can go straight to chapter 7. One of the most basic misunderstandings about this bill is that folks with medical bills will have their circumstances ignored, as my friends are saying on the floor here. That is just flat wrong. The standard this bill uses for calculating someone's ability to pay under the means test specifically includes not just medical bills but health insurance, and it even includes union dues. Amendment No. 13

Mr. BIDEN. Kind of funny. It is wrong, though; isn't it?

Mr. BIDEN. That does mean it would include somebody grossing $100 million, $50 million.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I appreciate what the Senator is trying to do. It is confusing me a little bit, though--not his intention but the way he phrases it. He talks about the fact that if someone has a serious medical bill that causes them to move into bankruptcy, which I might add is a real problem, and it is the reason why most people move into bankruptcy, it is not credit cards--you can't have it both ways and stand up on the floor and say the reason people go into bankruptcy is credit card debt. There is no evidence of that. The GAO report doesn't say that. The Congressional Research Service doesn't say that--and then point out, which is accurate, that medical bills cause people to go into bankruptcy in considerable numbers. I do not know the exact number. I don't know whether it is 20 percent, 50 percent, or 70 percent. But it is a lot. I understand what he is saying. By the way, there is one generic point to which I am sympathetic-- that people in fact have real serious medical problems and are forced to liquidate everything they have to pay the medical bills. It is an absolute tragedy. I agree with my friend. That is why I support the national health insurance plan and the need to cover all of those folks. I also appreciate the fact that he is not engaging in and he never has the idea that because a particular group or group of people support a position, and they have power, that anybody who votes with them is because of the power. My friend and I voted against the position of the Chamber of Commerce yesterday notwithstanding the fact that labor poured tens of thousands of dollars into the campaigns of Members on this side. And I suspect that labor PACs gave my friend from Wisconsin hundreds of thousands of dollars. They did not give a cent to the Senator from Delaware because I don't take PAC money, and I haven't taken PAC money. I appreciate the honesty that he is exhibiting, but it confuses me on a couple of points. One, I am from Scranton, PA. That is an area of the country that has been on hard times for a long time. My grandfather Finnigan used to have an expression. He would say: When the fellow in Throop--that was a community south of Scranton--loses his job, it means there is an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law loses a job, it means there is a recession. When you lose your job, it means there is a depression. I wonder why we don't include people who lose their jobs and have to declare bankruptcy and can't find employment. I have a little bit of a problem in terms of singling out one type of that debt that is exempt, but not because it has anything to do with any other industry. I don't know any other industry that cares a whole lot about that. My point is, that is a conceptual problem I am having difficulty getting over. But the second point I wish to make is that his amendment wouldn't affect what this bill is about. It would affect bankruptcy law tremendously, present bankruptcy law, future bankruptcy law, future bankruptcy changes, and present. It would have a profound impact. But the reason for this bill is to set a standard on the basis of someone moving from chapter 7 to chapter 13. I remind anybody who is listening to this at home that chapter 7 means if you file in that chapter, all your debts are discharged, and you start brand new. You don't owe anybody anything. You don't try to pay anything off. It is done. Chapter 13 means that the vast majority of your debts are discharged, but you work out a payment plan because you can think you can pay some of it. Most people who chose chapter 13 in the old days chose it to avoid the embarrassment of chapter 7 so they could pay something off in good faith. They had something to pay, but they couldn't pay everybody. They wanted the court to help them figure out how to divvy out what they could pay. That is what it is about. There is no standard now that a judge uses. There is a generic standard saying substantial abuse. Right now, a bankruptcy court judge or master has to move someone from 7 to 13 if that judge says, look, you are able to pay something so you should be in 13. My dad always said: Keep your eye on the ball. The ball here is what this is about. This bill is about whether or not there is a standard we are now going to set beyond the broad standard of substantial abuse that says when you must move from chapter 7 into chapter 13 to pay some of your bills. By the way, you only get moved into that if you have at least $10,000 to distribute after all of your necessities are taken care of, or you are able to pay 25 percent of your debt over 5 years. If you can't meet that standard, you are not in 13 either. You don't get into chapter 13. Again, keep your eye on the ball. This bill is about whether or not you can pay some of your bills. Along comes my friend who says--which may be good public policy. I am not disagreeing with the possibility that anybody who declares bankruptcy because of medical bills can discharge those debts outright, period. They are just in chapter 7. They can, in fact, go there. I point out to my friend about the case in Delaware. The individual filed in chapter 7. He chose to file in chapter 7. He discharged all of his debts. Unfortunately, my State has what I thought the Senator from Minnesota had been saying. You shouldn't have a homestead exemption. My State doesn't. Had he filed 13, he could have kept his home theoretically. He was not required. He filed in chapter 7.

Mr. BIDEN. Then he would have been able to keep his home in chapter 13. If I am wrong about that, I will correct the record. But in Delaware, under chapter 7, we don't have this way to hide assets in a house. I think you should be able to keep up to $100,000 of the value of your house. But in 13, you get to keep your house as long as you keep your mortgage payments, and you are allowed to have that portion taken out to keep your house just as you can have that portion taken out to pay your medical bills, or pay ongoing expenses that you have-- gas for your car to go back and forth to work, et cetera. That is the case that would not be affected by this legislation. It would not be made better or not be made worse by this will. What would happen is arguably he wouldn't have to go to 13 if he didn't want to because under this bill, the means test in S. 420 establishes a standard. It establishes a standard. And it goes on to point out that in terms of this whole argument about medical bills, which I went into a little while earlier, unless your means test--in my State, by the way, the means test for a family would be $46,000, and you would have to make more than that to even be considered in the means test, but once you are in the means test, then what happens is special circumstances can be counted, whether or not you can still stay in chapter 7 or get bumped to chapter 13. And the special circumstances relate to medical expenses. The medical expenses are your special circumstances. If you are in a situation where not only do you have medical expenses that you have to meet but you have the medical expenses and other necessary expenses that are not limited to your own medical expenses-- for example, the medical expenses you are paying for your mom, the medical expenses you are paying for your adopted child, the medical expenses you are paying for your sister, the medical expenses you are paying for a family member --those get included so you do not get knocked out of chapter 7 under this law. You can count those medical expenses. So a judge says: OK, look, under the means test, you have this amount of money. You do not make more than $46,000 in Delaware, so you can stay in chapter 7. We are not even going to consider looking at whether or not you have a right to file in chapter 7. And then, by the way, if you are 150 percent above that income, which gets you up to, what, $60,000, or something like that, whatever the exact number is, then you can say: Hey, wait a minute. I have all these medical expenses so I get to stay in chapter 7 anyway. My confusion is how this amendment relates to this bill. It relates to bankruptcy generally; I acknowledge that. It is a new standard that we are considering, but it does not go to the assertions made by others that people, because of their medical bills, are getting killed with this legislation. The very example my friend gave already was an example that occurred in Delaware that had nothing to do with this legislation. His medical bills were so high, the poor devil, and his income was so limited, he lost everything. That is tragic. That is why we need national health insurance. But the passage of this bill would not alleviate that problem. So it is kind of a non sequitur. They are not related. I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield? Would this include an automobile dealer with 20 people that grosses $70 million a year?

Mr. BIDEN. We sure do. Check home. Any automobile dealer that has 20 or more people.

Mr. BIDEN. I am just asking a question. I hope it does include them. I want to know what you are including. That is all. Would that be included?

