Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a brief question?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will my friend yield further?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator so much for yielding. I have a few questions. What I want to do is make a 4- or 5-minute statement and then ask three or four questions and hope the Senator can answer them in his inimicable fashion. First, I thank Senator Schumer so much for picking up on this issue. I remember reading about this in July and just scratching my head. I essentially thought: This cannot be true. I cannot believe that someone in the White House would reveal the identity of a person who is working at the CIA undercover. Whether she is an analyst, an operative, or an agent, it matters not, but certainly someone whose identity had never been revealed. I thought: This cannot be happening. To be honest, I should have done more about it, but I did not, and thank the Senator for writing to the head of the FBI, for whom I have a great deal of respect, and letting him know this. Here are my questions: As I look at this, I think, why would someone do this? Well, clearly the idea behind attacking Ambassador Wilson's wife was that Ambassador Wilson gave the White House news they did not want to hear, which was that there was really no proof that Saddam Hussein was getting nuclear materials from Niger. They did not want that answer; it was kind of a kill-the-messenger type of response; and in order to get back at him, they out his wife, which is despicable and a crime, but I think it is about arrogance and it is about intimidation. We have seen the arrogance, but it is the intimidation factor I want the Senator to comment on because this is not only about this one incident--in which clearly Ambassador Wilson was correct, by the way-- but it is a signal that is sent, really, frankly, to everyone in politics that nothing is off limits if someone crosses us: We will go after their wife; we will go after their kids. I have to say to my friend, he is a family man, I am a family woman. We are in this world--God knows how and why but we are in it--and we are willing to take the hits and everything else, but the lowest form of politics is if someone comes after your kids or your spouse. I resent it, and I want my colleague to comment on those two areas. I also ask him to comment on a third one, and that is the whole struggle that women are having in this world of ours to enhance our careers, to break the glass ceiling, to go into fields that are maybe a little bit unusual. I do not have the statistics at my fingertips, but if we look at the number of women who are FBI agents, I can tell my colleague that it is very few. I used to know the exact number. I do not want to throw out a number, but it is way less than a third, as I remember. So we have a circumstance where there is a woman in a nontraditional field doing her work, obviously not getting credit for it. She is working incognito at the CIA, whatever her work is, and she is going up the ladder. Maybe she has a tremendous future. Well, probably the future in that field has been harmed, if not totally destroyed, and maybe her life or other lives that she touched in her work are in danger. So we are talking about a number of issues--yes, the crime that was committed, but the whole idea of intimidation to people who might take on this administration, the whole idea of going after someone's family when we know, as public servants, what our families mean to us and how we protect them from whatever befalls us, the hits, the pain, and other things that happen. We asked for it. We are in this arena. So I hope my friend will perhaps talk about that. It is a human tragedy beyond the crime, and I ask my friend to comment.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to comment on the nomination currently pending before the Senate, Judge Carlos Bea for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I was delighted to meet Judge Bea and his family at his Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month. Judge Bea was born in Spain but has lived in California for most of his life. He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University. He practiced law in the San Francisco area for over 30 years before he was appointed a judge on the San Francisco Superior Court. He was elected to the seat in 1990 and has been reelected twice by the voters of San Francisco. He has also taught at Stanford and Hastings law schools. In addition to his accomplishments in the legal community, Judge Bea is also an Olympic athlete. He played on the Cuban national basketball team during the 1952 Olympic games. As a judge, he is widely respected for his keen intelligence. As one reporter noted, ``he has received high marks for his specialty, handling complex civil litigation disputes.'' I intend to support this nomination.