Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join today with Senator Grassley and Senator Torricelli, along with our colleague from the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sessions, to introduce legislation to reform our nation's bankruptcy laws. In a time of rising incomes, historic levels of job creation, and strong economic growth, America has seen an unexpected rise in the number of personal bankruptcies. Last year, 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy, and we expect that number to grow again this year, as it has for the last 4 years. This means more people are filing for bankruptcy now than during the worst years of job losses in the 1980's. Bankruptcy laws give Americans a very special kind of protection from the worst form of financial distress. As a nation of immigrants, our country is the very embodiment of the idea of a fresh start. Bankruptcy protection was considered so important that it was among the specific powers granted to Congress in our Constitution. That is why we provide in law that no one should have to shoulder an unsustainable burden of debt, a burden that can hurt us all by threatening the weakest links in our society. But at the same time, Mr. President, our nation is founded on the idea of personal responsibility, the only foundation that can sustain and protect our freedom. Until recently, bankruptcy was considered a stain on one's personal reputation, an admission of failure, something to be avoided at all costs. While we may sympathize with the special circumstances that can throw an individual into unexpected hardship, Americans expect that those who have the resources must meet their financial obligations. But the explosion in the number of personal bankruptcies, in a time of economic prosperity, raises serious questions. Mr. President, every time one of us fails to pay a legitimate debt, the rest of us pay a little more, because of the higher interest rates lenders must charge to cover their loses. When the circumstances are unavoidable, and when it is clear that a fresh start is deserved, bankruptcy must be there for those who need it. But when those who have the ability to pay use the bankruptcy system to walk away from their debts, something is wrong. It is now clear to most of us that our bankruptcy system--and the laws that guide it--are in serious need of reform. Last year, in the Senate, we passed a bipartisan bill by the nearly unanimous vote of 97 to 1 to fix the problems in our bankruptcy laws. While that proposal did not become law, we reached agreement that bankruptcy reform--done the right way--is something we all can support. Working closely with his new ranking member, Senator Torricelli, Senator Grassley has once again shown us the leadership on this issue that he provided last year. I believe that we have built a foundation in this bill for a reasonable approach, one that restores some of the balance that has been lost in recent years. To that end, this legislation assures that those who have the ability to pay will continue to meet their obligations, and that bankruptcy is not seen as a financial planning device, but the last resort for the most extraordinary circumstances. At the same time, again with the help of Senator Torricelli we have gone a long way toward addressing the honest concerns that many of our colleagues have expressed about the needs of those, like single parents and those who receive child support, who deserve greater protection. This is a tough balance to strike, and I will continue to work with Senator Grassley, Senator Torricellie, and Senator Sessions, and with our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, to listen to the concerns of other Senators, to achieve the kind of consensus that we found here in the Senate last year.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, proponents of S. 257, the bill we are debating now, suggest that this bill is vital to our country's defense. The very distinguished Senator from Tennessee just got up and made his case, and as an illustration he pointed to the technology that the Chinese Government, apparently through espionage, has acquired. I want to make it clear for the record, I am not confirming anything at this point. But assume that what was said is accurate--and I am not disputing it either. One of the two things the Senator pointed out, as things we should be worried about, is that they may have acquired the capability of MIRVing missiles. For the public, that means they can put more than one nuclear bomb on the nose of a missile, an intercontinental ballistic missile. And they may have gained the capacity to independently target those warheads. Put another way, we know what the Russians can do. The Russians have SS-18s and other intercontinental missiles, each with any of 3, 7, 10-- depending on the missile--nuclear bombs with a combined capacity that exceeds Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They could launch a missile, and within 30 minutes they could have one of those warheads, one of those nuclear weapons, landing in Wilmington, DE, a small town, in relative terms, in my State, taking out all of the Delaware Valley and its 10 million people, and the same missile could send one warhead to Washington, DC, one to Roanoke, VA, et cetera--all with one missile. That is a very, very, very awesome capacity. We are worried that the Chinese may have acquired some of that technology. It is also suggested that the Chinese may have acquired the capacity to target with more accuracy. An accurate missile can breach the overpressure limit of certain missile silos--the pounds per square inch they could sustain from a blast and still be able to launch--so it became important during the time of the arms buildup between the Soviet Union and the United States what the hard kill capacity was. That is, could you fire a missile that would not only kill all the people in all the Delaware Valley, but, assuming there were silos that had Minuteman rockets in those silos with nuclear weapons, could also knock out that missile itself? That is what they called the hard kill. Accuracy became a big deal because you could take out the other guy's missiles, and not just his cities. We had the capacity to drop these missiles 12,000 or 13,000 miles away within 30 minutes on pinpointed areas the size of a soccer field in the Soviet Union then, in Russia now. We are worried the Chinese may have acquired that capacity. I think my friend from Tennessee is absolutely correct to be worried about that; so am I. What are we doing here today? We are debating what I believe to be a political document, not a substantive piece of legislation that adds anything to the concept of what our strategic doctrine should be. We are saying that Taepo Dong missiles in the next 1 to 5 years--the Koreans may be able to get up to five of them--may be able to hit the United States, assuming the regime in North Korea lasts that long or outlives the research that would be required to get this done. We are talking about building a thin nuclear defense system to counter that immediate threat and future threats from Iran, Iraq, and other rogue states, and we are talking about it in almost total disregard of what impact it will have upon the ABM Treaty. People say, ``What is the ABM Treaty?'' The ABM Treaty, as Senator Dorgan discussed, is the basis upon which we have gone from somewhere on the order of 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear warheads--and the capacity that my friend from Tennessee is worried about the Chinese acquiring-- down to 12,000 total, roughly, or 13,000 maybe, roughly evenly divided between the United States and Russia. Guess what? George Bush came along and said the single most destabilizing thing of all--in what I call ``nuclear theology''--are these ``MIRVed'' missiles, those missiles with up to 10 nuclear bombs on their tip, able to be targeted independently, once they separate, able to go in ten different directions with significant accuracy. Why are they destabilizing? They are destabilizing because of the nuclear scenarios about who strikes first and whether you can strike back. Anybody who faces an enemy that has this capacity has to target those missiles, because they are the single most dangerous thing out there. That means that in a crisis, if a missile were accidentally launched, or we thought one was launched, what we would have to do is go and strike those missiles first. What would the Russians now have to do? They would have to launch on warning. Knowing that their MIRVed missiles were logical targets, they would adopt the use-it-or-lose-it philosophy. It is the only rational decision a nuclear planner could make. So George Bush figured out these are incredibly destabilizing weapons. They are vulnerable to a first attack by sophisticated missiles and they are awesome--awesome, as the kids say--in their destructive capacity. So what do you do? As long as they are around, it means they must be on a hair trigger. No country who possesses them can wait for them to be struck before they fire them. Everybody can understand that. The gallery is nodding; they all get it. They figured it out. When it is explained in simple terms, everybody understands it. That is called crisis instability. What did we do? George Bush came along and said these are bad things to have hanging around, so we negotiated this treaty called the START II treaty where, in an incredible bit of negotiation on the part of the Republican administration, they convinced the Russians they should do away with these MIRVed missiles--do away with them. That means we would achieve crisis stability; it adds up to stability. What is left on both sides are single-warhead missiles that don't have to be launched on warning, because they are less tempting targets in a first strike; therefore, you pull back from the hair trigger. So if, God forbid, there is a mistake, it doesn't mean Armageddon is guaranteed. That is a sound policy. There is only one little trick. Russia has a quasidemocracy--my term, ``quasi'' democracy. They have learned the perils and joys of living with a parliament, a congress, a legislative body, called the Duma. The Duma has not ratified this agreement yet. Why hasn't the Duma ratified the agreement? The Duma has not ratified the agreement for a lot of reasons. Some Nationalists think it is a bad idea; some old apparatchik Communists think it is a terrible idea; some of the democrats there don't quite know what to do as the next step. Here is what happens: Unfortunately for the Russians, the bulk of their nuclear arsenal is in these MIRVed, silo-based weapons, these intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. The bulk of ours are on submarines (which are less vulnerable to a first strike), in single-warhead missiles called Minuteman missiles, or on B-1 bombers and B-52 bombers. The Russians, if they go forward with the deal to destroy their silo- based MIRVed missiles, at the end of the day will have less destructive capacity in their arsenal than we will. Now, they don't have to keep it as less, because they are allowed to build single-warhead missiles so we would each end up with the same number of warheads. But guess what? They are bankrupt. They don't have any money. They hardly have the money they need to destroy the missiles they have agreed to destroy. That is why we have the Nunn-Lugar program, spending millions of dollars a year to send American technicians over to Russia to help dismantle, destroy, break up, and crush strategic weapons. Think about that. If I had stood on the floor 20 years ago and said that, my colleagues would have had a little white jacket ready for me. They would have hauled me off to the nearest insane asylum, I having lost my credibility completely by suggesting that the Russians would ever let Americans come over and destroy their nuclear weapons. The reason they made that agreement is that they realized it is in their long-term interests, and they had no money to do it. If they don't have money to do that, they also don't have money to build these new weapons that only have one bomb on the end. It costs a lot of money to do that. So if they can't do that and they keep the agreement called START II, they end up at the end of the day with fewer nuclear bombs than we have--something we would never do. We would never allow us not to have parity with the Russians. That is their dilemma right now. That is why the administration is arguing about a thing called START III. At Helsinki, President Clinton said not only should we do START II, we could jump and do START III and take the total number of nuclear warheads each of us has to between 2,000 and 2,500, from 6,000 to 6,500 which is in the first stage of the reduction. Obviously, the Russians are very interested in being able to go right to START III. They don't want to spend a whole lot of time where we have more bombs than they have, and they don't have the money to build many new missiles. Although they are allowed to build more missiles, they don't have the money to do it. What are we debating? We are here debating as if it were a serious part of our nuclear strategy whether or not we will deploy some time in the future a system that has not yet been developed, that if it is developed may be able to take out what might end up being up to five weapons that might be able to get to the continental United States, from a government that might be in place 5 years from now. So, what to worry about, right? No problem, it is not going to stop the Russian missiles, so they are not going to get worried about this. Let's put this in reverse. Let's assume we were about to ratify a START II that was going to put us at having fewer nuclear bombs than the Russians, and we heard that the Russian Government was about to erect a nuclear shield--they called it a ``thin'' shield--to intercept missiles that were going to come from Iran. Now, I am sure not a single Member on this floor would say the following: You know, what those Russians are really doing is erecting something that is going to stop our missiles from being able to strike. What have they done to us? They have convinced our administration to destroy missiles that we have that can penetrate their territory now; they convinced them to do that. We are going to end up with fewer missiles than them, and they are going ahead at the same time and building this nuclear shield. And you actually have some people in the Duma saying, ``The ABM Treaty doesn't mean anything to me.'' What do you think would happen with my right-wing friends, my left- wing friends, my middle friends, all my friends? There would be a mild frenzy. I can hear the Republican Party now; they would be talking about the selling out of America, and they would have good reason to think about that. We would have Democrats joining, and I can hear Pat Buchanan now--he could make a whole campaign out of that. Well, what do you think is going on in Russia right now with the Nationalists and the old Communists? Are they listening to our debate about the ABM Treaty, which some people say doesn't apply anymore? That is not what the sponsor of the amendment is saying, to the best of my knowledge, but others are. And we say to them that they should not worry. Why worry? We are only building this tiny, thin shield. Our shield isn't designed to affect them. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, the sponsor of this bill would not even accept an amendment that would say, by the way, if whatever we come up with would violate the ABM Treaty, we will negotiate a change with the Russians first. It seems like a simple proposition, doesn't it? Now, where does this leave us? I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that at best, it leaves us with essentially a congressional resolution of no meaning, of no consequence, changing nothing that the administration has said about seeking the ability to have a thin missile defense system, for it doesn't appropriate money; it says this is subject--which is obvious--to the yearly appropriations bill. It doesn't make any guarantees; it doesn't say anything of consequence. In one sense, it is a meaningless resolution. But in another sense, because we have debated it so vigorously, it is invested with a meaning beyond its substance. What I worry about now is that it will be taken as viewing our national strategy on nuclear weapons as no longer envisioning as the centerpiece of that strategy the ABM Treaty--the very treaty that allows us to keep reducing the number of strategic weapons on each side. Let me make one more point. You may say, ``Well, Biden, what does the ABM Treaty have to do with the START agreement and reducing these nuclear weapons?'' Well, there are two kinds of truisms in this nuclear theology. One is, if you are incapable of building a missile shield, and you think the other side might build one, then there is only one thing you can do: build more missiles to overwhelm the defense system. That is axiomatic, it is cheaper, it is consistent with old-line policy, and it is doable. At a minimum, you would say, don't destroy the number of weapons you have. Look at it this way. If you think the other team is about to put up this missile shield--thin, thick or medium--and you now have 6,500 weapons that can reach their territory, you know, as a matter of course, that if you reduce that number to 2,500 or 2,000, you have a two-thirds fewer opportunities to penetrate that shield. So why would you do that? Why would you do that? I realize my friend from Louisiana is about to offer an amendment that I hope will at least be read as having the impact of saying, hey, look, arms reduction is still important to us--translated to mean the ABM Treaty still makes a difference. But let's understand that, at best, this bill is hortatory. At worst, it is a real, real bad idea because, to the extent that the threat is real--and there is a potential threat from Korea--to the extent that it is real, it pales, pales, pales in comparison to the threat that remains in Russia--a country that is, at its best, to be characterized now as struggling to keep its head above water; at worst, it is losing the battle of democratization. Mr. President, the threat of a missile attack on the United States is real and disturbing, but the true test is not how angry we get, but how rationally we deal with the threats to our national interests. A rational development and deployment of a limited nuclear missile defense does not require us to ignore our ABM Treaty obligations. Only fear and politics drive missile defense adherents to take such a risk in the bill before us. My generation understands both that fear and the dream of a ballistic missile defense. Anyone who has ducked under his desk in grade school in an air raid drill knows the collective sense of vulnerability and futility caused by the thought of a nuclear holocaust. We have spent well over $100 billion in our effort to ease that sense of helplessness through civil defense or missile defense. But the role of this Senate, over two centuries, has been to resist those savage fears and passionate dreams that would otherwise take us down a dangerous path. America needs a balanced strategy to meet the rogue state missile threat, while also preserving the ABM Treaty, continuing the START process, and using nonproliferation assistance to combat loose nukes in Russia and, at the same time, advancing entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. That is what I believe to be a sound and balanced strategy, and that is what I hope Senator Kerry and Senator Levin and I will propose in a thing called the ``National Security Policy Act of 1999.'' I respectfully suggest that it is a far cry from the ``bumper sticker'' bill that is currently before us. If reason can overcome fear, perhaps reason can also overcome politics. If the Republicans have the courage and foresight to pursue their goal of a limited national missile defense, while preserving arms control and strategic stability, I urge them to get to the business of talking about that. But right now, what is left uncertain is not whether or not we should have a limited nuclear defense--we should and could if it is capable of being done--but it can and must be done only in the context of the ABM Treaty, START II and START III, as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. That constitutes a national strategic policy. Mr. President, I have departed from my text in order to convey the depth of my concern over this bill. Allow me now to restate those concerns in a more precise manner. When I said that this was nothing more than an exercise in political theater, I may have sounded like the Police Commissioner in the film ``Casablanca.'' I am ``shocked . . . shocked'' to discover politics in the U.S. Senate. But we ought to make one thing clear: the issue at stake is not--is not--whether to deploy a national missile defense. Recent Administration actions make clear that it will deploy a missile defense system if that should be in the national interest. The real issue here is whether we will be pragmatic or ideological about it. The pragmatic solution considers the cost of a missile defense; this ideological bill ignores it. Serious technical challenges remain in developing a national missile defense system. But that is not for a lack of trying. In fact, we have committed significant resources to the effort. Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre testified last October that the National Missile Defense program ``is as close as we can get in the Department of Defense to a Manhattan Project.'' The Clinton administration has submitted plans to spend approximately $30 billion in additional funds between 1999 and 2005 for missile defense development and deployment. Of that, roughly $11 billion is earmarked for deployment of a ``thin'' National Missile Defense with 20 interceptors. The Defense Department estimated last summer that an expanded 100-interceptor system at a single site would cost upwards of $15 billion to deploy. That $11-15 billion may very well provide us with a deployed system that is effective against rudimentary countermeasures. It is not at all clear, however, that it will buy a system that is capable against truly advanced countermeasures, such as are claimed for Russia's new SS-27 missile or even other current Russian or Chinese missiles. Now, before my colleagues remind me that our missile defense system is not aimed at Russia, I would refer them to the Rumsfeld Report. That report warns that technology transfer is the key way that potential antagonists might acquire missile capabilities against the United States. The danger is that we will spend billions of dollars deploying a missile defense system that may work against SCUD-like technology, but will not work even five or ten years down the road, against the potential threat from rogue states who have bought or developed more sophisticated missile technology. It may be the case that we will have to spend those $11-15 billion dollars on missile defense deployment. It seems to me, however, that a much smaller sum might suffice to remove much of the threat that concerns us here. If we could move from START to START Two and START Three, a portion of that $11-15 billion could be spent on dismantling Russian nuclear weapons and securing its large quantity of fissile material. This would make a real, immediate, and lasting contribution to our security. Another portion of those funds could be used to curb North Korea's efforts to develop intercontinental missiles or weapons of mass destruction. It is clear that we need to inject new life into the 1994 Agreed Framework if we are to curtail North Korea's nuclear program. It is also clear that we need to take proactive steps to halt North Korea's long-range missile capability. To be taken seriously, any U.S. initiative toward North Korea must combine carrots and sticks. We must bolster our deterrent posture to demonstrate to the North Koreans the penalties they face if they threaten United States security. Improving our theater defenses, increasing our capability for pre-emptive strikes if we should face imminent attack, interdicting North Korean missile shipments abroad, and increasing our security cooperation with other regional actors are all possible sticks we can wield. At the same time, our policy should also provide adequate incentives to persuade the North Korean elite that their best choice for survival is the path of civil international behavior. These incentives could include our joining Japan and South Korea in funding two light-water reactors in exchange for our possession of the spent fuel in North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor, sanctions relief in return for a verifiable end to North Korea's missile programs, and security assurances that we have no intention of forcing a change in North Korea's political system. While these initiatives would cost money, together they could be funded for far less than the $11-15 billion we plan to spend for missile defense deployment. Thus, an article in Sunday's Washington Post noted that North Korea has already offered to cease exporting its missile technology in return for only one billion dollars. We rejected that proposal, and I think we can get that deal for a lower price. But we should remember our experience in negotiating access to that suspect underground site in North Korea. In this time of famine, North Korea would settle for food aid instead of cash. And a billion dollars spent on food aid goes to American farmers, rather than to North Korean weapons. I don't know how much it would cost to truly end North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, but we might consider putting our money where our mouth is. While an embryonic missile defense program might increase our sense of security, halting the North Korean's missile and nuclear programs would provide real benefit to our national security. The pragmatic solution considers whether the first ``technologically possible'' national missile defense will be reliable and effective, especially in light of warnings by the head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Office that national missile defense is a ``high risk'' program. This ideological bill commits us to spend at least 5 million dollars per day to build and deploy that first system, even if it has only a mediocre test record. Most importantly, the pragmatic solution considers ballistic missile defense in the context of the U.S.-Russian strategic relationship. Perhaps we will need to deploy a national missile defense. But this ideological bill would foolishly sacrifice arms control, non- proliferation and strategic stability with Russia in order to field an imperfect missile defense. And the fact is, we don't have to make that sacrifice in order to address the ballistic missile threat. But we do have to reject simplistic answers to complex issues. The basic problem with this bill is not that it advocates a national missile defense, but that it is so narrowly ideological about it. What a shame, that we spend our time debating right-wing litmus tests. A bill that looked more broadly at challenges to our national security would be much more worthy of our attention. To underscore that point, I intend to introduce in the coming days the ``National Security Policy Act of 1999.'' Working with me on that bill are Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, who is Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Senator Levin of Michigan, who is Ranking Member on the Armed Services Committee. We earnestly hope that our bill will provoke a much more serious debate than is possible on the one-sentence bill before us. We invite our Republican colleagues to join with us in forging a comprehensive, truly bipartisan consensus on critical national security issues. One such issue is the future of deterrence. Is deterrence so weak that we must deploy a national missile defense to combat third-rate powers like North Korea, Iran and Iraq? If so, then I believe we must reinforce deterrence. Deterrence is--and will remain--the bedrock of U.S. nuclear strategy. Rogue states must never be allowed to forget that utter annihilation will be their fate if they should attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction. We should emphasize that basic fact. What about the risk of ICBM's in the hands of a leader too crazy to be deterred? If that should happen, we should make it clear that the United States will destroy--pre-emptively--any ICBM's that such a leader may target at us. I intend that our bill will do that, building on our basic deterrence policy. What is it about nuclear deterrence that makes it so hard for some people to support that strategy? Nuclear deterrence between the United States and the Soviets, and now between the United States and Russia, is based upon what is sometimes called ``Mutually Assured Destruction'' or a ``balance of terror.'' Each country maintains the capability to destroy the other, even if the other side strikes first. Both the right wing and the left wing of American politics rebel against this. They abhor leaving our very fates to U.S. and Russian political leaders and military personnel. They also hear the warning of some religious and ethical leaders that no nuclear war can ever be a ``just war'' in moral terms. But the ``balance of terror'' remains in place, fully half a century after the Soviet Union joined the United States as a nuclear power. And those of us in the center of the political spectrum continue to support it. Why is that? To put it simply: ``because it works.'' Yet one of the implicit purposes of this bill is to substitute our policy of deterrence with one of defense. Instead of deterring an attack on our territory we would defend against such an attack with missile defenses. Some people believe we must make this transition from deterrence to defense--in this case using a National Missile Defense--because the leaders of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq cannot be deterred by the same means we have used to deter Russia and China. I disagree. These countries' leaders take tactical risks, but none has been willing to risk complete annihilation. Let's consider the record of deterrence against extremist leaders. In the 1950's, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was deterred from a conventional invasion of Western Europe. But why? Why did the Soviets not crush the Berlin Airlift? Because Stalin--that great butcher of souls--feared a nuclear war. Why did the Soviet Union pull back from confrontation in Berlin in 1961 and Cuba in 1962? Because Nikita Khrushchev--that foolish risk- taker who was later deposed by his nervous cohorts--still feared nuclear war. Why has China not invaded Taiwan? Because every Chinese Communist leader--from the consummate butcher Mao to the would-be capitalist dictators of today--has feared nuclear war. More recently, Saddam Hussein was deterred from using chemical or biological weapons during the Gulf War, despite his threats to do so, by the United State's promise that such an attack would meet with a devastating U.S. response. The record demonstrates that extremist states are deterred when we credibly threaten to retaliate, and when our threatened retaliation imperils their vital interests. That is what has deterred the Iraqis, the Soviets, and the Chinese from using weapons of mass destruction against U.S. interests in the past. That is what has brought the Serbs to the bargaining table, both in the Bosnian and Kosovo crises. That is what has deterred the Syrians from directly attacking Israel. Yet our concern today is over the North Korean threat. At some point in the near future, the North Koreans may achieve a limited ability to strike U.S. territory. We must ask ourselves whether the logic of deterrence--a logic that has worked in so many other instances--will work against the North Koreans. Again, lets consider the record. For years, North Korea has had the ability to rain short-range missiles on all of South Korea and to kill untold thousands within range of North Korean artillery. Yet the South Korean and U.S. militaries have kept the peace by threatening punishing retaliation should the North Koreans attack. We have kept the peace by threatening to destroy the very heart of the North Korean regime--its military-- which is crucial to its control over its population. Our military will continue to have that retaliatory capability in the North Korean theater of operations--whether we have a national missile defense or not. We maintain approximately 37,000 troops on the ground in Korea, including the 8th Army and 7th Air Force, to say nothing of the 47,000 American troops in Japan or the portions of the 7th Fleet deployed in the region. Moreover, the North Koreans must know that our early warning radars could pinpoint the source of any missile attack on the United States and that such an attack would bring a devastating response. Maintaining U.S. retaliatory forces, and demonstrating our willingness to use them when necessary, are the keys that have kept the peace. There is every prospect that the credible threat of retaliation will continue to deter extremist states in the future. So let us all think carefully--and rationally--before letting our fears of destruction move us away from a policy that has avoided destruction so well and for so long. Traditional deterrence may unnerve us because it depends upon rational leaders and weapons control systems. But the alternative-- missile defense--depends in turn upon the perfection of complex systems and their human components. Think of the great computer-assisted systems of our time: the Internal Revenue Service, the air traffic control system, credit bureaus, or the National Weather Service. Then ask yourselves whether missile defense will really make you safe--especially if the price of it is the end of the START process and, therefore, continued Russian reliance upon MIRVed ICBM's. Whatever missiles a rogue state might build, however, the one missile threat to our very existence is still from Russia. A rogue state might deploy a few tens of nuclear warheads; Russia has thousands. And what is especially appalling is this bill's cavalier treatment of the U.S.- Russia relationship. As we debate S. 257, I have to ask myself: Why is the other side so determined to pass this bill, rather than a more serious piece of legislation? The sad truth is that the real goal of many ballistic missile defense adherents is to do away with the ABM Treaty. Why would they want to do that? Because they know that the ``thin'' missile defense proposed in this bill is at best a strictly limited defense. It may work against a handful of incoming missiles, but not against an attack of any serious magnitude. To achieve a defense against a serious ballistic missile attack with nuclear weapons, we would probably need multiple radar sites--perhaps using ship-borne radars--and surely more interceptor sites. (The Heritage Foundation proposes putting the interceptors on ships, as well.) To stop a serious missile attack using chemical or biological warheads, we might well need a boost-phase intercept system, either ship-borne or space-based. That is because the chemical or biological agents could be carried in scores of bomblets dispersed shortly after boost-phase shut-off. The national missile defense systems currently under development would be nearly useless against such bomblets. So missile defense is rather like Lay's Potato Chips: it's hard to eat just one. For the real ballistic missile defense adherents, even ``Star Wars'' is therefore not dead. But the ABM Treaty bars both ship- borne and space-based ABM systems. Still, the dream persists: if only this bill were passed, if only the ABM Treaty were killed, then ``Brilliant Pebbles'' or some other system could be pulled out of the drawer, dusted off, and contracted out to every congressional district to keep the money coming. Many missile defense adherents are quite open about their determination to kill the ABM Treaty, and frustrated because Congress lacks the Constitutional authority to do that. Some fall back on strained legal theories to argue that the break-up of the Soviet Union left the ABM Treaty null and void--while hoping that nobody will apply that reasoning to other U.S.-Soviet treaties. At other times, missile defense adherents press to deploy a ballistic missile defense regardless of whether this requires violation or abrogation of the ABM Treaty. That is what this bill would do. If we enact S. 257 and make it U.S. policy to deploy an ABM system without addressing Russian concerns and U.S. treaty obligations, then Russia will almost certainly use its thousands of ICBM warheads to maintain its nuclear deterrence posture. That would end strategic arms control. It would also sacrifice our long-standing goal--ever since the Reagan Administration--of removing the greatest threat to strategic stability: land-based, MIRVed ICBM's. MIRVed ICBM's--with Multiple, Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicles--are the cheapest way for Russia to overwhelm a missile defense. But they also put nuclear Armageddon just a hair-trigger away, because a missile with 3, or 7, or 10 warheads is a truly tempting target for a first strike by the other side. In a crisis, a Russia that relies upon MIRVed ICBM's may feel it has to ``use them or lose them.'' That's why President Bush signed START Two to ban those missiles. Today, maintaining the START momentum is a real national security challenge. The Russian Duma has balked at ratifying START Two, largely because Russia cannot afford to replace its MIRVed ICBM's with enough new, single-warhead missiles to maintain the force levels permitted by the treaty. But major force reductions under START Three, to reduce nuclear forces to a level that Russia can hope to maintain, could get the Russian Duma to permit Russia to give up MIRVed ICBMs. Serious legislation would call for lower START Three levels than those proposed at the Helsinki summit in 1997. The bill before us, by contrast, would put the final nail in the coffin of START Two. That is because Russia truly doubts that it can do without MIRVed ICBM's if the United States deploys a national missile defense. Now, U.S. officials are explaining to Russian leaders how a limited missile defense could defend America without threatening Russia or the basic goals of the ABM Treaty. The Administration thinks there is a reasonable chance of bringing Russia around. But that will take time. Our bill will endorse that process of education and negotiation. Passage of S. 257, by contrast, risks torpedoing those important U.S.-Russian talks. This bill will very likely be seen by Russia as a slap in the face. And it's hard to blame them, when the litmus-testers set up a vote just a few days before Russia's Prime Minister is due here for talks with Vice President Gore. If my colleagues want a limited national missile defense without sacrificing the ABM Treaty, we can get that. If, however, their real aim is to kill the ABM Treaty and strategic arms control, then they are making a tragic mistake. S. 257, which ignores our treaty obligations, could force us to abrogate the ABM Treaty. Enactment of this bill would thus practically guarantee that the START process would collapse, leaving us facing MIRVed Russian ICBM's for decades to come. One of the fascinating questions in the missile defense debate is why missile defense adherents are so willing to sacrifice the START process. The answers tell us a lot about isolationist ideology and the politics of paranoia. Isolationists in the Senate--mostly Republicans--have a long history of opposing international obligations. Henry Cabot Lodge opposed the League of Nations after World War I. Republicans opposed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's preparations for World War II, and some continued to accuse him of ``getting us into'' that war for another 20 years, as though America would have been better off accepting a Nazi Europe. And some Republicans opposed the United Nations in the post-World War II world. Conservative Republicans have opposed arms control treaties as well, from the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 to the SALT Treaty of 1972, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974, the START Treaties of 1991 and 1993, and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. Today they oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and call for an end to the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Imagine their frustration, then, with the tendency of Republican Presidents to negotiate and sign arms control treaties. Dwight Eisenhower's pursuit of a test-ban treaty was the first betrayal, even though it was John F. Kennedy who finally signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Richard Nixon was truly a turncoat, to many Republicans. Aside from recognizing Communist China, Nixon signed both the ABM Treaty and the SALT Treaty with the Soviet Union. The Soviets promptly used a loophole in SALT to deploy the MIRVed SS-19 ICBM, which the Senate had thought would be illegal under the treaty. Republican anger was hardly lessened when it came to light that the Soviets had told U.S. officials of their plans, and that the word had not been passed to the Senate. I think that the conservative Republican anger at Henry Kissinger-- which continues to this day--is due to his willingness to pursue arms control with the Soviet Union and better relations with China, even as the United States bombed their ships in Haiphong harbor. Nixon and Kissinger pursued the Vietnam War far beyond the point of diminishing returns, and they supported right-wing regimes from Greece to Chile and Guatemala. But their subtle power politics rejected isolationist ideology, and true-blue conservatives never forgave them. Gerald Ford was hardly better, as he signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. Ronald Reagan could never be seen as a traitor to the right wing. He brought it into the White House and brought Republicans to power in the Senate. He opposed SALT Two and breached the limits of that signed-but- unratified treaty. He also brought back the missile defense issue, with his Strategic Defense Initiative--better known as ``Star Wars,'' as much for its overreaching ambition as for its space-based architecture. Even Ronald Reagan puzzled many right-wingers, however, when he came out against nuclear weapons and proposed sharing Star Wars technology with the Soviets. Puzzlement turned to frustration in the Bush Administration, as some Reagan proposals were actually accepted by the Soviet Union and its successors: especially the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, the START Treaties, and the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Clinton Administration has achieved ratification of START Two and the Chemical Weapons Convention, but perhaps only because former Republican officials worked with Democrats to complete President Bush's legacy. The real political problem with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is that it was a Democratic president who signed it. The truth is that conservative Republicans are still uncomfortable with the whole concept of arms control. They see arms control treaties as either hamstringing the United States or defrauding the world by merely codifying what the two sides would have done unilaterally. Against this background, it is not so surprising that Republicans are willing to sacrifice the START process in order to kill the ABM Treaty. Conservatives were not very pleased to be signing arms control treaties in the first place. To them, the end of the Cold War is a time to rid ourselves of those ``foreign entanglements,'' to use President Washington's famous phrase. As a Democrat, I must admit to being perplexed by some of this behavior. You might expect that conservatives would appreciate the virtues of ``law and order'' in the field of strategic weapons, just as they preach it at home. Certainly professional military officers appreciate the virtue of predictability that enables them to prepare more rationally for any future conflict. As a result, the military nearly always supports ratification of arms control treaties, again to the great frustration of conservative Republicans. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is just the latest example, as every Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since General David Jones from the Reagan Administration supports ratification, while conservative Republicans in the Senate vow to keep that treaty from coming to a vote. Perhaps the real clash here is between ideology and reality. Conservative Republicans idolize self-reliance, both in the individual and in the state. The Great Depression of 60 years ago and the interdependent world economy of today have made rugged individualism an insufficient guideline in economic and social policy. Two world wars and the threat of annihilation posed by weapons of mass destruction have done the same thing in our international relations. The American people understand this and vote consistently against those who would sacrifice national or international consensus for the sake of left-wing or right-wing ideologies. But the dream of unfettered individualism lives on. For some, it is the dream of resuming nuclear weapons tests, even though the price of that would be permitting similar tests by increasing numbers of other countries. For others, it is the dream of fighting the next war in the so-called ``high frontier'' of outer space. And for still others, it is the dream of a shield against enemy missiles--perhaps a U.S. shield against our enemies or, in some versions, a U.S.