Mr. BIDEN. You can't have it both ways.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the situation in North Korea. Today President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea is meeting with President Bush as part of his official state visit. His visit occurs against a hopeful backdrop of the third round of family reunions on the divided Korean peninsula. Fathers are greeting their grownup sons; sisters are hugging their sisters they haven't seen for a generation. Grandmothers are meeting their grandchildren who they have never met. Tomorrow the distinguished chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and I will host the President of South Korea for coffee here on Capitol Hill. Kim's visit will give us a chance to renew the close bonds forged in blood in the common struggle against the forces of oppression which unite our people in the United States and South Korea. I rise today to talk a little bit about the Korean peninsula and the important role the United States can play in concert with our South Korean allies and other friends to help build lasting peace on that peninsula. Yesterday the New York Times published an article by veteran defense correspondent Michael Gordon which suggests that a missile deal with North Korea may have been within reach last year. As fascinating as this rendition of events was and as fascinating as the policies were, we now have a new President. The failure or the judgment to not proceed with negotiations into the month of January of this year on the part of the new President is in fact at this moment irrelevant. We have a new President and a new administration. The question squarely now is not whether President Clinton should have gone to North Korea; the question is whether this administration, the Bush administration, is going to build on the progress made over the past 5 years since we narrowly averted a nuclear showdown on the Korean peninsula. I was pleased to see Secretary of State Powell quoted in a Washington Post article today, suggesting this administration was going to pursue the possibilities of a better relationship with North Korea and was going to leave nothing on the table. I was slightly dismayed to read of an informed source in the administration who chose not to be identified, demonstrating a great deal more of what seemed to me in the article to be not only skepticism, which I share about the intentions of North Korea, but willingness to pursue vigorously the possibilities of further negotiations. Hopefully, I am misreading that unidentified highly placed administration official. In my view, there is only one correct answer and that is the one Secretary Powell has indicated today. For it would be irresponsible not to explore to discover whether North Korea is prepared to abandon its pursuit of long-range missiles in response to a serious proposal from the United States, our friends, and our allies. North Korea confronts the United States with a number of security challenges. North Korea maintains a huge army of more than 1 million men and women in uniform, about 5 percent of its entire population. Many of that army are poised on the South Korean border. The threat that North Korea opposes extends well beyond the Korean peninsula. Its Nodong missile can not only strike all of South Korea but can also threaten our ally, Japan. North Korea sells those same missiles to anyone who has the cash to buy them. North Korean missile exports to Iran and Pakistan have guaranteed, unfortunately, that any future war in the Middle East or South Asia will be even more dangerous and more destructive than past conflicts in that region. North Korean missiles and the very real concern that North Korea might even build longer range missiles capable of striking the United States are a driving force behind our plans to build a national missile defense system. If we can remove that threat, that is, the threat from North Korea long-range missile possibility, the impact will be huge, not only on the security of Northeast Asia but also on our own defense strategy as we debate how best to deal with our vulnerability to weapons of mass destruction. For most of the past 50 years, U.S. soldiers of the 2d Infantry Division have looked north from their positions along the DMV at North Korean adversaries that appeared unchanging--a hermit kingdom, locked in a Stalinist time warp. Indeed, 2 or 3 years ago if I had spoken to the American people about landmines, the 38th parallel, and the armies of North and South Korea, it would have been to discuss the latest northern incursion along what remains the most heavily armed border in the world. The troops of the 2d Infantry Division are still standing shoulder to shoulder with our South Korean allies. The landmines are still there. And much of the tension along the DMZ remains unabated, at least for now. But maybe, just maybe, things are beginning to change. The United States should end our ``prevent defense'' and go on the offensive to advance our vital interests--particularly the dismantlement of North Korea's long-range missile program. Now is not the time for lengthy policy reviews or foot-dragging on existing commitments. Now is the time to forge ahead and test North Korea's commitment to peace. A few weeks ago what had been unthinkable--the opening of direct rail transport across the DMZ--became a near term achievable objective. The militaries of North and South Korea will soon begin to reconstruct the rail links connecting Seoul not only to Pyongyang, but also to China, Russia, and Western Europe. I remember vividly the moment when the people of East and West Berlin decided to tear down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had become a true anachronism: a graffiti-strewn relic of a morally, politically, and economically bankrupt Soviet regime. Once the East German people had torn down the ideological walls in their own minds, tearing down the concrete was a piece of cake. The people of North and South Korea are not there yet. But the walls are under siege. The establishment of direct rail links will represent a major breach in the walls of fear, insecurity, and isolation which have built up over the past 50 years. Last October, I spoke to this body about testing North Korea's willingness to abandon its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. At that time, I pointed to some of the hopeful signs that North Korea was interested in improving its relations with its neighbors--a missile launch moratorium now more than 2 years old, summit meetings with South Korea, Russia, and China, and the first tentative steps toward economic reform. I attributed these North Korean actions to the ``Sunshine Policy'' crafted by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, and to the hard-headed engagement strategy implemented by former Secretary of Defense William Perry on behalf of the Clinton administration. Since last fall, evidence has mounted steadily that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il has indeed decided that nothing short of a major overhaul of his economic system and diplomatic relations is likely to pull his country back from the brink of starvation and economic collapse. In addition to the progress on rail links, here are some of the other recent developments: North Korea has expanded cooperation to search for the remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean war. Uniformed U.S. military personnel are working along side their North Korean counterparts, searching the rice paddies, often in remote areas, in an effort to solve 50-year-old mysteries. The North has continued modest steps to allow family reunions across the DMZ, exposing people from the North to the quality of life enjoyed by their brothers and sisters in the South. More than 300 families have enjoyed reunion visits, and more are scheduled. The North has toned down its customary harsh rhetoric about the U.S. and South Korea, substituting a steady diet of editorials outlining the North's plans to make economic revitalization its top priority. North Korea for the first time last November opened its food distribution system to South Korean inspection and also provided a detailed accounting of food aid distribution. North and South Korea have held defense talks at both the ministerial level and subsequently at the working level, and have agreed, at the urging of South Korea, to improve military to military communications. This is the first step toward confidence building measures that can reduce the likelihood that a relatively minor incident along the DMZ might escalate into war. North and South have established an economic cooperation panel and launched a joint study of North Korea's energy needs. North and South Korean flood control experts met last month in Pyongyang for talks on cooperation in efforts along the Imjin River, which crosses the border between the two countries. The North Koreans have dispatched a team of financial experts to Washington to examine what it would take for North Korea to earn support from international financial institutions once it has taken the steps necessary to satisfy U.S. anti-terrorism laws. And, as I mentioned above, the North has not test-fired a missile for more than 2\1/2\ years, and has pledged not to do so while negotiations with the United States on the North's missile program continue. Five years ago when people spoke of ``North Korean offensives,'' they were referring to the threat of a North Korean assault across the DMZ. Today, Kim Jong-il is mounting an offensive, but it is a diplomatic and economic offensive, not a military one. Over the past 12 months, North Korea has established diplomatic relations with almost all of the nations of Western Europe. Planning is underway for an unprecedented trip by Kim Jong-il to Seoul to meet with President Kim Dae-jung later this year. Finally, Kim Jong-il's has publicly embraced China's model of economic reform. His celebrated January visit to Shanghai and his open praise of Chinese economic reforms indicates that Kim is driving North Korea toward a future in which it would be more closely integrated economically and politically to the rest of East Asia and the world. What are we to make of all of this? How should we respond? I want to be clear about why I find these developments so promising. I am not a fan of Kim Jong-il. No one should think that his motives are noble or humanitarian. Over the years, Kim Jong-il has shown himself willing to go to any length--including state-sponsored terrorism--to preserve his regime. I have no reason to believe he has abandoned his love of dictatorship in favor of constitutional democracy. Far from it. Kim Jong-il is betting that he can emerge from a process of change at the head of a North Korean society that is more prosperous, stable, and militarily capable than it is today, but still a dictatorship. But frankly, the reasons why Kim Jong-il is pursuing economic reform and diplomatic opening are not as important as the steps he will have to take along the way. If North Korea's opening is to succeed, the North will have to address many of the fundamentals which make it so threatening-- especially the gross distortion of its domestic spending priorities in favor of the military. The North cannot revitalize its economy while spending 25 percent of its gross domestic product on weaponry. The North cannot obtain meaningful, sustained foreign investment without addressing the lack of transparency in its economy as well as the absence of laws and institutions to protect investors and facilitate international trade. North Korea's pursuit of economic reform and diplomatic opening presents the United States with a golden opportunity, if we are wise enough to seize it. We should welcome the emergence of North Korea from its shell not because North Korea's motives are benign, but because we have a chance, in concert with our allies, to shape its transformation into a less threatening country. If we play our cards right, North Korea's opening can lead to a less authoritarian regime that is more respectful of international norms-- all without any shots being fired in anger. I point out, a number of old Communist dictators had thought they could move in an easy transition from the Communist regime that has clearly failed to a market economy, or integration with the rest of the world, and still maintain their power. None, none--none has succeeded thus far. I believe it is an oxymoron to suggest that North Korea can emerge and become an engaged partner in world trade without having to fundamentally change itself and in the process, I believe, end up a country very different from what we have now. I am delighted that Secretary Powell has expressed his support for this hard-headed brand of engagement with North Korea. As he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month: We are open to a continued process of engagement with the North so long as it addresses political, economic, and security concerns, is reciprocal, and does not come at the expense of our alliance relationships. This is precisely the kind of engagement I have in mind. I think we should get on with it. North Korea knows that under our nonproliferation laws it cannot gain unfettered access to