Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be part of the effort here today--led by Senator Chafee--to put the Senate on record in support of United States' participation in an international program to lift the burden of debt from the poorest countries of the world. That is the HIPC program, named for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries for which it is intended. With this amendment the Senate is now on record in support of a simple, but powerful, idea. Right now, in the poorest countries of the world, desperately needed resources--including both money and some of the best-educated public officials--are used to pay money to the richest industrial economies. That's right--they are sending money to us. That is happening because, over the years, we and our allies have loaned substantial amounts to those countries, often to pursue our own goals of fighting communism during the Cold War or for other foreign policy purposes. That often meant that we turned a blind eye to the problems in those countries, including how their governments might spend the money, or if they had any hope of repayment. The perverse result is that, while we seek to promote economic growth and opportunity in the least developed countries of the world, at the same time we continue to collect payments on those debts. At a time when foreign assistance of all kinds is shrinking, we continue to expect these countries to send money to us, most commonly to pay the interest to simply service their debts. And this is no small problem for these poor countries. Many of them will spend more on just servicing the interest on their debts than they do on childhood immunizations, or education. That is not just unconscionable, Mr. President, it is bad policy. It defeats many of our best efforts to help those countries turn the corner to more sustainable economic growth and development. There is so little chance that these countries will ever be able to pay off the principal on these loans that we carry them on our own books at just a few cents on the dollar. That means that it will cost us very little to give a great deal of benefit to these countries. Those benefits come not just from the lifting of the debt itself. The HIPC program requires that each country that is to receive debt relief must draw up and stick to a plan for social and economic development, reducing poverty and creating sustainable growth. Banks here in the United States and all around the world know that when there is no chance that a loan will be repaid, you take it off the books. But the HIPC program is more than just a bookkeeping matter--it is a way of leveraging money that we are unlikely to ever see into essential resources for the neediest countries. Earlier this year, I made full authorization of the HIPC program my top priority when the Foreign Relations Committee passed its first foreign assistance authorization bill in fifteen years. With the cooperation of Senator Helms, we reached agreement on all of the pieces needed for full U.S. participation in the HIPC program, participation which we have already pledged, along with our partners among the advanced industrial nations. That legislation authorized full funding, at the levels requested by the Administration earlier this year, as well as the authorization needed from us to permit the International Monetary Fund to dedicate to the debt relief effort the proceeds from a revaluation of their gold holdings. As it stands, the Foreign Operations Bill before us today cuts the Administration's request of $262 million for debt relief by $187 million--that's a cut of more than 70 percent. That affects both the HIPC program and another priority of mine, the Tropical Forest Protection Act, a debt-for-nature program that was established with strong bi-partisan support. While this amendment will not change that situation, it does put the Senate on record in favor of changing it, when this process is once again engaged later on in this session. Whatever disagreements we have about the IMF, the World Bank, or other aspects of foreign assistance, we should all be able to support this program. The HIPC program comes with its own strong program that the poor countries must comply with to be eligible for debt relief. It stands on its own merits and should not be tangled up in other debates. Given the heavy burdens on these poor countries, relief delayed is relief denied. Every day that debt relief is put off, those obligations continue to sap their limited resources. This is a program that has the support of a strong, ecumenical, inter-faith effort by the world's major religions. The Pope, the Reverend Billy Graham, and other religious leaders have dedicated their time and effort to making debt relief a reality. Considering the small and shrinking support we give to the poorest nations, and the importance to us of their economic health and stability, this is an issue where conscience and economic common sense agree. Again, I want to thank Senator Chafee, Senator Sarbanes, Senator Hagel, and all of our cosponsors, for keeping this issue before us. I am confident that at the end of the day, we will do what is right, and fully fund this worthy program. Thank you, Mr. President.

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.

Mr. BIDEN. Before the Senator from Tennessee leaves, let me say that I think his rendition of Chinese behavior and proliferation is accurate. I remind all Members to keep that in mind when we vote on a national missile defense system. Right now, I point out, as my friend on the Intelligence Committee knows, China has a total of 18 intercontinental ballistic missiles. If we go forward with the national missile defense system that we are contemplating, and if we must abrogate the ABM Treaty in order to do that, I am willing to bet any Member on this floor that China goes to somewhere between 200 and 500 ICBMs within 5 years. It is bad that China still proliferates missile technology. It is even more awesome that they may decide they are no longer merely going to have a ``city buster'' deterrent, which is no threat to our military capability in terms of our hardened targets and silos. If we deploy a national missile defense, they may decide that they must become a truly major nuclear power. I also point out that, notwithstanding that everything the Senator said is true, I do believe there is hope in engagement. There is no question that the reason North Korea is, at least at this moment--and no one knows where it will go from here--is withholding missile testing, at least at this moment adhering to the deal made with regard to not reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, at least has begun discussions with South Korea, is in no small part because of the intervention of China. As the Senator from Tennessee and the rest of my colleagues know, foreign policy is a complicated thing. We may find ourselves having to balance competing interests. I am not defending China's action. As the Senator may know, I am the guy who, with Senator Helms 5 years ago, attempted to sanction China for their sale of missile technology to Pakistan. However, I think that as this develops and we look at the other complicated issues we will have to vote on, we must keep in mind that, as bad as their behavior is, we sure don't want them fundamentally changing their nuclear arsenal. I don't want them MIRVing missiles. I don't want them deciding that they are to become a major nuclear power. I respectfully suggest that before we make a decision on national missile defense, we should know what we are about to get, for what we are bargaining for. Maybe we can build a defensive system that could intercept somewhere between 5 and 8 out of 7 or 10 missiles fired from North Korea. As they used to say in my day on bumper stickers, ``One nuclear bomb can ruin your day.'' I am not sure, when we balance all of the equities of the concerns about what is in the interest of those pages on the Senate floor and their children, that if deployment of a national missile defense starts an arms race in Asia, it is actually in their interest in the long run. I thank the Senator for his pointing out exactly what China is doing.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank the managers from Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee for accepting my amendment yesterday, which was a resolution arguing that we should restore the moneys that we cut from the NADR funding line in the State Department. The Foreign Operations Appropriation bill cut a lot of money out of a proposal and recommendation from the authorizing committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We cut a significant amount of money out of some vital programs that we have to support nonproliferation, antiterrorism, and related programs. As a matter of fact, the 10 programs in this category are all on the front line of protecting our people from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, the funding in the Foreign Operations bill for 7 of those 10 programs was 37 percent below the levels requested by the President. And that is without counting another $30 million that was cut because the Foreign Operations Subcommittee concluded that a new counterterrorism training center had to be funded in the Commerce-State-Justice appropriations bill instead. The national security and the very things my friend from Tennessee is talking about require that we provide substantially more of those requested funds. Let me describe the programs that are treated so badly. In the nonproliferation field, we have the Department of State's Export Control Assistance program, which helps foreign countries to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Recently, Customs agents in Uzbekistan, for example, stopped the shipment of radioactive contraband to Kazakhstan, which was on its way to Iran with an official destination of Pakistan. Press stories suggest that the shipment was really intended for an Afghanistan terrorist group affiliated with Osama bin Laden, who would have used it to build a radiological weapon for use against Americans. Those Customs agents were trained in the United States. The equipment they used to detect the radioactive material was provided by the United States. In that case, the funding came from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which is in another appropriations bill. But the Export Control Assistance Program has provided the same sort of assistance when the Nunn-Lugar program could not be used, and it regularly helps other countries enact the laws and regulations they need in order to be effective in export control. The personal ties that are forged by this program with export officials in other countries are equally critical in improving other countries' export controls and their willingness to work with us. I cite that as one example. We are cutting by 37 percent on average the non-proliferation and anti-terrorism programs. We are cutting by 37 percent on average those programs that allow us to train customs agents and others in detecting the transfer of the very material my friend from the State of Tennessee is talking about being transferred. None of that is transferred in the open. China doesn't say, ``By the way, we are about to send to Pakistan the following.'' They don't do that. It is all done surreptitiously. How we are cutting funds to deal with the transport of materials that cause the proliferation to rise as it has is beyond me. It is absolutely beyond my comprehension. There are many other aspects of the program. Last year Congress increased funding for this program from $10 million to $14 million. Indeed, the report for the Foreign Operations Appropriation bill takes credit for the increase. This year the President asked for $14 million to maintain the level we set up last year. But what happened? The appropriations bill cut it back down to $10 million. I don't get this. Hello? What is going on here? The committee takes credit for raising this program's budget and then cuts it back down? If there is a logic here, I fail to see it. The fact is that last year, when it came to this program, the appropriators were right. This year they should do again just what they did last year. But they did not. That is why my co-sponsors and I offered our amendment, and I am grateful to the managers for their acceptance of that amendment; I hope the conferees will take it to heart. We need more export control assistance to help other countries keep nuclear materials out of the hands of their dangerous neighbors. Earlier this month the National Commission on Terrorism warned that it: . . . was particularly concerned about the persistent lack of adequate security and safeguards for the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. That is a cogent concern, one my friend from Tennessee and I and others have talked about on this floor. Export control assistance is one of the programs that helps keep those dangerous materials from crossing the former Soviet borders. The Foreign Relations Committee is on record as favoring full funding of the request for this program. Indeed, it was suggested by Senator Helms we add another $5 million to our security assistance to support strategic cargo X-ray facilities that would be used in the free port of Malta. Malta is a crossroads for shipping in the Mediterranean area and sometimes it has been the doorway for contraband flowing to Libya. You might think appropriators would pay attention to such a sensible suggestion, but the Foreign Operations Appropriation bill did the opposite. Another non-proliferation program, International Science and Technology Centers, would provide safe employment opportunities for former Soviet experts. There are thousands and thousands of Soviet experts, nuclear experts. They are not getting paid. They don't have housing. Their economy is in the toilet. We have a program: We want to hire them. We don't want Qadhafi hiring them. We don't want them being hired in Libya. We don't want them hired in North Korea. So we have a sensible program. I will end with this. There are 4 more examples, but I will not take the time. What do we do? We cut these programs. Then we all stand--and I am not speaking of any particular Senator--and say we are going to fight terrorism, and nonproliferation is our greatest concern, and we are worried about this technology changing hands. The bottom line is the programs that help to do that are cut. That is why it is so important that our amendment of yesterday be implemented in conference. I yield the floor and thank my colleague from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BIDEN. Why doesn't the Senator have an amendment to take $1 billion out of the highway trust fund or $1 billion out of the education budget or $1 billion out of NIH or $1 billion out of the Department of Energy?