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, we are about to have a vote on a judge. I wanted to take this time, 2 minutes, to offer my support for this nominee. I want to say this particular nominee for the Southern District Court of California, Larry Burns, is very qualified for this position. He is a native Californian. He is a graduate of Point Loma College and the University of San Diego Law School. I want to emphasize the wide support Judge Burns has from law enforcement and civil rights organizations. His firm commitment to the law was well regarded while he was both a Federal and a State prosecutor. He has developed an equally respected reputation as a judge, due to his character and his legal expertise. So I believe the Southern District will benefit greatly from the exemplary services of Judge Burns. I fully support confirmation of this nominee. At a time when we have a lot of partisan discord, I think it is important to know that in California, Senator Feinstein and I, working with the administration, have a wonderful process in place by which the two Democrat Senators get three people on a committee to pass judgment on these nominees and the administration appoints three people. Each nominee for the district court goes through our process and they are then recommended to the President on a majority vote. What has happened is we have taken the politics, truly, out of this judicial selection process. We have come up with mainstream candidates. That is very important because I believed the President when he came forward and said he was going to govern from the center. When he puts forward judicial nominees who are from the center, who are not radical, who are not far to the right, I am the first one to support them, and I have supported well over 90 percent of them. When it comes to voting for nominees who are off the scales and not representative of the values of America, I am the first one to say it is not right. We have a process in place for the district courts that I only wish we had for the higher courts--the circuit courts--because it isn't working that well. But it is working very well in the district courts. Again, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on Larry Burns's nomination, and I hope it will be a unanimous vote.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays on the nomination.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily laid aside.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, Mr. McQuarrie, who owns the Sportsman's Cove Lodge, says: This family business has contributed approximately $1.0 million to the Ketchi- kan community annually for the past ten years . . . If the rider passes, then there is no due process for the lodge or for my neighbors, and my business and community will suffer major and unnecessary economic harm. Let's look at Chomley Sound again. That is where this lodge is located. We can see it is magnificent, but it is unprotected, and it is on Prince of Wales Island in the southern Tongass. We can see how unbelievable this forest is. This small businessman is saying he is going to suffer irreparable harm if he cannot protect this area. What sometimes gets lost is there are so many who seem to say the only way we are going to make money, to lift the economy, is to go after resources--cut down trees and drill for oil. Of course, we need to do that in areas where it makes sense, but I am here to say that when you go in to an area that is as magnificent as this forest, the whole economic potential revolves around tourism. I saw that when I was in Alaska. It was a pretty wonderful trip. The bottom line is, if there were a lot of trees being cut down and noise being made, we would lose the wildlife and we would lose the tourism. That is why I oppose this rider that I think is completely unnecessary. I do not have much else to say except I think it is a bad rider and interferes with the judiciary, which I don't think is our job to do. It says to the court: You must hear this in so many days. A lot of us know the courts are backed up. There are a lot of people waiting for justice, whether it is one business suing another or somebody has a problem. Now we are saying go to the head of the class. You get to go to the head of the line if you want to cut down trees or build a road in one of these areas or there is a question about any of these timber sales. We encourage courts to move quickly, but it seems to me we don't want to force them to have to act on one particular case in a certain number of days. It doesn't seem fair to me, and I don't think this section solves any problem. The last lawsuit challenging a Tongass timber sale was 4 years ago. It is not like this is a pressing problem. There are no pressing problems challenging or enjoining the timber sales in Tongass, and timber companies on the Tongass have a huge backlog of timber under contract to be cut. As a matter of fact, they have about 300 million board feet left to be cut. They only logged 34 million board feet last year. So it is hard to understand why we have to make this rule for a problem that doesn't seem to exist. Yet it would take away a fundamental right of judicial review for timber sales in Alaska. Maybe there is some good reason this should be done. I have been trying to figure it out myself. Maybe they actually want to reopen these sales. I don't know what it is. But I can say I have looked up and down to figure out what is going on. We have people here who are very nervous. They don't want to see a series of attacks continue on the Tongass National Forest. We had an attack last year. I spoke out in opposition to it. And we have it again this year. Once again, I hope