trade, investment, and technology without first halting its development and export of long-range ballistic missile technology and submitting its nuclear program to full-scope safeguards under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. North Korea knows it won't get World Bank loans as long as it remains on our list of nations that condone international terrorism or provide sanctuary for terrorists. In order to get off that list, North Korea must end all support for terrorist organizations and must cooperate fully with the Japanese government to resolve the question of Japanese citizens abducted from Japan--some more than 20 years ago. In other words, Mr. President, if North Korea is to turn around its moribund economy and fully normalize relations with its neighbors, it will have to take steps which are demonstrably in our national interest and in the national interests of our allies. We should do everything in our power to ensure that North Korea does not diverge from the path it is now on. Specifically, we should continue to provide generous humanitarian relief to starving North Korean children. Nothing about the situation on the peninsula will be improved by the suffering of North Korean children racked by hunger and disease. We should continue to abide by the terms of the Agreed Framework, so long as North Korea does the same. We should not unilaterally start moving the goal posts. The Agreed Framework has effectively capped the North's ability to produce fissile material with which to construct nuclear weapons. Under the terms of Agreed Framework, North Korea placed its nuclear program under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and halted work on two unfinished heavy water nuclear reactors in exchange for the promise of proliferation-resistant light water nuclear reactors and heavy fuel oil deliveries for electric power generation. Without the Agreed Framework, North Korea might already have sufficient fissile material with which to construct dozens of nuclear bombs. missile agreement possible--patience required Finally, Mr. President, we should engage North Korea in a serious diplomatic effort aimed at an iron-clad agreement to end forever the North's pursuit of long range missiles. In discussions with U.S., Russian, and Chinese officials, North Korea has signaled its willingness to give up the export, and possibly the development, of long-range missiles, in response to the right package of incentives. Such an agreement would remove a direct North Korean threat to the region and improve prospects for North-South reconciliation. It would also remove a major source of missiles and missile technology for countries such as Iran. Getting an agreement will not be easy, but it helps a lot that we are not the only country which would benefit from the dismantlement of North Korea's missile program. Our allies South Korea and Japan, our European allies who already provide financial support for the Agreed Framework, the Chinese, the Russians, all share a desire to see North Korea devote its meager resources to food, not rockets. The only countries which want to see North Korea building missiles are its disreputable customers. A tough, verifiable agreement to eliminate the North's long-range missile threat might be possible in exchange for reasonable U.S. assistance that would help North Korea feed itself and help convert missile plants to peaceful manufacturing. Some people are impatient for change in North Korea. They want to adopt a more confrontational approach, including rushing ahead to deploy an unproven, hugely expensive, and potentially destabilizing national missile defense system. I understand their frustration and share their desire for action against the threat of North Korean ballistic missiles. But foreclosing diplomatic options by rushing to deploy NMD is not the right antidote. Sure, a limited ground-based national missile defense might someday be capable of shooting down a handful of North Korean missiles aimed at Los Angeles, but it will do nothing to defend our Asian allies from a North Korean missile attack. Nor will it defend us from a nuclear bomb smuggled into the country aboard a fishing trawler or a biological toxin released into our water supply. NMD will not defend U.S. forces on Okinawa or elsewhere in the Pacific theater. It will do nothing to prevent North Korea from wielding weapons of mass destruction against Seoul, much of which is actually within artillery range of North Korea. Moreover, a rush to deploy an unproven national missile defense, particularly absent a meaningful strategic dialog with china, could jeopardize the cooperative role China has played in recent years on the Korean Peninsula. Given our common interest in preventing North Korea from becoming a nuclear weapons power, the United States and China should work in concert, not at cross purposes. Opening North Korean Eyes North Korea's opening has given the North Korean people a fresh look at the outside world--like a gopher coming out of its hole--with consequences which could be profound over the long haul. Hundreds of foreigners are in North Korea today, compared with a handful just a few years ago. Foreigners increasingly are free to travel widely in the country and talk to average North Koreans without government interference. North Korea has even begun to issue tourist visas. The presence of foreigners in North Korea is gradually changing North Korean attitudes about South Korea and the West. One American with a long history of working in North Korea illustrated the change underway by describing an impromptu encounter he had recently. While he was out on an unescorted morning walk, a North Korean woman approached him and said, ``You're not a Russian, are you? You're a Miguk Nom aren't you?'' Her expression translates roughly into ``You're an American imperialist bastard, eh?'' The American replied good-naturedly, ``Yes, I am an American imperialist bastard.'' To which the woman replied quite sincerely, ``Thanks very much for the food aid!'' Another American, a State Department official accompanying a World Food Program inspection team, noted that hundreds of people along the road waved and smiled, and in the case of soldiers, saluted, as the convoy passed. He also reports that many of 80 million woven nylon bags used to distribute grain and emblazoned with the letters ``U.S.A.'' are being recycled by North Koreans for use as everything from back-packs to rain coats. These North Koreans become walking billboards of American aid and generosity of spirit. North Korea is just one critical challenge in a region of enormous importance to us. We cannot separate our policy there from our overall approach in East Asia. We cannot hope that decisions we make about national missile defense, Taiwan policy, or support for democracy and rule of law in China will be of no consequence to developments on the Korean Peninsula. To the contrary, we need to think holistically and comprehensively about East Asia policy. Our interests are vast. Roughly one-third of the world's population resides in East Asia. In my lifetime, East Asia has gone from less than 3 percent of the world GDP in 1950 to roughly 25 percent today. Four of our 10 largest trading partners--Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea, are in East Asia. Each of those trading partners is also one of the world's top ten economies as measured by gross domestic product. China, Japan, and South Korea together hold more than $700 billion in hard currency reserves--half of the world's total. East Asia is a region of economic dynamism. Last year Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea grew by more than 10 percent, shaking off the East Asian financial crisis and resuming their characteristic vitality. U.S. exports to the region have grown dramatically in recent years. U.S. exports to Southeast Asia, for instance, surpass our exports to Germany and are double our exports to France. U.S. direct investment in East Asia now tops $150 billion, and has tripled over the past decade. And of course these are just a few of the raw economic realities which underscore East Asia's importance. The United States has important humanitarian, environmental, energy, and security interests throughout the region. We have an obligation, it seems to me, not to drop the ball. We have a vital interest in maintaining peace and stability in East Asia. We have good friends and allies--like President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea--who stand ready to work with us toward that goal. It is vital that we not drop the ball; miss an opportunity to end North Korea's deadly and destabilizing pursuit of long range missiles. I don't know that an agreement can be reached. In the end North Korea may prove too intransigent, too truculent, for us to reach an accord. But I hope the Bush administration will listen closely to President Kim today, and work with him to test North Korea's commitment to peace. We should stay the course on an engagement policy that has brought the peninsula to the brink, not of war, but of the dawning of a brave new day for all the Korean people. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am not going to go over the familiar arguments that are real, that this is about the wrong way to go about this. This debate reminds me of a famous expression attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes: Prejudice is like the pupil of the eye: The more lights you shine on it, the more tightly it closes. This is like a religious argument. This is like a holy war. This is like the debate we are going to hear on the bankruptcy bill: a lot of hyperbole and talk about how bad this is. The fact of the matter is these arguments sound very familiar. In fact, in the many years I have had the honor of serving in the Senate, I have heard them often. Every time we debate the wisdom of raising the minimum wage so low-income workers can make a viable living, we hear it is going to put people out of business. The fact is it never happens. It does not stop my earnest colleagues from making the exact same arguments again and again every time we raise the issue. It is not just in the context of debating the minimum wage that I recall arguments about businesses facing the prospect of having to shut down to comply with Federal rules and regulations. In fact, virtually every time OSHA issues a ruling, claims are made about the enormous costs businesses will incur. In 1974--and I am dating myself--when OSHA issued the ruling to reduce worker exposure to vinyl chloride, the cancer-causing gas, we were warned that the entire plastics industry would fold. I add my voice to those who are appalled that the Senate is even dealing with the issue of reversing OSHA's rule. It was during the Administration of President George Herbert Walker Bush that the Labor Secretary, Liddy Dole, began the 10-year long process that resulted in OSHA putting forth this regulation to protect American workers. During that 10-year period, every interested party--from business to labor, scientists and academics, politicians, lobbyists and ordinary citizens--had more than ample time to raise whatever concerns they had. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration weighed the arguments and came out with a regulation designed to protect millions of American workers whose jobs often lead to various injuries and ailments. I understand that some of my colleagues may disagree with this regulation. And they have every right to do so. They may even go so far as to support those who already have gone to court to file legal challenges, or they may decide to work on legislation that might in some way amend or negate OSHA's rule. That would be an appropriate way to proceed. But this rushed debate is beneath the Senate. We puff out our chests when people refer to us as ``the worlds greatest deliberative body.'' Where's the deliberation? Where are the hearings? Where are the witnesses? How can we act with such impunity after 10 years of work that took into account every expert out there, including the input of the National Academy of Sciences? I am not indifferent to the arguments made by my friends in the business community. I know they feel that there are costs involved in implementing this rule, and these costs are real. I ask my friends to look at some facts. Injuries to workers are not bad just for those individuals. There are real losses to employers in terms of higher insurance costs and lost productivity. Most business men and women understand this and are responsive because it makes good business sense. I have heard from those expressing their concerns with the OSHA regulation, but these Delaware business people who are out in front of the curve, who have already taken precautionary measures to protect their workers, who will not be greatly affected because they value their employees and want to protect them from potential job-related harm. Let me conclude by responding directly to my colleagues who argue that adhering to these guidelines is so onerous and expensive that it will put many companies out of business. These arguments sound familiar. In fact, in the many years I've had the honor to serve in the Senate. I have heard them