-Russian shield against the rest of the world. To these dreamers, the bill before us is but a first step. A ``thin'' national missile defense will lead to ``thicker'' defenses. Demise of the ABM Treaty and strategic arms control will merely usher in an age of unfettered nuclear dominion, as the United States builds an eventually impregnable, space-based defense from missiles of all sorts. This is only a dream. But it is a dream that energizes the right wing. And it is a dream that has become a litmus test for Republicans in this body. That is truly a shame. For rational policy must be built on reality, not on dreams. Mr. President, the threat of a missile attack on the United States is real; it is disturbing. But the true test of statecraft is not how angry you get, but how rationally you deal with threats to the national interest. A rational development and deployment of a limited national missile defense does not require us to ignore our ABM Treaty obligations. Only fear and politics drive missile defense adherents to take such a risk in the bill before us. My generation understands both that fear and the dream of a ballistic missile defense. Anyone who has ducked under his desk in a school ``air raid'' drill knows the collective sense of vulnerability and futility caused by the thought of a nuclear holocaust. We have spent well over a hundred billion dollars on efforts to ease that sense of helplessness through civil defense or missile defense. But the role of this Senate, for over two centuries, has been to resist those savage fears and passionate dreams that would otherwise take us down dangerous paths. America needs a balanced strategy, to meet the rogue-state missile threat while also preserving the ABM Treaty, continuing the START process, using non-proliferation assistance to combat ``loose nukes'' in Russia, and achieving entry into force of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. That is what I hope Senator Kerrey, Senator Levin and I will propose in the ``National Security Policy Act of 1999.'' It is a far cry from the bumper-sticker bill currently before us. Let me make a special appeal to those Republican members with whom we Democrats make common cause to support threat reduction programs in the former Soviet Union. Some of those programs, like the Nunn-Lugar program, further the START process by underwriting the destruction of former Soviet weapons. Others guard against proliferation by safeguarding or downgrading special nuclear material and by improving export and border controls to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Still others help weapons scientists and technicians to find non-military employment, so they will not have to consider contracts with rogue states for their dangerous goods or services. Economic collapse and resurgent nationalism may be closing Russia's window to the West. But these programs help to keep that window open. The Clinton Administration has seen the risks and opportunities that are inherent in Russia's economic plight: the risk of rogue-state recruitment has increased, but so has the buying power of every dollar and Deutschmark that we and our allies can devote to threat reduction and non-proliferation assistance. The Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative announced last month deserves our support, and I am confident that it will gain that support. I believe that we should do even more, including financing retired officer housing in return for Russian withdrawal of troops from Moldova and Georgia. We should also consider more programs that employ former weapons experts in non-military pursuits, even if their activities are not likely to result in commercially viable ventures. Eventually the Russian economy will turn around and provide new careers for the talented experts from the Soviet Union's nuclear, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and long-range missile programs. Until that happens, however, it is clearly in our national interest to keep that talent off the international market. Democrats will support our moderate Republican friends on these issues, and I believe that Republicans will support our similar efforts in return. But my moderate Republican friends should not deceive themselves: these programs will not survive if right-wing policies on national missile defense bring down the ABM Treaty and the START process. Russian pride is already damaged by its shattered power and by the need to accept our money. If a precipitous decision to deploy missile defense leads Russia to preserve its MIRVed ICBM's, Cooperative Threat Reduction will be ended. Once that goes, I predict that Russian cooperation on non-proliferation will go as well. Then our nuclear and chemical and biological weapon fears will expand from the fear of missile warheads to the fear of every ship or plane or truck that approaches our borders. And the far-sighted legacy of Sam Nunn and his concerned co-sponsors will have been but a blissful rest stop on the highway to destruction. If reason can overcome fear, perhaps reason can also overcome the politics behind S. 257. If Republicans have the courage and foresight to pursue their goal of a limited national missile defense while preserving arms control and strategic stability, I urge them to withdraw S. 257 and talk to us. Otherwise, I urge all my colleagues to reject this bill and avert the substantial peril that it risks to our national security. I hope the amendment of my friend from Louisiana prevails because, although she may not mean it this way, I read it to say arms reduction is still vitally important. Arms reductions are critical and, I would argue, are not capable of being conducted with any efficacy in the absence of an ABM Treaty. I thank my colleague for allowing me to speak, my colleague from Louisiana who is about to introduce her amendment. I also thank my friend from Mississippi, who is a consummate gentleman for following and listening to what I have to say. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 72 (Purpose: To add a statement of policy that the United States seek continued negotiated reductions in Russian nuclear forces)

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, when the Prime Minister of Israel, the late Yitzhak Rabin, and the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, signed the Declaration of Principles on September 13, 1993, they each made a commitment to put nearly a century of conflict behind them and agreed to settle their differences through negotiation. Since then, the process they set into motion has had its ups and downs. Many innocent lives have been lost at the hands of those opposed to peace and reconciliation. But progress has been sustained because both sides have ultimately demonstrated a willingness to resolve their disputes at the bargaining table. Were Chairman Arafat now to take the unilateral step of declaring a Palestinian state, I fear that it would threaten the progress that has been made over the past 6 years. The Declaration of Principles stipulates that the toughest issues-- Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders--are to be resolved by permanent status negotiations. It is dangerous to argue that the end of the interim period on May 4 gives either side the right to decide an issue that both sides agreed to negotiate. Any action or proclamation by either side that prejudges the outcome of negotiations can only hurt the cause of peace. it invites the other side to respond in-kind, and it serves only to delay a lasting peace settlement. Mr. President, last August, I had the opportunity to meet with the Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the request of President Clinton, I discussed with them some of the key issues in dispute. Contrary to what many were saying at the time, I found both leaders to be committed to the peace process. Not many believed that these two individuals would overcome the profound differences over territory and security that were holding up an agreement on the second redeployment. With the Wye River Memorandum, both leaders proved that negotiations can resolve disputes, if both sides share the same goal. It is in that spirit that I trust that the Palestinian leadership will not proceed with a unilateral declaration of statehood. I am confident that they will realize that their aspirations can best be realized through a commitment to the principles of negotiation. I yield the floor. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a man who has been a pillar of loyalty, integrity and continuity in Delaware's U.S. Attorney's office for the past 15 years. We all know men and women who are the pillars of federal government offices--people who keep the wheels of government turning as changes occur around them. Richard G. Andrews is that pillar who keeps Delaware's U.S. Attorney's Office standing tall and strong. I respect his legal talents, professionalism, work ethic and people skills. And I recognize this dedicated public servant today, not because he's retiring--fortunately he's still working as hard as ever--but simply because he deserves the recognition. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney since 1983, and Chief of the Criminal Division for the past five years, Rich has earned a reputation as a tough, fair prosecutor in the nearly 40 felony jury cases he has tried. He was involved with the most far-reaching FBI undercover sting operation in Delaware history that sent several top State and County officials to prison for bribery convictions. He also sent the Vice President of the Pagan Motorcycle Club to jail for 25 years for running a drug distribution ring. And he prosecuted the men convicted of bilking the federal government and taxpayers out of nearly half-a- million dollars in a student loan scam. Rich Andrews started his legal career learning from the best--he was law clerk to the late U.S. Court of Appeals Judge for the Third Circuit, Chief Judge Collins J. Seitz. It's no wonder that distinguished experience marked the beginning of many more honors to come. In 1996, FBI Director Louis Freeh issued a commendation to him for the convictions of three top officials of Madison & Co. in $1 million securities fraud case. In 1993, he was commended for prosecuting ocean dumpers off the Delaware coast. Rich continues to pass on his craft to young attorneys, teaching Criminal Trial Advocacy courses. And he goes the extra mile for victims, serving as Chairman of Delaware's Criminal Justice Council's Victims' Subcommittee. Delaware and our country's U.S. Department of Justice are better for the continued service of Rich Andrews. He is an honest, down-to-earth, tough prosecutor and dedicated public servant. It is my pleasure to recognize this second-in-command as he continues to serve as the Chief Criminal prosecutor for Delaware's U.S. Attorney's Office. It's a simple thank you for a job well done.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, with the end of the Cold War, the threat of a nuclear holocaust between the United States and Russia has largely receded. There remains a real risk, however, that former Soviet weapons of mass destruction or the technology needed to build them will find their way to rogue states, terrorist groups, or even criminal organizations. If such weapons should ever be used, their impact will be catastrophic. It will hardly matter that ``only'' one or two cities have been so hideously slaughtered. The war against these so-called ``loose nukes'' is as important as any war we have fought. It is a war fought with assistance to states of the former Soviet Union, rather than with armed force. Its battles are the battles against unemployment and lax security. Its fronts are an array of firms and institutes and so-called ``nuclear cities,'' as well as the international frontiers where smugglers try to move sensitive materials to states like Iran, Iraq or Libya. This is a war that we dare not lose. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that in December, the chief of Russia's Federal Security Service in the Chelyabinsk region said that employees at one sensitive plant had tried to steal 40 pounds of weapons-usable nuclear material. A month earlier, 3,000 workers at Chelyabinsk-70, a ``nuclear city'' similar to our nuclear weapons design laboratories, had held a protest over unpaid wages. In 1996, the head of that city committed suicide in despair over his inability to pay his personnel. The Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative The Clinton Administration recently announced an Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative that will enlarge existing Nunn-Lugar programs by 60 percent for the next five years. The Carnegie Endowment notes correctly that ``this new funding commitment still does not match the threat.'' But the Administration's request for extra funding in the Fiscal Year 2000 budget is desperately needed and merits wholehearted support. One especially important aspect of the President's package is a major effort to find alternative employment for Russia's biological weapons experts. The microbiologists and other scientists who built the Soviet Union's massive biological warfare establishment are highly expert. They are quite capable of doing research and development that would improve public health in Russia and around the world. But they would be equally capable of assisting rogue states to wreak massive destruction, if we and other countries did not enable them to survive in non- military pursuits. The United States is taking steps, in other programs, to better prepare for the awful possibility of a terrorist attack with chemical or biological weapons. The Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative will help give us the time we so desperately need, in which to improve our capability to combat those threats. The Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention Program Two weeks ago, the General Accounting Office issued a report on another of our non-proliferation assistance efforts, the Energy Department's Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention--or IPP--program, that was critical of program management. Newspapers quoted a statement by my friend from North Carolina, Senator Helms, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee and commissioned the GAO study. He said that Energy Department failure to implement reforms recommended by the GAO would ``jeopardize continued support'' for the program and also ``cast doubt'' on the wisdom of the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative. Those stories made it sound as though threat reduction efforts were in danger. In my view, however, what we are actually witnessing are the normal growing pains of a basically successful program. I believe that the IPP program and other Nunn-Lugar efforts both deserve and will obtain the Senate's continued support. The IPP program is only five years old. Its objective is to foster non-military employment for weapons scientists in the former Soviet Union by assisting them to develop marketable ideas that can then be produced in joint commercial ventures with Western companies. The GAO report notes that over 400 projects have been funded by IPP--over 200 projects in its first year alone--at about 170 institutes and organizations. Thousands of Russian scientists have found at least part-time employment through IPP projects, and the result has been to lessen the temptation to sell their goods and expertise to rogue states. The GAO report discusses those results as follows: Officials from three institutes told us that the IPP program had prevented their laboratory or institute from shutting down and reduced the likelihood that scientists would be forced to seek other employment. A representative from Sarov [the new name for Arzamas-16, Russia's equivalent of Los Alamos] told us that without the IPP program, the situation at the institute would be a disaster. Some institute officials told us that the benefits of the IPP program went beyond financial support. . . .[and included] how to do business with the United States. The GAO noted that the Energy Department's National Laboratories ``have made great strides in helping to `open up' NIS [former Soviet] institutes,'' stated that ``the program has been successful in employing weapons scientists through research and development programs,'' and concluded that the overall effort is ``in our national security interests.'' Why, then, was the GAO critical of the IPP program? First, it found administrative lapses in the Department of Energy, such as not knowing how many scientists were engaged in particular projects, spending too much money in the United States and too little in the former Soviet Union, and allowing Russia to charge taxes on the assistance we provided. Secondly, it found many projects that had little or no chance of ever becoming commercially viable. Given that the IPP program is supposed to find Western investors for the projects it funds, the GAO's point was that the program was not achieving its long-term goals. The GAO is right. But what they found was actually the tail end of the success story. They found a program that, in five short years, successfully reached into 170 former Soviet institutes and helped employ thousands of scientists. The IPP program made those crucial contacts and brought a message of hope that resonated throughout the community of Russian experts in weapons of mass destruction. It told them that we understood their need to survive economically and also their need to retain self-respect as skilled professionals. After five years, it is time to tighten the administration of the IPP program. The good news is that the Energy Department is already working to do that. Indeed, of the GAO's 11 recommendations, the Energy Department accepted 10 completely and the 11th in part. That 11th recommendation was to move more slowly in expanding the ``Nuclear Cities Initiative'' that will help Russia to downsize its nuclear complex without throwing weapons scientists out on the street. The Energy Department agrees on the need to move carefully, but reserves the right to take advantage of opportunities to expand the program beyond the three ``nuclear cities'' where it will begin. When Chairman Helms warns that the GAO recommendations must be implemented, he is sending a stern message to which the Energy Department should pay attention. But as I read the GAO report and the Energy Department's response, that Department is indeed paying attention. I have every hope, therefore, that even conservatives like my friend from North Carolina will conclude that the IPP program and the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative deserve our support. On February 26, the New York Times published a very perceptive editorial regarding U.S.-Russian nuclear relationships. The last paragraph of that editorial spoke directly to the last GAO recommendation: The G.A.O. report calls for closing down the nuclear-cities program until the problems in the institutes program have been resolved. That would be a mistake. The nuclear-cities agreement is more carefully drawn than its predecessor and already provides for exemption from Russian taxation. Tightened project review procedures are in place to make sure that Washington is not inadvertently subsidizing new Russian weapons development. These programs, along with Washington's contributions to Russia's plutonium and uranium conversion and security programs, should go forward as part of a coordinated drive to substantially eliminate Russia s cold- war nuclear infrastructure before the Clinton Administration leaves office. The New York Times is right. Wars are not cheap. We cannot win the war against ``loose nukes,'' ``loose chemicals'' and ``loose pathogens,'' unless we give our government the means to fight. Given the terrible stakes in this war, we must move forward. I ask that the New York Times editorial of February 26 and the Energy Department's response to the GAO report be printed in the Record at this point. The material follows: [From the New York Times, Feb. 26, 1999] Unfinished Cold-War Business History will judge the Clinton Administration's foreign policy record partly by its success in helping Russia reduce the nuclear remnants of the cold war. Nothing would do more to protect American security in the decades ahead than insuring that Russia's immense stockpile of nuclear weapons and materials is diminished and adequately controlled. The modest amount of money needed to achieve these goals now could save Washington many billions of dollars in the future to deal with the Russian nuclear threat if it is not reduced. Moscow still has 6,000 nuclear warheads poised for long- distance delivery. Weapons-grade plutonium from dismantled warheads is stored in poorly secured buildings, vulnerable to theft. Russia also has tens of thousands of underpaid weapons scientists and workers in 170 scientific institutes and 10 closed cities that house the Russian nuclear weapons complex. If President Clinton hopes to leave an enduring mark in international affairs, he will work on these problems in the remaining 23 months of his term. Specifically, he should look for innovative ways to further reduce nuclear weapons and speed the conversion of Russia's nuclear establishment to civilian activities. The last nuclear arms reduction treaty, negotiated more than six years ago, has yet to be ratified by Russia's Parliament. That treaty alone would cut nuclear weapons totals nearly in half. Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov recognizes the treaty's value for Russia, both in foreign policy and budget savings terms. Mr. Clinton should work closely with President Boris Yeltsin and Mr. Primakov to achieve ratification. But hopes for deep nuclear cuts need not depend on Russia's Communist-dominated Parliament. In coordination with Russia's leaders, Mr. Clinton should initiate steps that go beyond the treaty, including parallel nuclear reductions and taking more weapons off hair-trigger alert. Such methods proved effective when tried by Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev a decade ago. Shrinking Russia's nuclear infrastructure also requires expanding the cooperative programs developed under legislation originally sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar. These efforts have already supported the dismantling of 5,000 Russian warheads. Additional work is needed now to safely convert as much of the plutonium and enriched uranium from these bombs into less dangerous forms and to store what remains under much more secure conditions. The Administration rightly seeks large spending increases in these programs in next year's budget. It is essential that Congress approve these requests. Washington should also press ahead with its efforts to re- employ Russian weapons scientists in civilian work. Two American programs managed by the Energy Department are designed to achieve that goal. One, begun in 1994, is aimed at Russia's scientific institutes. A newer program deals with the closed nuclear cities. The scientific institutes program has succeeded in re-employing thousands of Russian scientists at home and keeping them out of the reach of terrorists or countries eager to make nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. But a report prepared for Congress this week by the General Accounting Office called attention to some problems, including taxation by Russia of some of the aid money and allegations that some assistance went to institutes and scientists still engaged in weapons work. However cash- starved the Russian Government is, taxation of American aid money is unacceptable. Nor should American subsidies support Russian weapons development. The G.A.O. report calls for slowing down the nuclear-cities program until the problems in the institutes program have been resolved. That would be a mistake. The nuclear-cities agreement is more carefully drawn than its predecessor and already provides for exemption from Russian taxation. Tightened project review procedures are in place to make sure that Washington is not inadvertently subsidizing new Russian weapons development. These programs, along with Washington's contributions to Russia's plutonium and uranium conversion and security programs, should go forward as part of a coordinated drive to substantially eliminate Russia's cold- war nuclear infrastructure before the Clinton Administration leaves office.