Mr. BIDEN. When I said, do we take sides? The answer is, yes, we take sides. We are not putting anybody in the field. What are we doing? We are training three battalions. Why are we training them? For the same reason we train the police. We want to open up the eyes of the Colombian military, who in recent years have been accused of fewer human rights abuses. They have been accused of turning their heads. They hear the paramilitary coming, they lift the gate, the paramilitary comes through, the paramilitary terminates people, and they go back out. Then they ask, what happened? That is what they are doing. Plan Colombia does not only involve U.S. participation. This is a $7.5 billion plan. The Colombians are coming up with $4 billion; the Europeans, about $1 billion and the international financial institutions about $1 billion. If we take out our piece, it all falls apart. We are not the only game in town. But we are the catalyst. What will happen? The whole world is going to be looking to the Colombian military, from Japan to Bonn, because they are all in the deal. They are all in the deal. If you want to clean up anybody, anything, any institution, listen to the dictates of a former Supreme Court Justice: The best disinfectant is the clear light of day. There will be a worldwide spotlight shined upon this military. I have never personally testified on the floor that I have faith in an individual leader, but I have faith in President Pastrana. He is the real deal. What is at stake is whether or not Colombia becomes a narcostate or not. This is not in between. Keep in mind, folks, when the Supreme Courts of Colombia several years ago extradited some, they blew the Court up; they blew the building up and killed seven Justices. When a Presidential candidate took them on, they shot him dead. This is the real stuff. It is not like a Member of this body. The worst thing that happens to us is we get a drive-by shooting politically and we lose office. There, you jump in the sucker and you lose your life. This is for real. These are courageous people who finally have said: We will take them on. I am convinced--knowing the chairman, and my friend from Kentucky is a hard-nosed guy--he made a judgment whether these guys are real. He is not about to give $1 billion to anybody. My colleagues, it is very basic. There is a lot at stake. We have a significant increase in funding for treatment and prevention. It should be more. But we have an obligation, in the interests of our children and the interests of the hemisphere, to keep the oldest democracy in place, to give them a fighting chance to keep from becoming a narcostate. Folks, if they lose, mark my words, we are going to reap the whirlwind in this hemisphere on matters that go far beyond drugs. It will include terrorism, it will include whole cadres of issues we have not thought about. I thank the chairman for his time. I truly appreciate the motivation of my friend from Minnesota. At the appropriate time, unless the chairman of the committee does not want me to, I move to table. I am not trying to cut off discussion.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, is the Senator from Kentucky able to yield time to me?

Mr. BIDEN. I understand the Senator's dilemma.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator. I thank the Senator from Minnesota, knowing he was about to give me time, which is his nature. I appreciate that. Mr. President, my mom had an expression. Occasionally, when I was a kid, I think she had a good idea and was well intentioned. She would say, ``Joey, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.'' I have no doubt about the intentions of my friend from Minnesota. I know he knows that as the author of the drug czar legislation for the past, I guess it is about 14 years, I have issued every year a drug report or an alternate drug report laying out a drug strategy for the United States, usually as a counterbalance on the Republican administration and criticism or one of agreement with the administration. This debate reminds me a little bit of the position in which Democrats have always been put. The Democrats get put in a position where we are told there is a dollar left and it can be distributed among the hearing impaired, the sight impaired, and those children needing emergency medical care. So we have to choose. We have the blind fighting the disabled fighting the hearing impaired. Instead of saying we can choose between building a highway and taking care of all the needs of those in desperate need, or we cannot build a submarine, or an air base, whatever, we are debating about whether or not we can walk and chew gum at the same time. There is no disagreement. I have, as well as my colleagues, pushed-- pushed in the early days when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee--for major increases in treatment. I have issued a total of seven major reports on treatment, its value, its efficacy, and why we should be doing more. I take a backseat to no one in arguing that we do not give enough treatment here in this drug war. I point out that the President's budget, unrelated to the Colombian aid package, has $6 billion in it for drug treatment and drug prevention. That total includes $300 million in funding increases in this area. We don't have to take away from the money that, in fact, would have a significant impact on the reduction of product here. That is the bad news. The good news is that, as we have debated the Andean drug policy for the past 12 years, we used to have to deal with the idea that Colombia was a transiting country as well as a country that turned raw product into the materials sold, and the laboratory work and product used to be produced in Bolivia and Peru. The good news is, because of eradication programs, because of U.N. leadership, I might add in this area, essentially there has been an elimination of the crop in those two countries. The bad news is that it has all moved into Colombia. They now are a full-service operation. The product is there, the narcotraffickers are there, the laboratory laboratories are there, and the transiting is there. That is the bad news. The good news is it is all in one spot for us to be able to hit it. It is all in one spot for us to have a very efficacious use of this money. I spent days in Colombia. I spent 2 days, 24 hours a day, with the President of Colombia. I ended up actually going with him on his Easter vacation by accident to his summer residence. This is a guy, as my friend from Illinois points out, that is the real deal. For the first time, we have a President who understands that his democracy is at stake. He is willing to risk his life--not figuratively, literally. I went to dinner with he and his children. He has seven bodyguards around his children because of the death threats. This is a guy who is risking his life. He is willing to do it because he understands what is at stake for his country, unlike previous Presidents. The next point is, we are making this distinction between police and military. With all due respect to my friend from Minnesota, historically the thugs in South America have been the police. Police are not like police here. There is a national police; we have no national police. The Federales in Mexico were police, not army. Often the police in South America are the biggest abusers of human rights. What did we do? We gave the Colombian National Police aid, $750 million in aid. What did we say? Purge this police department, purge the national police, and they did. And guess what. If I stood on this floor 5 years ago and said the Colombian police are going to crack the Medellin and Cali Cartel, no one would have said that is possible. No one. Guess what. They cracked the Medellin Cartel. They cracked the Cali Cartel. They put them in jail. They are extraditing the police. Why? Because we trained their police; they purged 4,000 of them. Where are we on military? I met here with every major human rights group from Colombia, including the bishops who came up. When we push them to the wall and say to them: By the way, you want us out? No, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that. You have to stay in. You have to be involved. We don't like the balance the way you have it here. I say: Fine. No problem. Tell me, bishop, you want us in or you want us out? Stay. Stay. Now, civil war. There is no civil war. We are so caught up in the old logic of how we deal with things. There is no civil war. Less than 5 percent of the people of Colombia support the guerrillas. Every other guerrilla movement, every other civil war, you go into the village to recruit people. They go in, as my friend Illinois said, to shoot people. There is no popular sentiment at all. This is not a civil war. With regard to the paramilitaries, I called President Pastrana a few weeks ago. I said, a lot of the criticism of the plan is you have to be sure that you are only focusing on the FARC and the ELN and only focusing on the guerrillas. What about the paramilitaries? I said, I want a letter guaranteeing that you will, in fact, move on the paramilitary simultaneously. You must change. He changed it. Here is the letter. I ask unanimous consent the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. On treatment.

Mr. BIDEN. The Senator is aware the President's budget calls for spending $6 billion in drug treatment and prevention, including $31 million for substance abuse block grants; that is $54 million on targeted capacity expansion programs, $37 million for research and treatment, $5 million--the list goes on. The Senator is aware of that?

Mr. BIDEN. Will my distinguished colleague yield for another question, just 10 seconds?