we strike this rider from the bill and assure the public is given an opportunity to seek judicial review, and that the judicial system is not unjustly hindered. The beauty of our country is the checks and balances that we have. All of us learn that when we go to school, in the sixth grade, eighth grade, high school, college--the checks and balances between the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the courts. When Congress starts standing up and saying: Judge, you have to hear a particular case in 180 days and, people, you better get your act together, get your case together in 30 days, in my view, this is really interfering in the rights of the people we represent and interfering in the duties of the courts. Once again, feast your eyes on this magnificent area. It was my joy to be there for 7 days. I will never forget that trip. The last thing I want to see happen is to weaken the protections we have afforded this temperate rain forest that is so magnificent. It honestly takes your breath way. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, colleagues, I hope Members will vote against the motion to table my amendment. I am simply trying to strike section 333, which is an anti-environmental rider that singles out 39 timber sales in the Tongass Forest and only allows a 30-day appeals process for citizens, small businesses, and community groups to act. It also says a judge must act in 180 days, pushing this ahead of other pending cases. Now, why is it important to all of us? If you can change the rules in the largest temperate rain forest in the world, think about what would happen to you in your States. We have not had any hearings on this issue. I don't think this is the right way to legislate. If it is a question of jobs, there are 300 million board feet of timber in the Tongass that could be cut today. There are no lawsuits pending on those. This is a process question. I hope colleagues would not take away the rights of their constituents.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the amendment I offer today is to strike section 333 from the Interior appropriations bill. Essentially, section 333 is an anti-environmental rider which would impose a 30-day statute of limitations for the public to seek judicial review of certain Forest Service timber sales in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. In other words, it is putting on very tough time constraints for the public to follow if they have a problem with timber sales in the Tongass. I want to show you a little bit of what the Tongass Forest looks like. I was very fortunate to spend a week in Alaska looking at this magnificent park. I think I may well have been right in this area depicted in the photo. You can see how magnificent these pictures are and why this rider could be so damaging. If there was, say, some movement by the Forest Service to cut down trees and put roads in here, we want the public to have a chance to make their case to a court as to why this is not the right thing to do. So that is one photo. I will show you some other photos. This photo represents the area we are talking about. As I said, I had the joy of being in Alaska to actually see this with my own eyes. It is so magnificent there. When I was there, of course, daylight lasted until about midnight. You can see this beautiful land. I will show you one more beautiful photograph. Again, what we are talking about is an anti-environmental rider which would take away the public's right to go to court if they believed some of these lands were going to be destroyed. The other thing the amendment does is it interferes with the ability of the Federal district court to manage its docket because that section also puts a deadline on the court. So it not only puts a deadline on the people in terms of their inability to study timber sales, it says to a judge who may have a very busy docket that he or she has to act on this case in 180 days. The Tongass National Forest is the last remaining old-growth temperate rain forest in the world, spanning nearly 70 acres. You have seen it here with some of these beautiful photographs. It is the crown jewel of America's natural forests, and conservation is very much in the interest of all Americans because it is our land and we are the stewards of that land. When I was up there, I saw glaciers, mountains, growths of hemlock and cedar that grow to be over 200 feet tall. The trees can live as long as a thousand years. I am not a person large in stature anyway, but when you see some of this beauty and realize how comparatively weak we are to the forces of nature, it seems to me when we have a magnificent national forest such as this, at the minimum you don't change the rules just for this one forest. It does not seem right. The species that thrive in this forest include the brown bear--I saw some of those--bald eagles--and I saw some of them. I did not see gray wolves and wolverines, but I am told they are there. And there are lots of salmon. We have this temperate rain forest. It is really a jewel. We want to make sure that, at the minimum, there is a check and balance in the courts if somebody feels or a group feels or a resident feels they are not being protected enough. We are not telling the court they cannot make a decision that favors