Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I am delighted to yield 20 minutes to my friend from New York.

Mr. BIDEN. I yield myself 2 minutes, and then I yield to my friend from New York. First, the very essential safeguards the chairman indicated all military guys want, I find it fascinating that the Republican leadership would not allow the Senate to include those in the treaty. That indicates what a stacked deck this is and how outrageous is this approach of how we are proceeding on this is. The very things all the Joint Chiefs and the President of the United States said they wanted in the treaty as the six safeguards when we brought this up in the unanimous consent agreement, we were not allowed to include those as part of the treaty. I think that is telling. The second point. The Senator says, Have we ever exercised this clause? The appropriate question is, Have we ever needed to? The answer is, we have never concluded we needed to. Such a clause, or a variation, is in every treaty the United States of America signs. This is a bit of a red herring. In every treaty we sign of consequence relating to our national security, there is a supreme national interest clause. The reason we haven't exercised it is that no President has concluded there was a need. The third point I make, if my friend is concerned--as I know he is-- about our friends at one point not being able to rely upon the United States and deciding to go their own route, I ask him why Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac are making a personal appeal to the President of the United States, for goodness sake, pass this treaty. Japan and Germany are saying please, please, pass a treaty. We signed it; we ratified it. How much time does the Senator from New York require?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, this idea that the stockpile is not going to be reliable, that you can't--we have thousands of parts, and the Russians have missiles with bombs with only 100 parts, and that has some significance. I have said it before. I will yield now. I used to practice law with a guy named Sidney Balick--a good trial lawyer. Every time he would start a jury trial, he would start off by saying: I want you to take a look at my client. I want you to look at him. They're going to tell you he's not such a good looking guy. He's not. They're going to tell you you would not want to invite him home for dinner to meet your daughter. I wouldn't either. They're going to tell you--and he would go on like that. But he would say: I want you to keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball. Follow the bouncing ball. Did he kill Cock Robin? That is the question. The question is, At the end of the day, if we reject this treaty, are we better off in terms of our strategic interest and our national security or are we better off if we accept and ratify the treaty that all our allies have ratified? Which is better? Keep your eye on the ball. I will respond, as I said, in due time to every argument my friend has made, from ``the safety features argument'' to ``the purpose can't be achieved'' to ``nations that don't have sophisticated weapons are going to be able to cheat,'' and so on and so forth. But in the meantime, out of a matter of comity, which is highly unusual, because I should do a full-blown opening statement, I will yield to my friend from Pennsylvania because he has other commitments. Then I will come back to a point-by-point rebuttal of the statement by my friend from Arizona. How much time is the Senator seeking?

Mr. BIDEN. Five of the last six Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are for this treaty, along with people such as Paul Nitze of the Reagan administration, Stansfield Turner, Charles Curtis, and so on. I ask unanimous consent that a list of those in support of the treaty be printed in the Record

Mr. BIDEN. It has been raised whether or not that is a good idea. As I understand the unanimous-consent request, it is to the extent possible we will try to alternate between Democrat and Republican, opponents and proponents. That is the same as saying, with one exception, for and against. I do not expect that to mean that we would not engage each other in colloquy and debate so we don't just have statement after statement.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am anxious to respond point by point to my friend. I suggest, to believe his arguments, as the old saying goes, requires the suspension of disbelief. I find them to be well intended but half true. I will be very specific about each one of them, beginning with this notion of the value of deterrence. I find it fascinating, my colleagues talk about these other nations can have a Hiroshima-type bomb and build without testing and that would radically affect our security; yet we cannot rely in the future on our certainty of 6,000 sophisticated nuclear weapons in the stockpile. I urge my friends to read today's New York Times and Washington Post where our allies are apoplectic about the fact my colleagues are going to reject this treaty. The absolute notion that this idea is--don't let them kid you about this debate, folks, anybody watching this. You do not have to be a nuclear scientist to understand. You do not have to be a sophisticated foreign policy specialist to grasp what is at stake. Think of it this way when they tell you the security of our nuclear stockpile is going to become so unreliable over time, that, as Dr. Schlesinger has said and my friend from Arizona has alluded, our enemies are going to know we do not have confidence in it and that is going to embolden them, and our allies such as Germany and Japan are going to go nuclear because they cannot count on us. That is fascinating. Why did all of our allies sign and ratify this treaty? Why are they apoplectic about the prospect that we will not sign this treaty? I ask my colleagues when is the last time they can remember the Prime Minister of Great Britain or the President of France saying publicly: My Lord, I hope the Senate doesn't do that. You cannot have it both ways. This is an argument that I find absolutely preposterous. Although one can technically make it, it does require the suspension of disbelief in order to arrive at that conclusion. One has to be an incredible pessimist to conclude that the 6,000 nuclear weapons configured in nine different warheads are going to atrophy after spending $45 billion over the next 10 years, and after having been able to certify without testing for the last 3 years that it is in good shape, that some nation is going to say: We got them now, guys; I know they don't believe their system is adequate; maybe one of those bombs won't go off, maybe 10 of them, maybe 100 of them, maybe 1,000 of them, maybe 3,000 of them. We still have 3,000 left. Back when the Senator from Nebraska and I were kids and Vietnam was kicking up, we used to see bumper stickers: One atom bomb can ruin your day. I am going to go into great detail on every point my friend raised and talk about, for example, the idea we cannot modernize these weapons when we find a defect; we cannot deal with them without testing. Dr. Garwin yesterday--one of the most brilliant scientists we have had, who has been involved in this program since 1950--says, you can replace the whole physics package without changing. By the way, I am going to yield to my friend from Pennsylvania. Names are mentioned here: Dr. Robinson, of Sandia; Victor Reis, the architect of the program, whom I spent 2\1/2\ hours with the other day. They do not tell you the end of the sentence. The end of the sentence is: They both are for this treaty. They both are for this treaty, along with 32 Nobel laureates in physics. I ask unanimous consent that the list be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I have to say that I am disappointed in the foreign operations appropriations conference report. In my estimation then, and in my estimation now, this bill has two huge flaws: First of all, the bill as a whole is under funded. It simply does not dedicate the necessary monies for our nation's foreign operations. The Administration has indicated that the President will veto this bill, and I approve that decision. The amount in this bill is nearly $2 billion less than the administration's request. That is unacceptable. The second major problem is that, not only is overall funding inadequate, two essential programs have either faced draconian cuts, or have not been funded at all. It is on those programs that I wish to speak. Perhaps the biggest failure of this bill is that it does not provide the amount that the President requested to support the Middle East Wye River Agreement. I find it irresponsible that the conference report does not include a single penny to fulfill our commitment to support the agreement. Early in September, Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement to carry out Wye and to move to final status negotiations. Just as the peace process is getting back on track, this conference report sends a signal of American retreat from our historic moral and strategic commitments in the Middle East. The $800 billion in aid missing from the conference report for fiscal years 1999, and the $500 missing form this year's appropriation were requested to support Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority in critical areas. In Israel, funds were requested to assist Israel in carrying out its military re-deployments and to acquire anti-terrorism equipment. In the Palestinian Authority, support was requested for education, health care, and basic infrastructure in order to reduce the influence of radical groups that thrive off of economic misery. In Jordan, support is needed to bolster the new King as he takes bold and risky moves to support peace