Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct.

Mr. BIDEN. I beg the Senator's pardon. It is $1.150 billion per year.

Mr. BIDEN. The first year--per year.

Mr. BIDEN. It is roughly $50,000.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I always want to say Bud, Bud--they are all laughing, all the Republican staffers. But I would get back in the subway car and I would head over here and I would say: You know, maybe . . . maybe. I want to tell you, he was well liked by every Senator, every staff person. The guy who is the minority staff director, Ed Hall, who is sitting in the back, considered him a close friend. It was remarkable to watch their relationship, watch how they dealt with one another. I haven't found anybody who was better liked, more respected, more fair, or more knowledgeable than Bud Nance--of all the people with whom I have worked. Above all, Bud Nance was--and this is not said lightly; I don't often use the word--Bud Nance was a genuine patriot. At all times, he would focus on the central question. We would get involved and we would be arguing, we would be talking, and Bud Nance always, always brought us back to the central question: Is this in the interest of the country? Is this in the interest of the country? Because, as we Senators know, we can get carried away. We believe in what we are doing, but we get invested in what we are doing. We get invested in our position. Sometimes, although we don't consciously do it, in my opinion, we get so wrapped up in winning our point that it takes somebody like Bud Nance to say--and I know he has said it to Jesse; he has said it to me--whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold up here. He had that great ability, as the old saying goes, to see the forest for the trees. We get lost in the forest. We start numbering the trees. He could stand back. He would stand back and he would say, Look at the whole picture. As I said, I will end where I began. I have a sense of envy that you, Senator Helms, had the relationship you had. My dad's expression is: At the end of your days, if you can count one person who you can call a true friend, you are a lucky man. You are one of the luckiest men that I know, Senator. You have had a guy who everyone is honoring, honoring you. Our profound sympathy and our prayers go out to his loving wife of 53 years. I don't know Mary, but I know of her. I have heard her name invoked a thousand times. To Bud's four children and his seven grandchildren, to use my grandpop's expression, I say: You got good blood. You got good blood. I am telling you, remember where you came from. This guy--your grandfather, your father--was the real thing. The real thing. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I have served since January of 1973 with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. We have been on opposite sides of a lot of issues, occasionally on the same side. I have seen and listened to and been on the opposite end of some very powerful and difficult speeches he has made. But I am presumptuous enough, know him well enough to say until now he has never had a more difficult time making a speech than today. There is a reason for that, to state the obvious. There is an old expression: You can know a man by his enemies. I suggest you can judge a man by his friends. Anybody who had a man of the stature of Admiral Nance love him as much as Admiral Nance loved this guy, means there is something awful, awful, awful, awful good about the Senator from North Carolina. I am not doing that really to be solicitous. I truly mean that and I believe that. The irony of all ironies, as I told the chairman, on the Friday before Bud died, the chairman asked him whether or not he could come down to my office to see if we could work out--and we did, by the way--work out some legislative language and discuss a nominee. We sat there with staff--his staff and mine. Afterwards, the staff left and Admiral Nance and I sat there for the better part of 45 minutes, basically asking him questions and him telling me stories. They were all about Jesse Helms, his buddy. They are all about the guy he grew up with and loved. I suspect, one of the few men or women, other than Mrs. Helms, who has ever been able to tell the chairman: Enough, Jesse; slow down, Jesse; no, Jesse. Senator Helms, I don't think in all the time I have known him, has ever respected anybody as much as he respected Admiral Nance. It was a wonder to behold, I think my Democratic colleagues would agree with me, to watch this relationship. It was almost, I say to my friend from North Carolina, like you had an older brother, a brother who loved you and guided you and occasionally, like all of us do when you sort of get off and you were going too far or not far enough, would whisper in your ear, would put his hand on you--I watched him put his hand on your shoulder. It was like he didn't have to say anything to you. So all Members on this floor and all Members watched in wonder and with a sense of envy the relationship the Senator had with Admiral Nance, and we have an appreciation for how difficult a moment this is for you. We respect you for your ability to pull it off with the grace that you have thus far. Mr. President, I have only on a couple occasions in 27 years come to the floor to pay a tribute to a staff member. We have had great, great, great, great staff members who have guided us all. I think the best kept secret from the American people is the incredible quality, patriotism, capacity, educational achievement, and personal commitment of the staffs that sit back in these chairs behind that rail. It is a trite thing to say, but the Nation could not run without them. I know of no staff member who was the peer to this fellow, Bud Nance. The Senate family and the Nation--it sounds like hyperbole--suffered a loss when Admiral Nance passed away. Since 1971, Admiral Nance has been the staff director of the Committee on Foreign Relations, serving first as the minority staff director, and then as the staff director for the minority under the chairman and senior Senator of North Carolina, Mr. Jesse Helms. Working in the Senate was something of a second career for Admiral Nance. Prior to coming to the Senate, Admiral Nance spent 35 years in the U.S. Navy. A pilot by training, Admiral Nance rose to hold several senior command positions on aircraft carriers, including command, as mentioned earlier, of the U.S.S. Forrestal and senior commands in the Pentagon. He retired in 1979 with the rank of rear admiral. I might note, parenthetically, one of the great, great, great, great advantages of having Bud Nance, with the ideological divisions that exist in matters relating to foreign policy, was that you always knew you would get down to the final question of how it worked. I remember two Fridays ago talking to him and him saying--I hope no one is offended by my saying this--the reason why we haven't in the committee taken the administration to task on some of the NATO questions is I know how hard it is to get consensus in NATO. I sat there. I was in charge of planning. I know how difficult it is. He also knew how easy it would have been for the committee, under the chairmanship of the Senator from North Carolina, to demagog the living devil out of the targeting questions and whether or not the French and the Germans and the Brits--he said until you are there and have to get 15 other nations to agree on something, you have no notion how difficult it is. To steal a phrase from the chairman, this is one little vignette that illustrates how, even though he had serious disagreement with the policy of the President of the United States, he believed it wasn't fair play--my translation, not his; mine--to take advantage of something, that the people wouldn't understand how complicated it was, but he understood that it was complicated. It was just simply not fair game to take advantage of it, in addition to the fact he always thought of the people who were jumping in the cockpits of those planes. He always thought of the people who were over there putting their lives on the line. That came from 35 years of experience. It wasn't merely because he was a good, honorable and decent man which you will hear more about, because he was. You can ask any of my colleagues, and I suspect my Democratic colleagues will say the same. All Bud Nance had to do with me is say that this is what we are going to do, and I can absolutely, positively trust it as certain, as certain as if my closest staff aide said that to me. The magic of Bud Nance was he made each of us feel like he was our staff, like he was looking out for our interest. I knew without any question that if he said something to me, even if there was a miscommunication between the chairman and Bud Nance, the chairman would never undercut Bud Nance, either that whatever Bud Nance said was going to happen. You have no--yes, you do, Mr. President. I was going to say you have no idea. You do have an idea. Anyone who serves here has an idea what an incredible, incredible asset that is. If we were able to do that, if we had that kind of faith in each other's staffs, this place would move so much more smoothly than it does because so much is necessarily propelled by staff. During the 1980s, Admiral Nance served as deputy assistant to President Reagan for national security affairs, and in private business with the Boeing Corporation. In 1991, his boyhood friend, Jesse Helms, as the chairman has indicated, who grew up in the small town of Monroe, NC, called Bud Nance to serve his country once again. Although at the time he got the call he had long-since retired and he was 70 years old--a time when most people would choose to take it easy, spend time with their wives, their children and their grandchildren--Bud Nance answered the call of his friend, Jesse Helms, and he came to work for the Foreign Relations Committee. He did so not out of a desire for power or money, to state the obvious. In fact, he received only a nominal salary, which at one point, as he enjoyed putting it, amounted to a few dollars per week. That is literally true, by the way-- literally true. Because of this law we have about double dipping, literally he worked for pennies here--full time, 60 hours, 70 hours a week. He worked literally for nothing. Rather than the dollars, he enjoyed the work--because of his powerful sense of duty to his country and its people and his powerful and palpable loyalty to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. In the last several months, as he struggled with illness--and I might point out, for the last year anybody else would have quit. Anybody else would have walked away and everyone would have said: God bless him. We understand. Here is a guy whose hands were literally beat up because of the transfusions, because of the IVs, because of all of the painful way they had to go to get blood. They could not get it out of his veins anymore. They had to go into his hands and his feet. He came in black and blue--black and blue, barely able to walk. I would say: Bud, what in the heck are you doing here? He'd say: We have to get this done. No problem. I never, never, never heard him complain. I never watched him even wince knowingly. This is a guy who literally dragged himself in and out of the hospital to show up for work. Instead of staying at home, getting the care he needed in the hospital, he kept the staff and all of us focused on the task at hand. In my 2\1/2\ years as ranking member of the committee, I came to know Bud even better than I did the previous years, both as a professional colleague, and, I am presumptuous to say, and this is presumptuous--as a friend. I was kidding with the chairman the other day. I said: You know, Jesse, my mom has an expression. I will not mention the little girl's name, but I remember as a kid I got picked up second on the bus on a long bus ride to school, about a 35-minute ride. Every morning, a little girl who was not very popular and wasn't very attractive, every morning would get on the bus. It would be empty and she would sit next to me. Then everyone else would fill up the bus by the end. I would get home and I would say to my mother: Mom, every morning--I will not mention her real name; it was not Sally--Sally gets on the bus and sits next to me. All the guys make fun of me. The girls even make fun of me--because Sally was not a particularly popular little girl. I will never forget what my mother said. My mother said: Joey, remember one thing. Anybody who loves you, there is only one thing you can do. Love them back. It is real simple. I was kidding the chairman the other day. I know Bud Nance loved me because he knew how much I thought of him. He didn't have a choice. He may not have wanted to, but it was in his nature. He couldn't return the affection. So, although I do not have one one- hundredth of the history or the relationship that the chairman had with Bud Nance and it seems presumptuous for me to call him a friend in the shadow of his closest friend in life, I want you to know, Mr. Chairman, that a lot of us--and you will hear from more--a lot of us took great personal pride in believing that Bud Nance liked us. The mere fact that Bud Nance liked us in part validated what we did here. That is a remarkable thing, Mr. Chairman. That is a remarkable thing to say about any individual. His word was his bond in a literal sense. Although he worked for a darned Republican, Bud Nance was far from partisan. I always wanted to ask him--and I never did, Jesse--about back in the days when you were a Democrat, I suspect he was, too, back in those days. I kind of harbored the illusion in my soul a little bit that maybe--maybe he still was. I knew he wasn't, but maybe he still was.