cutting down trees or building roads. We are just saying don't contract the time. It does not seem right. I am going to read parts of letters I have seen. This is one from a couple who is very upset about this anti-environmental rider. They are owners of the Clover Bay Lodge, a fishing lodge on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass. They write: We recently received a bad decision from the U.S. Forest Service that will probably mean the end of our very successful fishing lodge business. The Forest Service had no interest in listening to us or others affected by their decisions or even using the correct data regarding our business. Then they talk about other elected officials who tried to intercede. They said: We wrote letters, we had meetings for over 6 years with the Forest Service and came to the same conclusion time and time again: The U.S. Forest Service had the money and the power and the control to force any decision, good or bad, down the taxpayers' throats. So sometimes the courts are the only place left and the people should not be constrained. Please stop this damaging rider, and do not accept any limitations on the American people's right to defend against the actions of the Federal Government. This is really important because so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about how big Government is bad and we shouldn't intrude in private property. Here we have a couple who owns a fishing lodge who wants to make a living doing that and says they have no other recourse but to go to court. They cannot make headway. With this rider, they will be constrained to get their whole act together in 30 days, and the court will have to act in 180 days. It seems to me not right. I am going to read another paragraph from a letter written by a group of scientists who talk about the Tongass in this fashion: Alaska's national forests occur within the Pacific Coast's temperate rainforest ecosystem. Throughout the world, old- growth temperate rainforests are rapidly disappearing. Today, the Tongass National Forest represents the largest remaining tracts of old-growth temperate rainforest in the world. We are talking about an incredible resource for our Nation. They continue: Established in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt, the Tongass is the country's largest national forest. . . . Unlike most national forests, both the Tongass and Chugach still encompass many undisturbed watersheds with a full complement of all native species, including productive populations of bald eagles, wolves, brown bears, and five species of anadromous salmon. And we still have much to learn about the unique biodiversity and archeological resources of this forest. The reason I took a moment to read this is because this is quite a group of people who signed on to this description of this land we are trying to protect: Craig Benkman, Ph.D., from New Mexico State University; Andrew Hansen, Ph.D, from the Department of Biology, Montana State University; Robert Jarvis, Ph.D., Oregon State University; David Klein, Ph.D., Institute of Arctic Biology in Alaska; Russell Lande, Ph.D., from the University of California, San Diego; William Lidicker, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley; Dale Mccullough, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley; Sterling Miller, Ph.D., Missoula, MT; Paul Paquet, Ph.D., University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta; Roger Powell, Ph.D., from Raleigh, NC; John Ratti, Ph.D., University of Idaho; John Schoen, Ph.D., senior scientist at the National Audubon Society, Department of Biology and Wildlife, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Mark Shaffer, Ph.D., Defenders of Wildlife; Christopher Smith, Ph.D., Kansas State University; Richard Taber, Ph.D., University of Montana; and Mary Willson, affiliate professor, School of Fisheries and Ocean Science, University of Alaska Fairbanks. The point I am making is, if this is, indeed, a national gift to us, why we would want to make special rules for 39 timber sales there really escapes me. It just does not seem right, and it does not seem fair, and it seems to go against bipartisan support for this magnificent place. I have read parts of a letter from a fishing lodge owner and I have read parts of a letter from scientists who do not want to see this damaging rider. I have received another letter from a lodge operator in the same area, Larry McQuarrie, who owns Sportsman's Cove Lodge. I ask unanimous consent to print this letter in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, on October 11, TreePeople will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its founding. Few organizations have had such an impact, have energized so many volunteers or have so transformed a community as has TreePeople. I applaud them and thank them for their wonderful work over the past 30 years. TreePeople, much like the trees it plants, started as a tiny seed before blossoming into the powerful organization it is today. TreePeople was founded by a then-15-year-old summer camper, Andy Lipkis. Andy, like many foresters, understood that substantial tree die offs in the local mountains were the consequence of Los Angeles' smog, and wanted to do something about it. Andy organized his fellow campers, and