Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I admire and applaud the interest of my friend from Alabama in the criminal justice system. He is a former prosecutor and is dedicated to law enforcement. I stand not to disagree with his concern; I disagree with his solution. There is on old expression where I come from--I think the Senator is ``in the right church, but he is in the wrong pew.'' I will explain what I mean by that. My friend has not misrepresented any facts, but it is a matter of presentation here. I want to make sure that I deal with 3 major issues. I want to lay out to my colleagues what I am going to do. First of all, I want to applaud the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee here. I think they did one heck of a job on this legislation. I start off by rising to defend--not that they need any defense--what the appropriations bill does in this area. So I am going to first make sure we all understand, and our colleagues' staffs who are listening understand, what the amendment of my friend from Alabama actually does, in specific terms. Then I want to speak to the issue he has raised, which is that there are already a sufficient number of programs dealing with prevention. He cites the GAO study. I want to go into some detail, quite frankly, for the first time. These figures keep being offered and this assertion keeps being stated. I think, although it accurately says what the GAO report says, it does not accurately reflect what is actually being done relative to prevention. Lastly, I am going to conclude by laying out what I believe to be the larger prescription to putting into context what I think we should be doing to deal with the problem the Senator from Alabama and I--and I suspect every Senator--agrees that we have to attend to now. I respectfully suggest that, at the outset, about 5 years ago when the crime bill passed--the comprehensive crime bill--it was called the Biden crime bill. That is when it didn't look like it was going to work, so the President liked it that way. Well, it started to work, and then it was the Clinton crime bill. So it started out as the Biden crime bill. The point is that it's working, so it is the Clinton crime bill. And it is now the bipartisan crime bill, which everybody supported. That was the first time in the 25 years I have been here that, on a large scale, we learned to walk and chew gum at the same time when we dealt with crime. We had a very heavy dose of enforcement, a very heavy dose of prevention, and a very heavy dose of medicine relating to incarceration after the conviction. And I think that is the way we have to approach the issue of juvenile justice. It is the last unattended-to criminal justice issue of consequence that we have not come up with a comprehensive plan on. The Senator from Alabama and I have been cooperating, debating, disagreeing, and working with one another in the Judiciary Committee for the last year and a half, with differing points of view on how to deal with a comprehensive juvenile justice approach. He indicates this is not that comprehensive approach. He is doing what is within his rights and what he is limited to be able to do on this appropriations bill, and that is deal specifically with what is in the bill. So the committee reported a bill that now includes $95 million for title V grants under the juvenile justice office. The way the committee broke it down, wisely, was $20 million for prevention efforts, aimed at tribal youth--that is in the Indian nations; $25 million for the enforcement of under-age drinking laws and efforts, championed particularly by Senator Byrd of West Virginia; $50 million for the remainder, which supports a variety of community-based locally developed crime prevention programs, targeted to school violence, drug abuse, and truancy, which I think is the first thing the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Delaware agree on. If you look at all the data, the single most significant, predictable precursor of youth violence is truancy. If you give me a list of all the truants and a list of all the other attributes relating to activities and conduct of students in American schools, I will bet you I will be able to pick any school district, any school, and identify for you 85 to 95 percent of the troubled youth, violent youth, just by being able to identify truancy. So we all know that, like the Senator from South Carolina who has spent a great deal of time dealing in this area, as has the Senator from New Hampshire. We all know that. They made a very wise allocation. What would my friend from Alabama do with his amendment? He would cut the $95 million for prevention by $50 million. Then he would take that $50 million for so-called youth block grants. I am not opposed to youth block grants. In the Biden juvenile justice bill, which is the alternative on our side of the aisle to S. 10 by my friend from Alabama and others, what we do--we believe we have to have enforcement as well. The Senator from Alabama takes $50 million out, which is basically the $50 million dealing with after-school, community-based programs and puts it into enforcement efforts. Last year, $45 million was appropriated for this, and the Senator from Alabama, Senator Sessions, is cutting the program back to last year's level--that is, $45 million--for all of the nonenforcement provisions relating to prevention. Now, I note parenthetically that the Democratic youth violence bill has $100 million for after-school prevention, $400 million for youth violence block grants, which is enforcement, and $250 million relating to existing programs, about one-half enforcement and one-half prevention, and $150 million for juvenile prosecutors in courts. So I want to put this into context. I don't speak for either of the managers of the bill, but my guess is that this is not a case where they attempted to write an entire juvenile justice bill. They were dealing with provisions within that. So I don't disagree with the proposition of my friend from Alabama that we have to do more on the enforcement side as well. The bill I have written, in concert with my Democratic colleagues-- and many Republicans as well support it--relates to both prevention and enforcement. When I say enforcement, I mean prosecution and the courts, and we have already taken care of provisions and have more provisions relating to juvenile justice detention and the facilities relating to that. So let's get this straight as this debate is underway here. I am not suggesting, in taking on what I am about to do regarding the specifics of the present specific amendment of my friend from Alabama, that we don't need more for enforcement. Again, I go back to my opening statement. I said it is nice when we have learned--and it works--to walk and chew gum at the same time. That is what we did on the master crime bill, the major crime bill. I don't know of anybody saying that crime bill is a bad bill now. What we did there is we committed, over a 5-year period, billions of dollars--$30 billion. It did not break down a third, a third, and a third, but it was not far off that. I am overstating it in the interest of time. Roughly 30 percent was for prisons, 30 percent was for cops, and 30 percent for related programs that keep people from going into prison. That makes sense. Now, we should do that on a wholesale basis for juvenile justice with a different focus. Let me specifically respond and again make the point--and I realize I am being somewhat pedantic here. But this is not about whether you are for enforcement or for prevention. We should do both, and we do both. It is about whether or not the skewed alteration of the allocation of prevention and enforcement proposed by the Senator from Alabama is the right way to go. Obviously, I think it is the wrong way to go. Let me explain why. First, in explaining why, let me respond to the specific underlying, and on its face compelling rationale my friend from Alabama offers with his blue charts. Let me explain what I mean by that. The Senator makes the statement that has been made many, many times-- not just by him but by others--that we don't need to go anymore into the prevention side. In large part, the basic premise rests upon the notion that we don't need to provide them with safe havens, et