Mr. BIDEN. I agree.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Robin Meyer, a fellow in the office of Senator Kennedy, be permitted on the floor during the consideration of action on the foreign operations appropriations bill.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on an opinion piece in the June 20 edition of the Washington Post written by Mr. Milan Panic, former Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and an American citizen. In this article, Mr. Panic argues for getting Russian President Putin to agree to offer Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic asylum, in a deal approved by the international community. This is an appalling idea whose time, thank heavens, has not come. At least it would appear so, since it has been widely reported that at their recent summit meeting Putin told President Clinton that Miami seemed to be as good a place for Milosevic as Moscow. President Putin may not be turning out to be a model democrat, but no one has accused him of being dumb. He obviously feels that having Milosevic enlivening the Moscow scene would not exactly burnish his own credentials. All kidding aside, the idea of blithely pronouncing all of our efforts in the former Yugoslavia over the last decade a hopeless failure and then letting the architect of the carnage skip off with his family to exile is both morally reprehensible and politically catastrophic. The international community has labored long and hard to set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, and then to get it up and running. Over the past year the number of individuals indicted for alleged war crimes in custody has risen dramatically. Why should we totally undercut the Hague Tribunal, just when it is hitting its stride? Why should we undercut the new, reformist government in Croatia, which has reversed the obstructionist course of the late strongman Tudjman and has begun cooperating with the Hague? If Milosevic is given a suspension of prosecution, then why shouldn't all the Croats in custody get the same deal? In arguing against undercutting the Hague Tribunal, I do not wish to imply that it has been a complete success. What is missing from the jail cells in the Hague, of course, are the really big fish--the chief villains of the massive slaughter in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. I am, of course, talking about Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and, above all, the boss of all bosses Slobodan Milosevic. That's the point! To make this promising international effort work we need to do precisely the opposite from granting amnesty to public enemy number- one. We need to add him to the growing list of indicted suspects in detention. The Panic op-ed argues that we won't be able to capture Milosevic. In the short run, we probably won't. But as the vice tightens on Milosevic's cronies and makes it clear to them that they will have absolutely no future in a Milosevic-run state, I think it may occur to them to serve Slobo up on a platter to the Hague. We have all learned not to make rash predictions about when Milosevic will fall from power, and I won't fail into that trap today. But the signs of increasing discontent are everywhere--from the new student- run, grassroots resistance movement called Otpor to the rash of gangland style assassinations and assassination attempts among Milosevic's retinue and allies. So while I can't say when Milosevic will fall, fall he will. And it will be much better, both for Serbia and for the international community, if he falls as a result of pressure from his own people, rather than from some sordid deal cooked up abroad. In a larger sense, why should we nip a promising international judicial effort in the bud in a misguided attempt to relieve the Serbs, in the worst possible way, of a problem that they spawned and that they have the primary responsibility to rectify? Somehow the curse of Milosevic is to be lifted from the Serbian people by a foreign deus ex machina, in this case the good Russian tsar. And then, in return for having graciously allowed their dictator to depart, the Serbian people would receive and end to sanctions from the international community. Give me a break. Even if we could persuade Putin to go against his self-interest--a total impossibility, of course--such a deal would only fuel the Serbs' oft-noted passion for blaming others for misfortunes that they themselves have created. Why else would the foreigners have gotten rid of Milosevic if they hadn't somehow been responsible for him in the first place? And what are we to make of the article's nice plan that part of the deal would be free and fair elections in Serbia under international supervision? I can just imagine what the other war criminals in the Yugoslav and Serbian governments would think of that idea! The most likely result of an arranged Milosevic departure would be another set of gangsters, not democrats elected by universal suffrage. The Panic op-ed is entitled ``Exit Milosevic.'' It might just as well be entitled ``Enter Seselj''--that is, Vojislav Seselj, the fascist Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia. Mr. Panic's naivete gives us a pretty good clue as to why Milosevic so easily outmaneuvered him in 1993. Morality, Serbian politics, and the Hague Tribunal aside, granting asylum to Milosevic would be a political disaster for the United States and for NATO. Last year President Clinton had a difficult time in rounding up support within NATO's nineteen members for Operation Allied Force, and then sustaining that support until Milosevic's troops and paramilitaries were forced out of Kosovo. But he skillfully managed to do it, and alliance unity was preserved. Then we got our European allies and others to assume 85 percent of the burden of KFOR in Kosovo and also to fund the vast majority of the cost of the Stability Pact for South East Europe. Now, after pardoning Milosevic, I suppose we could turn to our European allies and say, ``incidentally, friends, we really didn't need to fight that pesky, little air war after all. We could have just bought off old Slobo last year and sent him packing. But please don't ignore fulfilling the commitments you made to the Defense Capabilities Initiative at the Washington NATO Summit. We really do need an alliance with teeth, so you still have to spend a lot to upgrade your forces. Don't worry, though. The Milosevic buyout was just a one-time event. Nothing like that will happen again. NATO is really not in the amnesty business. It's just that the Serbs needed us to take the monkey off their back, and we're sure that Slobo's successors will now choose to cooperate with us.'' Pardon my sarcasm, Mr. President, but this amnesty idea is just too politically naive to believe. The Panic article also reveals an impatience as American as apple pie. We all want a quick fix. But, my friends, there are few quick fixes in life that have any permanence, and trying to set the Balkans right by way of shortcuts certainly isn't one of them. To have any chance of creating a modicum of stability in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere in the region, solutions must be largely home- grown, if under the security umbrella provided by NATO. So, let's consign the Panic op-ed to sophomore political science seminars and think-tank luncheons--but not to serious consideration by our Government. Let's get on with the vital, if prosaic, business of rebuilding Bosnia and Kosovo and supporting the opposition in Serbia through a variety of programs, which are in place, ongoing, and which, in time, I believe, will succeed.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I move to table the Wellstone amendment.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the foreign operations of the United States are all undertaken to promote the national interests of our country. They are all useful and important programs, and they deserve our support. The national interests that they serve, however, are of varying importance. As George Orwell wrote in his novel ``Animal Farm,'' ``some are more equal than others.'' All our foreign operations programs are useful, but some are downright vital to our national security. One element in this bill that is truly vital to our national security is severely underfunded. I will introduce shortly an amendment to address that severe problem. The funding line to which I refer is known as ``NADR.'' That does not refer to Ralph Nader. It does refer to ``Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining, and Related Programs.'' The 10 programs in this category are all on the front line of protecting our people from terrorism and from weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, the funding in this bill for 7 of those 10 programs is 37 percent below the levels requested by the President. (And that ignores another $30 million that was cut because the Foreign Operations Subcommittee concluded that a new counter-terrorism training center must be funded in the Commerce, Justice, State appropriation.) I submit that the national security requires that we provide substantially more of those requested funds. Let me describe the programs that are treated so badly in this bill: In the non-proliferation field, the Department of State's Export Control Assistance program helps foreign countries to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Recently customs agents in Uzbekistan stopped a shipment of radioactive contraband from Kazakhstan that was on its way to Iran, with an official final destination of Pakistan. Some press stories suggested that the shipment was really intended for a terrorist group affiliated with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, who would have used it to build a radiological weapon for use against Americans. Those customs agents were trained by the United States. The equipment they used to detect the radioactive material was provided by the United States. In that case, the funding came from the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. But the Export Control Assistance program provides the same sort of assistance when Nunn-Lugar funds can not be used, and it helps other countries to enact the laws and regulations that they need in order to have effective export controls. The personal ties that are forged by this program with export control officials from other countries are equally crucial to improving other countries' export control performance. This year, the Export Control Assistance program will enable the Department of Commerce to assign a resident export control attache to Russia. The Export Control Assistance program also sets up internal compliance programs in Russia's high-tech industries and trains the Russian personnel who staff those offices. These programs enable Russia to police itself and give us increased visibility into plants that are of particular concern from the non-proliferation standpoint. Last year, Congress increased funding for this program from $10 million to $14 million. Indeed, the report on the bill before us takes credit for that increase. This year, the President asked for $14 million, to maintain this vital level of effort, but the bill before us includes only $10 million. When the appropriators increased this program last year, they were right. This year, they should do it again. We need more export control assistance to help other countries keep nuclear materials out of the hands of their dangerous neighbors. Earlier this month, the National Commission on Terrorism warned that it was ``particularly concerned about the persistent lack of adequate security and safeguards for the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.'' That is a cogent concern, and Export Control Assistance is one of the programs that helps to keep dangerous materials from crossing former Soviet borders. By the way, the Foreign Relations Committee favors full funding of the President's request for this program. Indeed, at the suggestion of Chairman Helms, we added $5 million in our security assistance bill to support a new project in Malta. Another non-proliferation program, the International Science and Technology Centers, provides safe employment opportunities for former Soviet experts in weapons of mass destruction who might otherwise be tempted to sell their skills to rogue states. This program not only helps those scientists. It also gives hope to, and helps to preserve discipline at, the institutes where those experts work. The activities of this program are guided by a Governing Board headed by the Honorable Ron Lehman, a wonderful public servant who was Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration and director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Bush Administration. Ron Lehman and I often disagree on policy matters, but we are in complete agreement on the need to help Russia to restructure its bloated, Soviet-era weapons complexes without leaving its weapons experts prey to offers from countries like Iran, Iraq or Libya. His program is doing some wonderful things, moreover. Since 1994, the Science Centers have supported over 840 projects, employing over 30,000 weapons experts at more than 400 former Soviet institutes. Some of these projects led to the formation of viable commercial companies; others resulted in contracts with western companies to distribute new Russian products like medical devices or high temperature batteries. Around a fifth of Science Center funding now comes from Western companies and government agencies that employ former Soviet experts through this program. Other projects have put weapons experts to work on public health, environmental remediation, and non-proliferation projects that provide real benefits to the former Soviet Union and its neighbors. For example, the Russian Academy of Sciences, MINATOM, and the prestigious Kurchatov Institute recently completed a six-year project to map all the nuclear contamination sites in the former Soviet Union. Science Center funding was the lifeblood of that project. The Science Centers also funded fourteen Y2K readiness projects that ensured the safety of nuclear power facilities and chemical and biological storage areas. The International Science and Technology Centers are multinational. The U.S. Government provided only 31 percent of last year's Science Center funding, compared to 36 percent provided by the European