Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Reserving the right to object, I would like to follow the Senator from New Jersey, as well. I have been waiting.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment by the Senator from Tennessee. Although well-intentioned, the Thompson amendment--the so-called ``China Nonproliferation Act''--is a deeply flawed approach to addressing the proliferation problem. At the outset, let me stipulate to a couple of points about which the Senator is correct. First, I fully agree with the Senator that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction poses a serious threat to our national security. I commend him for his concern, which I know is sincere. Second, I agree with the Senator's assertion that the People's Republic of China has a poor proliferation track record. China's exports of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them have made the world a more dangerous place. Unfortunately, our concerns are not all historical. You won't find much argument in this body if the Administration decided today to impose sanctions on China--using existing law--for its continuing export of ballistic missile technology to Pakistan. The debate isn't about whether China has a clean record in the area of nonproliferation. It does not. Period. No, this debate is about how we get the Chinese and other proliferators to clean up their act. So I ask my colleagues to keep their eyes on the ball. The question each of us should ask as we evaluate the Thompson amendment is this: At the end of the day, is the Thompson amendment likely to improve U.S. security by reducing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them? I believe the answer is no. The legislation offered by Senator Thompson is deeply flawed. Since its introduction, the Thompson amendment has been revised at least three or four times. I give the Senator credit for trying to fix the bill's many flaws. Unfortunately, with each version, this bill has not substantially improved. In its earliest iteration, at least we knew what this bill was all about. It was all about undercutting the very normal trade relations that we are about to vote to make permanent with China and instead treating China like a virtual enemy. The likely effect of the original version of the ``China Nonproliferation Act'' was to gut normal trade relations with China, shut down trade in dual-use items, deny China access to our capital markets, end educational and scientific exchanges, and suspend the bilateral dialog on a range of important issues, including counter- narcotics and counter-terrorism. It was clear-cut. It was unambiguous. And it was unambiguously contrary to the national interest. The current version of the amendment does not have that coherence. Rather, it is a legislative stew containing an assortment of ingredients, not all of which go together. It has several major flaws. The first major flaw is that although the sponsors have advertised the amendment as targeting certain rogue states, in fact it also targets American firms and firms located in several western nations. On its face, the amendment purports to target only those countries highlighted by the Director of Central Intelligence in a seminannual report as ``key suppliers'' of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies. Those countries, under the most current version of this report, released earlier this summer, are China, Russia, and North Korea. But closer examination of the amendment reveals that it would likely expose some of our closest allies--and even U.S. firms--to scrutiny under this bill. Let me explain. This is a bit complicated, so I hope colleagues will bear with me. Under the amendment, the President must submit a report to Congress annually--``identifying every person of a covered country for whom there is credible information indicating that such person'' has transferred dangerous technology to other foreign entities or has diverted U.S. technology in such a way so as to contribute to development of weapons of mass destruction. A ``covered country'' is a term that is defined in the bill: it is any country identified by the Director of Central Intelligence as a ``source or supply'' of dual-use or other technology in the most current report required under Section 721 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997. A country is also a ``covered country'' if it was so identified in this report at any time within the previous five years. Guess what? In 1997, this report by the Director of Central Intelligence specifically named the United States, as well as several Western European nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, as ``favorite targets of acquisition for foreign weapons of mass destruction programs, especially for dual-use goods not controlled by [certain] multilateral export control regimes.'' That makes those nations a ``source or supply'' of dual-use or other technology under the terms of the Thompson amendment. So what does this mean? It means the President will have to report to Congress on any ``credible information'' that the Executive Branch has on either (1) United States firms, or (2) European firms regarding transfers of dangerous technology. Sanctions are unlikely to result against U.S. or European firms, for two reasons. First, after this report is provided to Congress, the President must then formally determine that the firm has actually engaged in the proliferation activity--not merely that there is credible information that it has. Second, even if the President makes such a determination, the amendment exempts from the sanctions any nation that is part of a multilateral control regime on proliferation--as the United States and the major Western powers are. But for the firms named in this original report, the damage will have been done. First, the companies will surely be subject to negative publicity based on the very low ``credible information'' standard--and suffer financial and other damage that may flow from such publicity. Second, Section 8 of the amendment requires the firm, if its stock is listed on U.S. capital markets, to make this information--that is, the information that they have been cited in the presidential report-- available in reports and disclosure statements required under the Securities Exchange Act. In short, the bill places a ``scarlet letter'' on the reputation of firms--based on information that may later prove to be unfounded. This is a pretty breathtaking provision--which requires the President to shoot first, and ask questions later. The second major flaw of the bill is that the amendment is its rigidity. It imposes a one-size-fits-all straitjacket on the President--forcing him to impose numerous sanctions against an offending company, no matter the gravity of the violation, and it requires him to impose the same set of sanctions in every instance. Under the amendment, if the President determines that a person or firm has engaged in prohibited proliferation activity, then the President must apply five different penalties on such firms--including a ban on military and dual-use exports from the United States to such firms, and a ban on the provision of any U.S. assistance, including any loans, credits, or guarantees to such firms. This would include Export-Import Bank financing and assistance from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. The President has no flexibility to tailor the penalty to fit the crime. He must impose all five punitive measures against the offending person for at least one year--even if the behavior is corrected immediately. He cannot dangle carrots encouraging the firm or nation to clean up its act. The only flexibility he would have is to invoke a national security waiver. And I doubt such a high waiver will be justifiable in each and every case. I believe it is extremely unwise to tie the President's hands in this manner. We are not clairvoyant, and we should give the President flexibility to calibrate his response--and the power to cope with changing circumstances which we cannot foresee. It is also unwise to impose the same set of penalties on different cases. Should we treat the transfer of an item on Category Two of the Missile Technology Control Regime the less serious of the two categories in that regime--such as telemetry software--the same as a transfer of a complete missile system? Current missile sanctions law permit this sort of differentiation. The Thompson amendment does not. On Monday the Senator from Tennessee implied that the sanctions under this provision are somehow discretionary--that the President has the flexibility on whether or not to impose sanctions under Section 4 of the amendment. This is simply not true. Under Section 4 of the amendment, ``if the President determines that a person identified in a report submitted pursuant to section 3 has engaged in an activity described under section (3)(a)(1), the President shall apply to such person'' the sanctions for not less than one year. In other words, if the President finds that a person engages in a proliferation activity, he must apply the sanctions. He has no discretion--if he sees that the requisite facts exist, he must impose sanctions. Don't take my word for it. A few years ago, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice interpreted similar language in another non-proliferation law-- the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991. It concluded that the President ``has a duty to make determinations, not merely the discretion to do so.'' And once he makes those determinations, then the sanctions under the law are triggered. So, too in the Thompson amendment. If the President determines that the proliferation action has occurred, then the sanctions must be imposed. To be sure, the bill allows the President to waive the sanctions. But the act of making the initial determination is not waivable. The third major flaw is that the bill will undermine the credibility of existing sanctions laws because it has an extremely low burden of proof and does not differentiate serious violations from trivial ones. Let me explain first how sanctions are triggered in the bill. Two kinds of behavior are sanctionable: the first is any transfer of technology of any origin by a person of a covered country--and remember, ``covered country'' includes the United States and several European allies--which contributes to the ``design, development, production, or acquisition of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or ballistic or cruise missiles'' by a foreign person. The second action that is sanctionable is any contribution to a weapons of mass destruction program made by the diversion of U.S.- origin technology to an unauthorized end-user. Such diversions are sanctionable even if they occur within China or Russia. The bill penalizes either of these actions--technology transfers or diversion--regardless of whether they are either ``knowing'' or ``material.'' Nearly all of our current proliferation sanctions laws contain these ``knowing'' and ``material'' requirement--they do not attempt to punish transfers that are unintentional or are relatively inconsequential. For example, Section 73 of the Arms Export Control Act--the existing missile sanctions law--requires sanctions whenever a foreign person ``knowingly'' transfers equipment or technology controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime, MTCR. Items controlled by the MTCR meet the test of ``materiality'' because they involve either complete missile systems or significant components of such systems. The Thompson bill, however, punishes all transfers--regardless of whether the firm intentionally engaged in the prohibited conduct or whether the transfer made any difference to the program of the recipient nation. The only standard is whether is it ``contributes'' to the ``design, development, production, or acquisition'' of weapons of mass destruction programs. This, potentially, has a very broad sweep. Does a vehicle supplied by Russia, the United States or a western country and used by the People's Liberation Army to transport goods from one weapons plant to another ``contribute'' to ``production'' of Chinese missiles? Does cement for a Chinese cruise missile plant ``contribute'' to the ``production'' of such missiles? Does advice from an efficiency expert ``contribute'' to ``production''? Surely they do ``contribute'' in some way to the production occurring at the facility. Under the Thompson amendment, all ``contributions''--even these relatively inconsequential examples I just cited--would appear to be treated equally. If we are going to impose sanctions, we should have a rule of reason--and punish transfers that matter. Do we really want to trigger the vast machinery of sanctions over transfers that are not of serious concern? Additionally, do we want to trigger a vast array of sanctions if the company did not act intentionally? The fourth major flaw of the amendment is that it could undermine our proliferation policy by singling out China, Russia, and North Korea. A law that singles out the worst proliferators might, at first blush, make sense. But it sends an odd message to the world that we care only about proliferation from those countries. Why shouldn't we care just as much about proliferation by Libyan or Syrian firms as by Chinese firms? To be effective, U.S. sanctions law should be defensible to the world. We can logically explain that proliferation to Iran or Iraq deserves special attention--because of the rogue behavior of those countries. But what is the logic for treating proliferation from China, Russia, and North Korea more seriously than proliferation from other countries? Moreover, country-specific legislation is unnecessary. If China, Russia, and North Korea are the worst actors in this area, then any law that applies generally will fall on them disproportionately. In fact, current proliferation sanctions laws have been used against these three countries more than most others. The fifth major flaw of the amendment is that it will impose an incredibly burdensome reporting requirement on the intelligence community and the Executive Branch officials responsible for enforcing non-proliferation policy. The amendment requires that all ``credible information'' about proliferation activity, no matter whether it is proven or not, no matter whether the activity is significant or not, be included as part of a new magnum opus. This low ``credible information" standard is derived from the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. Under this standard, one piece of information from a source deemed to be credible must be reported--even if that evidence later proves to be false. Congress has yet to receive the first report required under that Act. But we do have some information about the burden it is imposing. To date, the Intelligence Community has found 8,000 pages of information that is ``credible'' just on chemical and biological weapons and missile proliferation alone. Many thousands of staff hours will be required to assemble and analyze the information for this report. Does it really make sense to have our government's non-proliferation specialists devoting so much time to assembling yet another report--rather than combating the proliferation danger? Congress hardly suffers from a lack of information about proliferation. We already require a range of reports on the subject. For example: Congress receives an annual report on proliferation of missiles and essential components of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons-- required since 1991; Congress receives an annual report on the threat posed to the United States by weapons of mass destruction, ballistic and cruise missiles-- required since 1997; Congress receives an annual report on the efforts of foreign countries to obtain chemical and biological weapons and efforts of foreign persons or governments to assist such programs --required since 1991; Congress receives an annual report on the transfer of chemical agents and the trade precursor chemicals relevant to chemical weapons-- required since 1997 under the Senate resolution consenting to the Chemical Weapons Convention; Congress receives an annual report on compliance with international arms control agreements, which includes a detailed assessment of adherence of other nations to obligations undertaken in nonproliferation agreements or commitments--required since the mid- 1980s. In addition, Members of Congress have full access to a range of regular intelligence reports on the subject of proliferation. In sum, we do not need another report that will divert officials in the Executive Branch from the daily business of trying to actually stop proliferation. Mr. President, I understand the motivation at work here. Proliferation by Russia or China makes me angry too! I would have thought that the limitations of this kind of sledgehammer approach that I have just described would have been made evident by now. So I remind my colleagues: Keep your eye on the ball! This legislation is not likely to be effective in reducing proliferation by irresponsible actors. Let me make one final point. One underlying assumption of the Thompson bill seems to be that there are few non-proliferation statutes on the books. Any such assumption would be false--over the last decade Congress has enacted numerous proliferation laws. Let me highlight a few: The Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination of 1991 contains numerous provisions restricting technology to, or imposing sanctions on, to countries or persons proliferating chemical or biological weapons technology; The Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994 bars U.S. Government procurement in the case of foreign persons who materially contribute to the efforts of individuals or non-nuclear weapons states to acquire nuclear material or nuclear explosive devices, and requires sanctions on financial institutions that finance the acquisition of nuclear material or nuclear explosive devices. The Foreign Assistance Act bars U.S. foreign assistance to nations that engage in certain proliferation activities; The Arms Export Control Act provides for sanctions against nations that transfer unsafeguarded nuclear materials or against non-nuclear states which use nuclear devices, including the Glenn Amendment sanctions which were imposed on India and Pakistan in 1998. The Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act of 1992 requires sanctions against persons or countries who knowingly and materially contribute to the efforts by Iran or Iraq to acquire chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or to acquire destabilizing numbers and types of advanced conventional weapons. The Export-Import Bank Act bars financing for U.S. exports to any country or person which assists a non-nuclear weapons state to acquire a nuclear device or unsafeguarded special nuclear material. Finally, a Presidential Executive Order (#12938) requires the Secretary of State to impose certain sanctions against foreign persons who materially contribute or attempt to contribute to the efforts of any foreign country to obtain weapons of mass destruction or a missile capable of delivering such weapons. In short, it is a delusion to think we have a shortage of laws. What the senator is complaining about is a failure to use these laws to punish the Chinese and other bad actors. This failure is hardly unique to this Administration. During President Reagan's term, China provided nuclear know-how to Pakistan and missiles to Saudi Arabia. The United States responded by selling advanced conventional weaponry to the People's Liberation Army-- torpedoes for its navy, advanced avionics for its air force, and counter-battery artillery radars for its army. In President Bush's administration, China sold missile technology to Pakistan. The United States responded by briefly imposing sanctions-- and then subsequently liberalizing export controls on a wide range of high technology, including the launch of U.S.-made communication satellites by China. The Clinton Administration has twice sanctioned China for proliferation of missile and chemical technology, but has balked at imposing sanctions in response to China's most recent misdeeds. The failure of Executive Branch to use sanctions authority occurs in both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is often lamentable. But the appropriate response is not enactment of a severely flawed piece of legislation. Mr. President, let me sum up. I understand the Senator's concerns. I agree with him that Chinese proliferation is a serious problem. I disagree with his remedy. I would be pleased to work with him next year in trying to move serious legislation to fill any gaps that may exist in our proliferation laws through the Committee on Foreign Relations--the committee of jurisdiction. But I believe that it would be extremely unwise to pass this legislation, as well-intentioned as it is--because I believe it has so many flaws that it is beyond fixing at this late date. This legislation, as currently written, would not succeed, and could seriously harm our non-proliferation efforts. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Thompson amendment. To reiterate, the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Tennessee have made some good arguments but on the wrong bill. If you listen to the debate of the proponents, you would assume there is no sanction legislation that exists now relative to China. The irony is that there is significant sanction legislation on the books now. This quarrel is about two things. Half the people who are for this amendment are against trade with China. The other half of them--I don't mean literally half--are made up of a mix of people, people who are against the bill, the permanent trade relations bill which my senior colleague is managing, and some who are desperately concerned about the prospect of further proliferation by China. The truth is, what the real fight should be about is why President Bush, President Reagan, and President Clinton have not imposed the laws that are on the books now. We don't need any new sanction laws. We particularly don't need ones that are so desperately flawed as this one, which lowers the threshold so low you can't be certain that, in fact, there is proliferation going on, raises so many questions that we will spend our time litigating this among ourselves more than we will be doing anything about the problem. And further, this is a circumstance where I don't think there is anyone on the floor who would rise up and criticize this administration if they did what I have publicly and privately suggested to them: Impose sanctions now under existing law. I am sure none of my colleagues would do this but their staffs may. I refer them to the last third of my statement where I laid out in detail how many laws are on the books now which were enacted relative to proliferation: the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act, the Export-Import Bank Act, which bars financing of U.S. exports, the Executive Order No. 12938, which requires the Secretary of State to impose certain sanctions, et cetera. All the laws are there now. They exist. What this is really about is the unwillingness in the minds of our colleagues, some of our colleagues, for this administration to once again impose sanctions, or the last administration to impose sanctions. We became fairly cynical around here because of what happened during the terms of the last two Presidents. What was the response to documented proliferation by China, for example, during President Reagan's term; when China provided nuclear know-how to Pakistan and missiles to Saudi Arabia? The U.S. response, under President Reagan, was to sell advanced conventional weaponry to the People's Liberation Army, torpedoes for its navy, advanced avionics for its air force, and counterbattery artillery radars for its army. In the Bush administration, China sold missile technology to Pakistan. The United States responded by briefly imposing sanctions and then subsequently liberalizing export controls on a wide range of high- technology issues, including the launch of U.S.