cetera, because we already have out there 131 programs for at-risk youth with an annual appropriations of $4 billion. The Senator from Illinois actually knows about this subject. But if I am the Senator from Illinois and I come on the floor and listen to the debate, and I say, ``Look, the Senator from Illinois is one of these guys who is always talking about cutting wastes from programs that we don't need''--overlapping programs--I stand up, and I say, ``By the way, we don't need to spend more money, we just need to spend the money better.'' The GAO report says there are 131 Federal programs and $4 billion. So I ask the Senator from Illinois why he would agree with Senator Biden-- or, in this case, with the committee--in putting $50 million of the $95 million they have in the prevention program. That is kind of compelling. Then I say the GAO said that, not me--the GAO. But the GAO does say that. I am going to take a few moments to bore you with some of the data underlying the GAO report. Maybe we can get an agreement here as to what the facts are underscoring the basis upon which the GAO report was filed. My colleagues on the other side--some, and a few on this side-- have been saying we don't need to do more to steer our children away from gangs and drugs; we don't need to provide more safe havens from the streets; we are already doing enough. I am supportive of the argument. GAO identifies 131 programs for at-risk youth with annual appropriations of $4 billion. And the claim is that after-school prevention programs that have been proposed by me and others included in the youth violence bill but included in this case in the appropriations bill are just more of the same. Let's take a closer look at the 131 programs being criticized over and over again and see what we are really talking about. I apologize to my colleagues. The ranking member of the Judiciary Committee has been kind enough to allow me to continue to be the ranking member of the Crime Subcommittee, and I feel like I let him down a little bit, because he has been doing about 500 other things out there in that committee, and I should have been calling what I am about to say to the attention of our colleagues 6 months ago, to be honest with you. And I didn't. I didn't. Let's take a look at it. The GAO report says that based on fiscal year 1995--to start with, many of the 131 programs have already been eliminated since then. In fact, 15 of the programs listed didn't even receive any funds in 1995. The report doesn't indicate whether any funds were expended on 22 others. What you had to start with is that a total of 37 of the 131 programs either didn't receive funds or weren't listed. The number of 131 is already inflated, No. 1. You are talking about maybe around 100--less than 100 programs. According to the GAO report, the Federal Government was spending about $4 billion per year on programs for delinquent and at-risk youth, a target that all of us on the floor are concerned about, from the Senator from Alabama to the Senator from New York to the Senators from New Hampshire and South Carolina. But when you take a close look at the actual programs, only a portion of these funds and programs are targeted specifically at preventing violence and drug abuse for young people. Let me give you two examples: $1.2 billion of the $4 billion--let's get this straight. You can tell I have been here 25 years because I am not a chart guy. I was kidding one of my Democratic colleagues saying that he does this so well when he debates. But guys like Bumpers, I, and Hollings are not so big on charts. We haven't learned the chart deal yet. I guess I should learn it to get into the mainstream, because if I had a chart, it would be clear. What I do is just talk longer and probably confuse things. But I am going to give it a shot without charts. Let's start off with 131 programs being offered saying we have $34 billion spent on at-risk youth. The truth is, it is 97 programs, and that is 1995. The truth is, in 1995 you really only had, at most, about 97 programs that got funded at all. OK? Then you have a second piece. Of those 97 programs that allegedly are targeted at at-risk youth--roughly 97--what you have is, $1.2 billion out of the $4 billion that is spent on those programs goes to the Job Training and Partnership Act. That was a program championed by a lead contender for the Presidential nomination of the Republican side, Dan Quayle, and the leading Democrat on the Senate side, Ted Kennedy. That is their program. When they introduced the program--and most of us were here--I don't remember any Member standing up saying this is for at- risk youth, designed to prevent crime. Hopefully, it has the spinoff benefit of providing jobs for kids and they don't go into crime. But this is not to deal with 36 million latchkey children who walk home after school without a mother or father there because both have to work and have from 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the afternoon until dinnertime with no supervision. That is not what the Job Training and Partnership Act was. But GAO counts $1.2 billion of that against the $4 billion they say we are spending on at-risk youth, violent youth. I am sure I don't have to remind anybody that the so-called JTPA is a program, as I said, championed by Dan Quayle and Ted Kennedy, that while job training is important, it is not what most of us think of as targeting at-risk, violent juveniles. Now we are down from $4 billion to $3.8 billion on 97 programs. There is another quarter of a billion dollars--not quite. To be precise, $245 million goes for vocational education programs. Most of the kids my friend from Alabama and I are concerned about are not signing up for vocational education, an important program. I strongly support it, as I do the job training program. But, again, no 13-year old with a key hanging around his neck after the school bell rings, walking through a bad neighborhood and by 12 junkies to get home, says, ``My way out of this is job training; my way out of this is vocational education.'' It is an important program, but it is not what we are talking about. Now we are down to about $2.75 billion and 97 programs. Actually, if you take vocational education, job training, and the related programs, it is about $1.5 billion the Federal Government spends. We are really down to about $2.35 billion and 97. Let's talk about some of the other programs. They go to very worthy activities. I am not in any way criticizing them. I voted for them, and I would vote for them again. I think they make sense. But they are not targeted programs for violent youth or at-risk youth. Let me go on. If we are going to talk about focus--that is what I am talking about here--7 of the programs listed are assistance for homeless youth, 9 of the programs--now we are down to about 90--9 others are very important, but they are for a variety of activities directed at Indian youth, for mental health and physical health programs. Now we are down to about 80 programs. Three other programs are dedicated specifically to mental health services for the general population. Now we are heading down into the mid seventies. Four programs deal with child abuse. Still we are in the seventies--below 70. And one of the programs is for migrant health services. So now you are down to around 70 programs from the 131. I will give you one example. The GAO list includes the HHS Child Welfare Grant Program which provides one-third of a billion dollars, $292 million, for foster care and services for abused and neglected children--very important services but not what we are talking about. So now we are getting down to the $2 billion area with about 70 programs. Other programs have little or nothing to do with crime and drug prevention. While any line drawing that I am making here--and I am doing that--is somewhat arbitrary, at least I hope this puts it in context for my colleagues. Let me give a couple other examples of programs that I don't think any of us--if we had a list of all the programs that I want, all the programs any of us want here to deal with youth prevention, if we listed them all on a board and I said, ``Pick the top 50 that deal with violent youth and preventing crime,'' I doubt whether you would add the Foster Parent Grant Program, the Food Stamp