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to share with my colleagues a few thoughts on the announcement that Treasury Secretary Rubin will be leaving his job in July. It is hard to believe how far we have come in the six and a half years of Bob Rubin's tenure at the Treasury Department. Our most fundamental ideas of how the world works--at least the world of economics and finance--have been transformed during his leadership of President Clinton's economic team. In our domestic finances, Mr. President, we have gone from a generation of seemingly intractable federal deficits to a new era of budget surpluses. It turns out that it is no easier to make budget policy now than it was before--in fact, it is probably harder. But the federal government is paying its own way now, and the payoff in the private economy--strong growth, low and stable interest rates, international confidence in the dollar--are there for everyone to see. As someone who came to the Senate over a quarter of a century ago, I can tell my colleagues that there has been no more fundamental change in the way we do business around here. And virtually everyone agrees that Bob Rubin's influence was the deciding factor in this Administration's successful fight to restore balance and responsibility to our federal budget. If that were his only legacy, it would put him in the pantheon of our greatest Treasury Secretaries. But Bob Rubin has left his mark on the international economy as well. The United States--restored to its historic role as the strongest and most influential economy in the world--was the indispensable leader during the financial crisis that shook international markets in the last two years. And it was Secretary Rubin's credibility that was on the line as international financial institutions like the IMF scrambled to meet the first financial crisis of the new global economy. Because he knew what key financial markets needed to see and hear from policy makers--and because he knew the strengths and the weaknesses of those markets first hand--his guidance was the essential ingredient that contained the damage from that crisis. Today, in the calm after the storm, there is still a lot of rebuilding to do--and too much troubling weakness in too many economies to say that the crisis is over. But it is not too early to say that the crisis was a direct challenge America's leadership in the world's economy, and Bob Rubin kept us on top. I might add that among the many facets of that financial crisis, Secretary Rubin had to invest his considerable energy, skills, and reputation to get this Congress to provide the funds necessary for the IMF to do its job. If they gave medals in his line of work, Mr. President, he would have one for that campaign, too. Robert Rubin was the recognized leader--with all of the heat that can come in that position--in two of the biggest economy stories of this decade: the battle against the deficit and the global financial crisis. His decisiveness, clarity of purpose, and calm persistence made a difference in this history of our time. I noticed, Mr. President, that the financial markets genuflected yesterday at the news of Secretary Rubin's impending departure. They dipped for a while at the initial disappointment, but inevitably they recovered because his replacement is an equally formidable--and tested--veteran of those same battles that have made Bob Rubin's reputation. Larry Summers, as Deputy Treasury Secretary, has earned Bob Rubin's confidence as his envoy to key countries in critical negotiations in the global financial crisis and in many other important jobs. He inherits a healthy economy, sound federal finances, and a strong team at the Treasury Department. But if the past few years are any guide, Mr. President, he will not lack for challenges. I noticed that he thanked his teachers today in accepting the new opportunity President Clinton has offered him. Surely he had no more valuable teacher than Bob Rubin. That should give us all confidence that the Treasury Department remains in good hands.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, there are a number of revisions that have been worked out here in the core bill that is before us. As the ranking member, Senator Leahy, knows, and as the chairman knows, this began over 2\1/2\ years ago. We have come a long way. We have narrowed the gap between the position held by Senator Hatch and myself and by Senator Sessions and myself and many others. Primarily what the Hatch-Biden-Sessions amendment does, it takes the underlying bill and it does three or four, I think, very important things. No. 1, it adds prevention uses to permissible uses of the so-called accountability block grant. When I am home sometimes watching this on TV, I wonder how the people understand anything we are saying. What is an accountability block grant? What it means is that there is $450 million in this bill that we give to given States to be able to use for various purposes. One of those chunks of money, the $450 million, prior to the Hatch-Biden amendment, did not allow the money to be used for prevention. This allows, earmarks, requires 25 percent of it to be used for prevention. You have about $113 million that is to be used for prevention out of that grant. In addition to that, it adds other allowable uses that we hope the States will do. That is, it allows them to use money for drug treatment, alcohol treatment, drug and alcohol treatment, school counseling, school-based prevention programs. Then, in addition, what it does is--in the Biden crime bill, which became the crime law of 1994, what we didn't do was we did not put in money for prosecutors. We found out, as the former Governor of Nebraska knows, what happens in a lot of these courts is we add more cops and they arrest a lot more people. There are not enough prosecutors, there are not enough judges, and there are not enough facilities. So the cops do their job, but the process gets bottlenecked. So we have $50 million in here, which was initially resisted, $50 million for prosecutors at a State level, State prosecutors, money for the States to hire prosecutors to prosecute juvenile justice cases and for the States to train them to in fact prosecute crimes in juvenile court, because that always takes the hind quarter of these cases. One of the things is, there is not enough resources devoted to pursuing these cases. The prosecution of the case doesn't mean we are just putting more prosecutors here to send kids to jail. We are putting more prosecutors in here to resolve these sets of graduated sanctions the States have set up so there is a prosecutor following through and saying, this kid is going to go on a work project, this kid is going to go to the State reform school, this kid is going to have to pay restitution for what he did, this kid is going to, in fact, follow through on the sanction that the court is imposing on him. And we, the State, are going to be able to pursue this--we, the prosecutor in such-and-such a county or such- and-such a State. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, I think the best thing we did in the crime bill we passed in 1994, the thing that people paid the least attention to but the thing I worked the hardest on was setting up a crime trust fund, a violent crime trust fund. I remind everybody that we made a commitment with this administration and when the crime bill passed we would reduce the workforce of Federal employees. We would reduce that workforce, but instead of taking their paycheck and returning it to the Treasury, we were going to put it in a trust fund. So we reduced the Federal workforce by 300,000 people--the smallest Federal workforce since John Kennedy was President of the United States of America. We took that money and we put it in a trust fund that can only be used for the purposes outlined in the crime bill--for prevention, for enforcement, and for incarceration. It stopped us from bickering over how we are going to fund the programs. We are not raising any new taxes to pay for this. We are not giving money back. We can. We could take this money that we are no longer paying the Federal employees in the Department of Education, or in the Department of Energy, or wherever--we could take their paycheck and give it back in terms of a tax cut, or we could take it and put it in this trust fund. That is what has kept the funding of the 100,000 cops, that is what has kept the funding of the prison system, and that is what has kept the funding of the prevention programs. That expires in the year 2000. This will extend that violent crime trust fund to the year 2005. Once we cut through all the specific things we could legislatively do, it is probably the single most significant thing we will do. I thank my colleagues for agreeing to the compromise which includes extending that trust fund. There are a number of pieces of this legislation that understandably--because this is a moving target--have in fact confused people. My friend from Nebraska asked me the question about whether or not this federalizes juvenile crime, whether or not it sets a Federal aid limit at which you could try a young person as an adult that preempts State law. No, we don't do that. It does say that in a Federal court, if a Federal prosecutor brings a case within Federal jurisdiction against a minor, they can in fact seek to try that minor as an adult under a certain set of circumstances. But it doesn't go in and say to the State of Nebraska or Delaware that you must in your State treat minors in terms of whether or not they can be tried as adults the same way the Federal system treats them. Some States try minors as adults at a much younger age. Some States don't allow minors under the age of 18 to be tried as adults unless it is under the most extraordinary circumstances. The original legislation in iteration of four or five bills ago probably did do that. But we are not federalizing this notion of under what circumstances a person under the age of 18 can be tried as an adult. We are not allowing for Federal preemption where there is State and Federal jurisdiction. It is not an automatic preemption to the State by the Federal Government. We have built into this legislation a rational way of approaching that. In the interest of time, I am not going to take the time to explain that now.