-made communications satellites by China. This isn't about whether or not nonproliferation laws exist. It is about whether or not we have the will to impose upon the President the requirement that he enforce the law now. Why not pass a resolution here and now and say that the Senate goes on record saying, Mr. President, you should impose sanctions on China now? There is enough of a case to do it now. Why not do that, if you are really concerned about sanctions? This goes beyond that. Everybody knows if this or any other amendment passes attached to this bill, the larger issue of trade with China is dead, for this term anyway. In the brief time I have remaining, let me jump to another point. My friends talk about this in terms of--and I don't doubt their sincerity--their strategic concerns. They talk about the fact of what is going to happen if China sells technology again; what are we going to do? The implication being, had we acted on this amendment favorably and passed it, then China wouldn't sell any more weapons technology. That is a bit of a tautology. They would sell it whether or not this amendment is here. The question is what retribution we take and in what form we take it. I ask the rhetorical question to my friends from Tennessee and New Jersey, and others who support this amendment. Right now we are trying very hard to deal with two things in North Korea: the existence of fissile material that is able to make nuclear bombs, and their ability to produce a third stage for their Taepo Dong missile that would allow that missile to reach the United States, although it is problematic whether they could put a nuclear weapon on it even if it had a third stage because of the throw-weight requirements. So what have we been doing? Former Secretary of Defense Perry, and the last administration as well, have been trying to get the Chinese to use their influence on North Korea not to develop long-range missiles. And what has happened? It is kind of interesting that the first amelioration, the first thawing of the ice came with the Agreed Framework during Perry's tenure. The Agreed Framework made sure that North Korea would not be able to acquire more fissile material for nuclear weapons. They stopped making fissile material. It is working. Surprise, surprise. The second thing is, because of our intercession with China, at least in part, the Chinese had a little altar call, as we say in the southern part of my State, with the North Koreans. The North Korean leader, the guy we were told was holed up, who is manic depressive, a guy who was supposedly schizophrenic, everything else you hear about him, went to Beijing. He came back. Guess what. He had a public meeting with South Korea. Guess what. He concluded that they would stop testing their missile, the third stage of their missile. He further concluded that there should be some rapprochement with the south. And lo and behold, Kim Jong-il concluded that he, and the North Koreans, wants American troops in South Korea. Surprise, surprise. Why? They don't want the vacuum filled by an Asian power if we leave. China doesn't want North Korea to have a nuclear capacity. It is not in their interest for that to occur. Now, somebody tell me how we solve the problem of the proliferation of sophisticated nuclear weapons on the subcontinent of India, including Pakistan and India, as well as China, if we are not engaging China. I don't get this. From a strategic standpoint, I don't get how this is supposed to accomplish the strategic goal because my friend from Tennessee and my friend from New Jersey parse out and make a clear distinction between the strategic objective of their amendment and the economic objective. They say they have no economic objective. Therefore, they are for free trade. They don't want to scuttle the trade agreement. They say their interest is in the strategic problem of proliferation. I respectfully suggest that amendment is not going to, in any way, change China's proliferation instincts. What is going to change China's proliferation instincts will be a larger engagement with China on what is in our mutual interests--discussions about strategic doctrine, national missile defense, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. That will effect relations with China, potentially, in a positive way. Passing this amendment, as my friend from New York said in another venue when I was with him yesterday, will be the most serious foreign policy mistake we will have made in decades. I share his view. I realize it is well intended. My friend from Tennessee says no one has an answer as to how we are going to stop China. I don't have an answer, but I have a forum in which you do that. It is not in the trade bill. It is engaging them in their mutual interests and ours on the future of North Korea, and engaging them and making it clear to them that it is not in their interest to see India become a nuclear state with multiple nuclear warheads and hundreds, if not thousands, of ICBMs. This isn't the way to do it. I thank my colleagues. I realize my time is up. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. How much time do I have?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing a resolution designating October 20, 2000, as ``National Mammography Day''. I am pleased that 54 of my colleagues have endorsed this proposal by agreeing to be original cosponsors. I might note that I have introduced a similar resolution each year since 1993, and on each occasion the Senate has shown its support for the fight against breast cancer by approving the resolution. Each year, as I prepare to introduce this resolution, I review the latest information from the American Cancer Society about breast cancer. For the year 2000, it is estimated that nearly 183,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and slightly fewer than 41,000 women will die of this disease. In past years, I have often commented on how gloomy these statistics were. But as I review how these numbers are changing over time, I have come to the realization that it is really more appropriate to be upbeat about this situation. The number of deaths from breast cancer is falling from year to year. Early detection of breast cancer continues to result in extremely favorable outcomes: 96 percent of women with localized breast cancer will survive 5 years or longer. New digital techniques make the process of mammography much more rapid and precise than before. Government programs will provide free mammograms to those who can't afford them. Information about treatment of breast cancer with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy has exploded, reflecting enormous research advances in this disease. So I am feeling quite positive about breast cancer. A diagnosis of breast cancer is not a death sentence, and I encounter long-term survivors of breast cancer so frequently now on a daily basis that I scarcely give it a second thought. And the key to this success is early diagnosis and treatment, with routine periodic mammography being the linchpin of the entire process. Routine mammography can locate a breast cancer as much as 2 years before it would be detectable by self- examination. The statistics tell the story: the number of breast cancer deaths is declining despite an increase in the number of breast cancer cases diagnosed. More women are getting mammograms, more breast cancer is being diagnosed, and more of these breast cancers are discovered at an early and highly curable stage. So my message to women is: have a periodic mammogram. Early diagnosis saves lives. But I know many women don't have annual mammograms, usually because of either fear or forgetfulness. Some women avoid mammograms because they are afraid of what they will find. To these women, I would say that if you have periodic routine mammograms, and the latest one comes out positive, even before you have any symptoms or have found a lump on self-examination, you have reason to be optimistic, not pessimistic. Such early-detected breast cancers are highly treatable. Let me consider an analogous situation. We know that high blood pressure is a killer, and we are all advised to get our blood pressure checked from time to time. Are we afraid to do this? No. Why not? Because we know that even if high blood pressure is detected on a screening examination, it can be readily and successfully treated. We also know that high blood pressure is not going to go away by itself, so if we have it, we should find out about it, get it treated, and move ahead with our lives. The argument for having periodic routine mammograms to detect breast cancer is similar. Most of the time, the examination is reassuringly negative. But if it is positive, and your previous routine mammograms were negative, it means that this cancer has been detected early on, when it has a high chance of being cured. And then there is forgetfulness. I certainly understand how difficult it is to remember to do something that only comes around once each year. I would suggest that this is where ``National Mammography Day'' comes in. This year, National Mammography Day falls on Friday, October 20, right in the middle of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On that day, let's make sure that each woman we know picks a specific date on which to get a mammogram each year, a date that she won't forget: a child's birthday, an anniversary, perhaps even the day her taxes are due. On National Mammography Day, let's ask our loved ones: pick one of these dates, fix it in your mind along with a picture of your child, your wedding, or another symbol of that date, and promise yourself to get a mammogram on that date every year. Do it for yourself and for the others that love you and want you to be part of their lives for as long as possible. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in the ongoing fight against breast cancer by cosponsoring and voting for this resolution to designate October 20, 2000, as National Mammography Day.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator from New Jersey and the senior Senator from Delaware for their remarks, and wish to indicate my concurrence with the points that they have made. I have had questions about this project, the planning process, its economic justification, and the potential for environmental harm for a number of years. I further understand that the State of Delaware's capital bond bill committee in July indicated in writing its intention to withhold all state money for the Deepening project until the State's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is satisfied and necessary permits obtained. I believe we need to continue to pursue a resolution to these environmental issues and that the Corps should not move forward to construction unless and until appropriate permits have been issued, and the Congress has before it the information needed to determine that the project is safe and truly justified. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record, several letters from the Delaware DNREC which discuss the State's concerns.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, following the recent G-8 meeting in Okinawa and as we move closer to a vote on Permanent Normal Trading Relations with China, I want to briefly remind my colleagues of the importance of having a regional strategy for Asia. There is a tendency to look at the Korean situation, the relationship between Taiwan and China, our presence in Japan, our presence in Guam, the situation in Indonesia, and so on as independent problems. Or, to just react to one situation at a time, with no overall understanding of how important the regional links and interests that exist are in shaping the outcome of our actions. If we want to play a role in creating more stable allies in South Korea and Japan, and in ensuring that an ever-changing China is also a non-threatening China, then we must recognize that any action we take in one part of the region will have an impact on perceptions and reality throughout the region. I do not intend to give a lengthy speech on this right now, instead I just want to draw my colleagues attention to an excellent letter that I received from General Jones, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. He wrote to discuss just this need for a regional and a long- term perspective as we evaluate our presence in Okinawa. I agree with him that we cannot shape events in the Asia-Pacific region if we are not physically present. So, as we engage in debate over what the proper placement and numbers for that presence are, I urge my colleagues to approach that debate and the debate on China's trade status with an awareness of the interests of the regional powers and an awareness of our national security interests both today and in the future. I ask unanimous consent that the letter from General Jones be printed in the Record following this statement.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of Delaware's most brilliant legal minds and genuinely altruistic public servants--the Honorable William T. Quillen. I have known Judge Quillen for 33 years, since I was an attorney fresh out of law school and looking for a job. As a 32-year old Delaware Superior Court judge he met with me and on blind faith recommended me for my first legal job. He has been a dear friend and confidant ever since. Over the past three decades, I have watched Judge Quillen with pride and admiration attain the greatest judicial heights any lawyer could ever strive for in Delaware, which is universally recognized--nationally and internationally--as having one of the most reputable, intellectual benches bar none. He is known in my state affectionately and respectfully as ``Judge,'' ``Chancellor,'' ``Justice,'' and ``Mr. Secretary of State.'' He nearly became Governor and was my recommendation to President Clinton in June, 1999 to serve on the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals. It was during a medical examination required for this position that his physician detected prostate cancer. For health reasons, we withdrew his name from consideration. I am happy to report that following treatment for prostate cancer, he is as healthy as ever, running 5K races like a man half his age. Now, in classic Bill Quillen altruism--he says it's time to retire from the bench and make way for younger lawyers to serve as judges. Early in his career, Bill Quillen served in the United States Air Force as a judge advocate, then as a top aide for Delaware's Governor. His judicial career began in 1966 on the Superior Court, which is Delaware's primary trial court. In 1973, he was elevated and confirmed as Chancellor of Delaware's renowned Court of Chancery. Following a two-year experience as a private attorney with the Wilmington Trust Company, he again heeded the call for public service. In 1978, the General Assembly had expanded Delaware's Supreme Court from three to five members, and the Governor called on Bill Quillen. He was confirmed unanimously as a Delaware Supreme Court Justice. He served on the State's Highest Court for five years, before stepping down to run for Governor on the Democratic ticket. In one of the rare instances when he did not achieve his goal, Bill Quillen was not bitter or discouraged. In 1993, he accepted Governor Tom Carper's call for continued public service to become Secretary of State. In a state that more than half of the Fortune 500 companies call home, Secretary Quillen made his mark on this prestigious office. But his heart remained in the law. In November, 1994, Governor Carper nominated and the General Assembly unanimously confirmed him to the Court where his storied career began--the Delaware Superior Court. As I said earlier, I believe our federal bench would have been enlightened by his experience and brilliance, but for health reasons, this was not meant to be. What's even more striking than his distinguished legal career is Judge Quillen's love for history. He is a true Delaware historian, with long-time family roots in historic New Castle. His love and respect for the law, democracy and justice for all are unparalleled. Judge Quillen is recognized nationally for his extensive writings on Delaware's Court of Chancery, the history of Equity Jurisdiction in Delaware and the Federal-State Corporate Law Relationship. His colleagues nationwide also have awarded him numerous prestigious awards, including the First Place Award for the 1980 Judge Edward R. Finch Law Day U.S.A. Speech, sponsored by the American Bar Association, on the topic of ``Seven Perceptions of Freedom.'' In June, 1998, he also received the ``American Judicature Society's Herbert Harley Award.'' Judge Quillen will continue to serve as a professor at the Widener University School of Law and plans to spend more time with his wife of 41 years, two daughters and three grandchildren. I have no doubt his legal legacy, knowledge of Delaware, writing and speaking ability will continue to serve our State for many years to come. Judge Quillen is a proud graduate of Harvard Law School, and it was the Dean Emeritus of Harvard Law School--Roscoe Pound--who said: ``Law is experience developed by reason and applied continually to further experience.'' Judge Quillen's vast experience and reasoned principles applied as a member of Delaware's top three courts will forever leave its marks on our body of law in Delaware. Our State and our citizens are so much better for his service. So, Your Honor, May It Please The Court, respectfully accept this statement of profound gratitude and admiration.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the Senate will soon be considering the Treasury and general government appropriations bill. This is one of the important funding bills we will have to pass this year to keep the Government open and running. In addition to the Department of the Treasury, this is the bill that provides moneys for the operation of the White House, the Executive Office of the President, and it also provides funds for the construction of new courthouses, reflecting the priorities of the administrative offices of the courts. It is this third branch of our Government that I will take a few minutes to talk about. In 1994, the Senate and the House passed the Violence Against Women Act which President Clinton then signed into law. As the author of that legislation, securing its passage had been my highest priority for three sessions of Congress. The cause of eliminating violence against women remains my highest priority. I have watched the progress of the implementation of my Violence Against Women Act. In that act we included a provision giving anyone who had been the victim of a crime of violence motivated by gender the right to bring a lawsuit seeking damages from the assailant. On May 15 of this year, in a case called United States v. Morrison, the Supreme Court struck down this provision. The Court said that addressing the problems of violence against women in this way was beyond the constitutional authority of the elected representatives of the United States. Flat out, they said it was an unconstitutional act we engaged in. In ruling it was beyond the constitutional authority of the Congress, the Court said that it does not matter how great an effect such acts of violence have on interstate commerce. They said gender-based violence could be crippling large segments of our national economy, but, nonetheless, even if that were proven--according to the Court--the Congress is powerless to enact a law to deter such active violence because although we have acted this way under the commerce clause of the Constitution before, the Court ruled violence in and of itself is not commerce. I believe this is a constitutionally wrong decision. It is true that it does not strike a fatal blow against the struggle to end violence against women in this country. The other parts of the Violence Against Women Act are unaffected by this decision. I am pleased to report that these other provisions, together with changing attitudes in this country, are beginning to make a difference in this struggle in the lives of women who have been victimized. I have introduced a bill with, now, I think over 60 cosponsors, to enhance the provisions of my Violence Against Women Act so that we can continue to make progress. Nonetheless, the decision in Morrison is a wrongheaded decision. It is not just an isolated error. No, it is part of a growing body of decisions in which this Supreme Court is seizing the power to make important social decisions that, under our constitutional system of government, are properly made by elected representatives who answer to the people, unlike the Court. I said at the time that the case came down, striking down the provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, that the decision does more damage to our constitutional jurisprudence than it does to the fight against gender-based violence. Since I said that, a number of people have asked me to explain what I mean by that. Today, since we have the time, I am beginning a series of speeches to do just that by placing the Morrison decision in a larger context of what an increasingly out-of-touch Supreme Court has been doing in recent years. I plan on making two additional speeches on this subject over the next several weeks and months. It is crucial, in my view, that the American people understand the larger pattern of the Supreme Court's recent decisions and, to me, the disturbing direction in which the Supreme Court is moving because the consequences of these cases may well impact upon the ability of American citizens to ask their elected representatives in Congress to help them solve national problems that have national impact. Many of the Court's decisions are written in the name of protecting prerogatives of the State governments and speak in the time honored language of federalism and States rights. But as my grandmother would say, they have stood federalism on its head. Make no mistake, what is at issue here is the question of power, who wants it, who has it, and who controls it--basically, whether power will be exercised by an insulated judiciary or by the elected representatives of the people. In our separation of powers doctrine, upon which our Government