Employment Program, the Youth Impaired Driving Project, four programs for promoting art with youth--all important programs, all important, none of which I disagree with, but they do not have a darned thing to do with the center of the debate the Senator from Alabama and I have. I want programs. I want the States to be able to say, ``We will keep the school open until 5 o'clock. We are going to have baseball teams for ninth graders and football teams and basketball teams for the girls.'' None of the school districts you all live in do that, unless you send your kid to a private school. These kids have nothing to do. Kids need an excuse to tell that junkie they have to walk by on the corner to get to their home; they need an excuse to stay out of trouble. Let's go back home to your own school districts, many of which are strapped, and ask yourself, ``Why is it there is Little League in the summer but no baseball teams after school for boys and girls in sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades?'' Well, the school districts don't want to spend the money. I am the guy who came to this floor 8 years ago and said, ``The majority of the violent crime committed by young people is not when you all think it is.'' Everybody thought it was done in the heat of the night. It is done in broad daylight, in the sunlight between the hours of 2:30 and 6. I remember when I brought that report from the Judiciary Committee-- actually, the credit goes to the joint staff then of the Judiciary Committee--when I brought it to the floor. ``Oh, there goes those liberal guys again, talking about this coddling stuff.'' Now there is not a cop in America, there is not a criminal justice person in America who doesn't say that is the problem. My mom has an expression, as she would say, God love her--my mother is an Irish Catholic woman with 6,000 expressions. I went to Catholic grade school with the nuns. I think my mother, when she wasn't having children, was a nun. She remembers all the expressions. And one of her favorite expressions is, ``An idle mind is the devil's workshop.'' An idle mind is the devil's workshop. You get a ninth grade kid living in a tough neighborhood without supervision of any adult in a school, in a family, for 4 hours every day after school, and good kids, good kids do bad things; it is called maturation. What the heck do we expect these kids to do? They lack good judgment. Even when they know and care about right and wrong, they have bad judgment because they are 14 years old; they are not 24 or 54. I ask all of you--you may be, and probably all are, a better person than I am, but I wonder how I would have been if every day after school for 4 hours a day I was on my own, on my own. I was a pretty good athlete, and I was a pretty good student, and I never got myself in trouble with the law. But I want to tell you something. I will bet you, if I was on my own, with all of the values my family instilled in me, I am not so sure I would have had the courage to say no to the guy who was 17 who says, ``Hey, jump in the car and take a ride with me. It's only Charlie's car. We borrowed it.'' I would like to think I would have said, ``No problem. That's wrong. You guys are doing the wrong thing. I am not going to participate.'' Let me tell you something, Jack. You are a better person than I am if you are certain how you would have done it. And that is how this incrementally starts. It doesn't start with a 13-year-old kid waking up saying, ``You know, I am going out and get a MAC-9, walk into the 7- Eleven, blow away the guy behind the counter, and get $17 in cash so I can go buy myself some dope.'' That is not how it works. And so what are we doing here? Well, once you winnow out the programs for problems like child abuse and mental illness, once you exclude the programs directed at narrow populations, I believe that only 41 of the 131 programs in the GAO list, spending out at about $1.1 billion in appropriations a year, are targeted specifically at juvenile crime and drug prevention. And of that total of $1.1 billion, $639 million, over half, went to just two programs, one of which I am responsible for coauthoring, so I obviously support it, and the other which I support as well--over half went to just two programs; $467 million went to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act and community programs. Now, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act is the act we passed here, got funded. Then 1 day I guess the Speaker woke up and said, ``We think that's a bad idea,'' and they cut it. The public went bananas, and they put it back in; it is OK. Of the $1.1 billion for at-risk youth, $467 million goes to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, and my Republican colleagues boosted that appropriation last year to $556 million, a move I fully support and compliment the Republican leadership for doing, particularly since the House wanted to eliminate it. So now you are talking, of the $1.1 billion, $639 million of it, over half of it, is going for programs that, again, are not about after school. Then $172 million of the remaining roughly $400 million went to the Upward Bound Program--important. It provides mentoring, tutoring, and life skill training. If my friend does not understand what work awareness is, work awareness is a lot of these kids grow up in a family with no sense, no notion, no responsibility, no image, no example of what work means. Unless something has happened, birds learn to fly by watching their parents, ducks learn to paddle in my pond watching their parents, snakes learn to slither, turtles learn to swim. Where the heck do you think we learn? Where do you think our kids learn? It is a good program, but it is directed at disadvantaged high school students, this $172 million in the Upward Bound Program, to encourage children-- targeted at economically disadvantaged children--to continue their education. That is very important. It indirectly has an impact on crime. But, again, it certainly is not a targeted crime prevention program. Then, of course, the GAO attributes about $146 million to 11 programs in the juvenile justice office, only a few of which are proposed to be consolidated in the Republican crime bill. That is roughly $400 million for about 27 crime and drug prevention programs, some of which are tiny demonstration or pilot projects that cover no more than a handful of sites across the country and are designed to study what works and what does not. For example, in the list of that $400 million, $200,000 is for a demonstration grant program for residential drug treatment for women with young children-- important, but, again, not what we are talking about. So the impression given here that there are more than 130 Federal prevention programs designed to target at-risk youth is simply not an accurate reflection. In all of the cities and towns across America, and serving every child we can help, there are fewer than 40 programs for about $400 million. And what my friend from Alabama is saying, relying on the GAO report, is: You know, that is about as much as we can do. Government is already doing all it can and should do to stop kids from turning to gangs, crime, and drugs. But we have just seen many of the programs that are listed as targeted that, in fact, do not do that at all.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, on the Bumpers amendment, I voted against the position of Senator Bumpers, not because I disagree with the substance of it. For the last 25 years and for the years I was chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, I have adhered to the notion that the Judicial Conference, a system that we set up in the Congress years ago, is the appropriate vehicle to make recommendations for changes in the Federal rules. The reason I voted against the Bumpers amendment is not because I don't think prosecutors are out of hand, not because I don't think there is abuse of the grand jury system, which, by the way, for hundreds of years has relied upon the proposition that good judgment, sound judgment would be exercised by prosecutors and not be abused. Obviously, it is being abused. My hope is, regardless of what the outcome of this is legislatively, I am going to propose at a future time that the Senate ask the Judicial Conference to consider changes in the Federal rules relative to the conduct of grand juries and make recommendations to the Senate. That is the way we have done it since the Judicial Conference has been set up. That is the more appropriate way to deal with the Federal rules. I conclude by complimenting Senator Bumpers for pointing out an abuse of the system and the need for change. I think the appropriate way to do it is through the Federal rules.