Mr. BIDEN. Let me sit down and thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I apologize. I did not. Did the Senator yield me a specific amount of time?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I will be brief because we will discuss this when the amendment comes up, but I am happy to answer the question. There are four block grants in the bill. The one in which the distinguished Senator from Utah has agreed to make an alteration is the provision for $450 million that is available for up to 25 percent; $113 million of that will now be able to be used for afterschool programs, for drug treatment programs, and for any program which is designed to deal with the cadre of kids who, from the time the school bill rings at 2:30 until they go to a supervised situation at 6 or 7 o'clock at dinner, commit the majority of crimes committed by young people. However, there are two other provisions in the bill. There are two other block grants of $200 million apiece. Those two allow money to be used for prevention and afterschool programs. As I told the Senator, I happen to think in the original bill which I introduced 2 years ago--that was the juvenile justice bill--that had a number of cosponsors. I think we should be spending closer to $1 billion on this prevention notion. From the time I was a kid, I went to a Catholic grade school. I don't know whether the nuns got this from my mother, or my mother got this from the nuns, but as my Mother would say, an idle mind is the Devil's workshop. Give a kid no supervision from 2:30 in the afternoon until dinnertime, and I promise--I promise--good kids are going to get in trouble and bad kids are going to do very bad things. This is not rocket science. We should be doing much more. The Senator from California has focused very much as a Congresswoman and now as a Senator on dealing with afterschool programs. Again, if you could wave a wand, and all the school boards and school districts that say they care so much about their children--and they do--if they could have baseball, basketball, cheerleading, chess, girls' field hockey, lacrosse, I would have those programs for every junior high in America. Almost no junior high in America has the programs. Do you want to keep kids out of trouble? This is not hard. This is not hard. The people in the gallery know it; they understand it. The American people understand it. Why don't we understand it? Why don't the local authorities understand it? It is hard to tell people you will raise your taxes in order to do this. The other thing this bill does, with the help of Senators Phil Gramm and Robert Byrd: When the Biden crime bill passed in 1994, we set up a violent crime trust fund. We let go 300,000 Federal workers. Under this administration, we have the smallest federal workforce since John Kennedy was President. I know the Senator knows this, but what we did with that money is take the paycheck that used to go to the person working at the IRS or the Department of Energy or wherever, and when they left their job, we didn't rehire people. We reduced the workforce. We put their paycheck in a trust fund, like the highway trust fund. This extends the trust fund until the year 2005. I say to my friend that there are a lot of programs worth spending money on--education and defense--but I can't think of anything more fundamental than taking the streets back and giving our kids a safe environment in which to live. There are two things we do. We add prevention money as a permissible use. We earmark it. It adds up only to $113 million. It has part of the other $400 million in this bill that can be used for prevention, but it is short of what we should be doing. I am looking forward to supporting the Senator from California when she tries to do more for afterschool programs.

Mr. BIDEN. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, this bill has been a long time in coming. We have been debating this bill in the Judiciary Committee for some time. We have attempted to come up with a compromise that made sense. Later in the day--if not today, tomorrow--the distinguished chairman of the committee and I are going to offer an amendment that is essentially a substitute, but we will not probably offer it in the form of a substitute; it will be offered in the form of an amendment. At that time, I will speak to the distinctions of the bill before us and the provisions Senator Hatch and I will be amending. Let me speak to the general proposition of juvenile crime in America. I listened to my friend from Alabama and others who have spoken today, and I sometimes get confused. I get confused because the assertions that are made do not always comport with what the legislation says. For example, there is a general assertion made, and a general consensus, that we should not be federalizing juvenile crimes; we federalize too much already, yet we do that in this bill in terms of attempts to deal with preemptive jurisdiction, imposing upon the States judgments about how and under what circumstances they should try adults, and children as adults, and so on. The second thing that we do is we go through episodic periods in this body. I have been around long enough that I have been in more than one episode. I remember when I first came here, I say to my friend from Minnesota. We all kind of forget the consensus, the academic consensus, the criminal justice consensus, the political consensus we reached in the early 1970s. That was that we had horrible cases--and legions of them--where we put juveniles in adult prisons, we put juveniles in adult holding tanks, we put juveniles in circumstances where they were exposed to adult-convicted criminals. There were legions of reports about their being raped, their being beaten, their being sodomized, their being dealt with in the most horrendous way. The Nation rose up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, led by the academics of this Nation, led by the criminologists, who said this has to stop, this has to stop. I was here when Birch Bayh, the distinguished father of the Senator from Indiana, led the fight on the Judiciary Committee and the bipartisan consensus to change the rules. We ended up with things called sight and sound requirements. We ended up with things that dealt with recordkeeping. We ended up with changes in the law that dealt with the ability to try juveniles as adults and under what circumstances. And they worked. They worked. They worked very well, because you are not reading in our press about 13-year-old boys being sodomized in a jail, while they are held in a holding tank to be arraigned. You are not reading about that now. For those of you who have not done this as long as I have, I suggest you go back and look at the Record and what we read about in the 1960s. It happened all the time. It does not happen anymore. A little bit of power given to anybody is almost always abused. The bureaucrats got a little bit too much power, and over a long period of time we came up with some stupid rules, stupid applications of the sight and sound restrictions. For example, if you in fact are in a rural community, in your State, I say to my friend from Minnesota, and you arrest a kid, a 16-year-old at 2 o'clock in the morning for a violent crime and there is no facility in town except one that has two adults in it, and the nearest juvenile facility is 4 hours away, we have been in some cases insisting--it is rare--that that kid be driven 4 hours all the way to that other facility when you have a one-cop town. It doesn't make sense. There should be accommodations made for 6 or 8 hours until the next shift comes on so you can work this out. Well, what we do is we make accommodations for that. Let's not blow this out of proportion. I remind people, you are not reading in the press, as you did in the 1950s and 1960s and early 1970s, about juveniles being abused in adult prisons. In my own State, it doesn't take much. Let me remind everybody: You put a young kid, maybe even a status offender, not a violent criminal, in a cell next to somebody who is a hardened criminal. You lock the door. The hardened criminal starts telling the kid about what he is going to do to him and how he is going to enjoy doing it to him. The records are replete with jailers coming back and finding the kid hanging himself in a jail, committing suicide. They are not happening now. So let's not get trigger happy here, no pun intended, and decide that we are going to overcorrect. Back in the bad old days, when I was chairman of this committee, a ranking member for about 18 years, we had scores of hearings. We brought everybody in. The cops who come in want to solve the problem-- the example I gave in Minnesota or Vermont or Montana or Delaware. We can do that. But let us not go into this routine where somehow this sight-and-sound provision has taken on some bureaucratic hubris where what happens is that we have people going awry with power and preventing us from trying violent juvenile children or young adults and they are on the rampage in the countryside because of this stupid Federal rule. Not true. Not true. Let's get some facts straight. Remember when I introduced the Biden crime bill back in 1984. It took 6 years to get it passed finally, the one with the 100,000 cops in it. I used to say all the time, Why can't we learn to walk and chew gum at the same time? When the crime bill, which everyone has stood up here and is giving great credit to for the significant reduction in violent crime among adults in particular, was written, I might point out, a number of people giving it credit here voted against it, thought it was a bad idea, for 2 years tried to amend it. Well, there have been a couple altar calls. I welcome everybody to the party. What is that old expression: Success has 1,000 fathers; defeat, none. I am delighted there are so many strong supporters for the crime bill now. I am delighted. But let them remember why it worked. We finally got liberals and conservatives to agree that they were both wrong and both right. I don't know how many times my colleagues had to listen to me on the floor during the 1980s and 1990s saying: Look, liberals have been harping on the following point: It is the society that makes these young criminals, and all we have to do is give them love and affection. All we have to do is intervene with the right programs. All we have to do is deal with prevention. All we have to do is deal with treatment. My conservative friends would come in and say: The answer is tougher penalties, hang them higher, put them in jail longer. The facts were sitting before us just as they are now. Let's get some of the statistics straight, lest we be confused. I know facts sometimes bother us in this debate. Our friend Alan Simpson, the former Senator, as you know well, used to say--I loved him, still do--he used to stand on the floor and say--I will never get it as well as Alan said it and never get it quite as right, but I think this was how his phrase went-- he would stand up, when someone was spouting off about something they didn't know, and say: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Crime is the only issue on which everyone thinks they are entitled to their own facts. Everybody has an opinion on crime. Everybody has an answer, whether they know anything about it or not. I am not talking about my colleagues now. I mean the whole world. If you ask the public what caused the increase in the value of the dollar, they won't pretend to have an answer. If you ask them what will stop murder, they have an answer. If you ask them why is there violent crime, they have an answer. It is one of the areas that affects us all, and we are entitled to our opinion. But let us look at some of the facts. Since 1993 the national rate of juvenile crime is down. Juvenile arrests for murder and manslaughter have decreased almost 40 percent, from 1993 to 1997, the last time we have the numbers. Juvenile arrests for forcible rape are down almost a quarter, 22.8 percent. Juvenile violent crime arrests are down by 4 percent from 1996, from the previous year. There was no decline in adult crime then. Now, let's look at what we are talking about--again, the facts: There are basically three categories of kids. When I introduced the Biden crime bill for adults years ago, which became the crime law, I used to stand on the floor and say there are basically three types of criminals we have