rests, that power is being wrestled by the Court from the elected representatives, for in every case in which the Court has struck down a Federal statute, it has invalidated a statute that the people of the United States have wanted. As a matter of fact, in many of the cases of statutes that have been struck down, the numerous attorneys general of the various States have sided with the Federal Government in briefs filed with the Court, saying that they supported the decision taken by the Congress and the President. Let's give the emerging pattern of Supreme Court decisions a name. In a speech I gave before the New Hampshire Supreme Court last year, I referred to this pattern as an emerging pattern of an imperial judiciary. I meant to describe the judiciary that is making decisions and seizing power in areas in which the judgment of elected branches of government ought to be the controlling judgment, not the Court's. With increasing frequency, the Supreme Court is taking over the role of government for itself. The imperial judging might also be called a kind of judicial activism. ``Judicial activism'' is an overworked expression, one that has often been used by conservatives to criticize liberal judges. Under this Supreme Court, however, the shoe is plainly on the other foot. It is now conservative judges who are supplanting the judgment of the people's representatives and substituting their own for that of the Congress and the President. This is not just Joe Biden talking. The Violence Against Women Act case came to the Supreme Court through the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson is the chief judge. Judge Wilkinson has been on many so-called short lists for possible Supreme Court nominees of Governor Bush and is a well recognized conservative. In the opinion he wrote, agreeing that the civil rights remedy in the Violence Against Women Act was unconstitutional, Judge Wilkinson praised the result as an example of ``this century's third and final era of judicial activism.'' He, Judge Wilkinson, acknowledges that the decision represents the ``third and,'' he says, ``final era of judicial activism.'' And he said he hoped this new activism would be enduring presence in our Federal courts. That was in Brzonkala v. VPI, 169 F.3d 820, 892-893. Or consider Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, another well recognized conservative. Judge Ginsburg has quite explicitly criticized the interpretation of the Constitution that has prevailed through the better part of this entire century and, indeed, throughout most of our country's history, an interpretation which correctly recognizes the broad capacity and competence of the people to govern themselves through their elected officials, not through the court system. According to Judge Ginsburg, the correct interpretation of the Constitution produces results that severely restrict the power of elected government. He calls the Constitution ``the Constitution in Exile.'' Under that Constitution, the one that he thinks controls, unelected Federal judges would wield enormous power to second-guess legislative bodies on both the State and the Federal levels. When Judge Ginsburg wrote about these ideas in a magazine article in 1995, he was eagerly awaiting signs that the Supreme Court would begin to embrace his notion of a Constitution in exile. Five short years later, much has changed. As Linda Greenhouse recently put it in a New York Times column, Judge Ginsburg's hopes: . . . sound decidedly less out of context today than they did even 5 years ago, just before the court began issuing a series of decisions reviving a limited vision of federal power. By taking a closer look at these series of decisions referred to in the New York Times, the pattern I have been referring to will become quite evident. The first clear step toward an imperial judiciary was taken in the case called Lopez v. United States, which invalidated a Federal law making it a crime to possess a gun in a school zone. The Supreme Court held that it was not obvious ``to the naked eye'' that the nationwide problem of school violence has a substantial effect on the national economy and interstate commerce, the predicate we have to show to have jurisdiction under the commerce clause to pass such a law. In our desire to respond quickly to the epidemic of school violence, which we all talk about here on the floor, we in the Congress did not make findings--that is, we did not have hearings that said ``we find that the following actions have the following impact on commerce''--we did not make findings to relate school violence to interstate commerce. Subsequently, however, we did make such findings and pointed to the voluminous evidence that was before the Congress at the time we passed Senator Kohl's Gun-Free School Zone Act. Nonetheless, the Court, this new imperial judiciary, ignored our findings and the raft of supporting evidence, and drew its own conclusions. They concluded--the Court concluded--that the threat of school violence to national commerce is not substantial enough to justify a legislative response on the part of those of us elected to the Congress. The Lopez case startled many people. Numerous law schools sponsored conferences to discuss the meaning of this case. Constitutional scholars debated how great a departure this case signaled from the settled approach to congressional power that has been taken over the 20th century, at least the last two-thirds of the 20th century, by all previous Supreme Courts. Immediately after the decision, no consensus emerged. Many scholars plausibly concluded that Lopez was, as one put it, just an ``island in the stream,'' a decision that breaks the flow of the river of cases before it, but which will have no lasting effect of any significance on those that follow it. How wrong he was. It now turns out that if Lopez is an island, it is one the size of Australia. The Court soon followed Lopez by striking down the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act that Senator Hatch and I had worked so hard to craft and the Senate and House passed and the President signed. In Boerne v. Flores--that is the name of the case that struck down the Religious Freedom Act we passed--the Congress of the United States enacted the Religious Freedom Act in response to an earlier Supreme Court decision. In 1990, the Court ruled in Employment Decision v. Smith that the constitutional freedom of religion is not offended by a State law that significantly burdens the ability of members of that religion to practice their religion, so long as that law applies across the board, without singling out religious practices of any one denomination in any way. For example, under the Smith decision, a dry county which prohibits the consumption of all alcohol could prohibit a church from using sacramental wine when they give communion, as they do in my church; I am a Roman Catholic; and they do so in other churches as well. Smith broke with the prior line of decisions holding that such laws needed to make reasonable accommodations for religion unless the Government had a very good reason for applying the law when it offended someone's sincere religious practices to do so. In other words, unless the Government had an overwhelming reason why in a Catholic Church they could not serve, when they give communion, a sip of wine with the host, prior decisions said you cannot pass a law to stop that. The overwhelming majority of both Houses of Congress thought the Smith decision was incorrect as a matter of constitutional interpretation and as a matter of policy. We concluded that because section 5 of the 14th amendment authorized the Congress to protect fundamental civil liberties by appropriate legislation, we could enact a statute providing greater protection than the Smith decision did to accepted religious practices. After extensive hearings under the leadership of Senator Hatch and Senator Kennedy, the so-called RFRA, Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, was drafted to require that the application of neutral laws had to make reasonable accommodation to bona fide religious objections. The Supreme Court struck down our effort to extend reasonable protections to religious practices. It held that the 14th amendment does not authorize the Congress to confer civil rights by statute or to give judicially recognized rights a greater scope than the Court has set forth. In the Court's view, the power of section 5 of the 14th amendment gives the Congress the power to ``enforce'' the rights established in that amendment, but it only amounts to a power to provide remedies for the violations of the rights that the Court has recognized--not the Congress, the Court has recognized--not to protect any broader conception of civil rights than the Court has already recognized. In the Flores case, it was another sign that we are on the road to judicial imperialism. Recognizing the implications of the decision, the Republican majority on the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution in the House held a hearing on the Court's refusal to defer to Congress' factual findings and the policy determinations it based on those findings. Judicial deference to congressional findings and congressional authority to enforce civil rights are obviously important questions standing alone, but the Supreme Court raised the stakes even higher in two decisions relating to what we call State sovereign immunity. In those cases, Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida and Alden v. Maine, the Court declared the Congress may not use its commerce clause powers to abrogate State sovereign immunity. What this means, translated, is that when Congress acts under its broad power to improve the national economy, a power granted to it by the Constitution, the Congress, in the Court's view, cannot authorize an individual to sue a State even if they are suing over a purely commercial transaction with that State. For example, as the Court held in the Alden case, an employee of a State now cannot sue his or her employer for failing to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act just because the employer happens to be a State. If it is a business person, a corporation, and they violate the Fair Labor Standards Act, which we passed to protect all people who work, they can be held accountable under that act. The Supreme Court came along and said: But, Congress, you can't pass a law that holds a State accountable. The Seminole Tribe and Alden cases highlight the importance of the issue of congressional power under the 14th amendment because the Court continues to recognize that Congress can authorize individuals to sue States if our legislation is authorized by the 14th amendment rather than by the commerce clause. By limiting Congress' 14th amendment powers, therefore, the Boerne decision, which is the Religious Freedom Act decision, draws into question our capacity to meaningfully protect civil rights at all whenever remedies directly against a State are being considered. Viewed in its historical context, this is a remarkable development in and of itself. The text of the 14th amendment was drafted immediately after the Civil War, and it grants powers to only one branch of the Government, the only one named in the amendment: the Congress, not the Court. Specifically, the amendment sought to grant the Congress ample power to enforce civil rights against the States. That is what the Civil War was about. That is why the Civil War amendments were passed: to put it in stone. Developments in these recent cases I have cited are in profound tension with the sentiments and concerns of the drafters of the 14th amendment. Still, after that case, some might continue to say it is not clear where the Court was really headed. It was possible to say in the Flores case that it was simply articulating the standard governing the nature of Congress' power; namely, that it was purely remedial and not substantive. Because the legislative record was designed to support an exercise of substantive power, that record did not so clearly support the exercise of the remedial power. On this reading, the Court did not second-guess the congressional findings. It just saw them as answering the wrong question. Subsequent events, however, have confirmed that the Subcommittee on the Constitution had a right to be worried about Boerne because Boerne was much more ominous than that. In one of the last cases decided in the 1998 term, the Court laid down yet another marker, perhaps the most bold decision yet in the trend of the Court usurping democratic authority. In that decision, the Court held unconstitutional a Federal statute, the Patent and Plant Variety Protection Remedy Clarification Act. That act provided a remedy for patent holders against any State that infringes on the patent holder's patent. That was in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank. Before enacting this remedial legislation, the Congress had developed a specific legislative record detailing specific cases where States had infringed a federally conferred patent and evidence suggested the possibility of a future increase in the frequency of State infringements of patents held by individuals. Unlike Lopez, the Patent Protection Act did not lack findings or legislative record. Unlike Boerne, the legislative record demonstrated that the statute was remedial and not substantive. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court decided, independently, that the facts before the Congress, as it, the Court, interpreted them, provided, in the Court's words, ``little support'' for the need for a remedy. Get this: We, up here, concluded, on the record, that States have, in fact, infringed upon the patents held by individuals. We laid out why we thought--Democrat and Republican, House, Senate, and President--we should protect individuals from that and why we thought the problem would get worse. We set that out in the record when we passed the legislation. But the Supreme Court comes along and says: We don't think there is a problem. Who are they to determine whether or not there is a problem? It is theirs to determine whether our action is constitutional, not whether or not there is a problem. But they said they found little support for our concern--the concern of 535 elected Members of the Congress and the President of the United States. The Court was not substituting a constitutional principle here. The Court was substituting its own policy views for those of this body that described the problem of State infringement on Federal patents as being of national import. They concluded it is not that big of a deal. We need to be clear about what the Court did in the patent remedy case. For a long time, it has been accepted constitutional law that once a piece of legislation has been found to be designed to cover a subject over which the Constitution gives the Congress the power to act--let me say that again--this has been accepted constitutional theory and law that once a piece of legislation has been found to be designed by the Congress to cover a subject over which the Congress has constitutional authority, that it then becomes wholly within the sphere of Congress to decide whether any particular action is wise or is prudent. This has been constitutional law going all the way back as far as M'Culloch v. Maryland, written by the then-Chief Justice John Marshall, in 1819. There Chief Justice Marshall wrote that the ``government which has the right to act, and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means [by which to act].'' In the patent remedy case, the Court quite clearly usurped the constitutional authority of Congress to select the means it thinks appropriate to remedy a problem that is admittedly within the authority of Congress to address. In the patent remedy case, the Court did not hold that Congress has exercised a power in an area outside its constitutional authority. Instead, it disagreed with our substantive judgment as to whether the Federal remedy was warranted. In short, the Court struck down the remedy just because it did not think the remedy was a good idea. Who are they to make that judgment? Talk about judicial activism. The cases I have reviewed today--Lopez, Boerne, Seminole Tribe, Alden, and Florida Prepaid--bring us up to this term just completed by the Supreme Court. In the next series of speeches, I will show how the trend of judicial imperialism continued, and was extended by several cases decided this past year, including the Violence Against Women Act, which I began with today. The bottom line here is, in the opinion of many scholars and observers of the Court, we are witnessing the emergence of what I referred to a year ago as the ``imperial judiciary.'' I just discussed five cases leading up to the just completed term. Now I would like to discuss two significant decisions of this term. I will also begin the task of trying to place these decisions in a broader framework of the Constitution's allocation of responsibility between the elected branches of Government and the judiciary. It is a framework that this ``imperial judiciary'' is disregarding. Last December, the Court focused its sight on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. That is the act that protects Americans against discrimination based on age and is amply justified under our Constitution. Not only does it protect the basic civil rights of equal protection and nondiscriminatory treatment--with bipartisan support, I might add--it also promotes the national economy, by ensuring that the labor pool is not artificially limited by mandatory requirements to retire. So the Congress had ample constitutional authority to enact the Age Discrimination Act. And the Court did not deny that. Nonetheless, the Court, this last term, gutted the enforcement of the act as the act applied to all State government employees. Building on its earlier decisions in the Seminole Tribe and Alden cases, which I discussed a moment ago, the Court ruled that the Constitution prevents us from authorizing State employees to sue their employers for violation of the Federal Age Discrimination Act. The Court also said, however, that the Constitution does not prevent the Congress from applying the law to the States. Now, you have to listen to this carefully. In a thoroughly bizarre manner, in my view, the Supreme Court has now held that the Constitution allows the Age Discrimination Act to apply to State employers, but it denies the employees the right to sue the State employers when their rights under the Federal law are violated. We learned in law school that a right without a remedy can hardly be called a right. As a result of this case, called Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, over 27,000 State employees in my State of Delaware are left without an effective judicial remedy for a violation of a Federal law that protects them against age discrimination. Across the Nation, nearly 5 million State employees no longer have the full protection of Federal law. Recall that in the Boerne decision--the case that invalidated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which I discussed a moment ago--the Court had begun the process of undermining the ability of the Congress under section 5 of the 14th amendment to enact legislation protecting civil rights. In Kimel, they continued that process. In Kimel, the Court held that Congress' 14th amendment power to enforce civil rights refers only to the enforcement of those rights that the Court itself has declared and not to rights that exist by virtue of valid statutes. Because the Court decided that the Age Discrimination Act goes beyond the general protection the Constitution provides when it says that all citizens are entitled to ``equal protection under the law,'' the Court ruled that the right to sue an employer for violations of the act was not ``appropriate'' and so ruled the act unconstitutional. After Kimel, the pattern of the imperial judiciary now emerges with some clarity. First, the Court has repudiated over 175 years of nearly unanimous agreement that Congress, not the Court, will decide what constitutes ``necessary and proper'' legislation under any of its, Congress', enumerated powers. Then in a parallel maneuver, the Court has announced that it, not the Congress, will decide what constitutes ``appropriate'' remedial legislation to enforce civil rights and civil liberties. Let me return for a moment to the Violence Against Women Act, which I began earlier in my speech. Prior to the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act, I held extensive hearings in the Judiciary Committee when I was chairman, compiling voluminous evidence on the pattern of violence against women in America. The massive legislative record Congress generated over a 4-year period of those hearings supported Congress' explicit findings that gender-motivated violence does substantially and directly affect interstate commerce. How? By preventing a discrete group of Americans, i.e., women, from participating fully in the day-to-day commerce of this country. These are the types of findings, I might add, that were absent when the Congress first enacted the Gun-Free School Zone Act, struck down in the Lopez case. Let me remind you that Congress, when we enacted the civil rights provision invalidated in Morrison, found: [C]rimes of violence motivated by gender have a substantial adverse impact upon interstate commerce by deterring potential victims of violence from traveling interstate, from engaging in employment in interstate business, from transacting with businesses and in places involved in interstate commerce. Crimes of violence motivated by gender have a substantial adverse effect on interstate commerce by diminishing national productivity, increasing medical and other costs, and decreasing the supply of and the demand for interstate products . . . I cannot emphasize enough the seriousness of the toll that we found gender-motivated violence exacts on interstate commerce. Such violence denies women an equal opportunity to compete in the job market, imposing a heavy burden on our national economy. Witness after witness at the hearing testified that as a result of rape, sexual assault, or domestic abuse, she was fired from, forced to quit, or abandoned her job. As a result of such interference with the ability of women to work, domestic violence was estimated to cost employers billions of dollars annually because of absenteeism in the workplace. Indeed, estimates suggested that we spend between $5 and $10 billion a year on health care, criminal justice, and other social costs merely and totally as a consequence of violence against women in America. In response to this important national problem, one to which we found the States did not or could not adequately respond, Congress enacted my Violence Against Women Act in 1994, which included provisions authorizing women to sue their attackers in Federal court. This statute reflected the legislative branch's judgment that State laws and practices had failed to provide equal and adequate protection to women victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault and that the lawsuit would provide an adequate