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I realize I have kept us here a long time, but I can think of nothing from my perspective that is more important. By the way, parenthetically, with this surplus we are all arguing about--whether or not we save Social Security, give tax cuts, spend it on things--I still think we should take a significant portion of that surplus over the years that is projected and invest it in the crime trust fund, moving from 100,000 cops to 125,000 cops, writing a juvenile justice bill, doing the violence against women II legislation, and making sure--making sure--that we give local communities more flexibility in maintaining their Federal ability to keep the national 125,000--I hope it will be--cops program alive. That is what we should be spending our money on, in my view. I will get to that at another time. Let me conclude with the last important overall point. Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been saying, as I said, that we do not really need to do more. In a report that I offered in December of 1995, I detailed the demographic time bomb which lies ahead. And that demographic time bomb is this: 39 million children now younger than the age of 10, all of these 39 million children are the children of the baby boomers. Each of them stands on the edge of their teen years, exactly those years that are most at risk of turning children to drugs and crime. There are 39 million children about to enter the crime-committing, drug-consuming years. And the implication of this baby ``boomerang'' as the demographers call it, even if we do everything right, and at the rate which kids commit crimes--assuming we do everything right and the rate at which kids now commit crimes does not go up one one-hundredth of 1 percent--even if those things occurred, that there is absolutely no change in the rate of crime, we will have a 20-percent increase in juvenile murders by the year 2005, which will mean an increase of the overall murder toll by 5 percent, even if we do every single thing right and there is not one one-hundredth of 1 percent increase in the rate in which juveniles commit crime. Why? Thirty-nine million children, the largest cadre of youth since my parents were busy in World War II, about to enter their crime- committing years. I see my friend standing. I have another 10 minutes or so. I will yield to him, but not yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. Let me speed this up.

Mr. BIDEN. The Senator from Alabama has control of the time, I say to my friend from Vermont. I yield the floor and thank the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. BIDEN. I will be happy to yield the floor in a moment. Clearly, most of the 39 million children in this baby boomerang will never turn to crime and never turn to drugs. But equally clear, we will have a rising number of at-risk children, at-risk children who are at risk to turning to drugs, at risk of being the victims of violence, and at risk of turning to crime. Let me offer two more figures to indicate the size of the problem we face in the next 10 years. Seventy-seven percent of women with high- school-age children are working moms--77 percent. And all told, about 14 million school-age children have working moms. In all likelihood, this means that these 14 million children will be leaving school after school, unless they come from affluent families, with no supervision after school until mom gets home. That is not a criticism of moms working, it is a criticism of our failure to recognize the demographic change as well as the social change that has taken place in America. For the rising number of at-risk children, I believe we have to discuss what has become a dirty word among Washington politicians, even though it is a word I hear over and over again from prosecutors and police chiefs and people in the juvenile justice system and what their solution to the violent problem is. It is prevention--prevention. We must keep as many of these at-risk children as possible away from drugs and crime in the first place. In the most practical terms, that means keeping kids busy and supervised from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until the dinner hour. Those 3 hours represent about 12 percent of the day, about 20 percent of the hours that our kids are awake; and 40 percent of all juvenile crime that is committed in America is in those 3 hours. That is why I strongly oppose--strongly oppose--the effort by my friend from Alabama to undo the good work that our friends on the Appropriations Committee have done. And I just want to warn my colleagues, as I was kidding one of the staff here, I do not speak often on the floor, but when I do, I guess I speak long. But the truth of the matter is, there is nothing--nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing--more important to the economy, to the security, to the safety of this country than what we are going to do to prevent those at-risk youth who find themselves among those 39 million young people under the age of 10; that nothing--nothing--will affect our standard of living, our quality of life, more than how we deal with that issue. I will be back on this floor at a later date and, over the next couple years, arguing that portions of that surplus that we are predicting will occur as a consequence of the policies of this administration and Congress--balancing our budget and moving to surplus--should be spent--should be spent--on crime prevention, crime enforcement, and on the prison system. I thank my friend from Vermont for being so patient. And I thank my colleagues. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN. The answer is, I absolutely do. I thank my friend for calling that to my attention. Let me not just mention the sheriffs. I am going to quote, now, from a few of the leading police officers of America. By the way, let's put this in context again. When the overall crime bill was drafted by me years ago, the way it got drafted was, I did not sit down with any sociologists or academics or welfare workers or, you know, liberal think tanks. I literally called in the presidents of the seven leading police organizations in America, from NAPO to NOBLE, FOP, et cetera. They sat around my conference table for the better part of 4 months. I said: You tell me what you need. What do you think you need to fight crime? In the overall crime bill, they said they needed about a third of it going to prevention. When I sat down to draft the juvenile justice bill for our side of the aisle, with my colleagues, as a follow-on, I called the same people back in. Some of the presidents were changed. They were not all the same officers, the same people. To a person, they reinforced what the Senator from Vermont just said. Let me give an example. Mr. President, 170 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Union of Police Associations, and the leaders of the Crime Victims Organization, came out with a call for action. They title it ``A Call For Action From America's Front Line Against Crime,'' made up of those organizations I just named. On February 5, 1998, here is what they said: As police, prosecutors, crime survivors, we struggle every day against crime and its devastating impact. We are determined to see that dangerous criminals are arrested and put behind bars. But anyone who thinks that jailing the criminal is enough to undo the agony that crime leaves in its wake hasn't seen crime up close. That is why no one knows better than we that the most important weapons against crime are investments that keep kids from becoming criminals, investments which enable all children to get the right start they need to become contributing citizens, and would show them that as adults they would be able to meet their families' basic needs through hard work. (Mr. SMITH of Oregon assumed the chair.)