and aggressively fight terror. The parties in the region will need to know that we are a reliable partner as they move to the most contentious issues in the peace process. This conference report calls into question our ability to carry out our commitments. The second failure of this year's conference report is that it does not fund the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative, an essential part of U.S. efforts to reduce the chances for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from the former Soviet Union. Almost every one of the Department of State budget increases proposed in the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative has been zeroed out in the conference report. This occurred despite the inclusion in the Senate bill of two floor amendments calling for the conferees to achieve full funding of these program requests. I regret that this message was ignored by the conferees, and Frankly I fear that their action could endanger our national security. Some of the programs that are unfunded in this bill were to help Russia's biological weapons experts find new fields of work. If we fail to do that, these very same experts could later threaten our crops, our livestock, and our very lives. Assistance for the Newly Independent States was decreased by 445 million from a Senate passed level that was already $250 million below the Administration's request. While it is unclear where the additional cut would be made, it could reduce existing non-proliferation assistance programs such as the International Science and Technology Centers in Russia and Ukraine. Through these centers over 24,000 former weapons scientists have found jobs in places other than nuclear and biological weapons labs in Iraq and Iran. The same could be said for the Civilian Research and Development Fund. This foundation provides training for Russians who are former weapons scientist so that they can embark in nonmilitary careers. Not only the United States, but the entire world has benefited from this. I accept the fact that Congress has to make some tough choices in all of our appropriations. There are literally a dozen more programs in this bill that I would like to see increased funding for. We cannot designate as much money as we would like in all the areas we would like. However, I believe that the programs I have outlined above are crucial to the effective execution of United States foreign policy. By ignoring them, we are creating serious problems which may very well be costly to correct. Diplomacy and assistance are cheap compared to the price we pay when they fail. When the Senate passed its appropriation bill in June, I hoped that these flaws I have just discussed would be corrected. They were not. As it stands, I cannot support the conference report.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Breast Reconstruction Implementation Act of 1999. This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to require that all health plans provide coverage for breast reconstruction surgery after a woman has had a mastectomy for breast cancer. Breast cancer is a frightening disease for women. It is common: a very high percentage of women who live long enough will eventually develop the disease. It is insidious: it can remain asymptomatic for many years before it is discovered. It is stealthy: it can recur many years after it has been thought to be cured. It is devastating: surgical treatment can be not only physically mutilating but psychologically devastating to a woman's sense of femininity and self- esteem. And it is everywhere: there is hardly anyone in this country who does not have a close friend or loved one who has been through an experience with breast cancer. Fortunately, there has been tremendous progress in the treatment of breast cancer, and many women can now be cured. However, as these breast cancer survivors attempt to resume their normal lives after their treatment, they can still be impacted by the physical damage that follows mastectomy. Breast reconstruction surgery after mastectomy is thus a key part of restoring the breast cancer patient back to a satisfying and fulfilling life; it is not simply a cosmetic procedure to satisfy one's vanity. In recognition of the importance of breast reconstruction after mastectomy, last year the Senate passed the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. This legislation, which was signed into law by the President, amended the Public Health Service Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to require that health plans provide coverage for breast reconstruction after mastectomy. This coverage also includes surgery on the unoperated breast, if necessary, as well as the cost of breast prostheses and repair to physical complications following mastectomy (e.g. lymphedema or arm swelling). However, if we don't pass further legislation, the enforcement mechanisms available to the Department of Labor to ensure that health plans comply with the breast reconstruction requirement are generally limited to requesting a court to issue an injunction. The Breast Reconstruction Implementation Act will incorporate the breast reconstruction requirement into the Internal Revenue Code in order to enable civil monetary penalties to be imposed on violators of the law. Passage of this bill would continue the precedent established by all previous mandates on health plans (those in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act, and the Mental Health Parity Act), which were incorporated into all three statutes: Public Health Service Act, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the Internal Revenue Code. Mr. President, I encourage my colleagues to finish the work that we began last year to ensure that women can be fully restored to health after fighting breast cancer, and I urge them to support the Breast Reconstruction Implementation Act of 1999 that I am introducing today.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I can understand why the Senator may think we have had hearings because we have had hearings on other subjects that implicate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is mentioned by witnesses. But we have never had a hearing on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty--a treaty of great consequence to the United States and the world--conducted in the traditional way. We never had a hearing where we said this is what we are going to talk about. We need a hearing where we bring up the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, or major voices in America who oppose this treaty--fortunately, I think there are not that many--or significant figures and scientists who have spoken and know about this issue. We haven't had one of those hearings at all. I submit for the Record, again, a letter from the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee sent to the President of the United States on January 21, 1998, with a concluding paragraph, which reads as follows: Mr. President, let me be clear. I will be prepared to schedule Committee consideration of the CTBT only after the Senate has had an opportunity to consider and vote on the Kyoto Protocol and the amendments to the ABM Treaty. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I know my colleagues are anxious to get to the business at hand. I assure the floor I will take only 5 minutes. If the clerk will let me know when I am headed towards 5 minutes, I would appreciate it. I will refrain from responding and speaking to the Test Ban Treaty at length at this moment. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is not only a colleague, but he is a personal friend. We have strong disagreements on this issue. I don't mean to nickel and dime this, but we haven't had any hearings on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. At the outset, I send to the desk a list of all the hearings the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had for the 105th and 106th Congress's since submission of the CTBT. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the chairman has been true to his word. He has had no hearings because that has not been done yet. I think I understand how the Senator from North Carolina connects the rationale of these treaties, and he thinks the orderly way to do it is to do it only after we do other things, but that makes the point. We have had no hearings on this treaty. I think the public may be surprised to know this treaty calls for no more nuclear testing by the United States and other nations. We haven't been testing. There is a moratorium on nuclear testing. That occurred in 1992 in the Bush administration. What we are talking about doing that my friends are talking about is so dangerous and damaging to U.S. interests; that is, to sign a treaty to say we will not test, we are not testing now. The United States made a unilateral decision not to test. Now we have the rest of the world ready to sign up, and we are saying we are not going to ratify, or up to now we are saying we are not even going to have a hearing on this subject. Again, I will get into the merits of the treaty later because I am confident the leadership of the Senate will come up now with the proposal as to how to proceed. But I urge my friend from North Carolina, and I urge my colleagues to urge my friend from North Carolina, to hold hearings. Bring the experts up. Bring the military up. By the way, one last substantive thing I will say about the treaty is that we are the only nation in the world that has spent billions of dollars and committed billions in the future to a method by which we can take our existing stockpile of nuclear weapons and test them for their continued utility without ever exploding them. I will explain in detail later what I mean by the stockpiling program