together they ripped up a parking lot and planted a meadow. But he was not finished. Andy next obtained 8,000 seedlings from the California Department of Forestry's surplus stock and started the California Conservation Project, later renamed ``TreePeople.'' Since its founding, TreePeople has been committed to planting trees millions of trees. They began by planting 50,000 trees with 50,000 student volunteers in environmental programs at Coldwater Canyon Park. Several years later, after the City of Los Angeles estimated that it would take 20 years to plant a million trees in order to comply with the Clean Air Act, TreePeople took on the project and did it in three years. Later, TreePeople helped launch the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, and Kate and Andy Lipkis were elected to the United Nations Environmental Programme's Global 500 Honor Roll. TreePeople's work has extended across international boundaries with thousands of fruit trees being shipped to foreign lands to avert hunger and starvation. TreePeople has also focused on environmental education programs and played an important part in getting 60,000 elementary school children to work toward the City's goal of mandatory recycling. In the 1990s, TreePeople launched the Campus Forestry Program, now boasting the participation of more than one million children and teenagers. TreePeople has also developed the Trans-Agency Resources for Environment and Economic Sustainability, or T.R.E.E.S., program to promote better watershed management practices. Today, TreePeople continues to work tirelessly to make Los Angeles a better and healthier place to live. TreePeople started modestly as one person with a dream. With steadfast determination and passion, his dream became a reality. Andy Lipkis is living proof that one person, with a corps of countless volunteers, can make a big difference. I commend his vision, and I applaud him and all those who helped make his vision tangible. TreePeople's greatest strength is in its ability to attract volunteers who are willing to work for a better community. I thank them for their great work. I extend my congratulations to everyone involved with TreePeople on this special anniversary and wish them all many more years of continued success.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I am talking about the number of illegal abortions.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, except to say I hope the Senate notes we had a 93-to-0 vote in favor of the Harkin amendment on Roe, and we hope our conferees will fight hard to keep that language in this bill.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. BOXER. Another point of debate about how many women died, whether it is 85, 89, 100, 5,000, or as Dr. Schwartz says, probably much more, one death from an illegal abortion is too many. Those of us who remember back to those days remember that, and that is why the Harkin amendment is so important because the Harkin amendment simply said we strongly support Roe. We do not think it ought to be overturned. I am very hopeful that every Republican and every Democrat today will vote to support Roe in this motion to disagree. My colleague says it is just a routine voice vote. No, it is not. It is a vote on substance. That is why we have been arguing it. If it was such a routine, just a go-to-conference vote, I do not think he would have been arguing against Roe. If he wants to argue against Roe and then vote for Roe, that is great with me because we are sending that right over to the Court, and they will see that the Senate stands firmly in favor of Roe. There are certain problems in our country that we thought we solved. One of them was this problem because when Roe v. Wade was heard, we did have thousands of women dying, and thousands more being made infertile. We all knew the stories. We all lived through those times. Roe said something had to be done about it. What they decided to do is balance all the interests. Let us show what Roe says, because it is, in my opinion, such a moderate decision that balanced all of the interests and why it has been supported for so many years. What they say is that after viability: . . . the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate and even proscribe-- that means ban-- abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. I believe people who come to this floor and talk about morality, that is their right to do it. If they want to say they are more moral than someone else, that is their right. I do not have a problem with that. But what the Court did back in 1973 has said this is a tough issue. We have to look at everything. What they decided is instead of women running to a back-alley abortionist and paying cash under the table and risking their life by bleeding to death, becoming infertile and all of that, that in the early stages of a pregnancy, before the fetus could live outside the womb, that a woman has this right to choose. I have to say, if we go back, and we could go back--it all depends on who is in this Senate, who is sitting in the President's seat, who is over in the Court. That is all that is riding on. It is very clear. If we go back, we are going to go back to the days that were not good for women and were not good for families. Do you know what. They