to deal with, and we need different solutions for each category. If I am not mistaken, I am the first one to write a report that about 6 percent, only 6 percent of the violent criminals in America back in the 1980s and 1990s, and even now, committed over 60 percent of all the violent crimes in America. If you went out and you could gather up all 6 percent of the career criminals, gather them all up, put them in jail and throw the key away, violent crime would drop by over half. That is No. 1. So we need a specific program for career criminals. The Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter, had a career criminal bill that became law, a gigantic help. The second category is people who have committed a violent offense but are not career criminals. The third category is people who had crimes of property and status offender crimes, victimless crimes. They all required different solutions. So that is why in the Biden crime bill we did three things: We took about $10 billion and hired more cops, about $10 billion and built more prisons, and about $10 billion to deal with drug treatment, prevention, and other programs. Guess what. It works. The conservatives were right, that you have to get tougher, but with one segment. The liberals were right, you have to pay more attention to what brings people into the crime stream, for one section. One size doesn't fit all. So we finally got it right, and crime has dropped dramatically. Now guess what. For juvenile crime, we have decided we are going to reinvent the wheel. What is the formula here? The formula is simple. It is simple but hard. G.K. Chesterton once said about Christianity: It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. Well, it is not that this is so complicated, but boy is it political. In all of America, in that first category of kids, career criminals for adults, there are 115,000 kids who were arrested for murder or arrested for a violent crime; 2,000 of the 115,000 were arrested for murder; 113,000 were arrested for violent crime. They are clearly in one category. They are the bad actors. Everybody wonders why they have all these floppy clothes. Walk through the train station down here, walk in any city. Those floppy clothes allow you to conceal a gun. Guess what. These kids are bad. They are bad seeds. I want to tell you something that the liberals do not like hearing said: Some of these 16-year-olds are beyond redemption. They are beyond redemption for all practical purposes. And if and when they are redeemed, we don't know why they were. They may have seen the Lord in a blinding light. They may have come to their senses. But when it occurs, we don't know why. And it doesn't occur that often. But think about it, all the children in America we are talking about--115,000. There is a second category. There are 685,000 kids who are arrested for nonviolent property crimes ranging from stealing your car to mutilating your property, or, as we say in my section of the country, ``turfing your lawn.'' Nonviolent property crimes, 685,000. They require a different solution. Mr. President, locking them up in juvenile detention facilities as they are only getting into the crime stream usually only makes them better criminals. That is where the graduated offenses come in. If I am not mistaken, I think I am the first guy who had James Q. Wilson testifying before a committee up here. Everybody now talks about the ``broken window theory.'' Most don't understand it. It is a simple proposition. It is not complicated. If, in fact, you have a sanction the first time a young person is brought before the courts, no matter how small the sanction is, it has a greater impact than waiting three or four times and throwing the book at them. It is not rocket science. It is not a big deal. It is pretty easy to figure out. Then there is a third category of kids. There are at least a few million of them. They are in the at-risk category. Biden, what is that fancy term, ``at-risk?'' From 8 to 5, walk into any schoolyard in America. Take two or three teachers. Say to them: Point out the kids out there who are the ones on the edge and haven't done anything wrong, but the ones you are most worried about. They can identify the at-risk kids for you. Again, a second time using the phrase ``not rocket science.'' They can identify them for us. We have civil liberties and civil rights that do not allow that to occur, and shouldn't. But, as Barry Goldwater used to say, ``In your heart you know I am right.'' You know that we know that you can identify them. What are we going to do about those kids? Are we going to build jails for them? Are we not going to take the time and effort to use prevention programs that work? That is a third category. I wrote a report a couple of years ago referring to the ``baby boomlettes,'' pointing out that the largest cadre of young people since the baby boom is about to reach their crime-committing years--39 million kids under the age of 10. If not one single thing happens in terms of the crime rates going up with juveniles, every single category of crime will increase significantly--every one of them--because, guess what. There is just a heck of a lot more kids. If we do ``as well as we have been doing,'' and there is not a one one-hundredth of 1 percent increase in crime among juveniles that occurs, we are going to have several thousand more murders; we are going to have a 20-percent increase in the juvenile murders by the year 2005, and the overall murder rate will go up 5 percent. Violent crime will increase by the same percentage if we do not allow one single percentage increase, because there are so many kids coming. Mr. President, the interesting thing about crime--only a few things we know perhaps even with certainty--is that if we have a cop on this corner and no cop on that corner, and there is a crime going to be committed, it will be committed on the corner where there is no cop. That is one thing we know. Another thing we know is that violent crime decreases when you get older. Do you know why? It is harder to jump that chain-link fence. It is a little harder. It is harder to jump that chain-link fence. That is why it decreases. You don't need a degree in criminology to figure this stuff out. So why do we keep trying to reinvent the wheel? I remember when I introduced the first crime bill; there was a New York Times editorial saying: But we have tried this before. More cops, we never tried that before. For the previous 20 years, the top 20 cities in America had less than a 1-percent increase in the total number of police on their forces, yet their population increased by about 18 percent. We used to have three cops for every one violent crime committed in America. We have gotten to the point where we have one cop for every three violent crimes. So we did it. We hired more cops. And it is working. The same principles work with regard to juveniles. Look, a couple of my friends said: You know what we ought to really do is, this Clinton administration ought to get in gear. Get in gear? This Clinton administration has done better than any administration in history in reducing crime. By the way, that ``truth in sentencing,'' I am the guy that wrote that law. It is called ``The Federal Sentencing Commission.'' I might add that a lot of people who are speaking about it now were against it then. As a matter of fact, a colleague who used to be on the floor, Mac Mathias, called the Biden law ``the same-time-for-the-same- crime law.'' So what are we doing now? We are changing the game. This administration that came along and supported ``truth in sentencing'' is the administration that pushed community policing; is the administration that has targeted the most violent criminals; is the administration that has provided more money and effort from the Federal level for fighting crime than any in the history of the United States of America, and has succeeded. Let's get off this poppycock about whether or not this is a Democrat or Republican deal. The hope was that once we passed the Violent Crime Control Act of 1994--by the way, it is not coincidental. If you notice when all the charts go up, violent crime starts to drop in 1993. Guess what. That is when we introduced the bill, and it passed in early 1994. Mr. President, juvenile justice requires our attention. It requires us to be honest with one another and honest with the American people. There are three categories of kids we have to focus on. The 115,000, 2,000 of whom have been charged with murder, but 115,000 who are the violent offenders, we should be building prisons for them. We should put them in juvenile facilities. And we should treat them in some cases as adults. I might add, all my States rights guys, guess what. Most States have a surplus. I love these Governors. They come and tell us about how to run the Federal Government. And then they come to us and tell us if we want to deal with building a juvenile facility, we had better send Federal money. But it is a local issue, it is a local problem, and it is a local crime. Local law enforcement does it, but you send the money, Federal Government, to build the prisons. They can build the prisons. There is money in here to allow help for that. But they should get responsible, I would respectfully suggest, in the State legislature in Dover, DE; in Springfield, IL; and every other capital in America to acknowledge what their responsibility is. There is a second category, Mr. President--those that committed crimes against property. We can save these kids. We can intervene. A lot of them we can keep from being violent criminals. But it doesn't mean building more jails for them. The third category of 3 million-plus is those at-risk kids. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just look at what we have done. Mr. President, at some point I will be joining my friend, the Senator from Utah, the chairman of the committee, to introduce an amendment in the nature of a substitute that makes the necessary corrections in a bill which has already made some progress. My colleagues have heard me say this over and over again for the last 15 years. A trial lawyer with whom I used to practice used to always say to a jury: Keep your eye on the ball. The prosecution will tell you this, this, this, and this about the defendant. The question is, Did the defendant pull the trigger? Keep your eye on the ball. I respectfully suggest that in this debate we keep our eye on the ball. What are we going to do about the 115,000 very violent kids in America? What are we going to do about the 680,000 in the crime stream who have not committed crimes of violence but are on the edge? What are we going to do about the 3 million kids who are on the edge, who are ready to slip into the crime stream? The problem that still exists beyond what we have to deal with here and beyond guns and beyond prevention--and the Hatch-Biden substitute puts in more money for prevention--what we really have to do is deal with the drug problem in America. I said before that we learned in the early 1980s that if we could take the 6 percent of career criminals in America and remove them from the scene by an act of God, violent crime in America would drop over 50 percent. Nobody disputes that now. I respectfully suggest, if any Member can have one wish that would fundamentally alter youth violence in America, ask God to come down and take alcohol and drug abuse out of the system. If we did that one thing and nothing else, we would affect the course of juvenile justice in America more than anything we can do. Obviously, we can't do that. As I said years ago when I introduced the first bill, there are three things we have to do: One, deal with adult crime, particularly focusing on violence against women; two, we have to fix the juvenile justice system; and three, we have to deal with the drug problem. They are the three pieces. It hasn't changed. I urge my colleagues, as the debate gets underway, keep your eye on the ball. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Look at what is working. Stick with what is working. I am not suggesting we don't try new ideas, but stick with what is working. By the way, I point out that the very people who now are all for juvenile Brady--what was in the original juvenile justice bill I introduced--are the very people who were against the Brady bill before. So there is progress. There is hope. Brady made a difference.