we have. We, of all nations in the world, are the one best prepared and best suited for taking the last chance of any nation in the world to promise not to test because we are one of the few nations in the world with certainty that can guarantee that even if we don't test weapons we can test, by exploding them, their continued utility by very complicated, very sophisticated scientific computer models that we have designed. We have committed that we will continue in the future to fund to the tune of billions of dollars this program. In a strange way, if you went out to the public at large and said: By the way, do you think we should sign a treaty that says we can't test nuclear weapons if the rest of the world signs a treaty that says you can't test nuclear weapons, knowing that we can detect all but those kinds of explosions that will not have any impact on another nuclear capability, when we have already decided not to test unilaterally, and we are the only nation in the world that has the sophistication and capacity to test by means other than exploding our nuclear arsenal; what do you think the public would say? I conclude by saying this: We have had no hearings. There is a legitimate debate about whether or not we should do this. This is a thing for which the Senate was conceived--to make big decisions such as this. This is the reason the founders wrote in a provision in the U.S. Constitution that said a treaty can be negotiated by a President, but it can only come into effect after the Senate has ratified it. It didn't say the House. It didn't say a referendum. It didn't say the American people. It said the Senate. Other than the Supreme Court of the United States, in a decision of who should sit on it, there is no other function that is of greater consequence that the Senate performs than determining whether to ratify or reject a treaty with the United States of America. It seems to me that when we exercise that function, we should do it responsibly and thoroughly. We have never done it on a matter of grave consequence without thoroughly investigating it through the hearing process and through one of the oldest committees that exists in the Senate--the Foreign Relations Committee--the unique function of which is to recommend to this body what our bipartisan considered opinion is after hearing the details of the treaty. I look forward to the debate. I have urged the President of the United States--I will urge him personally--and have urged the administration, if this date is set, that the President take this case directly to the American people on a nationally televised broadcast and lay out for them what the stakes are. This is no small decision. This is a vote that I promise you, whether you are for it or against it, your children and your grandchildren and history will know how you cast it. I am not so smart to know exactly what the outcome will be in history's judgment, but I am certain of one thing: You are not going to be in a position where you can say at a later date this was a vote of little consequence. Mr. President, as folks back home in Delaware say, this is what we get paid the big bucks for. This is why we are here. This is the purpose of our being here. It is true. The amendments we are going to discuss on legislation that is before us are important. It is true that some of it will affect the lives of hundreds or thousands of Americans. But I can't think of anything we will do in this entire Congress or have done in the previous Congress that has the potential to have as much impact on the fate of the world as this treaty. I cannot think of anything. I defy anyone to tell me, whether they are for or against this treaty, what we could be discussing of greater consequence than how to deal with the prospect of an accidental or intentional nuclear holocaust. Tell me if there is anything more important to discuss than whether or not over the next days, weeks, months, years, and decades we should make a judgment from both a survival as well as environmental standpoint that we will or will not continue to blow up, in the atmosphere or underground, nuclear weapons. I defy anyone to tell me what is more important to discuss. That is not to suggest that those who think this treaty is a bad idea are motivated by anything other than good intentions. As my dear mother would say and as the nuns used to make me write on the blackboard after school when I misbehaved: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Failure to ratify this treaty, I firmly believe, paves the road to hell--to nuclear hell. I don't know whether it will work, but I am virtually certain in my mind--just Joe Biden, my mind--that if we do not ratify this treaty, we virtually lose any ability to control the proliferation of nuclear capability. They talked about when the Russians detonated their first hydrogen bomb. I am not sure, but I think it was Edward Teller who said: Now we have two scorpions in the bottle. I am here to tell my colleagues what they already know. We have many more than two scorpions in that bottle now. If we do not begin to take a chance, a very small chance, on a treaty that says no more detonation of nuclear weapons, we will have dozens of scorpions in that bottle with not nearly as much to lose as the former Soviet empire and the United States. There was one advantage when there was a Soviet empire: They had as much to lose as they had to gain. The only person I worry about in a contest of any kind--athletic, political, or as a representative of the Federal Government of the United States of America with another country--I don't like dealing with someone else who has little to lose but has significant capacity to inflict a vast amount of damage. While I have the floor, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter. My friend from Pennsylvania has been one of the most outspoken proponents of bringing up this treaty. I am sure it will be before the Senate because of his advocacy. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. If I may respond to the Senator, he raised the $64 question. He and I have been discussing how to get this up for a long time, over 2 years. He will recall, last year, I was of the view I did not want to take a chance of having the treaty up for fear it could be defeated before we had the ability to get all the data before the Senate that I believed would persuade Senators to overwhelmingly support the treaty. I changed my mind. The reason I changed my mind is--I have great respect for my friend from North Carolina, Senator Helms--I have learned one thing: When he says something ain't going to happen, it ain't going to happen on his watch. He made it very clear, there will be no hearings on this treaty. I have been with him for 27 years. We are truly personal friends. I know when he says it, he means it, which means I have lost any hope that he will be persuaded, or be persuaded by his Republican colleagues in the caucus, to have hearings. I then reached the second conclusion: We are hurtling toward a disaster on the subcontinent with India and Pakistan, and with Korea. As the Senator knows, if they arm, if they deploy, we will see China making a judgment to increase its nuclear arsenal and we will see the likelihood that Korea will not be able to be leveraged. Here is the point. I have made the judgment, for me--and I may be wrong--if we don't agree to this proposal, we will get no vote on this treaty for 2 years and the effect will be the same. I am being very blunt. I believe I am looking for the political God's will to have people have a little bit of an altar call. It is one thing to say privately you are against the treaty or to say you are for it but there is no vote on it. It is another thing to be the man or woman who walks up in that well and casts the 34th vote against the treaty and kills the treaty. They will have on their head--and they may turn out to be right--and they will be determining by their vote the single most significant decision made relative to arms, nuclear arms, that has been made since the ABM Treaty. I think they may begin to see the Lord. If they don't, then I think the American public will make a judgment about it. The next President--whether it be Bush, Gore, or McCain--will be more likely to send back another treaty. I am at a point where it is time to bring in the sheep. Let's count them, and let's hold people responsible. That is as blunt as I can be with my friend.