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator for his question. He is absolutely accurate. I am not suggesting in any way that any of the 131 programs listed by GAO would fall to his amendment in any way. What I am suggesting is, the very compelling argument he makes, when examined, is not as compelling as it appears. And that is, I believe he offered those charts as evidence that we were already doing a great deal on the prevention side. He is not against prevention. I am not suggesting that either. But he is basically suggesting, as many others have, that we are already doing this massive effort, totaling about $4 billion and 131 programs, to deal with prevention. He believes that what my friends from South Carolina and New Hampshire did by adding $50 million for more prevention is misplaced and it should be placed on the enforcement side of the equation. The reason I went through in great detail why it is really only about 40 programs and really only about $400 million is to make the point that we are not doing nearly enough on prevention, and to take this paltry sum of $50 million out of prevention, as proposed by my friends on the Appropriations Committee, and put it into enforcement would be a misallocation of a limited number of resources. That is the overall point. Secondly, I should point out, which I didn't, to put together this little syllogism, that my friend from South Carolina and the chairman of the committee, in fact, allocate $3.5 billion to enforcement just in the Justice Department. Our friends who are the managers of this bill are not--if one listened only to this debate, one would think this debate were about $400 million in youth prevention Federal Government- wide, all the programs I just said. It is not. My friends are putting $50 million into prevention and $3.5 billion in this bill, in their appropriations bill, into enforcement. It breaks down: On Byrne grants, \1/2\ billion dollars; local law enforcement grants, $460 million; prison grants, $711 million; reimbursement of prison costs for aliens, $350 million; juvenile block grants--that is all enforcement money--$100 million; and $1.4 billion for cops who don't make a distinction between enforcing the law against juveniles and adults. Again, what the Senator from Alabama and I are really debating about, when you put it all aside, is not whether we should spend money on prevention and not whether we should spend money on enforcement, but the allocation: Are the limited dollars we have being appropriately allocated? My argument is, my friends from the Appropriations Committee have appropriately allocated the limited number of dollars and that the amendment my friend from Alabama is proposing would misallocate that money by taking $50 million out of prevention and putting it into enforcement, which already has, as it should, the lion's share of the money. Let me get back to this prevention issue. The vast majority of the police in America not only do not disagree with the notion that we should be spending money on prevention, not only do not want us to cut existing prevention programs, but want us to spend more money on prevention. They are not in here asking that prevention money be taken and spent on enforcement. Let me give you one anecdotal piece of evidence before I go to the major organizations. In Seaford, DE, a relatively small community, I asked a question that was--and in Dover, DE, 20,000 people, my State capital, I went to the police officers. I am going to be very blunt about this. I have a great relationship with the law enforcement community. They have always supported me. They have supported me overwhelmingly as long as I have been in the Senate. I pay attention to their concerns. I suppose that is why they support me so strongly. I went down and met with a very conservative former chief of police in Delaware. He raises steers on the side, and he is a cowboy. I think he thinks my view on a lot of things may be too liberal. We had a debate on how we should treat gays in America, and I think we should treat them no differently than others. I am not so sure he and others would think my view is so good and makes sense, et cetera. This is not a guy who is a liberal law enforcement officer. I said to him, ``If I can do anything for you--get you more cops, get you more equipment--what would you have me do?'' Do you know what he said to me? No malarkey. He said to me, ``Build me another Boys & Girls Club.'' This is a hardnosed cop in the southern part of my State. My friend from South Carolina knows the southern part of my State well, and I think he would tell you, it is not a lot different from Virginia or North Carolina or South Carolina. They view themselves as southern, they view themselves as conservative, and they are. Do you know what he asked me for? He asked me for no more cops, no more money for squad cars, equipment, radios. He said, ``Build me a Boys & Girls Club.'' That is what he said, I say to my friend from South Carolina. Seaford, DE, had a serious problem with drugs. I said, ``What do you want me to do? What do you need?'' They said, ``We need a Boys & Girls Club. Build us one.'' Well, we did. I didn't. We didn't. The local community, with some Federal help, did. Let me give you a few statistics. This is a letter from the executive director of the Boys & Girls Club in Delaware. He said: I would like to share with you some recent statistics -- This dated April 30, 1998. It is not about this debate. I would like to share with you some recent statistics compiled by the Seaford Police Department on juvenile complaints from the period February through March of the last three years. The statistics revealed: In 1996, seventy-eight (78) juvenile complaints were logged. In 1997, eighty-eight (88). . .. In 1998, only thirty-five (35) juvenile complaints were logged. The statistics show a 151 percent drop in complaints in 1998 as compared to . . . 1997. It is no coincidence that the drop in complaints directly corresponds to the opening of the western Sussex Club for Boys and Girls on February 1, 1998. I say to my colleagues, this ``ain't'' rocket science. This is not rocket science. There was a study done in the mid-eighties involving three cities, I believe it was New York, Pittsburgh, and Denver. Which took some Boys & Girls Clubs. First of all, there were housing projects in the same demographic areas, same number of people. They put a Boys & Girls Club in the basement of these mostly high-rise public housing projects. Guess what? Over a period of 2 years, all the indices of crime-- rearrests, initial arrest rate, drug use, et cetera--dropped about 30 percent. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter, Mr. President.