Mr. BIDEN. As I said, at some point when it is appropriate, when the distinguished chairman of the committee decides we should introduce our amendment, we will. I thank him for reaching out, because it has not been easy for him to be able to do this, and I look forward at the end of the day to this entire bill being a bipartisan consensus when it leaves the floor. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation on a subject that we will be spending a great deal of time talking about on the floor this week--youth violence. At the outset, I would like to make clear that this bill is not a comprehensive one that addresses every aspect of this complex area. Other of my colleagues already have introduced legislation broadly addressing these issues with many good ideas that I support. My bill today recognizes the need to get tough on juvenile crime and violence. But this bill goes farther. It also recognizes that the best thing the Federal Government can do in dealing with youth crime and violence is to focus on prevention. In other words, it ensures that what we do about juvenile crime and youth violence is a balanced approach. My colleagues and I have heard over and over again from law enforcement, prosecutors, and juvenile judges alike that the best way to deal on the front lines with juveniles who are committing or are at risk of committing crimes is to implement prevention as well as sanctions. What the Federal Government does best in the area of fighting crime-- and the significant drop in crime as a result of the 1994 crime bill is proof of this--is for it to provide local law enforcement, prosecutors, juvenile courts, schools, and community-based organizations funds for them to develop creative, comprehensive strategies on juvenile crime that are tailored for their community. It is important to hold kids accountable when they commit crimes. But it is equally--if not more-- important to keep kids out of trouble, to keep kids out of the juvenile justice system in the first place. Before I get to the specifics of what my bill does, I want to highlight the importance of early prevention in curbing youth violence. To put the youth violence problem in some context, I would like to begin by outlining the specific--and different-- challenges we are facing when we discuss ``youth violence.'' Distinguishing among these different problems is important because each demands a different response. To be specific--we are really facing three separate issues when we confront youth violence: First, we have some number of children who are tragic cases--so violent that we really have no choice but to get them behind bars and keep them there, for a long time. Second, we have kids who have already started down the crime path. They aren't committing violent crimes, but they are clearly getting into trouble. And, while the evidence is that most will never go on to commit violent crimes, it is clear that we have to reach these kids and turn them around. Unlike the first category where public safety requires very severe, very long sentences, the key strategy for turning this second category of kids around appears to be certain, graduated punishments, as well as anything we can do which lessen the factors which may be pushing them deeper into the crime stream--keeping them away from drugs, away from guns and out of gangs. Third, we have a category of children in what the demographers call the ``baby-boomerang.'' In a report I offered in December of 1995, I detailed what inevitably lies ahead--39 million children now younger than age 10. Each of these 39 million children--the children of the baby-boomers--stand on the edge of their teen years, exactly those years when they are most at-risk of turning to drugs and crime. The implications of this demographic inevitability--even if we do everything right, and the rate at which kids commit crimes does not rise at all, we will have a 20% increase in juvenile murders by 2005, which will mean an increase in the overall murder toll of about 5%. Clearly, most of these 39 million will never turn to drugs and crime. But, equally clear, we have a rising number of at-risk children--at- risk of turning to drugs, at-risk of being the victim of violence, and at-risk of turning to crime. For this third category--the rising number of at-risk children--I believe we have to incorporate prevention as a key part of our strategy to combat youth crime and violence. These three categories--lost, violent kids; kids just falling into the crime stream; and at-risk kids who may be nearing the edge of the crime stream--outline the targets of, and basic strategies for, a successful effort against youth violence. As we begin to debate strategies for addressing youth violence, let's get at least some idea of the size, the magnitude, of each of these three segments of the youth violence question. Starting in reverse order--with the third category of at-risk kids. Of course, all 39 million children in the ``baby-boomerang'' will not fall into this at-risk category. But, equally clear, that number of at- risk children will be at least a few million. For the other two categories, the facts are that there are relatively few children in the ``lost'' category and while a significant number are in the ``falling into the crime stream'' category--both categories are much smaller than the few million in the ``at-risk'' category. The facts for the youngest juveniles: In 1994, 379 juveniles younger than 15 years old were arrested for murder, 39,000 were arrested for a violent crime but more than 260,000 were arrested for a non-violent property crime. For older teens, the pattern holds: 2,700 juveniles aged 15 to 17 were arrested for murder, 86,000 were arrested for a violent crime, but more than 350,000 were arrested for a non-violent property crime. In sum: About 3,000 kids were arrested for murder--clearly ``lost'' children; Another 115,000 kids were arrested for a violent crime--all are not irretrievable, but plainly all must be subject to serious punishment; About 600,000 kids were arrested for a non-violent property crime-- not lost to us yet, but clearly falling deeper into the crime stream; and At least a few million children are in the at-risk category. It is my hope that throughout the debate on youth violence that we will not lose sight of these fundamental facts about what we are talking about when we say ``Let's do something about youth violence.'' I believe that is the goal we all share, so let's be smart. Let's keep our eye on the ball. In short, just as it would be foolish to spend all our efforts and money on the millions of at-risk kids and do nothing about the lost, violent kids--it would be equally foolish to spend all our efforts and money on the lost, violent kids and ignore the millions of at-risk kids. Local officials throughout the country have looked at the facts, they have been smart, they have used their resources from the 1994 crime law--and guess what: adult violent crime has plummeted. We now have the lowest murder rate since 1971. That says one thing--if we are smart, we can make a difference on a problem everyone thought was unsolvable: violent crime. We ought to be able to do the same when that violent crime is committed by children. We even have real world, working models of how to do so. Look to the experience in Boston--an experience that the judiciary committee recently heard about again in a hearing on juveniles and guns. In Boston, a combination of tough enforcement, cracking down on illegal gun dealers, focusing the forces of police, prosecutors and probation officers, and comprehensive community-based prevention efforts have slashed youth violence. I have outlined the three basis elements of the youth violence problem. So let me turn to the specifics of what I believe we must do to address each of these three basic elements. Tough punishment of the first group of kids--the ``Almost lost, already violent kids''--is necessary--for public safety purposes we really must look first to incapacitate very violent criminals, just getting them off the streets. For the second group of kids--the ``just getting into trouble kids''--we must provide certain, graduated sanctions--so that instead of our current system of not punishing a kid until he has 10, 15 or 20 arrests, we give the kid at least some sanction from the very first offense. And finally, for the third group--the ``baby bomberang kids''--who are not getting in trouble yet but are ``at-risk'', we must target the factors which push kids into--or deeper into--the crime stream: Getting kids off drugs and alcohol through drug testing and follow-up with supervision and treatment; Keeping kids out of gangs; and Cracking down on the flow of guns to kids. We must also keep as many at-risks kids as possible from turning to drugs and crime in the first place--in most practical terms, this means keeping kids busy and supervised during the 3:00 to dinnertime hours. Those 3 hours represent about 12% of the day, about 20% of the hours when kids are awake--but at least 40% of juvenile crime occurs during those hours. Here is what the bill I am introducing today would do: It creates a block grant for use by States and local governments to develop strategies that are aimed at all three of the categories of kids I just described. That block grant does the following: First, it gives resources to States and local governments to develop more effective ways to investigate, prosecute, and punish those kids in the first group I described, who are already committing violent crimes. Second, it gives resources to States and local governments to develop more effective ways to ensure accountability through graduated sanctions and other means, and to address risk factors such as drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, or involvement with gangs. And third, it gives resources to States and local governments to develop programs targeted for at-risk kids for prevention--to keep these kids out of trouble, out of the juvenile crime system, and diverted from going down the path to becoming a career criminal. To do these three things, my bill authorizes $450 million. Of that amount-- 25 percent--$112.5 million--must be spent on prevention and drug and alcohol treatment. 