often. Every time we debate the wisdom of raising the minimum wage so that low-income workers can make a livable wage and climb above the poverty line, we hear the argument that unemployment rates will surely rise. The fact it never happens does not stop my earnest colleagues from making the exact same argument again the next time we have that debate. It is not just in the context of debating minimum wage that I recall the argument about businesses facing the prospect of having to shut down to comply with a Federal law or regulation. In fact, virtually every time OSHA issues a ruling, claims are made about the enormous costs businesses will incur. In 1974, when OSHA issued a ruling to reduce worker exposure to vinyl chloride, a cancer- causing gas, we were warned the entire plastics industry would fold. The industry said it would cost from $65 to $90 billion to meet the new standard. OSHA estimated it would cost one billion dollars. Who was right? Neither. OSHA overestimated by a factor of four. The plastics industry got busy and eliminated the vinyl chloride hazard at a cost of just under $280 million. They were off in their estimates by many billions of dollars. The same thing happened when OSHA proposed limiting worker exposure to cotton dust, and again with formaldehyde, and again with lead, and on and on. We hear about astronomical dollar figures and the threat that businesses and entire industries will come to an end. Then, later, we learn that businesses, using their creative skills, come up with innovative measures to deal with the challenge, and solve their problems in a cost-effective way. I say to my colleagues, let's not get caught up in hyperbole. If there are legitimate questions, there are remedies under our democracy. After 10 years of consideration, we cannot roll back these worker protections in just a few hours of debate and then continue to refer to this institution as a ``deliberative body.'' We might as well just get rid of OSHA entirely if we roll back this regulation. I know some of my colleagues think that is not such a bad idea, but I cannot believe a majority of my colleagues think American workers, and the institutions of government we revere, do not deserve better than what is proposed today.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, Delaware, officially called ``the First State'' is sometimes called, ``the Diamond State'' and ``the Small Wonder'' because of the amazing quality Delawareans bring and have brought to this Nation. One of the gems in the Diamond State is a company hidden near the center in the small town of Frederica, DE. That company is ``ILC Dover.'' ILC is best known as the sole designer, developer, and manufacturer of the Apollo and Shuttle Space Suits. The man who has outfitted America's astronauts for 40 years and helped make manned space flight possible--serving the past 17 years as president and general manager of ILC--is retiring. Homer Reihm, better known to his friends and co-workers as ``Sonny,'' is a local legend. It was Sonny Reihm who was ILC's program manager for the Apollo program on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong wore ILC's space suit on the Moon. ILC has continued to be true to its space heritage by making the suits worn by astronauts in the Shuttle and Space Station missions. As America has gone further into space, so has ILC, most recently by producing the Pathfinder Airbags that landed on Mars on July 4, 1997. In 1998, in recognition of ILC's history of excellence in the service of America's space missions, Sonny Reihm accepted NASA's top quality award--known as the George Low award--honoring ILC's 100 percent mission success in planetary and space environments. While Mr. Reihm's career has paralleled the NASA space program, under his leadership ILC has gone much farther to produce important advances for the military including the M-40 series protective masks used by our soldiers since the end of Desert Storm, the Demilitarized Protective Ensemble, Aircrew protective mask systems, collective protection Chem- Bio shelters, and lighter-than-air Aerostats used for monitoring and detection. ILC has leveraged these initiatives into commercial applications of protective suits, flexible containment devices for the Pharmaceutical industry, and advertising airships like the blimps seen so often at ball games. Sonny Reihm is a Delawarean through and through. He was born and raised on a farm in the Middletown/Odessa/Townsend area of Delaware. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1960. Upon graduation, he joined ILC as a project engineer when ILC was bidding on the Apollo program. After leading the effort to successfully field the Apollo Space Suit, Mr. Reihm became the general manager of ILC in 1975. His mandate was to diversify the company to survive the post-Apollo mission, while still holding true to ILC's tradition of serving America with its unique technical knowledge. Almost ten years later, in 1984, after meeting the diversification challenge, Sonny became President and general manager of ILC. From 1975 to today, he helped build ILC from a 25-employee corporation, to a major business player in our State and Nation. With 450 employees today, ILC continues to provide needed innovations for NASA, for the military, and for other American businesses. As outstanding as it has been, Sonny Reihm's business success is only one portion of his larger commitment to public service. He has served local and national communities throughout his life through his involvement in the University of Delaware Board of Trustees, the Delaware Manufacturing Association, the National Defense Industrial Association, the Soldier Biological Chemical Command Acquisition Reform Initiatives, the USO in Delaware, and the United Way. On a more personal note, I am proud to call Sonny and his wife Nancy dear friends. After his long, prodigious--indeed astronomic--career, Sonny has earned many years of enjoyment in his retirement with his wife, two daughters and grandchildren. He exemplifies the commitment to excellence and the national good that make Delaware the Small Wonder and keep this Nation strong. It is my honor today to salute him and his many years of business and community service.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, substance abuse is one of our Nation's most pervasive problems. Addiction is a disease that does not discriminate based on age, gender, socio-economic status, race or creed. And while we tend to stereotype drug abuse as an urban problem, the steadily growing number of heroin and methamphetamine addicts in rural villages and suburban towns shows that is simply not the case. We have nearly 15 million drug users in this country, four million of whom are hard-core addicts. We all know someone--a family member, neighbor, colleague or friend--who has become addicted to drugs or alcohol. And we are all affected by the undeniable correlation between substance abuse and crime--an overwhelming 80 percent of the two million men and women behind bars today have a history of drug and alcohol abuse or addiction or were arrested for a drug-related crime. All of this comes at a hefty price. Drug abuse and addiction cost this Nation $110 billion in law enforcement and other criminal justice expenses, medical bills, lost earnings and other costs each year. Illegal drugs are responsible for thousands of deaths each year and for the spread of a number of communicable diseases, including AIDS and Hepatitis C. And a study by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, CASA, shows that seven out of ten cases of child abuse and neglect are caused or exacerbated by substance abuse and addiction. Another CASA study released last week revealed that for each dollar that States spend on substance-abuse related programs, 96 cents goes to dealing with the consequences of substance abuse and only four cents to preventing and treating it. Investing more in prevention and treatment is cost-effective because it will decrease much of the street crime, child abuse, domestic violence, and other social ills that can result from substance abuse. The bill I am introducing today with Senators Hatch, Leahy, DeWine and Thurmond authorizes more than $900 million a year for prevention and treatment programs to reduce the criminal justice, health care, and human costs associated with substance abuse. We know that if someone gets through age 21 without smoking, abusing alcohol, or using drugs, they are unlikely ever to have a substance abuse problem. That is why prevention programs for kids are vital. This bill provides $200 million a year in grants to drug prevention programs like those run by the Boys and Girls Clubs and by law enforcement through the DARE program to get the message out to kids that drugs can ruin their lives. While there is good news that overall drug use has stabilized among students, there is also bad news--use of Ecstasy by high school seniors has increased more than 66 percent. Prevention programs funded by this Act will get the message out to kids that drugs like Ecstasy are incredibly dangerous--even if their friends or a cover story in the New York Times Magazine might make it seem like it is ``no big deal.'' Studies show that Ecstasy can damage regions of the brain responsible for thought and memory. If that isn't a big deal, I don't know what is. This bill also authorizes additional funding for drug treatment, which is desperately needed. Every year since 1989, I have published my own drug report, each of which has advocated a three-prong approach to address the drug problem--prevention, treatment and enforcement. I have always urged more money for treatment because it always gets the short end of the stick. Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing disease. And as with other chronic relapsing diseases--such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma-- there is no cure, although a number of treatments can effectively control the disease. According to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October, the rate of adherence to the treatment program and the relapse rate are similar for drug addiction and other chronic diseases--meaning that treatment for addiction works just as well as treatment for other chronic relapsing diseases. Unfortunately, only two million of the estimated five million people who need drug treatment are receiving it. The Drug Abuse Education, Prevention and Treatment Act takes steps to close this ``treatment gap'' by targeting drug treatment to rural and economically depressed areas, funding adolescent treatment and residential treatment centers for women with children, and increasing funding for the National Institute on Drug Abuse--whose brilliant scientists conduct 85 percent of the world's research on drug abuse--to conduct clinical trials on new treatments for addiction. The bill also reauthorizes two key programs created in the 1994 Biden Crime Law that fund prison-based drug treatment in the state and federal systems. Providing treatment to criminal offenders is not ``soft''; it is smart crime prevention policy as the Key and Crest programs in my home state of Delaware have shown. If we do not treat addicted offenders before they are released, they will return to our streets with the same addiction problem that got them in trouble in the first place, and they are likely to re-offend. This is not my opinion; it is fact. More than 80 percent of inmates with five or more prior convictions have been habitual drug users, compared to approximately 40 percent of first-time offenders. Re-authorizing prison-based treatment programs is a good investment and an important crime prevention initiative. This legislation would also re-authorize the drug court program, a program I have championed and introduced legislation to reauthorize. The Federal Government has funded drug courts since 1994 as a cost- effective, innovative way to deal with non-violent offenders who need drug treatment. Rather than just churning people through the revolving door of the criminal justice system, drug courts help these folks get their acts together so they won't be back. When they graduate from drug court programs they are clean and sober and more prepared to participate in society. In order to graduate, they are required to finish high school or obtain a GED, hold down a job, and keep up with financial obligations, including drug-court fees and child-support payments. Drug courts have been proven effective at keeping offenders with little previous treatment history in treatment, providing closer supervision than other community programs to which the offenders could be assigned, reducing crime and being cost-effective. According to the Department of Justice, drug courts save at least $5,000 per offender each year in prison costs alone. That says nothing of the savings associated with future crime prevention and freeing scarce prison beds for violent criminals. But most important, more than 500 drug-free babies have been born to female drug court participants, a sizable victory for society and the budget alike. This Act also includes my ``Offender Reentry and Community Safety Act of 2001,'' which creates demonstration programs to oversee the reintegration of high-risk, high-need offenders into society upon release. These individuals have served their prison sentences, but they pose the greatest risk of re-offending because they lack the education, job skills, stable family or living arrangements, and the substance abuse treatment and other mental and medical health services they need to successfully re-integrate into society. According to the Department of Justice, 1.25 million offenders are now living in prisons and another 600,000 offenders are incarcerated in local jails. A record number of those inmates--nearly 590,000--will return to communities this year. Historically, two-thirds of returning prisoners have been re-arrested for new crimes within three years. The safety threat posed by this number of prisoner returns has been exacerbated by the fact that states and communities can't possibly properly supervise all their returning offenders. In fact, parole systems have been abolished in thirteen States, and policy shifts toward more determinate sentencing have reduced the courts' authority to impose supervisory conditions on offenders returning to their communities. The demonstration reentry programs created by this bill would help supervise these people when they are released from jail and make sure they get the mental health, substance abuse and other services they need so that they won't go back to a life of crime and can be productive members of our society. I believe that the Drug Abuse Education, Prevention and Treatment Act is a good piece of legislation. Strong treatment and prevention programs are a vital part of a comprehensive drug strategy. Forestalling drug abuse and treating it when it occurs is sensible policy in terms of saving money, preventing crime and sparing lives. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, substance abuse is one of our Nation's most pervasive problems. Addiction is a disease that does not discriminate based on age, gender, socio-economic status, race or creed. And while we tend to stereotype drug abuse as an urban problem, the steadily growing number of heroin and methamphetamine addicts in rural villages and suburban towns shows that is simply not the case. We have nearly 15 million drug users in this country, four million of whom are hard-core addicts. We all know someone--a family member, neighbor, colleague or friend--who has become addicted to drugs or alcohol. And we are all affected by the undeniable correlation between substance abuse and crime--an overwhelming 80 percent of the two million men and women behind bars today have a history of drug and alcohol abuse or addiction or were arrested for a drug-related crime. All of this comes at a hefty price. Drug abuse and addiction cost this Nation $110 billion in law enforcement and other criminal justice expenses, medical bills, lost earnings and other costs each year. Illegal drugs are responsible for thousands of deaths each year and for the spread of a number of communicable diseases, including AIDS and Hepatitis C. And a study by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, CASA, shows that seven out of ten cases of child abuse and neglect are caused or exacerbated by substance abuse and addiction. Another CASA study released last week revealed that for each dollar that States spend on substance-abuse related programs, 96 cents goes to dealing with the consequences of substance abuse and only four cents to preventing and treating it. Investing more in prevention and treatment is cost-effective because it will decrease much of the street crime, child abuse, domestic violence, and other social ills that can result from substance abuse. The bill I am introducing today with Senators Hatch, Leahy, DeWine and Thurmond authorizes more than $900 million a year for prevention and treatment programs to reduce the criminal justice, health care, and human costs associated with substance abuse. We know that if someone gets through age 21 without smoking, abusing alcohol, or using drugs, they are unlikely ever to have a substance abuse problem. That is why prevention programs for kids are vital. This bill provides $200 million a year in grants to drug prevention programs like those run by the Boys and Girls Clubs and by law enforcement through the DARE program to get the message out to kids that drugs can ruin their lives. While there is good news that overall drug use has stabilized among students, there is also bad news--use of Ecstasy by high school seniors has increased more than 66 percent. Prevention programs funded by this Act will get the message out to kids that drugs like Ecstasy are incredibly dangerous--even if their friends or a cover story in the New York Times Magazine might make it seem like it is ``no big deal.'' Studies show that Ecstasy can damage regions of the brain responsible for thought and memory. If that isn't a big deal, I don't know what is. This bill also authorizes additional funding for drug treatment, which is desperately needed. Every year since 1989, I have published my own drug report, each of which has advocated a three-prong approach to address the drug problem--prevention, treatment and enforcement. I have always urged more money for treatment because it always gets the short end of the stick. Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing disease. And as with other chronic relapsing diseases--such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma-- there is no cure, although a number of treatments can effectively control the disease. According to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October, the rate of adherence to the treatment program and the relapse rate are similar for drug addiction and other chronic diseases--meaning that treatment for addiction works just as well as treatment for other chronic relapsing diseases. Unfortunately, only two million of the estimated five million people who need drug treatment are receiving it. The Drug Abuse Education, Prevention and Treatment Act takes steps to close this ``treatment gap'' by targeting drug treatment to rural and economically depressed areas, funding adolescent treatment and residential treatment centers for women with children, and increasing funding for the National Institute on Drug Abuse--whose brilliant scientists conduct 85 percent of the world's research on drug abuse--to conduct clinical trials on new treatments for addiction. The bill also reauthorizes two key programs created in the 1994 Biden Crime Law that fund prison-based drug treatment in the state and federal systems. Providing treatment to criminal offenders is not ``soft''; it is smart crime prevention policy as the Key and Crest programs in my home state of Delaware have shown. If we do not treat addicted offenders before they are released, they will return to our streets with the same addiction problem that got them in trouble in the first place, and they are likely to re-offend. This is not my opinion; it is fact. More than 80 percent of inmates with five or more prior convictions have been habitual drug users, compared to approximately 40 percent of first-time offenders. Re-authorizing prison-based treatment programs is a good investment and an important crime prevention initiative. This legislation would also re-authorize the drug court program, a program I have championed and introduced legislation to reauthorize. The Federal Government has funded drug courts since 1994 as a cost- effective, innovative way to deal with non-violent offenders who need drug treatment. Rather than just churning people through the revolving door of the criminal justice system, drug courts help these folks get their acts together so they won't be back. When they graduate from drug court programs they are clean and sober and more prepared to participate in society. In order to graduate, they are required to finish high school or obtain a GED, hold down a job, and keep up with financial obligations, including drug-court fees and child-support payments. Drug courts have been proven effective at keeping offenders with little previous treatment history in treatment, providing closer supervision than other community programs to which the offenders could be assigned, reducing crime and being cost-effective. According to the Department of Justice, drug courts save at least $5,000 per offender each year in prison costs alone. That says nothing of the savings associated with future crime prevention and freeing scarce prison beds for violent criminals. But most important, more than 500 drug-free babies have been born to female drug court participants, a sizable victory for society and the budget alike. This Act also includes my ``Offender Reentry and Community Safety Act of 2001,'' which creates demonstration programs to oversee the reintegration of high-risk, high-need offenders into society upon release. These individuals have served their prison sentences, but they pose the greatest risk of re-offending because they lack the education, job skills, stable family or living arrangements, and the substance abuse treatment and other mental and medical health services they need to successfully re-integrate into society. According to the Department of Justice, 1.25 million offenders are now living in prisons and another 600,000 offenders are incarcerated in local jails. A record number of those inmates--nearly 590,000--will return to communities this year. Historically, two-thirds of returning prisoners have been re-arrested for new crimes within three years. The safety threat posed by this number of prisoner returns has been exacerbated by the fact that states and communities can't possibly properly supervise all their returning offenders. In fact, parole systems have been abolished in thirteen States, and policy shifts toward more determinate sentencing have reduced the courts' authority to impose supervisory conditions on offenders returning to their communities. The demonstration reentry programs created by this bill would help supervise these people when they are released from jail and make sure they get the mental health, substance abuse and other services they need so that they won't go back to a life of crime and can be productive members of our society. I believe that the Drug Abuse Education, Prevention and Treatment Act is a good piece of legislation. Strong treatment and prevention programs are a vital part of a comprehensive drug strategy. Forestalling drug abuse and treating it when it occurs is sensible policy in terms of saving money, preventing crime and sparing lives. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor S. Con. Res. 6. This concurrent resolution sends a message of sympathy and support to the people of India, who have been struck by one of the worst natural disasters to afflict their nation in the half-century since Independence. The earthquake which devastated the Western Indian state of Gujarat killed untold thousands. The magnitude of this tragedy is demonstrated by the fact that 30,000 dead is now referred to as an optimistic estimate. Other sources, such as the Indian Minister of Defense, have suggested a worst-case scenario of 100,000 dead. As President Bush noted, a disaster such as this knows no national boundaries. The victims have been the people of India, but the burden of humanitarian relief rests on the shoulders of the entire world community. I congratulate the relief workers, from many nations, who have stepped up to the challenge. The most important work, of course, has been done by the Indians themselves tens of thousands of military and civilian personnel who have labored tirelessly to help save the lives of those trapped in the wreckage. Working alongside them have been search and rescue teams from Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Russia and Turkey. They helped locate victims with state-of-the-art thermal sensors, and with specially- trained canine units. Following closely after the search and rescue teams have been medical units from France, Japan, Israel, Denmark and NGOs like the International Federation of the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders. These nations and groups have set up field hospitals and shipped in medical supplies to tend to the needs of tens of thousands of wounded. Many other countries have offered cash donations, food, tents, blankets, or other humanitarian assistance. Of these donor countries I would like to single out Pakistan for particular commendation: in light of recent tensions, and of Pakistan's own losses in the earthquake--at least a dozen dead, with a full reckoning not yet made--the shipment of relief supplies was an important gesture of peace. The United States, for logistical reasons, has concentrated its efforts on providing potable water, shelter, and food to those rendered homeless by the quake. USAID has already made several airlifts of vital material, and more aid is in the pipeline. When a disaster occurs at such a great geographical remove, US assets might not always be the first to arrive on the spot. But once the US gears up for a challenge, it is equal to any task. The job of the world community now is to make sure that the earthquake does not claim more victims after the last tremors have ceased. The basic human-needs infrastructure of Gujarat has, in many areas, been entirely wiped out: hundreds of thousands of people will be effected, to one degree or another. In a situation like this, diseases like cholera or dysentery--easily preventable, with proper medical and nutritional facilities--can spread like wildfire. Simply insuring that the dispossessed people have access to food, shelter, and clean water can save countless lives. We Americans are a compassionate people. But from the stark figures of relief provided and pledged, the extent of our compassion may not be clear. In the crucial first days following the disaster--when a dozen other countries were actively engaged in rescue and medical support-- our financial pledge was one-third that of Great Britain, a million dollars lower than that of Germany, and a sum less than than the combined pledges of Holland and Italy. Our contribution has since risen, and I am told that it will continue to rise in the days and weeks to come. I certainly hope that it does. And when the time comes to fund the reconstruction of Western India's basic infrastructure a task that will require more than $1 billion in loans from international financial organizations I hope that we will demonstrate the full extent of our country's compassionate nature. Today, as India works to save the lives of its citizens and mourns the lives of those who could not be saved, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Gujarat. I hope that the United States will accelerate its efforts to put these thoughts and prayers into generous, concrete action.