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, prevention works. Giving kids an option works. It works in my State of Delaware, and it works nationwide. The people who recognize it most are the law enforcement community. Let me give you a quote from William Bratton, former New York and now Boston Police Commissioner. Boston has had a phenomenal--phenomenal-- success in controlling murder rates, handguns with youth, and violent crime. Here is what he said: Those of us who have been on the front lines know that, in the long run, winning the war on crime also will require cutting the enemy's key supply line: its ability to turn kids into criminals. Each day gangs and drug dealers assiduously recruit our children for their army. To fight back, we have to utilize other powerful crimefighting weapons--the proven ``right-start'' programs and strategies that give kids the armor of values, skills, and positive experiences to ward off crime and violence. This is one of the toughest cops in the Nation. He is saying the way we keep this from happening is to go out there and engage in prevention activities. The Buffalo Police Commissioner--I will not go through it --eight juvenile justice directors, the National Association of Counties, say: Be it resolved that not less than 25 percent of block grant funds be set aside for prevention programs. Prevention programs. Police Executive Research Forum; the Catholic Charities of the United States of America; Mark Klaas of the Klaas Foundation for Kids; Patrick Murphy, former police commissioner of New York, Detroit, Washington DC, and Syracuse; the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, who is a tough crime-fighting guy --he says: It's time to invest in the programs proven to cut the enemy's most important supply line--its ability to turn kids into criminals. Prevention. The U.S. Conference of Mayors; Los Angeles County District Attorney-- the list goes on. I will not take my colleagues' time, but I ask unanimous consent that their statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I want to associate myself, as we say, with the remarks of the Senator from Hawaii. I am probably only the second person who is going to rise today who opposes gambling. My State has decided to go that route. I have taken an unpopular position in my State. Fortunately, I am not Governor, I am a Senator, and everybody knows we don't pay attention to Senators back in the State--at least in my case. I do support the Craig amendment on the grounds stated by the Senator from Hawaii. It seems to me that what the Craig amendment does is exactly what the Senator from Hawaii has stated, which is that it makes it clear that the intention stated by my friend from Arizona is in fact met, that it does not in fact directly, or indirectly, by inference or otherwise, amend IGRA. It seems to me that, on a larger principle, we are always all too ready, in the 25 years I have been here, to say we believe in the sovereignty of the Indian nations. And we are very ready, whenever they do anything we don't like, to conclude that we in fact do not recognize and should not recognize their sovereignty. Further, we add insult to injury and the only time we treat them as sovereign nations is when we are handing out money, when we have programs. One of the exceptions in the crime bill is that Indian nations can apply for police officers directly, just like the State of Delaware, or the town of Wilmington, or the county of Columbus could do so. So I find it somewhat interesting when, in fact, we find it in our interest--meaning we are not going to spend money--to recognize the sovereignty of Indian nations--we are ready to do that. But when Indian nations want to do something that somehow is viewed as impinging upon another interest in a State in which the Indian nation happens to be located, we are all ready to say, no, no, no, let's hold up. I will not take any more time, in light of the hour. We are about to vote. I agree fully with the Senator from Hawaii. I share his view about gambling generally, and I share his view about the Craig amendment specifically. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. I will be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Isn't it true that there are a number of background checks. Years ago I drafted a law which became law that requires certain background checks, for example, for people who wish to work in day-care centers with young children, to try to figure out and ferret out child predators. Now, the way it works now is if, in fact, you are going to be hired at a boys' club, a girls' club or a day care center, and they--the day care center--say they want a background check, and you have to go through the FBI, the FBI now charges the person seeking employment the cost to run the background check. I don't understand why, if we are going to say on a background check for an employee--where the employee is seeking a job but is required by that agency to have a background check to prove, in effect, they are not a child predator or do not have any sex crime history--why it is appropriate to charge the prospective employee and it is not appropriate to charge a person purchasing a gun. There is nothing exceptional about this. My question to my friend is, Isn't this all about reneging on a commitment everyone said they are for, which was to have an instant background check, so there is no 7-day, 5-day or 1-day waiting period, so every single gun seller in America, when they go to sell you a gun, can push a button, tap into a computer, and have the computer say you can or cannot sell it? It seems to me this is about doing away with the instant check.

Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator for clarifying the Committee's intent on this important issue.

Mr. BIDEN. I concur.

Mr. BIDEN. I agree. And, as both my colleagues know, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was established by Congress in 1988 for precisely the purpose of coordinating the federal government's anti-drug program.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator for his interest in this matter and for his clarification of the committee report. congress-bundestag youth exchange program

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I would ask to engage the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, in a brief colloquy regarding a portion of the report which accompanies the bill, calling on the Border Patrol to examine the potential cost savings and border surveillance capabilities of a variety of types of aircraft. I support the committee's effort to seek more information to improve the cost effectiveness and efficiency of our border surveillance effort--against both illegal immigration and drugs. But, I also believe that we must review all types of aircraft, including both manned and unmanned airships. Is it the Committee's intent that such airships also be considered in the study and report?