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am always reluctant to disagree publicly with my friend from North Carolina, the chairman of the full committee, because we get along so well. We have a fundamental disagreement on this issue. But I am unaware of any hearings we have had in the Foreign Relations Committee on this treaty. We have had hearings on the ABM Treaty. We have had hearings on the ABM Treaty. We have had hearings on the protocol to the ABM Treaty, and the demarcation issue. We have had hearings on the impact of theater missile defense. We have had those hearings. They all implicate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But we have had, to the best of my knowledge, no hearings on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I note for the Record one Senator's view. I think it is shared by many. This is the single most significant issue facing the entire question of proliferation of nuclear weapons, and it holds the key for good or bad, depending on your perspective, on every other aspect of our strategic defenses. So it is, to me, not reasonable. The chairman has been very straightforward with me--and I respect him for it--in the many urgings I have made to him to have hearings. He said to me: Joe, we will have hearings if the following things occur. He lays it out. He said: We will have hearings if we first do ABM, if we first do the Kyoto treaty, if we first do other things. He has set priorities. He has been straightforward, honest, and up front about it for the last 2 years. This is the only thing he and I have had a real disagreement on. But the idea that we have had hearings on this treaty is not true. I am not suggesting that the chairman is intentionally misleading the Senate. He may think in terms of since we have had hearings that implicate other aspects of our strategic defenses and our strategic offensive capability that we have done this, but we haven't. The Government Affairs Committee, I thought, had some hearings on it relating particularly to the stockpiling issue and the testing of the stockpiling. And I think maybe even the Armed Services Committee may have had hearings on it. But I want to get something straight. I am going to sound to the public like a typical Washingtonian Senator. The only outfit that has jurisdiction over this is the Foreign Relations Committee--the Foreign Relations Committee. That is one of our principal functions. With all due respect to my colleagues, we haven't had hearings. Let me say one word in conclusion. I am willing and anxious to have an up-or-down vote on this because, as the majority leader said, if we don't vote, the treaty loses anyway. I would rather everybody be counted. I want everybody on the line. I want every Senator voting yes or no on this treaty so we all can put ourselves in line so that, if India and Pakistan end up--while we are pleading with them to ratify this treaty, while we are pleading with them not to deploy--if they end up deploying nuclear weapons, I am going to be on the floor reminding everybody what happened and the sequence of events. I will not be able to prove that is why they did it. But I can sure make a pretty strong case. I want everybody coming up this next year--everybody from the Presidential candidates to all of our colleagues running for reelection--to be counted on this issue. That is why I am willing--I am in the minority--to have the vote today. I am willing to go ahead. I am not the leader. But I will tell you, I think this is a critical issue. We have had no hearings. It makes sense what my friend from North Carolina says--that we should have hearings, and we should do it in an orderly fashion. We should proceed this way. Apparently, we are not going to proceed this way; therefore, we will have to do it in a way in which the committee system was not designed to function. If that is the only way we can get a vote, fine. I conclude by saying that I don't doubt for a second the intensity with which my friend from North Carolina believes this treaty is against the interests of the United States any more than he doubts for a second my deep-seated belief that it is in the ultimate interest of the United States. But these are the issues over which people should win and lose. These are the big issues. These are the issues that impact upon the future of the United States and the world. This is the stuff we should be doing instead of niggling over whether or not you know somebody smoked marijuana or did something when they were 15. This is what this body is designed to do. This is our responsibility, and I am anxious to engage it. If it is 10 hours, 2 hours, or 20 hours, the longer the better to inform the American public. Hearings would be illuminating. But since that is probably not going to happen, I say to my friend from North Carolina that I am ready to go. I expect he and I will be going toe to toe on what is in the interest of America. I respect his view. I thank God for him. I love him. But he is dead wrong on this. But I still love him.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, three years ago today, the United States led the world in signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Since then, 152 countries have followed our lead; and 45 of them, including Great Britain and France, have ratified the Treaty. Two years and two days ago, the President of the United States submitted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, plus six safeguards, to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification. Since then, the Senate has done nothing. That is an outrage. We--who are rightly called the world's greatest deliberative body--have been unwilling or unable to perform our constitutional duty regarding this major treaty. Some of my colleagues have principled objections to this treaty. I respect their convictions. I have responded on this floor to many of their objections, as have my colleagues from Pennsylvania, North and South Dakota, Michigan and New Mexico. Now it is time, however, for the Senate to do its duty. Administration officials, current and former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and eminent scientists are prepared to testify in favor of the Test-Ban Treaty. We, in turn, are prepared to make our case in formal Senate debate on a resolution of ratification. It is high time that the Republican leadership of this body agreed to schedule Senate debate and a vote on ratification. It is utterly irresponsible for the Republican leadership to hold this treaty hostage to other issues, as it has for two years. The arguments in favor of ratifying the Test-Ban Treaty are well- known. It will reinforce nuclear non-proliferation by reassuring non-nuclear weapons states that states with nuclear weapons will be unable to develop and confidently deploy new types of nuclear weapons. It will keep non-nuclear weapon states from deploying sophisticated nuclear weapons, even if they are able to develop designs for such weapons. It will improve our ability to detect any nuclear weapons tests, with other countries paying 75% of the bill for the International Monitoring System. U.S. ratification will encourage India and Pakistan to sign and ratify the Test-Ban Treaty--one of the few steps back from the nuclear brink that they may be willing to take, without a settlement of the Kashmir dispute. U.S. ratification will encourage Russia, China and other states to ratify. Our ratification will maintain U.S. leadership on non-proliferation, as we approach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference next April. That U.S. leadership is vital to keeping non-nuclear weapons states committed to nuclear non-proliferation. Equally important are the safeguards that the President has proposed, to ensure that U.S. adherence to the Treaty will always be consonant with our national security: A: The conduct of a Science Based Stockpile Stewardship program to ensure a high level of confidence in the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons in the active stockpile. . . . B: The maintenance of modern nuclear laboratory facilities and programs . . . which will attract, retain, and ensure the continued application of our human scientific resources to those programs. . . . C: The maintenance of the basic capability to resume nuclear test activities. . . . D: Continuation of a comprehensive research and development program to improve our . . . monitoring capabilities. . . . E: The continuing development of a broad range of intelligence . . . capabilities and operations to ensure accurate and comprehensive information on worldwide nuclear . . . programs. F: . . . if the President of the United States is informed by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy (DOE) . . . that a high level of confidence in . . . a nuclear weapon type which the two Secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear deterrent could no longer be certified, the President, in consultation with Congress, would be prepared to withdraw from the CTBT . . . in order to conduct whatever testing might be required. Thus, if nuclear weapons testing should ever be required to maintain the U.S. nuclear deterrent, then we will test. Thanks in part to these safeguards, our senior national security officials support ratification of the Test-Ban Treaty. These officials include not only cabinet members such as former Senator Cohen, but also the directors of our National Laboratories and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty is vital to our national security. If the Senate dallies, India and Pakistan could fail to cap their nuclear weapons race; China could resume testing, to make better use of stolen U.S. nuclear secrets; and non-nuclear weapons states could give up on non-proliferation. In the coming days, therefore, several of us will bring up in a more formal form the need for Senate action on this Treaty. I urge all my colleagues to support that effort. Whatever our views on the Test-Ban Treaty, it is a national security issue. Let us agree that it is not to be held hostage to other issues. Let us agree that it is not just one more football in the Washington game of ``politics as usual.'' If the Republican leadership does not handle this Treaty responsibly, I have no doubt how the issue will play out in next year's elections. The latest national poll shows overwhelming public support for the Test-Ban Treaty: 82 percent in favor and only 14 percent opposed. Those results go beyond party lines. Fully 80 percent of Republicans--and even 79 percent of conservative Republicans--say that they support the Test-Ban Treaty. Republicans may appeal to the far right by calling for a return to the Cold War of nuclear testing. Bob Dole did that in 1996 on the Chemical Weapons Convention; but he lost. Then he took the responsible stand. This time, let's skip the politics. Let's do our job--with hearings, debate, and a timely vote, at least before next April's Non- Proliferation Treaty review conference. We can address the Test-Ban Treaty responsibly. It isn't hard, and the American people know that. It's time the Senate did what Nike says: ``Just do it.''