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am happy to join my colleagues in introducing this important legislation. In particular, I want to thank Senator Chafee for his foresight and leadership on this most difficult issue. The science, politics, and economics of climate change all present major issues, and only someone as dedicated and tenacious as Senator Chafee could provide the leadership to get us to this point today. My good friend, Joe Lieberman, who has been another leader in the Senate on this tough issue, and Connie Mack, deserve our thanks for bringing us together around this first step in the long path toward managing the problem of climate change. The science of climate change is sufficiently advanced that we know we face a threat to our health and economy; but we are only beginning to come to grips with how we can manage that threat most effectively, and--this is the key--most efficiently. Climate change presents us with a classic problem in public policy--it is a long-term threat, not completely understood, to the widest possible public. And it is an issue whose resolution will require taking steps now with real costs to private individuals and businesses, costs that have a payoff that may only be fully apparent a generation or more in the future. Mr. President, we have learned a lot in the years that we have been making federal environmental policy here in the United States. We have much more to learn, but we have made real advances since the early days, when we did not always find the solutions that got us the most environmental quality for the buck. The bill we are introducing today reflects one important lesson: businesses can be a creative and responsible part of the solution to environmental problems. In fact, it is fair to say that we would not be here today if it were not for the leadership of groups like the International Climate Change Partnership and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, both of which have provided a forum for responsible businesses to reach consensus on this issue. Significantly, it was a leading environmental group, the Environmental Defense Fund, that has provided indispensible technical expertise to turn good intentions into the bill we have here today. Drawing on our experience with tradable sulphur dioxide credits, this bill looks to the day when we have reached the kind of agreement-- whether based on our evolving commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or some other authority--that establishes an emissions credit trading regime for greenhouse gases. The best science--and political reality--tells us that current rates of greenhouse gas emissions are likely to result not only in measurable change in global temperatures, but also in a public demand to do something about it. That in turn will change the cost of doing business as usual for the industries that are major sources of those gases. But right now, if responsible firms--like DuPont and General Motors, if I can mention just two that operate in Delaware--want to do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they not only get no credit in any future trading system--they actually lose out to firms that decide to delay reductions until such a system is in place. Those who procrastinate, under current law, not only avoid the cost today of cleaning up their emissions, but they would be in a position to receive credits for the kinds of cheaper, easier steps that more responsible companies have already taken. This is certainly not the way to encourage actions now that help air quality in the short term. And every action we take now, by reducing the long-term concentrations of greenhouse gases that would otherwise occur, lowers the overall economic impact of complying with any future climate change policy. One way out of this problem, Mr. President, is the bill we are introducing today--to assure firms who act responsibly today that their investments in a better future for all of us will be eligible for credit. At the same time, we will thereby raise the cost of delay. As with so much in the issue of climate change, this bill is a work in progress. Different kinds of firms, with different products, processes, and histories, face significantly different problems in complying with the demands of an early credit system. We must be sure that we provide the flexibility to encourage the widest variety of reductions. And while we want to encourage the greatest reductions as soon as possible, we must be sure that we have the best information-- and credible verification--on the effects of various kinds of early action. Without accurate verification and reporting, we cheapen the value of actions taken by the most responsible firms. This bill marks a real change in our approach to climate change: we have moved beyond the days of heated, irreconcilable arguments between those who see climate change as a real threat and those who don't. Now, cooler heads can discuss the best way to face the future that we are building for our children.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, perhaps because of the title of his book, ``Too Funny to Be President,'' a lot of people will remember Morris Udall chiefly for his wit and his humor. And that, in and of itself, is not a bad way to remember Mo Udall. Because all of us need to remember that while what we do, and the issues we deal with, are serious matters, there is neither need nor reason to take ourselves too seriously. Morris Udall excelled in using humor to remind us of that. But his quick wit and often self-deprecating humor never could mask his deeply-rooted commitment to public service, his love of the land and people of Arizona, and the seriousness with which he took his responsibilities to the Congress, to his state and its people, and to this nation. Morris Udall was a legislator in the most proud tradition of the term. He understood that legislation is the process by which we recognize a problem or an injustice and, as a nation, undertake to rectify that wrong. He understood that legislation did not mean introducing a bill and putting out a press release; that legislation was not complete simply because we held a hearing to let everyone know that we were aware of the problem; or that simply because a bill was passed and signed into law our responsibilities were ended. Mo Udall understood that until--at the instigation of the legislation we passed and under our oversight--someone from the United States government actually went out there and corrected the problem, ended the injustice, or righted the wrong, the legislative process was not complete and our job remained undone. And Mo Udall was always willing to stay the course until we had fully met our responsibilities. He is probably most remembered for his environmental initiatives; for his belief that this land is the most sacred trust bestowed upon the American people--and that blessed as we are by vast natural beauty and resources, we have a moral responsibility to preserve and protect that trust and to make wise use of those resources. Anyone who has ever seen the natural wonder that is the Arizona landscape understands at once the roots of Mo Udall's love for this land. Clearly he had a vision that generations yet unborn should grow up and enjoy nature's bounty and splendor just as he had. And my granddaughters--and their grandchildren--will have that opportunity in large part because of years of hard work by Mo Udall. They will have the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate America's natural wonders and resources not just in Arizona but across this land. And Morris Udall's family--including a son and a nephew who have followed him here to the Congress, as well as his brother Stewart who proceeded him to the House of Representatives and then moved on to become Secretary of the Interior and was a partner in many of Mo's accomplishments--can point to so much: acres and acres of natural beauty, clean water, and spectacular wildlife, and say, ``There, that is part of Morris Udall's legacy.'' But there is another aspect to Morris Udall's legacy that I hope will be remembered equally, and that is his understanding of both the role and the limits of politics. He was an enormously talented politician, winning re-election year after year through changing times and shifting constituencies, and building a national following through his work on issues whose scope reached far beyond the boundaries of his congressional district. And he understood that politics is important, because the political process is the way in which a democracy defines its priorities and allocates its resources. But Morris Udall understood that politics has its limits as well. That whatever our internal debate, partisan politics must end at the water's edge and the nation's borders and that Americans will speak with one voice when it comes to dealing with the world, and ensuring our national interests. He also said that when it came to the people of Arizona, they had not elected Morris Udall to be a Democratic Congressman just as they had not elected Barry Goldwater to be a Republican Senator. They had elected an Arizona congressman and an Arizona senator to look out for their interests and the interests of their state. And whether Carl Hayden or Barry Goldwater or John Rhodes or Dennis DeConcini shared his party label or not, he joined with them to look out for the interests of the people of Arizona here in the Halls of Congress. And there was somewhere else that Mo Udall believed politics had its limits, and that was off the House floor or the campaign trail, away from the harsh debate, where friendships can develop regardless or partisan political stripe or ideology. He could count among his friends liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans; simply because of his decency, his character, his interest in so many things both within and outside the political arena, and yes, his humor. And perhaps most of all--at least in terms of his relationships with those of us here in the Congress--because Morris Udall could look beyond all of our differences and see that which I believe all of us have in common: the desire to make life better for our children, our neighbors, our states, and out nation. That, I hope, will be as much a lasting part of Morris Udall's legacy as the natural wonders that will be there for our grandchildren because Mo Udall recognized a need and saw it's resolution through.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I see the distinguished Senator from Maine is on the floor, ready to speak. The statement may take me as long as 10 minutes. I ask unanimous consent I be able to proceed for 10 minutes.

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

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, may I make a parliamentary inquiry? How are we operating at the moment?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, promoting human rights is now, and must remain, an important component of our overall relationship with China. That is why I support Senate Resolution 45, calling on the administration to voice our concerns about China's human rights abuses before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Even as we try to expand cooperation in areas of mutual interest-- stability on the Korean peninsula, nonproliferation, trade, and the environment--we must take note of China's violation of international norms in the area of human rights. Last year, the administration decided to remain silent in Geneva, arguing that more progress could be achieved through quiet diplomacy than through public pressure. China did, in fact, release some high profile political prisoners. China also signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In recent months, however, we have witnessed a crackdown on dissent, including the arrest of prominent democracy party organizers. China continues to jam the broadcasts of Radio Free Asia and to closely monitor China's domestic media. With respect to Tibet, China's leaders have yet to establish a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, and they refuse even to meet with U.S. officials responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on Tibet. Mr. President, we should not stand mute in the face of China's continuing violation of basic human rights. Our silence would be deafening. If we are not going to call on China to respect human rights before the UN Human Rights Commission, where will we make our concerns known? And if we must act alone, without support from our European and Asian allies, so be it. There is no shame in being alone on the right side of history. Ten years ago this June the world watched in horror as Chinese authorities used lethal force to suppress the Tian-an-men democracy movement. I am convinced that the gradual improvement in human rights in China over the past decade would not have occurred without concerted diplomatic pressure--public and private. Now is not the time to let up.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, it is with great honor, yet immense sadness that I stand today to pay tribute to a man--Rabbi Herbert Drooz--whose spirit, vision, and voice will live on for generations to come in my State of Delaware. As a respected religious leader and social activist for 30 years, he was a builder--literally and figuratively--who dreamed big and made big things happen. When I got back to Delaware from law school--I went out of State, we didn't have a law school in the State at the time, in 1968--Rabbi Drooz was one of the first civic activists that I came in contact with. He oversaw the building of a new synagogue for the reform congregation of Beth Emeth, that he led, which is now the largest synagogue in Delaware, along with the construction of the school on Lea Boulevard, not far from where I had gone to school in Wilmington, Delaware. These two buildings stand as not only monuments to his vision and his dedication to religious service, but they also had the very practical impact of enhancing the region and the neighborhood, and causing people to invest not only physically and financially, but psychologically in our city. He built a community esprit de corps as well--founding the Delaware Chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which recently was renamed the National Conference for Community and Justice, which is one of the most significant civic organizations and moral barometers in my State. At the University of Delaware, my alma mater, he organized the popular student Hillel group. When I was a student at the University of Delaware in 1961 to 1965, it had a very small Jewish student body. It now has a vigorous, engaged and involved Jewish student body, and the Hillel group at the University is, again, a major force for justice, focusing on the moral dilemmas of our time. What most Delawareans remember about Rabbi Drooz was his voice. He was known as the Rabbi who speaks. Every Sunday morning, you could turn on WDEL radio station, one of the largest radio stations in my State, and hear his words of wisdom and compassion, on a program that was titled, ``The Rabbi Speaks.'' He spoke to and reached out to more than Delaware's proud Jewish community. He was one of the first people who went the extra mile to reach out to the non-Jewish community. He spoke during times of social unrest in my State. He spoke about more than religious issues. In 1954, he used his leadership and oratorical skills to speak out forcefully against the racist hatred exhibited by a militant in the southern part of my State, in a city called Milford, who tried to defy the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. the Board of Education, to end racial segregation in our public schools. It may come as a surprise to many, but to my great shame, my great State has the blot upon its history that we were segregated by law, and in 1954 it was not particularly popular to speak out on that issue. His words from the Beth Emeth pulpit still ring out. He questioned, quote: Why no leader has risen from among the citizens of Milford to combat this merchant of hate from another. We have been tardy. Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously, brother against brother? The Rabbi speaks, indeed. He spoke, and he spoke at a time when few were willing to speak. In 1966, he joined with bishops from the local Catholic and Episcopal dioceses in leading the Methodists and Presbyterians in opposing American involvement in the war in Vietnam--not very popular at the time and not always popular among his congregation. Rabbi Drooz led the Rabbinical Association of Delaware for two terms as President. He spoke out as a board member on the board of the Fair Housing Council, Pacem In Terris, the American Red Cross, the Mental Health Association, and Delaware's Urban Coalition. Everything that mattered, every issue that required some moral bearing, every issue that people tended to shy away from because they were controversial, Rabbi Drooz spoke out. A point of personal privilege, Mr. President. You know as a former Governor and a former mayor and a Senator now, occasionally things get said about us that are totally untrue. We never fail to forget those voices in the community who have significant standing, who are willing to risk their reputations to speak out for us. Rabbi Drooz spoke out for Joe Biden, too. He spoke out for me at a time that could have stopped me in my tracks from winning the election in 1972. Please allow me this point of personal privilege to tell this brief story. Just days before that election, I was falsely accused of being anti-Semitic in an unfounded charge by a disgruntled, former campaign worker. I was 29 years old. Hardly anybody knew me. Those who knew me knew, and my record as a Senator has demonstrated, I am far from an anti-Semite. As a matter of fact, I am accused these days by my opponents of being the other way. At the time, as a 29-year-old guy from a family with no influence or money running for the U.S. Senate in a year when George McGovern was being trounced in my State. I was accused in this sort of Pearl Harbor sneak attack the weekend before the Tuesday of being an anti-Semite, and it was printed in our largest paper. Rabbi Drooz immediately went into action on the Sunday prior to the election. Rabbi Drooz organized a meeting of Delaware's Jewish community, enlisting the support of the very influential Governor of Pennsylvania who happened to be Jewish, Milton Shapp. Rabbi Drooz spoke out for Joe Biden and supported me against this untrue, unfair accusation. Needless to say, he was effective in setting the record straight, or I would not be standing here today. The mere fact that Rabbi Drooz said, ``I know Joe Biden,'' was good enough for the entire community in my State. I will forever hold Rabbi Drooz in the highest esteem for his courage, his leadership, his boldness and for getting me back on my feet at a time when I needed his courage, leadership and boldness the most. After I became a Senator, on a regular basis I would brief Rabbi Drooz on the situation in the Middle East. He would put together people for me to speak to. Seldom did we disagree, but when we did, there was no question about my independence, and he never questioned whether or not I should be. Rabbi Drooz was a fighter to the end. Alzheimer's stole his mind, but not his spirit. Just six months before he died, as an octogenarian, he agreed to participate in a study for Alzheimer's to test new medication. Mr. President, in conclusion, I point out that I truly believe his spirit lives on in his son Daniel and his daughter Johanna, his brother Arnold and his six grandchildren. They are respected in the community and continue to participate in the community. I say goodbye to Rabbi Drooz. Shalom and peace be with you, my friend, and may all that you did for the good of Delaware be remembered. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to co-sponsor the resolution being submitted by Senator Frist and Senator Feingold condemning the escalating violence and violation of human rights in the nation of Sierra Leone. The past six weeks we have seen the end to peace and security in that country as a result of the renewed offensive by the combined forces of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council military junta, known as the AFRC and a rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF in a effort to once again overthrow the democratically elected government of Sierre Leone. The Economic Community of West African States stepped in almost a year ago, sending its Military Observer Group, called ECOMOG, to restore President Tejan Kabbah to power. Since that time, ECOMOG has been the sole thin line standing between notoriously inhumane AFRC/RUF forces and the fall of the democratically elected government. Unfortunately on January 6 of this year, the AFRC/RUF once again attacked Freetown and continued waging an inhumane and unbelievably brutal war on the civilian population in the countryside. There are disturbing reports both in the media and from our embassy in Sierra Leone that the AFRC/RUF has rounded up civilians including men, women and children for the purposes of torture and mutilation. AFRC/RUF soldiers use machetes to amputate one or both hands, feet, ears, arms, and fingers of their civilian victims. These reports indicate that victims are sometimes instructed to take a severed limb, body part or note to the government or ECOMOG stating that the government should replace the amputated body part, and that ECOMOG should leave Sierra Leone. These atrocities are carried out regardless of age or gender, and do not appear to be ethnically or religiously motivated. Women and girls are kidnaped and forced into sexual slavery. Some kidnap victims are used as labor in rebel camps. Boys and young men are compelled to join the AFRC/RUF as soldiers against their will. Witnesses say that children as young as seven years have been forcibly recruited by the rebels. The result of the escalated violence has been the exodus of over 450,000 people into neighboring Guinea and Liberia. Nearly twice as many are wandering around within the borders of Sierra Leone, their homes and villages destroyed, vulnerable to further attacks from insurgents, without access to food or medicine. With the help of external actors who are acting in direct violation of a United Nationals arms embargo, the AFRC/RUF has been able to effectively sustain its assaults against civilians and ECOMOG troops. However, the AFRC/RUF has demonstrated no organized political platform or agenda. It enjoys no popular support among the people of Sierra Leone. In short, this group can accurately be described as a band of well armed, determined thugs. I applaud the administration for providing aid to ECOMOG. However, as I wrote to the Secretary of State this week, and as this resolution indicates, the United States can and should do more to support ECOMOG financially. While ECOMOG is far from perfect, it is the only thing standing between the civilian population the fall of the duly elected government to indiscriminate, brutally violent AFRC/RUF forces. It is for all of the above reasons that I join my colleagues Senators Frist and Feingold in sponsoring this resolution. In addition to condemning the heinous actions of the AFRC/RUF rebels and the involvement of external actors in support of the rebels, the resolution urges the Administration to continue to give a high priority to solving this conflict. Thousands of innocent men, women and children have been wounded, maimed and killed in the past months alone. We must do all we can do to bring about a swift and long-term political solution to this war. This is the only way to put a decisive end to the suffering of the population of Sierra Leone.