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. A couple of weeks ago I had the sad duty to travel to California to represent the Senate and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a memorial service for Senator Alan MacGregor Cranston. It was a moving ceremony, a chance for all those in attendance to rededicate themselves to the noble goals which shaped Alan Cranston's life. Alan Cranston will be remembered by those of us who knew and loved him as a man of peace who devoted much of his adult life--four terms in the Senate and a decade as director of the Global Security Institute-- to the tasks of promoting nuclear arms control and encouraging world peace. These are not small objectives, but of course Alan Cranston's interests extended beyond them, literally, ``. . . from the Redwood Forests to the Gulf stream waters.'' Never content to sit on the sidelines, Alan Cranston fought tirelessly for the causes in which he believed: nuclear disarmament, the environment, civil rights, and decent housing. He brought the intensity of a sprinter and the endurance of a marathoner to each of these causes. During his tenure as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1981-1993, Alan Cranston was a devoted supporter of strong U.S. leadership in the world, whether it meant promoting the development of democracy in the Philippines and Cambodia or working to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Alan Cranston knew that the United States could not go it alone in the world. In an age when American unilateralism, if not isolationism, has gained a certain currency in Washington, Alan Cranston's life reminds us that the highest aspirations of the American people are those which lead us to care about others and work with others to address common problems. The intensity, integrity, and commitment Alan Cranston brought to public service stand as an example we all might follow as we begin work in this 107th Congress. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that a transcript of the remarks made at Senator Cranston's memorial service be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I know we do not have a vote until 3 o'clock. That is when it has been set. I am not sure who is going to be here to speak when, but I am not going to trespass on the Senate's time anymore. I am going to shortly yield the floor, and I look to my colleague to ask whether I should suggest the absence of a quorum or does he wish to speak? Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BIDEN. He kept his commitment. Senator Helms was wary at the front end of this when he was named, whether or not he really was going to do it. He held up his nomination until he came before the committee to say: I will commit to Helms-Biden. Once he did that, it was home free and he headed to work. But he did a remarkable job. So I do not, in my praise for Senator Helms, mean to in any way suggest that at the end of the day this could have been done without the ingenuity, intelligence, and dedication of Ambassador Holbrooke and his staff, who, as the chairman has pointed out, many nights toward the end stayed up close to around the clock getting this locked down. So I think we are at a good place. I have been with my friend from North Carolina too long not to think I understand what is behind his reluctance to lift a cap that locked into law the amount we would pay for peacekeeping. In 1994, out of frustration with the United Nations and its waste and failure to modernize, the U.S. Congress passed a piece of legislation that said starting October 1, 1996 we will not pay any more than 25 percent of the peacekeeping assessment. Then we were being charged about 31 percent, as the Senator said. Now this may confuse people. Although the Helms-Biden change we are making today will allow over half a billion dollars to go to settle our accounts, if we do not do something about that 25 percent cap--because in spite of everything Ambassador Holbrooke, did our peacekeeping rate is not going to go down to 25 percent this year--we will, by the end of the year, accrue another roughly $70 million in debt. We will be behind the 8-ball another $70 million in terms of what we ``owe'' the U.N. If I did not know better, I would say, as the old saying goes, my friend from North Carolina is from Missouri because he is a show-me guy. I am hopeful I can convince him or he can become convinced--not that I can convince him--but he will become convinced before the legislative year is over hopefully that these changes are real and maybe we should lift that 25- percent cap. Knowing him, he may toy with the idea of either not doing it at all, doing it temporarily, doing it conditionally--I do not know what. I know he will come up with something. I say to him and my colleagues, I for one feel very strongly--we have gone this far--we should not now undo the good will and circumstance we have created, primarily through his leadership. Again, not lifting the 25 percent cap now does not do any damage, any injustice, or any harm to the good that has been done, but if we do not by the end of the year deal with this--and he is committed we will deal with it; not how, not what the result will be, what his position will be, but we will deal with it--if we do not deal with it, I fear we will have begun to undo some of the significant good that we did by changing this legislation. Mr. President, I thank former President Clinton and former Secretary Albright who were also instrumental in lobbying world leaders to have their countries accommodate this change, which is overdue. I note parenthetically, when we signed on to these commitments, it was a different world. We were the only game in town economically. The combined GDP of Europe eclipses ours. Thank God, through the good works of a lot of people, including the generosity of the American people, the rest of the world is doing pretty well in many places, and they can afford to pay more. But it still took a lot of cajoling, it took a lot of nursing, it took a lot of diplomatic skill to get it done. I say to my friend from North Carolina, I look forward to, before the summer passes, being back on the floor, hopefully with an agreement on what to do about the 25-percent cap set in 1994, but at least here to ventilate it, debate it, and let the Senate work its will on what we should do about it. I note parenthetically that Secretary of State Powell supports such an amendment to the 1994 law. I received a letter from him 2 days ago on this subject. I have no doubt the Senator has thought about it a lot and will think about it, and I have no doubt that whatever decision he comes to on the 25-percent cap, it will be viewed through the prism of making sure the American people are not paying more than they should and that the American taxpayers catch a break. It has been an honor working with Senator Helms. As I said, he and I came the same year, 1972. We have both been here 28 years, going on 29. We have, as the old saying goes, been together and we have been agin one another. For me, it is always more comfortable when we are together. It has never, never been anything other than a pleasure, since I shifted my responsibilities as top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee to Foreign Relations, working with Senator Helms. I am told there are some of our colleagues who wish to speak to this. I, quite frankly, would be surprised if there is a controversial aspect to this. It passed out of our committee this morning 18-0, unanimously, with very little debate and with some considerable enthusiasm. I hope there will be bipartisan support for these objectives. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the letter from Secretary Powell.

Mr. BIDEN. My grandfather Abrose's name was Abrose Finnigan. He used to say: Remember, God protects two groups of people: well-intended Irishmen who are drunk, and the United States of America. And then he would joke and say: You know, in our history where there are big and large issues, it always seems to be the right person comes along at the right moment to tackle the big issues. Dick Holbrooke, in another generation, maybe would not have been as consequential, but what did we need? We needed a man who was--remember when our friend from Texas won his first Senate race? He beat an incumbent, an appointed Democrat who was a good guy. They asked the Democrat about how he felt the night of the election when he lost. He said: There are two things you should know about Phil Gramm: One, he is meaner than a junk yard dog, and, two, he is smarter than you. There are two things you should know about Dick Holbrooke: One, he is more persistent than Strom Thurmond, which is almost impossible, and he is likely to be smarter than you. He kept his commitment to Senator Helms.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, before I begin, let me, as we say in the Senate, be afforded a personal privilege. I want my colleagues to know and the American people to know that this was accomplished not merely because of the hard, industrious, and imaginative efforts of Ambassador Holbrooke, but this was accomplished primarily because of the Senator from North Carolina. He has been resolute in his commitment to saving the American taxpayers' money. He has been resolute in his commitment to preventing waste, and he has been forthright in his assertion that when U.S. interests are at stake, we should speak up. That is precisely what he did here with regard to the United Nations. As a consequence of his insistence, although this is called Helms- Biden--and I am proud to be a cosponsor of it and am proud to have worked all along with the Senator from North Carolina--but it was his insistence that we condition our commitment to pay what we agree were the arrears, not what the U.N. asserted was the amount of the arrears, upon some serious and genuine reform at the United Nations. Again, it was his insistence on saving the American taxpayers' money if it didn't have to be spent. The result that no one anticipated from his efforts--maybe he did; most didn't; and I was not certain it would turn out this way--has been that not only are the very folks upon whom conditions were forced not angry but they are probably happier with U.S. participation in the United Nations today than at any time in the last probably 15 years--at least the last decade. Senator Helms demonstrated that there was nothing venal, nor was it an attempt at retribution, nor an ideological assault upon the United Nations when he opened this gambit by introducing the legislation and immediately inviting the members of the United Nations to come to Washington, DC, to speak before and meet with the Foreign Relations Committee. I may be mistaken, but I don't think this was ever done before. I don't think at any time in the existence of the United Nations was there a wholesale invitation to the Security Council to come to the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee. The amazing thing is, they all came. They came gleefully. They were slightly skeptical. This was as a consequence of the Senator from North Carolina having first spoken to the Security Council. Again, I don't know how many Senators have addressed the Security Council in the Senate, and I don't know if he was the first, but I know he preceded me, and I can't think of anyone else in my memory who has done that. He went to the United Nations and in his typical southern gentlemanly fashion was bluntly forthright about his objectives. I remember at the time reading in the press some fairly harsh criticism of his assertions, assertions made in his gentlemanly manner in New York. Again, almost everyone was wrong because they