Union. Japan, Norway and South Korea also participate in the program. But without our leadership, this program will fail. The bill before us would give that program only a third of what was appropriated for this fiscal year. I know that the budget numbers for foreign operations are unrealistically tight. They always are. But if we cut the Science and Technology Centers program that much, we will endanger our national security. It only takes a few experts in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to provide dangerous materials or technology to a ``rogue state.'' We should do everything in our power to make sure that economic desperation in Russia does not result in such a catastrophe. The committee report on this bill states that it: was disturbed to learn that, after at least 5 years of interaction between the State Department and Russian scientists, relations remain guarded. I, for one, am not disturbed by that. Russia still has a nuclear weapons program, just as we do. There are bound to be security concerns that keep us at arm's length. Unlike us, Russia may also have illegal chemical and/or biological weapons programs. There are military biological institutes to which we do not have access. As a result, there is always a risk that non-proliferation assistance will be diverted to illegal military research, or that the funds we provide will keep afloat people or institutes involved in an illegal chemical or biological weapons program. That risk pales, however, compared to the risk of weapons proliferation if we leave those weapons scientists unable to put food on their table. So we must be ``guarded,'' and we must do more. The Science and Technology Centers program takes great care to minimize the risk of diversion. The General Accounting Office, after studying the Science Center's programs to employ Russia's former biological weapons experts, reported recently that the Center: . . . has directly deposited grant payments into project participants' individual bank accounts, which prevents the institutes from diverting funds for unauthorized purposes. . . . Program managers from the Science Center review programmatic and financial documents on a quarterly basis, and the Science Center requires a final audit of every project before it releases an overhead payment to an institute. In addition, the U.S. Defense Contract Audit Agency has conducted internal control audits for 10 Science Center biotechnology projects through 1999. Those precautions work. A few months ago, Science Center officials were warned by Russian scientists of a possible diversion of funds. That information was received and acted upon in a timely manner, and steps were taken to make sure that no diversion occurred. The Science Centers program also takes steps to guard against proliferation. After all, that's the point of this assistance. We can be proud of the job that this program is doing to reduce the risk of proliferation of Russian materials and expertise. When the GAO looked at Science Center biotechnology projects, they found that nearly half the recipients of project assistance were ``former senior weapons scientists.'' On the average, the scientists devoted more than half of the year to Science Center projects. Institute directors told the GAO that these projects ``were crucial to their institute budgets.'' The GAO also reports: Prior to the funding of any U.S. collaborative research project, Russian institute officials must pledge that their institute will not perform offensive weapons research or engage in proliferation activities. According to a January 1999 State Department report, engaging in such inappropriate behavior would have an immediate and negative impact on any U.S. assistance. Institute officials with whom we met consistently told us that they are no longer involved in offensive biological weapons activities and that they clearly understand the conditions of U.S. collaborative research assistance. The GAO report continues: Officials at three institutes we visited reported that, in the past, representatives of countries of proliferation concern had approached them seeking to initiate questionable dual-use research. Officials at the three institutes told us they had refused these offers because of a pledge made to U.S. executive branch officials as a condition of receiving U.S. assistance. The pledge includes avoiding cooperation both with countries of proliferation concern or with terrorist groups. State and Defense Department officials identified at least 15 former Soviet biological weapons institutes in which the United States has evidence that these programs have discouraged the institutes and scientists from cooperating with countries of proliferation concern such as Iran. The Department of Defense informed Congress in a January 2000 report that the access gained through the collaborative research programs has provided ``high confidence'' that Biopreparat institutes such as Vector and Obolensk are not presently engaged in offensive activities. Did everyone get that? This program is giving assistance to Russian biological weapons experts in order to keep them out of the clutches of rogue states. The GAO has found that it is succeeding in doing that. At the same time, we are guarding against the diversion of our funds to improper purposes. And the access we get to the institutes we assist-- thanks to this program--has enabled the Defense Department to say that those institutes are clean. Finally, we get useful research as an end product. If the executive branch gets the funding it wants, we will get help on defending against biological weapons. We will also help the Russians safeguard the dangerous pathogens that they keep for research purposes, thus guarding against their sale and reducing the risk of an accidental catastrophe. The Foreign Relations Committee supports this program as well. Indeed, in our security assistance bill, we added $14 million, so that the Science Centers could fund all of the deserving projects that have been proposed. But the bill before us cuts $25 million out of this fine program, leaving less than 45 percent of what the President requested, and barely a third of what the Foreign Relations Committee recommends. The price of such cuts could be far more than the $25 million in would-be savings. If we leave Russian weapons scientists underemployed, with time on their hands and not enough food on their tables, how will they resist an offer from Iran or Iraq? When we talk about keeping these Russian scientists usefully employed, we're guarding against the spread of nuclear weapons and dreaded plagues. We're not talking about budget caps, but rather about life or death for millions of people. I understand the need for efficient programs. But this program works. That GAO report did not need to make even one recommendation. And when millions of lives are potentially at stake, we should do more than do less. A third non-proliferation program is our contributions to KEDO, the Korean Energy Development Organization, pursuant to the Nuclear Framework with North Korea. Thanks to this agreement, North Korea has ceased reprocessing spent nuclear reactor fuel. Indeed, recently the last of the spent nuclear fuel was safely canned, under IAEA supervision. That vastly lowers any North Korean ability to produce nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Framework Agreement has also led North Korea to let U.S. experts visit an underground site that we feared might be a nuclear plant. Our two visits showed that it was not a nuclear facility. But there is a price for all these benefits, and part of that price is U.S. contributions of heavy fuel oil. Now, traditionally we have spent $35 million a year on that. But other countries have not helped out as much as we expected--although South Korea and Japan are spending much more than we are, to build new reactors in North Korea that will not be readily used for bomb-making. In addition, as we all know, fuel oil costs a lot more than it used to. Appropriators have refused to allocate more than $35 million, however. Instead, last year, they kept this line at $35 million and added a separate, unallocated line of $20 million in the NADR account, which actually went to meet our KEDO obligations. The bill before us again allots only $35 million, but this time there is no additional line with $20 million. This money keeps the Nuclear Framework Agreement on track. That agreement keeps North Korea from using a handy source of fissile material to make nuclear weapons. It also provides a bit of stability on the Korean peninsula, which has led to a suspension of North Korea's long-range missile tests, to U.S.-North Korean negotiations on an end to those programs and to North Korea's missile exports, and now to the first summit ever between the leaders of North and South Korea. Do we really want to put the Framework Agreement at risk, by failing to fund it? Do we want to derail all the delicate negotiations that are ongoing with North Korea? Perhaps the authors of this bill intend to fix this in conference, once everybody admits that we need to bust the budget caps on foreign operations. If so, I will be relieved. Maintaining KEDO and the Nuclear Framework Agreement gets to the heart of our national security, however, and I think we should make clear that we want this shortfall remedied. Another important program in this funding category is our contributions to the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Preparatory Commission. These funds are used primarily to procure and install the International Monitoring system, which serves United States national security interests by enabling the world to detect, identify, and respond to any illegal nuclear tests by other countries. The International Monitoring System offers features that are of particular value to the United States. Its network of seismic stations will supplement those that the U.S. Government uses to monitor foreign nuclear weapons tests. Indeed, some of those stations will be in locations where we could not hope to get seismic coverage any other way. The controlled and affiliated seismic stations will also afford regional coverage, rather than just long-range seismic collection. This will result in improved detection, as well as better geolocation of suspect events. The International Monitoring System will include hydroacoustic collection in the world's oceans, ultrasound collection, and a large network of land-based atmospheric collectors to pick up telltale contamination in the air. Use of those additional monitoring techniques will increase the likelihood of getting multiple-source evidence of an illegal nuclear weapons test. In addition, the data from the International Monitoring System will be widely available, and therefore usable for enforcement purposes. This is important. Although the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty has not entered into force, signatories are bound--by international law and/or by custom-- not to undermine the ``object and purposes'' of the treaty. We have a legal interest, therefore--and surely a security interest--in making sure that other countries do not engage in nuclear weapons tests. How do you enforce a ban on nuclear weapons tests? That takes more than just monitoring. It requires exposure of the offending country and convincing other countries that a violation has occurred. Only then can we rally the world to threaten or impose penalties on the offender. U.S. Government sources of information, as good as they are, often can not be used to create a diplomatic or public case against an offender. Our contributions to the CTBT Preparatory Commission will help us to get the publicly usable information that is so vital to putting a stop to any cheating. The report on this bill states that in the past, the President has requested more than was needed for this program. That is true. The executive branch asks for our share of the coming year's tentative budget, but we also work within the Preparatory Commission to scrub that budget, and it usually comes in a bit lower. But does that mean we can safely cut 30 percent? Not on your life! The final U.S. obligation might be $20 million, as opposed to the requested $21.5 million. But $15 million is simply out of the question. That would presume a $25 million cut in the Preparatory Commission budget proposed by their Secretariat, which would mean an intolerable delay in fielding the monitoring system. There may be some confusion because this program has been able to absorb budget cuts in the past. In those years, the State Department was able to apply previous-year funds to make up for the cuts. Virtually all the Fiscal Year 2000 funds, however, have already been obligated. Thus, a cut in Fiscal Year 2001 funding will be much more harmful than were previous cuts. The report also states that the Preparatory Commission should reimburse the United States for services we have performed in setting up monitoring sites. That, too, is true, and we will be reimbursed. We will not be reimbursed, however, until the sites that we install have been certified as operational. That guards against shoddy work by other countries, and I don't think we want to give up that protection. Certification has been achieved for one U.S.