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise before you today in support of increased funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Specifically, two programs--housing vouchers for low- income families and the Community Builders program--of interest to both Delaware and the nation, need additional funding that is not in this bill. I hope that my comments will be helpful to my colleagues when we eventually head into conference on this bill. Before I speak, I wish to commend the managers of this bill. Competing demands and good programs are a recipe for tough choices. These managers have done an excellent job in moving this bill along smoothly and effectively and with a spirit of comaraderie. But this bill would not fund a single new housing voucher for low- income Americans to obtain housing. Not a single one. This just makes no sense for two basic reasons. First, these vouchers enable low-income families to afford a reasonable place to live, to afford decent housing--but we now have more than one million Americans waiting for housing assistance. Not only are these numbers abominable, but Americans are waiting months and even years to get affordable housing. In my home state of Delaware, people are stuck on waiting lists for an average of 10 months for public housing and 18 months for section 8 vouchers. In Philadelphia, just down the road, the waiting time is 11 years. In Cincinnati, it is 10 years. How can we be freezing a program that provides housing vouchers when, before the freeze, HUD-assisted households were growing at a rate of 107,000 households per year? We are freezing out the elderly, persons with disabilities, and persons trying to get close to a good job. And what is the alternative for these million people on waiting lists? It is substandard housing or a paycheck that goes almost entirely to rent. Second, we are in a time of booming growth and prosperity. A time when we have an actual surplus in our treasury. But not all Americans are touched by this prosperity, as evidenced by the waiting lists. In fact, many Americans are discovering that they cannot pay their rents because this economy has driven up the cost of their rents. Over 5 million families have severe housing needs in this country. These vouchers are all the more necessary as rents rise more and more out of reach. The administration has asked for a conservative number of new housing vouchers. These 100,000 vouchers would go to the elderly, the homeless and worst-case housing needs. In addition, these vouchers would support people moving from welfare to work. Mr. President, we are creating new jobs in this economy, but the people that need these jobs are not living where these jobs are. These vouchers would help get people to where they need to be in order to work and get off the welfare rolls. Last year we voted to add 90,000 new vouchers, the first growth since 1994. If we vote for new vouchers now, 259 families in Delaware would be able to receive housing assistance. To provide no new vouchers seems just unreasonable. This bill also terminates the Community Builders program. This public service program has put HUD out into the community to strengthen and revive our neighborhoods. Frankly, in the past, HUD has not been an exemplary representative of good bureaucracy. But this administration has gone to great lengths to turn things around--and begin to provide services effectively and skillfully to our communities. The Community Builders program is a successful example of this turn-around. The program is not even 2 years old, yet what it has accomplished in my state of Delaware is remarkable. Let me tell you what the Community Builders program is doing in Delaware and why it is important. We did not have a HUD presence in Delaware before the Community Builders. Now, for the first time, Delaware has a direct link to HUD programs. Let me tell you what that means. In Delaware, we have some pretty amazing people who are trying to help their communities by developing projects to create jobs and fair housing. They have the will and Community Builders gave them the way. The Community Builders, who are experts in technical assistance, are training these people on how to start community development programs. Besides providing expertise, this program has literally put people on the street who facilitate and coordinate the community's access to HUD programs. Let me give you another example. Next week in the Terry Apartments on Bloom Street in Wilmington, computers will be installed for its elderly residents. The Community Builders helped secure the funding for these computers. It also teamed with the University of Delaware so that next week, people will come to the apartment building to train these residents how to use the computers. This means that persons living in section 8 buildings will now have access to the internet. I have seen letter upon letter sent to HUD thanking them for what this program has brought to Delaware. Let me quote for you a letter from Patti Campbell at the University of Delaware written to HUD: The Delaware Community Builders have been instrumental in our continued progress on building community Neighborhood Networks, and have made possible the first ever Statewide strategic discussion and conference of faith-based community development groups. The input and advice from HUD's Community Builder . . . provides a unique housing perspective that has helped the program make strong, well-thought out strategic decisions. This expertise is an invaluable tool that assists in the forward progress of many of our affordable housing and community based programs. HUD's Community Builders have a unique position in Delaware in that they can offer information about the overall community-based development process with the full knowledge and support of HUD's broader programs. As this letter vocalizes, the Community Builders have created a partnership connecting organizations trying to develop affordable housing in Delaware--and has built their capacity to do so. It is clear that closing this office in Delaware, which would happen if this program is disbanded, would harm this partnership. Mr. President, again, I commend the managers of this bill. This bill would be an even better one if it secured more housing for the people that need it and if it continued HUD's presence in local communities. I hope that my colleagues will be able to find the resources to fund these programs by the time this bill comes out of conference. I know my colleagues are ready to move on. Let me make three broad points. It will take about 3 to 5 minutes. No. 1, the fact is, we have asked the Housing Department, HUD, to become more innovative. We have asked them to trim down. We have asked them to become more efficient. We have asked them to become more customer oriented. I think under Andrew Cuomo they have done just that. Now, because of problems beyond the control of the subcommittee, this is the caboose at the end of the train that is going to be empty. This is not going to get the kind of attention, the whole of HUD is not going to get the kind of attention, it deserves. The second point is very basic. My colleague from Missouri made a very compelling argument about section 8. He made the point, why this tax cut is so brain dead, why we are here talking about cutting what everyone on this floor acknowledges there is a need for, recognizing but not saying that in order to be able to come up with a surplus of $1 trillion over 10 years, which is the projection, that encompasses a 20- percent cut across the board in all programs. If we increase defense, it means a 40-percent cut in some programs. Here we are debating, tying up the end of a session. This is totally beyond the control of my colleagues on the subcommittee, totally beyond their control. I am not suggesting they agree with what I am saying. I am telling Senators, this is the classic example of why we are in such trouble. Here we are with this booming economy, a projected surplus, very few appropriations bills passed. The only thing we are talking about is an $800 billion tax cut that now has been vetoed and now it is said there will be no compromise on until next year. We are spending a surplus we don't have, and we are kidding the American public that there is somehow a painless way of arriving at the surplus so we can give it back in a tax cut. I defy anyone to tell me how we are going to meet the needs. Democrats and Republicans have stood up, to the best of my knowledge, and said: You are right; we have this serious section 8 problem; we have this serious problem in providing affordable housing; we should do something about it. Tell me how you do it. This, as well as education, as well as 10 other things we could name--defense, where we all acknowledge there are significant needs--by spending a surplus we don't have and that is premised upon a continued cut of 20 percent beyond what we have cut over the last 6 years on balance. As the grade school kids used to say, I hope we get real here. These folks managing this legislation can't manufacture an allocation. They can't come up with magic money. I hope people who are setting policy, making the decisions about how to proceed on these overall budget items and how to deal with the projected surplus, which seems to have us completely tied up in knots--I have been here for 27 years. My friend from Massachusetts has been here longer than I have. I don't ever remember a time when things were in as much disarray at the end of the year and in the appropriations process. The difference is, nobody has a plan. Nobody has a plan. At least when Gingrich was in charge over there, they had a plan. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. It was the proverbial freight train, but it was a light. He had a plan--a bad plan but a plan. We don't even have a plan. We are careening down this hill, having no notion what is going to happen. At least I don't have any notion. Maybe others are smarter than I am and can tell me what is going to happen in the next week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 weeks. I have no idea. I don't think there is a plan. The plan relates to having a rational strategy towards the budget in terms of how we are going to deal with this booming economy, this projected surplus, and the spending priorities. Mark my words, this is not the only one. My friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, and my friend from Illinois have talked about education and how it has gotten just gored--no pun intended. This is crazy. I hope saner leaders decide how to approach this problem, so we are not here talking about something we all think we should do something about and the American public, with the economy booming, can't understand why we can't do something about. Yet we have no idea how to do anything about it. I find that fascinating, I find that deplorable, and I find that frightening. I hope this illustration on this small issue in relative terms is able to be looked at by people. If there is a problem here, it is everywhere. All these priorities we say we want, and yet we are fighting over a surplus that doesn't exist and trying to give away $800 billion in a tax cut.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Delaware's top police officer--the Superintendent of the Delaware State Police, Colonel Alan D. Ellingsworth. After one of the most distinguished careers in Delaware law enforcement history, Colonel Ellingsworth has retired following 24 years of service with the Delaware State Police. His life as a police officer began on August 1, 1975, when he was assigned as a road trooper at Troop 6 in Prices Corner. Moving up the ranks quickly, he worked in every major unit, including criminal investigations, as the officer-in- charge of the homicide unit and as a Troop Commander. In May, 1994, he was promoted to Superintendent, where he has been a true leader for the citizens of Delaware, and a true partner and friend to me. Mr. President, I want to mention something very near and dear to my heart, the 1994 Crime Law that I authored--it became a reality in Delaware thanks to Colonel Alan Ellingsworth. Under his leadership, the ranks of the Delaware State Police increased 10 percent, with a force of 525 officers today. With funding from the Crime Law, he not only put 60 more police officers on our streets--he established effective ``Community Policing'' units in Delaware's toughest neighborhoods. He personally tackled the drug problem in rural parts of Sussex and Kent Counties, creating new units to go into these poorer areas so that adult residents and their children knew the Delaware State Police were their friends and partners in ``taking back their neighborhoods.'' And he sent a strong message to drug dealers and criminals--get out and stay out. His officers arrested the drug dealers and users, and helped direct the neighborhood kids to Boys and Girls Clubs and other constructive, supervised activities. I've seen these officers at work in these communities--it is remarkable how residents trust them. Equally impressive are the results. His strategy has worked. Crime in Delaware is down 12 percent. But there's much more to his story. In another of his initiatives, he used Crime Law grants to put non-uniform police in every high school as Youth Resource Officers. Again, students get the message that, one, violence, bullying, drugs, gangs and guns will not be tolerated; and second, police are role models, coaches and mentors. Under Colonel Ellingsworth, the Delaware State Police have established Community Police sub-stations in shopping malls, local communities--even in a converted laundry room in an apartment complex in Georgetown, Delaware. The goal and message are simple: police need to be on the beat to help prevent and readily respond to crime. Colonel Ellingsworth's legacy to the Delaware State Police is even deeper than his accomplishments in reducing crime. The Delaware Crime Statistical Center is now state-of-the-art. The State's crime data is linked with the National Crime Information Center. Delaware's Sex Offender Registry was created under his watch and with his persistent doggedness that Delaware get this system implemented efficiently and effectively. During his tenure, Colonel Ellingsworth presided over the memorable 75th Anniversary of the Delaware State Police and successfully pursued the fund-raising, building and dedication of the new Delaware State Police Museum. During his career, Colonel Ellingsworth has received numerous awards and commendations, including Trooper of the Year in 1979 and 1985-- In the history of the Delaware State Police, he is the only officer who has been named Trooper of the Year twice. He also has received three Superintendent's Citations, and he was selected as the Crime Stoppers' Detective of the Year. He is a 1988 graduate of the FBI's National Academy, and a 1987 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University Police Executive Development Institute. As we like to say in Delaware, Colonel Ellingsworth is ``home grown.'' He was born in Sussex County, a 1972 graduate of Sussex Central High School, received his bachelor and master's degrees from Wilmington College, and now lives in Bear with his wife Ann Marie and their three daughters, Amanda, Lauren and Megan. Mr. President, it is my great privilege to honor Colonel Ellingsworth on his career as Delaware's top police officer. His officers are the first to say he has served as a real ``trooper's trooper.'' He has been an officer who is tough as nails when solving a heinous crime, yet he always could be counted on as a sensitive shoulder of support to families of officers killed or injured in the line of duty. I will miss his counsel and advice, and I wish him and his family Godspeed, good health and good fortune in the years ahead.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I am submitting a resolution designating October 15, 1999, as ``National Mammography Day''. I have submitted a similar resolution each year since 1993, and on each occasion the Senate has shown its support for the fight against breast cancer by approving it. Each year, as I prepare to submit this resolution, I look at the latest information from the American Cancer Society about breast cancer. This year, the news is depressingly familiar: in 1999, an estimated 175,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and an estimated 43,300 women will die of this disease. In the midst of these gloomy numbers, however, one statistic stands out like a beacon of hope: the 5-year survival rate for women with localized breast cancer is a whopping 97%. Moreover, we already know one sure-fire method for detecting breast cancer when it is at this early, highly curable stage: periodic mammograms for all women over age 40. Periodic mammography can detect a breast cancer almost 2 years earlier than it would have been detected by breast self-examination. The importance of periodic mammography for women's health is recognized by health plans and health insurers, and virtually all of them cover its cost. Low-income women who do not have health insurance can get free mammograms through a breast cancer screening program sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Given all this, that modern mammography is highly effective in discovering breast cancer at a very early stage, rarely causes any discomfort, and generally cost nothing, why aren't all women over 40 getting this valuable test every year? One answer is that we are human, and we all forget things, especially as we get older. Even if we remember that we need a mammogram, we often have so many things going on in our lives that we just keep putting the mammogram off for that ``less busy'' day that never comes. Consequently, we need a ``National Mammography Day'' to remind us that we need to make sure all the women in our lives don't overlook this crucial preventive service. How should we use ``National Mammography Day'' to achieve our goal of fighting breast cancer through early diagnosis? This year, National Mammography Day falls on Friday, October 15, right in the middle of National Breast Cancer Awareness month. On that day, let's make sure that each women we know picks a specific date on which to get a mammogram each year. I well understand how easy it is to forget do something that comes around only once per year, but for each of us there are certainly some dates that we don't forget: a child's birthday, an anniversary, perhaps even the day our taxes are due. On National Mammography Day, let's ask our loved ones: pick one of these dates, fix it in your mind along with a picture of your child, your wedding, or another symbol of that date, and promise yourself to get a mammogram on that date every year. Do it for yourself and for the others that love you and want you to be part of their lives for as long as possible. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in the ongoing fight against breast cancer by cosponsoring this resolution to designate October 15, 1999, as National Mammography Day.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a brief comment?