anticipated the response would be a further freezing, rather than thawing, of the relationship between the United States and the United Nations. A vast majority thought the U.N. would deny us the right to vote because we were not paying our dues. My colleague, although we arrived the same year, arrived with more wisdom than I did. My colleague, once again, demonstrated that he knew what he was doing. A very close friend of his and a man who actually was a former Democratic State senator, I am told, worked with Senator Helms in years gone by. This man was a public delegate to the United Nations and from North Carolina at the time. I will never forget, and I don't think anyone ever anticipated they would see, a dinner in New York, organized by our Ambassador, to honor Senator Helms. If I am not mistaken, originally something on the order of 100 invitations were sent out, and yet close to 140 Ambassadors of the 180 nations showed up in the large ballroom of a large hotel in New York City to honor the man many in the press and other places wanted to vilify. I never thought I would live to see the day when I saw Senator Jesse Helms, Henry Kissinger, Ambassador Holbrooke, Mr. Belk, the public delegate from North Carolina, and the U.N. brass have their picture taken in the middle of that ballroom wearing blue U.N. caps. That was a bit of an epiphany for me. I was sitting at the table with the German Ambassador. My table had at least three members of the Security Council sitting there. I was amazed to watch what happened. Everyone looked somewhat bemused and amused, and then I noticed all these very dignified diplomats, among the highest ranking persons in their governments, lining up very tactfully, as if they really weren't wanting a picture, to have their picture taken with Senator Jesse Helms. Now, I don't know if Senator Helms expected that--I don't think he did, knowing him. I cite it not to be humorous, not to say this was sort of interesting simply because it happened, but to point out that because of Senator Helms, for the first time in the 28 years I have been here, there is a genuine sense of warmth, there is a degree of trust, there is a greater openness that has occurred between the U.S. and the U.N. as a consequence of his insistence in saving the American taxpayers money. I reluctantly went along with the conditions, as my friend from North Carolina knows. I had no doubt the reforms were needed. I thought we should pay the back dues and then prospectively insist on conditions in the future. It was a distinction with some difference. However, I expect we will have people come to the floor and say the way we finally went was the wrong way to go about it. I point out when we were debating this, and I ask my friend from North Carolina to correct me if I am wrong, I don't remember anybody else who supported the U.N. that garnered one single penny in back dues. I remember saying to a very significant former Member of the House who was upset with the Helms-Biden approach: I will withhold pushing this. I will give you a week if you can come back to me and tell me you are able to raise one single cent in the House of Representatives to pay the back dues; I'll withdraw. The point was, everyone talked about the pure game, the purity of doing it the ``right way,'' which leads to the second point. I have served with my friend too long not to understand he has a very healthy skepticism of international organizations. Not a hostility, skepticism. I have served with him too long not to know that he has a skepticism for international agreements made with people who have histories of not keeping international agreements. And I have served with him too long to underestimate his ability to know how to get things done. He knew better than most of us that even if he thought there should be no conditions--which he thought there should be--that you weren't going to get anything done here. You had to bring along a significant portion of the House and a significant minority in the Senate who didn't even want to pay the back dues; didn't want to pay anything, conditions or not. So as the old saw goes over the last 30 years, anyway, just as only Nixon could go to China, only Helms can fix the U.N. That is true. That is absolutely, positively true. I am sure he has taken some heat from his historically loyal and traditional friends on the center right for doing this, I have no doubt he has taken some heat, but, as usual, being a man who sticks to his principles, he took the heat but in the process of doing so he put the argument against U.S. participation in the U.N. in a position where it had no credibility. How could anyone from the center right challenge the Senator from North Carolina? Nobody doubts his convictions and principle. He is too darned conservative for me. I love him, but he is too darned conservative for me. But if Joe Biden had come along and done this, if Trent Lott had come along and done this, if Dick Lugar and other respected Members did this, and it had been Lott-Biden, anybody on the Republican side, Biden and not Helms, this would not have gotten done. I pay tribute not only to the substantive changes he has wrought, but pay tribute to his tactical genius and how to get it done. It would not have gotten done, without him and we would be standing here today in semicrisis about whether or not we stay in the U.N., whether or not our vote had been taken from us, whether or not it was any longer relevant. We would have had some bitter ideological debates on this floor had he not gotten us to this place. I, for one, think the United Nations is an incredibly valuable institution that, on balance, overwhelmingly benefits the American people. But, I say to my colleagues, don't do what some of us who have served with Senator Helms sometimes do--don't underestimate what this fellow did and does, and don't underestimate how knowledgeable he is about getting something done. I am just glad we were not only in the same hymnal on this one, but on the same page on this one. So I want to personally thank him. He did more than save the American taxpayers $170 million and more to come. He did more than set an atmosphere and tone where now in the United Nations, because of what he did, there is open discussion and debate among the members, not including us, about the need to reform. He was sort of the fellow who came along and said: Hey, but the emperor has no clothes. Everybody sitting there knew the emperor had no clothes on, but Senator Helms said, ``The emperor has no clothes and until he starts getting dressed I am not playing.'' Now I ask a rhetorical question. Did my friend ever think he would hear a debate with everyone from the Chinese Ambassador to the Russian Ambassador to the German Ambassador to the French Ambassador talking about the need for further reform? And going back to their constituents and saying: We need Reform. They want to save taxpayers money as well. So that is a big deal. But the bigger deal, in my view, is there is a new sense of legitimacy and vitality in this Chamber, in this Government, in this country, for the United Nations. I am not Pollyannaish about this. I don't think the United Nations is a one-world government leading to nirvana. That is the farthest from what it is. But it is a practical tool in a number of circumstances, and an increasingly necessary forum for the one superpower in the world to be able to make her views known and garner the support of--or at least prick the conscience of--the rest of the world. We do not want to constantly be put in the position of being that great nation imposing her view on all the rest of the world. What most of our foreign colleagues do not understand is we Americans are uncomfortable being the sole superpower. I often tell our European friends--my colleague knows, I am, as is he, deeply involved with NATO and Europe--I often tell them when they complain about us being the only superpower: You don't understand. Americans were not looking or seeking this title. We don't want to be the superpower. If there has to be one it will be us, but that is not our goal. We have no countries to conquer. We have no desire to impose our will. Americans would just as soon tend to their business and be home. But that is how we are cast today. That is how we are cast by our friends as well as by our foes. I think in that context the United Nations takes on a different and dynamic role with the possibility that we can use it to further our interests. So what my friend from North Carolina did is make that possible. Whether the U.N. meets those expectations, whether it continues down the road of reform, whether it does what it has the potential to do, remains to be seen. But we would not even be in this position today, February 7, 2001, talking about this possibility were it not for his insistence. As I said, only Nixon could go to China. Only Helms could make the U.N. relevant at the end of this century and the beginning of the next. I know he understands, but knowing how he is, he probably refuses to believe how big a role that he played. It is literally that big. That is the deal. That is why this is so consequential. This legislation before us is, in a sense, inconsequential. We are changing one number in a piece of legislation to accommodate what we believe to be the good-faith serious effort to have embarked upon and stay embarked upon making an institution of the 20th century relevant in the 21st century. As my friend and I have pointed out, we have both spoken at the Security Council. We have both had private meetings, and jointly, with I think literally almost every single delegate to the United Nations. The luncheon he and I did up there, there were 160-some U.N. ambassadors. I doubt whether there is a single U.N. representative-- there may be one; I will be dumbfounded if there are more than 20--who has not personally met Senator Helms and personally interfaced with him. You know, it is an interesting phenomenon. When they looked him in the eye, when they heard him talk and saw him, and kind of touched him, they realized this is the real deal. This isn't about bashing the United Nations for hometown political consumption. And it has had a dramatic impact on the attitude that institution has about itself, the attitude of the American people have about it, the attitude of this body has about it, and the potential utility of that institution to work the way we hoped it would work. As the chairman has explained, this legislation was reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations earlier today by a vote of 18-0. This bill is neither long nor complicated. Let me explain it briefly. In late 1999, Congress passed legislation--the so-called ``Helms- Biden'' law--which authorizes payment of $926 million owed to the United Nations in back dues, conditioned on certain reforms in the United Nations. The bill provided for payment of the funds in three installments. Each installment was linked to a set of reforms in the United Nations. The first installment of $100 million was paid in December 1999. The second installment authorized is $582 million. The key reform linked to this installment is a requirement that the amount of money the United States pays for U.N. operations be reduced. We believed such reductions were important because the United Nations had become overly dependent on the United States for its funding. Also, the economies of many other nations had grown considerably since the rates were last reviewed seriously in the early 1970s, and we believed it only fair that a greater share of the budget burden be assumed by those countries. I am pleased to report that there has been remarkable progress, not only in the reduction of the U.S. assessment rates, but in U.N. institutional reform in general. Let me talk about the budget reductions. The United Nations has two budgets. The first budget is the so-called regular budget, which pays for the day-to-day operations of the U.N. Secretariat in New York. The law that Congress enacted in 1999 required that the rate we are charged for this budget be reduced from 25 percent to 22 percent of the total budget. Our previous Ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, achieved this objective. Effective January 1, our assessment for this budget is 22 percent. The second budget is for U.N. peacekeeping operations--for the soldiers in blue helmets around the world. The Helms-Biden law required that our assessment be cut from a rate of just over 30 percent to 25 percent. Here, as some in the new administration who come from Texas might say, we did not get the whole enchilada--Ambassador Holbrooke did not get our rate down to 25 percent, but Ambassador Holbrooke succeeded in reducing our peacekeeping assessment substantially. Effective January 1, our peacekeeping rate has been cut to just over 28 percent. It will continue to go down gradually to 26.5 percent by 2003, and possibly lower after that. It is not everything we wanted, but Senator Helms and I believe that the United Nations has met us more than halfway--and that we should respond. Accordingly, the bill before the Senate amends the original Helms- Biden legislation to change the one legislative provision that was not completely satisfied. Taking that step will release the second installment of $582 million . The bill was approved unanimously by the Committee on Foreign Relations, and I hope the vote in the Senate will also be unanimous. So let me reiterate. Dick Holbrooke took us a long way.