means of remedying these deficiencies. This was no knee-jerk response to a problem. Congress specifically found that State and Federal laws failed to ``adequately provide victims of gender-motivated crimes the opportunity to vindicate their interests'' and that: . . . existing bias and discrimination in the criminal justice system often deprives victims of crimes of violence motivated by gender of equal protection of the laws and the redress to which they are entitled. The funny thing about these explicit congressional findings and this mountain of data, as Justice Souter in his dissent called it, showing the effects of violence against women on interstate commerce--the funny thing about this is that the Supreme Court acknowledged all of it. They said: We don't challenge that. This is the new height in their imperial judicial thinking. That is right. The Court acknowledged all of the findings of my committee. In Morrison, the Supreme Court recognized that in contrast to the lack of findings in the legislation on the Gun-Free School Zone case, Lopez, that the civil rights provisions of the Violence Against Women Act were supported by ``numerous factual findings'' about the impact of gender- motivated violence on interstate commerce. But the Court also acknowledged the failure of the States to address this problem--they acknowledged the States had not addressed it before we did--noting that the assertion that there was a pervasive bias in State justice systems against victims of gender-motivated violence was supported by a ``voluminous congressional record.'' They acknowledged that there was this great impact on interstate commerce. They acknowledged--because I had my staff, over 4 years, survey the laws and the outcomes in all 50 States--that many State courts had a bias against women. So they acknowledged both those predicates. Instead of according the deference typically given to congressional factual findings, supported by, as they said, a voluminous record, and without even the pretense of applying what we lawyers call the ``traditional rational basis test''--that is, if the Congress has a rational basis upon which to make its finding, then we are not going to second-guess it; that is what we mean by ``rational basis''--the Court simply thought it knew better. This marks the first occasion in more than 60 years that the Supreme Court has rejected explicit factual findings by Congress that a given activity substantially affects interstate commerce. The Court justified this abandonment of deference to Congress by declaring that whether a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce ``is ultimately a judicial rather than a legislative question.'' You got this? For the first time in 60 years, since back in the days of the Lochner era, the Supreme Court has come along and said they acknowledge that the Congress has these voluminous findings that interstate commerce is affected and the States aren't doing anything to deal with this national problem of violence against women; they are not doing sufficiently enough. There is a bias in their courts. We acknowledge that. But they said, notwithstanding that, the question of whether a specific activity substantially affects interstate commerce ``is ultimately a judicial rather than a legislative question.'' Hang on, here we go back to 1925. As Justice Souter said in his dissent, this has it exactly backwards, for ``the fact of such a substantial effect is not an issue for the courts in the first instance, but for the Congress, whose institutional capacity for gathering evidence and taking testimony far exceeds ours.'' In short, in a decision that reads more like one written in 1930 than in 2000, the Court held that the judicial, not the legislative, branch of the Government was better suited to making these decisions on behalf of the American people--a conclusion that certainly would have surprised Chief Justice Marshall, the author of the seminal commerce clause decision in Gibbons v. Ogden in the early 1800s. The judgments that the Congress made in enacting the Violence Against Women Act were, in my view, the correct ones. Even if you disagree with me, though, they were the Congress' judgments to make, not the Court's judgments to make. When it struck down the Violence Against Women Act, the Court left little doubt that it was acting outside its proper judicial role. They said that the commerce clause did not justify the statute because the act of inflicting violence on women is not a ``commercial'' act. It said that section 5 of the 14th amendment also did not justify this act because creating a cause of action against the private perpetrators of violence is not an ``appropriate'' remedy for the denial of equal protection that occurs when State law enforcement fails vigorously to enforce laws that ought to protect women against such violence. Over the course of this speech today, I have discussed seven significant decisions since 1995: Lopez, the gun-free school zones case; Boerne against Flores, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act case; Seminole Tribe and Alden, the two decisions prohibiting us from creating judicial enforceable economic rights for State employees; Florida Prepaid, the patent remedy case; Kimel, the Age Discrimination Act case; and finally, Morrison, the Violence Against Women Act case. None of them deal fatal blows to our ability to address these significant national problems, but they each, in varying degrees, make it much more difficult for us to be able to do so. There are two even more important points to make about these cases. First, together, these cases are establishing a pattern of decisions founded on constitutional error--an error that allocates far too much authority to the Federal courts and thereby denies to the elected branches of the Federal Government the legitimate authority vested in it by the Constitution to address national problems. Second, this is a trend that is fully capable of growing until it does deal telling blows to our ability to address significant national problems. This is not only my assessment; it is shared, for example, by Justice John Paul Stevens, who was appointed to the Court by Gerald Ford. Dissenting in the Kimel case, Justice Stevens has written that ``the kind of judicial activism manifested in [these cases] represents such a radical departure from the proper role of this Court that it should be opposed whenever the opportunity arises.'' That is not Joe Biden speaking; that is a sitting member of the Supreme Court appointed by a Republican President. It is also shared by Justice David Souter, who was appointed by President Bush. Dissenting in the Lopez case, Justice Souter has written that ``it seems fair to ask whether the step taken by the Court today does anything but portend a return to the untenable jurisprudence from which the Court extricated itself almost 60 years ago.'' He was referring to the Lochner era. It is shared by Justice Breyer, a Clinton appointee. Dissenting in College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid, Justice Breyer has written that the Court's decisions on State sovereign immunity ``threaten the Nation's ability to enact economic legislation needed for the future in much the way Lochner v. New York threatened the Nation's ability to enact social legislation over 90 years ago.'' Significantly, this imperialist trend can continue to grow and flower in two different places. The Supreme Court itself can continue to write more and more aggressive decisions, cutting deeper and deeper into the people's capacity to govern themselves effectively at a national level. In the short term, perhaps the odds are that this will not occur. Many of the decisions in this pattern have been decided by votes of five Justices to four Justices, and it may be that one or more of the conservative majority has gone about as far as he or she is prepared to go at this time. In the longer term, however, we can quite reasonably expect two or three appointments to the Court in the next 4 to 8 years, and if those appointments result in replacing moderate conservatives on the Court with activist conservatives, we have every reason to expect that this trend I have outlined for the last 45 minutes would gain momentum. It can also bloom in the lower courts. This may, to some extent, be by design of the Justices who are taking the lead in the Court today. Certainly, many people have remarked on the proclivity of Justice Scalia to author opinions containing sweeping language that creates new ambiguities in the law and which then often provide a hook on which lower court judges can hang their judicial activism. Already, opinions have been written by lower court judges overturning the Superfund legislation, challenging the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act, calling into doubt Federal protection of wetlands, and eviscerating the False Claims Act, among others. Not all of these judicial exercises can be corrected by the Supreme Court, even if it were inclined to do so, because the Court decides only 80 or so cases a year from the entire Federal system. In concluding, I wish to describe in the most basic terms why the imperialist course upon which the Court has embarked constitutes a danger to our established system of government. In case after case, the Court has strayed from its job of interpreting the Constitution and has instead begun to second guess the Congress about the wisdom or necessity of enacted laws. Its opinions declare straightforwardly its new approach: The Court determines whether legislation is ``appropriate,'' or whether it is proportional to the problem we have validly sought to address, or whether there is enough reason for us to enact legislation that all agree is within our constitutionally defined legislative power. If in the Court's view legislation is not appropriate, or proportional, or grounded in a sufficient sense of urgency, it is unconstitutional--even though the subject matter is within Congress' power, and even though Congress made extensive findings to support the measure. More significant than the invalidation of any specific piece of legislation, this approach annexes to the judiciary vast tracts of what are properly understood as the legislative powers. If allowed to take root, this expanded version of judicial power will undermine the project of the American people, and that project is self-government, as set forth in the Constitution. To understand the alarm that Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and others have sounded about the Court's pattern of activism, we must understand the way the Constitution structures the Federal Government and the reasons behind that structure. We must also understand the history and the practice that have made the Constitution's blueprint a reality and provide a scale to measure when the balance of power has gone dangerously awry. These considerations amply support Justice Stevens's assessment of ``a radical departure from the proper role of this Court.'' The Constitution (supplemented by the Declaration of Independence) sets forth the great aspirations and objects of our nation. It does not, however, achieve them. That is the great project of American politics and government: to achieve the country envisioned in those founding documents. The way to meet our aspirations and establish our national identity and our character as a people is through the process of self-government. The Declaration of Independence proclaims our fundamental commitment to liberty and equality. These commitments are by no means self- executing. The history of our nation is in no small part the history of a people struggling to comprehend these commitments and to put these high ideals into practice. The Constitution itself was concerned with a more complex function. Whereas the Declaration explained the reasons for splitting from Great Britain, the Constitution was concerned with explaining why the former colonies should remain united as a single nation. It was also concerned with the task of providing a government that could fulfill the promise and purposes of union. The Framers who arrived in Philadelphia to debate and draft the Constitution were no longer immediately animated by an overbearing and oppressive government. In fact, our first national government, under the Articles of Confederation, was the precise opposite. The emergency that brought the leading citizens of the North American continent together in Philadelphia that Summer of 1787 was the inability of the national government to act in any effective way. These framers saw the vast potential of the new nation with its unparalleled natural and human resources. They saw as well the danger posed by foreign powers and domestic unrest. They realized too that the Confederation could never act credibly to exploit the nation's potential or to quell domestic and foreign hostilities. As Alexander Hamilton put it, ``[w]e may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience.'' Hamilton urged that the nation ratify the Constitution and throw off the ability of the states to constrain the national government: ``Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquility, our dignity, our reputation. Let us at last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.'' Indeed, Hamilton may have been understating the degree of the crisis. Gouverneur Morris, a leading delegate from Pennsylvania, warned that ``This country must be united. If persuasion does not unite it, the sword will . . . The scenes of horror attending civil commotion cannot be described . . . The stronger party will then make [traitors] of the weaker; and the Gallows & Halter will finish the word of the sword.'' The words of the Constitution's preamble are not idle rhetoric. The founding generation ratified the Constitution in order to establish a government that could decisively and effectively act to ``provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.'' This is a fundamental constitutional value that must always be brought to bear when construing the Constitution. Yet, it is precisely this constitutional value that the Supreme Court has lost sight of. Consider, for example, Justice Kennedy's statement in the case striking down the Line Item Veto Act. ``A nation cannot plunder its own treasury without putting its Constitution and its survival in peril. The statute before us then is of first importance, for it seems undeniable the Act will tend to restrain persistent excessive spending.'' Who is he to make that judgment? Yet, Justice Kennedy viewed this as completely irrelevant to the statute's constitutionality. He concurred that the Line Item Veto Act violates separation of powers even though there was no obvious textual basis for this conclusion and no apparent threat to any person's liberty. Justice Kennedy is right about one thing. His statement is premised on the view that the Court is not particularly well-suited to make policy or political judgments. This is accurate and no mere happenstance. The Constitution itself structures the judiciary and the political branches differently by design. The Judiciary is made independent of political forces. Judges hold life tenure and salaries that cannot be reduced. The purpose of the entire structure of the judiciary is to leave judges free to apply the technical skills of the legal profession to construe and develop the law, within the confines of what can be fairly deemed legal reasoning. Outside this realm is the realm of policy. Here Congress and the President enjoy the superior place, again by constitutional design. The political branches are tied closely to the people, most obviously through popular elections. Between elections, the political branches are properly subject to the public in a host of ways. Moreover, the political branches have wide- ranging access to information through hearings, through studies we commission, and through the statistics and data we routinely gather. This proximity to the people and to information makes Congress the most suitable repository of the legislative power; that is, the power to deliberate as agents of the public and to determine what laws and structures will best ``promote the general welfare.'' It is much easier to describe the distinction between the judicial and the legislative power in the abstract than it is to apply in practice. That is why so much of our constitutional history has been devoted to developing doctrines and traditions that keep the judiciary within its proper sphere. After much upheaval, the mid-twentieth century yielded a stable and harmonious approach to questions relating to the scope of Congress's powers: these questions are largely for the political branches and the political process to resolve--not the courts. To be sure, the Court has a role in policing the outer boundaries of this power, but it is to be extremely deferential to the specific judgment of Congress that a given statute is a necessary and proper exercise of its constitutional powers. When the Court fails to defer, as it had during several periods prior to the New Deal, it inevitably finds itself making judgments that are far outside the sphere of the judicial power. This is the point of Justice Stevens' warning. The Court is departing from its proper role in scope of power cases. What was initially uncertain, even after Lopez and Boerne, is now inescapable: This imperial Court, in case after case, is freely imposing its own view of what constitutes sound public policy. This violates a basic theory of government so carefully set forth in our Constitution. In theory, therefore, there is ample reason to expect that the Supreme Court's recent imperialism will undermine the fundamental value animating the Constitution, and that is the ability of the American people to govern themselves effectively and democratically. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I cannot tell you how pleased I am that the Senate will finally pass the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act. HIV/AIDS has been acknowledged as the 21st century's bubonic plague. It is having a devastating impact in Sub-Saharan Africa, destroying the very fabric of African societies. And while Africa is the present day epicenter, there is no guarantee that the disease will not spread throughout the world in a manner that is just as devastating. No corner of the globe is immune. HIV/AIDS is the only health related issue that has ever been the subject of a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, and the only one that has been the subject of a Security Council Resolution. Why? Because it poses a severe risk to every nation in the international community, but most especially to developing nations which do not have the means to either treat those living with the disease, or to educate those at risk of contracting the disease about how to avoid infection. I believe that it is past time for the United States to step forward and lead the way in efforts aimed at stopping the spread of the HIV/ AIDS. This bill does just that. The funding levels this bill authorizes significantly increase the level of U.S. assistance to combat HIV/AIDS. One of the key elements of this legislation is an authorization for the Secretary of the Treasury to enter into negotiations with the World Bank to create a Trust Fund, the purpose of which is the eradication and prevention of the spread of the virus. The Trust Fund will allow donations and contributions from governments--the bill authorizes $150 million as the U.S. contribution--as well as the private sector, so that all sectors in society are working together at an international level to address this crisis. It is truly the best way to do so. The statistics are grim. According to UNAIDS, in 1999 alone 5.4 million people were infected with HIV/AIDS, bringing the total to 34.4 million infections world wide. 2.8 million people died of the disease last year. This does not have to be. We know how to prevent the spread of the disease. We have the means to treat the virus and the opportunistic diseases that kill those infected with HIV/AIDS. Millions of lives can be saved through both treatment and prevention. Through cooperation we can be successful. We must challenge other donors to dedicate the necessary resources to achieve our aim. The bill also authorizes $300 million in bilateral assistance to stop the spread of the disease, and to treat it. While I strongly believe that a multilateral approach must be developed to respond to the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, I also believe that the United States should do all it can right now to deliver targeted assistance to specific regions and specific treatment programs. The problem of HIV/AIDS is urgent. Bilateral assistance programs can be funded and programs carried out right away, and they should be. Assistance is desperately needed, for example, in Africa. The countries in the sub-Saharan region cannot wait for the negotiation of a Would Bank Trust Fund; they must have help now. The news which came out of the International AIDS Conference in Durban was grim. Gross Domestic Product could be cut by as much as 20% due to the impact of HIV/AIDS in some African countries, according to a study released at the conference. African countries are among the poorest in the world. They cannot afford to have their incomes diminished to such a degree. According to the World Bank, AIDS is now the fourth leading cause of death worldwide and the leading cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa. At all levels, the impact of AIDS in Africa is staggering: At the regional level, more than 13 million Africans have already died, and another 23 million are now living with HIV/AIDS. That is two-thirds of all cases on earth. At the national level, the 21 countries with the highest HIV prevalence in the world are in Africa. In Botswana and Zimbabwe, one in four adults is infected. In at least 10 other African countries, adult prevalence rates exceed 10 percent. At the individual level, a child born in Zambia or Zimbabwe today is more likely than not to die of AIDS at some point in her lifetime. In many other African countries, the lifetime risk of dying of AIDS is greater than one in three. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is not only an unparalleled public health problem affecting large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, it is an unprecedented threat to the region's development. In many countries, the disease is reversing decades of hard-won development progress. We cannot ignore these facts. The time to act is now. The sooner we address this crisis in Africa as well as the rest of the developing world, the better. The directives in this bill represent the best of the current proposals to do so. The World Bank and the Export-Import Bank of the United States both recently announced that they would make funds available for loans to African countries to help them purchase drugs to treat HIV/AIDS. While I welcome any efforts to procure drugs for this purpose, I do not believe that extending more loans to nations currently facing crippling debt burdens will, in the long run, prove to be the most useful strategy. Grants and no strings attached assistance, the aid provided in this bill, are what is needed. I want to make it clear that this bill represents only the beginning of the United States' commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS. Sustained dedication of resources will be needed to continue the fight, and we in the Senate must ensure that such resources continue to be channeled towards eliminating the threat of HIV/AIDS. This bill is a good first step in our efforts.