-installed site, and we will get $500,000 in reimbursements in Fiscal Year 2001. That is already taken into account in the President's budget request. Several million dollars in reimbursement will be received in later years. Cutting the 2001 budget will jeopardize not only the work program for the monitoring system, but also any reimbursements for past or current work that depend upon achieving certification next year. The bottom line is simple: either we pay for our share of nuclear test monitoring costs, or we delay significantly the work on a monitoring system that serves our own national security. If we want to catch any country that cheats and to expose that cheating, so that we can sanction a violator, then we must pay our bills. Non-proliferation programs were not the only ones to be cut in this portion of the bill before us. The Department of State's Anti-Terrorism Assistance program and its Terrorist Interdiction program are vital to the security of United States diplomatic and military personnel overseas. The first line of defense against attacks like those on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, or on the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, is not ours. Rather, it is the security services of the host countries. All over the world, those countries need our assistance in border control and airport security. They need our training in spotting terrorist groups hiding behind legitimate charities, and in handling terrorist incidents--including future attacks that could use weapons of mass destruction. The Anti-Terrorism Assistance program does all of this. Right now, the Anti-Terrorism Assistance program trains up to 2,000 people per year. There is so much demand for our training that we could help 3,000 a year, if only we had the funds and the facilities. An increase in training funds would make a real contribution to our security. The State Department also runs a Terrorist Interdiction Program-- known as TIP--that provides other countries the training and equipment needed for them to apprehend terrorists entering their countries. The TIP program enables countries to compare a person's travel documents to their own data-bases. It also works through INTERPOL to link these countries and promote information sharing. Finally, it trains immigration and customs workers in interview and screening techniques. The State Department recently began a program to provide these important capabilities to Pakistan. We all know about Pakistan, the gateway to Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden and his buddies. Can anybody think of a better place to beef up border security, so that terrorists can be apprehended as they go to and from those Afghan training camps? The first phase of the TIP program in Pakistan will be paid out of Fiscal Year 2000 funds. But the bill for the second phase will come due in Fiscal Year 2001. So will the first phase of a program in Kenya, which we know all too well has been used as a terrorist gateway to Africa, and site surveys in four more countries. The proposed budget cut in the bill before us would force us to choose between Pakistan and Kenya. It is simply contrary to our national interest to force such a Hobson's choice. These two anti-terrorist programs are utterly vital to our security. They make foreign security services more competent in protecting our own personnel, and they also foster ties that can be crucial in a crisis. We should be increasing these programs, and the President's proposed budget would do just that. The bill before us would cut 22 percent of the funds requested. It would impose a 7-percent cut from this year's funding for these two anti-terrorist programs. This is simply unacceptable. Finally, the Department of State's Small Arms program has underwritten successful arms buy-backs in Africa, notably in Mali. This is low-budget program is urgently needed in areas that are emerging from civil war and still awash in automatic weapons. A little bit of support can go a long way to drain the supply of arms that otherwise end up going to drug-runners, bandit gangs, or renewed civil strife. The President proposed $2 million for this program. The bill before us would slice away half of that. This is, indeed, a low-budget program, but $2 million is really the floor for a workable program. To take away half of that is to throw this effort into the basement. The bill before us, Mr. President, leaves the Senate in a nearly untenable position. It is under the budget request by fully $1.7 billion. This is no way to fulfill our obligations to world organizations or to maintain either international influence or our own national security. We must accept that there is no such thing as world leadership on the cheap. I deeply wish that I could restore the funds that this bill cuts from the NADR account. The truth is, however, that we must wait for conferees to break the ridiculous cap on this whole bill. With that in mind, the amendment that I am introducing simply states the sense of the Senate that the conferees should find the funds needed to make NADR whole. We have been through this drill before. In due course, more funds for foreign operations will be found. The crucial question is how the conferees will allocate those funds. This amendment calls on the conferees to give priority to these important national security efforts. I am pleased to report that this amendment is co-sponsored by Senators Lugar, Hagel, Bingaman, Conrad, Domenici and Levin. I urge all of my colleagues to support it. This amendment is not certain to succeed in conference--but it surely is the least we can do. The safety of our diplomats and military personnel overseas, and the safety of all of us from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, demand no less.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, back to the Time article. One would think there was no reason to tighten up the current system, that those of us who support bankruptcy reform--a large bipartisan majority--had lost our hearts, our souls, and possibly our minds. Some folks might find that easy to believe, but if they simply compare the language of the legislation to the case studies in the article, they will find that in virtually every significant claim and detail, the charges leveled against this reform legislation are not true. They are simply false; they are flat wrong; and they are easily and conclusively refuted by a quick look at the facts. First, a little primer on the bankruptcy code reform. Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code requires a liquidation of any assets and a payout to as many creditors as possible from the proceeds. Chapter 13 allows the filer to keep a home, a car, and so on, but requires them to enter into a repayment plan. The irony is, chapter 13 was put in to help people from the rigors of chapter 7. I do not have time to go into that, but it is a basic premise that is missed by the article. The bankruptcy reform legislation that is the cause for such alarm in this article asks a question that I think most Americans would be surprised to learn is never even asked under the present system. The question is: Do you have the ability to pay some of those debts that you want forgiven? If the answer is yes, then you will have to file for bankruptcy under chapter 13 and have what they call a workout, a repayment plan. No one--I repeat, no one--who needs it would ever, as this article puts it, be denied bankruptcy assistance. That cannot happen now, and it will not happen under this legislation. So it is not the idea you are denied bankruptcy, it is how you file for bankruptcy--under chapter 7 or chapter 13. Only a few filers of bankruptcy, no more than 10 percent of those now filing under chapter 7--maybe even less--would see any change at all in their status. Those who have demonstrated an ability to pay would be told to file under chapter 13 and would follow the kind of repayment plan their resources would allow. A key point must be stressed: Chapter 13 is not some kind of debtor's prison. It is a practical solution to the problem of too many creditors chasing a debtor with too few resources. The article suggests that any change in the availability of chapter 7 will be the equivalent of the whip and the lash and the restoration of debtor's prison. The truth is different. Chapter 13 was added to the bankruptcy code in the 1930s as the more desirable alternative to the draconian liquidation required under chapter 7. It was conceived as the ``wage earner's'' form of bankruptcy, for those who had an income and the ability to pay some of their creditors but who needed protection of the system to keep their creditors from hounding them. Although this may seem like a quaint notion these days, it was intended to preserve some of the debtor's dignity at a time when bankruptcy carried more of a stigma for some people than it does today. A profoundly mistaken view of the difference between chapter 7 and chapter 13 is not the most serious flaw in this article. The real impact of this article comes from its stories of hard-working, honest, everyday American families who have fallen on hard times. These are the people who will, according to the article, find the door to a fresh start shut to them. As disturbing as these stories are, they are all based on a demonstrably false premise. As the Senator from Iowa said, virtually none of the low- to moderate-income working families whose stories were so compellingly told in that article would be touched by the reforms affecting the availability of chapter 7. That is right. In each and every case, given their income and their circumstances as presented, those families and individuals who were talked about in the article would still be eligible for chapter 7 protection. The central claims about the impact of bankruptcy reform on the families described in this article are flat wrong. I know a lot of my colleagues have been concerned about these charges, and I urge them to take a simple test. Compare the financial circumstances of the individuals in the article and the stories that are told with the terms of our bankruptcy legislation. My colleagues will see the claims that these families will be cut off are not true. They are wrong chiefly because the reform legislation contains what we call a safe harbor which preserves chapter 7, with no questions asked, for anyone earning the median income or less for the region in which they live. This is a protection I sought along with other supporters of bankruptcy reform. It was a key element of the Senate bill, and it has been accepted in conference. There is even more protection: Those with up to 150 percent of the median income will be subject to only a cursory look at their income and obligations, not a more detailed examination. These provisions provide that the door to chapter 7 remains open for just the kind of family the article claims will be most hurt. I will not chronicle all of them, but I ask you to listen to this one story. Of all the cases chronicled in the article, I read most carefully the story of Allen Smith of Wilmington, DE, my hometown. A World War II veteran, he had worked in our Newark, DE, Chrysler plant until the downsizing of the 1980s cost him his job. Struck by cancer, my constituent from Wilmington, DE, was also hit with the tragedy and expense of his wife's diabetes and then her death. Health care costs drove him deeper and deeper into debt, and he filed for bankruptcy under chapter 13. Further financial troubles led to the failure of his chapter 13 plan, and he was then switched to chapter 7 under which he will lose his home to pay some of his obligations. I searched in vain to find any relevance of this profound human tragedy to the bankruptcy reform legislation. To the extent it has anything at all to do with the supposed point of the story, Mr. Smith's story is presented to show us someone who is going to lose his home in bankruptcy, because he is now in chapter 7, exactly what the authors previously argued should be the preferred chapter for individuals in his circumstances. His sad story is an argument for catastrophic health insurance, not against bankruptcy reform. They contrast his case with that of a wealthy individual who uses the protection of the present bankruptcy code by purchasing an expensive home under Florida's unlimited homestead exemption to protect assets from creditors. One would never know it from reading the article, but in the Senate we voted to get rid of that unlimited exemption that now is in the law. More recently, the conferees have agreed to eliminate precisely the kind of abuse criticized in this article. The article discusses at length a case that has nothing to do with reform but criticizes an abuse that is actually fixed by this reform bill. There are other profound inconsistencies and factual errors in the article, including the assertion that medical expenses would not be considered in calculating a filer's ability to pay or would not be dischargeable after bankruptcy or that family support payments, such as child support or alimony, would be a lower priority than a credit card debt. None of these assertions is true. However, without these errors, there would be no article. In many cases, in terms of the new, additional protections for family support payments and improved procedures for reaffirmations, filers in the kind of circumstances chronicled in the other stories in this article would be better off, not worse off, when this legislation passes. I know my colleagues have expressed their worries about this article. I truly ask them, look at the language of the legislation, look at the articles that are written, and you will find that, although this is not a perfect bill, that none of the families chronicled in that article would be affected at all except their circumstances improved, if in fact anything was to happen. I know that my colleagues who have expressed their worries about this article are sincere in their concern about the fairness of bankruptcy reform legislation. I urge them to apply the simple test of fairness to this article, to compare the situations of those families in the article to the actual provisions in the bankruptcy reform legislation. They will find those families's access to the full protection of Chapter 7 unchanged by this bill. I ask them to do it for themselves: they don't have to take my word for it. This is not a perfect bill. It is not the even bill that I would have written by myself. But it is a bill that can pass that test. I thank the Chair and I thank my colleagues assembled on the floor for the additional 4 minutes. I realize it is a tight day and time is of the essence. I appreciate their courtesy. I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 [Bankruptcy Criminal Cases 1999] U.S. Trustee Program (Criminal Cases: The United States Trustee Program's duties include policing the bankruptcy system for criminal activity, referring suspected criminal cases to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and assisting in investigating and prosecuting those cases. Some significant bankruptcy-related criminal cases are described here) 1999 alabama Attorney John C. Coggin III of Birmingham, Ala., was sentenced July 26 to 36 months in prison for conspiracy consisting of bankruptcy fraud, money laundering, and false statements to a federal officer. Coggin hid more than $200,000 that was due to creditors in his bankruptcy case, using a corporation set up for that purpose. arizona