25 percent--$112.5 million--must be spent on prosecutors and courts. The rest--$250 million--can be spent on a variety of uses, including graduated sanctions and prisons. My bill also separately authorizes $50 million to hire, train, and fund programs run by prosecutors. We have heard over and over again that prosecutors, who are on the front lines in dealing with juvenile offenders, across the country are developing innovative, comprehensive approaches to juvenile crime that are resulting in significant drops in the juvenile crime rate. For example, in Jacksonville, Florida, the state prosecutor there has developed a multi-tiered approach. Those programs provide schooling and counseling, they intervene with first time juvenile offenders to divert them from the system, they provide prevention programs for at-risk kids that include mentoring and talking to judges and kids already in jail, and they fight truancy. It contains a ban on gun ownership by persons who, before their 18th birthday, adults who have been adjudicated to have committed a serious drug offense or violent felony. This provision, popularly known as ``Juvenile Brady'', is an important step towards keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Violent juveniles who commit serious crimes should be stopped--early--from getting access to weapons to commit such crimes as adults. Extending the Violent Crime Trust Fund to 2002. The Violent Crime Trust Fund--created in the 1994 crime bill--has been the key to our successful fight against crime over the past few years. It has been the vehicle for providing billions of dollars to State and local governments to implement a variety of law enforcement and crime- fighting--from the Cops Program to the Violence Against Women Act to youth violence initiatives. The Violent Crime Trust Fund is due to expire in fiscal year 2000--my bill extends it to 2002. Without the trust fund, we will fail in the future to replicate and to surpass our past successes in combating crime, including juvenile crime, in the future. We must renew our efforts to save our Nation, our communities and our children from crime and violence. We must begin by ensuring that our children are safe--safe from both the temptation of crime and safe from those who commit crime and horrific acts of violence. We must protect our children through meaningful prevention and intervention programs, a crackdown on drugs and the violence that accompanies them, and we must insure that meaningful, appropriate and swift punishment is imposed on all juvenile offenders. I believe that the bill I introduce today, while not a comprehensive answer to every part of the juvenile crime problem, will go far in addressing one of its key components--prevention. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation on a subject that we will be spending a great deal of time talking about on the floor this week--youth violence. At the outset, I would like to make clear that this bill is not a comprehensive one that addresses every aspect of this complex area. Other of my colleagues already have introduced legislation broadly addressing these issues with many good ideas that I support. My bill today recognizes the need to get tough on juvenile crime and violence. But this bill goes farther. It also recognizes that the best thing the Federal Government can do in dealing with youth crime and violence is to focus on prevention. In other words, it ensures that what we do about juvenile crime and youth violence is a balanced approach. My colleagues and I have heard over and over again from law enforcement, prosecutors, and juvenile judges alike that the best way to deal on the front lines with juveniles who are committing or are at risk of committing crimes is to implement prevention as well as sanctions. What the Federal Government does best in the area of fighting crime-- and the significant drop in crime as a result of the 1994 crime bill is proof of this--is for it to provide local law enforcement, prosecutors, juvenile courts, schools, and community-based organizations funds for them to develop creative, comprehensive strategies on juvenile crime that are tailored for their community. It is important to hold kids accountable when they commit crimes. But it is equally--if not more-- important to keep kids out of trouble, to keep kids out of the juvenile justice system in the first place. Before I get to the specifics of what my bill does, I want to highlight the importance of early prevention in curbing youth violence. To put the youth violence problem in some context, I would like to begin by outlining the specific--and different-- challenges we are facing when we discuss ``youth violence.'' Distinguishing among these different problems is important because each demands a different response. To be specific--we are really facing three separate issues when we confront youth violence: First, we have some number of children who are tragic cases--so violent that we really have no choice but to get them behind bars and keep them there, for a long time. Second, we have kids who have already started down the crime path. They aren't committing violent crimes, but they are clearly getting into trouble. And, while the evidence is that most will never go on to commit violent crimes, it is clear that we have to reach these kids and turn them around. Unlike the first category where public safety requires very severe, very long sentences, the key strategy for turning this second category of kids around appears to be certain, graduated punishments, as well as anything we can do which lessen the factors which may be pushing them deeper into the crime stream--keeping them away from drugs, away from guns and out of gangs. Third, we have a category of children in what the demographers call the ``baby-boomerang.'' In a report I offered in December of 1995, I detailed what inevitably lies ahead--39 million children now younger than age 10. Each of these 39 million children--the children of the baby-boomers--stand on the edge of their teen years, exactly those years when they are most at-risk of turning to drugs and crime. The implications of this demographic inevitability--even if we do everything right, and the rate at which kids commit crimes does not rise at all, we will have a 20% increase in juvenile murders by 2005, which will mean an increase in the overall murder toll of about 5%. Clearly, most of these 39 million will never turn to drugs and crime. But, equally clear, we have a rising number of at-risk children--at- risk of turning to drugs, at-risk of being the victim of violence, and at-risk of turning to crime. For this third category--the rising number of at-risk children--I believe we have to incorporate prevention as a key part of our strategy to combat youth crime and violence. These three categories--lost, violent kids; kids just falling into the crime stream; and at-risk kids who may be nearing the edge of the crime stream--outline the targets of, and basic strategies for, a successful effort against youth violence. As we begin to debate strategies for addressing youth violence, let's get at least some idea of the size, the magnitude, of each of these three segments of the youth violence question. Starting in reverse order--with the third category of at-risk kids. Of course, all 39 million children in the ``baby-boomerang'' will not fall into this at-risk category. But, equally clear, that number of at- risk children will be at least a few million. For the other two categories, the facts are that there are relatively few children in the ``lost'' category and while a significant number are in the ``falling into the crime stream'' category--both categories are much smaller than the few million in the ``at-risk'' category. The facts for the youngest juveniles: In 1994, 379 juveniles younger than 15 years old were arrested for murder, 39,000 were arrested for a violent crime but more than 260,000 were arrested for a non-violent property crime. For older teens, the pattern holds: 2,700 juveniles aged 15 to 17 were arrested for murder, 86,000 were arrested for a violent crime, but more than 350,000 were arrested for a non-violent property crime. In sum: About 3,000 kids were arrested for murder--clearly ``lost'' children; Another 115,000 kids were arrested for a violent crime--all are not irretrievable, but plainly all must be subject to serious punishment; About 600,000 kids were arrested for a non-violent property crime-- not lost to us yet, but clearly falling deeper into the crime stream; and At least a few million children are in the at-risk category. It is my hope that throughout the debate on youth violence that we will not lose sight of these fundamental facts about what we are talking about when we say ``Let's do something about youth violence.'' I believe that is the goal we all share, so let's be smart. Let's keep our eye on the ball. In short, just as it would be foolish to spend all our efforts and money on the millions of at-risk kids and do nothing about the lost, violent kids--it would be equally foolish to spend all our efforts and money on the lost, violent kids and ignore the millions of at-risk kids. Local officials throughout the country have looked at the facts, they have been smart, they have used their resources from the 1994 crime law--and guess what: adult violent crime has plummeted. We now have the lowest murder rate since 1971. That says one thing--if we are smart, we can make a difference on a problem everyone thought was unsolvable: violent crime. We ought to be able to do the same when that violent crime is committed by children. We even have real world, working models of how to do so. Look to the experience in Boston--an experience that the judiciary committee recently heard about again in a hearing on juveniles and guns. In Boston, a combination of tough enforcement, cracking down on illegal gun dealers, focusing the forces of police, prosecutors and probation officers, and comprehensive community-based prevention efforts have slashed youth violence. I have outlined the three basis elements of the youth violence problem. So let me turn to the specifics of what I believe we must do to address each of these three basic elements. Tough punishment of the first group of kids--the ``Almost lost, already violent kids''--is necessary--for public safety purposes we really must look first to incapacitate very violent criminals, just getting them off the streets. For the second group of kids--the ``just getting into trouble kids''--we must provide certain, graduated sanctions--so that instead of our current system of not punishing a kid until he has 10, 15 or 20 arrests, we give the kid at least some sanction from the very first offense. And finally, for the third group--the ``baby bomberang kids''--who are not getting in trouble yet but are ``at-risk'', we must target the factors which push kids into--or deeper into--the crime stream: Getting kids off drugs and alcohol through drug testing and follow-up with supervision and treatment; Keeping kids out of gangs; and Cracking down on the flow of guns to kids. We must also keep as many at-risks kids as possible from turning to drugs and crime in the first place--in most practical terms, this means keeping kids busy and supervised during the 3:00 to dinnertime hours. Those 3 hours represent about 12% of the day, about 20% of the hours when kids are awake--but at least 40% of juvenile crime occurs during those hours. Here is what the bill I am introducing today would do: It creates a block grant for use by States and local governments to develop strategies that are aimed at all three of the categories of kids I just described. That block grant does the following: First, it gives resources to States and local governments to develop more effective ways to investigate, prosecute, and punish those kids in the first group I described, who are already committing violent crimes. Second, it gives resources to States and local governments to develop more effective ways to ensure accountability through graduated sanctions and other means, and to address risk factors such as drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, or involvement with gangs. And third, it gives resources to States and local governments to develop programs targeted for at-risk kids for prevention--to keep these kids out of trouble, out of the juvenile crime system, and diverted from going down the path to becoming a career criminal. To do these three things, my bill authorizes $450 million. Of that amount-- 25 percent--$112.5 million--must be spent on prevention and drug and alcohol treatment. 