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I am proud to introduce the Offender Reentry and Community Safety Act of 2000. I am introducing this legislation because all too often we have short-term solutions for long-term problems. All too often we think about today, but not tomorrow. It's time that we start looking forward. It's time that we face the dire situation of prisoners re-entering our communities with insufficient monitoring, little or no job skills, inadequate drug treatment, insufficient housing and deficient basic life skills. 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--approximately 585,400 will return to communities this year. Historically, two-thirds of returning prisoners have been rearrested for new crimes within three years. The safety threat posed by this volume of prisoner returns has been exacerbated by the fact that states and communities can't possibly properly supervise all their returning offenders, 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. State systems have also reduced the numbers of transitional support programs aimed at facilitating the return to productive community life styles. Recent studies indicate that many returning prisoners receive no help in finding employment upon release and most offenders have low literacy and other basic educational skills that can impede successful reentry. At least 55 percent of offenders are fathers of minor children, and therefore face a number of issues related to child support and other family responsibilities during incarceration and after release. Substance abuse and mental health problems also add to concerns over community safety. Approximately 70 percent of state prisoners and 57 percent of federal prisoners have a history of drug use or abuse. Research by Justice indicates that between 60 and 75 percent of inmates with heroin or cocaine problems return to drugs within three months when untreated. An estimated 187,000 state and federal prison inmates have self-reported mental health problems. Mentally ill inmates are more likely than other offenders to have committed a violent offense and be violent recidivists. Few states connect mental health treatment in prisons with treatment in the return community. Finally, offenders with contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are released with no viable plan to continue their medical treatment so they present a significant danger to public health. And while the federal prison population and reentry system differs from the state prison population and reentry systems, there are nonetheless significant reentry challenges at the federal level. We need to start thinking about what to do with these people. We need to start thinking in terms of helping these people make a transition to the community so that they don't go back to a life of crime and can be productive members of our society. We need to start thinking about the long-term impact of what we do after we send people to jail My legislation creates demonstration reentry programs for federal, state and local prisoners. The programs are designed to assist high- risk, high-need offenders who have served their prison sentences, but who pose the greatest risk of reoffending upon release 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 reintegrate into society. Innovative strategies and emerging technologies present new opportunities to improve reentry systems. This legislation creates federal and state demonstration projects that utilize these strategies and technologies. The projects share many core components, including a more seamless reentry system, reentry officials who are more directly involved with the offender and who can swiftly impose intermediate sanctions if the offender does not follow the designated reentry plan, and the combination of enhanced service delivery and enhanced monitoring. The different projects are targeted at different prisoner populations and each has some unique features. The promise of the legislation is to establish the demonstration projects and then to rigorously evaluate them to determine which measures and strategies most successfully reintegrate prisoners into the community as well as which measures and strategies can be promoted nationally to address the growing national problem of released prisoners. There are currently 17 unfunded state pilot projects, including one in Delaware, which are being supported with technical assistance by the Department of Justice. My legislation will fund these pilot projects and will encourage states, territories, and Indian tribes to partner with units of local government and other non-profit organizations to establish adult offender reentry demonstration projects. The grants may be expended for implementing graduated sanctions and incentives, monitoring released prisoners, and providing, as appropriate, drug and alcohol abuse testing and treatment, mental and medical health services, victim impact educational classes, employment training, conflict resolution skills training, and other social services. My legislation also encourages state agencies, municipalities, public agencies, nonprofit organizations and tribes to make agreements with courts to establish ``reentry courts'' to monitor returning offenders, establish graduated sanctions and incentives, test and treat returning offenders for drug and alcohol abuse, and provide reentering offenders with mental and medical health services, victim impact educational classes, employment training, conflict resolution skills training, and other social services. This legislation also re-authorizes the drug court program created by Congress in the 1994 Crime Law as a cost-effective, innovative way to deal with non-violent offenders in need of drug treatment. This is the same language as the Drug Court Reauthorization and Improvement Act that I introduced with Senator Specter last year. Rather than just churning people through the revolving door of the criminal justice system, drug courts help these folks to 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. They are also required to have a sponsor who will keep them on track. This program works. And that is not just my opinion. Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) found that these courts are effective at taking offenders with little previous treatment history and keeping them in treatment; that they provide closer supervision than other community programs to which the offenders could be assigned; that they reduce crime; and that they are 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 cost savings associated with future crime prevention. Just as important, scarce prison beds are freed up for violent criminals. I have saved what may be the most important statistic for last. Two- thirds of drug court participants are parents of young children. After getting sober through the coerced treatment mandated by the court, many of these individuals are able to be real parents again. More than 500 drug-free babies have been born to female drug court participants, a sizable victory for society and the budget alike. This bill reauthorizes programs to provide for drug treatment in state and federal prisons. According to CASA, 80 percent of the men and women behind bars in the United States today are there because of alcohol or drugs. They were either drunk or high when they committed their crime, broke an alcohol or drug law, stole to support their habit, or have a history of drug or alcohol abuse. The need for drug and alcohol treatment in our nations prisons and jails is clear. Providing treatment to criminal offenders is not ``soft.'' It is a smart crime prevention policy. If we do not treat addicted offenders before they are released, they will be turned back onto our streets with the same addiction problem that got them in trouble in the first place and they will reoffend. Inmates who are addicted to drugs and alcohol are more likely to be incarcerated repeatedly than those without a substance abuse problem. This is not my opinion, it is fact. According to CASA, 81 percent of inmates with five or more prior convictions have been habitual drug users compared to 41 percent of first-time offenders. Reauthorizing prison-based treatment programs is a good investment and is an important crime prevention initiative. This legislation is a first step. Someday, we will look back and wonder why we didn't think of this sooner. For now, we need to implement these pilot projects, help people make it in their communities and make our streets safer. I am certain that we will revel in the results. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I am proud to introduce the Offender Reentry and Community Safety Act of 2000. I am introducing this legislation because all too often we have short-term solutions for long-term problems. All too often we think about today, but not tomorrow. It's time that we start looking forward. It's time that we face the dire situation of prisoners re-entering our communities with insufficient monitoring, little or no job skills, inadequate drug treatment, insufficient housing and deficient basic life skills. 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--approximately 585,400 will return to communities this year. Historically, two-thirds of returning prisoners have been rearrested for new crimes within three years. The safety threat posed by this volume of prisoner returns has been exacerbated by the fact that states and communities can't possibly properly supervise all their returning offenders, 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. State systems have also reduced the numbers of transitional support programs aimed at facilitating the return to productive community life styles. Recent studies indicate that many returning prisoners receive no help in finding employment upon release and most offenders have low literacy and other basic educational skills that can impede successful reentry. At least 55 percent of offenders are fathers of minor children, and therefore face a number of issues related to child support and other family responsibilities during incarceration and after release. Substance abuse and mental health problems also add to concerns over community safety. Approximately 70 percent of state prisoners and 57 percent of federal prisoners have a history of drug use or abuse. Research by Justice indicates that between 60 and 75 percent of inmates with heroin or cocaine problems return to drugs within three months when untreated. An estimated 187,000 state and federal prison inmates have self-reported mental health problems. Mentally ill inmates are more likely than other offenders to have committed a violent offense and be violent recidivists. Few states connect mental health treatment in prisons with treatment in the return community. Finally, offenders with contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are released with no viable plan to continue their medical treatment so they present a significant danger to public health. And while the federal prison population and reentry system differs from the state prison population and reentry systems, there are nonetheless significant reentry challenges at the federal level. We need to start thinking about what to do with these people. We need to start thinking in terms of helping these people make a transition to the community so that they don't go back to a life of crime and can be productive members of our society. We need to start thinking about the long-term impact of what we do after we send people to jail My legislation creates demonstration reentry programs for federal, state and local prisoners. The programs are designed to assist high- risk, high-need offenders who have served their prison sentences, but who pose the greatest risk of reoffending upon release 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 reintegrate into society. Innovative strategies and emerging technologies present new opportunities to improve reentry systems. This legislation creates federal and state demonstration projects that utilize these strategies and technologies. The projects share many core components, including a more seamless reentry system, reentry officials who are more directly involved with the offender and who can swiftly impose intermediate sanctions if the offender does not follow the designated reentry plan, and the combination of enhanced service delivery and enhanced monitoring. The different projects are targeted at different prisoner populations and each has some unique features. The promise of the legislation is to establish the demonstration projects and then to rigorously evaluate them to determine which measures and strategies most successfully reintegrate prisoners into the community as well as which measures and strategies can be promoted nationally to address the growing national problem of released prisoners. There are currently 17 unfunded state pilot projects, including one in Delaware, which are being supported with technical assistance by the Department of Justice. My legislation will fund these pilot projects and will encourage states, territories, and Indian tribes to partner with units of local government and other non-profit organizations to establish adult offender reentry demonstration projects. The grants may be expended for implementing graduated sanctions and incentives, monitoring released prisoners, and providing, as appropriate, drug and alcohol abuse testing and treatment, mental and medical health services, victim impact educational classes, employment training, conflict resolution skills training, and other social services. My legislation also encourages state agencies, municipalities, public agencies, nonprofit organizations and tribes to make agreements with courts to establish ``reentry courts'' to monitor returning offenders, establish graduated sanctions and incentives, test and treat returning offenders for drug and alcohol abuse, and provide reentering offenders with mental and medical health services, victim impact educational classes, employment training, conflict resolution skills training, and other social services. This legislation also re-authorizes the drug court program created by Congress in the 1994 Crime Law as a cost-effective, innovative way to deal with non-violent offenders in need of drug treatment. This is the same language as the Drug Court Reauthorization and Improvement Act that I introduced with Senator Specter last year. Rather than just churning people through the revolving door of the criminal justice system, drug courts help these folks to 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. They are also required to have a sponsor who will keep them on track. This program works. And that is not just my opinion. Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) found that these courts are effective at taking offenders with little previous treatment history and keeping them in treatment; that they provide closer supervision than other community programs to which the offenders could be assigned; that they reduce crime; and that they are 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 cost savings associated with future crime prevention. Just as important, scarce prison beds are freed up for violent criminals. I have saved what may be the most important statistic for last. Two- thirds of drug court participants are parents of young children. After getting sober through the coerced treatment mandated by the court, many of these individuals are able to be real parents again. More than 500 drug-free babies have been born to female drug court participants, a sizable victory for society and the budget alike. This bill reauthorizes programs to provide for drug treatment in state and federal prisons. According to CASA, 80 percent of the men and women behind bars in the United States today are there because of alcohol or drugs. They were either drunk or high when they committed their crime, broke an alcohol or drug law, stole to support their habit, or have a history of drug or alcohol abuse. The need for drug and alcohol treatment in our nations prisons and jails is clear. Providing treatment to criminal offenders is not ``soft.'' It is a smart crime prevention policy. If we do not treat addicted offenders before they are released, they will be turned back onto our streets with the same addiction problem that got them in trouble in the first place and they will reoffend. Inmates who are addicted to drugs and alcohol are more likely to be incarcerated repeatedly than those without a substance abuse problem. This is not my opinion, it is fact. According to CASA, 81 percent of inmates with five or more prior convictions have been habitual drug users compared to 41 percent of first-time offenders. Reauthorizing prison-based treatment programs is a good investment and is an important crime prevention initiative. This legislation is a first step. Someday, we will look back and wonder why we didn't think of this sooner. For now, we need to implement these pilot projects, help people make it in their communities and make our streets safer. I am certain that we will revel in the results. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, ``An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'' When our parents and grandparents told us that, they probably weren't talking about the problem of crime in America. But they might have been. So many times in our debates, in the testimony given by experts from law-enforcement professionals to psychologists and social workers, the value of prevention--of keeping kids away from crime before they ever get into it--is clear and indisputable. And it is just as clear that one of the best ways to keep kids out of trouble is, simply, to give them something else to do. Terrance Collier, a 13-year-old from Washington, DC, had something else to do this summer. In fact, he had a lot to do. Through a program called City Kids Wilderness Project, Terrance went to Wyoming, where he camped, cooked, helped with cleaning up, paddled a canoe, went rafting, made new friends and, in the process, learned about nature, himself, teamwork and responsibility. Randy Luskey started City Kids Wilderness Project and continues to fund the program himself. A few years ago, Randy donated his Wyoming ranch to the kids. But, Randy is not just a blind donor. Randy leaves his own family in Colorado every year to actively participate with the kids in Jackson Hole. Cathy Robillard takes time away from her home and family in Vermont every summer to work with the kids in Wyoming. She is the person that runs the nuts and bolts of the program and does so with a measure of care and discipline. City Kids Wilderness Project is one of the best possible examples of time and money well spent. And it is an example that should be followed. A lot of the participants get into City Kids Wilderness Project through Boys and Girls Clubs, the kind of partnership that gets the best out of both programs, the kind of partnership that has proven successful time and time again. In debating funding for crime-prevention programs and public-private partnerships, we hear testimony from the experts and professionals, as we should, but we will never have a witness more important than 13- year-old Terrance Collier. Terrance found his time in Wyoming to be rewarding, it made a difference to him, he thought it was important and it kept him off the street. Let's listen to that testimony, and let's thank the people like Randy Luskey and Cathy Robillard who are offering ``an ounce of prevention'' to kids like Terrance, brightening the promise of the future for all of us.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in the best economic and budget times in our country's history, I believe that we should provide American families with tax relief. That is why I supported this bill when it passed the Senate earlier this week, and that is why I will vote for it again today. But I vote today knowing that this bill will be vetoed by the President. Everyone here knows that. I hope that passage here today will lead to the kind of eventual compromise between the President and Congress--maybe a grand compromise that will include a prescription drug benefit under Medicare--that we can all support. If that kind of compromise is not reached, Mr. President, I will vote to sustain that veto. Since we voted just a few days go, the cost of this bill has gone up over $40 billion--that is the wrong direction. I still prefer an alternative that would cost less and that would be better targeted at the marriage penalty and at those families with the greatest need, one that would give families more flexibility to deal with their own circumstances. Passage of this bill today is the beginning of the debate on this issue, Mr. President, not the end.