Bankruptcy petition preparer Richard S. Berry of Tempe, Ariz., was sentenced April 20 in the District of Arizona to six months in prison for criminal contempt of court, after being fined $1 million in 1998 for willfully violating Bankruptcy Court orders. Since January 1997, several court orders addressed Berry's violations of the Bankruptcy Code's provisions regulating bankruptcy petition preparers. The Bankruptcy Fraud Task Force for the District of Arizona sought criminal contempt charges against Berry based on his violation of a January 1997 Bankruptcy Court order limiting his fees. Lawrence R. Costilow of Tucson pleaded guilty February 19 to two counts of bankruptcy fraud arising from his actions as a creditor in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. Costilow loaned $50,820 to a married couple, obtaining an unsecured promissory note in return. After the spouses filed for bankruptcy, Costilow altered the note so it purposed to take a security interest in their property. Costilow recorded the note and later testified in bankruptcy court as to it validity. california Sherwin Seyrafi of Encino, Calif., pleaded guilty December 28 in the District of Arizona to bankruptcy fraud, misuse of a Social Security number, and failure to file a corporate tax return. The counts for bankruptcy fraud and misuse of an SSN arose from Seyrafi's filing of a bankruptcy petition with the knowledge that it contained a false spelling of his name and a false Social Security number. Judy Scharnhorst Brown, a Spring Valley, Calif., real estate broker, was sentenced Nov. 9 in the Southern District of California to 15 months in custody followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $75,000 in restitution and fines for a bankruptcy fraud and mail fraud scheme. On March 30, a jury convicted Brown on one count of conspiracy, three counts of bankruptcy fraud, and eight counts of mail fraud after a two-week jury trial. On April 21 a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Faramarz Taghilou of Castaic, Calif., on two counts of concealing his private airplane in his Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. Taghilou failed to disclose in his bankruptcy documents that he owned a Cessna 310Q insured for $120,000 and was paying monthly leasing fees to have the airplane kept at Van Nuys airport. Additionally, Taghilou's bankruptcy schedule omitted a creditor who had placed a mechanic's lien on the airplane; the debtor paid that creditor two weeks after filing for bankruptcy. Theresa Marie Thompson-Snow pleaded guilty March 17 in the Central District of California to false representation of a Social Security number and bankruptcy fraud. Through an error, Thompson-Snow obtained loan documents belonging to a college classmate--now an English professor--with a similar name. She subsequently assumed the professor's identity to obtain thousands of dollars in credit, and ultimately filed for bankruptcy in her victim's name. Tricia Mendoza of Norwalk, Calif., was sentenced Jan. 11 to one year in prison and ordered to pay almost $250,000 in restitution for embezzling from a Chapter 13 trustee operation. Mendoza, who was the trustee office's receptionist, changed names and addresses in the computer system to the name and address of an accomplice, thereby diverting payments intended for creditors to an address she controlled. Stephen Martin Zuwala was sentenced June 9 to 57 months in federal prison and 36 months supervised release, and ordered to pay more than $50,500 in restitution, based on his conviction on five counts of mail fraud, three counts of criminal contempt, and four counts of misuse of a Social Security number. Non-lawyer Zuwala contacted individuals facing home foreclosure and offered assistance through ``little-known federal relief programs'' that turned out to be filing for bankruptcy. Zuwala typically charged $500 to $1,000 per case, but disclosed only part of his fees in documents filed with the Bankruptcy Court. All criminal contempt counts arose from Zuwala's violation of a prior judgment obtained by the United States Trustee to permanently enjoin him from preparing bankruptcy documents for filing in the Northern and Eastern Districts of California. Bankruptcy petition preparers Regina Green and Raymond Zak were sentenced April 15 based on their earlier convictions for criminal contempt and bankruptcy fraud. Because of misconduct, Green and Zak had been ordered by the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California to stop preparing bankruptcy petitions, and they were prosecuted for violating that order. Green was sentenced to seven months in prison for contempt of court and forgery, and Zak was sentenced to six months in a halfway house for bankruptcy fraud. Both defendants were ordered to pay restitution and were barred from acting as bankruptcy petition preparers. colorado James Francis Cavanaugh pleaded guilty Oct. 8 to bankruptcy fraud in the District of Colorado. When Cavanaugh filed for bankruptcy, he falsely stated that he had sold certain horses from his Colorado horse breeding operation for $10,000, although he had earlier valued the horses at $124,000. He also failed to disclose to the bankruptcy court that he had interests in two bank accounts in Missouri. florida After a jury trial in the Middle District of Florida, certified public accountant Kenneth A. Stoecklin was convicted July 8 for embezzlement from the bankruptcy estate of Chapter 11 debtor Commonweal Inc. and obstruction of the administration of the internal revenue laws. Stoecklin, the controlling corporate officer of Commonweal Inc., transferred substantially all of his assets to the real estate development company in an apparent attempt to avoid an individual income tax liability exceeding $137,000. He subsequently withdrew funds from an account established to provide the government with ``adequate protection'' pending the outcome of tax-related litigation. Warren D. Johnson Jr. was sentenced June 23 to 97 months imprisonment and ordered to pay more than $5 million restitution after being convicted of bankruptcy fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. During a June 1998 bond hearing, Johnson testified that he had no interest in stocks or other assets in the Turks and Caicos Island, when he actually held around $25 million worth of stock in a publicly traded company. In addition, Johnson claimed he was indigent and could not pay restitution despite the fact that the controlled more than $10 million in assets placed in the names of family members and off-shore shell corporations. Johnson's bankruptcy convictions resulted from a 1992 bankruptcy case in which he claimed over $7.2 million in debt and no assets, when he actually expected to receive at least $1.2 million in real estate sale profits. Johnson laundered approximately $250,000 of these profits by transferring the funds to his wife and then using them for living expenses. The bank fraud conviction resulted from Johnson's filing false financial statements to obtain a $600,000 loan that he did not repay. Georgia The District Court for the Northern District of Georgia entered judgment on December 13 against David Alvin Crossman of Atlanta following his guilty plea to one count of filing a false income tax return and one count of bankruptcy fraud. Crossman set up a car leasing scheme under which he created false financial statements and tax returns to lease cars as if he were fleet leasing for a business, and then re-leased the vehicles to individuals with poor credit. In his individual and corporate Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases, he failed to turn over lease payments to the bankruptcy trustees. Craig D. Butler pleaded guilty Sept. 17 to bankruptcy fraud and income tax evasion. In October 1995, Butler filed a bankruptcy petition in which he made false representations and statements to evade payment of federal income taxes. During the bankruptcy case, Butler, who formerly practiced medicine in Albany, Ga., used funds of his professional corporation to pay his personal expenses and those of his family members, while designating the payments as business- related expenditures. Hawaii On December 10 a federal jury in the District of Hawaii found attorney Stacy Moniz of Kaneohe guilty of filing a false income tax return, structuring cash transactions to evade currency reporting requirements, failing to report the receipt of $15,000 cash in the operation of his law office, making false statements to the IRS, and making a false statement under penalty of perjury in a bankruptcy proceeding. The bankruptcy count arose from Moniz's falsely reporting a client to be a creditor in his August 1997 bankruptcy case. Arthur Kahahawai pleaded guilty Oct. 4 in the District of Hawaii to two counts of bankruptcy fraud. Kahahawai concealed from the bankruptcy trustee and his creditors a $71,517 workers' compensation settlement that he received less than one month before filing for bankruptcy. Miyoko Mizuno, a/k/a Miyoko Proctor, pleaded guilty in the District of Hawaii Sept. 24 to concealment of assets in her bankruptcy case. The debtor attempted to discharge approximately $185,000 in unsecured debts by filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. She listed no interests in real property, when in fact she had deeded to her son a condominium and her residence while retaining a life interest in both properties, which could generate substantial rental income. Edward O'Kelley, former owner and president of HOJE Construction, was sentenced April 23 in the District of Hawaii to 33 months in prison for bankruptcy fraud (concealment of assets and fraudulent transfer), and money laundering. O'Kelley had been found guilty in a jury trial for his role in putting HOJE Construction into Chapter 7 bankruptcy and hiding its assets in bank accounts in Alaska and Texas. HOJE performed subcontracting work on military projects in Hawaii and Alaska from 1992 through 1995. O'Kelley and HOJE operations manager Harry Jordan conspired to hide more than $450,000, which the bankruptcy trustee recovered. Harry Jordan pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud Feb. 8 in the District of Hawaii; he was sentenced to one year probation with one month home confinement, and ordered to pay $75,000 in restitution. The court took into account that Jordan, the former operations manager of HOJE Construction Inc., cooperated with the United States Attorney and testified against HOJE president Edward O'Kelley, who was found guilty of bankruptcy fraud and money laundering. HOJE performed subcontracting work on military projects in Hawaii and Alaska from 1992 to 1995, when it filed for bankruptcy. More than $450,000 in concealed assets have been recovered. Illinois A federal jury in the Northern District of Illinois Oct. 22 convicted Vincent M. Gramarossa on two counts of bankruptcy fraud and eight counts of money laundering. Gramarossa defrauded bankruptcy creditors by skimming more than $580,000 from his business, a State Farm Insurance agency in suburban Chicago. Gramarossa's confirmed Chapter 11 reorganization plan directed that he pay half his profits to creditors, but Gramarossa devised a scheme under which he diverted commissions to conceal approximately one-third of his commissions. Indiana Bankruptcy debtors' attorney David T. Galloway of Porter County, Ind., pleaded guilty April 5 in the Northern District of Indiana to criminal contempt and agreed to resign from the practice of law for three years. Galloway served as counsel for a Chapter 7 debtor who concealed a pending personal injury action from the bankruptcy case trustee. The debtor testified at the Section 341 meeting of creditors that his medical debts resulted from illness. After the Section 341 meeting, the United States Trustee's office in South Bend, Ind., and the case trustee investigated the nature of the medical debts, leading to the discovery of the personal injury lawsuit. Kentucky Debtors Daniel Caldera and Martha Kay Caldera of Elizabethtown, Ky., were sentenced Oct. 20 in the Western District of Kentucky for bankruptcy fraud. Daniel Caldera pleaded guilty to concealing a $101,295 payment from C&S Carpentry Service Inc.'s bankruptcy estate. He was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment plus two years supervised release, and ordered to pay $11,272 in restitution. Martha Kay Caldera pleaded guilty to filing a bankruptcy petition containing a materially false declaration--that she and/or her spouse did not own an annuity when in fact her spouse did. She was sentenced to 24 months probation, including six months of home incarceration. Louisiana Former district attorney James A. Norris, Jr. was sentenced June 22 in the Western District of Louisiana to 33 months in prison and three years supervised release, and ordered to pay $490,000 in restitution for bankruptcy fraud. On March 10, a jury found Norris guilty of four counts of making false oaths in a bankruptcy proceeding, in connection with his four statements under oath that he had burned $500,000 cash in his backyard. In 1989, Norris withdrew approximately $500,000 from his law partnership's account in a dispute over business decisions; his former law partners ultimately obtained a court judgment against him and filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against him. Attorney Betty L. Washington was sentenced Jan. 20 in the Eastern District of Louisiana to 33 months in prison, and ordered to pay approximately $5,000 in restitution, based on a jury verdict finding multiple counts of fraud, including bankruptcy fraud. In her Chapter 7 bankruptcy case Washington concealed her right to receive legal fees from a client. Further, as part of a scheme to obtain more than $20,000 in automobile loans, Washington tried to mislead a bank into believing her bankruptcy case had been concluded. Maine On June 8 Catherine Duffy Petit was sentenced in the District Court for the District of Maine to 15 years and eight months in prison and three years supervised release, and ordered to forfeit nearly $164,000 and to pay restitution of nearly $8 million, based on her conviction on 54 counts (reduced by the court from 78) of conspiracy, bankruptcy fraud, securities fraud, and other violations. Petit and co- conspirators had raised almost $7 million--ostensibly for litigation expenses--by selling interests in Petit's state court suit against