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let's stop being hypocritical. We just passed an amendment saying safety is important; the NRA is eligible for Federal funds to teach safety. If the ultimate safety of children is what we are concerned about, why are we so upset about the idea that trigger locks will be placed on guns? How can you vote, as I will and have, to give the NRA eligibility to teach gun safety, which I want them to do, and say that is important, but it is not important to take the one step we can that will at least incrementally increase safety of children in the United States of America? Please vote no on the motion to table.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I rise today as a co-sponsor in support of S. Con. Res. 105, which expresses the sense of the Congress regarding the culpability of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the former Yugoslavia. Yugoslav President Milosevic is the walking definition of an unscrupulous politician. I have come to understand the stark truth that the only thing that matters to Milosevic is his own political survival. The only thing. Since his rise to power in Serbia in the late 1980's, he has been a failure at everything he has attempted--except, I regret to say, in staying in power. Slobodan Milosevic has been an unmitigated disaster for the Serbian people. As a result of his insane attempt at creating a ``Greater Serbia,'' the centuries-old Serbian culture in the Krajina and Western Slavonia in Croatia has been extinguished, the Bosnian Serb community has been decimated and impoverished, and Serbian life in Kosovo seems on the verge of eradication. Of course, that is only half of the story, for Slobodan Milosevic has also been a curse for many of the neighboring peoples of the Serbs. His vile ``ethnic cleansing'' led to a quarter-million deaths and more than two million refugees and displaced persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and Croats in Croatia were brutalized and murdered. Most recently, Milosevic's special police storm troopers have moved their grisly activities to Kosovo where they are visiting upon the ethnic Albanian population the same horrors suffered by the Bosnians and Croats. I would like to add a personal note. I believe that I am one of only a very few Senators who have met Milosevic, and I am certain that I am the only one who ever called him a war criminal to his face. In April 1993, on the first of my many trips to Bosnia, I also stopped off in Belgrade to see Milosevic. In the course of a lengthy meeting that went on late into the evening, I went through the entire litany of the horrors that his Serbian troops had perpetrated and were continuing to perpetrate. Of course, Milosevic protested that he had no control over any of this. Nonetheless, he later asked if I wanted to meet Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader who has subsequently been indicted as a war criminal. I said yes, and twenty minutes later Karadzic came running up the steps of Milosevic's palace, totally out of breath. Rather interesting for a guy who supposedly had no influence in Bosnia! After all this, Milosevic looked across the table and asked, ``What do you think of me?'' I answered, ``I think you're a damn war criminal!'' Milosevic's reaction was like water off a duck's back. He just resumed talking as if nothing had happened. He might as well have said, ``lots of luck in your sophomore year!'' This is one brazen guy. Mr. President, I said earlier that the only thing Milosevic cares about is his political survival. I believe that for the first time there is a reasonable chance that he may be failing in this arena too. In the person of Milo Djukanovic, the dynamic, young reformist President of Montenegro, the junior partner of Serbia in the Yugoslav Federation, the democratic opposition to Milosevic has both a new leader and a constitutional means of expressing its opposition. We must continue to support Djukanovic and Montenegro in their struggle. In the meantime, as S. Con. Res. 105 urges, the international community should speedily bring Milosevic to trial before the International Tribunal in the Hague for his criminal behavior. There is no possibility for lasting peace in the Balkans until Serbia has a democratic government, willing to live in peace and equality with its non-Serb citizens and non-Serb neighbors. Removing Milosevic from power is the sine qua non for this to happen, and S. Con. Res. 105 charts the path. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments at the desk, the resolution, and the preamble be agreed to, that the resolution, as amended, be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, as amended, and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the resolution appear at this point in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will vote against tabling the Lugar amendment. It is a useful starting point in bringing some rationalization to our sanctions policy. I have been in the Senate for over 25 years. Over that time, I have supported many sanctions laws, and even authored a few. But I am now re-examining my approach to sanctions policy. I do so not because I oppose sanctions--sanctions are an important part of our foreign policy arsenal. But I believe we need to rethink our overall approach. Statutory sanctions, once imposed, are difficult to repeal, and they therefore do not provide the President the flexibility that I believe he needs to conduct foreign policy. As we all know, it is easier to block legislation than to pass it; accordingly, lifting a sanction to meet changed circumstances is difficult, and sometimes impossible. I believe, therefore, that we have to start building into our sanctions policy the necessary flexibility for the President to waive, modify, or terminate sanctions with the ability of the Congress to respond to his actions. The Lugar bill is not perfect. It has a few provisions that I believe should be changed or modified. For example, I do not believe it is wise to provide, as the amendment does in Section 806(c), for a point of order against legislation in cases where the Senate has not received required reports from the Executive Branch. This provision would conceivably permit the President to prevent consideration of a bill simply by withholding the required report. In addition, I believe the bill should clearly exclude from the definition of ``sanction'' those measures taken to enforce criminal laws and those measures taken pursuant to the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration to ban foreign airlines from flying to the United States which do not satisfy our safety standards. Finally, I believe the contract sanctity provision is too broad, for two reasons. First, there may be cases where a multi-year option contract would render the sanction--at least as to that contract--a nullity. Second, there may be cases--a proliferation sanction comes to mind--where it may be in our national security interest to stop the flow of technology immediately. Despite these concerns about the Lugar amendment, I will vote against the tabling motion. The bill is a good framework upon which we can begin to construct a more rational sanctions policy, and I believe the Senate should continue to consider it further on this bill. I did not offer amendments to perfect the amendment because it was obvious that it was not going to be adopted and if it was it could be perfected in conference. We will surely revisit this issue at which time I'll have more to say.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I join with my friend, the distinguished senior Senator from Indiana, to urge my colleagues to support the Tropical Forest Protection Act of 1998. Mr. President, this bill marks a real victory for sensible, bipartisan action on an issue of global importance. Just looking at the list of our cosponsors--thirty-one of our colleagues, evenly divided between our two parties--shows me that good policy is good politics. Right now, as we speak today, fires are burning in tropical forests around the world, the result of a combustible mix of unusually dry weather with unsustainable human activity. Slash-and-burn agriculture, logging, and the road cuts to support those activities, have exposed one of our planet's most important resources to a deadly threat. Rainforests have a profound effect on our planet's weather, through their ability to absorb the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. They influence rainfall, and are therefore the sources of many of our most important rivers, that in turn support the farms and fisheries that feed us. They are home to rich biological diversity--both flora and fauna-- that we are just now realizing hold the secret to disease-resistant crops and new medicines. But as the nations that contain our most significant rainforests enter the world economy, they are under increasing pressure to turn these irreplaceable assets into cash, for both their own short-term domestic needs and to service debts owed to the industrial nations, including the United States. That's why this bill is so important. It allows the reduction of the debt those nations owe us, if they use the savings to protect those rainforests. This will help to break the tie between debt and the destruction of rainforests, to the benefit of everyone. It won't put out those fires, but it will remove some of the financial arrangements that fuel them. I am particularly pleased to join again with my friend, Senator Lugar, to expand