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the threat to Montenegro, the sole remaining free part of the Yugoslav federation. In the decade of the 1990s, there were four mornings on which my colleagues and I awoke to a recurring headline: new war in the former Yugoslavia, started by Slobodan Milosevic. First, in Slovenia. Next, in Croatia. Then, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Finally, in Kosovo. I do not want to ever read that headline again. I never want to read the headline that says: Milosevic starts new war in Montenegro. So let's say it loud and clear: hands off Montenegro, Mr. Milosevic! What is going on today in the so-called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, specifically, in the relationship between Serbia and Montenegro? Why is it important for us to pay attention? And what should be our stance toward developments there? These are the questions I aim to answer in my remarks today. Most of my colleagues are aware that ``Yugoslavia'' is an invented term. It was not the name with which that nation was born after the First World War. Rather, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes officially changed its name in 1929 to the ``Kingdom of Yugoslavia,'' meaning the kingdom of the South Slavs. That was the first Yugoslavia, the one which perished in the course of the Second World War. Out of the ashes of World War II, the second Yugoslavia arose. That was Tito's Yugoslavia. Tito had been dead for a less than a decade when his Yugoslavia began to unravel at the start of the 1990s. And now, today, all that remains of Yugoslavia is an increasingly quarrelsome couple: Serbia and Montenegro. Once Yugoslavia was a state of 20 million inhabitants, with five constituent republics plus two semi-autonomous provinces. And today? Slovenia, gone. Croatia, gone. Bosnia and Herzegovina, gone. Macedonia, gone. Kosovo, for all intents and purposes, gone. The two republics of Serbia and Montenegro are what is left of Yugoslavia, Mr. President. And the undeniable fact is that many people in Montenegro want no more to do with that Yugoslav federation with Serbia as it is today. Will Montenegro someday split off to become an independent nation- state, like Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina? Maybe. Will Montenegro someday become a partner with Serbia in a revitalized and restructured Yugoslavia? Maybe. Will Montenegro wind up as a Serbian puppet-state, ruled from Belgrade by the likes of Slobodan Milosevic or some other Serbian authoritarian jingoist? Not if I have anything to say about it, and I hope my colleagues and the U.S. Government agree with me. We simply must not take our eye off the ball, Mr. President. There is still a very serious risk that Milosevic will undermine and then overthrow the elected government of the Republic of Montenegro. What would be the result of such a development? At a minimum-- Montenegrins executed or thrown in jail, others forced to flee abroad as refugees, Milosevic in charge of new borders with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Kosovo. At a maximum--war with a capital ``W'', in the Balkans, once again. What is the seriousness of the threat today to Montenegro? Earlier this month Milosevic made his latest move from Belgrade. He got the obedient legislature to approve changes to Yugoslavia's constitution. The first major change was that henceforth the President of Yugoslavia will be directly elected. Guess who gets to run? Yes, Milosevic himself--who otherwise would have been obliged by the constitution to step down next year at his term's end. This means that Mr. Milosevic has, in effect, extended his legal ``shelf-life'' by as many as eight years. The second major constitutional change was that the upper house of Yugoslavia's parliament henceforth will be elected proportionally. Mr. President, that's easy for us to understand. It means that, by comparison, in this Chamber, there would be a heck of a lot more Senators from California than from Delaware. In the case of Yugoslavia, it isn't hard to figure out the significance: Montenegro has 650,000 inhabitants; Serbia has 10 million. This constitutional re-jiggering has fooled absolutely no one. That it was immediately condemned, on July 8, both by Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic and by the legislature of the Republic of Montenegro. The vote in the Montenegrin legislature was 36 to 18 in favor of a vigorous condemnation of the constitutional changes as ``illegal and illegitimate.'' The changes have also been condemned by the political opposition within Serbia. The changes have even been condemned by the Russians, who joined in the recent G-8 communique statement condemning Milosevic's constitutional fiddling. Milosevic and his cronies are clearly trying to topple the democratically elected government of President Djukanovic. These constitutional changes are but the latest gambit. In contrast with Milosevic's hopelessly inept long-term strategies, most of his tactics are clever. If these constitutional changes were ultimately to be accepted by, or forced upon, the Montenegrins, they would facilitate his control of Montenegro through peaceful means. Given, however, that the Montenegrins have rejected the changes, Mr. Milosevic now can claim, spuriously, that the Montenegrins are acting ``unconstitutionally'' or ``illegally'' and that, therefore, Belgrade has some right to ``intervene.'' Mr. Milosevic also is trying to provoke the Montenegrin authorities into reacting out of anger and national pride, and going ahead with a referendum on independence. Thankfully, the Montenegrin Government, including both President Djukanovic and the legislature, have not fallen for Milosevic's trap. On July 8, the same day that it so roundly condemned Milosevic's constitutional shenanigans, the Montenegrin legislature specifically rejected a proposal calling for an immediate referendum on independence. The support for independence in Montenegro is not--at least not yet-- sufficiently strong to justify holding a referendum. Look again at that vote--36 to 18. There clearly are pro-Milosevic politicians in Montenegro. Many Montenegrins, especially from the northern part of the country, either consider themselves Serbs or at least profess greater allegiance to Serbia and/or a Yugoslavia which Serbia dominates than to Montenegro. Aside from ethnic self-identification, there are many Montenegrins who are not convinced that independence is a better outcome for such a small country than a democratically reformed federation with Serbia would be. For example, in recent municipal elections in Montenegro, the capital, Podgorica, went for Djukanovic, while another city, Herceg Novi, went for the pro-Serbian party. The risk of holding a referendum on Montenegro's independence, in such a context, would be that the balloting might easily be followed by civil unrest and skirmishes--provoked by Milosevic's henchmen or spontaneous--which would be all the provocation that Milosevic would need in order to seize power in the name of preserving law and order through some combination of paramilitaries and Yugoslav Army units already stationed in Montenegro. In fact, Reuters reported that the Yugoslav Army was poised to implement just such a plan if the Montenegrin legislature had reacted more radically to the changes in the Yugoslav constitution. Our State Department does not discount these reports as idle speculation. What is our policy in response to Milosevic's constant provocations and threats against Montenegro? What have we been doing, what are we doing, what more can we do? First of all, we are providing economic assistance to the Government of Montenegro. In Fiscal Year 2000, we have already allocated $60.56 million. Secretary of State Albright announced on July 13 that the Administration plans to notify the Congress of its intention to reprogram an additional $16.5 million for democratization and economic reform in Montenegro. Why does Montenegro need this money? Much of it is for budget-support. As a key part of Milosevic's effort at destabilization, he has squeezed Montenegro's economy very hard through a series of measures. He has had Yugoslavia's central bank print extra money, against the wishes of the Montenegrin representatives to the bank, and then spent it in Montenegro to cause inflation there. Yugoslavia has refused to grant import and export licenses to Montenegrin companies. Serbia has taken virtually all of the revenue from Yugoslavia's customs collections, leaving none of it for Montenegro. Yugoslavia has stopped payment to Montenegrin pensioners from the federal pension fund. Yugoslavia has denied overflight clearances for aircraft that would transport foreign tourists to Montenegro. And, most significant, Belgrade has cut off Montenegrin purchasers from food and medicine produced in Serbia, the market which previously had provided 75 percent of Montenegro's purchases of such commodities. Think about this--the Milosevic regime, which complains about sanctions targeted at specific individuals and enterprises in Serbia, has placed sanctions on its ``brother'' republic of Montenegro. These are sanctions that hurt all Montenegrins. It is in large part to combat this kind of economic sabotage that we are providing so much assistance to Montenegro. That is merely the economic kind of sabotage. As I just mentioned, the Milosevic regime has been preparing the Yugoslav Army to be able to move against the Djukanovic government. For several years, Milosevic has been sending special troops to join Yugoslav Army units in Montenegro, as well as commanders who would not hesitate to obey orders to attack their Montenegrin ``brethren.'' Ready to defend the legally elected government are the relatively well-armed police force and Interior Ministry troops of the Republic of Montenegro. There have been stand-offs and provocations at border crossings, at Podgorica airport, and elsewhere. So far cooler heads have prevailed, but no one should doubt that Milosevic has a plan to depose Djukanovic, the most prominent remaining democrat in Yugoslavia. Milosevic will undoubtedly wait for another target of opportunity. I have no inside line to Belgrade, but my guess is that he may act when we are preoccupied with the U.S. election campaign this fall and when he hopes that partisan political interest may make reaction to foreign aggression more difficult. More about that later. In any event, it is abundantly clear that Montenegro urgently needs our assistance because it is threatened by the Serbia of Milosevic, through economic pressure and military intimidation. Why, however, does Montenegro deserve our assistance? The answer is simple. Because Montenegro, and President Djukanovic's government, want to do the right thing. President Djukanovic, though still a young man, has traveled a long road. He has gone from being a Yugoslav Communist committed to the preservation of the status quo to being a Western-oriented democrat. I have met with President Djukanovic on several occasions. He is a realist. He knows that the only option for Montenegro is the Western model. That means market economy. That means fair elections and multi-ethnic inclusive politics. That means engagement with the outside world rather than sullen, sulking self-pity. From the beginning, his government has been a coalition of Montenegrins, Slavic Muslims, and ethnic Albanians, During the air campaign in Kosovo, President Djukanovic permitted refugees to enter Montenegro from Kosovo, and from Serbia as well. In fact, some members of the Serbian opposition were safer during that war in Montenegro than in Serbia. Even while Yugoslav Army targets were being bombed in Montenegro, President Djukanovic kept his cool. He understood that what NATO was doing had to be done. Recently, President Djukanovic did something that I think is extraordinary, and ought to be better known. Earlier this summer, he offered an apology. Specifically, on behalf of Montenegro, he said to the Croatian people: I'm sorry for the role that some Montenegrins played in the infamous shelling of Dubrovnik back in 1991. What is going on here? A Balkan leader actually apologizing for ethnic-cleansing and war-crimes? The fact that President Djukanovic made that statement, and that it was accepted as an apology by President Mesic and the Government of Croatia, is highly significant. That kind of statement and reaction represent the only way out of the morass of ethnic hatred that caused, and could still cause, death and destruction in the former Yugoslavia. In terms of economic reform, the government of President Djukanovic has said that it would like to begin a major privatization of state assets sometime later this year. The United States, our allies, and the international financial institutions not only should support this, but should be involved in it. We have learned from hard experience throughout the former communist world, that if outside powers do not get involved, it is just too tempting for well-placed individuals to cream off the best for themselves, to the disadvantage of the populace as a whole. Montenegro deserves our support, because its government wants to follow good models of governance, economics, and politics, despite the risk that its democratic and free-market policies could bring civil war, military coup, sudden exile, or even worse, assassination. Let us not forget that it was in Montenegro that Milosevic's hit-men shot and wounded Vuk Draskovic, the Serbian opposition leader. Standing up to Milosevic, when you live inside Yugoslavia, takes courage. Standing up to Milosevic in the name of a majority of your 650,000 countrymen, as President Djukanovic is doing, takes quite a bit of courage. It seems clear to me that what we have on our hands in Montenegro is a case where we have American strategic interest combined with a moral imperative. Let us not be caught flat-footed in Montenegro. Let us be vigilant and on guard. First, I call upon our government to make clear to President Milosevic that the United States will not tolerate the overthrow of the legally elected government of Montenegro. Second, I urge in the strongest terms that the United States immediately take the lead within NATO in drawing up detailed contingency plans for responding affirmatively to any request by the Djukanovic government for assistance in repelling aggression by the Yugoslav Army against Montenegro. Third, in order that this not become a partisan issue in the fall election campaign, I urge the Administration to include representatives of both Vice President Gore and Governor Bush in all deliberations on the situation in Montenegro. I hope that all members of Congress, and indeed all Americans, will agree that we owe it to ourselves, to our allies, and to our friends in Montenegro and in the Balkans, to be prepared. As somebody once observed, ``summoning the will to win is one thing; the more important thing is summoning the will to prepare.'' Deterrence is much cheaper than war-fighting. Milosevic must be made to understand that he will not be allowed to get away with his fifth war of aggression in 10 years.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, because of the sudden death of the former mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, who was a close friend of mine, I had to return to Delaware today directly after the funeral for Senator Pastore. Consequently, I was necessarily absent for the roll-call votes on Senate amendments No. 3925 and No. 3927 to the Agriculture Appropriations bill. Had I been present, I would have voted yes on both amendments. The high cost of pharmaceuticals in this country relative to the cost of the same drugs in nearby countries, such as Canada and Mexico, is a major irritant to many seniors struggling to make ends meet in the face of fixed incomes and high expenses for medications. Reimportation of drugs from foreign countries, although it may lower prescription drug costs for Americans, should not be permitted if it will jeopardize the health of this country's citizens. The potential effect of these provisions to reduce pharmaceutical research and development in the U.S. is an unknown but important factor. The controversy over these provisions serves to emphasize once again the need to expand Medicare to provide prescription drug insurance coverage for seniors and the disabled.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to highlight the troubled transition from communism to democracy of the largest of the new states in Central Asia, Kazakhstan. That transition is in serious jeopardy because of the authoritarian behavior of Kazakhstan's President, highlighted by the recent capricious arrest of the leader of the political opposition. There are high-stakes, competing forces at work in Kazakhstan: the promise of huge sums of money to be made from exploiting the country's vast natural resources, and the pull of old dictatorial ways against the nascent democratic movement. Last month, I met with a man who could help lead Kazakhstan toward true democracy--a former Prime Minister and outspoken critic of the current regime, Akezhan Kazhegeldin. Unfortunately, the Government of Kazakhstan is doing everything within its power to see that Mr. Kazhegeldin not get this opportunity. Two days ago, he was detained in Rome on an INTERPOL warrant instigated by the Kazakh Government. The charges, which range from terrorism to money laundering, are regarded by our State Department as trumped up and political in nature. This morning word came from Rome that the Italian authorities have shared our Government's assessment of the case and that they have released Mr. Kazhegeldin. But, although I am gratified at this development, the very fact of Mr. Kazhegeldin's arrest is a cause for deep concern for every American who hopes that democracy can take root in every country where Soviet despotism once reigned. This latest arrest is doubly troubling, because it suggests that authoritarian rulers are having at least temporary success in manipulating international organizations, in this case INTERPOL. The International League for Human Rights considers Mr. Kazhegeldin's arrest to be a ``particularly serious violation of article 2 of the INTERPOL Constitution'' because the founders of that organization ``were careful to provide that the INTERPOL network could not be used by authoritarian governments to harass their domestic political opponents.'' The real reason for the arrest was the latest in a series of attempts by the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to suppress his political opposition, which is led by Mr. Kazhegeldin. The timing is probably not coincidental. Mr. Kazhegeldin had recently offered to testify before U.S. authorities about corruption at the highest levels in Kazakhstan. This is the second time that President Nazarbayev has had Mr. Kazhegeldin detained by national authorities--there was a similar occurrence in Moscow last fall. In both cases, President Nazarbayev's government filed bogus charges through INTERPOL to have Mr. Kazhegeldin detained. I understand that our own Department of Justice has routinely ignored such INTERPOL notices concerning Mr. Kazhegeldin. In an even more sinister vein, the harassment against Mr. Kazhegeldin's associates has turned to physical violence--his press aide was stabbed in Moscow recently. Mr. President, the stakes in Kazakhstan are extraordinarily high. The country is four times the size of Texas and is blessed with energy resources that even the Lone Star State would envy. For example, it has proven oil reserves of some 15\1/2\ billion barrels; areas under the Caspian Sea may yield up to another 30 billion barrels. Estimates of natural gas reserves range from 3 to 6 trillion cubic meters. In addition, there are rich deposits of minerals such as copper, zinc, chromium, and uranium. The Tengiz oil field is currently being worked by U.S., Russian, Kazakh, and other companies. Construction is underway on a pipeline to the Russian port city of Novorossiisk, and Central Asian leaders have signed agreements with Turkey for a Baku-Ceyhan route. But this energy wealth is prospective for now. The big fields have not yet begun to yield, and the country remains poor. Kazakhstan's political landscape remains as undeveloped as its oil fields. Elections have been marked by irregularities to the point where international monitors agree that they have not met democratic standards. In fact--and this speaks volumes about the arrest in Rome-- President Nazarbayev was re-elected in 1999 by banning his only real opponent, none other than Akezhan Kazhegeldin. Human rights abuses have been reliably documented and include extrajudicial killings, harsh prison conditions, and torture of detainees. The press in Kazakhstan has been constrained by President Nazarbayev's desire to curb those who would ``harm the country's image in the world.'' In addition, the government owns and controls significant printing and distribution facilities and subsidizes publications. Restraints on the press are severe enough that self- censorship is now practiced. The right of free assembly is restricted by law and by the government. Organizations must apply 10 days in advance to hold a gathering, and local authorities are widely reported to deny such permits. In some instances, demonstrators have been fined or imprisoned. There is, however, one piece of good news, in the area of weapons nonproliferation. Kazakhstan, which was one of four nuclear states formed out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has been a vigorous partner with the United States in the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. In 1995, President Nazarbayev announced that his country was no longer a nuclear power, after the last of its nuclear warheads had been removed to Russia. On the negative side, however, government officials of Kazakhstan illegally sold 40 Soviet-built MiG 21 fighter jets to North Korea. The officials implicated in the sales have received only minor punishment. The United States has worked with Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian states to promote democracy, economic reform, development of the energy sector, and other goals. In Kazakhstan alone, we provided $600 million in assistance from 1992 to 1999. It is important to note that the Silk Road Strategy Act, passed by this Congress, specifically calls for increased aid to support conflict resolution in the region, humanitarian relief, economic and democratic reform, and institution-building. Finally, the United States has pursued a policy of vigorous engagement with the Government of Kazakhstan, including visits to that country by Secretary of State Albright and First Lady Hillary Clinton. We have also received many of their leaders in Washington, including President Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan, for all of its failings, is important to global security--because of its location, because of its wealth of energy resources, and because of its commitment to remain a nuclear weapons- free state. But no matter how important Kazakhstan is, the United States must forcefully remind President Nazarbayev that acts of harassment such as the arrest of Mr. Kazhegeldin endanger the good relations between our two countries. He must be made to see the benefits of democracy and a free market economy, and the blind alley of authoritarian cronyism. Therefore, I call upon President Nazarbayev to stop his harassment of Mr. Kazhegeldin and the rest of the legitimate political opposition in Kazakhstan. It is these attacks--not the legitimate activities of the political opposition--that are serving to tarnish the reputation of Kazakhstan. This political repression makes the developed nations-- whose support and investment Kazakhstan desperately needs--wary of economic involvement there. The United States can work in partnership to build a better life for the people of Kazakhstan, but only if President Nazarbayev understands that political democracy must go hand-in-hand with economic development.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, 3 years ago I came to the Senate floor to talk about China and how the United States can best achieve its national interests in the Far East. I spoke then on the eve on two summits which went a long way toward putting the U.S.-China relationship on a firmer foundation. I called for a patient, principled engagement strategy designed to win greater Chinese compliance with international norms in the areas of human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. Three years later, there has been some progress, but also some setbacks. U.S.