a bank. Massachusetts On July 8 attorneys Wendy Golenbock and Cheryl B. Stein of Weston, Mass., were each sentenced in the District of Massachusetts to 21 months in jail for bankruptcy fraud. The attorneys attempted to conceal their property interest in a Cape Cod, Mass., vacation home from their bankruptcy trustee and creditors. In March 1999, a jury found them guilty of bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud. Prosecutors in Boston announced Feb. 9 the settlement of charges filed against Sears, Roebuck & Co. for improper debt collection from Chapter 7 debtors. Sears agreed to pay a $60 million criminal penalty, which is the largest ever paid in a bankruptcy fraud case. The monies will be deposited into the Crime Victims' Fund. Sears already paid over $180 million in restitution and $40 million in civil fines to state attorneys general, in connection with civil settlements in the case. Minnesota Mark John McGowan of Mound, Minn., was sentenced Sept. 1 to one year in prison and two years of supervised release for bankruptcy fraud and perjury. In his Chapter 7 bankruptcy schedules, McGowan listed a $100,000 house that he claimed exempt as his homestead although he actually rented the house and had no intent to occupy it. Daniel J. Bubalo of Edina, Minn., was sentenced June 8 to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $85,000 in restitution following his conviction on two counts of bankruptcy fraud. After Bubalo's bankruptcy case was converted from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, and without the Chapter 7 trustee's knowledge, Bubalo sold for $70,000 a Duluth, Minn., bar valued at $175,000. He later testified that the property's status had not changed since his case was converted. Missouri Keith D. Linhardt of Warrenton, Mo., pleaded guilty Feb. 12 in the Eastern District of Missouri to bankruptcy fraud and perjury. Linhardt admitted that he concealed financial accounts as well as his interests as primary beneficiary of seven life insurance policies--totaling more than $1.5 million--on his wife, who died on a camping trip in April 1998. In July 1998, at his Section 341 meeting with creditors, Linhardt testified to the trustee concerning his non-debtor spouse as though she were alive. On January 15, 1999, Linhardt pleaded guilty to second degree murder of his wife and was sentenced to life in prison. He also pleaded guilty to four counts of insurance fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, consecutive to the life sentence. New Jersey Michelle A. Pruyn of Medford, N.J., pleaded guilty Oct. 1 in the District of New Jersey to concealing company income from her creditors, the Bankruptcy Court, and the IRS during her Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. Pruyn was the former president and owner of Sigma Acquisition Corp., Televid Media Buying Inc., and other New Jersey-based video production-related companies. She concealed assets worth at least $240,000 from the court and her creditors by failing to disclose her equitable interest in a Pennsauken, N.J., commercial building and the existence of an investment account held in the name of the Cogan Corp., to which she diverted part of the receipts of Sigma and the other companies she owned. Alexander Alegria of Fords, N.J., pleaded guilty July 21 to filing a false bankruptcy petition. He admitted that he falsely stated his Social Security number on the petition and that he sought to discharge approximately $25,000 in debt he had incurred under the false SSN. Nevada John and Rena Kopystenski of Las Vegas were sentenced on December 2 to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $67,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in the District of Nevada to bankruptcy fraud, money laundering, and aiding and abetting. The Kopystenskis were principals of debtor Quality Ice Cream Inc., which went through several bankruptcies under different names with essentially the same assets. New York Joseph W. Kennedy Jr. of Rochester, N.Y., was sentenced Nov. 3 to 27 months in prison and three years supervised release, and ordered to pay $235,000 in restitution, based on his conviction on three counts of bankruptcy fraud. Kennedy failed to disclose in his Chapter 7 schedules that he owned one insurance agency and was a 47 percent shareholder and officer in another insurance agency. Kenneth Stenzel of Queens County, N.Y., was sentenced Aug. 31 in the Eastern District of New York to five years probation and ordered to pay restitution of $5,920 payable to the Chapter 7 trustee, based on his guilty plea to bankruptcy fraud. Stenzel intentionally made a materially false statement by stating in his bankruptcy schedules that he was unemployed, when he was actually earning more than $5,000 a month as a computer programmer. Garden City, N.Y., attorney Brent Kaufman pleaded guilty July 26 in the Eastern District of New York to two counts of bankruptcy fraud arising from the filing of two false proofs of claim on behalf of a fictitious creditor. Kaufman, an associate with a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee's law firm, admitted embezzling $117,000 from five bankruptcy estates. ohio Albert J. DeSantis, formerly of Columbus, Ohio, and Upper Arlington, Ohio, was sentenced August 26 to 51 months imprisonment based on his plea of guilty to charges of bankruptcy fraud, money laundering, and witness tampering. The former Columbus, Ohio, real estate developer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief but failed to list assets exceeding $920,000 in value, including a residence and a bank account. He also counseled two employees to withhold information from the federal grand jury that was investigating his conduct in the bankruptcy case. oklahoma Mary Ann Adams and John Quincy Adams pleaded guilty Sept. 15 to bank fraud in connection with their concealment of more than $90,000 in assets after a bank foreclosed upon their property. The Adamses, who owned an implement company, hid tractor and combine parts, transferred real property, and concealed personal property including certificates of deposits. Jesse Joseph Maynard and Samuel Bruce Love were convicted Sept. 1 in the Western District of Oklahoma on eight counts arising from the October 1993 bankruptcy filing on behalf of First Assurance & Casualty Co. Ltd. The defendants concealed more than $270,000 in bankruptcy estate assets from the Chapter 7 trustee, and transferred monies from the bankruptcy estate post-petition. oregon Bankruptcy petition preparer Robert Tank pleaded guilty April 9 to criminal contempt of court in the District of Oregon. In 1996, the United States Trustee obtained an order fining Tank approximately $10,000 and prohibiting him from engaging in certain deceptive practices or practicing law in Oregon. Tank violated the order, and the United States Trustee obtained a national permanent injunction against him. Tank continued to prepare bankruptcy petitions, and engaged in a series of violations of various orders. Former Chapter 11 trustee Thomas G. Marks was sentenced March 15 in the District of Oregon to twelve months plus one day in prison, three years probation, and payment of restitution, for embezzling funds in three Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases where he acted as a fiduciary after the case was confirmed. The United States Trustee discovered the embezzlement of approximately $108,000 based on an inquiry from Marks' former business partner. The United States Trustee obtained Marks' resignation as fiduciary in the cases, and arranged the appointment of successor fiduciaries to pursue bond claims relating to the losses. pennsylvania On Nov. 15 the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sentenced Philadelphia attorney Steven Bernosky, and barred him from practicing law for three years, for embezzling approximately $14,000 from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy estate. Bernosky served as debtor's counsel in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of Morris Schiff Co. The debtor company's property was sold for approximately $14,150, and Bernosky improperly deposited a check for the sale proceeds into his personal account. Bernosky made partial restitution of $11,000 before sentencing and produced a check for the balance at the sentencing hearing. He was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay a $2,500 fine. He pleaded guilty April 7 after a one-count information was filed March 31. Chester Wiles was sentenced June 7 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to 24 months incarceration for false declaration in bankruptcy, to a concurrent 18-month term of incarceration on 12 other counts, and to five years of supervised release; he was also ordered to pay approximately $225,000 in restitution and a special assessment fine of $1,300. Wiles had assumed the identity of a deceased person and fraudulently obtained credit in the decedent's name for 2\1/2\ years, before filing for bankruptcy twice in the decedent's name. He pleaded guilty to 13 counts including false statement in bankruptcy, bankruptcy fraud, false statements to obtain a HUD-insured mortgage, false statements in loan and credit applications, credit card fraud, wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen goods, and use of an unassigned Social Security number. south carolina Auctioneer J. Max McCaskill pleaded guilty Nov. 2 in the District of South Carolina to two counts of embezzlement from bankruptcy estates. McCaskill was a former Bankruptcy Court deputy clerk and a former employee of a bankruptcy trustee in South Carolina. While employed to auction bankruptcy estate property, he sold the property but failed to turn over the proceeds to the bankruptcy trustee. texas Tronnald Dunnaway of Richardson, Texas, was sentenced Oct. 3 to 13 months in jail and three years supervised release and ordered to pay $23,959 in restitution for his role in a bankruptcy foreclosure scam. Dunnaway pleaded guilty in June on the eve of trial; on June 22, his co-defendant Shelby Daniels was found guilty of 14 counts of bankruptcy fraud in connection with the scam. Daniels and Dunnaway contacted homeowners facing foreclosure, offering to help them with their mortgage problems. They persuaded the homeowners to transfer a part interest in their homes to companies controlled by, or individuals working with, the scam operators. Those companies and individuals then filed for bankruptcy to delay foreclosure on the properties, but the victims ended up losing their homes. On June 22, after a five-day jury trial, Shelby Daniels of Dallas was found guilty of 14 counts of bankruptcy fraud for his role in a bankruptcy foreclosure scam. Daniels represented himself as a real estate consultant and contacted homeowners facing foreclosure, persuading them to transfer a part interest in their homes to companies he controlled or individuals working with him. The companies and individuals filed for bankruptcy to delay foreclosure. Homeowners paid Daniels a $500 ``set up'' fee plus $500 per month, assuming he was working to address their mortgage problems. They ended up losing their homes. On the eve of trial, Tronnald Dunnaway, who was indicted with Daniels, pleaded guilty to one count of bankruptcy fraud. Virginia Lee W. Smith Sr., the principal in the Chapter 11 case of Lee's Contracting Services Inc., was sentenced Nov. 10 to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of bankruptcy fraud and one count of tax evasion. Smith diverted monies from the corporation to personal accounts during the pendency of the Chapter 11 case, which was ultimately dismissed because the debtor owed more than $1 million in unpaid employee withholding taxes. The District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia August 4 sentenced Donald S. Pritt to 30 months imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and restitution of $193,990 following his conviction on one count of mail fraud and two counts of bankruptcy fraud. Pritt claimed to be permanently disabled following an all-terrain vehicle accident. He filed disability insurance claims under several recently issued policies and engaged in litigation with the insurance companies and ATV manufacturer. Pritt was ordered to pay in excess of $600,000 in attorney fees to the manufacturer. The bankruptcy counts arose from his transfer and concealment of assets, which began after the state court litigation and continued during the bankruptcy case. Ethel Mae Martin was sentenced June 15 in the Eastern District of Virginia to 27 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release for one count of bankruptcy fraud. Martin used at least three Social Security numbers to obtain credit and filed her bankruptcy petition using a fourth SSN. Elizabeth Baker pleaded guilty June 8 to one count of making a false oath in connection with her bankruptcy. Baker and her husband filed a Chapter 13 petition in 1995; when her husband later died, Baker received over $99,000 in life insurance proceeds. She converted the bankruptcy case to a Chapter 7 liquidation but did not disclose the receipt of funds to the bankruptcy trustee. Baker's bankruptcy discharge was revoked after the trustee discovered the receipt of funds as well as Baker's false testimony that there were no assets other than those listed in the bankruptcy schedules. Wisconsin The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit July 20 upheld the March 1998 conviction of attorney John Gellene for false material declarations in a bankruptcy proceeding, and upheld the trial court's sentencing determinations. Gellene did not disclose that his law firm represented a senior secured creditor as well as the Chapter 11 debtor, giving rise to a conflict of interest in representation. He was convicted after a jury trial in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, sentenced to 15 months in prison, and fined $15,000. In its ruling, the Appeals Court rejected Gellene's argument that his false statements were not material, finding it beyond doubt that ``a misstatement in a Rule 2014 statement by an attorney about other affiliations'' is material.