25 percent--$112.5 million--must be spent on prosecutors and courts. The rest--$250 million--can be spent on a variety of uses, including graduated sanctions and prisons. My bill also separately authorizes $50 million to hire, train, and fund programs run by prosecutors. We have heard over and over again that prosecutors, who are on the front lines in dealing with juvenile offenders, across the country are developing innovative, comprehensive approaches to juvenile crime that are resulting in significant drops in the juvenile crime rate. For example, in Jacksonville, Florida, the state prosecutor there has developed a multi-tiered approach. Those programs provide schooling and counseling, they intervene with first time juvenile offenders to divert them from the system, they provide prevention programs for at-risk kids that include mentoring and talking to judges and kids already in jail, and they fight truancy. It contains a ban on gun ownership by persons who, before their 18th birthday, adults who have been adjudicated to have committed a serious drug offense or violent felony. This provision, popularly known as ``Juvenile Brady'', is an important step towards keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Violent juveniles who commit serious crimes should be stopped--early--from getting access to weapons to commit such crimes as adults. Extending the Violent Crime Trust Fund to 2002. The Violent Crime Trust Fund--created in the 1994 crime bill--has been the key to our successful fight against crime over the past few years. It has been the vehicle for providing billions of dollars to State and local governments to implement a variety of law enforcement and crime- fighting--from the Cops Program to the Violence Against Women Act to youth violence initiatives. The Violent Crime Trust Fund is due to expire in fiscal year 2000--my bill extends it to 2002. Without the trust fund, we will fail in the future to replicate and to surpass our past successes in combating crime, including juvenile crime, in the future. We must renew our efforts to save our Nation, our communities and our children from crime and violence. We must begin by ensuring that our children are safe--safe from both the temptation of crime and safe from those who commit crime and horrific acts of violence. We must protect our children through meaningful prevention and intervention programs, a crackdown on drugs and the violence that accompanies them, and we must insure that meaningful, appropriate and swift punishment is imposed on all juvenile offenders. I believe that the bill I introduce today, while not a comprehensive answer to every part of the juvenile crime problem, will go far in addressing one of its key components--prevention. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will respond after everyone votes so I get to cast my 10,000th vote.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am truly appreciative of the comments my friends have made--my old-new friends, my old-old friends, and my close buddies from across the State line. I began to wonder about casting my 10,000th vote on the occasion of the majority leader indicating there would be no more votes for 4 days and the last planes heading west were leaving. I thank my colleagues who put in the Record their comments. I will withhold specific comment until I read them, because God only knows what they said. But let me say that I find it no particular feat to have cast 10,000 votes. If you are around here long enough and still standing, that happens. I hope I have cast some votes that have made this country a little bit better. I am confident there is none that I have cast that have enhanced the standing of America, or the condition of the American people, that weren't bipartisan. I can't think of any that were done that weren't done in a bipartisan manner in the end. I look at Orrin Hatch. Orrin Hatch came here, and is still one of the leading conservative lights on the American political scene, and yet we have worked together for years and years and years. I cannot think that we have ever had a cross word to one another in 25 years. We have had very different views. Paul Sarbanes, who is literally one of the brightest people I have served with--just raw, pure, gray matter, raw horsepower--to have him say the things that he said about me in reference to our personal friendship is meaningful, particularly since my wife, who works as a professor in Delaware and seldom is in Washington, is sitting in the galleries listening to this, and my No. 2 son, who is now living in Washington, heard it as well. I am sure they know better. But my mother probably believes everything Paul said, because I met Paul's mother as well. I think, if I can make one, in a sense, political observation, the first vote I cast in January of 1972 was a vote I was told--I didn't remember this--on an Assistant Secretary, I believe, the No. 2 person at State. I am not positive of that. I remember the day, although I was obviously very junior, when I was sworn in by the Secretary of the Senate, Mr. Valeo, who actually came to me in Wilmington to swear me in, because of unusual circumstances. After he gave me the little certificate that we get when we are sworn in, he said, ``You have arrived to the Senate, to the best of my knowledge, the least senior than any man in history,'' because seniority is based on the previous offices that you have held. It keeps narrowing down to State, size, population, and age ultimately. But when I got here, there were a number of giants in the Senate. We often hear it said today that there are no giants left in the Senate. In truth there are. There are women and men who serve in this body today who are equal to and in some ways surpass the capacity of some of the great people I have had the honor of serving with over the past almost 27 years. So the caliber has not changed. What has changed a little bit--and I am referencing this tonight, because of my colleagues who are here on the floor--what has changed since then is the impression that we don't like each other very much, that we don't get along with one another very well, that we are nakedly partisan in all of our undertakings. I wish the public could see that there is still a degree of camaraderie here, a degree of mutual respect that crosses that sometimes ``chasm'' called the ``center aisle,'' what makes this body more unique than any other legislative body at least in modern history. I will not challenge Senator Byrd about whether it equals or surpasses the Roman Senate, but I am confident that it does surpass any other legislative body in modern history. I would just conclude by saying the lubricant that allows that to happen is genuine and personal respect that most of us have for one another. I think it is the defining feature of this institution. I remember now meeting Senator Enzi back in 1972--or 1973, I guess it was--when I received that award. But I have not gotten--because we don't serve on committees together--to know him personally as well as I know my two colleagues who remain. Notwithstanding the wonderful words they have both uttered relating to me, the genuine testimony I take from what they have done is that they are here. It is 9 o'clock at night. There are no votes. The Senator from Maryland has a long drive home, because, he, like me, commutes every day to Baltimore, MD. And he drives. My friend from Utah probably missed a plane to go back to Utah this weekend. I truly, truly appreciate it. Let me yield the floor by saying, Mr. President, that I am asked sometimes what is the best, the most significant perk that exists being a Senator. I always answer that there are two things. Before I became a Senator, as a young man campaigning in the midst of the Vietnam war, and the civil rights crisis, and the assassination of men who I had an incredible regard for in 1968--both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy--I came here thinking that all that had to happen was that we elected women and men who had a greater degree of intellectual capacity, had a better education and were smarter. I got here and I was truly dumbfounded--truly dumbfounded--by how many people who serve in this body who are so incredibly bright, who are so significantly schooled in the areas in which they speak. I arrived and I found out that Jack Javits could tell you as much about modern art as he could about foreign policy. There was Mike Mansfield, who could tell you as much about Chinese history as he could about the politics in Montana. Paul Sarbanes can tell you as much about the international monetary system, about the history of the Balkans, about the banking system, as he can tell you about his hometown baseball team and the local politics of Baltimore. Orrin Hatch is a man who used to be a card-carrying union guy from Pittsburgh, who goes out as a boxer, goes out to his now home State of Utah, and gets elected after having a career as an incredible trial lawyer. I mean it is amazing--the diversity here. I will not mention the judge's name. But I was having lunch with a Justice once in my capacity as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The issue was about pay raises for judges. This particular Justice said publicly--this Justice accidentally said it. He didn't intend to be quoted--that he could understand why the public wouldn't want Congresspersons and Senators to get a raise but judges were different, they were academically qualified. I know the Senator from Utah knows who I am talking about. To this particular, very competent Justice--I was in his office--I said, ``May I close your door, Mr. Justice?'' I said, ``Mr. Justice, I have sat in the Judiciary Committee for years. I have had the opportunity as either ranking member or chairman for, I think, a 