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I support the Soldiers', Sailors', Airmen's, and Marines' Bill of Rights Act of 1999. Like many of my colleagues, I am very aware of the strains on America's military personnel. I have only to look at the pace of operations at Dover Air Force Base, in my home state of Delaware. Dover's strategic airlift and air cargo terminal support every single on-going operation and new troop and equipment movement to Europe, Southwest Asia, and Africa. A quick look around the world today shows that Dover personnel are working hard, alongside their colleagues throughout the force, and need to be recognized with adequate pay and benefits. America's military is doing an exceptional job defending vital American interests in Bosnia, Iraq, and South Korea. Our troops are also using their incredible logistics skills to assist our Central American neighbors who have been devastated by hurricane damage. These are just a few examples among many of the United States' military working every day to create a more stable and safe world for all of us. In today's dynamic world, the military's task is a demanding one. With this bill, we make it clear that we understand those demands and that we will continually strive to take better care of our troops. I have long been concerned that we have not always adequately addressed the compensation needs of our military, nor have we always provided for pay equity. For that reason, last year I amended the Defense authorization bill to include an increase in hazardous duty incentive pay for mid- and senior level enlisted aircrews. I am pleased that this year we have a comprehensive bill addressing the critical issue of compensation and equity. I have said it before and I will say it again, the patriotic men and women who serve in our military do not do so to become rich, but that does not change the very real needs they and their families have for adequate recompense. The bill enhances the President's request for a pay raise, pay table reform, and changes to the military retirement system. The Joint Chiefs have said repeatedly that these three steps are their top priority this year. The 4.8 percent basic pay raise and the decision to increase future year raises by 0.5 percent more than the civilian raise index is an important step toward closing the pay gap between military and civilian employees. The pay table reform, which is identical to that suggested by the President, will make the pay structure more equitable and focused on performance. Another important equity issue for the past thirteen years has been the military retirement system. The changes made in the summer of 1986 created an inequity in the retirement benefits for members of the armed services who chose to retire after 20 years. The end result was that experienced service members decided that the reward was too small to stay in the service for 20 years, compared to the benefits offered in the private sector and the needs of their families. This bill corrects that inequity by allowing personnel to revert back to the pre- 1986 system of receiving 50 percent of their base pay. It also provides an option to stay with the post-1986 system of receiving 40 percent of base pay along with a $30,000 bonus. This sends an important message to our troops that their service and experience today are just as valuable and important as they were before 1986. I want to compliment the committee, and the leadership of Senator Cleland, for including enhancements to the Montgomery G.I. bill. The original bill was written in World War II and needed to be adapted to the challenges that face members of today's military. Increasing the actual benefits and providing more flexibility in how they are used makes it easier for service members to attain their educational goals for themselves and their immediate family. In an era where education is increasingly vital and expensive, these changes are long overdue. I am also pleased that this bill was amended to include important reforms of TRICARE, the military health care benefits system. The bill will help the Department of Defense provide better services, reduce the bureaucratic hassle of obtaining those services, and make sure benefits are tranportable to different TRICARE regions. It also provides the necessary authority to increase the amount TRICARE reimburses providers in areas where such increases are needed to keep an adequate number of qualified health care providers available. Military health care systems must be able to compete with private health care systems for the services of quality providers. In addition, the bill will help the military better utilize its facilities by allowing TRICARE facilities to be reimbursed by other insurance agencies. It is my hope that this legislation will make it easier for American servicemen and women to get the quality health care they and their families deserve. Finally, Mr. President, I share with my colleagues a concern that we need to be careful in our allocation of limited resources before we have adopted a budget. It is imperative that this bill actually help our troops and not create new resource problems in other areas. For that reason, I am also very pleased to see the requirement for the Secretary of Defense provide an annual report on how this bill impacts recruiting and retention. This requirement will allow us to measure the effectiveness of the bill and make sure that we have chosen the right mix of incentives for the brave men and women who work so hard in defense of all of us. Overall, I believe this bill is an important step in support of our troops. It improves pay equity and overall compensation levels. It also addresses inequities in the retirement system and it enhances the benefit system, including military health care benefits. I support the bill and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Let me begin by stating what I believe the American people view as the obvious. There are no good guys in this sordid affair. Rightly or wrongly, the public has concluded that the President is an adulterer and liar; that Ken Starr has abused his authority by unfair tactics born out of vindictiveness; that the House Managers have acted in a narrowly partisan way and are now desperately attempting to justify their actions for their own political reputation. Finally, they have concluded that Monica Lewinsky was both used and a user, while Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg, Paula Jones and her official and unofficial legal team are part of a larger political plot to ``get the President''. All of that is beyond our ability to effect. Our job is not to dissect the motives or even the tactics of Ken Starr, the trial lawyers, Linda Tripp, and others. Our only job is to determine whether the President of the United States by his conduct committed the specific acts alleged in the two Articles of Impeachment. Not generally, but specifically: Did he do what is alleged? And if he did, do these actions rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors necessary to justify the most obviously anti-democratic act the Senate can engage in--overturning an election by convicting the President. It is very important--both for history's sake and for fairness' sake--that we keep our eye on the ball. When I tried cases, I learned from a man named Sid Balick--he used to say at the outset to the jury: Keep your eye on the ball. The issue is not whether my client is a man you would want your daughter to date--a man you would invite home to dinner. The issue is did my client kill Cock Robbin--period. But if we listen to the oft-times confusing presentation of the House Managers--they would have us think that it is sufficient for us to conclude that we would not trust him with our daughters and not invite him home for dinner in order to convict. Much more is required. The House set the standard we must repair to in the Articles--did he commit a criminal offense? That is what they allege; that is what they must prove. The Managers keep saying that this case is about what standards we want our President to meet. We hear Flanders Fields intoned--the honor of our most decorated heroes. How incredibly self-serving and autocratic such a plea is. The American people are fully capable--without our guidance or advice--to determine what standards they want our President to meet. That is an appropriate question to ask ourselves when we enter the voting booth to vote--it is not when we rise on this floor to vote. Spare me from those who would tell the American people what standard they must apply when voting for President. Ours is an Impeachment standard and our oath to do justice under that standard. Impeachment is about what standard to use in deciding whether or not to remove a President duly elected by the people. These are two very different questions and we must not, we cannot, get them confused. You and I and the American people can apply any standard we want our President to meet when we go to the polls on election day. Only the Constitution can supply the standards to use in deciding whether or not to remove the President--and--in my view, this case does not meet that standard, for two reasons. First, the facts do not sustain the House Managers' case. According to the House's own theory, we must find that the President has violated federal criminal statutes--not just that he did bad things. In all good conscience, I just cannot believe that any jury would convict the President of any of the criminal charges on these facts. I also believe that it is our constitutional duty to give the President the benefit of the doubt on the facts. To me, the allegations that the President violated Title 18 were left in a shambles on this floor. But I do not have time to dwell on the facts. So let me turn to the second reason: the President's actions do not rise to the level required by the Constitution for the removal of a sitting President. We have heard it argued repeatedly that the Constitution does not create different standards for Judges and the President. But that argument fails to comprehend the organizing principle of our constitutional system--the separation of powers. The framers divided the power of the federal government into three branches in order to safeguard liberty. This innovation--the envy of every nation on earth-- can only serve its fundamental purpose if each branch remains strong and independent of the others. We needed a President who was independent enough to spearhead and sign the Civil Rights Act. We needed a President who was independent enough to lead the nation and the world in the Persian Gulf War. We still need an independent President. The constitutional scholarship overwhelmingly recognizes that the fundamental structural commitment to separation of powers requires us to view the President as different than a federal judge. Consider our power to discipline and even expel an individual Senator. In such a case, we do not remove the head of a separate branch and so do not threaten the constitutional balance of powers. To remove a President is to decapitate another branch and to undermine the independence necessary for it to fulfill its constitutional role. Only a President is chosen by the people in a national election. No Senator, no Representative can make this claim. To remove a duly elected President clashes with democratic principles in a way that simply has no constitutional parallel. By contrast, there is nothing anti-democratic in the Senate removing a judge, who was appointed and not elected by the people. Another contention we continue to hear is that the Framers clearly thought that obstruction of justice of any kind by a President was a high crime and misdemeanor. For this they cite the colloquy between Colonel George Mason and James Madison, who argued that a President who abused his pardon power could be impeached. That colloquy illustrates that it is not any obstruction that would satisfy the Constitution-- rather, that the framers were immediately concerned about abuses of official power, such as the pardon power. The House Managers have relied repeatedly on Alexander Hamilton's explanation of impeachment found in Federalist No. 65. But careful reading demonstrates that these articles of impeachment are a constitutionally insufficient ground for removing the President from office. Federalist No. 65 states: The subjects of [the impeachment court's] jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. Hamilton had the word ``political'' typed in all capital letters to emphasize that this is the central, defining element of any impeachable offense. Having emphasized its meaning, he did not leave its definition to chance. While all crimes by definition harm society, impeachable offenses involve a specific category of offenses. Using Hamilton's terms, these are offenses committed when ``public men'' who ``violat[e] some public trust'' cause ``injuries done immediately to the society itself.'' The public trust that resides in, to use Hamilton's hoary phrase, ``public men'' is what we would call today official power. What other construction can be given these words? Hamilton did not define an impeachable offense to be any offense committed by public men. He did not define an impeachable offense to be any reprehensible act committed by a bad man. Only those acts that abuse public office and so harm the public directly and politically are impeachable. While I would like to take credit for this insight into Hamilton's meaning, I actually stand in a line of interpretation that stretches back to the founding era. William Rawle wrote the first distinguished commentary on the Constitution, ``A View of the Constitution of the United States of America.'' In this treatise, he came to precisely the same interpretation I have described. He said, ``The causes of impeachment can only have reference to public character and official duty. . . . In general those which may be committed equally by a private person as a public officer are not the subject of impeachment.'' Joseph Story was not only a long-serving and important Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he was a preeminent constitutional scholar and author of a treatise that remains an important source for understanding the Constitution's meaning. He too emphasized that ``it is not every offense that by the constitution is . . . impeachable.'' Which offenses did he regard to be impeachable? ``Such kinds of misdeeds . . . as peculiarly injure the commonwealth by the abuse of high offices of trust.'' Justice Story tied the definition of impeachable offenses to the purpose that underlies the separation of powers--safeguarding the liberty of the people against abusive exercise of governmental power. He observed that impeachment ``is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against gross official misdemeanors.'' There is no question that the Constitution sets the bar for impeachment very high--especially where the President is involved. Federalist 65 bears this out, as do numerous other commentaries. But Federalist 65 also sounds a warning--again, it is a warning that has been invoked over and over again--that impeachments inevitably risk being hijacked by partisan political forces. Federalist 65 worried that the ``animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or the other'' would enable partisans to find a way to interpret words such as high crimes and misdemeanors to match the outcome they otherwise wished to reach--not necessarily out of any malevolence, but simply because of the great capacity that we all have to rationalize. Here the rationalization is pretty easy--the President is a disgrace to the office, I honor and revere the office of the Presidency, so there must be some way to get this man out of that office. Therefore, his actions must rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. It is tempting to go down that road --but this is precisely the temptation that the Framers urged us to avoid. In Federalist 65, Hamilton defended the United States Senate as the only body that could possibly hear a presidential impeachment. ``Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced the necessary impartiality between an individual accused and . . . his accusers?'' Hamilton was placing the responsibility to be impartial squarely upon us--a responsibility that has become embodied in the oath we took when the trial began. Charles Black, the renowned constitutional law professor from Yale, boiled down the attitude that we as Senators must adopt in order to achieve an impartiality and independence sufficient to the responsibilities of impeachment. He said we must act with a ``principled political neutrality.'' That is a tough standard to meet. In the Johnson impeachment, for example, James Blaine originally voted for the impeachment of the President in the House. Years later he admitted his mistake, saying that `the sober reflection of after years has persuaded many who favored Impeachment that it was not justifiable on the charges made, and that its success would have resulted in greater injury to free institutions than Andrew Johnson in his utmost endeavor was able to inflict.'' And in our contemporary situation, former President Ford and our distinguished colleague and former majority leader, Robert Dole, have both urged us not to go down the road to impeachment, but to seek other means to express our displeasure. Charles Black knew that principled political neutrality was hard to achieve, so he suggested one approach. He suggested that prior to voting, a Senator should ask: Would I have answered the same question the same way if it came up with respect to a President towards whom I felt oppositely from the way I feel toward the President threatened with removal? In reaching a final decision, the question I wish to pose to my colleagues is this: Can you legitimately conclude that you would vote to remove a sitting President if he were a person towards whom you felt oppositely than you do toward Bill Clinton? Given the essentially anti-democratic nature of impeachment and the great dangers inherent in the too ready exercise of that power, impeachment has no place in our system of constitutional democracy except as an extreme measure--reserved for breaches of the public trust by a President who so violates his official duties, misuses his official powers or places our system of government at such risk that our constitutional government is put in immediate danger by his continuing to serve out the term to which the people of the United States elected him. In my judgment, trying to assume a perspective of principled political neutrality, the case before us falls far, far short on the facts and on the law. I ask unanimous consent that the text of a more comprehensive statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to support the resolution offered by the Majority and Minority Leaders in honor of the life and legacy of King Hussein. With King Hussein's death, the United States has lost a close, steady friend in a troubled part of the world. My deepest condolences go out to the King's family and the Jordanian people. My best wishes go to King Hussein's designated heir, King Abdullah. In all of my encounters with King Hussein I was impressed above all else by his optimism and determination in the cause of peace. He never gave up, and in his memory, we must now press forward on the road to peace. I was also touched by his humanity and personal warmth. He was always gentle and polite, never aloof or imperious. Though his life ended too soon, his legacy will survive. His rare gift of vision helped guide Jordan through many dark periods. The heroic steps he took to help promote peace and reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis will continue to bear fruit. His efforts to establish the foundations of democratic government in Jordan remain a worthy example for the region, where democracy is in short supply. Finally, the partnership between Jordan and the United States, cultivated so carefully by King Hussein over 46 years and nine American Administrations will continue well into the future. President Clinton has asked us to demonstrate our support for Jordan in a very tangible way--by promptly approving his request for supplemental assistance to Jordan. I hope that we can act on that request quickly to show the Jordanian people that we honor the memory and great achievements of their late King, and that our friendship with their country is enduring.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Bill Roth, my good friend and colleague from Delaware, the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, in introducing legislation important to our State. Small businesses are the cornerstone of our economy--in Delaware and across the rest of the country. They are key players in the record economic expansion we have enjoyed over the last seven years. They are engines of job growth and technical innovation, and they deserve not only our praise, but our support as well. The Small Business Administration has many programs that can provide that support--including loan guarantee--through a national network of district offices. However, Delaware remains the only State in the Union that is without a Small Business Administration district office. The higher hurdles between Delaware small businesses and the services of the Small Business Administration reduce the value of those services to Delawareans. That is why Senator Roth and I are introducing this legislation, that will guarantee that every state--including Delaware--will have its own Small Business Administration district office. This can be accomplished without any additional expenditures under the current Small Business Administration budget. A district office in Delaware will make sure that Delaware businesses will enjoy the same access to Small Business Administration programs that their counterparts in other States now have. I look forward to working with Bill Roth, and Congressman Mike Castle in the House, to make this fair and sensible proposal a success in this session of Congress.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Violence Against Women Act II. I am pleased to be joined by several of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are co-sponsoring this legislation. My colleagues joining me today include Senators Specter, Boxer, Murray, Mikulski, Landrieu, Feinstein, Lincoln, Snowe, Lautenberg, Reid, Reed, Dodd, Inouye, Kerry, Robb, Kennedy, Wellstone, and Schumer. Nearly 9 years ago when I first introduced the Violence Against Women Act, it was by no means a given that this body would consider it, let alone pass it. Although it may seem hard to believe now, at that time-- less than a decade ago--few thought it either appropriate or necessary for national legislation to be enacted to confront the very serious problem of domestic violence and sexual assault. The road to enactment was a long one. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the early 1990's, I convened several hearings on the bill and released many reports on the problem of violence against women. Three times I convinced the Judiciary Committee to favorably report the bill to the full Senate. Twice, I had to re-introduce the bill. Nearly 4 years passed from the original Violence Against Women Act's first introduction before the Senate fully considered it. But at last-- in September of 1994--the Violence Against Women Act became the law of our land. And, it did so with substantial support from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, clearing demonstrating what I have always known to be the case--that the fight to combat domestic violence and sexual assault is not a partisan issue, but a serious problem that affects our constituents in every one of our States and in every one of our home towns across this country. But even this bipartisan support to pass the act into law did not resolve the dispute as to whether the problem of violence against women merited a national response. As many of my colleagues will recall, throughout the summer of 1995, the Congress debated whether or not we should actually fund the Violence Against Women Act. Fortunately, by the fall of that year, the Congress finally reached a consensus that the Federal Government both can and should provide significant resources and leadership in a national effort to end the violence women suffer at the hands of men, many of who they live with or have children with. That consensus continues to this day. Let me provide just a few statistics and examples to show how successful the initiative to fight violence against women has been, but how far we still have to go: On the one hand, the number of women killed by someone with whom they are in an intimate relationship--such as a current or former spouse, a cohabiting partner, or a current or former boyfriend--had decreased markedly--by 60 percent--in 1996 as compared with where it was 20 years earlier. And, the total number of women victims of domestic violence is decreasing as well. In 1993, the year before the Violence Against Women Act became law, 1.1 million women reported being the victim of domestic violence or sexual assault. By 1996, the last year for which we have complete statistics, the number had fallen by 25 percent to about 840,000. This is still far, far too many, of course--even one victim is too many--but it represents an encouraging trend nonetheless that I believe we can attribute in part to the successes of this national effort. However, the news is not all good. One-fourth--25 percent--of women responding to a nationwide survey in late 1995 and early 1996 said that they had been raped or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date in their lifetimes. And demonstrating that violence against women is primarily domestic partner violence, 76 percent of women who have been raped or physically assaulted since age 18 were attacked by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date. These are troubling statistics. But the successes of the Violence Against Women Act are combating these trends in a variety of ways, such as: Putting thousands of trained police officers on the streets to arrest abusers before they can victimize again; supporting police officers as they work to help victims; adding trained prosecutors who put these abusers where they belong--in jail--or enforce protective orders to keep them away from those they have abused; tens of thousands of women and their children have access to shelters that provide a safe haven; victims of domestic violence and sexual assault have access to a wide array of support services from counseling to legal assistance; and a national domestic violence hotline handles hundreds of thousands of calls for help. Our consensus in the Congress reflects a fundamental agreement across our Nation: The time when a woman had to suffer--in silence and alone-- because the criminal who is victimizing her happens to be her husband or boyfriend is on its way to becoming ancient history. Today, we must build on this consensus and deliver on its promise-- because for all the strides we have made, there remain far too many women and their children who are still vulnerable. The statistics I reported just now reflect that reality. Just because we have had some success does not mean we can become complacent and abandon the fight against domestic violence now. And so, the legislation I am introducing today--the Violence Against Women Act II--has one simple goal: make more women and their children more safe. This legislation builds on the tremendous successes of the original Violence Against Women Act in three key ways--it continues what is working; it seeks to improve what could work better; and it expands the national fight into new areas where the need is clear. There are many other ideas and proposals in addition to those contained in this bill that deserve serious consideration before the full Senate debates this legislation. And, I am sure there are ways to refine and improve this bill. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make this bill the best it can be. There are many Senators who are deeply committed to combating violence against women, and many of them have joined me today, for which I am grateful. I encourage all of my colleagues to review this legislation, offer their insights and lend their names as co-sponsors and leaders in the fight against domestic violence. I believe they will find that it offers comprehensive, sensible, workable, and cost-effective responses to combating violence against women. Before I describe some highlights of this legislation, let me first emphasize what I believe to be the key, core element of the violence against women II. That central factor is a simple one--the money. We need to ensure that there continues to be dollars for cops, courts, prosecutors, judges, shelters, and all the elements which are working. Keeping the money flowing to where it works requires one simple yet crucial step--extending the violent crime reduction trust fund to 2002. The trust fund is due to expire in 2000. This is perhaps the most significant provision in the act I introduce today, and without it we will fail in the future to replicate our past successes in combating violence against women. Beyond this fundamental step--and I cannot overemphasize the importance of the trust fund--there are four key policy areas addressed by the Violence Against Women Act II: strengthening law enforcement's tools; improving services for the victims of violence; reducing violence against children; and enhancing and supporting training and education efforts to enlist many more professionals in our shared fight. On the law enforcement front, the bill introduced today starts with needed improvements to promote inter-state and inter-jurisdictional enforcement of ``stay-away,'' or protection, orders. This is also known as giving ``full faith and credit'' to valid protection orders from any jurisdiction where they were issued. It often happens that the cops in one State may not know that there is a valid protection order issued by another jurisdiction. It is not their fault--it is often a matter of training to recognize valid orders or the means of communicating and sharing information across state lines. This is a mobile society, and victims of domestic violence often find they must flee the place they live and where they previously obtained a protection order so that they can keep themselves and their children safe. For these situations, we propose today a few simple fixes: Permitting state and local cops to use their ``pro-arrest'' grants for this kind of information sharing; encouraging states to enter into the cooperative agreements necessary to help interstate enforcement; and calling on the Justice Department to help develop new protocols and disseminate the ``best practices'' of State and local cops. These are all simple and common sense solutions, but very necessary nevertheless. This bill will help these fixes become reality. Other initiatives in this bill are to: Enhance and expand the resources available for courts to handle domestic violence and sexual assault cases; target the ``date-rape'' drug with the maximum federal penalties; continue funding for police, prosecutors, law enforcement efforts in rural communities, and for anti-stalking initiatives; and extend the support of local police ``pro-arrest'' efforts. Of course, a comprehensive effort to reduce violence against women and lessen the harm it causes must do more than just arrest, convict and imprison abusers--we must also help the victims of violence. This legislation proposes to assist these crime victims in three fundamental ways: Providing a means for immediate protections from their abusers, such as through access to shelters; easier access to the courts and to the legal assistance necessary to keep their abusers away from them; and removing the ``catch-22s'' that sometimes literally compel women to stay with their abusers--such as discriminatory insurance policies that could force a mother to choose between turning in the man who is beating her or keeping health insurance for her children. Another ``catch-22'' affects immigrant women who are sometimes faced with a similar insidious ``choice.'' In 1994, we worked out provisions so battered immigrant women--whose ability to stay in the country was dependent on their husbands--would not have to choose between staying in this country and continuing to be beaten, or leaving their abusers, but in doing so have to also leave our country (perhaps even without their children). This bill fixes aspects of this problem that leave an abused woman with such a horrible, unfair and immoral choice. Those are this bill's three general policy goals. Let me outline more specifically just how our legislation proposes to boost the protections for the victims of violence. First and foremost, we must build on our successful effort to provide more shelter space for battered women and their children. There have been significant efforts already to fund shelters for women who are victims of domestic violence and their children. However, the unmet need for shelter remains significant. For example, data from six states, which together have about 16 percent of the nation's population had to turn away more than 45,000 battered women who were seeking shelter because they simply did not have the space. Extrapolating these figures to the entire nation suggests that about 300,000 battered women and their children are turned away from shelters every year. Current appropriations for shelter space stands at about $89 million. This legislation boosts this amount to $500 million over the the next three years. The additional money will help close the ``shelter-gap'' and bring us closer to the day when all battered women will have a safe, secure haven when they need it most. We must also provide women with the Assistance necessary so that they can get access to help from our justice system. This bill does so in some clear and common sense ways, such as: Re-authorizing the expiring program to provide about $1 million per year for victim and witness counselors in court; continuing and expanding the highly successful national domestic violence hotline at a cost of about $4 million a year); and developing a coordinated approach to connecting victims of domestic abuse with trained, volunteer attorneys who can provide critical legal assistant. To them at this very vulnerable time in their lives. I urge my colleagues to support--and even build upon--our efforts to put an end these real problems. A third area where this legislation seeks action is on reducing violence against children. As my colleagues know, households where a woman is beaten are much more likely to also be home to child abuse and neglect. Moreover, we know that children who witness violence are much more likely to repeat the cycle when they are adults. Here, our legislation proposes to continue two longstanding programs by providing: Resources to serve runaway and homeless youth who are victims of sexual abuse; and resources for court-appointed special advocates and special child abuse training for court personnel through the victims of child abuse act (originally cosponsored by Senator Thurmond and myself in 1990.) The remaining area targeted by the Violence Against Women Act--two includes several efforts to help train and educate those already on the front-lines of the battle against violence against women. Over the past few years, I have worked with several corporations who have begun their own workplace initiatives--everything from 24-hour assistance hotlines for their employees, training to help managers better recognize domestic violence, and even comprehensive employee assistant efforts. Helping other companies start or improve--on their own initiative-- such anti-violence efforts is why this legislation includes a national workplace clearinghouse on violence against women. The clearinghouse will provide technical assistance and help circulate best practices to companies interested in combating violence against women. Another problem in the field involves the complex nature of criminal investigations into sexual assault cases. To assist the cops in the field who conduct these investigations, this legislation calls on the Attorney General to evaluate and recommend standards of training and practice of forensic examinations following sexual assaults. Finally, this legislation continues the authorization for rape prevention and education programs. These programs provide public awareness and education efforts to teach young women how to protect themselves from rape and attack. I have just offered the most general outline of the contents of the Violence Against Women Act II. I introduced this legislation in the last session of Congress. My colleagues and I worked diligently and productively on it last year and made substantial progress. This year, I am determined that we will complete the work we started last year and pass the Violence Against Women Act II. I urge my colleagues to review this legislation carefully. This is not just a bipartisan effort--it is a non-partisan effort in which I hope every one of my colleagues will join me. I am confident they will find this bill a comprehensive and practical response that will help us meet a goal I believe is shared by every member of this Senate--making more women and more children more safe now and in the future. 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 the Violence Against Women Act II. I am pleased to be joined by several of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are co-sponsoring this legislation. My colleagues joining me today include Senators Specter, Boxer, Murray, Mikulski, Landrieu, Feinstein, Lincoln, Snowe, Lautenberg, Reid, Reed, Dodd, Inouye, Kerry, Robb, Kennedy, Wellstone, and Schumer. Nearly 9 years ago when I first introduced the Violence Against Women Act, it was by no means a given that this body would consider it, let alone pass it. Although it may seem hard to believe now, at that time-- less than a decade ago--few thought it either appropriate or necessary for national legislation to be enacted to confront the very serious problem of domestic violence and sexual assault. The road to enactment was a long one. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the early 1990's, I convened several hearings on the bill and released many reports on the problem of violence against women. Three times I convinced the Judiciary Committee to favorably report the bill to the full Senate. Twice, I had to re-introduce the bill. Nearly 4 years passed from the original Violence Against Women Act's first introduction before the Senate fully considered it. But at last-- in September of 1994--the Violence Against Women Act became the law of our land. And, it did so with substantial support from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, clearing demonstrating what I have always known to be the case--that the fight to combat domestic violence and sexual assault is not a partisan issue, but a serious problem that affects our constituents in every one of our States and in every one of our home towns across this country. But even this bipartisan support to pass the act into law did not resolve the dispute as to whether the problem of violence against women merited a national response. As many of my colleagues will recall, throughout the summer of 1995, the Congress debated whether or not we should actually fund the Violence Against Women Act. Fortunately, by the fall of that year, the Congress finally reached a consensus that the Federal Government both can and should provide significant resources and leadership in a national effort to end the violence women suffer at the hands of men, many of who they live with or have children with. That consensus continues to this day. Let me provide just a few statistics and examples to show how successful the initiative to fight violence against women has been, but how far we still have to go: On the one hand, the number of women killed by someone with whom they are in an intimate relationship--such as a current or former spouse, a cohabiting partner, or a current or former boyfriend--had decreased markedly--by 60 percent--in 1996 as compared with where it was 20 years earlier. And, the total number of women victims of domestic violence is decreasing as well. In 1993, the year before the Violence Against Women Act became law, 1.1 million women reported being the victim of domestic violence or sexual assault. By 1996, the last year for which we have complete statistics, the number had fallen by 25 percent to about 840,000. This is still far, far too many, of course--even one victim is too many--but it represents an encouraging trend nonetheless that I believe we can attribute in part to the successes of this national effort. However, the news is not all good. One-fourth--25 percent--of women responding to a nationwide survey in late 1995 and early 1996 said that they had been raped or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date in their lifetimes. And demonstrating that violence against women is primarily domestic partner violence, 76 percent of women who have been raped or physically assaulted since age 18 were attacked by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date. These are troubling statistics. But the successes of the Violence Against Women Act are combating these trends in a variety of ways, such as: Putting thousands of trained police officers on the streets to arrest abusers before they can victimize again; supporting police officers as they work to help victims; adding trained prosecutors who put these abusers where they belong--in jail--or enforce protective orders to keep them away from those they have abused; tens of thousands of women and their children have access to shelters that provide a safe haven; victims of domestic violence and sexual assault have access to a wide array of support services from counseling to legal assistance; and a national domestic violence hotline handles hundreds of thousands of calls for help. Our consensus in the Congress reflects a fundamental agreement across our Nation: The time when a woman had to suffer--in silence and alone-- because the criminal who is victimizing her happens to be her husband or boyfriend is on its way to becoming ancient history. Today, we must build on this consensus and deliver on its promise-- because for all the strides we have made, there remain far too many women and their children who are still vulnerable. The statistics I reported just now reflect that reality. Just because we have had some success does not mean we can become complacent and abandon the fight against domestic violence now. And so, the legislation I am introducing today--the Violence Against Women Act II--has one simple goal: make more women and their children more safe. This legislation builds on the tremendous successes of the original Violence Against Women Act in three key ways--it continues what is working; it seeks to improve what could work better; and it expands the national fight into new areas where the need is clear. There are many other ideas and proposals in addition to those contained in this bill that deserve serious consideration before the full Senate debates this legislation. And, I am sure there are ways to refine and improve this bill. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make this bill the best it can be. There are many Senators who are deeply committed to combating violence against women, and many of them have joined me today, for which I am grateful. I encourage all of my colleagues to review this legislation, offer their insights and lend their names as co-sponsors and leaders in the fight against domestic violence. I believe they will find that it offers comprehensive, sensible, workable, and cost-effective responses to combating violence against women. Before I describe some highlights of this legislation, let me first emphasize what I believe to be the key, core element of the violence against women II. That central factor is a simple one--the money. We need to ensure that there continues to be dollars for cops, courts, prosecutors, judges, shelters, and all the elements which are working. Keeping the money flowing to where it works requires one simple yet crucial step--extending the violent crime reduction trust fund to 2002. The trust fund is due to expire in 2000. This is perhaps the most significant provision in the act I introduce today, and without it we will fail in the future to replicate our past successes in combating violence against women. Beyond this fundamental step--and I cannot overemphasize the importance of the trust fund--there are four key policy areas addressed by the Violence Against Women Act II: strengthening law enforcement's tools; improving services for the victims of violence; reducing violence against children; and enhancing and supporting training and education efforts to enlist many more professionals in our shared fight. On the law enforcement front, the bill introduced today starts with needed improvements to promote inter-state and inter-jurisdictional enforcement of ``stay-away,'' or protection, orders. This is also known as giving ``full faith and credit'' to valid protection orders from any jurisdiction where they were issued. It often happens that the cops in one State may not know that there is a valid protection order issued by another jurisdiction. It is not their fault--it is often a matter of training to recognize valid orders or the means of communicating and sharing information across state lines. This is a mobile society, and victims of domestic violence often find they must flee the place they live and where they previously obtained a protection order so that they can keep themselves and their children safe. For these situations, we propose today a few simple fixes: Permitting state and local cops to use their ``pro-arrest'' grants for this kind of information sharing; encouraging states to enter into the cooperative agreements necessary to help interstate enforcement; and calling on the Justice Department to help develop new protocols and disseminate the ``best practices'' of State and local cops. These are all simple and common sense solutions, but very necessary nevertheless. This bill will help these fixes become reality. Other initiatives in this bill are to: Enhance and expand the resources available for courts to handle domestic violence and sexual assault cases; target the ``date-rape'' drug with the maximum federal penalties; continue funding for police, prosecutors, law enforcement efforts in rural communities, and for anti-stalking initiatives; and extend the support of local police ``pro-arrest'' efforts. Of course, a comprehensive effort to reduce violence against women and lessen the harm it causes must do more than just arrest, convict and imprison abusers--we must also help the victims of violence. This legislation proposes to assist these crime victims in three fundamental ways: Providing a means for immediate protections from their abusers, such as through access to shelters; easier access to the courts and to the legal assistance necessary to keep their abusers away from them; and removing the ``catch-22s'' that sometimes literally compel women to stay with their abusers--such as discriminatory insurance policies that could force a mother to choose between turning in the man who is beating her or keeping health insurance for her children. Another ``catch-22'' affects immigrant women who are sometimes faced with a similar insidious ``choice.'' In 1994, we worked out provisions so battered immigrant women--whose ability to stay in the country was dependent on their husbands--would not have to choose between staying in this country and continuing to be beaten, or leaving their abusers, but in doing so have to also leave our country (perhaps even without their children). This bill fixes aspects of this problem that leave an abused woman with such a horrible, unfair and immoral choice. Those are this bill's three general policy goals. Let me outline more specifically just how our legislation proposes to boost the protections for the victims of violence. First and foremost, we must build on our successful effort to provide more shelter space for battered women and their children. There have been significant efforts already to fund shelters for women who are victims of domestic violence and their children. However, the unmet need for shelter remains significant. For example, data from six states, which together have about 16 percent of the nation's population had to turn away more than 45,000 battered women who were seeking shelter because they simply did not have the space. Extrapolating these figures to the entire nation suggests that about 300,000 battered women and their children are turned away from shelters every year. Current appropriations for shelter space stands at about $89 million. This legislation boosts this amount to $500 million over the the next three years. The additional money will help close the ``shelter-gap'' and bring us closer to the day when all battered women will have a safe, secure haven when they need it most. We must also provide women with the Assistance necessary so that they can get access to help from our justice system. This bill does so in some clear and common sense ways, such as: Re-authorizing the expiring program to provide about $1 million per year for victim and witness counselors in court; continuing and expanding the highly successful national domestic violence hotline at a cost of about $4 million a year); and developing a coordinated approach to connecting victims of domestic abuse with trained, volunteer attorneys who can provide critical legal assistant. To them at this very vulnerable time in their lives. I urge my colleagues to support--and even build upon--our efforts to put an end these real problems. A third area where this legislation seeks action is on reducing violence against children. As my colleagues know, households where a woman is beaten are much more likely to also be home to child abuse and neglect. Moreover, we know that children who witness violence are much more likely to repeat the cycle when they are adults. Here, our legislation proposes to continue two longstanding programs by providing: Resources to serve runaway and homeless youth who are victims of sexual abuse; and resources for court-appointed special advocates and special child abuse training for court personnel through the victims of child abuse act (originally cosponsored by Senator Thurmond and myself in 1990.) The remaining area targeted by the Violence Against Women Act--two includes several efforts to help train and educate those already on the front-lines of the battle against violence against women. Over the past few years, I have worked with several corporations who have begun their own workplace initiatives--everything from 24-hour assistance hotlines for their employees, training to help managers better recognize domestic violence, and even comprehensive employee assistant efforts. Helping other companies start or improve--on their own initiative-- such anti-violence efforts is why this legislation includes a national workplace clearinghouse on violence against women. The clearinghouse will provide technical assistance and help circulate best practices to companies interested in combating violence against women. Another problem in the field involves the complex nature of criminal investigations into sexual assault cases. To assist the cops in the field who conduct these investigations, this legislation calls on the Attorney General to evaluate and recommend standards of training and practice of forensic examinations following sexual assaults. Finally, this legislation continues the authorization for rape prevention and education programs. These programs provide public awareness and education efforts to teach young women how to protect themselves from rape and attack. I have just offered the most general outline of the contents of the Violence Against Women Act II. I introduced this legislation in the last session of Congress. My colleagues and I worked diligently and productively on it last year and made substantial progress. This year, I am determined that we will complete the work we started last year and pass the Violence Against Women Act II. I urge my colleagues to review this legislation carefully. This is not just a bipartisan effort--it is a non-partisan effort in which I hope every one of my colleagues will join me. I am confident they will find this bill a comprehensive and practical response that will help us meet a goal I believe is shared by every member of this Senate--making more women and more children more safe now and in the future. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, included within this omnibus appropriations bill are two important pieces of legislation related to foreign policy. The first, produced on a bipartisan basis in the Foreign Relations Committee, is the ``Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act,'' which involves the institutional structure of, and funding for, the foreign affairs agencies of the U.S. government. The second bill is legislation necessary to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty approved by the Senate in April 1997. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act is not perfect, and unfortunately it differs in one critical respect from the original bill approved by the Senate 16 months ago. I say ``unfortunately'' because this bill does not contain a single dime for our UN arrears. Last year, Chairman Helms and I agreed on a proposal to authorize the payment of $926 million in arrears to the United Nations, conditioned on a series of reforms in that body. The Senate approved the Helms-Biden legislation twice in 1997, first by a vote of 90-5 in June, then by a voice vote in November. The obstacle to making good on our commitments to the United Nations? A small minority of members in the other body, who have insisted that our arrears payments to the United Nations should be held hostage to an unrelated issue regarding family planning. The specific provision--the so-called Mexico City amendment --would require the withholding of funds from foreign, non-governmental organizations which use their own funds to perform abortions or discuss the issue with foreign governments. The President has indicated on several occasions that he will veto any bill presented to him that contains the Mexico City language. Nonetheless, a handful of obstructionists in the other body march steadily ahead, determined to undermine U.S. foreign policy interests in order to advance their unrelated cause. I deeply regret such irresponsible action by the other body, but it is emblematic of the reckless disregard that many in that body have for the important responsibilities the United States has as the world s leading superpower. In the past few weeks, the Chairman and I attempted to include a $200 million down payment on our UN arrears, which would have been linked to certain of the conditions in the Helms-Biden legislation. But even this limited payment of our arrears proved to be too much for the members in the other body who have taken American foreign policy hostage. It is essential that we find a way to repay our arrears next year. For better or for worse, the United Nations is a valuable means to advance our foreign policy and security interests around the world, by providing a forum for improved cooperation with other states and by allowing us, in some instances, to share the burdens and costs of world leadership. Our status as a deadbeat is unquestionably hurting our interests, not only at the UN but with our leading allies--many of whom are owed money by the UN for peacekeeping operations they undertook, but for which we have not yet paid. The cost to our interests cannot be measured with precision, but the resentment against the United States for its failure to pay its back dues is having a corrosive effect on our agenda at the UN and elsewhere. It is bordering on scandalous that a big nation like ours, blessed with abundant wealth, has failed to pay its bills on time. Next year, the President is expected to nominate Richard Holbrooke to be our representative to the United Nations. Ambassador Holbrooke's nomination offers us a chance for a fresh start in the negotiations on UN arrears and reforms. Mr. Holbrooke is one of the most creative diplomats and negotiators of our time, and I am confident he will bring fresh insights and endless energy to this important issue. I am also hopeful that the Chairman remains committed to trying to move legislation in the next Congress to repay the full amount agreed to last year in our negotiations. Let me turn now to the provisions of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act that are contained in the omnibus bill. Much of the legislative history of bill is set forth in the conference report to H.R. 1757, which was approved by both houses last spring. But I would like to take a few minutes to summarize the bill and highlight several issues. First, the legislation before us establishes a framework for the reorganization of the U.S. foreign policy agencies which is consistent with the plan announced by the President in April 1997. After several years of debate, last year the President agreed to the abolishment of two foreign affairs agencies, and their merger into the State Department. The first agency to be abolished will be the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), which will be merged into the State Department no later than April 1, 1999; the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) will follow no later than October 1, 1999. As with the President s plan, the Agency for International Development (AID) will remain a separate agency, but it will be placed under the direct authority of the Secretary of State. And, consistent with the President s proposal to seek improved coordination between the regional bureaus in the State Department and AID, the Secretary of State will have the authority to provide overall coordination of assistance policy. The integration of ACDA and USIA into the State Department is not intended to signal the demise of the important functions now performed by these agencies. On the contrary, their merger into the Department is designed to ensure that the arms control and public diplomacy functions are key elements of American diplomacy. In that regard, the bill establishes in law two new positions in the State Department, an Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, and an Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. These senior officers will have primary responsibility for assisting the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State in the formation and implementation of U.S. policy on these matters. It is expected that the officials who will be named to these positions will be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent. The conference committee on H.R. 1757 rejected a proposal by the Executive Branch to seek authority to place officials who are now in analogous positions in these newly- created positions. One issue of particular concern regarding ACDA in the reorganization is the need to maintain the highest standards of competence and objectivity in the analysis of compliance with arms control and non- proliferation agreements. As the Foreign Relations Committee stated in its report last year, it is vital ``that the Under Secretary be able to call upon expert personnel in these areas who will not feel obligated to downplay verification or compliance issues because of any potential impact of such issues upon overall U.S. relations with another country.'' Chairman Helms and I have urged the Secretary of State to find a way to make the official for compliance a Senate-confirmed, Presidential appointee. The bill puts flesh on the bones of the President's plan with regard to international broadcasting. The President's proposal was virtually silent on this question, stating only that the ``distinctiveness and editorial integrity of the Voice of America and the broadcasting agencies would be preserved.'' The bill upholds and protects that principle by maintaining the existing government structure established by Congress in 1994 in consolidating all U.S. government-sponsored broadcasting--the Voice of America, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Worldnet TV--under the supervision of one oversight board known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Importantly, however, the Board and the broadcasters below them will not be merged into the State Department, where their journalistic integrity would be greatly at risk. Instead, the Broadcasting Board will be an independent federal entity within the Executive Branch. The Secretary of State will have a seat on the board, just as the Director of the USIA does now. Second, the bill authorizes important funding for our diplomatic readiness, which has been severely hampered in recent years by deep reductions in the foreign affairs budget. This Congress has stopped the hemorrhaging in the foreign affairs budget, but I believe that funding for international programs remains inadequate, given our responsibilities as a great power. Although the Cold War has ended, the need for American leadership in world affairs has not. Our diplomats represent the front line of our national defense; with the downsizing of the U.S. military presence overseas, the maintenance of a robust and effective diplomatic capability has become all the more important. Despite the reduction in our military readiness abroad, the increased importance of diplomatic readiness to our nation s security has not been reflected in the federal budget. Significantly, this omnibus appropriations bill contains the emergency funding requested by the Administration for embassy security. The bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa in August demonstrate that many of our missions overseas remain highly vulnerable to terrorist attack; it is imperative that we provide the State Department the resources necessary to protect our employees serving overseas. We should understand, however, that the urgent funding in this bill is just the beginning of a long-term program to enhance security at embassies around the globe. I am especially pleased that the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act is also incorporated in the omnibus spending bill. The Senate passed this legislation unanimously in May of 1997, and we have waited since then for the leadership of the other body to accept that complying with our international commitments is a requirement, rather than a political football. The enactment of this measure will enable the United States to file the comprehensive data declarations required by the Convention, and therefore to demand that other countries' declarations be complete. The United States will now be able to accept inspections of private facilities, and therefore to request challenge inspections of suspected illegal facilities in foreign countries. The United States will finally be able also to protect confidential business information, acquired in declarations or on-site inspections, from release under the Freedom of Information Act. After nearly 17 months of waiting, it is about time. In closing, I want to pay tribute to Chairman Helms for his continued good faith and cooperation throughout the last two years on these and other issues. He has been the driving force behind the legislation to reorganize the foreign affairs agencies, and I congratulate him for his achievement. I also want to thank our colleagues in the other body, particularly the ranking member of the Committee on International Relations, Lee Hamilton, who is retiring this year after over three decades of noble service to his district in Indiana and to the American people. We wish him well as he moves on to new challenges. Mr. President, I want to reiterate that we are leaving important unfinished business--the payment of our back dues to the United Nations. It must be at the top of our agenda in the next Congress. I look forward to working with the Chairman and the Secretary of State to find a way to finish the job. Alternative Fuel Tax Credits

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate today is passing the Hatch-Biden-Lautenberg substitute amendment to H.R. 4164, and I am hopeful that the other body will take up and pass the measure before Congress adjourns for the year. What this legislation does is simple. Under current federal law, states must give full faith and credit to the child custody orders of another state. A custody order is defined as including a visitation order. However, as evidence from around the country has shown, state courts often do not automatically recognize visitation orders, particularly when it is a visitation order for someone other than the child's parent, such as a grandparent. State courts are supposed to honor such orders, but it is often an arduous process getting them to do so. This legislation simply clarifies that the full faith and credit law includes visitation orders. We want it to be absolutely clear to state courts that a state visitation order entered consistently with the provisions of the federal full faith and credit statute must be given full faith and credit by all other states. In a narrow legal sense, it does nothing different than current federal law. But, by making that law more explicit, it hopefully will eliminate the hassles, obstacles, and delays that too often confront those who have valid visitation orders and are asking only that federal law be followed. Mr. President, the author of this idea was Representative Rob Andrews of New Jersey, who deserves credit for bringing this issue to our attention. From the day in 1997 when he introduced his bill on visitation orders, he has been tireless in pushing for its passage. I commend him and congratulate him. Finally, I want to thank Senator Hatch for his willingness to move this bill in the final days of the session. There is a lot of pressing work to be done, and this issue could have got lost in the final crunch. But, the chairman and his staff were very gracious in working with me to pass this bill.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for allowing me to go first. Mr. President, the reason I didn't say anything initially is because I hoped to be able to still make my commitment in Delaware and hear the Senator from West Virginia. I mean that sincerely. It is rare for the Senator from West Virginia ever to take the floor if he does not have a serious piece of business to conduct. He is going to speak on the same subject I am speaking to. I will not get to hear his speech, but I am sure I will read it in the Record. Mr. President, I had originally intended today to introduce a resolution authorizing United States airstrikes against Yugoslavia in connection with the Kosovo crisis because I believe our Constitution requires the President to come to us for that authority. I have decided, however, not to offer the resolution because of recent developments, not on the constitutional front, but recent developments on the ground. The reality is that we are about to go out of session, and my ability to get a vote on this issue is problematic, at best. Instead, I rise to discuss the implications for U.S. policy regarding the agreement on Kosovo worked out 2 days ago by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, after more than a week of intensive negotiations. I might note that it seems at every important point in our history we have diplomats and elected officials who rise to the occasion to meet the needs of the Nation. I would like to suggest that Richard Holbrooke is the right man, at the right time, at the right spot. I compliment him. We are fortunate to have his diplomatic skills available to this Nation at this moment. On Monday, NATO's 16 member nations voted unanimously for what they call an ACTORD. That is military terminology for an activation order, which allowed the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, U.S. General Wes Clark, to order airstrikes, which reportedly would begin with cruise missiles and escalate to a phased bombing campaign that would move beyond Kosovo. Because this action order was taken, I believe, and only because of this, our negotiator, Mr. Holbrooke, was able to get an agreement from Mr. Milosevic, the criminal President of the Republic of Yugoslavia, to agree to certain of NATO's demands. In response, the alliance has postponed launching the airstrikes, which have been authorized for 4 days, in order to assess whether or not he, Mr. Milosevic, will comply. I assure you that he will not comply if he believes we are not serious about using significant force. The cruise missiles are now on immediate standby; B-52s stand ready on the runway equipped with cruise missiles to move if Milosevic fails to meet his commitments. The cruise missiles are now in immediate standby until Friday evening, U.S. eastern daylight time. In addition, more than 400 allied aircraft, the majority of them American, remain available for a phased air campaign, should that later become necessary. Mr. President, let me give my assessment right up front. As I said, I believe that Ambassador Holbrooke has done a good job. The agreement he negotiated in Belgrade is a good one, as long as we can be sure that if Milosevic does not keep his word, NATO air power will be used against the Yugoslav military and security forces. I must tell you, as the senior member in the minority on the Foreign Relations Committee, I have mixed emotions about Milosevic's having agreed. I believe he only understands force. I believe that he is the problem. I believe that, ultimately, force will have to be used. And, quite frankly, I wish we had just used this force. Mr. President, this agreement has, at least temporarily, averted NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia, which, as I indicated, I strongly support. I support them recognizing that they would have endangered the lives of American military personnel, which I do not take lightly. But we must honestly and forthrightly point out to the American people that although the risk was low for high casualties, it was high for some casualties. No one wants war, and this agreement may, in fact, begin to lay the foundation for a political settlement of the crisis in Kosovo. We must understand, though, that war has not been permanently averted in Kosovo. I would like to review the substance of the agreement negotiated, whose broad outlines are clear, but whose details understandably remain to be hammered out over the next several days. Milosevic, according to the agreement, must take several steps: First, he must maintain a cease-fire and scale back the presence of both the special police, the so-called MUP, and of the Yugoslav Army, or VJ, to February 1998 levels, dropping the regular army presence from 18,000 to 12,500 and the MUP from 11,000 to 6,500. I, and others, I am sure, including Ambassador Holbrooke, would have liked to have seen it taken back further. But I acknowledge that this was what was possible. Second, Milosevic must sign an agreement with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe--the so-called OSCE--to allow up to 2,000 ``compliance verifiers'' full access on the ground in Kosovo to make sure that Milosevic is keeping his promises. Third, Milosevic must sign an agreement with NATO to allow unarmed aircraft to fly over Kosovo to verify compliance with the cease-fire. Fourth, he must begin serious negotiations with the Kosovars by November 2, with a goal of giving Kosovo at least autonomy within Serbia. Fifth, he must allow complete access for humanitarian organizations to deliver assistance to the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons within Kosovo. These are the people you see on television, huddled in tents in the middle of fields and out in the forests. I believe it is unrealistic to think that Milosevic can draw down the special police and the Army units in Kosovo to February levels by the time the Serb-Kosovar negotiations begin on November 2, but he will have to have shown substantial movement in that direction by that time. Within a day or two, we can expect a statement by Milosevic proposing a timetable for negotiations with the Kosovars. These negotiations are supposed to be without preconditions. But the United States has made it clear that it expects Kosovo to regain a substantial part of the autonomy within Serbia that it lost in 1989. Although we do not presume to negotiate for the Kosovo Liberation Army, the KLA, or for Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate Kosovar leader, that is the minimum we expect. Yesterday, Serbia's President, a Milosevic puppet, announced support for elections to a Kosovo parliament, a general amnesty, and the formation of a Kosovar police force to maintain order over the ethnic Albanian community that comprises more than 90 percent of Kosovo's population. President Clinton has described the verification regime that Milosevic has agreed to as intrusive. It gives the OSCE verifiers a broad mandate, including the authority to