Mr. BIDEN. I have no question about that.

Mr. BIDEN. I would be delighted.

Mr. BIDEN. I would like to welcome the guest Chaplain as well and say, in light of Mark Twain's reputation, Rev. Coleman could have helped him a great deal in his attitude with a little enlightenment in spiritual matters. I think Hannibal could have used the Reverend back in the time of Mark Twain. It might have been a little bit different. I love Mark Twain, but he was a little wry. And I just want everyone to know I recognize the irony of the guest Chaplain being from Hannibal, MO, the home of Mark Twain.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased the Senate is finally considering the nomination of Richard C. Holbrooke to be the United States Representative to the United Nations. Before stating my reasons why I strongly believe that Ambassador Holbrooke should be confirmed, let me briefly review the process which led us to this day. In June 1998, the President announced his intention to nominate Ambassador Holbrooke for the job of UN Ambassador. The formal nomination was delayed, however, until February of this year by an investigation into alleged ethical violations by Ambassador Holbrooke. That investigation culminated in a settlement with the Department of Justice in which Ambassador Holbrooke agreed to pay five thousand dollars in civil penalties. Once the Senate received the nomination in February, the Committee on Foreign Relations conducted its own inquiry, reviewing in great detail the investigation conducted by the State Department Inspector General and the Department of Justice. In June, the Committee conducted three separate hearings on Ambassador Holbrooke's nomination, reviewing first the ethical matters, then reviewing issues related to the United Nations and UN reform, and then reviewing Ambassador Holbrooke's involvement in United States policy toward the Balkans. On June 30 the Committee voted unanimously--on a voice vote--to report Ambassador Holbrooke's nomination to the full Senate. Since the Committee reported Mr. Holbrooke's nomination, it has been subjected to a variety of reported ``holds'' by several senators, only one of which, as I understand it, had anything to do with Mr. Holbrooke's qualifications to be ambassador. This delay is quite extraordinary for a position of this importance. The last two UN ambassadors were confirmed on the same day that the Committee voted, and in the last two decades, the Senate has, on average, voted within four days of the Committee's vote. But we have now worked through all those and we are here today, for which I am grateful to the Majority Leader and the Chairman. I believe the Senate should confirm Ambassador Holbrooke for a simple reason: he is highly qualified for the job. There are few people who have had the kind of diplomatic experience that Ambassador Holbrooke has had. Ambassador Holbrooke had been in public service since the early 1960s, when he entered the Foreign Service. Since then, he has served in a wide variety of diplomatic positions--in each case with distinction. In the Carter Administration, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Appointed at the age of 37, at the time he was the youngest person ever appointed as assistant secretary. In 1993, Ambassador Holbrooke returned to government service as Ambassador to Germany. In September 1994, he became Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs. Again, Ambassador Holbrooke established a precedent: he became the first person to serve as assistant secretary of state for two different geographic regions. A key challenge facing him upon his return to the United States was the conflict in Bosnia, which by then had been raging since April 1992. As Assistant Secretary, Mr. Holbrooke helped design and implement a strategy that culminated in the signing of the Dayton Accords in November 1995, which brought an end to the Bosnian war. Of course, several people in the U.S. government deserve credit for the success at Dayton. But it cannot be denied that Ambassador Holbrooke--and the creativity and tenacity he brought to the task--was critical to bringing about this diplomatic achievement. In February 1996, for personal reasons, Ambassador Holbrooke resigned from full-time government service. At the request of Secretary of State Christopher, he remained available to undertake special missions and to advise senior officials in the State Department. In 1997, President Clinton also asked him to become special Presidential envoy for Cyprus. Throughout the three and one-half year period since leaving full-time government service, Ambassador Holbrooke has never been paid a dime for his efforts. Mr. President, I daresay that there are few people with the diplomatic experience that Mr. Holbrooke will bring to the job of UN ambassador. He has significant experience at high levels of government. He has deep experience in two regions. And he has recently supervised and managed a major diplomatic conference that culminated in the end of a tragic war. Let me state it as bluntly as I know how: we need Dick Holbrooke in New York and we need him there now. It has been nearly a year since we have had a UN ambassador. The agenda facing the next UN ambassador is a long one. The United Nations is taking the lead in establishing a civilian administration in Kosovo. We need someone with Dick Holbrooke's skill and knowledge to make sure it gets done right. The United Nations is greatly in need of reform. We have promised the UN that we will pay nearly one billion dollars in back dues if these reforms are made. Ambassador Holbrooke promised that UN reform will be his ``highest sustained priority.'' We need someone with Dick Holbrooke's negotiating skills to help bring them about. The UN Security Council remains seized with the issue of dismantling Iraq's arsenal of mass destruction. We need someone with Dick Holbrooke's toughness to carry that task forward. In sum, I believe Ambassador Holbrooke has all the qualities necessary to be an excellent UN ambassador, and I believe that the Senate should confirm him forthwith. Let me turn briefly to the issues that delayed Mr. Holbrooke's nomination. Last July, soon after the President announced his intention to nominate Mr. Holbrooke, an anonymous letter arrived in the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of State alleging that Ambassador Holbrooke may have violated ethics laws and regulations. Spurred by this letter, the Inspector General opened a wide-ranging investigation that took over five months, involved dozens of interviews, and the production of thousands of pages of records. Earlier this year, while the nomination was pending, the Inspector General opened a second investigation, this time based only on an oped article in the Washington Post. The first investigation culminated in a civil settlement between Ambassador Holbrooke and the Department of Justice in which Ambassador Holbrooke agreed to pay five thousand dollars to settle allegations that he violated Section 207(c) of Title 18 of the United States Code. To this day, Ambassador Holbrooke denies that he violated the law, but he settled the matter in order to avoid further delay of the nomination. The second investigation was closed almost as quickly as it was opened, with no punishment imposed against Ambassador Holbrooke. The Committee obtained the thousands of pages of documents that were produced in the investigations of Ambassador Holbrooke, and has reviewed them independently. I have reviewed all these matters closely, and I do not believe that they even begin to rise to the level where they should be considered disqualifying. I do not make this statement lightly. I am a strong supporter of the ethics laws, and believe they must be rigorously enforced. Government employees, as Ambassador Holbrooke stated in his first hearing before the Committee, must maintain the public trust. I have known Richard Holbrooke for two decades, and am presumptuous enough to call him a friend. I do not believe that he is an unethical person, and I find totally inconsistent with his character any suggestion that he is. On the contrary: Dick Holbrooke is a dedicated public servant who, as the record compiled by the Committee demonstrates, willingly devoted dozens--if not hundreds--of hours to assisting the government in the past several years, to the detriment of his commitment to his private employer. Every senator can be assured that the Committee has left no stone unturned. The Committee sought and received access to every document reviewed by the investigators, and received access to internal documents of the White House, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice, including the memorandum setting forth the reasons why a criminal prosecution of Mr. Holbrooke was not warranted. Mr. President, my friend from Virginia is very diplomatic. My friend from Virginia is a man of grace and elegance. My friend from Virginia is a man who is able to get things done not merely because of his intellect but because of his style. I am not as elegant as my friend from Virginia, so I will just say it out loud. This would not have happened without my friend from Virginia. The truth of the matter is, it took a Republican of stature, seniority, and influence in this area to break this loose. He is going to get mad at my saying this, but I think it is a shame that was required, but I thank him for it because he was relentless over the last 5 months in trying to get us to this point today. I will ruin his reputation here, but the President owes him a debt of gratitude, the Nation owes him a debt of gratitude, the Senate owes him a debt of gratitude, and Mr. Holbrooke, I know, is grateful for his effort. Because as the Senator from Virginia indicated, there is a significant agenda facing our next Ambassador to the United Nations.