14- year period to look at the background of every single person who has come on the bench.'' At that time it was 10 or 12 years. I said, ``I am willing to make you a bet. I will take the intellectual potential of the Senate''--in the House I didn't know as well--``and match it against the entire judiciary.'' They are bright, they are competent. If I am not mistaken in time, we had, like Senator Sarbanes, seven Rhodes scholars in the Senate. We had a half a dozen Marshall scholars--not me. I don't qualify on that account. We have men and women in here whose academic distinction exceeds that of 99 percent of the people-- all the jobs anywhere in America, corporate, labor, business, academia. The greatest perk I have had as a Senator was access to people with serious, serious minds and a serious sense of purpose, and who cared about something. If I dropped dead tomorrow, I would be thankful to the people of Delaware, for the individuals they have allowed me to be exposed to, to argue with, to fight with, to debate with, to agree with Members. I will be thankful to them for the gift they gave me in having that access. I don't believe there is any other place in the Nation I could have gotten that kind of exposure. The second thing I found that has been the greatest gift in those 10,000 votes during that period is that this is the ultimate graduate education. If you take this job serious, as all my colleagues do on this floor, you learn one thing: You don't get a driver, you don't get a house, you don't get a bodyguard, nor should we, but what you do get is the ability to pick up the phone and call anybody in the world and they will take your call. You can call Nobel laureates, you can call experts in any field, and if you want to learn, this is the ultimate seminar if you take it seriously. There is no other place I can think of that a person can do that. Mr. President, I have a lot more to learn. And of those 10,000 votes, I am sure there are many that were not as enlightened as I thought they were at the time I cast them. Hopefully, I have learned. Hopefully, I will get a chance to learn more than I know now. If you want to do it, and if you take it seriously and if you reach out across that chasm, you reach out across that aisle, believe it or not, there is somebody on the other side willing to talk to you, willing to exchange ideas with you. If you work hard enough, you actually may do a little bit-- just a little bit--to change the state of affairs in this great country. That is all we can do here. I have no illusions about the significance of the Senate in terms of determining national policy, but within the context and the role the Senate plays, we get to play little parts. The only time it works is when we cross that chasm. That is the only time it works. I thank my colleagues. They are honorable men. They are men of achievement. I think the public gets a pretty good buy for their investment in the men that are sitting here on the floor today and the women and men who cast all the votes today; they are competent. It has been a pleasure working with them. I hope I get to cast a few more votes. I hope I get to convince Orrin Hatch and Senator Enzi to cast more votes my way. The truth of the matter is, as I said, nothing gets done unless you reach across that aisle. I appreciate the fact there has always been somebody on this side to talk to me. I thank all my colleagues. For those who made other statements, I will respond in the Record and not take the time of my colleagues. The Baltimore-Washington tunnel is probably clear by now. We can both head north. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if it is appropriate, may I respond briefly?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to remind the Senate and the American Public that this is Arson Awareness Week. It is that time once a year that we stop to assess how arson affects our lives. Each year hundreds of Americans die because of the arsonist's match. Mr. President, I am outraged at this and the countless firefighters who are killed every year attempting to extinguish intentionally set fires. Arsonists should be swiftly brought to justice, especially when firefighters lives are put on the line. When a fire is intentionally set in the center of a retail city district the damaged property becomes blight on the entire community. Like cancer, arson degrades the whole area. Jobs are lost, tax bases are depleted and, most importantly, people are often killed. As a member of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, I have long been associated with the war against arson. I have consistently supported stricter penalties for convicted arsonists. I have supported the efforts of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms that assist our fine state and local fire investigators. I have also supported the United States Fire Administration which provides valuable research grants and public education efforts geared toward controlling arson. Mr. President I remind all Americans that arson is still a serious problem, one we must continually work together to solve.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Specter today in introducing legislation that will create a fund to finance the building and renovation of stadiums and ballparks for major league baseball and professional football sports leagues across America. For too long, baseball and football teams have threatened to move if state and local governments do not ante up the money to renovate or build new, publicly financed stadiums for the home teams. The scene is, by now, a familiar one: multi-millionaire team owners demand new, taxpayer-funded state-of-the-art stadiums, so that they and their players can make even more money for themselves--at taxpayer expense, of course. The taxpayers are impaled on the horns of a dilemma: either pony up or risk losing the team. This bill will strike an equitable arrangement between teams and local governments to share the costs of stadium renovation and construction--ensuring that professional sports teams put up their fair share. The way the bill would accomplish this is straightforward. Team owners owe much of their wealth to revenue from network telecasts of their games, a boon they receive courtesy of the antitrust exemption granted by us--the Congress. The antitrust exemption contained in the Sports Broadcasting Act permits teams to pool their television rights, yielding annual revenues of $2.2 billion to the National Football League and $425 million to Major League Baseball. This legislation would require, as a condition for retaining this lucrative antitrust exemption, that Major League Baseball and the National Football League place into a trust fund 10 percent of the revenues the Leagues receive from network telecasts. Each sport's trust fund, in turn, would be used to finance up to one half the cost of constructing a new stadium or park, or renovating an older one, for any of the teams seeking such financing--so long as the local government has agreed to provide one dollar for every two furnished by the trust fund. In other words, if a pro team in Wilmington wanted to build a $200 million stadium, it could obtain $100 million from the trust fund, a government entity in Delaware would have to kick in $50 million, and the remaining money would have to come from the team owner or some other source. In addition to allowing the Leagues to retain their current antitrust exemption, the bill would expand the exemption to give the Leagues the authority to prevent member clubs from moving their franchises. To my mind, this bill strikes just the right balance. Let us not saddle cities and taxpayers with the exorbitant--sometimes mind- boggling--costs of building new stadiums while the teams and their owners sit back and wait for the highest bidder. If the Leagues want to keep their antitrust exemption, the major source of their millions, they should be willing to do their fair share. This legislation's condition that in exchange for the exemption, the teams set aside 10 percent of their broadcast revenues, is a reasonable and much needed measure to restore some balance to a negotiating process that is out- of-whack.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it is with utmost respect and admiration that I rise today to acknowledge the contributions of a woman who, at the age of 99, has never tired of giving her all to her country and to the men and women of the Mill Creek Fire Company--Elma F. Brittingham of Marshallton, Delaware, affectionately known to everyone as ``Mom.'' On May 8, 1999, Mill Creek will honor her at its 72nd Annual Dinner for 72 years of unmatched volunteer service to the Mill Creek Fire Company. Yes, Elma is a charter member of the Mill Creek Fire Company and she remains an institution in the Fire Hall. This well-deserved recognition is much less than I or anyone in Delaware could ever do to capture just how significant Elma's life has been to everyone with whom she has come in contact. Her legacy is etched in the memory of every fire service professional and volunteer in our State and her life continues to be an inspiration to all of us. While many remember Elma for her 50 years of preparing turkey dinners for the Annual Volunteer Fire Conference, or her playing Yen Man in the company minstrel show, she is most remembered for her work on the front-line, fighting fires under the most dangerous circumstances. The one she most vividly remembers was during World War II when she helped put out a fire at an old prison farm on Duncan Road in Wilmington during a thunder and lightning storm. With this same energy and vigor, Elma is as spirited today, five decades later, as she was more than a half-century ago. I know that there may be someone like Elma Brittingham in other States, but none can be more important to a community than this totally committed, selfless woman that I honor today. She is what we, as Americans, should aspire to be--a loyal public servant, an example of excellence and achievement in everything she has committed to accomplishing, and a credit to her community and to her country. I am deeply privileged to know this woman and proud to call her a heroic Delawarean and an outstanding American.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. The House was trying to stop an action. The Senator from Arizona and I are trying to start an action. We are not asking for the President's permission. We are trying to encourage the President to use all the persuasion available to him with our NATO allies to let him, the President, know and our NATO allies know----

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BIDEN. It is true, Senator Daschle does agree with this. I thank the leader for this accommodation. There are a number of people who do wish to speak. I think it is wise not to cut them off. I thank you and the Democratic leader.