establish a permanent presence in locations of their choosing in Kosovo, to accompany remaining Serb military units on patrol, and to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts. These verifiers would be backed up by American U2 spy planes and lower altitude P3 Orions and British Canberra photo reconnaissance planes to verify that compliance was underway. The verifiers will be unarmed, but NATO is putting together what we refer to as an over-the-horizon Quick Reaction Force, which will be ready to intervene on short notice if problems arise. Let me explain what was meant by that. There will be armed NATO military on the ground--not in Kosovo, not in Serbia--ready to react and cross the border if, in fact, Milosevic goes back to his ways of ethnic cleansing. Although the basing of this Quick Reaction Force has not yet been announced, I am told that there is an increasing likelihood that Macedonia, rather than Hungary or Italy, will be chosen as the location. Obviously, military requirements must dictate the basing decision, but in my view the choice of Macedonia would provide a needed political and psychological boost for that small country, which itself has a restive ethnic Albanian minority. I feel our European allies should take the lead on this Quick Reaction Force. I have reason to believe that the United Kingdom, which is in the best position of our allies to play such a role, may step up to the plate and take on this responsibility. Meanwhile, Milosevic has, as expected, orchestrated the crisis to move against domestic opposition within Serbia. Democratic politicians in Serbia--and there are some--have been threatened. Many independent radio stations have been forced off the air, and dozens of university professors who find Milosevic's conduct abhorrent, have been dismissed. Diplomacy is not an easy art. Ambassador Holbrooke, as I said earlier, is to be congratulated for his persistence and stamina in crafting this agreement. As yet, no text has been released, and many of the details remain to be worked out in the coming days. Although all Kosovar politicians, from the nonviolent leader Dr. Rugova to the KLA, vociferously maintain their insistence on independence for Kosovo, I believe most are prepared to accept the return of the pre-1989 autonomy, with the decision on the final status to be deferred for several years. My supposition is that between now and November 2, U.S. diplomats will work on a fresh draft that will be accepted by Milosevic and the Kosovars as the basis for negotiations. This will not be an easy task. Assuming that the Belgrade agreement holds, where are we, and what are the implications for U.S. policy? In the short term, the Belgrade agreement will be seen by some in the Balkans as a victory for Milosevic, since Kosovo will remain part of Serbia and the KLA, temporarily at least, will be denied its goal of independence. I might add, though, that in the short term, a NATO air campaign, most likely would also have redounded to Milosevic's credit, since the Serbs' first reaction would have been to rally round their flag. It is important to note, however, that if the Belgrade agreement is implemented, Serbian sovereignty will be undermined by the large international presence with wide powers and, eventually, I believe, by some sort of stipulation regarding a decision on final political status for Kosovo after a period of several years. As I have said many times on this floor, I do not favor independence for Kosovo. It would send the message in the region that state boundaries should be determined by ethnicity. The first casualty of independence of Kosovo at this moment would be the multiethnic, multireligious, democratic Bosnia-Herzegovina that underpins Dayton and is the goal of American policy. I believe it would also seriously destabilize neighboring Macedonia. Instead of independence, I have argued for a status in Kosovo between that of autonomy within Serbia and independence. But that is for the parties to work out. This could possibly take the form of republic status within Yugoslavia, but within a democratic Yugoslavia, not the current plaything of the thug named Milosevic. That brings me to the fundamental Balkan policy point that we should cease regarding Milosevic as part of the solution rather than as the problem incarnate. There is simply no chance for peace in the long term in the region until Milosevic is replaced by a democratic government in Belgrade that is willing to grant cultural and political rights to all of its citizens, Serbs and non-Serbs alike, and to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. I have no illusions that Belgrade is full of politicians who read Jefferson and Madison in their spare time. Nonetheless, I do not think we have paid adequate attention to the democratic opposition that does exist. Let's not forget that a democratic coalition did win control of 17 major city councils, including that of Belgrade, in the elections of November 1996. Even now, despite many divisions within the democratic ranks, there are significant elements in Serbian politics, in the Serbian Orthodox Church, among journalists, and in academe that could and should be assisted in a major way by the United States of America. For now, Milosevic has strengthened his grip on power by suppressing much of the opposition and spinning the news to emphasize his defiance of the West and NATO's supposed backing down, but that will be short lived. As Serbia's already pathetic economy worsens, opportunities will reemerge for a broad-based democratic opposition to challenge Milosevic. We should be patient while protecting life. We should lay the groundwork for that day by continuing to insist that the Serbian authorities lift the onerous restrictions under which the independent media chafe, by funding those independent media, and by encouraging intensive contact between democratic Western political parties and trade unions and their Serbian counterparts. In my first visit to Serbia, when I had a long meeting in Belgrade in 1993 with Milosevic, I indicated to him then as forthrightly as I could when he asked what I thought of him, I said to him in the privacy of his office, ``Mr. President, I think you are a war criminal and should be tried as such.'' I then met with over 100 people in opposition to Milosevic of all stripes, some extreme nationalists in opposition and some Democrats. The only point I wish to make is that there are roots for democratic growth in Serbia, and we should seek them out. In the coming days, NATO must watch Milosevic like a hawk and not be afraid to act militarily if he fails to fulfill the terms of the Belgrade agreement, particularly the movement toward reducing the numbers of his special police in Kosovo and sending the army back to its barracks and its heavy weaponry into cantonments. One must not forget, Mr. President, who have been the big losers in the tragedy of the last eight months. They are the approximately one- third of the Kosovar population whose ranks include perhaps one thousand killed, over three hundred thousand driven from their homes, and over four hundred villages destroyed. All this in order for Milosevic, whose legacy already includes hundreds of thousands of Bosnian and Croatian dead, to cling to power by once again diverting the attention of the Serbian people from the failure of his ignorant and hopelessly inept domestic policies. At least we can be thankful that if the Belgrade agreement is implemented, international relief supplies should reach the hundreds of thousands of displaced Kosovars, including many living in the open, thereby preventing massive fatalities this winter. On the wider stage, NATO has set the important precedent that in certain circumstances it has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a European state, without an explicit U.N. Security Council authorization. This is a big deal. NATO has also made clear to Russia that, in accordance with the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, negotiated by NATO Secretary General Solana and the President of the United States, Moscow has ``a voice, not a veto'' over NATO policy. That has been reemphasized here as well. Nevertheless, partly because of Russian objections and partly because of the congenital Western European aversion to using force to achieve political ends, NATO waited several months too long to create the credible threat necessary to compel Milosevic to stop his brutal repression notwithstanding U.S. urging. In effect, the delay enabled Milosevic to complete the short-term destruction of the KLA and the ethnic cleansing in western and central Kosovo that he desired. If similar crises arise in the future, we should give ad hoc bodies like the Contact Group one chance to get its act together. If it doesn't, then we should, without delay, go to NATO and call for resolute action. The kind of ethnic conflict we have seen in Bosnia and Kosovo was specifically mentioned in NATO's so-called Strategic Concept nearly seven years ago as the prototype for threats to the alliance in the post-Cold War era. So this is not a surprise to NATO. For that reason--not to mention the thousands of lives that can be spared--we must never again allow racist thugs like Milosevic to carry out their outrages while the alliance dawdles. The Belgrade agreement on Kosovo is a first step in the right direction. And President Clinton should be complimented. Its details need to be fleshed out. After they are we must brook no more opposition from Milosevic on its implementation. To use a domestic American term, we must adopt a policy of ``zero tolerance'' with the Yugoslav bully. Many of us had hoped that the mistakes that enabled the Bosnian horrors to take place would teach us a lesson. Unfortunately, we have repeated many of those errors and have thereby allowed Milosevic and his storm troopers to repeat their atrocities in Kosovo. Twice is enough. There must not be a third time. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I particularly thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, my leader. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Twenty.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of Delaware's, indeed this nation's, legal legends. Louis L. Redding was the first African-American admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1929. As one of the preeminent civil rights advocates in the country, Redding was sought after to participate in the argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), which led to the end of legal segregation in our nation's public schools. Brown included a Delaware case Redding had won in the State Chancery Court holding that nine black children had the right to attend white public schools. Louis L. Redding died Monday, September 28, 1998, at the age of 96. His death is obviously a time of sadness, but also a time to celebrate his truly pioneering life and spirit. Time and time again, Redding not only overcame adversity--he excelled in the face of it. He pursued justice persistently and passionately-- standing up for equal rights in education, public accommodations and criminal law. Redding, a 1928 Harvard University Law School graduate, broke the color barrier in the Delaware Bar after 253 years of this all-Caucasian group. When he took the Delaware Bar Examination with eight other white law school graduates, he was given a different, harder test. He passed with the top grades. After he was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1929, he remained the only minority attorney in Delaware for another twenty- seven years. It even took twenty years for the Delaware State Bar Association to allow him to become a member--and again he excelled in the face of adversity--becoming Vice President of this once all-white Association. Redding earned national respect with a series of sweeping civil rights victories in the Delaware courts. In 1950, he successfully argued Parker v. University of Delaware, Del. Ch., 75 A.2d 225 (1950), which held that the University of Delaware's refusal to admit blacks was unconstitutional because the State's black institution, Delaware State College, was woefully inferior. He next filed the public school racial segregation case, Belton v. Gebhardt, Del. Ch., 87 A.2d 862 (1952), aff'd, Del. Supr., 91 A.2d 137 (1952). This was the only case ultimately affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown. Most Americans associate the name of Redding's distinguished fellow NAACP attorney, Thurgood Marshall, with this school desegregation case, since he achieved greatness as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. And that's just how Redding preferred it. He preferred a lower profile, using his great skills to get the job done. After the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Redding dedicated his practice to implementing the desegregation order. In 1956, he filed a class action suit in the federal District Court in Delaware seeking to compel a school district to establish a desegregation plan. It took another twenty years for a court order forcing the implementation of this plan. Again, Redding persistently plodded along in the pursuit of justice. Redding also set precedent in ending discrimination in public accommodations. In 1961, he won another U.S. Supreme Court case, representing former Wilmington City Councilman William ``Dutch'' Burton, allowing blacks to eat at the same counter with whites at the Eagle Coffee Shoppe owned by the Wilmington Parking Authority. It is worth noting that Redding did not consider the U.S. Supreme Court victories to be his greatest legal achievements. Instead, he said his most significant accomplishment was desegregating Delaware's courtrooms. In an interview in 1990, Redding said: I suppose that really what I am most proud of . . . is my undertaking years back to break up segregation in seating in the courtrooms (of Delaware) . . . It was pretty horrible to go into a courtroom and see blacks seated in one place and whites in another. That's the way I found it when I came in. Ironically, Redding was not particularly proud of his distinction as the first African-American attorney in Delaware. In a characteristically, blunt, honest statement, Redding once said. ``How can you boast about being the first when you realize it was the result of racism and antipathy?'' And Redding downplayed his role as a civil rights and civil liberties pioneer. In a 1974 speech at Notre Dame University, he said: ``I am just a pedestrian, journeyman lawyer who happens to have been practicing in a state where the necessities of the situation made me participate in civil rights activities.'' The trails Redding blazed, however, set the course for those of us who are humbled to follow in his footsteps. On a very personal note, Louis Redding was one of my heroes. His leadership in the civil rights movement got me interested in politics. I first met him in 1969 when I was working as a young, public defender representing many in the black community in civil and criminal cases. And make no mistake about it--he commanded respect in the community and in the courtroom. In the black community, he respectfully was known as ``Lawyer Redding.'' Of course to me, it was never ``Lou,'' I always said ``Mr. Redding, Sir.'' Indeed, he was quite a presence in the courtroom, with his tailored, conservative suits and button-down shirts. His standard was excellence, as he fought for the poorest and most discriminated among us. Fortunately for us, Louis Redding's legacy and spirit live on in our community, and in his three daughters and five grandchildren. His name also appropriately graces a middle school and the New Castle County/ City of Wilmington public building. His bronze statute stands erect surrounded by young children in the pubic square as well. Louis L. Redding, noted civil rights attorney, teacher, loyal son, father, and grandfather--we will miss you greatly, and vow to keep your legacy alive.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I support the International Religious Freedom Act presented by the Assistant Majority Leader, the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Connecticut. We have discussed this legislation at some length over the last couple of weeks, and my colleagues have been very gracious in trying to accommodate some of my concerns with the bill. Although it is not a perfect bill, it is a compromise that I support. The persecution of individuals for their faith, like persecution for political beliefs or ethnicity, is abhorrent to all Americans. Unfortunately, too many nations around the world fail to protect the basic human rights of their citizens. The reasons for this are often complex and varied--but they are never justified. What justification can there be, for example, for the jailing by the Chinese government of thousands of dissidents--not to mention a few Catholic leaders who choose to remain loyal to the Vatican, rather than bow to the dictates of the so-called ``official'' church in Beijing? What justification can there be for a law in Russia which appears to discriminate between ``established'' religious organizations and those whose roots in Russia are not long-standing? As a nation founded on the premise that ``all men are created equal. . .endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights'', Americans have long been committed to promoting and protecting human rights. Existing law, in place since the 1970s, prohibits U.S. assistance to nations which engage in a ``consistent pattern of gross violations'' of human rights--including the right to religious freedom. Since the 1970s, we have also had an Assistant Secretary of State specifically devoted to the task of advancing human rights. In recent years, the Clinton Administration has taken important steps to promote religious freedom. In 1996, Secretary of State Christopher established an Advisory Committee on Religious Persecution Abroad, a 20-member panel which is broadly representative of many religious faiths, and has provided practical guidance to the Secretary and the State Department about this important subject. More recently, Secretary of State Albright has appointed a Senior Adviser to take the lead on religious freedom in the State Department. This legislation is designed to further elevate religious freedom on our foreign policy agenda. It does so by creating a new Office on International Religious Freedom at the Department of State, to be headed by an Ambassador-at-Large. Under this legislation, the State Department will produce a new annual report on religious freedom, which will assess the state of religious freedom around the world. This report, which will expand on the information available in the annual human rights report already produced by the State Department, should prove an invaluable resource to Americans concerned about religious freedom. Additionally, a new Commission will be established, for a period of four years, which will serve in an advisory capacity, producing a report of its own on an annual basis which will include recommendations for U.S. policy. The bill also contains new provisions of law requiring that the President impose sanctions against the most severe violators of the right to religious freedom. I must confess to some skepticism that new sanctions legislation is necessary, for two reasons. First, as I stated, current law already prohibits U.S. assistance to countries which engage in serious human rights violations. Second, in recent months I have reconsidered my own view on sanctions policy--and have come to the conclusion that, even though Congress is well within its constitutional power to apply sanctions, it is not always wise, as a matter of sound foreign policy, for Congress to do so. But I am willing to go along with this sanctions law because it includes many aspects that I believe must be present in any sanctions law that Congress enacts. Indeed, the sanctions provision in this bill offers considerable flexibility to the President. First, the bill provides the President with a ``menu'' of options-- seven different types of sanctions from which the President must choose just one sanction. If the President doesn't like the choices on the menu, he is free to take ``commensurate action''--that is, action commensurate to the items on the menu of options. Second, the bill provides a broad waiver authority. The President may waive the application of the sanction if the foreign government has ceased the violations; if using the waiver would ``further the purposes'' of the Act; or if important national interests of the United States justified the exercise of the waiver. Third, the bill provides that any sanctions sunset two years after they are imposed unless they are specifically reauthorized. The President may also terminate the sanctions if the foreign government has ``ceased or taken substantial and verifiable steps to cease'' the violations that gave rise to the sanctions. Fourth, there is an exemption from the sanctions for the provision of food, medicine, medical equipment or supplies, as well as other humanitarian assistance. In sum, although I am not eager to enact a new sanctions law, I believe we are setting an important precedent with this bill in terms of what should be contained in any sanctions law. We must make every effort to ensure that the steps we take under this law will help those who are suffering from persecution--and not increase the dangers they face. During the hearings in the Foreign Relations Committee on this legislation, several witnesses representing religious communities that operate overseas expressed this concern. I know the sponsors of this bill share this concern--and so I hope that both Congress and the Executive Branch will be attentive to it in the coming years. This bill takes several steps which I hope will lead to the advancement of religious freedom--one of the fundamental human rights-- around the world. We must be certain that in implementing this law, it is not to the detriment of other fundamental human rights that are recognized internationally. As the columnist Stephen Rosenfeld has written, religious freedom deserves a seat at the human rights table, but it should not overturn the table. Mr. President, I see my friend from Pennsylvania on the floor, Senator Specter. I compliment him--he is the one who got me into this, quite frankly--and my colleagues from Oklahoma and from Connecticut. I can claim no credit for starting this initiative. I can only claim that I have attempted to play a role here to make sure that the desire we all have to extend religious freedom around the world becomes a reality. I have tried to make sure that our sanctions meet a realistic test of promoting an actual change in the behavior of other nations. It was toward that end that I worked on a small part of this bill. I attempted to rationalize the sanctions legislation on this issue with what we are attempting to do on all the other sanctions legislation we have around here. The thing we have all learned is, unilateral sanctions on any subject seldom ever work. Sometimes, and promoting religious freedom is one of those times, we may have to act even if it is not efficacious, just to state our principled commitment to religious freedom. I recommend my colleagues take a look at this legislation though because I think we have produced a sound sanctions bill. For that, I have to thank the authors, Senator Specter and Senator Nickles and Senator Lieberman, for accommodating some of the changes I suggested in the functional way in which these sanctions would be employed. I thank them for their consideration. They were very gracious to me and very patient with me. And I am very satisfied with the way the bill has turned out--not only the principle but the efficacy of the legislation. I thank my colleague for the extra time, and I yield the floor. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.