-China relations remain dogged by uncertainties--each side harbors doubts about the other's intentions, doubts reinforced by allegations of Chinese espionage and the tragic mistaken U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. China's fear of how we might exploit our position as the world's only superpower is matched by our concerns over China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and its intimidation tactics against Taiwan. China's leaders decry U.S. ``hegemony'' and ``interference in their internal affairs.'' We worry about whether the Dragon will breathe fire at its neighbors, or just blow smoke. So today I rise at what I believe may be a pivotal moment which will determine our Nation's future in Asia not just for this year, or next year, but for 10 years, 20 years, and into the world my grandchildren will inherit. Three decisions--on national missile defense, on invoking sweeping new unilateral sanctions on China, and on extending permanent normal trade relations to China--will help shape U.S. strategic doctrine and irrevocably alter the security landscape in East Asia for decades to come. They are decisions which must be made in the context of revolutionary changes underway on the Korean Peninsula and an awakening China which wants to play in major leagues, but is not sure it wants to abide by all the rules of the game. Today I wish to address the first of these three major decisions-- national missile defense--as it relates to China and recent developments on the Korean peninsula. Mr. President, I rise with optimism--my mother calls me a ``congenital optimist.'' Not the optimism of a Phillies fan--a blind, fervent optimism born each spring, matured each summer, and dashed against the rocks by fall. No, I speak with the confidence which flows from the enormous capacity and good will of the American people. I am optimistic because we now enjoy an unprecedented opportunity to shape the future in ways which will enhance our national security and preserve our prosperity. I reject the path of unrelieved pessimism and lack of common sense which, to me, underlies much of the thinking of those who believe China must be an enemy of the United States, and that North Korea can neither be deterred nor persuaded to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear missile capability. I reject the pessimism which says that American idealism and the dynamism of American markets are somehow incapable of handling the opportunities which will be ours as China joins the World Trade Organization and opens its markets to the world. But my optimism is informed by realism. Let me put it bluntly: China does not believe that National Missile Defense is oriented against North Korea. According to those who justify a limited national missile defense on the basis of the North Korean threat, North Korea is ruled by a nutcase who by 2005 will be in position to launch an ICBM with weapons of mass destruction against the United States, and will do so without giving one thought to the consequences. Who can blame China for questioning this rationale for a national missile defense? I question it myself. The notion that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il is going to wake up one morning and decide to attack the United States with long-range missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction is absurd! The notion that 5 or 10 long-range missiles would deter us from defending South Korea is equally bogus. Did the Soviet Union's ability to devastate the United States prevent us from defending Europe for a generation and West Berlin in 1961, even in the face of superior Warsaw Pact strength on the ground? No. Did it stop us from forcing the removal of missiles from Cuba in 1963, or from supplying Afghan mujaheddin in their successful struggle against Soviet forces? No. Has China's ability to deliver a nuclear strike against a dozen or more U.S. cities prevented us from defending Taiwan? No, again. Moreover, in the wake of the first North-South Summit meeting ever, the prospects for peaceful reconciliation between North and South Korea are better today than they have been in my lifetime. I'm not saying that peace on the Korean Peninsula is a ``done deal.'' Far from it. North Korea has not withdrawn its heavy artillery. North Korea has not abandoned its missile program. North Korea has not halted all of its support for international terrorist organizations. There is a tremendous amount of hard work to be done. But look at the facts that relate to our decision on national missile defense. The last time North Korea launched a missile, I remind my colleagues, was on August 31, 1998. On that day, a three stage Taepo-Dong missile flew over Japan. The third stage of the missile apparently failed to perform as the North Koreans had hoped, but the mere existence of the third stage surprised many of our experts and caused them to reassess the North's capabilities and to advance the date by which North Korea might develop an ICBM to 2005. But since August 1998, North Korea has not launched a long-range missile. It recently extended indefinitely the test-launch moratorium it implemented 15 months ago. Negotiations are underway right now with the objective of curtailing North Korea's development and export of long-range missiles. Now the pessimists say that North Korea will never agree to forego development, deployment, or export of long-range ballistic missiles. But then, the pessimists also said that the North Koreans would never open their nuclear facilities to round-the-clock monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, would never stop construction on its heavy water nuclear reactors, would never permit World Food Program monitoring of food deliveries throughout North Korea, would never hold a summit meeting with South Korea, would never undertake economic reforms, and so on. Guess what? They have been wrong on all counts. And what does Kim Dae-jung, the President of South Korea, have to say about the temperament of Kim Jong-il? All evidence points to a North Korean leader who is intelligent, rational, and coldly calculating. Not the type of guy who gets up on the wrong side of bed in the morning and decides to ensure the complete annihilation of his country by launching a few nuclear missiles at the United States. How does all this relate to China? The fact is, North Korea is in a world of hurt since the collapse of the Soviet Union. China is the North's major trading partner and aid donor, and it has successfully urged North Korea to engage with South Korea and curtail its missile testing. Why? Is it because China wants to be helpful to us? Perhaps. But I doubt it. No. China is acting in its own self interest. China knows that if North Korea presses ahead with its missile program, the United States is almost certain to deploy a national missile defense against that threat. And if we do, even a limited system will seriously undermine China's tiny nuclear deterrent. China has only a handful of old, silo-based, liquid-fueled missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the United States. Beijing calculates that any U.S. system sufficient to deal with 10-12 North Korean missiles could also handle 10-20 Chinese ICBMs. And guess what? Notwithstanding our repeated protests to the contrary, they are probably right. So how can we expect China to respond if we foolishly rush ahead with deployment of this unproven, expensive, national missile defense, for which the rationale is evaporating as I speak? Well, for starters, China will have no further incentive to use its influence with North Korea to rein in the North's nuclear missile ambitions. And North Korea, with no reason to trust the United States, may opt to end its missile launch moratorium and proceed full speed with the testing, deployment, and export of long-range ballistic missiles. Second, if we rush to deploy limited NMD, China itself will surely take steps to ensure the survivability of its nuclear arsenal. They have made that painfully clear. We already know that they are planning to move from silo-based liquid-fueled rockets to mobile, solid-fueled rockets which will be much harder for us to locate and destroy. They are probably going to do that no matter what we do. But they have not decided how many missiles to manufacture, or whether to MIRV them. Our actions will have a huge impact on their thinking. We already sent one unfortunate signal when the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. If we want to guarantee that China will go from fewer than two dozen ICBM's to 200 or 2,000, then by all means, let's just forge ahead with a national missile defense without any consideration for how that decision will affect China's nuclear posture and doctrine. And if China responds as I fear they might, how will India respond? Pakistan? Japan? And if in 5 or 10 years Japan feels compelled to go nuclear, how will South Korea respond? Mr. President, there is a reason why our allies in East Asia are urging caution with respect to the deployment of a national missile defense. They understand that bad U.S.-China relations are bad for regional stability. Listen to what a leading strategist in South Korea, Dr. Lho Kyong-soo of Seoul National University, recently wrote about missile defenses, China, and implications for the U.S.-South Korea alliance: Needless to say, minus a clear-cut image of North Korea as the `enemy,' the security rationale underpinning the alliance is seriously weakened . . . Much will depend on how the relationship between the United States and China evolves in the years ahead. If the relationship becomes antagonistic, Seoul will find itself in an extremely delicate position vis-a-vis Beijing, a situation that it would clearly like to avoid at all costs. There appears to be little awareness in Washington, however, how its China policy, should it be mishandled, could have possibly adverse consequences in terms of alliance relations with Seoul, and, in all likelihood, with Tokyo as well. The cautious stance taken by Seoul with respect to the acquisition of even a lower-tier Theater Missile Defense capability is but one example of Seoul's desire not to unnecessarily create friction with Beijing. So, Mr. President, this is a serious business. I believe this body has not yet taken the time to consider the implications of deploying a limited national missile defense for our broader strategic interests in East Asia. I intend to raise these issues and others in the days ahead. If we are not to squander our material wealth and our world leadership, we must consider carefully whether a missile defense will maximize our overall national security.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as I understand it, the Senator from New York has yielded me 10 minutes. I will not use the 10 minutes because there will be others who wish to speak. I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. President, the headlines in today's papers say that we are here today discussing estate tax relief, an issue that affects a little less than 2 percent of Americans. The issue before us is much bigger than that. We are debating the fundamental principles that should guide us in the new era of budget surpluses. We cannot, we must not, lose sight of that larger picture. If we focus on the narrow picture of a tax cut here, a spending program there, we run the risk of wasting all the hard work and sacrifice that has brought us to the best economic and budget era in our history. The real task before us today is to set the priorities for this era. This debate over the estate tax is just one part of that debate, but it is an important part. Let's be clear about this--the amendment I am offering right now, with my friends from New York and Indiana and Louisiana, would repeal the estate tax for all families with estates up to $4 million, and for all family farms and businesses up to $8 million. And, it would leave room for a tuition tax credit to help middle class Americans pay for the rising cost of a college education. Our proposal, the Democratic alternative proposal that Senator Moynihan introduced earlier today, would eliminate those taxes sooner than the Republican plan, and would remove virtually all of the cases from the estate tax roles that have been employed as examples by the majority in this debate. The majority would rather send their plan to the certain fate of a Presidential veto than cut the taxes of the family farmers and family businesses they claim to care about. They would rather have an issue than a tax cut. Their proposal would cut the top tax rates for the richest of the rich first, and delay for 10 years the tax relief for family farms and businesses. By the time any tax relief gets to those farmers and small businessmen, the Republican plan will cost at least $50 billion a year--half a trillion over 10 years--effectively squeezing out any hope for deficit reduction, strengthening Social Security, other tax cuts, or any other priorities we will face. The plan I am offering with my colleagues today offers relief for family farms and businesses up front--and leaves room for other priorities. The priority I want to stress is the need to help with the spiraling cost of college tuition. Mr. President, I am glad to join the Senator from New York in offering this amendment to make higher education more affordable for America's families. As a college degree becomes increasingly vital in today's global economy, the costs associated with obtaining this degree continue to skyrocket. At the same time, the annual income of the average American family is not keeping pace with these soaring costs. Since 1980, college costs have been rising at an average of 2 to 3 times the Consumer Price Index. Now, in the most prosperous time in our history, it is simply unacceptable that the key to our children's future success has become a crippling burden for middle-class families. According to the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, the average annual costs associated with attending a public 4-year college during the 1998-1999 school year, including tuition, fees, room, and board were $8,018. For a private 4- year school these costs rose to an astonishing $19,970. And these are only the average costs, Mr. President. The price tag for just one year at the nation's most prestigious universities is fast approaching the $35,000 range. In 1996, and again in 1997, I introduced the ``GET AHEAD'' Act, Growing the Economy for Tomorrow: Assuring Higher Education is Affordable and Dependable. My main goal in introducing this legislation was to help the average American family afford to send their children to college. Although this legislation never came before the full Senate for a vote, I was extremely pleased that a number of the provisions of the GET AHEAD Act--including the student loan interest deduction and the establishment of education savings accounts--were included as part of the 1997 tax bill. Additionally, two other provisions of that bill--the Hope Scholarship and the Lifetime Learning Credit--were based upon the core proposal of my GET AHEAD Act--a $10,000 tuition deduction. I have been advocating tuition deduction since I first announced my candidacy for the Senate 28 years ago. Earlier this year, I was pleased that the President made a proposal in his State of the Union Address which would finally fully enact this proposal. The amendment Senators Schumer, Bayh, Landrieu, and I are offering today will provide America's middle class families with a tax deduction of up to $12,000 for the costs of college tuition and fees. Middle-class families who struggle to send their kids to college should get some tax relief. We should not be giving tax cuts to those who need them least. The proposal Senator Schumer and I are offering is a tax cut that makes sense. It is a tax cut that benefits the middle class, and it is a tax cut that is an investment in America's future. Mr. President, the dream of every American is to provide for their child a better life than they themselves had. A key component in attaining that dream is ensuring that their children have the education necessary to successfully compete in the expanding global economy. It is my hope that the proposal we are offering today will help many American families move a step closer in achieving this dream and be able to better afford to send their children to college. I am proud to join Senator Schumer. He and I, together and separately, have been pushing for this relief for middle-class taxpayers to send their kids to college for a long time. I apologize to my colleague, Bill Roth, for whom I have great respect. He has heard me on this hobby horse about tuition tax credit longer than he cares. I am not suggesting he does not share the same concern, but I apologize. He has heard me make this speech since 1973 when I was a freshman Senator. As one of the folks in Delaware said to me: Biden, when are you going to get off that hobby horse? I am not going to get off the hobby horse because, as the Senator from New York indicated, as a matter of public policy, we should be making it easier, not harder, for children to go to college. We should not make these false distinctions between you are able, maybe, to get to a community college or to a junior college or maybe your State college, but you are not going to be able to get to a private institution. If a child has the intellectual capacity, interest, and drive and they are able to go to Harvard or the University of Chicago or one of the great institutions in America where we all know you get a little leg up--I had one son graduate from Syracuse Law School and did just as well as the son who graduated from Yale Law School, but the marks of the kid who went to Yale Law School were no different than the one who went to Syracuse Law School. He got his ticket punched, a ticket to ride. We all know it makes a difference to what school you have access. We have essentially priced middle-class kids out of the finer institutions. They may not learn any more coming out of those institutions, but they get a heck of a lot more opportunities, which I can say as a graduate of my State university, of which I am proud. Since 1980, college costs have been rising on average two to three times the Consumer Price Index. Now in the most prosperous time in our history, people still have trouble. Let me give my colleagues a little idea. According to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, the average annual costs with attending a public 4-year college during the 1998-1999 school year, including tuition, fees, room, and board were $8,018. For a private university, that average cost was $19,000. If you decide to send your child or your child decides they wish to go to a private university--I had one go to Georgetown, one go to Penn, and one go to Tulane. That is a total of over $100,000 a year in tuition, which is the reason I have the dubious distinction of being rated as one of the poorest men in the U.S. Congress. I am not poor. I live in a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood. I do not think I am poor, but I have $125,000 in debts for college tuition. The good news is, as the Senator said, I was able to borrow it because I had a nice enough house to borrow against on a second mortgage. What happens to the average American who has a good income, they have a decent income--the wife is making $30,000 or $40,000, and the husband is making $30,000 or $40,000. That is 70,000, 80,000, 90,000 bucks a year. After taxes, what do they have? Maybe somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000. After they write that first semester tuition check for 15 grand, like I am about to do for Tulane University, they are in pretty deep trouble. Every middle-class American knows that. What I am a little concerned about is we are paying very little attention to this. This is about priorities. I had a different bill than my friend from New York. Mine was $10,000 up to $120,000. His is $12,000. His has some better features than mine, but we joined forces to make the case. My dad always said to me: Champ, I tell you what, if everything is equally important to you, nothing is important to you, unless you have priorities. This is about priorities. If the Senator from New York and I had our way and we could make this country as great as it is now without any taxes, we, like everybody else here, would vote against any tax for anything. I am all for no taxes, but what are our choices? Our choices are we cannot cut all taxes. So the question comes: What are we going to do in cutting taxes? Are we going to spend $134 billion over the next 10 years to deal with the ``death tax'' and $750 billion over the next 10 after that, or are we going to spend $40 billion over 10 years, as the Senator from New York----