were not good for anyone. The beauty of being pro-choice and being in favor of Roe is that we respect everyone's opinion, not only by just standing here and saying, I respect the Senator, I respect the Senator--that is all fine. I respect my constituents. That means I trust them to make a judgment. That is the foundation of Roe--balancing all the interests; saying, at the early stages, keep the big nose of Uncle Sam and the Government out of private lives. Some people find that privacy ruling distressing. I think it said: Do you know what. This is a great country because we respect our people. We are not an oppressive government like China. We are not an oppressive government like Romania certainly was. We don't force our people to have children. And we don't force them to have abortions. We trust them to think about what they want to do in such a situation. I am extremely hopeful that in one moment from now we will have a big vote, a big vote to disagree with what the House did when they callously stripped out the Roe language that Senator Harkin put in. I hope it is a big vote. I cannot wait to see the vote because we are going to make sure the Supreme Court understands that we still stand for the life and health of the woman.

Mrs. BOXER. He misunderstood and absolutely misrepresented what I said. What I said is that the underlying bill, which does not make an exception for the health of the woman, is an immoral bill. I do not think it is a moral bill. I think it is an immoral bill, and the reason I think it is an immoral bill is it makes no exception for the health of a woman, no matter how hard we try. We reached across the party line. We said we want to make an exception for health. Oh, no, women will lie. Oh, no, doctors will lie. We cannot have a health exception. People will lie. I feel sorry for a woman who finds herself in a circumstance where she is in desperate shape, in a pregnancy gone horribly wrong--and I have met many of them. I have seen their faces, and God bless them because they have come out and given up their privacy to talk about what they have gone through. I feel sorry for the next woman who is lying bleeding on a table and a doctor has to take out this law and say: I am not sure because your life may not be at stake. It may be your health, and if I use this safe procedure I might lose my license, I might go to jail. Anyone who wants to be party to that, be my guest. Thankfully, across the street there is a Supreme Court, and I think they will find this underlying bill unconstitutional because it is vague and because it does not make an exception for the health of the woman. Even the most rabid anti-choice people are now saying that this bill is surely unconstitutional. Why do I think the underlying bill is immoral? Because we know a woman could get a hemorrhage, a uterine rupture, blood clots, an embolism, a stroke, damage to her organs, or paralysis if this technique, this medical procedure, is not used in certain very serious cases. So, oh, yes, I support laws that are moral. My colleague is absolutely correct, there is morality in everything we do. When we go after corporate abuse, when we go after criminals who because of insider trading, for example, make an illegal profit, I am going after them. That is a moral issue. Weapons of mass destruction, that is a moral issue. A new generation of nuclear bombs, that is a moral issue. Abortion is a moral issue. You bet it is. I believed that the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 took a moral stand and found that they have to balance the rights of all involved. My friend says, and I am going to quote him now, ``Our society is corroding.'' Well, I do not believe that I am corroding because I am pro-choice. I do not believe the people in the Senator's State who are pro-choice are corroding. I do not believe that the people of this country who believe that politicians ought to stay out of their private lives in the early stage of a pregnancy are corroding. I think they are struggling with a tough issue. My friend said this morning that I was wrong, that 5,000 women did not die. I put a cite into the Record. I now have a book by Richard Schwartz, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. He was the chief of the section there. This is an old book from 1968 in which he says: It has been estimated that as many as 5,000 American women die each year as a direct result of criminal abortion. The figure of 5,000 may be a minimum estimate inasmuch as many such deaths are mislabeled or unreported. As I said to my friend this morning, he said the CDC said only 85 women died of illegal abortions. Well, people did not come forward. Families did not come forward. Doctors did not come forward. This was a crime. He has in his own State a great university, and one of the leaders of the School of Medicine there has written this. I ask unanimous consent that this excerpt from the book be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. I never said we should not pass laws that stop immorality. I am a champion of those. I am leading a fight right now in the Commerce Committee to stop child kiddy porn. I am sure my friend is going to work with me on it.

Mrs. BOXER. I will withhold my 10 minutes until after the Senator from Pennsylvania speaks.