Mr. BIDEN. Yes.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I never had a doubt, nor did any of my colleagues, that if we ever got any forum in which we could discuss the qualifications of Richard Holbrooke, he would win unanimously. We never doubted that. But it took a lot to get it to the Foreign Relations Committee, to get a vote in the Foreign Relations Committee, and once it got to the floor, to move it forward. I want to say something about these holds. I have been here 27 years. I have been a sitting Senator longer than the Senator from Virginia. There are only seven people who have been in the entire Senate longer than I. We have lost our sense of proportion. Holds have nothing to do with--nothing to do with--the balance of power here when used in the fashion they were used. Let me explain what I mean by that. It is one thing to say, I am going to hold up that bill from passing because the bill left out two bridges in my State that are critical to the commerce of my State. There is a correlation between the spending of money and the impact on my State--a sense of proportion. If I say that I am going to hold up the next Director of NASA because I want answers on how the space program is going to work, that is reasonable. There is a sense of proportion. There is a relationship between NASA and the head of NASA. But when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for several years, or were I to become chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I said: By the way--and, by the way, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee did not do this--were I to say: You know, I realize the President's nominee for the Supreme Court may be a good guy, or good woman, but I'm going to hold her up because the Dover Air Force Base is being closed, that is no sense of proportion, that is an abuse of power--an abuse of power. That is totally unreasonable. Let's get straight what this was about. We held up one of the single most important foreign policy personnel decisions to be made by this administration. And not a person in this Senate would disagree with that assertion. Why? Because one Senator wanted someone on the Federal Election Commission whom he did not get, and another Senator thought that some second-tier person who worked at the U.S. mission to the U.N., who in fact was disciplined, should not have been disciplined. The process in the law that calls for review of that person's case is underway. The person who helped write that process into the law decides that the process isn't working quickly enough or getting the result he wants, so they hold up the Ambassador to the United Nations at this moment in our history. I respect both the gentlemen who did those things personally, but I respectfully suggest--as we Catholics say, when you are a little kid and you go to confession, they say you learn to examine your conscience. Go examine your conscience and tell me whether there is any sense of proportion. As I stated earlier, since 1981, in the case of nominations for UN ambassador, the average amount of time--the number of days between the time that nominee was reported by the Foreign Relations Committee and the time that that nominee was voted on in the Senate was 4 days--4 days. The reason I mention this is, you know what I am afraid of? I say to my friend from Virginia and my Republican colleagues. When the Democratic Party takes control, we are going to learn wrong lessons from you all, we are going to learn the wrong lessons. I remember when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, we had the Clarence Thomas nomination. Before Anita Hill came along we had a vote, and it was 7-7. Guess what. Technically, that means he did not get enough votes to be voted out. I had some very liberal Democrats, hard- edged Democrats, like your hard-right Republicans, say: Mr. Chairman, it's within your power not to report him to the floor. How responsible would it have been for me, as the chairman of the committee--which I could have done--to prevent the Senate from voting on a Supreme Court nominee? The Republicans would have done that, based on their conduct on this nomination. And guess what. If it happens again, mark my words, Democrats are going to join this place who are going to learn all the wrong lessons from this abuse of power, this lack of proportionality. I am not going to say any more about it. The reason I am not is that it is done. But I really, truly hope and plead with my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, have a sense of proportion here. We dodged a bullet here because of the incredible work of Senator Helms and Senator Warner on the Republican side and the eventual yielding on the part of others. Reason ultimately prevailed. But this is a bad, bad, bad practice; and this is a good, good, good nominee. I will conclude, because others want to speak, by stressing two points about Mr. Holbrooke. One, in all my years in the Senate, no one in the Senate who has come before our committee is more qualified to do the job for which he has been nominated than this man--none; not one. Secondly, this is an ethical man. This man's ethics have been questioned under what I believe to be an aberration. We put in the law--and I voted for inspectors general, but guess what. The law can be triggered by an article in a newspaper. That can hold up a nomination for months and months, requiring intensive investigation. This is the most investigated man we have had for the United Nations, and there is not an unethical drop of blood in this guy's veins. So I think there are three things we have to do. Let's put this man in place. Let this incredible energy and intellectual horsepower that this fellow has go to work on behalf of America. Two, let's reexamine whether or not we exercised any proportionality here in holding this up. And three, I would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider joining with me and going back and relooking at the way in which the inspector general's office is triggered and worked so we avoid this kind of thing in the future.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation which provides equity for a group of veterans at their final moment: those veterans who are buried in State-owned veterans' cemeteries. For a number of years, the amount of space in national veterans' cemeteries has been rapidly declining. With the strong encouragement of the Federal government, the States have undertaken to develop their own veterans' cemeteries. When certain categories of veterans are buried without charge in these State veterans' cemeteries, the Federal government pays the State a $150 ``plot allowance'' for the burial space. However, only limited categories of veterans are covered by this payment: those who were discharged for disability or who were receiving disability-related compensation; those who died in a veterans hospital; and those indigent veterans whose bodies were unclaimed after death. For the many other veterans who don't fall into one of these few categories, the federal government will pay nothing for their burial space if they are buried in a State veterans' cemetery. By contrast, if any of these veterans were buried in a national veterans' cemetery, for which they are eligible, the federal government picks up the cost of the burial space. This disparity seems inexplicable, a final insult to the dedicated service of men and women who unselfishly served their country. My bill removes this inequity by stating that, for any veteran who is eligible for burial in a national veterans' cemetery but who is interred in a State veterans' cemetery, the federal government will pay the State a $150 plot allowance for the burial space. That's it. No ifs, ands, or buts. No exceptions. The government promised these veterans that they would be taken care of in their final passage, and it must live up to this vow. Regardless of whether veterans are buried in a State cemetery or in a national cemetery, their service in the armed forces benefitted all of us, and we should stop quibbling about whether the location of the grave has anything to do with the dignity and selflessness of the service to the country. Mr. President, I urge my fellow Senators to support this bill in the name of fairness and in recognition of the service to the country of all our veterans in their final hour.