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senator Hutchison, Senator Lott, Senator Daschle, and 47 other cosponsors, the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001. With this legislation we continue the work begun by our former colleagues, Senator Bill Roth, Senator Pat Moynihan, and especially Senator Frank Lautenberg, who worked so hard in the last Congress to support high speed intercity passenger rail. Since the very first steam locomotive in this country rolled in Newcastle, Delaware, railroading has been a capital-intensive industry. From the rolling stock to the right of way, railroads require major long-term investments. But unlike every other passenger rail system in the world, Amtrak has lacked a secure source of public support for its capital needs. Over the years, along with many of my colleagues here in the Senate, I have looked for ways to right that wrong. The bill that Senator Hutchison and I introduce today is designed to provide Amtrak with the capital funds to establish a truly national high speed passenger rail system. The idea is simple, and it is modeled on a program we already have in place to support another important public priority, public school construction. Under this legislation, Amtrak is authorized to issue, over the next ten years, up to $12 billion in bonds. Instead of an interest payment, the holders of those bonds will be paid by a rebate on their federal income taxes. The funds generated from the sale of the bonds will be available for investments in high speed rail corridors throughout the country, from the established and profitable Northeast Corridor to planned corridors from Florida to the Pacific Northwest. One thing I learned from my days on the County Council in Delaware was that each route on a bus system supports and sustains the others. Cut one route, and ridership will fall off on the others as the whole system becomes less useful. Conversely, the more complete the system the more people will find that it meets their needs. Another thing I learned on the county council, Mr. President, is that if state and local governments are required to put up some of their own funds to match assistance from the federal government, they will think long and hard about the best use of their funds. That is why this legislation requires a twenty percent match by the state before a high speed rail project can qualify for the support this bill provides. This provision not only provides an additional safeguard that high speed rail investments meet the many real needs the states have, but it also assures that the funds will be there to pay off the bonds as they come due. Before a project is eligible for the funds raised under this bill, it must be reviewed by the Secretary of Transportation for its financial soundness, its role in a national passenger rail system, and its contribution to balance among the many regional corridors in the national system. I know that I don't have to tell my colleagues about the growing chorus of public complaints about air travel in this country. All over the country, overworked and over booked airports and flyways keep passengers sitting in terminals or out on the runways, waiting for some movement in a clogged system. The vast majority of our most crowded airports are located near rail lines that could take some of those passengers where they need to go faster, safer, and more comfortably. But only if we make the same investment in passenger rail that every other advanced economy does, Mr. President. Today, those tracks carry no passengers while our airports are bursting at the seams. The same is true for the major highway corridors between our nation's cities. Those arteries are clogged with every kind of traffic, from freight haulers to vacationers to business travelers. Many of them run parallel to major rail corridors, that could share some of that load. But only, Mr. President, if we make the same investment in passenger rail that every other advanced economy does. Just look at the lack of balance in our transportation spending, Mr. President. We spend $80 billion a year on our highways. We spend a billion just cleaning up road kills, and more than a billion a year salting icy roads. But we spend less than $600 million a year on rail infrastructure. We spend $19 billion a year on aviation, but, again, less than $600 million on rail. These numbers are even more disturbing when you realize what you get for each dollar spent. Look at the enormous cost of individual projects. Construction of a freeway in Los Angeles costs $125 million per mile. Per mile, Mr. President. But that is cheap compared to the ``Big Dig'' Central Artery in Boston--the price tag on that is $1.5 billion per mile. Airport construction is just as expensive: the Denver International Airport cost $4.2 billion. To expand the Los Angeles International Airport will involve $3 billion to $4 billion in ground transportation costs alone. High speed passenger rail investments can get a lot more done for a lot less money--five to ten times as much as an investment in new highways. For example, expanding I-95, our major east-coast highway corridor, by just one lane can cost as much as $50 million a mile. That works out to about 45 passengers per hour for every million dollars. But a mile of new, high-speed rail track, which can cost $8 million a mile, will move 450 passengers per hour for every million dollars invested. That's a good deal all around.--fewer cars, less pollution, more people getting where they want to go. Under the terms of the Amtrak Reform Act of 1997, we have put Amtrak on a path to self-sufficiency in its operating budget by the year 2003. I have said many times that I do not think that this is the wisest course. Given the long history of underfunding Amtrak's needs, I am far from convinced that we have put Amtrak in a position to reach full operating self sufficiency by that artificial deadline. But whatever we make of that deadline on operating support, Mr. President, it is clear that the very least we can do is provide Amtrak with the capital funds to become the passenger rail service this nation needs. With the commitment of the leadership in both parties, with the support of over half of the Senate on the day of its introduction, this legislation is off to a great start. We will need all of these resources and more to see this through to final passage, and to get a real, world-class passenger rail system for the United States under way. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senator Hutchison, Senator Lott, Senator Daschle, and 47 other cosponsors, the High Speed Rail Investment Act of 2001. With this legislation we continue the work begun by our former colleagues, Senator Bill Roth, Senator Pat Moynihan, and especially Senator Frank Lautenberg, who worked so hard in the last Congress to support high speed intercity passenger rail. Since the very first steam locomotive in this country rolled in Newcastle, Delaware, railroading has been a capital-intensive industry. From the rolling stock to the right of way, railroads require major long-term investments. But unlike every other passenger rail system in the world, Amtrak has lacked a secure source of public support for its capital needs. Over the years, along with many of my colleagues here in the Senate, I have looked for ways to right that wrong. The bill that Senator Hutchison and I introduce today is designed to provide Amtrak with the capital funds to establish a truly national high speed passenger rail system. The idea is simple, and it is modeled on a program we already have in place to support another important public priority, public school construction. Under this legislation, Amtrak is authorized to issue, over the next ten years, up to $12 billion in bonds. Instead of an interest payment, the holders of those bonds will be paid by a rebate on their federal income taxes. The funds generated from the sale of the bonds will be available for investments in high speed rail corridors throughout the country, from the established and profitable Northeast Corridor to planned corridors from Florida to the Pacific Northwest. One thing I learned from my days on the County Council in Delaware was that each route on a bus system supports and sustains the others. Cut one route, and ridership will fall off on the others as the whole system becomes less useful. Conversely, the more complete the system the more people will find that it meets their needs. Another thing I learned on the county council, Mr. President, is that if state and local governments are required to put up some of their own funds to match assistance from the federal government, they will think long and hard about the best use of their funds. That is why this legislation requires a twenty percent match by the state before a high speed rail project can qualify for the support this bill provides. This provision not only provides an additional safeguard that high speed rail investments meet the many real needs the states have, but it also assures that the funds will be there to pay off the bonds as they come due. Before a project is eligible for the funds raised under this bill, it must be reviewed by the Secretary of Transportation for its financial soundness, its role in a national passenger rail system, and its contribution to balance among the many regional corridors in the national system. I know that I don't have to tell my colleagues about the growing chorus of public complaints about air travel in this country. All over the country, overworked and over booked airports and flyways keep passengers sitting in terminals or out on the runways, waiting for some movement in a clogged system. The vast majority of our most crowded airports are located near rail lines that could take some of those passengers where they need to go faster, safer, and more comfortably. But only if we make the same investment in passenger rail that every other advanced economy does, Mr. President. Today, those tracks carry no passengers while our airports are bursting at the seams. The same is true for the major highway corridors between our nation's cities. Those arteries are clogged with every kind of traffic, from freight haulers to vacationers to business travelers. Many of them run parallel to major rail corridors, that could share some of that load. But only, Mr. President, if we make the same investment in passenger rail that every other advanced economy does. Just look at the lack of balance in our transportation spending, Mr. President. We spend $80 billion a year on our highways. We spend a billion just cleaning up road kills, and more than a billion a year salting icy roads. But we spend less than $600 million a year on rail infrastructure. We spend $19 billion a year on aviation, but, again, less than $600 million on rail. These numbers are even more disturbing when you realize what you get for each dollar spent. Look at the enormous cost of individual projects. Construction of a freeway in Los Angeles costs $125 million per mile. Per mile, Mr. President. But that is cheap compared to the ``Big Dig'' Central Artery in Boston--the price tag on that is $1.5 billion per mile. Airport construction is just as expensive: the Denver International Airport cost $4.2 billion. To expand the Los Angeles International Airport will involve $3 billion to $4 billion in ground transportation costs alone. High speed passenger rail investments can get a lot more done for a lot less money--five to ten times as much as an investment in new highways. For example, expanding I-95, our major east-coast highway corridor, by just one lane can cost as much as $50 million a mile. That works out to about 45 passengers per hour for every million dollars. But a mile of new, high-speed rail track, which can cost $8 million a mile, will move 450 passengers per hour for every million dollars invested. That's a good deal all around.--fewer cars, less pollution, more people getting where they want to go. Under the terms of the Amtrak Reform Act of 1997, we have put Amtrak on a path to self-sufficiency in its operating budget by the year 2003. I have said many times that I do not think that this is the wisest course. Given the long history of underfunding Amtrak's needs, I am far from convinced that we have put Amtrak in a position to reach full operating self sufficiency by that artificial deadline. But whatever we make of that deadline on operating support, Mr. President, it is clear that the very least we can do is provide Amtrak with the capital funds to become the passenger rail service this nation needs. With the commitment of the leadership in both parties, with the support of over half of the Senate on the day of its introduction, this legislation is off to a great start. We will need all of these resources and more to see this through to final passage, and to get a real, world-class passenger rail system for the United States under way. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.