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking my colleague from Iowa. He and I have worked together on a lot of issues. We tend to approach issues from a slightly different perspective but often end up in the same place, and that is the case here. My concern in the reform of the bankruptcy code was not as much driven by those who were avoiding debt as his was but about making sure the overall consumer is protected. When people avoid debts they can pay, it is a simple proposition: My mother living on Social Security pays more at the department store to purchase something, my sons, who are beginning their careers, and my daughter pay more on their credit card bill because someone else does not pay. In recent days, a number of my colleagues have brought the Time magazine article to my attention and to the attention of the Senator from Iowa and others. If you took a look at the Time magazine article and read it thoroughly, you would think we were about to tread on the downtrodden, deserving Americans who are about to be, and I quote from the article, ``soaked by the Congress.'' My colleagues have pointed this out to me. They find it a very disturbing article. It tells a tale of corruption and greed and heartlessness, claims that hard-working, honest, American families are about to be cut off from the fresh start promised by the bankruptcy code, and that lenders, who have driven these families into economic distress, are about to kick them when they are down. Most shocking in the article, perhaps, from my perspective, is the claim that the U.S. Congress, by passing the bankruptcy reform legislation which passed out of here overwhelmingly, will make all this happen. As I said, it is a very disturbing article. It is hard to see how anyone, in my view, could vote for bankruptcy reform if, in fact, the essence of the article were true. But I remind my colleagues that bankruptcy reform legislation, not this imaginary legislation described in the article, passed the House by a vote of 313-108, and the Senate by 84-13. So this article claims a vast majority of both our parties in both Houses of Congress are conspirators in an alleged plot to hit those who are down on their luck. The problem with this portrayal is the bankruptcy reform bill now in conference is the antithesis of what they have said. Their article is simply dead wrong. I do not ever recall coming to the floor of the Senate in my 28 years and saying unequivocally: One of the most respected periodicals and magazines in the country, with a major article, is simply dead, flat, absolutely wrong. I don't recall ever being compelled to do that or being inclined to do that. I will make one admission at the outset. It is the intent of the bankruptcy reform to tighten the bankruptcy system; that is true, to assure that those who have the ability to pay do not walk away from their legal debts. The explosion of bankruptcy in the early and mid- 1990s revealed a problem with our system and the reform legislation is a response to that by the strong bipartisan vote of both Houses. I am more on that liberal side, as my friend from Iowa talks about. I admire his pride that everybody should pay their debts, and I think they should. I am more inclined to let someone go than to hold them tightly. I admit that part. But I came here with this reform legislation because all these bankruptcies are causing debts to be driven up by other people. Interest rates go up on credit cards, not that credit card companies do not like high interest rates anyway. Interest rates go up on automobile loans. Interest rates go up all over the board. The cost of borrowing money goes up when people who can pay do not pay. It means innocent middle-class people and poor folks end up paying more. Yes, bankruptcy reform is intended to require more repayment by those who can afford it, more complete and verified documentation, and to generally discourage unnecessary and unwarranted filings. When the bankruptcy system is manipulated by those who can afford to pay, we all pay. This article claims that bankruptcy reform legislation is driven solely by the greed of lenders, that abuse of the bankruptcy code is a myth created by those who want to wring more money out of those who do not have more money. That is not the position of the Justice Department. I ask unanimous consent that a document entitled ``U.S. Trustee Program'' be printed in the Record at the end of my statement.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from Rhode Island for taking the lead on this important amendment this year. As a former Governor and mayor, they can both tell you firsthand about the need for State and local governments to have flexibility to make the best use of their transportation dollars as they see fit. I find this kind of fascinating. Here we are and we talk about States rights and doing what the States need and the States know what their requirements are. Yet repeatedly when I have introduced this same amendment without the help--hopefully, it will change now because I have a former Republican Governor who has done the job. He is here in the Senate. I have stood up on the floor since 1991 introducing this amendment and I have been told that the Governors don't want this, or that this is inconsistent with the Republican philosophy, or whatever. Now we have a Governor from one of the largest States in the United States who has done the job--and he obviously did it very well--who says, along with a former mayor from one of our smaller States but with more concentrated cities, that this is a flexibility that will help. Why should you be put in a position as a Governor when, in fact, you are able to, by the way, have flexibility with this money and to decide how you want to use your highway money, and you decide you want to put a bus route on, you can do it? Why can't you use the railroad? This sacrosanct principle I always hear from my friend from Missouri I find fascinating. What is the difference between a bus and a railroad? It is not a road. Guess what. It is on a road. The cement and asphalt guys like that a lot. They don't like the idea that we would make it better for our constituents and Governors have the choice and flexibility. We are not asking for more money; we are asking for flexibility. I would think it is just common sense. The record shows that the Senate has gone on record time after time--in 1991, 1995, and 1997--in favor of this same proposal before us today in the Voinovich amendment. Time and again, the language has been dropped in conference with the House, which is why we are here again today. In addition to the same common sense, we are also here to restore balance to the way our transportation dollars are spent. Once again, the highway lobby, which is not content to consume its own large share, is trying to keep Amtrak from having a little bit of a share of the leftovers that go on after other modes of transportation have been taken care of. I guess we will have that business to deal with today. First, the issue is common sense. Under current law, States are permitted to make their own choices to use the money for certain Federal transportation programs for mass transit, hike and bike trails, driver education, and even snowmobile trails. This is not a very restrictive list, Mr. President. In fact, there is only one kind of transportation that Governors and mayors aren't allowed to consider; that is, inner-city passenger rail. Isn't that funny? They are going to give the folks in Minnesota, as we should, the ability for the Governor to decide he wants to spend highway money for snowmobile trails. Well, that is his business. They need that, according to the people in Minnesota. We don't need it in Delaware. We need rail. As my friend, and the leader on this subject for the entire time he has been here, the Senator from New Jersey, says--and one of my greatest regrets is that he is leaving voluntarily, and I mean that sincerely. He has one of the few logical voices in this debate. He and I come from States that if you widen I-95, it will accommodate the reduction of rail transportation and you are going to take up the bulk of my State. It would take another seven lanes. Look, I don't tell the folks in Missouri what they need. I don't tell the Governor of Missouri that he should or should not build more roads. Why can't you let the Governor of the State of Delaware decide whether or not it is better for us to have rail transportation between Wilmington and Newark, DE, instead of having to build another lane on I-95? We all know why Amtrak is off the list. It is politics, pure politics. It has nothing to do with good public policy or a principle of federalism. What sense does it make to go out of our way to tie our Governor's hands when it comes to inner-city transportation? It makes no sense. That is why the Senate has supported this language time and again--unanimously, in some cases, in the past, and with strong bipartisan support. Here is what is at stake when you think about this little proposition: A little balance in our transportation spending. Mr. President, last year Amtrak received $571 million in Federal funding. The highway system got $53 billion; and $20 billion of that was over and above the gas tax and users' fees that make some folks believe they are paying their own way. Again, $20 billion. We are talking $571 million for Amtrak. I am not here to argue against full funding of the highway system. However, a lot of places such as the Northeast corridor are not going to be able to add another lane to I-95. We have to have another option for our transportation dollars. That is all this amendment does. It gives, along with every other State, an option we need to keep intercity transportation and rail systems viable. That includes States in the Midwest, West, and South, which is why S. 1144, the bill on which this amendment is based, is cosponsored by 36 Senators including, I note with interest, the distinguished majority leader. The simple notion of balance says we ought to give all the parts of our transportation system the resources they need and we should give our citizens the full range of transportation choices that citizens in every other advanced economy in the world can now take for granted. It is time to stand up for this language. There is no principled argument on Federalism. I thank my friend from Ohio for his leadership, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Ohio whether he would be willing to yield me 7 minutes?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of this resolution to designate Monday, June 19, 2000 as ``National Eat Dinner with Your Children Day,'' cosponsored by Senators Grassley, Levin, Jeffords, Bryan, Kennedy, Murray, Moynihan, Sessions, DeWine, Helms, Thurmond, Schumer and Inouye. A similar resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Rangel and McCollum. In addition to designating June 19--the day after Father's Day--as National Eat Dinner with Your Children Day, the resolution also recognizes that eating dinner as a family is a critical step toward raising healthy, drug-free children and it encourages families to eat together as often as possible. The idea for this resolution grew out of research by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, CASA, on teen attitudes about drug use. For four years running, the CASA teen survey has highlighted the power that parents have over their children's decisions regarding drug use, showing that children and teens who routinely eat dinner with their families are far less likely to use illegal drugs, cigarettes or alcohol: Teens who rarely eat dinner with their parents are 72 percent more likely than the average teen to use drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. Teens that almost always eat with their families are 31 percent less likely to smoke, drink or do drugs than the average teen. Of course, having dinner as a family is a proxy for spending time with kids. It is not the meat, potatoes and vegetables that alter a child's likelihood to use drugs, it is the everyday time spent with mom and dad--the two most important role models in most kids lives. I do not believe that this resolution will be the silver bullet to solving this nation's drug problem. But I do feel these statistics are telling. CASA President Joe Califano talks about ``Parent Power.'' It is important that parents know the power they have over their children's decisions and the power that they have to deter kids from drinking, smoking or using drugs. For example, nearly half of teens who have never used marijuana say that it was lessons learned from their parents that helped them to say no. Unfortunately, many parents are pessimistic about their ability to keep their kids drug-free; 45 percent say that they believe their child will use an illegal drug in the future. This pessimism is often reinforced by news reports that indicate that while most parents say that they have talked to their kids about the dangers of drugs, only a minority of teens say that they have learned a lot from their family about the dangers of drugs. Rather than be discouraged by this apparent disconnect, I think it should teach us an important lesson: that talking to kids about drugs ought not just be a one-time conversation. It should be an ongoing discussion that includes asking children where they are going, who they are going out with, whether there will be adult supervision, etc. These lessons can also grow out of spending time with a child, helping that child to learn how to work through problems or rise above peer pressure, and parents setting a good example for kids. Keeping up on children's lives--including knowing who their friends are and what they are doing after school--is critical. The experts tell us that some of the tell-tale signs that a child is drinking or using illicit drugs are behavior changes, change in social circle, lack of interest in hobbies and isolation from family. These changes can be subtle; picking up on them can require a watchful eye. Eating dinner as a family will not guarantee that a child will remain drug-free. But family dinners are an important way for parents to instill their values in their children as well as remain connected with the challenges that children face and help them learn how to cope with problems without resorting to smoking, drinking or using drugs. I sincerely hope that each one of my colleagues join me to support this resolution to send a message to parents that they can play a powerful role in shaping the decisions their kids make regarding drinking, smoking and drug use.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.