Mr. BIDEN. I yield myself 30 more seconds. Are we going to spend $40 billion to provide for the opportunity for this to truly be an egalitarian system, a meritocracy? When we graduated from school in the early 1960s and late 1960s, and when our parents did in the 1930s, you needed a high school education to make it, and a college education was nice. Now you need a college education just to make it. So I think people should be able to deduct at least this $12,000 and get a tax credit. This is a matter of priorities. The priorities should be to take care of the middle class first. I reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I suggest that the Senator from New York control the time from here on out and distribute it among those who wish to speak.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I rise today to comment briefly on an extremely thought-provoking opinion piece by Josef Joffe in the June 20th edition of the New York Times. The article was entitled ``A Warning from Putin and Schroeder.'' It describes how the current global predominance of the United States is being countered by constellations of countries, which include allies and less-friendly powers alike, and how American behavior is aiding and abetting this development. Mr. Joffe is the co-editor of the prestigious German weekly Die Zeit. He received his university education in the United States and is well known and respected in American foreign policy circles. In short, his thoughts are advice from a friend, not hostile criticism from an embittered or jealous antagonist. The take-off point of the article, from which its headline is derived, was the recent summit meeting in Berlin between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin during which Putin employed the classic Muscovite tactic of wooing Europe's key country in an effort to have it join Russia as a counterweight to us. Fair enough, Joffe says. Whenever the international system has been dominated by one power, a natural movement to restore the balance has arisen. With regard to the United States, this is nothing new--the Chinese, as well as the Russians, have been decrying a ``unipolar world'' and ``hegemonism'' for years. But Germany--the country the United States practically reinvented from the ashes of World War II, ushered back into the civilized family of nations, and then stood out as the only champion of re-unification only a decade ago? No matter how gushy a host he wished to be, how could the Chancellor of this Germany suddenly be calling for a ``strategic partnership'' with Russia? One answer, according to Joffe, is the obvious and passionate hostility to the U.S. national missile defense project, known popularly as NMD, which the Russians and our German allies--for that matter, all of our European allies--share. A second reason can be traced to the obvious shock at the overwhelming American military superiority shown in last year's Yugoslav air campaign. The manifest European military impotence impelled the European Union to launch its own security and defense policy, which NATO is now struggling to integrate into the alliance. To some extent, then, the very fact of our current power--military, economic, and cultural--makes attempts at creating a countervailing force nearly inevitable. But there is more. It is not only the policy that spawned NMD that irritates our European allies. What also irks them is the cavalier way in which we neglected to consult with them in our rush to formulate that policy. As Joffe trenchantly puts it, ``America is so far ahead of the crowd that it has forgotten to look back.'' In this, the second half of his explanation, I fear that Joffe is on to something: a new kind of American hubris. Again, his use of English is enviable. He describes the behavior of Congress these days as ``obliviousness with a dollop of yahooism'' (I assume he isn't talking about the search engine). Mr. President, no one loves and respects this body more than I do. I believe that the American people is exceedingly well served by the one hundred Senators, all of whom are intelligent and hard-working. Nevertheless, I note with dismay an increasing tendency in this chamber--I will leave judgments of the House of Representatives to others--for Members to advocate aspects of foreign policy with a conscious disregard, occasionally even disdain, for the opinions of our allies and the impact our policies have on them. This kind of unilateralism was exhibited in the floor debate last fall on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by one of my colleagues who, in responding to an article jointly authored by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, and German Chancellor Schroeder, declared: ``I don't care about our allies. I care about our enemies.'' No one, Mr. President, is advocating abandoning or compromising the national interest of the United States simply because our allies oppose this or that aspect of our foreign and security policy. But power--in the current context, our unparalleled power--must be accompanied by a sense of responsibility. Mr. Joffe alludes to this power-and-responsibility duality in recalling the golden age of bipartisan American foreign policy in the years immediately following the Second World War, when Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Democratic President Harry S. Truman collaborated on halting the spread of communism and on helping create the international institutions that remain the cornerstones of our world more than half a century later. As he puts it ``responsibility must defy short-term self-interest or the domestic fixation of the day.'' Mr. President, one does not have to agree with all of Joffe's arguments to admit that his assertions at least merit our serious consideration. For if we do not begin to realize that even the United States of America needs to factor in the opinions of its friends when formulating foreign policy, it may not have many friends to worry about in the future. And if that development occurs, we will almost certainly no longer retain the sole superpower status that we now enjoy.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today, with Senator Hatch, the Violence Against Women Act of 2000. And I thank Senator Hatch, the principal cosponsor of the original Act, for working with me over the past year to produce a bipartisan, streamlined bill that we are confident will enjoy the support of Senators from both sides of the aisle. Indeed, we already have a total of 50 cosponsors-- many of them Republicans--as original cosponsors of this legislation. The enactment of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994--bipartisan legislation cosponsored by 67 Senators from both parties--signaled the beginning of a national and historic commitment to the women and children in this country victimized by family violence and sexual assault. The legislation changed our laws, strengthened criminal penalties, facilitated enforcement of protection orders from state to state, and committed $1.6 billion over six years to police, prosecutors, battered women shelters, a national domestic violence hotline, and other measures designed to crack down on batterers and offer the support and services that victims need in order to leave their abusers. And this federal commitment has paid off: the latest Department of Justice statistics show that overall, violence against women by intimate partners is down, falling 21% from 1993 (just prior to the enactment of the original Act) to 1998. The programs contained in the original Act were authorized only through fiscal year 2000. So unless Congress acts, programs to run the battered women's shelters, the national domestic violence hotline, the STOP grants to help law enforcement and prosecutors combat domestic violence and to provide victims services, grants to address domestic violence in rural communities--all of these will expire this year. These programs are popular, and more importantly, ladies and gentlemen, the Violence Against Women Act is working. And it's not just me calling for this law to be reauthorized. It's police chiefs in every state. It's Attorneys General. Sheriffs. District attorneys. The American Bar Association. Women's groups. Nurses. Battered women's shelters. Family Court judges. States, counties, cities, and towns across the country are creating a seamless network of services for victims of violence against women-- from law enforcement to legal services, from medical care and crisis counseling, to shelters and support groups. The Violence Against Women Act has made, and is making, a real difference in the lives of millions of women and children by providing much needed funds at the local level to--and let me just give you a few examples: Give police officers more specialized training both to deal swiftly and surely with abusers and to become more sensitive toward victims, as well as to provide them with better evidence-gathering and information- sharing equipment and skills; Train prosecutors and judges on the unique aspects of cases involving violence against women; Hire victim advocates and counselors and provide an array of services, including 24-hour hotlines, emergency transportation, medical services, and specialized programs to reach victims of violence against women from all walks of life; and Open new and expand existing shelters for victims of violence against women and their children. The Violence Against Women Act funds 1,031 shelters and 82 safe houses in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. But tens of thousands of women and children are still turned away every year. Together--at the federal, state, and local levels--we have been steadily moving forward, step by step, along the road to ending this violence once and for all. But there is more that we can do, and more that we must do. The Biden-Hatch Violence Against Women Act of 2000 would accomplish three basic things: First, the bill would reauthorize through Fiscal Year 2005 the key programs included in the original Violence Against Women Act. These include the STOP grants, the Pro-Arrest grants, Rural Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Enforcement Grants, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and rape prevention and education programs. This also means reauthorizing the court-appointed special advocate program (CASA), and other programs in the Victims of Child Abuse Act. Second, the bill would extend the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund through Fiscal Year 2005. Funding for the trust fund expires this year. This dedicated funding source--paid for by the savings generated by reducing the federal workforce by more than 300,000 employees--provides all the grant money for additional police officers, prosecutors, and battered women shelters. It is these funds that provide the specialized domestic violence training for law enforcement and prosecutors. The Trust Fund is the source of funding for all the victim services, including counseling, legal services, nursing and hospital services, especially designed for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Of course, the Trust Fund's significance extends beyond the Violence Against Women Act. The trust fund has provided the funds for a host of successful law enforcement initiatives, ranging from drug courts; the weed and seed programs that exist in every state to drive drugs from our cities; and funding for prisons, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and Boys and Girls clubs. And the list goes on. In order to replicate the successes we have achieved under the original Violence Against Women Act, and in order to continue to pursue these other important law enforcement programs, it is imperative that we: (1) extend the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund for an additional five years, and (2) that we fully fund the Trust Fund. Third, the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 makes some targeted improvements that our experience with the original Act has shown to be necessary. Let me give you just a few examples. Civil Legal Assistance Grants: Our bill would create a separate grant program to help victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault who need legal assistance because of that violence, to obtain access to legal services at little to no cost. This provision would also establish a database of legal assistance providers to be maintained and used by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, so that victims who call the hotline can be directed to a legal service provider immediately. Improving Full Faith & Credit Enforcement of Protection Orders: My bill would help states and tribal courts improve interstate enforcement of civil protection orders, as required by the original Violence Against Women Act. The program would prioritize the development and enhancement of data collection and sharing systems to promote tracking and enforcement of protection orders across the nation. Transitional Housing: The bill would also authorize the Department of Health and Human Services to make grants to provide short-term housing assistance and short-term support services to individuals and their dependents who are homeless or in need of transitional housing or other housing assistance as a result of fleeing a situation of domestic violence, and for whom emergency shelter services are unavailable or insufficient. Safe Havens for Children: The bill would authorize a new two-year pilot grant program to be administered by the Department of Justice aimed at reducing the opportunity for domestic violence to occur during the transfer of children for visitation purposes by expanding the availability of supervised visitation for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. We all know that women are at greatest risk of assault at the time when children are transferred between parents. I also would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Morrison, 120 S. Ct. 1740 (2000), invalidated a single provision of the original Act, the ``civil rights remedy'' that permitted a victim of gender-motivated violence to sue her attacker in federal court. No other provision in the original Act--or, for that matter, in the Violence Against Women Act of 2000--is affected by the Supreme Court's decision. Finally, I would like to comment on where we are and how we got here. The bill Senator Hatch and I are introducing today is a streamlined version of S. 51, the legislation I originally introduced at the beginning of the 106th Congress. Since I first introduced S. 51, I have consulted extensively with Senator Hatch and with many other individuals, inside and outside of the Senate, and on both sides of the aisle, in an effort to narrow the legislation to produce a bill that every Senator, regardless of party, can enthusiastically support. In the course of that effort, I agreed to drop a number of items that quite frankly, I think were worth doing, and made other concessions. I did that because I believe it is critical, in the waning days of this legislative session, to achieve a strong bipartisan consensus on the essential elements that must be included in this bill. I am convinced that we have reached that consensus, and that the bill we now propose reflects the priorities of a substantial majority of Senators. For far too long, law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts, and the community at large treated domestic abuse as a ``private family matter,'' looking the other way when women suffered abuse at the hands of their supposed loved ones. Thanks in part to the original Act, violence against women is no longer a private matter, and the time when a woman has to suffer in silence because the criminal who is victimizing her happens to be her husband or boyfriend has passed. The bill I introduce today will renew the commitment we made as a nation in 1994 to combat family violence, sexual assault, and stalking. I urge all of you to support it. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today, with Senator Hatch, the Violence Against Women Act of 2000. And I thank Senator Hatch, the principal cosponsor of the original Act, for working with me over the past year to produce a bipartisan, streamlined bill that we are confident will enjoy the support of Senators from both sides of the aisle. Indeed, we already have a total of 50 cosponsors-- many of them Republicans--as original cosponsors of this legislation. The enactment of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994--bipartisan legislation cosponsored by 67 Senators from both parties--signaled the beginning of a national and historic commitment to the women and children in this country victimized by family violence and sexual assault. The legislation changed our laws, strengthened criminal penalties, facilitated enforcement of protection orders from state to state, and committed $1.6 billion over six years to police, prosecutors, battered women shelters, a national domestic violence hotline, and other measures designed to crack down on batterers and offer the support and services that victims need in order to leave their abusers. And this federal commitment has paid off: the latest Department of Justice statistics show that overall, violence against women by intimate partners is down, falling 21% from 1993 (just prior to the enactment of the original Act) to 1998. The programs contained in the original Act were authorized only through fiscal year 2000. So unless Congress acts, programs to run the battered women's shelters, the national domestic violence hotline, the STOP grants to help law enforcement and prosecutors combat domestic violence and to provide victims services, grants to address domestic violence in rural communities--all of these will expire this year. These programs are popular, and more importantly, ladies and gentlemen, the Violence Against Women Act is working. And it's not just me calling for this law to be reauthorized. It's police chiefs in every state. It's Attorneys General. Sheriffs. District attorneys. The American Bar Association. Women's groups. Nurses. Battered women's shelters. Family Court judges. States, counties, cities, and towns across the country are creating a seamless network of services for victims of violence against women-- from law enforcement to legal services, from medical care and crisis counseling, to shelters and support groups. The Violence Against Women Act has made, and is making, a real difference in the lives of millions of women and children by providing much needed funds at the local level to--and let me just give you a few examples: Give police officers more specialized training both to deal swiftly and surely with abusers and to become more sensitive toward victims, as well as to provide them with better evidence-gathering and information- sharing equipment and skills; Train prosecutors and judges on the unique aspects of cases involving violence against women; Hire victim advocates and counselors and provide an array of services, including 24-hour hotlines, emergency transportation, medical services, and specialized programs to reach victims of violence against women from all walks of life; and Open new and expand existing shelters for victims of violence against women and their children. The Violence Against Women Act funds 1,031 shelters and 82 safe houses in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. But tens of thousands of women and children are still turned away every year. Together--at the federal, state, and local levels--we have been steadily moving forward, step by step, along the road to ending this violence once and for all. But there is more that we can do, and more that we must do. The Biden-Hatch Violence Against Women Act of 2000 would accomplish three basic things: First, the bill would reauthorize through Fiscal Year 2005 the key programs included in the original Violence Against Women Act. These include the STOP grants, the Pro-Arrest grants, Rural Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Enforcement Grants, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and rape prevention and education programs. This also means reauthorizing the court-appointed special advocate program (CASA), and other programs in the Victims of Child Abuse Act. Second, the bill would extend the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund through Fiscal Year 2005. Funding for the trust fund expires this year. This dedicated funding source--paid for by the savings generated by reducing the federal workforce by more than 300,000 employees--provides all the grant money for additional police officers, prosecutors, and battered women shelters. It is these funds that provide the specialized domestic violence training for law enforcement and prosecutors. The Trust Fund is the source of funding for all the victim services, including counseling, legal services, nursing and hospital services, especially designed for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Of course, the Trust Fund's significance extends beyond the Violence Against Women Act. The trust fund has provided the funds for a host of successful law enforcement initiatives, ranging from drug courts; the weed and seed programs that exist in every state to drive drugs from our cities; and funding for prisons, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and Boys and Girls clubs. And the list goes on. In order to replicate the successes we have achieved under the original Violence Against Women Act, and in order to continue to pursue these other important law enforcement programs, it is imperative that we: (1) extend the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund for an additional five years, and (2) that we fully fund the Trust Fund. Third, the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 makes some targeted improvements that our experience with the original Act has shown to be necessary. Let me give you just a few examples. Civil Legal Assistance Grants: Our bill would create a separate grant program to help victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault who need legal assistance because of that violence, to obtain access to legal services at little to no cost. This provision would also establish a database of legal assistance providers to be maintained and used by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, so that victims who call the hotline can be directed to a legal service provider immediately. Improving Full Faith & Credit Enforcement of Protection Orders: My bill would help states and tribal courts improve interstate enforcement of civil protection orders, as required by the original Violence Against Women Act. The program would prioritize the development and enhancement of data collection and sharing systems to promote tracking and enforcement of protection orders across the nation. Transitional Housing: The bill would also authorize the Department of Health and Human Services to make grants to provide short-term housing assistance and short-term support services to individuals and their dependents who are homeless or in need of transitional housing or other housing assistance as a result of fleeing a situation of domestic violence, and for whom emergency shelter services are unavailable or insufficient. Safe Havens for Children: The bill would authorize a new two-year pilot grant program to be administered by the Department of Justice aimed at reducing the opportunity for domestic violence to occur during the transfer of children for visitation purposes by expanding the availability of supervised visitation for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. We all know that women are at greatest risk of assault at the time when children are transferred between parents. I also would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Morrison, 120 S. Ct. 1740 (2000), invalidated a single provision of the original Act, the ``civil rights remedy'' that permitted a victim of gender-motivated violence to sue her attacker in federal court. No other provision in the original Act--or, for that matter, in the Violence Against Women Act of 2000--is affected by the Supreme Court's decision. Finally, I would like to comment on where we are and how we got here. The bill Senator Hatch and I are introducing today is a streamlined version of S. 51, the legislation I originally introduced at the beginning of the 106th Congress. Since I first introduced S. 51, I have consulted extensively with Senator Hatch and with many other individuals, inside and outside of the Senate, and on both sides of the aisle, in an effort to narrow the legislation to produce a bill that every Senator, regardless of party, can enthusiastically support. In the course of that effort, I agreed to drop a number of items that quite frankly, I think were worth doing, and made other concessions. I did that because I believe it is critical, in the waning days of this legislative session, to achieve a strong bipartisan consensus on the essential elements that must be included in this bill. I am convinced that we have reached that consensus, and that the bill we now propose reflects the priorities of a substantial majority of Senators. For far too long, law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts, and the community at large treated domestic abuse as a ``private family matter,'' looking the other way when women suffered abuse at the hands of their supposed loved ones. Thanks in part to the original Act, violence against women is no longer a private matter, and the time when a woman has to suffer in silence because the criminal who is victimizing her happens to be her husband or boyfriend has passed. The bill I introduce today will renew the commitment we made as a nation in 1994 to combat family violence, sexual assault, and stalking. I urge all of you to support it. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, are we still in morning business?

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent if I could proceed in morning business for 10 minutes. If the committee is prepared to begin their deliberation, I will withhold.