on earlier Lugar-Biden legislation that has been on the books since 1989, and that is part of the 1990 Enterprise for the Americas Initiative. And I am honored to be joined in this effort by the distinguished Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the distinguished Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and so many other of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, what we are doing here today at the urging of Senator Murray and Senator Roberts is necessary and important. But I want to make it clear we didn't start this off as an ag bill. This is about foreign policy. This is about sanctions. It does affect us. It is important. My only regret here today is we are only exempting agriculture. I hear my colleagues from the agricultural States stand up and talk about how farmers are put at risk. I point out, people who work in a factory at Boeing are put at risk. People who work in the Du Pont Company are put at risk. People who work in every other industry are put at the same risk farmers are put at when we impose these sanctions. So we should go further than we are going today. That is the task that has been assigned to the task force that is chaired by Senator McConnell and myself. I am hopeful and I am encouraged by the fact that we have been nonpartisan in our approach so far, to try to deal with this. There is going to be a tendency on the part of Democrats to say, ``Gosh, if there is a Republican President next, maybe we should not do this.'' There is a tendency on the part of Republicans to say, ``We have a Democratic President for the next 2 years, maybe we should not do this.'' I hope we continue to rise above that and do what needs to be done and have a rationalized sanctions policy that is fundamentally different than what we have here today. But that is easier said than done. That is our task. We will attempt to do it. I am just sorry we weren't able to go forward with what was, even the broader version of this, was a modest version of what we had to do. We weren't able to get that done today, but with the leadership of the Senator from Kentucky and the help of our colleagues who have engaged in this, maybe we can come up with something before this session is over that rationalizes our sanctions policy. I thank my friend from Kentucky.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, included in the manager's package of amendments to the higher education bill is a resolution I introduced last March on binge drinking on college campuses. This was the same resolution that was introduced in the other body by Representative Joe Kennedy--and virtually the same as what was adopted by the other body in its version of the Higher Education Act. I want to take a few minutes to talk about my resolution--and why this issue is so important. But, first, let me thank Senators Kennedy, Dodd, Jeffords, and Coats for accepting the resolution. Let me also thank Representative Joe Kennedy, who came up with the idea for this resolution and has long been trying to bring alcohol- related problems to the attention of Members of Congress. And, finally, let me thank the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which endorsed the resolution early on and has worked tirelessly to get it passed. Mr. President, I think every one of my colleagues has heard or read about college students across the country--from Louisiana to Massachusetts to Virginia--who fell drunk out of dorm room windows or consumed so much alcohol, so fast that it literally poisoned them. There were at least 18 such deaths this last academic year. And, Mr. President, I think every one of my colleagues saw the news reports from this past spring on the riots--yes, riots--on several college campuses across the country--from Washington to Michigan to Ohio. We saw police wearing riot gear; carrying shields; and firing tear gas into throngs of drunk college students. These riots were either alcohol-induced--parties that got out of control--or were based on a peculiar notion--that underage college students should have a right to get drunk. That's what binge drinking is. There is a technical definition for the academics who study this problem--and I'll talk about that in a minute. But, in layman's terms, binge drinking is simply the idea that you drink to get drunk, or, as a recent article in the Washington Post magazine put it, it is where ``drinking isn't part of the party; it is the party.'' And, binge drinking is, according to many university presidents, the biggest problem facing America's colleges today. Let me repeat that. The biggest issue facing America's colleges-- according to many college president's themselves--is not raising money for the university. Not ensuring high academic standards. Not finding top quality faculty. No, it's binge drinking. There is a reason for that. And, it has to do with more than just the 18 college students who died this last year--tragic as that is. According to a study by Harvard University, 44 percent of college students are binge drinkers--that is, technically, for men, consuming five drinks in one sitting during a 2-week period, and for women, consuming four drinks in one sitting. Again, 44 percent of college students are binge drinkers. Nearly one in every five college students is a frequent binge drinker--that is, binge drinking three or more times in a 2-week period. And, almost half of all freshmen--18 year olds--binge in their first week at school. But, it even goes deeper than that--deeper than the 18 deaths; deeper than the 44 percent of students who are binge drinkers. The reason that binge drinking is the most important issue facing colleges today is because binge drinking affects everyone on campus-- even those college students who do not during--and even the majority of college students who are not binge drinkers. They are all affected by those who are. Talk to a student who lives in a dorm room next to someone who drinks a lot, and I can guarantee you that he or she does not get many peaceful nights of sleep--and does not get many peaceful moments to study. The greater the number of binge drinkers at a school, the greater the chances are that a student will be hit, pushed, insulted, assaulted-- and of being the recipient of an unwanted sexual advance. And, alcohol is involved in most campus rapes, violent crimes, student suicides, and fraternity hazing incidents. Many of the victims of these crimes are not the ones doing the drinking. You know, we have heard a lot in the last decade or more about the connection between alcohol and car accidents, where those who die or are injured are often innocent victims who were not drinking. And, there has been a great effort--led by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a group for which I have the highest respect--to educate the public and prevent the tragedy. But, there is also a growing body of evidence showing a link between alcohol and other crimes and irresponsible behaviors. There is a link between alcohol and unsafe sex; between alcohol and suicide; between alcohol and rape; between alcohol and violence. And, nowhere is this link more prevalent than on college campuses. Unfortunately, there are many people out there--including many officials on college campuses--who look at binge drinking by college students as just part of the ``campus experience''--as just some ``rite of passage'' to adulthood. Well, I make no apologies for saying that drinking yourself to death is no ``rite.'' It's just plan stupid. And, I make no apologies for saying that those who overlook the problem are contributing to it. It is time for the culture on college campuses to change--before someone else's son or daughter becomes another statistic. We need to bring the problem of binge drinking among college students to the attention of the American people--to educate them and to prevent the tragedies associated with it--just as we have done with drunk driving. So, Mr. President, my resolution would call on all college and university presidents to recognize and acknowledge the problem--and then to find solutions. Specifically, my resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that every college and university president should carry out six specific activities to reduce alcohol consumption on college campuses. (1) To appoint a task force to establish a policy on reducing alcohol and other drug-related problems; (2) To provide students with the opportunity to live in an alcohol- free environment; (3) To enforce a zero tolerance policy on the consumption of alcohol by minors; (4) To eliminate alcoholic beverage-related sponsorship of on-campus events; (5) To enforce vigorously a college's disciplinary codes against those who violate campus alcohol policies; and (6) To work closely with the local officials in the town in which the college is located. Mr. President, these activities are very similar to what is currently happening at the University of Delaware under the leadership of President David Roselle. They need to happen on every college campus in America. Now, there are some who say that this is just a sense-of-the-Senate resolution--it just expresses our opinion. True. But, Mr. President, we must start somewhere. I believe that if we begin to take the problem seriously--and if colleges begin to seriously address the problem--we can begin to make a difference. The lives of students can be saved--and the quality of life on our college campuses will be better. Again, I thank my colleagues for their support and for including my resolution in the bill.